Kells stretched one long leg over the arm of his chair, made himself comfortable. “This afternoon I told Mister Fenner” — he inclined his head toward Fenner in one slow emphatic movement — “that I knew a gal who had some very hot political info that she wanted to sell.”
Beery nodded almost imperceptibly.
“He was interested and asked me to send her to his hotel tonight. I had a talk with her, and the stuff sounded so good that I got interested too — took her to Fenner’s myself.”
Fenner was extremely uncomfortable. He looked at Kells and dabbed at his forehead; his lips were bent into a faint forced smile.
“We offered the information — information of great political value — to Mister Fenner at a very fair price,” Kells went on. “He agreed to it and called the manager of his hotel and asked him to bring up an envelope containing a large amount in cash.”
Kells turned his eyes slowly from Beery to Fenner. “When the manager came in a couple of benders came in with him. They’d been waiting in the next apartment, listening across the airshaft to find out what they had to heist — it was supposed to look like Rose’s stick-up — or Bellmann’s...”
Fenner stood up.
Kells said: “But it was Mister Fenner’s. Mister Fenner wanted to eat his cake and have crumbs in his bed, too.”
Fenner took two steps forward. His eyes were flashing. He said: “That’s a lie, sir — a tissue of falsehood!”
Kells spoke very softly, enunciating each word carefully, distinctly: “Sit down, you dirty son of a bitch.”