“This place,” the detective remarked, “runs into money.”
“If,” she told him, “you’re interested in the rents, you might talk with the management.”
Mason laughed. She shifted her eyes to his and said, “Why don’t you snap out of it? You and I could be friends.”
“Thanks,” Mason said.
Her eyes made an interested survey of his features. She nodded slowly, sipped her drink, and said, “You put on that hard-boiled act to frighten me, didn’t you? Now, why did you want to scare me?”
“We want to find out about that wrist watch,” Mason said.
“What about it?”
Drake interposed hastily. “Take it easy, now, Perry. She’s handing you a little soft soap. Personally, I don’t want to prosecute her on the charge of receiving stolen property, because I don’t think she knew it was stolen, but that’s just what I think. You know what’ll happen if we let her out of this and it turns out she’s a fence. We’ll be guilty of compounding a felony.”
She shifted her eyes to Drake’s and said, “The more I see of this, the more fishy it sounds to me. Mr. Rooney is a busy man. If you’re trying to pull something, you’d better beat it while the beating’s good. Otherwise, you’re going to find yourselves in a lot of trouble.”
“Trouble’s our middle name,” Mason grinned, clinking the ice in the glass. “What does Rooney do?”