“Who’s he carrying?”
“The revolution boys. There’s a lot of traffic going on between this coast and Cuba. He’s smuggling in guns as well. From what I hear there’ll be another bust-up in Cuba before long.”
“Too bad for him if Killeano pinched one of his boats,” I said, thoughtfully.
“He ain’t likely to,” Davis said. “He must be giving Gomez plenty of protection.”
“But suppose Killeano in a fit of zeal pinched Gomez’s boat, what do you think Gomez would do?”
“I know damn well what he’d do. He’d take a crack at Killeano,” Davis said, eyeing me doubtfully. “Why should Killeano have a fit of zeal?”
“He’s just taken over the police department; the election is close. It’d be a good publicity stunt to make a sudden clean-up on that racket—especially if the press gave him a spread.”
Davis’s fat face creased. “Now what the hell are you cooking up?”
“Where does Gomez keep his boats?”
“Search me,” Davis returned, looking at Tim and then at me. “This dick—Clairbold’s his name (hell of a name, ain’t it?)—fell over the dirt accidentally. He wasn’t looking for it. He was sniffing around in Lois’s apartment trying to find any letters Killeano might have written to Lois. It was my idea. I reckoned we could crucify Killeano if we could get hold of some of his mushy letters and print them. Clairbold was digging around in Lois’s bedroom when Gomez and another guy marched into the outer room. Clairbold ducks behind a curtain and hears Gomez planning to run a bunch of nationals over to Cuba tonight, and to bring another bunch back the night after.”