“Never mind the comedy!” He took a threatening step toward me. “How’d you know my name?”
“None of your damned business,” I snapped.
My attitude seemed to reassure him. His face became less suspicious.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I owe you something for this trick, and—How are you fixed?”
“I have been dirtier.” Dirty is Pacific Coast argot for prosperous.
He looked speculatively from me to Boyd, and back.
“Know ‘The Circle’?” he asked me.
I nodded. The underworld calls “Wop” Healey’s joint “The Circle.”
“If you’ll meet me there tomorrow night, maybe I can put a piece of change your way.”
“Nothing stirring!” I shook my head with emphasis. “I ain’t circulating that prominent these days.”
A fat chance I’d have of meeting him there! “Wop” Healey and half his customers knew me as a detective. So there was nothing to do but to try to get the impression over that I was a crook who had reasons for wanting to keep away from the more notorious hangouts for a while. Apparently it got over. He thought awhile, and then gave me his Laguna Street number.
“Drop in this time tomorrow and maybe I’ll have a proposition to make you—if you’ve got the guts.”
“I’ll think it over,” I said noncommittally, and turned as if to go down the street.