I nodded. We drank.
“By God! I like your style,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get along with an outfit of yokels.”
We smiled at one another. I was glad he said he liked me because I knew he didn’t like me at all. I was one up on him, I didn’t like him very well either.
Stokes sat on a corner of the big library-table, his long legs dangling.
He said: “You’re airing Ben — how do we know you’ll play ball with us?” His eyes were stony.
I looked at the old man. I said: “I don’t like that fat — son of yours — and I never double-cross the best offer.”
Luke McCary was a thin little man with a pinched red face, bushy white hair. He sat in a big armchair on the other side of the table, his head and neck and wild white hair sticking up out of the folds of a heavy blue bathrobe.
He looked at me sharply. He said: “I don’t want any part of it.”
“Then I’ll have to act on the best offer.”
Stokes grinned.