"Bland Halliday, where have you been, for gracious sake? And where's
Johnny?"
"I ain't been anywhere but here—and I wisht I knowed where Johnny was.
I—"
"Bland Halliday, you tell me instantly! Where's Johnny?"
"Honest, I don't know. I been looking for him myself, and—"
"Bland Halliday, do you want to be torn limb from limb, right here on the public street before everybody? I want to know where Johnny is, and I want to know now."
"Aw, f'r cat's sake! I ain't saw Johnny f'r three weeks—not since the night we got here. I been looking—"
Behind them sounded a succession of impatient honks that extended almost to Seventh Street. The traffic cop had blown his whistle, the street car had clanged warning and gone on. The truck had shaved past Mary V and the Ford had followed. Other cars coming up behind had mistaken the Bear Cat's inaction for closed traffic and had stopped. Others had stopped behind them; then two other street cars slid up and blocked the way around.
Mary V was quite oblivious to all this. She was glaring at the one link between herself and Johnny Jewel. She was bitterly regretting the fact that she had no gun with which to scare Bland into telling the truth, and she was wondering what other means of coercion would prove effective. Bland knew where Johnny was, of course. He was lying, for some reason—probably because he had the habit and couldn't stop.
Bland kept an eye on Mary V's right hand. He suspected a gun, and when, in involuntary obedience to the frantic honkings behind her, she let her hand drop to the gear lever, Bland turned to flee.
"Bland, you come back here!" Bland came. "What do you mean, trying to avoid answering a perfectly civil question?"