Eight
It was still early evening when the plane came down in San Francisco. I took a taxi to the Imperial Hotel and checked in. Jerry Dell was approaching the desk as I went upstairs. I unpacked my things when I got to the room and put them away. Then I slept until evening. I went downstairs and ordered a martini. As I nursed it, I thought about the case.
Now that I was in San Francisco, what the hell was I going to do? Where did you start to pick up a trail that was seven years old? The only thing I could think of was my one contact, Pete Moretti. He’d been in the rackets in New York and he was in trouble with the boys who ran things. I’d bumped into the situation while I was working on a case involving some of the hoods who were after him. I’d saved his life. I remembered hearing that
