“Why?” she asked.

Mason’s eyes twinkled. “Drake’s cooperating with Sergeant Holcomb.”

“I thought you were too,” she said.

“I am,” Mason told her. “But cooperation is a very elastic term. People have different definitions of it,”

“What’s Sergeant Holcomb’s definition?” she asked.

Mason lit a cigarette. “Oh, Sergeant Holcomb,” he said casually, “looks at it about the same way I do.”

“I see,” she told him, sliding her extended forefinger across her throat, and reached for the telephone.

Chapter 12

Della Street, softly closing the door behind her, said, “Better get your bullet-proof vest out of mothballs, Chief.”

“What’s the matter?” Mason asked.