Then, one night during supper, he changed the subject, which was a popular and interminable one: the kidding of Eleanor about her various dates by her younger brother and sister, who were particularly diverted by the salmon-pink convertible of a Mr. Prescott Smythe, of Omega fraternity.
“Don’t be surprised,” Harry interrupted abruptly, “if the Gestapo calls on me.”
Duff felt the beginning of a start, and repressed it. He wondered quickly, too, if any man who had reason to fear the FBI would refer to the bureau in so insulting a term. It was evidence that Harry had no reason for worry.
Mrs. Yates was saying, “Gestapo?”
Eleanor said calmly, “He means the FBI. You been kidnapping people, or something, Harry?”
The star boarder grinned and then frowned. “Everybody at the plant”—it was his word for the trucking company that employed him—“is being processed. Supposed to keep it to themselves. But you know how fellows talk.”
“Processed?” The term was unfamiliar to Mrs. Yates.
Harry stirred his coffee. “Checked. Questioned. There’s been some fancy counterfeiting going on. A few guys on the lam. Unlawful flight, the Gestapo men call it.
And they’re looking for counterfeiting plates that have eased out of the state they were used in. A big trucking company, like Miami-Dade, is always being suspected of doing something against the law.”
In the person of Mr. Higgins and an assistant, the “Gestapo” called that night.