"All right. Here's what they say happened: They say they started fighting at eleven o'clock. And they just got going when all at once all the metal they were carrying—knives and tire chains and coins and belt buckles and everything else—got freezing cold, too cold to touch. And then their leather jackets got freezing cold, so cold they had to pull them off and throw them away. And when the jackets were later collected, across the name of the gang on the back of each one had been branded 'The Scorpion.'"

"Now, let me tell you something," said Hanks severely. "They heard the police sirens, and they threw all their weapons away. Then they threw their jackets away, to try to make believe they hadn't been part of the gang that had been fighting. But they were caught before they could get out of the schoolyard. If the squad cars had showed up a minute later, the schoolyard wouldn't have had anything in it but weapons and jackets, and the kids would have been all over the neighborhood, nice as you please, minding their own business and not bothering anybody. That's what happened. And all this talk about freezing cold and branding names into jackets is just some smart-alec punk's idea of a way to razz the police. Now, you just go back to worrying about what's happening in this precinct and forget about kid gangs up in Manhattan and comic book things like the Scorpion, or you're going to wind up like Wilcox, with that refrigerator business. Now, I don't want to hear any more about this nonsense, Stevenson."

"Yes, sir," said Stevenson.

The reporter showed up two days later. He was ushered into the squad room, where he showed his press card to Stevenson, smiled amiably and said, "My editor sent me out on a wild-goose chase. Would you mind chatting with me a couple minutes?"

"Not at all," said Stevenson.

The reporter, whose press card gave his name as Tom Roberts, settled himself comfortably in the chair beside Stevenson's desk. "You were the one handled that bank job down the street back in June, weren't you?"

Stevenson nodded.

Roberts gave an embarrassed chuckle and said, "Okay, I've got just one question. You answer no, and then we can talk about football or something. I mean, this is just a silly wild-goose chase, frankly. I'm a little embarrassed about it."

"Go ahead and ask," Stevenson told him.

"Okay, I will. Was there the word 

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