When I had finished, Mickey Linehan whistled and said:
'No wonder you're scared to send in any reports. The Old Man wouldn't do much if he knew what you've been up to, would he?'
'If it works out the way I want it to, I won't have to report all the distressing details,' I said. 'It's right enough for the Agency to have rules and regulations, but when you're out on a job you've got to do it the best way you can. And anybody that brings any ethics to Poisonville is going to get them all rusty. A report is no place for the dirty details, anyway, and I don't want you birds to send any writing back to San Francisco without letting me see it first.'
'What kind of crimes have you got for us to pull?' Mickey asked.
'I want you to take Pete the Finn. Dick will take Lew Yard. You'll have to play it the way I've been playing--do what you can when you can. I've an idea that the pair of them will try to make Noonan let Whisper alone. I don't know what he'll do. He's shifty as hell and he does want to even up his brother's killing.'
'After I take this Finnish gent,' Mickey said, 'what do I do with him? I don't want to brag about how dumb I am, but this job is plain as astronomy to me. I understand everything about it except what you have done and why, and what you're trying to do and how.'
'You can start off by shadowing him. I've got to have a wedge that can be put between Pete and Yard, Yard and Noonan, Pete and Noonan, Pete and Thaler, or Yard and Thaler. If we can smash things up enough-- break the combination--they'll have their knives in each other's backs, doing our work for us. The break between Thaler and Noonan is a starter, But it'll sag on us if we don't help it along.
'I could buy more dope on the whole lot from Dinah Brand. But there's no use taking anybody into court, no matter what you've got on them. They own the courts, and, besides, the courts are too slow for us now. I've got myself tangled up in something and as soon as the Old Man smells it--and San Francisco isn't far enough away to fool his nose--he's going to be sitting on the wire, asking for explanations. I've got to have results to hide the details under. So evidence won't do. What we've got to have is dynamite.'
'What about our respected client, Mr. Elihu Willsson?' Mickey asked. 'What are you planning to do with or to him?'
'Maybe ruin him, maybe club him into backing us up. I don't care which. You'd better stay at the Hotel Person, Mickey, and Dick can go to the National. Keep apart, and, if you want to keep me from being fired, burn the job up before the Old Man tumbles. Better write these down.'
I gave them names, descriptions, and addresses when I had them, of Elihu Willsson; Stanley Lewis, his secretary; Dinah Brand; Dan Rolff; Noonan; Max Thaler, alias Whisper; his right-hand man, the chinless Jerry; Mrs. Donald Willsson; Lewis' daughter, who had been Donald Willsson's secretary; and Bill Quint, Dinah's radical ex- boy-friend.
'Now hop to it,' I said. 'And don't kid yourselves that there's any law in Poisonville except what you make for yourself.'
Mickey said I'd be surprised how many laws he could get along without. Dick said: 'So long,' and they departed.
After breakfast I went over to the City Hall.
Noonan's greenish eyes were bleary, as if they hadn't been sleeping, and his face had lost some of its color. He pumped my hand up and down as enthusiastically as ever, and the customary amount of cordiality was in his voice and manner.
'Any line on Whisper?' I asked when we had finished the gladhanding.
'I think I've got something.' He looked at the clock on the wall and then at his phone. 'I'm expecting word any minute. Sit down.'
'Who else got away?'
'Jerry Hooper and Tony Agosti are the only other ones still out. We picked up the rest. Jerry is Whisper's man- Friday, and the wop's one of his mob. He's the bozo that put the knife in Ike Bush the night of the fight.'
'Any more of Whisper's mob in?'
'No. We just had the three of them, except Buck Wallace, the fellow you potted. He's in the hospital.'
The chief looked at the wall clock again, and at his watch. It was exactly two o'clock. He turned to the phone. It rang. He grabbed it, said:
'Noonan talking.... Yes.... Yes.... Yes.... Right.'
He pushed the phone aside and played a tune on the row of pearl buttons on his desk. The office filled up with coppers.
'Cedar Hill Inn,' he said. 'You follow me out with your detail, Bates. Terry, shoot out Broadway and hit the dump from behind. Pick up the boys on traffic duty as you go along. It's likely we'll need everybody we can get. Duffy, take yours out Union Street and around by the old mine road. McGraw will hold headquarters down. Get hold of everybody you can and send them after us. Jump!'
He grabbed his hat and went after them, calling over his thick shoulder to me:
'Come on, man, this is the kill.'
I followed him down to the department garage, where the engines of half a dozen cars were roaring. The chief sat beside his driver. I sat in back with four detectives.
Men scrambled into the other cars. Machine-guns were unwrapped. Arm-loads of rifles and riot-guns were distributed, and packages of ammunition.
The chief's car got away first, off with a jump that hammered our teeth together. We missed the garage door by half an inch, chased a couple of pedestrians diagonally across the sidewalk, bounced off the curb into the roadway, missed a truck as narrowly as we had missed the door, and dashed out King Street with our siren wide open.
Panicky automobiles darted right and left, regardless of traffic rules, to let us through. It was a lot of fun.
