“Nope.”
Duff paid and went out into the night to begin a long walk to the nearest bus stop…
When, on the following afternoon, Eleanor took up the attempt to persuade Duff to see the FBI, he told her of his efforts. It was her afternoon to iron and his day to air and turn the mattresses. So their talk was conducted at intervals when he passed through the kitchen with his loads and while she continued to press clothes she had washed, with Marian’s help, on the day before. It made for a rather incoherent discussion.
“In other words,” she finally summed up, “either you don’t think much of my idea or else you’re too stuck-up to take a chance on annoying the G-men?”
He had three sun-warm pillows in each hand. He flung them up the back stairway. “I need something more before I bother the FBI.”
“Wasn’t seeing Harry meet that big man enough?”
“It’ll have to be enough,” he answered, “if it turns out to be all I can get.”
“What in the world did you think you’d find at Miami-Dade that you couldn’t find out just by idly asking Harry?”
He laughed — at himself. “Dunno. Whether there was a big guy working there, for one thing. Wasn’t.”
“Which means practically nothing.”