XII. CROOKS Vs. CROOKS
It was not far. Shluker, hastening along, still muttering to himself,turned into a cross street some two blocks away, and from there againinto a lane; and, a moment later, led the way through a small doorin the fence that hung, battered and half open, on sagging and brokenhinges. Rhoda Gray's eyes traveled sharply around her in all directions.It was still light enough to see fairly well, and she might at somefuture time find the bearings she took now to be of inestimable worth.Not that there was much to remark! They crossed a diminutive anddisgustingly dirty backyard, whose sole reason for existence seemed tobe that of a receptacle for old tin cans, and were confronted by therear of what appeared to be a four-story tenement. There was a back doorhere, and, on the right of the door, fronting the yard, a single windowthat was some four or five feet from the level of the ground.
Shluker, without hesitation, opened the back door, shut it behind them,led the way along a black, unlighted hall, and halting before a doorwell toward the front of the building, knocked softly upon it--givingtwo raps, a single rap, and then two more in quick succession. Therewas no answer. He knocked again in precisely the same manner, and thena footstep sounded from within, and the door was flung open. "Fools!"growled Shluker in greeting, as they stepped inside and the door wasclosed again. "A pair of brainless fools!"
There were two men there. They paid Shluker scant attention. They bothgrinned at Rhoda Gray through the murky light supplied by a wheezy andwholly inadequate gas-jet.
"Hello, Nan!" gibed the smaller of the two. "Who let you out?"
"Aw, forget it!" croaked Rhoda Gray.
Shluker took up the cudgels.
"You close your face, Pinkie!" he snapped. "Get down to cases! Do youthink I got nothing else to do but chase you two around like a coupleof puppy dogs that haven't got sense enough to take care of themselves?Wasn't what I told you over the phone enough without me havin' to comehere?"
"Nix on that stuff!" returned the one designated as Pinkieimperturbably. "Say, you'll be glad you come when we lets you in ona little piece of easy money. We ain't askin' your advice; all we'reaskin' you to do is frame up the alibi, same as usual, for me an' thePug here in case we wants it."
Shluker shook his fist.
"Frame nothing!" he spluttered angrily. "Ain't I tellin' you that theorders are not to make a move, that everything is off for a few days?That's the word I got a little while ago, and the Seven-Three-Nine isgoin' out now. Nan'll tell you the same thing."
"Sure!" corroborated Rhoda Gray, picking up the obvious cue. "Dat's destraight goods."
The two men were lounging beside a table that stood at the extreme endof the room, and now for a moment they whispered together. And, as theywhispered, Rhoda Gray found her first opportunity to take critical stockboth of her surroundings and of the two men themselves. Pinkie, a short,slight little man, she dismissed with hardly a glance; he was the commontype, with low, vicious cunning stamped all over his face--an ordinaryrat of the underworld. But her glance rested longer on his companion.The Pug was indeed entitled to his moniker! His face made her think ofone. It seemed to be all screwed up out of shape. Perhaps the eye-patchover the right eye helped a little to put the finishing touch ofrepulsiveness upon a countenance already most unpleasant. The celluloideye-patch, once flesh-colored, was now so dirty and smeared that itsoriginal color was discernible only in spots, and the once white elasticcord that circled his head and kept the patch in place was in equaldisrepute. A battered slouch hat came to the level of the eye-patch ina forbidding sort of tilt. His left eyelid drooped until it was scarcelyopen at all, and fluttered continually. One nostril of his nose wasentirely closed; and his mouth seemed to be twisted out of shape, sothat, even when in repose, the lips never entirely met at one corner.And his ears, what she could see of them in the poor light, and onaccount of the slouch hat, seemed to bear out the low-type criminalimpression the man gave her, in that they lay flat back against hishead.
She turned her eyes away with a little shudder of repulsion, and gaveher attention to an inspection of the room. There was no window,except a small one high up in the right-hand partition wall. She quiteunderstood what that meant. It was common enough, and all too unsanitaryenough, in these old and cheap tenements; the window gave, not on theout-of-doors, but on a light-well. For the rest, it was a room shehad seen a thousand times before--carpetless, unfurnished save for thebarest necessities, dirt everywhere, unkempt.
Pinkie Bonn broke in abruptly upon her inspection.
"That's all right!" he announced airily. "We'll let Nan in on it, too.The Pug an' me figures she can give us a hand."
Shluker's wizened little face seemed suddenly to go purple.
"Are you tryin' to make a fool of me?" he half screamed. "Or can't youunderstand English? D'ye want me to keep on tellin' you till I'm hoarsethat there ain't nobody goin' in with you, because you am't goin' inyourself! See? Understand that? There's nothing doin' to-night foranybody--and that means you!"
