“Sure. The holding company juggles cash around. The Products Refining Company is in on that. I think there’s a lawyer back of the whole business somewhere, but he isn’t coming forward to claim any laurel wreaths, if you get me.”
“I get you,” Mason said with a grin. “Now, then, if Charles Whitmore Dail tries to double-cross me, I’ll bring the income tax people down on him like a ton of bricks.”
“You’ve got to have a lot of dope before you can do that,” Drake said.
“And we’ll get the dope from Rooney,” Mason assured him. “We’ll pin something on Rooney.”
“What do you mean by ‘something’?” Drake asked.
“Hell, Paul, we haven’t time to be particular. We’ll frame him. We’ll begin with the wrist watch and smoke him out into the open.”
“Now wait a minute. Perry,” Drake remonstrated. “This chap, Rooney, is a respectable, influential citizen. If he’s playing around with a blonde, that’s his business. If you’re going to jail all the married men who buy flowers for girlfriends, there won’t be enough citizens outside the jails to pay the taxes.”
“There aren’t anyway,” Mason said, grinning.
“Now listen, Perry, you’re going off half-cocked. That girl may have had that wrist watch from a mother or a sweetheart. Rooney may be just a casual acquaintance... Hell, I’ve given you a button and you’ve sewed a vest on it. I tell you you’re playing with dynamite.”
“Well,” Mason told him, “if engineers didn’t play with dynamite, they’d never build railroads, and, after all, it’s just as true to say that the vest is on the button as that the button is on the vest.”