over to the newspaper buzzards, and I don’t mean your Herald crew—the press associations. I got the letters from Dawn. You’ll have a lot of fun proving that you didn’t hire him to recover them, and that he didn’t kill the girl doing it. But the fun you’ll have is nothing to the fun people will have reading these letters. They’re hot. I haven’t laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother.”
I stopped talking.
The old man was shaking, but there was no fear in his shaking. His face was purple again. He opened his mouth and roared:
“Publish them and be damned!”
I took them out of my pocket, dropped them on his bed, got up from my chair, put on my hat, and said:
“I’d give my right leg to be able to believe that the girl was killed by somebody you sent to get the letters. By God, I’d like to top off the job by sending you to the gallows!”
He didn’t touch the letters. He said:
“You told me the truth about Thaler and Pete?”
“Yeah. But what difference does it make? You’ll only be pushed around by somebody else.”
He threw the bedclothes aside and swung his stocky pajamaed legs and pink feet over the edge of the bed.
“Have you got the guts,” he barked, “to take the job I offered you once before—chief of police?”
“No. I lost my guts out fighting your fights while you were hiding in bed and thinking up new ways of disowning me. Find another wet nurse.”