‘What’s the hurry?’ Dal as said, yawning. ‘We’ve been at this off and on for fifteen years. Why not concentrate on other jobs and wait until Hater gets free?’
‘Don’t you realise how much we stand to pick up…?’
‘Yeah, you told me. I don’t know if you’re using the royal ‘we’, but I’m damned sure I’l never smell that four grand, or even a dollar of it.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ Purvis said hurriedly. ‘We haven’t got it yet. The insurance companies have been paying us a retainer for the past fifteen years, and we’ve done precious little to earn it. We can’t afford to wait until Hater comes out. We’ve got to get busy right now.’
Dallas looked at him suspiciously.
‘Have they been belly-aching?’
‘They’ve been doing more than that. They’ve stopped the retainer. It was as much as I could do to persuade them to let us represent them for another three months. We’ve got to get things moving or some of us will have to look for another job.’
Dallas unfolded his lanky frame out of the chair. He picked up his hat and slapped it on the back of his head.
‘Don’t kid yourself you’re scaring me,’ he said. ‘I could get me a better job than this one any day of the week. The only reason why I stick with you is because you’ve become a bad habit. Okay, I’l watch Kile. Maybe he’l lead us to the jewels, but I very much doubt it. There’s only one man who knows where they are, and that’s Hater. So long as he’s in prison they never will be found.’
‘That’s defeatism,’ Purvis said severely. ‘We haven’t two years to wait: we’ve only three months.