"When?"
"Yesterday."
"What did she say?"
"Gibson told her that important business was taking him away and that he would be back sometime this week."
"And she has no idea of what he's doing?"
"None whatever."
"Well," said Brennan. "That's that. Come on, Gallant, let's be going."
The first edition of their newspaper carried Sweeney's statement calling upon Gibson to work with him instead of against him and the department in his effort to clean up the city.
"If Commissioner Gibson has any evidence that Los Angeles is wide open, as he says, he should turn it over to the police department and I'll guarantee that conditions will be remedied before morning," Sweeney's statement read. "The police department is functioning. I'll stay on the job until the mayor removes me.
"I deny the commissioner's charge that graft exists in the department and that the city is wide open. Let him come out and put his cards on the table, face up. If he has any reason to hesitate to take me into his confidence, why doesn't he say so. He speaks of the fair name of Los Angeles being dragged in the mire. I claim he is broadcasting that the city is wide open without tangible substantiation of his charge."