ling time and having a coke and some conversation before going
upstairs to the grimly reproachful surroundings of my too neglected
office.

Mike Harrigan was the only one behind the counter, and I was the only
one on the customer side.

Mike was red headed and freckle necked, a massive chap with a blarney
smile and a baby face. He's been in the "cigar store" bookie racket
ever since repeal had closed a speakeasy he'd had on Grand Avenue.
This morning, however, he was glaring glumly down at a newspaper
spread before him atop the glass cigar counter, and scarcely nodded to
half my conversational sallies.

"What's eating you, Mike?" I finally demanded. "That ulcer getting
well in spite of you?"

Mike ignored the crack. But he looked up from his reading and jabbed a
big red freckled thumb down on a column of print in the paper before
him.

"That State's Attorney!" Mike snorted indignantly. "He's gonna go too
far pretty damn soon!"

"What now?" I grinned. Mike was always indignant over the efforts of
the State's Attorney to "ruin an honest man's business" with his
crack-downs on small-time handbooks throughout the city. "What's his
latest move in the battle against Mike Harrigan?"

"This here story in the paper," Mike declared, "says how the State's
Attorney's office is starting to investigate the lists of the
telephone company in order to track down any phones used by us
bookmakers in our business. It's illegal!" He concluded with the
virtuous snort of an indignant taxpayer shocked by the violation of
law, smacking his big red-knuckled hand on the counter top to
emphasize his disturbance.

"Aha!" I said. "In other words the State's Attorney's office is going
to find their way into this handbook of yours by the direct approach,
eh? It'll take time for them, won't it, to go over the entire
telephone lists?"

"You never can tell," Mike predicted gloomily. "They might nail us
all," he snapped his big fingers, "like that."

I glanced over at the telephone booth in the corner of the store. Its
folding door was open, and the ever-present "Out Of Order" sign was
suspended from a cord around the mouthpiece. Over that phone Mike and
Mort conducted the bulk of their horse booking business. Through it
they kept in touch with a central gambling syndicate service which
provided day-long racing results, odds and other essential data to
numerous other such small establishments around the city. Through it,
also, they took in