Crotti came around the desk and took Granquist by the shoulders, pressed her down into a chair. She was swearing brokenly, incoherently; she put her hands up to her face, sobbed. Crotti said: “Be quiet.” He turned to Kells with a deprecating smile. “I’m sorry.”
Kells didn’t say anything.
It was quiet for a little while except for Granquist’s strangled, occasional sobs. Crotti sat down on the edge of the desk.
Kells was staring thoughtfully at Granquist. Finally he turned to Crotti, said: “I played the Bellmann business against this one” — he jerked his head at Granquist — “because it was good sense, and because I knew I could clear her if it got warm. Then when she got away I figured Rose had her and went into the panic. I’ve been leaping all over Southern California with a big hero act while she’s been sitting on her lead over here with an armful of bottles...”
He sighed, shook his head. “When I’m right, I’m wrong.” Then he went on as if thinking aloud: “Rose and Abalos and a woman — probably Rose’s wife — hired a boat at Long Beach tonight and didn’t come back.”
Crotti glanced at Granquist. “Rose had an interest in one of the big booze boats,” he said — “the Santa Maria. She was lying about sixty miles off the coast a couple days ago. He probably headed out there.”
He puffed hard at his cigar, put it down on an ashtray, leaned forward.
“Now about my proposition...” he said. “You’ve started a good thing but you can’t finish it by yourself. I’ve got the finest organization in the country and I’m going to put it at your disposal so that you can do this thing the way it should be done — to the limit. LA county is big enough for everybody—”
Kells interrupted: “I think I’ve heard that someplace before.”
Crotti paid no attention to the interruption, went on: “—for everybody — but things have got to be under a single head. This thing of everybody cutting everybody else’s throat is bad business — small-town stuff.”