They were, of course, the shoes and feet of the man I had seen outside the precinct station on Monday. Which meant that the big man had been watching me three days. That figured, because he had known that I frequented Packy’s Pub, or he could not have been in the alley where he had been. He had probably made the silent call, too. All I had out of it was a cut lip that oozed blood, but I wanted to know who the man was.

‘A big guy,’ I said to Joe and Packy Wilson. ‘Blond or going grey. It was dark. A square face, big and flabby, with jowls and small eyes. A good enough suit, and some kind of accent. He wears small shoes for such a big man. The pair he had on were pointed, two-toned brown and beige. He needed spats.’

Joe thought hard. Joe has worked in most of the saloons in Chelsea, and he drinks in most of the others.

‘I don’t place him,’ Joe said. ‘He don’t drink around here.’

‘If he’s who I think,’ Packy Wilson said, ‘he drinks in the good places. The clubs over in the Village and Little Italy. Maybe the Fifth Avenue places and even uptown.’

‘Has he got a name,’ I said, ‘or do I have to guess?’

‘Olsen,’ Packy said. ‘Lars Olsen. They call him Swede.’

I did not need a sworn statement to know that the big man was Jo-Jo Olsen’s father. It made me think. There is a big difference between telling a friend like Pete Vitanza to mind his own business and trying to stop me asking questions about Jo-Jo by using his fists on my skull. It is a matter of degree, of importance. Swede Olsen really didn’t want anyone nosing around after Jo-Jo. Why?

‘Lend me your gun,’ I said to Joe.

I don’t carry a gun. It’s too dangerous. When you carry a gun you get to depend on it too much. Sooner or later you will use it. A man with a gun is a marked man. I’m a fair shot, but I don’t want to prove it and find out the hard way that the other man is better. A gun ruins the brains. But sometimes it can be a needed convincer. Olsen had already jumped me once.