“That’s all right,” Tom-Tom Carey assured me. “She thinks I’m the loyal brother—Paddy couldn’t have told her much about me—and I’ll handle her. You having her shadowed?”
I said: “Yes—ever since she was turned loose. She was picked up the same day Flora and Pogy and Red were grabbed, but we hadn’t anything on her except that she had been Paddy’s ladylove, so I had her sprung. How much dope did you get out of her?”
“Descriptions of Papadoodle and Nancy Regan, and that’s all. She don’t know any more about them than I do. Where does this Regan girl fit in?”
“Hardly any, except that she might lead us to Papadopoulos. She was Red’s girl. It was keeping a date with her that he upset the game. When Papadopoulos wriggled out he took the girl with him. I don’t know why. She wasn’t in on the stickups.”
Tom-Tom Carey finished making and lighting his fifth cigarette and stood up.
“Are we teamed?” he asked as he picked up his hat.
“If you turn in Papadopoulos I’ll see that you get every nickel you’re entitled to,” I replied. “And I’ll give you a clear field—I won’t handicap you with too much of an attempt to keep my eyes on your actions.”
He said that was fair enough, told me he was stopping at a hotel in Ellis Street, and went away.