“Well, then you heard wrong. It was just after that, but you can ask him if I didn’t quit.”

“It’s not that much to me. Go on telling me why you came to see me.”

“I’m busted, flat. I know you’re a Continental op, and I got a pretty good hunch what you’re up to here. I’m close to a lot that’s going on on both sides of things in this burg. There’s things I could do for you, being an ex-dick, knowing the ropes both ways.”

“You want to stool-pigeon for me?”

He looked me straight in the eye and said evenly:

“There’s no sense in a man picking out the worst name he can find for everything.”

“I’ll give you something to do, MacSwain.” I took out Myrtle Jennison’s document and passed it to him. “Tell me about that.”