"Well, get that accusatory look off your face. Murder and rape—those are stiff raps to beat, pal."
"You did it with Beatty, you got him off," Kaplan reminded his friend.
"Luck. Public mood—Beatty was an old man, feeble. Look, Max—why don't you stop beating around the bush?"
"Okay," Kaplan said slowly. "They—let me in this afternoon. I talked with him again."
Ritchie nodded. "And?"
"Hank, I'm telling you—it gives me the creeps. I swear it does."
"What did he tell you?"
Kaplan puffed on his cigarette nervously, kept his eyes on the clock. "He was lying down when I went in, curled up tight. Trying to sleep."
"Go on."
"When he heard me, he came to. 'Mr. Kaplan,' he says, 'you've got to make them believe me, you've got to make them understand—' His eyes got real big then, and—Hank, I'm scared."