ACKIE SAID: “That starts it, Nick. We gotta go ahead now.”
“You think Lazard’ll try an’ spring him?”
“I guess he’ll see Spencer. A guy like that always jumps into anything with both feet.”
I went over to the car. “Listen, Mo, we gotta break this business up fast, before they get him out. You go to the Federal Bureau an’ tell ’em everything. Get the sergeant to turn Katz over to the Bureau tonight. Once they’ve got him, Lazard won’t get to the first base.”
Ackie pushed his hat to the back of his head. “What are you goin’ to do?”
“I’m lookin’ for Mardi,” said grimly.
“Yeah—but where? You just can’t run around in circles. You gotta have some system.”
“I ain’t had time to get round to Sarah Spencer with you yet,” I said. “I’m makin’ a guess, but I’ll swear I’m right. She’s got Mardi hidden up.”
I told Ackie the tale as far as I knew it myself. What Mardi had told me, and how we had fitted Sarah into the set-up, and why I thought she had kidnapped Mardi. “She’s gettin’ desperate,” I concluded. “I’m bettin’ she’s bankin’ on me startin’ a lot of trouble as soon as Mardi disappeared. She’s right, but she ain’t goin’ to sit on the fence any more. I’m goin’ to push her off, and let her have some trouble for herself.”
Ackie listened with his jaw slack. When I had finished, he shook his head. “No—it don’t fit,” he said. “Sarah Spencer ain’t got it in her to pull a job like that. I’ve seen her, you ain’t. She’s just a dizzy blonde, with the brain of a cow an’ the morals of an alley-cat. ’Sides, she’s crazy about Spencer—I can’t believe that tale.”