Of course, money was easy for Mike to get. With a shudder, Malone thought he was beginning to realize just how easy. Houdini had once boasted that no bank vault could hold him. In Mike Fueyo's case, that was just doubly true. The vault could neither hold him out or keep him in.
But he was going to leave home.
Malone said: "Hm-m-m," to himself, cleared his throat and tried it again. By now he was at the corner of the block, where he nearly collided with a workman who was busily stowing away a gigantic ladder, a pot of paint and a brush. Malone looked up at the street sign, where the words: "Avenue of the Americas" had been painted out, and "Sixth Avenue" hand-lettered in.
"They finally gave in," the painter told him. "But do you think they'll buy new signs? Nah. Cheap. That's all they are. Cheap as pretzels." He gave Malone a friendly push with one end of the ladder and disappeared into the crowd.
Malone didn't have the faintest idea of what he was talking about. And how cheap could a pretzel be, anyway? Malone didn't remember ever having seen an especially tight-fisted one.
New York, he decided for the fifteenth time, was a strange place.
He walked downtown for a block, still thinking about Mike Fueyo, and absently turned west again. Between Sixth and Seventh, he had another attack of brilliance and began looking for another phone booth.
He found one in a Mexican bar named the Xochitl, across the street from the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. It was just a coincidence that he had landed in another bar, he told himself hopefully, but he didn't quite believe it. To prove it to himself, he headed straight for the phone booths again and put in his call, ignoring the blandishments of several rows of sparkling bottles which he passed on the way.
He dialed the number for Lieutenant Lynch's precinct, and then found himself connected with a new desk sergeant.