“If there were such a thing,” I said, “as a Skee-ball championship, I’m sure you’d hold it, Pete. Want to play a game?”
“For how much a point?” he asked, grinning.
“That depends on what you know.”
“Huh?” he said.
“You know anything about a jade necklace theft up on Park Avenue a little over a week ago?”
He looked at me out of the corners of his eyes. “What kind of things?”
“Anything at all. Even a lead to somebody else who might know something.”
He squinted at the Skee-ball game. “Seems to me I heard of it,” he said. “You want to play?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll bet fifty dollars I can beat you.”
“Okay,” he said. He made a pretense of searching through his pockets. “You got two dimes? I’m in Flatsville.”
I dug two dimes out of my pocket, dropped them in the slots, and released the ba
