The girl came back into the room, bearing a garishly labelled bottle and three cheap glasses.
"It's okay, Marty," she said. "I told him."
The gunman scratched his head. For a moment his heavy face sank back into its mask of dour suspicion. And then he grinned rather ruefully, like an unrepentant urchin.
"Well, ya know how it is, Saint," he said apologetically.
Simon shook his head.
"That's just what I don't quite know."
Marty tipped liquor into the three glasses and passed one of them over. He sat down again.
"Well…" He picked a half-smoked cigarette out of the ash tray and relighted it. "All the good business folded after repeal. Sure, you could always give somebody a bit of protection, but you couldn't get the same dough. Besides, Luckner couldn't keep the connections he used to have since the city got a new administration. Some of the mob took up kidnapping but that ain't my idea of a man's job. It got too dangerous at that. I just about decided the best thing was to go on the legit if I could find a job anywhere — and then this Luckner case blew up. Did you read about it in the papers?"
"I've heard of it."
"I useta work with Luckner once — you know when. I never liked him, but it was just business. You know we nearly had a fight lotsa times when he was tryin' to make Cora go out with him."