"That, too, you've got to know. It's because he's a heroin and cocaine fiend. He's killing himself with the use of drugs. He's making everything impossible. It's left him irresponsible, as dangerous as any lunatic would be at large."
She turned and looked at a tiny jeweled watch.
"He will be here himself by ten o'clock. And if he heard me saving what I am at this moment, he would kill me as calmly as he'd sit at a café table and lie to you."
"But what's the good of those lies?"
"Don't you suppose he knew you were Witter Kerfoot, that among other things you owned a house, and a car, that you were worth making a try for? Don't you suppose he found all that out before he laid his ropes for this wire-tapping story? Can't you see the part I was to play, to follow his lead and show you how we could never bring his money back, but that we could face the gang with their own fire. I was to weaken and show you how we could tap the tapper's own wire, choose the race that promised the best odds, and induce you to plunge against the house on what seemed a sure thing?"
I sat there doing my best to Fletcherize what seemed a remarkably big bite of information.
"But why are you telling me all this?" I still parried, pushing back from the flattering consciousness that we had a secret in common, that I had proved worthy an intimacy denied others.
"Because I've just decided it's the easiest way out."
"For whom?"
"For me!"