1
The Giant Has Fleas
By Carroll John Daly
It was a detective's stubbornness that made big Joe Fenton, racketeer, and it was a detective's stubbornness that broke him.
Detective Story Magazine, February 1947
The big man lounged back in his chair and slowly lifted his feet to the smooth surface of the large desk. He took the cigar out of his mouth and shook the ashes deliberately onto the softness of the thick rug. Then he said to Detective Eddie Blair:
"The trouble with you, Ed, is that you always have a plan. You observe so much, you study so much, you exercise so much, and damned if you don't even go listen to lectures. You miss the main point in life--you can use yourself only so far. You must learn to use others."
"Like the Gavin girl you killed?" Detective Blair asked, without rancor or vindictiveness.
The big man put the cigar back into his mouth and studied Blair. There wasn't quite two years difference in their ages and yet he might have been ten, fifteen years older than the detective.
"Let us," he said, "for the point of argument, admit all the things you think you know about me to be true." And with a smile: "From your own list, that is plenty. But it only establishes my point. You have too much personal knowledge. And knowledge, as you know, is not evidence, and personal knowledge is not even knowledge." The big man licked his lips on that one. He liked the sound of it. "I used to hate you, Ed, until I got thinking that probably I owe you everything I have in life." And with a grin: "And so does the Gavin girl, for that matter."
"And Ben Fitsgerald and old Jacob Swartz and--"
"Yes, yes," the b