“Yes, that’s it. Wasting the taxpayer’s money telephoning all over the state of New York. All right, so you find out that farmers have been shipping me hawks they shot and I’ve been paying them five dollars per hawk. So what? Is that a crime? If Miss Leeds is willing to cough up twenty dollars for a dead hawk, and that gives me a little profit for my trouble, does that make it a crime? It made her happy, didn’t it? Hawks are destructive. They kill chickens. My plan benefits the state, it benefits the farmers, it benefits Miss Leeds, it benefits me, and it hurts nobody.”
“Then what are you beefing about?”
“I’m beefing because I think you’re going to tell Miss Leeds about it, and that would put me out of business. If it so happens that she has got the impression that the hawks are killed right here in New York City, and that gives her pleasure, what’s that to you? Or to me either? What it amounts to, in its simplest terms, I’m doing her a favor. And I’m not hogging it. I keep it down to an average of three or four a week. I could make it twice or three times that if I—”
“Beat it.” Cramer growled in disgust. “Get the hell out of here. I don’t— Wait a minute. You organized this dead hawk business quite a while ago, didn’t you?”
“Why — no, I wouldn’t say—”
“How long ago?”
Leon hesitated. “I don’t remember exactly.”
“Say a year ago?”
“Why, yes, sure, at least a year ago.”
“What did old Mrs. Leeds pay you? Same as her daughter does? Twenty dollars per hawk?”