Ackie stiffened up, as if he suddenly remembered an urgent job. “Yeah,” he said, “I got somethin’ for you. How’d you like to pick up a hundred bucks?”
I put on my coat and fixed my hair. Ackie giving away a hundred bucks was someone I didn’t know. “Doin’ what?”
“You know Colonel Kennedy?”
I turned my head and looked hard at Ackie, but his face was blank. “You don’t have to ask that; you know I do.”
“Pretty thick with him, ain’t you?”
“Come on, come on.” I stood over him. “What is this? What’s Kennedy got to do with it?”
“Listen, Nick, we’re in a jam. We gotta see this guy, an’ we gotta talk to him.”
This sounded screwy to me. I sat on the table. “Why come an’ see me?”
Ackie fidgeted. “Well, this guy’s being difficult, see? He won’t see anyone. We reckoned you could talk to him.”
My instinct told me that there was a story hanging to this. A story that might be big. Colonel Kennedy was one of those rich playboys with so much dough that he never found time to finish counting it. The kind of guy who gives away a couple of million and doesn’t have his bank manager running round in circles.