The Olsens were not surprised at the thought that I was not the only one looking for Jo-Jo. The only apparent reason for Jo-Jo to be wanted was that he knew something about Stettin and that he was afraid for his life. Would a man who had only mugged a cop and left him alive then risk the chair by killing a witness? Would the mugger turn assault into murder? You’re damned right he would. It’s one thing to commit a crime without murder when you expect to get away with it and another thing to face a sure prison term if you leave a witness alive.

Yet I did not like the answer that Jo-Jo had witnessed the mugging of Stettin.

It was not enough. In Chelsea the best kid in the world has it from the cradle that a man does not fink to the police, does not get involved, does not see what he should not see. (Not just in Chelsea these days, either. Nobody gets involved, nobody sees, everybody turns and walks away.) How different could Jo-Jo be? If he were so different that he rejected the entire code of Chelsea, then the simple act was to go to the police. He had not gone to the police, and he had vanished, and there had to be more than the witnessing of a mugging. But what? What was so very special and dangerous about Stettin’s mugging? If that was the problem at all.

Four o’clock came at last, and we were all sent out into the night. My fellow last-ditch drinkers shuffled off slowly to reluctant destinations or to no destination at all. To some alley or doorway where they could hide until the bars opened again.

I walked briskly, I felt smug, I was sober, and Marty should be home by now. And I continued to think about the Olsens. They were worried. But not about Jo-Jo. I was certain of that. They were worried about themselves. As if they were in some kind of collective trouble. I did not think it was police trouble. They were angry-worried, not scared-worried. They were like people on eggshells. They acted as if they did not want to breathe if breathing would expose them. Why?