“What did Conway say?” Mason asked.
“Conway was worried. He said he’d bail me out, that the thing had been clean as a hound’s tooth when he sold it to me. Naturally, I told him it was Leeds that was responsible for the police tip-off. He said it couldn’t be. I told him it was, and that it was up to him to square the rap.”
“Just what did Conway say?” Mason asked.
“He said, ‘Tell you what you do, Guy. Hide out until I have a chance to get things fixed up the way I want ’em. It’ll probably take me a couple of hours, but it may be a little sooner. Give me a ring, and I’ll let you know when to come up. Then you come up to my apartment, and we’ll talk things over.’ I told him I didn’t want to talk things over, I wanted action. He told me to come up, and I’d get action.”
“So you went up?” Mason asked.
“Yes, I went up. I was pretty nervous. Louie was busy as a one-armed paper hanger, answering the telephone, and scribbling a bunch of figures. Neither of us had eaten, and Louie gave me the number of a restaurant and told me to have some grub sent up. He said he could only give me a few minutes while we were eating. He said he was putting over a couple of big deals.
“While we were guzzling grub, Louie said to me, ‘Now listen, Guy. I dropped most of that twenty grand I made in the touch from Leeds, but I’m resourceful and I stick by my friends. Now I don’t want you to know anything about this — it wouldn’t be good for you — but a party’s going to be in here a little before ten with some dough — lots of it. Now, suppose you call me up and get an okay to be sure there’s no hitch. Then go down to jail, be booked, put up a cash bond, and walk right out.’”
Mason stared at the tip of his cigarette. “You say Louie had a lot of other things he was doing?” he asked.
“Yes. The phone rang two or three times, and he put in a couple of calls.”
“What were they?” Mason asked.