Pass.
Sunday afternoon I ran into an op for Eastern Investigators, Inc., named Card, in the lobby of the Roosevelt. We had a couple drinks and talked about this and that. He was on the Coast looking for a gent named Healey. He was cagey about who the client was, but Eastern handles mostly missing persons, divorces, stuff like that.
Monday morning Card called me and said the Salt Lake branch of his outfit had located Healey in Caliente, Nevada. He said he thought I might like to know. I told him I wasn’t interested and thanked him and then I rented a car in a U Drive place and drove up to Caliente.
I got there about four in the afternoon and spotted Healey in the second joint I went into. He was sitting in a stud game with five of the home boys and if they were a fair sample of local talent I figured I had plenty of time.
Healey was a big man with a round cheery face, smooth pink skin. His mouth was loose and wet and his eyes were light blue. I think his eyes were the smallest I’ve ever seen. They were set very wide apart.
He won and lost pretty evenly, but the game wasn’t worth a nickel. The home boys were old-timers and played close to their vests and Healey’s luck was the only thing that kept him even. He finally scared two of them out of a seventy- or eighty-dollar pot and that made him feel so good that he got up and came over to the bar and ordered drinks for the boys at the table. He ordered lemonade for himself.
I said: “Excuse me, but haven’t I seen you around Lonnie Thompson’s in Detroit?” Lonnie makes a book and I had most of my dope on Healey from him.
He smiled and said: “Maybe,” and asked me what I drank.
I ordered whiskey.
He asked me if I’d been in town long and I said I’d just driven up from L A to look things over and that things didn’t look so hot and that I would probably drive back to L A that night or the next morning.