“That’s swell!” Kessler whooped. “Everything’s swell! I just put the Star-Telegram exclusive on Sallust to bed. What a story! It oughta be on the streets in an hour.”
Green said softly: “Blondie, if you want to keep your job, and keep the Star out of an awful jam, kill it.” Then, before Kessler could answer, he went on: “I just left Demetrios’ apartment. He’s the tall good-looking Greek that worked for Costain. Doyle and his partner are waiting for him to show, to tail him, but I’m afraid he’ll get past them and I have a very merry hunch where he’s going.”
Kessler interrupted: “But listen, Nick—”
“You listen.” Green’s tone was ominous. “Hold that story for at least an hour, and leap up to Three Thirty-one West Ninetieth with some Law, fast. I’ll be outside, or if I’m not, I’ll be upstairs in Costain’s apartment. Come up, and come quick. This is going to be the payoff on everything that’s happened tonight and it’ll make your Sallust story look like a want ad.”
“But listen...” Kessler sounded like he was about to cry.
Green snapped: “I’m depending on you. Make it fast and make it quiet. And don’t forget to bring along that fifty skins.”
He hung up the receiver and went out and got into his car drove to Amsterdam Avenue, up Amsterdam to Eighty-ninth, turned west. He parked just off Riverside Drive on Ninetieth, about a hundred and fifty feet west of the entrance to Three Thirty-one.
Then he lighted a cigarette and sat still and waited.
The man in the third-floor-front room at Three Thirty-two didn’t smoke any more; he simply waited, his eyes at the slit under the window shade. Occasionally he leaned back in the big chair, but for only a few seconds at a time and only after ten minutes or so of rigid, wary immobility.
At four minutes after three someone knocked at the door. He got up and opened it swiftly. Giuseppe Picelli came in; the man went back to the window.