The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

“I know you did. Exactly what was your information and where did you get it?”

I shook my head. “You asked me that yesterday and I passed it. I still pass. Our informant doesn’t want to be annoyed.”

“Well, he’s going to be. Who was it and what did he tell you?”

“Nothing doing.” I turned a hand over. “You know damn well this is just a bad habit you’ve got. If something has happened that makes you think I’ve got to tell you who and what, tell me what happened and let’s see if I agree with you. You know how reasonable I am.”

“Yeah, I sure do.” Purley set his jaw and then relaxed it. “At six-forty this afternoon, two hours ago, a car stopped for a red light at the corner of Thirty-fifth Street and Ninth Avenue. A boy with a rag went to it and started wiping a window. He finished that side and started for the other side, and as he was circling in front of the car it suddenly jumped forward and ran over him, and kept going fast, across the avenue and along Thirty-fifth Street. The boy died soon after the ambulance got him to the hospital. The driver was a man, alone in the car. With excitement like that people never see much, but two people, a woman and a boy, agree about the license number, Connecticut YY nine-four-three-two, and the boy says it was a dark gray Cadillac sedan. Well?”

“What was the boy’s name? The one that was killed.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I don’t know. I’m asking.”

“His name was Drossos. Peter Drossos.”

I swallowed. “That’s just fine. The sonofabitch.”

“Who, the boy?”

“No.” I turned to Wolfe. “Do you tell it or do I?”

Wolfe had closed his eyes. He opened them to say, “You,” and closed them again.

I didn’t think it was necessary to tell Stebbins about the domestic crisis that had given me the impulse to take Pete in to Wolfe, but I gave him everything that was relevant, including Pete’s second visit that afternoon. Though for once in his life he was satisfied that he was getting something straight in that office, he asked a lot of questions, and at the end he saw fit to contribute an unfriendly comment to the effect that worthy citizens like Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin might have been expected to show a little more interest in a woman with a gun in her ribs wanting a cop.