“I’m the private dick whose twenty-one-year-old partner got shot in the head last night.”

Now the fear was edging out the hate; he knew he might die in this dark stairwell.

“I know you were here with Rooney and Berry and the broad, last night, serving up drinks as late as two in the morning,” I said. “Now you’re going to tell me the whole story-or you’re the one who’s getting tossed down the fucking stairs.”

He was trembling, now; a big hulk of a man trembling with fear. “I didn’t have anything to do with the murder. Not a damn thing!”

“Then why cover for Rooney and the rest?”

“You saw what they’re capable of!”

“Take it easy, Alex. Just tell the story.”

Rooney had come into the office about noon the day of the shooting; he had started drinking and never stopped. Berry and several other union “officers” arrived and angry discussions about being under surveillance by the State’s Attorney’s cops were accompanied by a lot more drinking.

“The other guys left around five, but Rooney and Berry, they just hung around drinking all evening. Around midnight, Rooney handed me a phone number he jotted on a matchbook, and gave it to me to call for him. It was a Berwyn number. A woman answered. I handed him the phone and he said to her, ‘Bring one.’”

“One what?” I asked.

“I’m gettin’ to that. She showed up around one o’clock-good-looking dame with black hair and eyes so dark they coulda been black, too.”

“Who was she?”

“I don’t know. Never saw her before. She took a gun out of her purse and gave it to Rooney.”

“That was what he asked her to bring.”

“I guess. It was a .38 revolver, a Colt I think. Anyway, Rooney and Berry were both pretty drunk; I don’t know what her excuse was. So Rooney takes the gun and says, ‘We got a job to pull at Goldblatt’s. We’re gonna throw some slugs at the windows and watchmen.’”

“How did the girl react?”