She came over and sat down near him. She unbuttoned her coat, crossed her slim silken legs, took a cigarette out of a tiny silver case and lighted it.
She said: “So you’ve got to help me locate Del before he gets to Charley.”
Shane sipped his coffee, waited.
“Del started drinking last night,” she went on, “an’ he kept it up this morning. He went out about eleven, and some time around one, Jack Kenny called up an’ told me that Del was over at his joint — roaring drunk, and howling for Charley’s blood. He gets that way every time he gets boiled — crazy jealous about Charley and me.”
She leaned back and blew a thin cone of smoke at the ceiling. “I told Jack to let him drink himself under the table, or lock him up, or something — an’ in a little while Jack called back and said everything was all right — that Del had passed out.”
Shane was smiling a little. He got up and went to the central table and took a long green-black cigar from a humidor, clipped it, lighted it. Then he went back and sat down.
The girl leaned forward. “About three o’clock,” she said, “the Eastman Agency — that’s the outfit I’ve had tailing Charley for evidence — called up and said they’d located the apartment house up on the West Side where Charley’s been living with the McLean woman...”
Shane said: “How long have they been on the case?”
“Three days — an’ Charley’s ducked them until today — they traced a phone call or something.”
Shane nodded, poured more coffee into the little cup.