I went to Horan and patted him in the likely spots and some unlikely ones. “Okay. Go back up and tend to customers.” Orrie went, and I sang out, “Saul! Take the muzzle off and tie his ankles and come here.”
Horan started for the door of the room. I grabbed his arm and whirled him. He tried to pull away, and I gave him a good twist. “Don’t think I’m not serious,” I told him. “I know what number to call for an ambulance.”
“Yes, it is serious,” he agreed. His thin tenor needed oil. “Serious enough to finish you, Goodwin.”
“Maybe, but right now I’m it, and it has gone to my head, so watch out.” Saul came out. “This is Mr. Saul Panzer. Saul, this is Dennis Horan. We’ll invite him to the conference later, but first I want to make a phone call. Take him over by the far wall. Don’t disfigure him unless he insists on it. He’s not armed.”
I crossed to the room, entered, and shut the door. Fred was seated at the table massaging a finger, and the other two were as before. I pulled the little stand back to its place, picked up the phone and put it on the stand, seated myself, and dialed. This time it took more whirrs to get results, and then only a peevish mutter.
“Archie. I need advice.”
“I’m asleep.”
“Go splash your face with cold water.”
“Good heavens. What is it?”
“As I told you, all four of us are here in a garage. We have two subjects in a room in the basement. One of them is a biped named Mortimer Ervin, who has probably got nothing for us. The other one is called Lips Egan. On his driver’s license his first name is Lawrence. He’s the article that called on Saul at his hotel, and Saul and Orrie tailed him here. He’s a jewel. He had on him a notebook, now in my pocket, with about a thousand names and addresses of customers, and the last entry in it is Leopold Heim, so draw your own conclusions. We stimulated him some, and he claims that Matthew Birch was bossing the racket, but I haven’t bought that. I have bought that he saw Birch in that Cadillac, Tuesday afternoon, with a woman driving. I have not bought that he didn’t recognize her and couldn’t identify her. Nor that—”