“He was bluffing about throwing us in the can. You don’t think old man Hambleton’s hunting for newspaper space, do you?” That wasn’t a bad guess.
He sat on the sofa again, still rubbing his wrist. The girl stayed on the other side of the room, laughing at him through her teeth.
I said: “All right, roll it out, one of you.”
“You’ve got it all,” he muttered. “I glaumed that stuff last week when I was visiting Babe, knowing the story and hating to see a promising layout like that go to waste.”
“What’s Babe doing now?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Is he still puffing them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Like hell you don’t.”
“I don’t,” he insisted. “If you know Babe you know you can’t get anything out of him about what he’s doing.”
“How long have he and Sue been here?”
“About six months that I know of.”
“Who’s he mobbed up with?”
“I don’t know. Any time Babe works with a mob he picks them up on the road and leaves them on the road.”
“How’s he fixed?”
“I don’t know. There’s always enough grub and liquor in the joint.”