"Oh," Malone said. "Hello."
"Hi, there," Lynch said with enormous cheerfulness. "Old buddy-boy. Old pal. Old friend."
"What's wrong?" Malone said.
"Wrong?" Lynch said. "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. I just wanted to thank you for not waking me up last night. I only waited for your call until midnight. Then I decided I just wasn't very important to you. You obviously had much bigger things on your mind."
"As a matter of fact," Malone said,
eying Lynch's figure, dressed in a pair of trousers and a T-shirt, speculatively, "you're right."
"That's what I thought," Lynch said. "And I decided that, since you were so terribly busy, it could wait until I woke up. Or even until I got down to the station. How about it—buddy-boy?"
"Listen, Lynch," Malone said, "we made a bet. Ten to one. I just want to know if I can come down to collect or not."
There was a second of silence.
"All right," Lynch said at last, looking crestfallen. "I owe you a buck. Every last one of those kids has skipped out on us."