We nearly ran into a tree and I had time to reach in and knock that cannon out of his hand. He stepped on the brake, and reached for the gun, but I beat him to it by a hair and stuck it in my overcoat pocket and got in beside him.
I said: “Shame on you — almost crashing an old pal like me.”
He sat tight in the seat and got a weak grin working and said: “Where to?”
“Just away.”
We went on through the mud and rain, and turned into a slightly better lighted street.
I said: “How did you know Ben shot Lowry?”
The kid kept his head down, his eyes ahead. “Lowry and me have lived together for two years,” he said. “He used to be in the hack racket too, till he got mixed up with McCary...
“Lowry won a lot of jack in one of Ben’s crap games a couple day ago, and Ben wanted him to kick back with it-said everybody that worked for him was automatically a shill, and couldn’t play for keeps. But Lowry’s been dropping every nickel he made in the same game, for months. That was okay with Ben. It was all right to lose, but you mustn’t win.”
I nodded, lighted a cigarette.
“Ben shot Lowry tonight at the joint on Dell Street. I know it was him because Lowry’s been afraid of it — and that’s why he said ‘McCary.’”