"That reminds me, Winnie," Cone interrupted, "one of the mourners in the customers room who's waiting to see you is Jim DeForest from Morgan's. He's been waiting here since two o'clock. You'd better see him quick, huh? We don't want to keep 23 Wall waiting, do we?"
"Nuts, Phil," I told him. "I'll see them in the order of their arrival. That's what they do at Morgan's when you haven't got an appointment."
I pushed the button for Arthurjean.
"Who's been waiting the longest, Miss Briggs," I asked.
She consulted a little pack of memo forms. "There's this Mr. Sylvester," she said. "He was here when the office opened and has been waiting here all day. He wouldn't state his business."
"Okay," I replied. "Send him in or he'll faint from hunger."
Mr. Sylvester was florid in a quiet Latin way and looked as though he might be anything from an operatic tenor to the proprietor of a gambling ship. He waited until my partners had withdrawn.
"Mr. Tompkins," he said, speaking quietly, "I represent a syndicate that's reorganizing the free market in meat. We need a real smart guy, well-connected, like yourself, to head it up and keep track of the money. We'll pay a million dollars a year any way you like it—Swiss banks, Havana, Buenos Aires, Mexico City—and no tax."
"I'm always interested in a million dollars but I never did like Atlanta," I told him.
"Atlanta!" He shrugged his shoulders. "We got lawyers could talk Capone outa Alcatraz and we got a fix on the Courts, too. What would you be doin' in Atlanta?"