'Fifty, anyhow.'
'Aw, now! There wouldn't be that many, not at this time of morning.'
'The hell there wouldn't,' the burly man snarled. 'They been drifting in since midnight.'
'Is that so? A leak somewheres. Maybe you oughtn't to have let them in.'
'Maybe I oughtn't.' The burly man was angry. 'But I did what you told me. You said let anybody go in or out that wanted to, but when Whisper showed to--'
'To pinch him,' the chief said.
'Well, yes,' the burly man agreed, looking savagely at me.
More men joined us and we held a talk-fest. Everybody was in a bad humor except the chief. He seemed to enjoy it all. I didn't know why.
Whisper's joint was a three-story brick building in the middle of the block, between two two-story buildings. The ground floor of his joint was occupied by a cigar store that served as entrance and cover for the gambling establishment upstairs. Inside, if the burly man's information was to be depended on, Whisper had collected half a hundred friends, loaded for a fight. Outside, Noonan's force was spread around the building, in the street in front, in the alley in back, and on the adjoining roofs.
'Well, boys,' the chief said amiably after everybody had had his say, 'I don't reckon Whisper wants trouble any more than we do, or he'd have tried to shoot his way out before this, if he's got that many with him, though I don't mind saying I don't think he has--not that many.'
The burly man said: 'The hell he ain't.'
'So if he don't want trouble,' Noonan went on, 'maybe talking might do some good. You run over, Nick, and see if you can't argue him into being peaceable.'
The burly man said: 'The hell I will.'
'Phone him, then,' the chief suggested.
The burly man growled: 'That's more like it,' and went away.
When he came back lie looked completely satisfied.
'He says,' he reported, ''Go to hell.''
'Get the rest of the boys down here,' Noonan said cheerfully. 'We'll knock it over as soon as it gets light.'
The burly Nick and I went around with the chief while he made sure his men were properly placed. I didn't think much of them--a shabby, shifty-eyed crew without enthusiasm for the job ahead of them.
The sky became a faded gray. The chief, Nick, and I stopped in a plumber's doorway diagonally across the street from our target.
Whisper's joint was dark, the upper windows blank, blinds down over cigar store windows and door.
'I hate to start this without giving Whisper a chance,' Noonan said. 'He's not a bad kid. But there's no use me trying to talk to him. He never did like me much.'
He looked at me. I said nothing.
'You wouldn't want to make a stab at it?' he asked.
'Yeah, I'll try it.'
'That's fine of you. I'll certainly appreciate it if you will. You just see if you can talk him into coming along without any fuss. You know what to say--for his own good and all that, like it is.'
'Yeah,' I said and walked across to the cigar store, taking pains to let my hands be seen swinging empty at my sides.
Day was still a little way off. The street was the color of smoke. My feet made a lot of noise on the pavement.
I stopped in front of the door and knocked the glass with a knuckle, not heavily. The green blind down inside the door made a mirror of the glass. In it I saw two men moving up the other side of the street.
No sound came from inside. I knocked harder, then slid my hand down to rattle the knob.
Advice came from indoors:
'Get away from there while you're able.'
It was a muffled voice, but not a whisper, so probably not Whisper's.
'I want to talk to Thaler,' I said.
'Go talk to the lard-can that sent you.'
'I'm not talking for Noonan. Is Thaler where he can hear me?'
A pause. Then the muffled voice said: 'Yes.'
'I'm the Continental op who tipped Dinah Brand off that Noonan was framing you,' I said. 'I want five minutes' talk with you. I've got nothing to do with Noonan except to queer his racket. I'm alone. I'll drop my rod in the street if you say so. Let me in.'
I waited. It depended on whether the girl had got to him with the story of my interview with her. I waited what seemed a long time.
The muffled voice said:
