The League of Frightened Men

"I don't relieve Johnny until nine. 141 be there." Durkin grabbed his hat by the brim, squinted for an aim, tossed it at the back of my chair again, and missed it by a mile. He grunted with disgust. "Listen here, Archie. It's a washout." r "What's the matter with it?"

"Well, you put three of us on this to cover him twenty-four hours a day. When Wolfe spends money like that, that shows it's important. He really wants this bird's program. Also, you told us to use taxis all we needed to, and so on. Well it's a washout. Chapin lives in an apartment house at 203 Perry Street with six floors and an elevator. He's on the fifth. The house has a big court in the back, with a couple of trees and some shrubs, and in the spring it's full of tulips. The elevator boy told me three thousand tulips. But the idea is that there's another house on the court, facing on Eleventh Street, built by the same landlord, and so what? Anybody that wants to can go out of the Perry Street house the back way instead of the front. They can cross the court and go through a passage and come out on Eleventh Street. Of course they could get back in the same way if they felt like it.

So parked in a cigar store the other side of Perry Street with my eye fastened on 203, I feel about as useful as if I was watching one of the tunnel exits at the Yankee 1 Stadium for a woman in a dark hat. Not that I've got any kick coming, my only | trouble is my honest streak. I just wanted to see Wolfe and tell him what he's paying me money for."

"You could have phoned him last night." "I could not. I got lit last night. This is the first job I've had in a month."

"Got any expense money left?"

"Enough for a couple of days. I've learned self-control."

"Okay." I picked his hat up and put it on my desk. "That's a nice picture you've got down there. It's no good. It looks to me like there's no way out of it but three more men for Eleventh Street. That would be buying it, six tails for one cripple and "

"Wait a minute." Fred waved a hand at me. "That's not all of it. The other trouble is that the traffic cop at the corner is going to run us in. For blocking the street. There's too many of us, all after that' cripple. There's a city feller there, I guess from the Homicide Squad, I don't recognize him, and a little guy with a brown cap and a pink necktie that must be one of Bascom's men, I don't recognize him either. But get this, for example.