If he was my man, it was a fair bet he wasn’t armed. I played it that way, moving straight up the slimy middle of the alley, looking into shadows with eyes, ears and nose.

Three-quarters of a block of this, and a shadow broke away from another shadow⁠—a man going pell-mell away from me.

“Stop!” I bawled, pounding my feet after him. “Stop, or I’ll plug you, MacSwain.”

He ran half a dozen strides farther and stopped, turning.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, as if it made any difference who took him back to the hoosegow.

“Yeah,” I confessed. “What are all you people doing wandering around loose?”