Cedar Hill Inn
Mickey Linehan used the telephone to wake me a little after noon.
“We’re here,” he told me. “Where’s the reception committee?”
“Probably stopped to get a rope. Check your bags and come up to the hotel. Room 537. Don’t advertise your visit.”
I was dressed when they arrived.
Mickey Linehan was a big slob with sagging shoulders and a shapeless body that seemed to be coming apart at all its joints. His ears stood out like red wings, and his round red face usually wore the meaningless smirk of a half-wit. He looked like a comedian and was.
Dick Foley was a boy-sized Canadian with a sharp irritable face. He wore high heels to increase his height, perfumed his handkerchiefs and saved all the words he could.
They were both good operatives.
“What did the Old Man tell you about the job?” I asked when we had settled into seats. The Old Man was the manager of the Continental’s San Francisco branch. He was also known as Pontius Pilate, because he smiled pleasantly when he sent us out to be crucified on suicidal jobs. He was a gentle, polite, elderly person with no more warmth in him than a hangman’s rope. The Agency wits said he could spit icicles in July.
“He didn’t seem to know much what it was all about,” Mickey said, “except that you had wired for help. He said he hadn’t got any reports from you for a couple of days.”