“Look, Lieutenant.” I was earnest. “It has always been a pleasure to lie to you, and will be again, but I want to make it clear and emphatic that my interest in this case is strictly personal, as I said, and Mr. Wolfe is not concerned. If you—”
“That’s enough.” The fist was tighter and was quivering a little. Some day it would be too much for him and he would let fly, and my reaction would depend on the context. It couldn’t be taken for granted that I would break him in two. He went on. “It’s more than enough. Giving false information, withholding evidence, material witness, obstructing justice, and impersonating an officer of the law. Take him, Doyle. There’ll be someone here soon to t-t-t-turn him over to.”
He meant it. I considered swiftly. In spite of the current situation, I hoped and expected to have further dealings with some or all of the Softdown quintet, and it wouldn’t help any to have them sit and watch while a pair of bozos dragged me from under a table, unavoidably mussing me up. So I arose, sidled around to the back of my chair, and told Doyle, “Please be careful. I’m ticklish.”
Chapter 6
At a quarter to six that afternoon I sat on a chair in a smallish room in a well-known building on Leonard Street. I was bored, disillusioned, and hungry. If I had known what was going to happen in sixty seconds, at fourteen minutes to six, my outlook would have been quite different, but I didn’t.
I had been bandied a good deal, though I had not yet been tossed in the coop or even charged. Escorted first to the Tenth Precinct on West Twentieth Street, where Cramer’s office is, I had sat neglected for half an hour, at the end of which I was told that if I wanted to see Inspector Cramer I would have to be taken elsewhere. I had expressed no desire to see Cramer, but I was tired of sitting, and when one in uniform invited me to accompany him I did so. He conveyed me in a taxi to 24 °Centre Street, took me up in an elevator, and gripped my arm on a long walk around halls, winding up at an alcove with a bench, where he told me to sit. He also sat. After a while I asked him who or what we were waiting for.
“Listen, bud,” he demanded aggressively, “do I look like I know much?”
I hedged. “At first sight, no.”
“Right. I don’t know one single thing about anything. So don’t ask me.”
That seemed to settle it, and I sat. People, the assortment you expect and always get at 24 °Centre Street, kept passing by along the corridor, both directions. I was at the point where I was shifting on the hard bench every thirty seconds instead of every two minutes when I saw a captain in uniform marching past and called to him. “Captain!”