tools come to hand. This Porky was an effective tool if handled right, which meant keeping your hand on his throat all the time and checking up every piece of information he brought in.
His cowardice was—for my purpose—his greatest asset. It was notorious throughout the criminal Coast; and though nobody—crook or not—could possibly think him a man to be trusted, nevertheless he was not actually distrusted. Most of his fellows thought him too much the coward to be dangerous; they thought he would be afraid to betray them; afraid of the summary vengeance that crookdom visits upon the squealer. But they didn’t take into account Porky’s gift for convincing himself that he was a lionhearted fellow, when no danger was near. So he went freely where he desired and where I sent him, and brought me otherwise unobtainable bits of information upon matters in which I was interested.
For nearly three years I had used him with considerable success, paying him well, and keeping him under my heel. “Informant” was the polite word that designated him in my reports; the underworld has even less lovely names than the common “stool-pigeon” to denote his kind.
“I have a job for you,” I told him, now that he was seated again, with his feet on the floor.
His loose mouth twitched up at the left corner, pushing that eye into a knowing squint.
“I thought so.”
He always says something like that.
“I want you to go down to Halfmoon Bay and stick around Tin-Star Joplin’s joint for a few nights. Here are two photos”—sliding one of Pangburn and one of the girl across the table. “Their names and