Peppi was a little guy with big bulging eyes. When he was a kid he contracted a skin disease that had stripped off his hair. He’d been as bald as an egg ever since. Apart from looking like a second cousin of Lugosi, he had a mean disposition.
So it came back to the problem. What did Kelly want with him? The only thing I could do was to call on Peppi and find out. If I went with a good enough story I might get somewhere. I didn’t exactly relish the visit, but I argued that if a guy had a house on East Seventy-eight, then he wasn’t likely to cut my throat. Or was he?
Anyway, thinking along those lines didn’t get me anywhere so I hailed a cab and gave Peppi’s address.
The driver knew him all right.
“Friend of yours, Bud?” he said, pushing the taxi through the traffic like he was anxious to get rid of me.
“You ask him. He’ll tell you if he wants you to know,” I returned.
“Wise guy, huh?” the driver snorted. “A dime a dozen. A dime a dozen.”
“I heard you the first time,” I said.
He didn’t say anything for a couple of blocks, then he ventured again, “That Kruger guy ain’t doing us any good in the taxi business. Somebody ought to stop him.”
“Come in with me and stop him,” I said, putting my feet on the spring seat in front of me.