“That lousy ring wasn’t worth no grand. I did swell to get two centuries for it.”
“Sit down and tell me about it.”
He shook his head again and said:
“First I want to know what you’re meaning to do about it.”
“Cop Whisper.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean with me.”
“You’ll have to go over to the Hall with me.”
“I won’t.”
“Why not? You’re only a witness.”
“I’m only a witness that Noonan can hang a bribe-taking, or an accomplice after the act rap on, or both. And he’d be tickled simple to have the chance.”
This jaw-wagging didn’t seem to be leading anywhere. I said:
“That’s too bad. But you’re going to see him.”
“Try and take me.”
I sat up straighter and slid my right hand back to my hip.
He grabbed for me. I threw my body back on the bed, did the hipspin, swung my feet at him. It was a good trick, only it didn’t work. In his hurry to get at me he bumped the bed aside just enough to spill me off on the floor.
I landed all sprawled out on my back. I kept dragging at my gun while I tried to roll under the bed.
Missing me, his lunge carried him over the low footboard, over the side of the bed. He came down beside me, on the back of his neck, his body somersaulting over.
I put the muzzle of my gun in his left eye and said:
“You’re making a fine pair of clowns of us. Be still while I get up or I’ll make an opening in your head for brains to leak in.”
I got up, found and pocketed my document, and let him get up.
“Knock the dents out of your hat and put your necktie in front, so you won’t disgrace me going through the streets,” I ordered after I had run a hand over his clothes and found nothing that felt like a weapon. “You can suit yourself about remembering that this gat is going to be in my overcoat pocket, with a hand on it.”
He straightened his hat and tie and said:
“Hey, listen: I’m in this, I guess, and cutting up won’t get me nothing. Suppose I be good. Could you forget about the tussle? See– maybe it’d be smoother for me if they thought I come along without being dragged.”
“O.K.”
“Thanks, brother.”
Noonan was out eating. We had to wait half an hour in his outer office. When he came in he greeted me with the usual How are you?… That certainly is fine… and the rest of it. He didn’t say anything to MacSwain–simply eyed him sourly.
We went into the chief’s private office. He pulled a chair over to his desk for me and then sat in his own, ignoring the ex-dick.
I gave Noonan the sick girl’s document.
He gave it one glance, bounced out of his chair, and smashed a fist the size of a cantaloup into MacSwain’s face.
The punch carried MacSwain across the room until a wall stopped him. The wall creaked under the strain, and a framed photograph of Noonan and other city dignitaries welcoming somebody in spats dropped down to the floor with the hit man.
The fat chief waddled over, picked up the picture and beat it to splinters on MacSwain’s head and shoulders.
Noonan came back to his desk, puffing, smiling, saying cheerfully to me:
“That fellow’s a rat if there ever was one.”
MacSwain sat up and looked around, bleeding from nose, mouth and head.
Noonan roared at him:
“Come here, you.”
MacSwain said, “Yes, chief,” scrambled up and ran over to the desk.
Noonan said: “Come through or I’ll kill you.”
MacSwain said:
“Yes, chief. It was like she said, only that rock wasn’t worth no grand. But she give me it and the two hundred to keep my mouth shut, because I got there just when she asks him, ‘Who did it, Tim?’ and he ‘says, ‘Max!’ He says it kind of loud and sharp, like he wanted to get it out before he died, because he died right then, almost before he’d got it out. That’s the way it was, chief, but the rock wasn’t worth no–“