The boy, not taking his eyes from Spade, spoke in a choked voice out the side of his mouth:
"Make him lay off me then.
I'm going to fog him if he keeps it up and there won't be anything that'll stop me from doing it."
"Now, Wilmer," Gutman said and turned to Spade. His face and voice were under control now.
"Your plan is, sir, as I said in the first place, not at all practical.
Let's not say anything more about it."
Spade looked from one of them to the other.
He had stopped smiling. His face held no expression at all.
"I say what I please," he told them.
"You certainly do," Gutman said quickly, "and that's one of the things I've always admired in you.
But this matter is, as I say, not at all practical, so there's not the least bit of use of discussing it any further, as you can see for yourself."
"I can't see it for myself," Spade said, "and you haven't made me see it, and I don't think you can."
He frowned at Gutman.
"Let's get this straight.
Am I wasting time talking to you?
I thought this was your show.
Should I do my talking to the punk?
I know how to do that."
"No, sir," Gutman replied, "you're quite right in dealing with me."
Spade said: "All right.
Now I've got another suggestion.
It's not as good as the first, but it's better ti-ian nothing.
Want to hear it?"
"Most assuredly."
"Give them Cairo."
Cairo hastily picked up his pistol from the table beside him.
He held it tight in his lap with both hands, Its muzzle pointed at the floor a little to one side of the sofa.
His face had become yeBowish again.
His black eyes darted their gaze from face to face.
The opaqueness of his eyes made them seem flat, two-dimensional.
Gutman, looking as if he could not believe he had heard what he had heard, asked:
"Do what?"
"Give the police Cairo."
Gutman seemed about to laugh, but he did not laugh.
Finally he exclaimed:
"Well, by Gad, sir!" in an uncertain tone.
"It's not as good as giving them the punk," Spade said.
"Cairo's not a gunman and he carries a smaller gun than Thursby and Jacobi w'ere shot with.
'We'll have to go to more trouble framing him, but that's better than not giving the police anybody."
Cairo cried in a voice shrill with indignation:
"Suppose we give them you, Mr. Spade, or Miss O'Shaughnessy? How' about that if you're so set on giving them somebody?"
Spade smiled at the Levantine and answered him evenly:
"You people want the falcon.
I've got it.
A fall-guy is part of the price I'm asking.
As for Miss O'Shaughnessy"—his dispassionate glance moved to her white perplexed face and then back to Cairo and his shoulders rose and fell a fraction of an inch—"if you think si-ic can be rigged for the part I'm perfectly willing to discuss it w'ith you."
The girl put her hands to her throat, uttered a short strangled cry, and moved farther away from him.
Cairo, his face and body twitching with excitement, exclaimed:
"You seem to forget that you are not in a position to insist on anything."
Spade laughed, a harsh-i derisive snort.