‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘or Malloy could be lying.’ He looked at me, showing his small even teeth. ‘Are you?’
‘No.’
Tell me, why didn’t Dedrick call the police instead of you?’
I had an answer to that one, but I didn’t think he would like it. Instead, I said, ‘He wasn’t sure someone wasn’t pulling his leg. Probably he was anxious not to make a fool of himself.’
‘Well, go on. Tell me more,’ Brandon said, setting fire to the cigar. He rolled it around between his thin lips and stared heavily at me.
‘While he was talking, there was a sudden silence on the line. I called to him, but he didn’t answer. I could hear him breathing over the line, then he hung up.’
‘And that’s when you should have called Headquarters,’ Brandon snarled. ‘You should have known something was wrong.’
‘I thought maybe his chauffeur had come in, and Dedrick didn’t want him to hear what he was saying. I’m not all that crazy to mix up a man like Dedrick with the police without his sayso.’
Brandon scowled at me and flicked ash off his cigar.
‘You’d talk yourself out of a coffin,’ he said sourly. ‘Well, go on. You came out here and found Souki, That right?’