he’s home. Don’t think I’m touting him as a Napoleon or a Sunday-supplement master mind—but he’s a shifty, tricky old boy. As you say, I don’t know much about him—but there are lots of people I don’t know much about.”
Tom-Tom Carey nodded to show he understood the last part and began making his third cigarette.
“I was in Nogales when Angel Grace Cardigan got word to me that Paddy had been done in,” he said. “That was nearly a month ago. She seemed to think I’d romp up here pronto—but it was no skin off my face. I let it sleep. But last week I read in a newspaper about all this reward money being posted on the hombre she blamed for Paddy’s rub-out. That made it different—a hundred thousand dollars different. So I shipped up here, talked to her, and then came in to make sure there’ll be nothing between me and the blood money when I put the loop on this Papadoodle.”
“Angel Grace sent you to me?” I inquired.
“Uh-huh—only she don’t know it. She dragged you into the story—said you were a friend of Paddy’s, a good guy for a sleuth, and hungry as hell for this Papadoodle. So I thought you’d be the gent for me to see.”
“When did you leave Nogales?”
“Tuesday—last week.”
“That,” I said, prodding my memory, “was the day after Newhall was killed across the border.”
The swarthy man nodded. Nothing changed in his face.
“How far from Nogales was that?” I asked.