A man in shirt sleeves and with a light beard opened it, holding one hand on the knob and bracing the other against the wall suspiciously. He gruffly asked Bender what he wanted.
He said he wanted to see Jeff Peebles.
“He ain't here,” came the answer. The man tried to shut the door but Bender jammed his foot at the bottom of it and told him to wait a minute. He pushed inside with little effort.
The man surveyed him with ill grace and said in a sharp tone: “You're liable to get throwed out on your ear, guy.”
Tom Bender grinned and complacently remarked that he'd been thrown out on his ear before. He told the man to go get Peebles. The man told him to go to hell and looked around as if he needed help.
The room was deep and cavernous and there were a dozen or more men inside, all of them looking in the direction of the door. Two of them stepped off a small rostrum at the end of the hall and walked down the aisle between the chairs, their feet clumping loudly on the board floor.
One was willowy and cadaverous and wore a cheap suit with yellow square-toed shoes. The other was younger but both were agitated. As they came up Bender asked which was Jeff Peebles and the cadaverous man said he was. Before Bender had a chance to say anything else he told him to state his business and make it snappy.
The hall bristled with defiance and the attitudes of the men indicated they were in no mood for horseplay, so much as he disliked to Bender flipped back his coat lapel and flashed his badge.
“I'll make it plenty snappy,” he told them straight from the shoulder. “I'm Tom Bender. Peebles, come outside. I wanna talk to you.”
Peebles recognized the authority but he shook his head grimly and declared whatever had to be said could be said right there.