But in the long run it can't be done.
Those girls of his are bound certain to hook up with something that can't be hushed, especially that little blonde brat.
They ought not to be running around loose.
I blame the old man for that.
I guess he doesn't realize what the world is today.
And there's another thing I might mention while we're talking man to man and I don't have to growl at you.
I'll bet a dollar to a Canadian dime that the General's afraid his son-in-law, the ex-bootlegger, is mixed up in this somewhere, and what he really hoped you would find out is that he isn't.
What do you think of that?"
"Regan didn't sound like a blackmailer, what I heard of him.
He had a soft spot where he was and he walked out on it."
Wilde snorted. "The softness of that spot neither you nor I could judge. If he was a certain sort of man, it would not have been so very soft.
Did the General tell you he was looking for Regan?"
"He told me he wished he knew where he was and that he was all right.
He liked Regan and was hurt the way he bounced off without telling the old man good-by."
Wilde leaned back and frowned.
"I see," he said in a changed voice. His hand moved the stuff on his desk around, laid Geiger's blue notebook to one side and pushed the other exhibits toward me.
"You may as well take these," he said. "I've no further use for them."
19
It was close to eleven when I put my car away and walked around to the front of the Hobart Arms.
The plate-glass door was put on the lock at ten, so I had to get my keys out.
Inside, in the square barren lobby, a man put a green evening paper down beside a potted palm and flicked a cigarette butt into the tub the palm grew in.
He stood up and waved his hat at me and said:
"The boss wants to talk to you.
You sure keep your friends waiting, pal."
I stood still and looked at his flattened nose and club steak ear.
"What about?"
"What do you care?
Just keep your nose clean and everything will be jake." His hand hovered near the upper buttonhole of his open coat.
"I smell of policemen," I said. "I'm too tired to talk, too tired to eat, too tired to think.
But if you think I'm not too tired to take orders from Eddie Mars — try getting your gat out before I shoot your good ear off."
"Nuts.
You ain't got no gun." He stared at me levelly.
His dark wiry brows closed in together and his mouth made a downward curve.
"That was then," I told him.
"I'm not always naked."
He waved his left hand.
"Okey. You win.
I wasn't told to blast anybody.
You'll hear from him."
"Too late will be too soon," I said, and turned slowly as he passed me on his way to the door.
He opened it and went out without looking back.
I grinned at my own foolishness, went along to the elevator and upstairs to the apartment.
I took Carmen's little gun out of my pocket and laughed at it.
Then I cleaned it thoroughly, oiled it, wrapped it in a piece of canton flannel and locked it up.
I made myself a drink and was drinking it when the phone rang.
I sat down beside the table on which it stood.
"So you're tough tonight," Eddie Mars' voice said. "Big, fast, tough and full of prickles.
What can I do for you?"
"Cops over there — you know where.
You keep me out of it?"