Jake lifted one finger from the gold head of his cane. It was a small gesture, but it silenced Tony's answer and immediately commanded the attention of everyone present.
"My client," rasped Jake, "neither denies nor admits any connection with the crimes for which he is being tried."
Bert Brown grinned sardonically at him.
"Do you expect to win this case, Mr. Emspak?"
"We'll win it," Jake answered, in a voice so cold and certain and hard that the reporters involuntarily joined the TV audience in a collective gasp.
Jake stood up and motioned to the deputies. It was time to end the interview. Precisely the right time.
The reporters left without further questions. They knew from long experience when Jake Emspak would and would not talk.
By that evening, speculation—without the ballast of facts—was soaring to dizzy heights. Even the communist angle came in for its share of limelight. Was Tony Corfino somehow of value to the resurgent Red underground? Could Jake Emspak's fee be traced back to Peiping, new headquarters for the Comintern? But not even the most skilled commentator could adequately sustain innuendo on innuendo alone. Not by the grossest distortion of facts could any Communist connection be twisted out of Tony's record of juvenile delinquency, pimping, pick-pocketing, petty thievery, dope peddling, armed robbery, and—since the grain and sugar restrictions of '70—bootlegging.
But one of the more perceptive reporters had noted Tony's strangely quiet manner of speaking. Inquiries at the jail disclosed that Tony had apparently developed an interest in reading.
Here, indeed, was a fresh angle! By mid-afternoon, "Gentleman Tony" had been conceived and given birth. His sordid record was reinterpreted in a picaresque light, and he became something of a Tenth Avenue Robin Hood. A nation squeezed between the twin problems of mounting population and tighter food rationing took "Gentleman Tony" to its fancy. It was like a case of 24-hour flu.