sure-God making believers out of them. Newspaper writers who like to sob over what they call the third degree should be down there now. After being knocked around a bit, some of the guests have talked. But the hell of it is they don’t know a whole lot. They know some names—Denny Burke, Toby the Lugs, Old Pete Best, Fat Boy Clarke and Paddy the Mex were named—and that helps some, but all the smacking power in the police force arm can’t bring out anything else.
“The racket seems to have been organized like this: Denny Burke, for instance, is known as a shifty worker in Baltimore. Well, Denny talks to eight or ten likely boys, one at a time. ‘How’d you like to pick up a piece of change out on the Coast?’ he asks them. ‘Doing what?’ the candidate wants to know. ‘Doing what you’re told,’ the King of Frog Island says. ‘You know me. I’m telling you this is the fattest picking ever rigged, a kick in the pants to go through—airtight. Everybody in on it will come home lousy with cush—and they’ll all come home if they don’t dog it. That’s all I’m spilling. If you don’t like it—forget it.’
“And these birds did know