“Yeah, maybe,” drawled Mike. “But you ain’t goin’ to let ’em get away with it, just the same, are you, Mack?”
McCann’s firm lips twisted in a smile.
“How much does Hogan think he’s going to get away with?” he asked.
“Two truckloads, scheduled to come in tonight. Our man says...”
“Who is our man in Hogan’s gang? Never mind. I remember. Little fellow — limps — black eyes — name of Bergen. Right?”
Mike’s red face relaxed into a broad grin.
“Beats me, Mack, how you can remember! Yeah, that’s the guy, all right, and he says...”
“Get him here,” interrupted McCann, and started to finger the papers on his desk. Mike rose. “You mean here?” he asked.
McCann frowned, but did not look up from the map he was studying.
“You’re getting slow on the draw, Mike. You know damn well no gangster steps foot in this office, or the one downstairs, either. Get Bergen on a wire somewhere, so I can talk to him,” and he nodded a curt dismissal.
The panelled wall slid closed on Mike again, and J. F. McCann reached for the white telephone.
“Kate,” he said softly, when the number was through, “I’ve got it — the ruby pendant you wanted.”
“I usually do manage to get what I want, Mack,” said the woman at the other end of the wire, and laughed softly.
The man’s lips tightened a little. “Yes, when you want the things I’m willing to get for you, Kate,” he said. “I’m glad you came back to your senses, old girl. I didn’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me, Mack, not yet...”
McCann’s long fingers tightened around the telephone till the knuckles gleamed white.
“What do you mean — yet?” he began, and turned his head at a slight sound from the wall.
“Oh, just a little joke,” said the woman’s voice in his ear, but he did not reply. His eyes were fixed on the slowly opening panel of the wall. A man stepped jauntily from the elevator behind the wall, and removed a tilted derby from his slick black head. McCann’s hand flashed inside his coat. The man patted a bulge in the pocket of his checked overcoat, and smiled suggestively.
McCann drew forth a thick gold fountain pen, laid it carelessly on the polished top of his desk, and turned to the telephone.
“A little matter of business has come up.” he said quietly. “I’ll talk with you later.”
He hung up, and faced the man who still stood with his back to the wall, one hand in the bulging pocket, the other, gloved in bright yellow chamois, holding the black derby against his chest in a gesture of mock humility.
McCann fingered his gold fountain pen.
“Well, Derby Dan, it’s a long time since we met. What can I do for you?” he said, casually.
Derby Dan’s spatted feet took a stride forward.
“And how the hell did you get here?” continued McCann in an icy voice.
“Rode up in the classy lift,” returned Derby Dan, in a high nasal voice, and slid into the chair lately vacated by Mike.
“No,” he protested, as McCann reached for one of the ’phones. “Don’t bawl ’em out downstairs. Ain’t their fault. Only, you shouldn’t hire good lookin’ girls down there, Mack. They’re liable to let things slip by into the elevator, when the things is as nifty lookin’ as Derby Dan.”
“That’s enough,” snapped McCann. “You’re here, what do you want? Remember the last time we met, and make it snappy.”
“Yeah, I ain’t forgettin’,” said Derby Dan. “The last time we met, you near choked the heart out o’ me, McCann, because you thought I wanted that damn skirt of yours, the lousy...”
“Cut that,” said McCann, leaning far over the desk. “She happens to still be my skirt, understand?”
“Yeah, and maybe she won’t be when I get through talkin’, Mack,” said Derby Dan, with a yellow-toothed smile.
McCann made a move to spring from his chair. Derby Dan went on grinning.
“I’m here to talk, Mack, and I’m goin’ to talk, if I have to plug you first and talk to a stiff after. I’m here to do you a favor, see? And what’s more, I’m keepin’ you damn well covered while I do it.”
McCann raised the gold fountain pen an inch or two above the desk.
“You’re damn well covered yourself, Derby Dan,” he said quietly. “And have been ever since you pushed yourself into my private office. You can talk, but first, you can discard that sawed-off you’ve got in your coat. Put it in the center of the desk.”
Derby Dan stared at the point of the gold fountain pen. It was trained directly at his heart, and the manicured fingers of J. F. McCann were holding it steadily at just that point.
“It’s a .38, Derby Dan,” said McCann.
Derby Dan placed the sinister sawed-off in the exact center of the polished table.
“Now,” said McCann, “talk.”
“It’s about Kate,” began Derby Dan sullenly.
“Of course,” said McCann casually. “You think you’ve got something on her. You’ve been out to get something on her ever since she turned you down for me. Let’s have your little rat tale. I don’t want to seem impolite to an acquaintance of the old days, but the perfume you slather on yourself is abominable.”
McCann leaned carelessly back in his chair, with his steady gaze on the beady eyes of the man before him, and the fountain pen poised for instant action.
“A helluva way to treat a guy...” began Derby Dan.
“Talk,” said McCann, and raised the pen an inch higher.
“Kate’s been seen in Hogan’s speakeasy,” said Derby Dan, and waited for an explosion. None came.
“What of it?” said McCann. “I can’t keep a wealthy woman with lots of time from doing a little slumming.”
“Slumming, hell!” yelled Derby Dan, then suddenly lowered his voice. “That damn skirt was mighty thick with Hogan, Mack. She thought nobody seen her, hidin’ away with him, talkin’ low, in a booth.”
“What of it?” asked McCann. “Hogan’s a friend of mine.”
“The hell he is,” exclaimed Derby Dan, his voice rising to a whine. “Say, you ain’t so dumb you ain’t heard...”
Derby Dan abruptly relaxed in his chair. His eyes darted about the room, everywhere but at the intent face of the man behind the desk.
“So,” said McCann slowly, “you’re in on that little business dispute between Hogan and me, too, eh?”
He reached into a drawer with one hand and placed a large, leather bound book on his desk. Still with one hand, he turned the indexed pages to “H,” and ran down a list of names.
“I don’t see you here, Derby Dan,” he said. “Have you joined up with Hogan recently?”
“No, I ain’t.”
McCann transferred the sinister pen to his left hand, and picked up a pencil. The man at the side of the desk watched him trace the name, “Derby Dan,” under the long list of Hogan’s men, and started forward as the pencil wrote the word “rat” after that name.
“You got me wrong, Mack,” he whined. “I ain’t workin’ for Hogan!”
“No, you’re ratting on him,” replied McCann. “Because you can’t forget that a woman once turned you down for a man.”
Derby Dan fumbled with his hat.
“Have it your way, Mack. What the hell? I’m here to tell you there’s been a lot of talk goin’ around about what Hogan’s goin’ to do to you, a lot of it, since last night, and it was last night that hell cat of yours was conflabbin’ with Hogan.”
McCann closed the book with a snap and rose to his feet.
“Well, Derby Dan, if you have nothing more interesting to report than a conversation which you didn’t hear, I’ll have to ask you to go. Use the public way this time.”
“I heard enough of the conversation,” muttered Derby Dan. “And what’s more, I seen enough. She wasn’t so careful when she got tanked up later on in the evenin’ and spent an hour in Hogan’s shootin’ alley, flourishin’ a gat, and braggin’ about the blood she could draw.”