"I know what you're thinking," Wainwright told him. "The Star-Times will get you if you turn on them. If necessary, they'll drop everything else until you're dead."
"Well, yes. That's just what I was thinking."
"I don't envy your position," Wainwright admitted. "You believe I'm offering you a few months more of life at best. But you're mistaken, McLeod. It will appear as if we have killed you. We can do it, working together. But I offer you life. The accident will all but destroy you, although means of identification will remain. Don't you see what I'm driving at? We can substitute some derelict for you, then change your appearance and employ you on the World. The Star-Times will never know the difference."
It was a daring plan. It was just the sort of thing which made the newspaper business in general—and Weaver Wainwright in particular—so omnipotent these days. McLeod did not try to hide his interest. The plan had more than negative virtues, after all.
"How do I know I can trust you?" McLeod asked.
"I'm afraid you don't. But let it simmer. What it boils down to is this: you're going to have to take a calculated risk either way, McLeod. No doubt, you've devised some scheme to give us a fat wrongo instead of your corpse. It may or may not work. Statistics say it will not. On the other hand, I promise you life. My plan not only could work, it should work. The risk there is that I may not be telling the truth. You'll have to decide ... here comes Miss Kent."
"The girl with the crooked face," said Tracy, sitting down. "Unless you tell me it's straight."
"As an arrow," said McLeod, hardly hearing his own words. The more he thought of Wainwright's plan, the better he liked it. If Wainwright were telling the truth, he'd be able to get both Cripp and himself off the hook at the same time. "I'll think about it," he told the World reporter, who was smiling and getting up to leave.
"Call me," Wainwright said, and was gone.