Savoli was a subtle worker. Monk Thurman was just the man he needed for this job. Only Savoli and Borrango knew that the New York gunman was actually in the big shot’s employ.
Savoli wanted Thurman for later jobs; but if Monk should fail on his first task, the big shot would be no worse off. On the contrary, if Monk should succeed, the deaths of Schultz and Spirak could be easily explained to Larrigan.
SAVOLI awaited results with interest. He wondered if Monk would get busy the first night after he had received instructions.
He doubted that the New York gunman would be foolish enough to actually invade Larrigan’s territory. In fact, he and Borrango had told Monk of Larrigan’s saloon chiefly as a warning not to go there.
Nevertheless, Larrigan’s saloon was the destination which Monk Thurman had chosen for that evening.
While Savoli and Borrango were in the big shot’s luxurious apartment, drinking wine that had come from Canada, Monk Thurman was on his way to the Irishman’s beer joint.
It was about nine o’clock when the redoubtable New Yorker sauntered into the barroom where the lesser lights of Larringan’s mob held forth.
He appeared there as a stranger, and the crowd around the bar took immediate interest in the presence of this tall, stern-faced man whom they had not seen before. Monk ordered a glass of beer, sniffed it, and poured the liquid into a cuspidor.
“This the best you have in the place?” he demanded.
The bartender, himself a hardened hoodlum, glared at the stranger.