the line of duty?”
“In the line of duty.”
I thought about it a moment.
“I’d be delighted.”
“Fine. Around nine then, Mr. Phelan.”
I thought of Jocko and the appointment.
“I’ll be a little late. Maybe ten-thirty.”
Her voice lost its pleasantness. “If that’s the best you can do.”
“It is. I’m a working man.”
“You’re working for me, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
I could hear her fingers drumming against the receiver; the noise rebounded against my ears.
“No one need know about—”
“Of course not, Miss Harding.”
“You are discreet, Mr. Phelan?”
“Always.”
The telephone was dead, quite suddenly. She seemed to have a habit of ending things that way. I walked across the room, closing the door. The night promised to be a long one. I decided to catch forty winks.
The thing kept pushing at my shoulders. I tried to resist it, but it wouldn’t go away. I opened my eyes. A face stood above me and a voice said something. The face was fuzzy. I reached over to the table by my bed, putting on my glasses.
The face took form and I recognized it. I swung up to a sitting position and recognized the other face, too. The faces belonged to Adam Wheeler, a detective-lieutenant in Homicide and a very intelligent cop, and to Hap Rossi, one step lower in rank and five steps lower in intelligence. Rossi was the one who had been pushing at me.
“Gents,” I said, rising to my feet.
Wheeler didn’t smile at me. He sat in a straight-backed chair by the window, cleaning his fingernails. Rossi glared at me from his tiny brown eyes—but, then, he always glared at me. He didn’t like me and made no bones about it.
I walked into the kitchen, rinsed out a dirty glass, took a long drink of cold water, and came back into the other room.
“Been sleeping long, Johnny?” Wheeler asked.
I looked at the clock on the dresser. It said 8:20.
“Not long enough,” I said.
“How long, Phelan?”
Rossi’s bulk moved in front of me. His face was broad and dark and his head was rimmed with fuzzy black hair and quite bald in the middle. He was an ugly brute.
“Whoever gave you the name Hap?” I asked.
“Don’t be a wise guy,” he said.
His right hand tightened into a fist. He wouldn’t need much to set him off.
I said, “Why all the build-up? What do you characters want?”
“How long, Johnny?”
I turned to Wheeler. “I don’t know, Adam. I guess I lay down about five-thirty. Something like that.”
“You sure, Phelan?” Rossi’s face moved close to mine. He smelled of garlic. “You absolutely sure?”
I moved away from him, taking my pants from the back of a chair, putting them on. Rossi’s huge hand dug into my shoulder, twisting me around. I slapped his hand away.
“Take it easy, Hap,” said Wheeler.
“He ain’t no friend of mine,” said Rossi.
“Drop dead,” I said.
“All right, all right, you two,” said Wheeler. He rose to his feet, his frame casting a long shadow across the room.
“What in hell’s going on here?” I asked.
“You tell us, wise guy,” said Rossi.
Wheeler asked: “You own a fifty-two Dodge?”
“You know I do.”
“Where is it?”
“The last time I saw it, it was parked right around the corner.” I tried to smile. “It isn’t hot, Adam.”
“Cut the comedy,” said Rossi.
“When’s the last time you saw Jocko Quinn?”
I looked at Adam and he looked at me.
“Come on, Johnny,” said Wheeler. “This is serious. When’s the last time you saw him?”
I shrugged.
“This afternoon.”
“What time this afternoon?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have the habit of timing my movements.”
“Johnny,” Wheeler’s voice was tired.
“Just before I came home,” I said. “Maybe four forty-five, maybe five o’clock. I’m not sure of the time.”
“What did he want?”
I hesitated. Rossi began moving about the room, opening drawers, looking through them.
“What’s that ape doing?” I asked.
“Cut it out, Hap,” said Wheeler.
Rossi glared at both of us, but he stopped his search.
“You didn’t answer that last question, Johnny.”
“I’ve got a client, Adam.”
“And I’ve got a murder, Johnny.”
It hit me. Two and two made four. Jocko Quinn had tried to play it too big. He had said he couldn’t handle it alone. I wondered if whoever had been tailing him had seen him with me. I hoped not.
“Jocko Quinn?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
Rossi made guttural noises at me. Wheeler stared him down.
“Hap,” he said, “you’d better check the rest of the neighborhood. See if anyone happened to see anything.”
Rossi was unhappy with the assignment. He would much rather have played blood-in-the-gutter with me. He slammed the door on his way out.
I offered a cigarette to Wheeler. He shook his head. I lit
