There they were, everyone with a coffee cup, lined up at the urn. Because I took my time with the smoke I had to join the end of the line, and it was a good thing I did. It gave me time enough to get the pitch.

Everybody had been watching me covertly anyway, saying little and satisfied with me keeping my mouth shut. When they took their coffee black and wandered off to the table the two women made a face at the bitter taste. They didn’t like black coffee. They weren’t used to black coffee. Yet they took black coffee and kept shooting me those sidewise glances.

(CF. Spillane, Mickey. The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume II.)