“I said to watch yourself,” he said softly. “I don’t like people that talk too much.”
“I guess,” I interrupted slowly, “that it may be time for me to do some talking.”
“Talk all you want to; but you stand the gaff, and don’t forget that, Peewee!”
The look he threw over his shoulder, as he walked out, left no doubt about what he meant. O’Reilly’s body relaxed slightly, but his face remained set and strained.
“I’ve always thought,” he said slowly, “that there weren’t many bozos in the world I’d hate to have as an enemy as much as I would Ralph. And now the wad is shot, Slim. I guess I’m in for it. But what the hell? The fact that I’ve talked to you will be the last straw, as far as he’s concerned. Shirley or no Shirley, he’s doing a lot of low and lofty thinking right now. And he’ll have a way figured to get even with me, if it takes a year, without hurting himself. Three days from now should be interesting, what? Ho-ho-ho! The skeletons’ll be out doing a song and dance for all McMullen to watch, eh?”
Now that the die was cast, Penoch was himself again, daring the world to do its worst. Indomitable, hard-boiled, soft-hearted, he flung his loud, raucous laughter in Kennedy’s face, so to speak, challenging him and the universe in general to get him down.
“Why couldn’t you have talked quietly to Shirley,” I asked him.
“Tried to,” he boomed absently. “She wouldn’t even listen. She’s nuts, I tell you, and the old man likes him. He’s given them a long song and dance about his automobile business in Los Angeles, and all that stuff. If I went to the old man and told him, there’d be hell to pay; the truth would come out that I had peached on him, and then my neck would be chopped neatly. Whichever way it’s done, there’ll be the same result when I expose him. I’m sunk myself.”
“Right now,” I ruminated, “he may not be satisfied with just smearing your reputation and having you tried for that mine salting business, at that. Struck me he’d love to throttle you.”
“I guess he would,” Penoch said calmly. “He served five years for manslaughter in Virginia once.”