“You were saying you’d work with me if there was a cut of the Willsson money in it for you. There is.”
“How much?”
“Whatever you earn. Whatever what you do is worth.”
“That’s uncertain.”
“So’s your help, so far as I know.”
“Is it? I can give you the stuff, brother, loads of it, and don’t think I can’t. I’m a girl who knows her Poisonville.” She looked down at her gray-stockinged knees, waved one leg at me, and exclaimed indignantly: “Look at that. Another run. Did you ever see anything to beat it? Honest to God! I’m going barefoot.”
“Your legs are too big,” I told her. “They put too much strain on the material.”
“That’ll do out of you. What’s your idea of how to go about purifying our village?”
“If I haven’t been lied to, Thaler, Pete the Finn, Lew Yard and Noonan are the men who’ve made Poisonville the sweet-smelling mess it is. Old Elihu comes in for his share of the blame, too, but it’s not all his fault, maybe. Besides, he’s my client, even if he doesn’t want to be, so I’d like to go easy on him.
“The closest I’ve got to an idea is to dig up any and all the dirty work I can that might implicate the others, and run it out. Maybe I’ll advertise—‘Crime Wanted—Male or Female.’ If they’re as crooked as I think they are I shouldn’t have a lot of trouble finding a job or two that I can hang on them.”
“Is that what you were up to when you uncooked the fight?”