results to hide the details under. So evidence won’t do. What we’ve got to have is dynamite.”
“What about our respected client, Mr. Elihu Willsson?” Mickey asked. “What are you planning to do with or to him?”
“Maybe ruin him, maybe club him into backing us up. I don’t care which. You’d better stay at the Hotel Person, Mickey, and Dick can go to the National. Keep apart, and, if you want to keep me from being fired, burn the job up before the Old Man tumbles. Better write these down.”
I gave them names, descriptions, and addresses when I had them, of Elihu Willsson; Stanley Lewis, his secretary; Dinah Brand; Dan Rolff; Noonan; Max Thaler, alias Whisper; his right-hand man, the chinless Jerry; Mrs. Donald Willsson; Lewis’ daughter, who had been Donald Willsson’s secretary; and Bill Quint, Dinah’s radical ex-boyfriend.
“Now hop to it,” I said. “And don’t kid yourselves that there’s any law in Poisonville except what you make for yourself.”
Mickey said I’d be surprised how many laws he could get along without. Dick said: “So long,” and they departed.
After breakfast I went over to the City Hall.
Noonan’s greenish eyes were bleary, as if they hadn’t been sleeping, and his face had lost some of its color. He pumped my hand up and down as enthusiastically as ever, and the customary amount of cordiality was in his voice and manner.
“Any line on Whisper?” I asked when we had finished the glad-handing.
“I think I’ve got something.” He looked at the clock on the wall and then at his phone. “I’m expecting word any minute. Sit down.”
“Who else got away?”