“Yeah, straight from the nose-candy!”
“No! Hones’ to Gawd! I—”
“What is the caper, then?”
“I don’t know. All I got was that the Seaman’s is gonna be nicked. Hones’ to—”
“Where’d you get it?”
Beno shook his head. I put a silver dollar in his hand.
“Get another shot and think up the rest of it,” I told him, “and if it’s amusing enough I’ll give you the other nine bucks.”
I walked on down to the corner, screwing up my forehead over Beno’s tale. By itself, it sounded like what it probably was—a yarn designed to get a dollar out of a trusting gumshoe. But it wasn’t altogether by itself. Larrouy’s—just one drum in a city that had a number—had been heavy with grifters who were threats against life and property. It was worth a look-see, especially since the insurance company covering the Seaman’s National Bank was a Continental Detective Agency client.
Around the corner, twenty feet or so along Kearny Street, I stopped.
From the street I had just quit came two bangs—the reports of a heavy pistol. I went back the way I had come. As I rounded the corner I saw men gathering in a group up the street. A young Armenian—a dapper boy of nineteen or twenty—passed me, going the other way, sauntering along, hands in pockets, softly whistling “ Brokenhearted Sue .”
I joined the group—now becoming a crowd—around Beno. Beno was dead, blood from two holes in his chest staining the crumpled newspapers under him.