The Tylers had not returned by three o’clock, when Jimmy Smith’s call came through.
“Mr. Smith?”
“That’s right.” His voice was in its harsh, irritable register. “Well? Everything settled?”
“It is. Mrs. Tyler is in Charleston arranging matters. There will be no trouble.”
“There better hadn’t be. Get me straight on that.”
“I do. Look, Mr. Smith, the house is no longer under police observation. Why not have our discussion here, and let the principals themselves sit in on it?”
Smith’s reception of this notion was explosive. His tone was thickly vicious with suspicion.
“You look, and get this! I want no part of that joint or that knife-throwing ape or none of them. You, and you alone by yourself, will meet me when and where I tell you to, and you will have the dough.”
You“All right. It
