“Certainly,” I told him, “I guaranteed it. Before we stimulate you again, a couple of points. You get one more chance to call the cops, that’s all. You could keep this up all night. Second, it might be slick to come across now. If you’re taking it for granted that your address book will get to the cops anyway, you’re wrong. I’ll give it to Mr. Wolfe, and he’s working on a murder, and I don’t think he’ll feel like turning all those people over to the law. That’s not his lookout. I make no promise, but I’m telling you. All right, Fred. Pin him, Saul.”
That time we reversed it, crossing his left leg over his right, and we made the turns slightly tighter. Fred took the cord ends, and I returned to the chair. The reaction came quicker and stronger. In ten seconds his face began to twist. In ten more his forehead and neck went wet with sweat. His gray face got grayer, and his eyes opened and started to bulge. I was about to tell Fred to ease it a little when he gasped, “Let up!”
“Off a little, Fred. Just hold it. Was Birch in on the racket?”
“Yes!”
“Who’s the boss?”
“Birch was. Take that cord off!”
“In a minute. It’s better than pliers. Who’s the boss now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nuts. The cord had better stay a while. Did you see Birch in a car with a woman last Tuesday afternoon?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t parked in front of Danny’s.”
“Slightly tighter, Fred. Where was it?”
“Going down Eleventh Avenue in the Fifties.”
“A dark gray Caddy sedan with a Connecticut plate?”
“Yes.”
“Was it Birch’s car?”
“I never saw it before. But Birch worked with a hot-car gang too, and of course that Caddy was hot. Everything Birch had a hand in was hot.”
“Yeah, he’s dead now, so why not? Who was the woman with him?”
“I don’t know. I was across the street and didn’t see. Take the cord off! No more until it’s off!”
He was breathing fast again, and his face was grayer, so I told Fred to give him a recess. When his legs had been unwound Egan thought he would bend them, then thought he would straighten them, then decided to postpone trying to move them.
I continued. “Didn’t you recognize the woman?”
“No.”
“Could you identify her?”
“I don’t think so. They just went by.”
“What time Tuesday afternoon?”
“Around half-past six, maybe a little later.”
I would take that, anyhow on consignment. Pete Drossos had said it was a quarter to seven when the woman in the car had told him to get a cop. I almost hated to ask the next question for fear of Egan disqualifying himself by answering it wrong.
“Who was driving, Birch?”
“No, the woman. That surprised me. Birch wasn’t a guy to have a woman driving him.”
I could have kissed the louse. He had made it twenty to one on Wolfe’s hit-or-miss assumption. I had a notion to get the photos of Jean Estey, Angela Wright, and Claire Horan from Fred’s envelope and ask Egan if the woman in the car had resembled one of them, but skipped it. He had said he couldn’t identify her, and he certainly wasn’t going to take on more load than he already had.
I asked him, “Who do you deliver the dough to?”
“Birch.”
“He’s dead. Who to now?”
“I don’t know.”
“I guess we took the cord off too soon. If Leopold Heim had paid you the ten grand or any part of it, what would you have done with it?”
“Held onto it until I got word.”
“Word from whom?”
“I don’t know.”
I got up. “The cord, Fred.”
“Wait a minute,” Egan pleaded. “You asked me where I got the tip on Leopold Heim. I got leads two
