He hung up, stared vacantly at Woodward’s tie.
“Now I’m not going to argue with you,” he said. “You heard what I told Fenner. You’d better get going — first here, first served.”
Woodward stood up. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. He put on his hat, nodded to Beery and Borg and started toward the door.
Kells said: “And don’t get ideas. If you come back here with the law and try to hang a ‘conspiracy to defeat justice’ rap on me I’ll swear that the whole god-damned thing is a lie — and so will my gentlemen friends.” He jerked his head at Beery and Borg.
Woodward had turned to listen. He nodded, turned again and went out and closed the door.
Kells said: “This is going to be a lot of fun even if it doesn’t work.”
“You said something about being all washed up with the fun angle...” Beery got up and poured himself a drink. “You said something about being out for the dough.”
“Watch it work.” Kells leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
Fenner put thirty thousand-dollar notes on the arm of Kells’ chair. Kells took the piece of crumpled paper out of his breast pocket and handed it to Fenner, and Fenner unfolded it and looked at it and then took a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and touched the flame to a corner of the paper.
Kells said: “Now get out of here while you’re all together.” He said it very quietly.