‘You’re sure he said that?’ Brandon asked, slitting the cellophane wrapping of his cigar with a well-manicured thumbnail.
‘Why, yes.’
‘There’s been no incoming calls to this house tonight. What do you make of that?’
‘Maybe he had the call at his hotel.’
‘He didn’t. We’ve checked that too.’
‘Any out-going calls from here, besides the one he made to me?’
Brandon rolled the cigar between his fat fingers.
‘Yeah, one to a call-box number. What of it?’
Mifflin said in his slow, heavy voice, ‘He could have been told during the day to call that number tonight, and got the warning that way.’
Brandon looked over his shoulder as if he wasn’t aware until now that Mifflin was in the room. Although he relied on Mifflin’s brains, he always acted as if Mifflin had no business to be on the Force.