In a downtown Owl drug-store I turned to the Berkeley section of the telephone directory, found only one Freemander listed, and called the number. Mrs. Begg was there and consented to see me if I came over on the next ferry.
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Rhino said: "Ain't nobody's business where I got my money. I got it. I got—" He put his cigar on the edge of the table, picked up the money, wet a thumb as big as a heel on a tongue like a bath-mat, and counted his roll bill by bill down on the table. "Twenty—thirty—eighty—hundred—hundred and ten—two hundred and ten—three hundred and ten—three hundred and thirty—three hundred and thirty-five—four hundred and thirty-five—five hundred and thirty-five—five hundred and eighty-five—six hundred and five—six hundred and ten—six hundred and twenty—seven hundred and twenty—seven hundred and seventy—eight hundred and twenty—eight hundred and thirty—eight hundred and forty—nine hundred and forty—nine hundred and sixty—nine hundred and seventy—nine hundred and seventy-five—nine hundred and ninety-five—ten hundred and fifteen—ten hundred and twenty—eleven hundred and twenty—eleven hundred and seventy. Anybody want to know what I got, that's what I got—eleven hundred and seventy dollars. Anybody want to know where I get it, maybe I tell them, maybe I don't. Just depend on how[…]
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"Are you—who make your living snooping—sneering at my curiosity about people and my attempts to satisfy it?"
"We're different," I said. "I do mine with the object of putting people in jail, and I get paid for it, though not as much as I should."
"That's not different," he said. "I do mine with the object of putting people in books, and I get paid for it, though not as much as I should."
"Yeah, but what good does that do?"
"God knows. What good does putting them in jail do?"
"Relieves congestion," I said. "Put enough people in jail, and cities wouldn't have traffic problems. What do you know about this Gabrielle?"
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"Owen, the writer. You know him?"
"Yeah, but I didn't know he was on the coast. We used to drink out of the same bottle. Do you know his address?"
Halstead found it in the telephone book for me, a Nob Hill apartment.
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Her ears, I noticed when she turned, had no lobes, and were queerly pointed at the top.
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It was a long, narrow hand with overdeveloped finger-tips, ugly as most trained hands are.
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He felt in his pocket for cigarettes, bringing out a package mashed limp. "You remember the night the Henry kid was pooped?"
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"Yes. Got an iron I can have? One that'll carry me over country roads tonight?"
Tommy said: "Jesus! Lucky for you you could pick your night. You might've had to go on a bad one. Well, I got a Buick that I don't care what happens to."
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How about a drop of something to cut the phlegm?"
"Why don't you stay sober today?"
"We didn't come to New York to stay sober. Want to see a hockey game tonight?"
"I'd like to." She poured me a drink and went to order breakfast.
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Nora was eating a piece of cold duck with one hand and working on a jig-saw puzzle with the other when I got home.
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"Oh, I didn't expect to like it. I just wanted to know about it. I don't like things that dull my mind. That's why I don't very often drink, or even smoke. I want to try cocaine, though, because that's supposed to sharpen the brain, isn't it?"
"It's supposed to.
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