Rico wiped the sweat from his forehead. He went over to the cellarette and made two highballs.
‘I’d better talk to Kile,’ he said as he brought the drinks to the desk. ‘He’l have to jack up the ante.’
‘You’l keep your trap shut,’ Baird said. ‘I’m handling this. If we play our cards right, we should collect the whole bundle.’
Rico lost colour and gripped the edge of his desk until his knuckles turned white.
‘Are you crazy?’ he asked. ‘What would we do with stuff like that? We couldn’t handle it. Four million dollars! There’s not a fence in the country who could handle it.’
Baird took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick blond hair.
‘I don’t know why the hel I bother with you,’ he said, exasperated. ‘Haven’t you any brains? Do you think I’m mug enough to imagine you could handle the stuff? No, the obvious thing to do is to wait until Kile gets rid of it. He must know someone he can unload it on or he wouldn’t be paying us to snatch Hater. The time we move in is when Kile collects the dough. Then we take it away from him. If he knows what he’s doing, the take should be worth half a mil ion at least, probably more, and that’s better than a lousy ten grand. Now do you see what I’m get ing at?’
Rico licked his dry lips.
‘It sounds al right,’ he said cautiously, ‘but how do we know when he gets paid off?’
‘That’s something you can find out. He’s got to be watched night and day after we’ve turned Hater over to him. And another thing, we’ve got to find out who the top man is, too. And then there’s that shamus who followed me: we’ve got to find out who employed him, and why.’