Both O’Hara and the taxi-driver were staring now with eyes like door-knobs.
I tried to edge round O’Hara and get into the taxi, but he was too near the door and I couldn’t quite make it. I was scared of attracting his attention. Up to now he hadn’t even looked at me.
“Kidnapping?” he repeated stupidly, “I don’t get it. That’s a Federal offence.”
The patrolman turned to me, “This guy started the rumour that dicks were dumb,” he said, and went off into another spluttering guffaw.
O’Hara began to get mad. He turned on me. “What the hell is this?” he demanded. “What have you got here?”
“Show him, officer,” I said, trying to smile. “We shouldn’t keep it to ourselves. He might run us in.”
“These are dummies, you big sap,” the patrolman said to O’Hara. “This guy’s going to put them into his pal’s bed. Ain’t that funny?”
“Dummies?” O’Hare repeated blankly. “How do you know they’re dummies?”
“What the hell else do you think they are… corpses?” The patrolman began to get heated,
“Are you nuts? Think I’d help get corpses in a cab?”