The Old Man nodded his grandfatherly face and smiled, but for the first time in the years I had known him I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that if Jack had come through alive we would have had the nasty choice between letting him go free or giving the agency a black-eye by advertising the fact that one of our operatives was a crook.
I threw away my cigarette and stood up. The Old Man stood also, and held out a hand to me.
“Thank you,” he said.
I took his hand, and I understood him, but I didn’t have anything I wanted to confess—even by silence.
“It happened that way,” I said deliberately. “I played the cards so we would get the benefit of the breaks—but it just happened that way.”
He nodded, smiling benignantly.
“I’m going to take a couple of weeks off,” I said from the door.
I felt tired, washed out.