He gave it to me without apparent hesitation. I thanked him and hung up, still wondering.
If it was an attempt at a plant, it was certainly crude. The mention of his former Air Force connection would be enough to arouse suspicion, unless he counted on his apparent frankness to offset it.
And what about the Press Club angle? That would indicate Steele was a newspaperman. Could this be merely an attempt to pump me and get a lead on True’s investigation? But that would be just as crude as the other idea. Of course, he might be sincere. But regardless of his motives, it looked bad. Arid who had told him about me?
I thought about that for a minute. Then I picked up the phone and dialed Jack Daly’s number. “Jack, do you know anyone named John Steele?” I asked him. “I think he’s a newspaperman.”
“Nobody I know,” said Jack. “Why, what’s up?”
I explained, and added, “I thought maybe you knew him, and he’d heard about it from you.”
“Hell, no,” said Jack. “You ought to know I wouldn’t leak any tip like that.”
“It wouldn’t be a tip—I don’t know anything about this deal yet. By the way, when you were on the Star did you handle anything on ‘foo fighters’?”
“No, that was after I left there. Bill Shippen would have covered that, anyway.”
I told him I would look it up in the Star’s morgue. Jack said he would meet me there at three o’clock; in the meantime he would see what he could find out about Steele.