Terry took a carved ivory cigarette case from his pocket and focused his eyes upon the cigarettes as he snapped it open, so that Shield and Stevens could exchange glances over his head. Terry selected a cigarette, tapped it on the edge of the case, and lit a match.
Stevens got to his feet and said, “Listen, buddy, what the hell are you talking about?”
Shield tried to keep his voice steady, but it quavered with excitement. “She never paid any twenty thousand,” he asserted.
“My mistake,” Terry muttered politely.
“How do you know she paid twenty grand?” Stevens asked.
“We won’t argue about it,” Terry said, leaning back against the enameled white on the foot of the bed, and blowing out cigarette smoke.
Fred Stevens spoke so rapidly that the words all seemed to run together. “Listen, Billy,” he said, “if this guy knows about Mandra, and the Renton case, and Doc Sedler, we ain’t doing ourselves any good by keeping our traps closed, and if that Renton dame dug up twenty grand, Mandra was either crossing Sedler, or Sedler is crossing us.”
Shield, on the bed, said slowly to Terry, “What’s your interest in this?”
“I’m a business man.”
“So’s J. P. Morgan. What’s your proposition?”
“I think someone’s holding out on you boys. I’d like to handle your interests and I’d want half of what I got.”
“Half!” Stevens exploded. “My God, I’ll say you’re a business man!”
“Half a loaf is better than no bread,” Terry pointed out.
Stevens said, in an ominous voice, “Yes, but our bread box ain’t empty. We can collect our own bread.”
“You can’t if you don’t even know where the bread is.”
“Well, I can damn soon find out.”
Terry’s laugh was sarcastic. “Go ahead,” he said. “Play the sucker to the bitter end. It should come easy for you. You know what’ll happen, don’t you? About the time you boys get close to home they’ll decide they need a fall-guy, and you’ll be elected, Fred. You’ll be serving time, and all the bread you’ll get will be what they give you in solitary.”
Stevens moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and said belligerently, “Any time they try to make me a fall-guy, I’ll drag the whole shebang into...”
“Shut up, Fred,” Shield shouted in a shrill treble voice. “You talk too damn much!”
“No,” Terry said, “you wouldn’t drag anyone in, Fred. It’d be handled so it looked as though the tip-off had come from the outside; and you wouldn’t squeal. Sedler would tell you to sit tight; that he was going to get a mouthpiece and beat the rap, and you’d fall for it. Sedler would get a shyster who’d keep patting you on the back and telling you it was a cinch, until after the judge had refused your motion for a new trial, and you were safely on your way to the Big House.”
Shield’s eyes were half-closed slits of glittering concentration.
“Listen, Mister,” he said, “we’re not doing any more talking.”
“Well,” Terry said, “how about listening?”
“We’re not even listening.”
“You speak for yourself, Billy,” Stevens said. “I’m listening.”
“No,” Shield said, “we’ve got too many things to consider, Fred. Now listen, Clane, there’s a lawyer by the name of Marker in the Cutler Building. You go and make your proposition to him. Put all your cards on the table, and spread everything out cold turkey.”
Clane laughed and said, “You want me to be the fall-guy, eh? Nothing doing.”
“You can talk to a lawyer all right,” Shield told him. “That’s what lawyers are for. It isn’t going to hurt you to speak your piece to a lawyer. They can’t hang anything on you for that.”
Fred Stevens said, “Listen, Billy, why cut Marker in on this?”
“Because I’m afraid of this guy.”
“If Marker comes in on it, he’ll want his,” Stevens pointed out. “Let’s make this guy a reasonable proposition, and...”
“Shut up, Fred. You talk too damn much. You always did talk too damn much. This guy smells like a dick to me. How do we know the Renton woman paid any twenty grand? How do we know it ain’t just a stall to get us talking? And if it is, God knows, you’ve said enough already.”
Terry’s laugh was scornful. “Of course the Renton woman paid twenty grand,” he said. “And there were lots of others that paid plenty. And those were only the first payments. Did you think Mandra was making all this play for chicken feed? You certainly weren’t simple enough to fall for that bail-bond stall, were you? Take the Renton woman, for instance. She didn’t get any release, did she? Of course she didn’t. She came down and looked you over and went out frightened stiff. She paid Mandra twenty grand, just to square the thing. And she paid Sedler to see that you had the best medical attention money could buy. And she was going to keep on paying. Sedler told her there were a couple of European surgeons who’d worked out a new technique they could use in your case and...”
“Now you know this guy’s on the up-and-up, Bill,” Fred Stevens exclaimed. “You know that’s Sedler’s line...”
“Shut up,” Shield half-screamed. “Don’t you see the play, you damn fool? He’s a dick. Sedler brought him in here as a hit-and-run. Remember the knock Doc gave on the door, and this fellow gave the same knock when he came back. Of course he knows all about Sedler’s line, because Sedler pulled it on him. Now, will you keep your trap closed and let me handle this?”
Stevens hesitated, while he regarded Clane in frowning concentration, then slowly went back to his chair and sat down.
Shield said, “You go see Marker, brother.”
“I don’t want to see Marker.”
“We want you to.”
“I’m a sharp-shooter,” Terry told him. “If I’ve got to cut some shyster in on it, it’s just no dice. Now, I could talk with you boys and work out a nice little business arrangement. You couldn’t cross me and I couldn’t cross you, because we’d all be in the same boat. But the minute I go to a lawyer, there’s nothing to keep him from...”
“You go see Marker,” Shield interrupted. “We ain’t doing any more talking.”
“Well, you’ll listen, won’t you?”
“No, we won’t listen.”
Terry laughed and said, “You’ll have to listen. You...”
Stevens got to his feet, approached Clane with a cat-like tread. His hand rested on Clane’s shoulder and fingertips dug in as though a vice were slowly tightening.
“Listen, buddy,” Stevens said, “I’m for you myself. I think you’re on the up-and-up. What you say sounds like sense to me. But what Billy says sounds more like sense. You go talk with Marker. And you start now!”
“But,” Terry said, “can’t you see what a fool you’d be to cut a lawyer in...”
The fingertips seemed to push through clothes, skin, and muscle, and indent themselves in the bone. “Up,” Stevens said, “and out!”
Terry caught the significance of the growing suspicion in the glinting grey eyes, shrugged his shoulders, got to his feet and said nonchalantly, “Well, you boys take a few days to think it over.”
“Listen” Stevens said belligerently, “if you try to cross us...”
“Shut up, Fred,” Shield warned. “He knows where we stand. Put him out.”
Fred Stevens pushed Clane into the corridor.
“Buddy,” he said, “walk out of here, don’t come back, and don’t stick around the neighborhood. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go to see Ben Marker. We’ve got confidence in him, and you’d better have.”