"Aw, shut up, Shluker!" It was the Pug now, a curious whisperingsibilancy in his voice, due no doubt to the disfigurement of his lips."Give Pinkie a chance to shoot his spiel before youse injure yerselfthrowin' a fit! Go on, Pinkie, spill it."
"Sure!" said Pinkie eagerly. "Listen, Shluk! It ain't any crib we'rewantin' to crack, or nothin' like that. It's just a couple of crooksthat won't dare open their yaps to the bulls, 'cause what we're after'll be what they'll have pinched themselves. See?"
Shluker's face lost some of its belligerency, and in its place a dawninginterest came.
"What's that?" he demanded cautiously. "What crooks?"
"French Pete an' Marny Day," said Pinkie--and grinned.
"Oh!" Shluker's eyebrows went up. He looked at the Pug, and the Pugwinked knowingly with his half-closed left eyelid. Shluker reached outfor a chair, and, finding it suspiciously wobbly, straddled it warily."Mabbe I've been in wrong," he admitted. "What's the lay?"
"Me," said Pinkie, "I was down to Charlie's this afternoon havin' alittle lay-off, an'--"
"One of these days," interrupted Shluker sharply, "you'll go outlike"--he snapped his fingers--"that!" "Can't you leave the stuffalone?"
"I got to have me bit of coke," Pinkie answered, with a shrug of hisshoulders. "An', anyway, I'm no pipe-hitter.
"It's all the same whatever way you take it!" retorted Shluker. "Well,go on with your story. You went down to Charlie's dope parlors, andjabbed a needle into yourself, or took it some other old way. I get you!What happened then?"
"It was about an hour ago," resumed Pinkie Bonn with undisturbedcomplacency. "Just as I was beatin' it out of there by the cellar, Ihears some whisperin' as I was passin' one of the end doors. Savvy? Ihadn't made no noise, an' they hadn't heard me. I gets a peek in, 'causethe door's cracked. It was French Pete an' Marny Day. I listens. An'after about two seconds I was goin' shaky for fear some one would comealong an' I wouldn't get the whole of it. Take it from me, Shluk, it wassome goods!"
Shluker grunted noncommittingly.
"Well, go on!" he prompted.
"I didn't get all the fine points," grinned Pinkie; "but I got enough.There was a guy by the name of Dainey who used to live somewhere on theEast Side here, an' he used to work in some sweat-shop, an' he workedtill he got pretty old, an' then his lungs, or something, went bad onhim, an' he went broke. An' the doctor said he had to beat it out ofhere to a more salubrious climate. Some nut filled his ear full 'boutgold huntin' up in Alaska, an' he fell for it. He chewed it over withhis wife, an' she was for it too, 'cause the doctor 'd told her her oldman would bump off if he stuck around here, an' they hadn't any moneyto get away together. She figured she could get along workin' out by theday till he came back a millionaire; an' old Dainey started off.
"I dunno how he got there. I'm just fillin' in what I hears French Petean' Marny talkin' about. I guess mostly he beat his way there ridin' therods; but, anyway, he got there. See? An' then he goes down sick thereagain, an' a hospital, or some outfit,
has to take care of him for acouple of years; an' back here the old woman got kind of feeble an' onher uppers, an there was hell to pay, an'--"
"Wot's bitin' youse, Nan?" The Pug's lisping whisper broke sharply inupon Pinkie Bonn's story.
Rhoda Gray started. She was conscious now that she had been leaningforward, staring in a startled way at Pinkie as he talked; conscious nowthat for a moment she had forgotten--that she was Gypsy Nan. But she wasmistress of herself on the instant, and she scowled blackly at the Pug.
"Mabbe it's me soft heart dat's touched!" she flung out acidly. "Youseclose yer trap, an' let Pinkie talk!"
"Yes, shut up!" said Pinkie. "What was I sayin'? Oh, yes! An' then theold guy makes a strike. Can you beat it! I dunno nothing about the waythey pull them things, but he's off by his lonesome out somewhere, an'he finds gold, an' stakes out his claim, but he takes sick again an'can't work it, an' it's all he can do to get back alive to civilization.He keeps his mouth shut for a while, figurin' he'll get strong again,but it ain't no good, an' he gets a letter from the old woman tellin'how bad she is, an' then he shows some of the stuff he'd found. Afterthat there's nothing to it! Everybody's beatin' it for the place; but,at that, old Dainey comes out of it all right, an' goes crazy with joy'cause some guy offers him twenty-five thousand bucks for his claim, an'throws in the expenses home for good luck. He gets the money in cash,twenty-five one-thousand-dollar bills, an' the chicken feed for theexpenses, an' starts for back here an' the old woman. But this time hedon't keep his mouth shut about it when he'd have been better off if hehad. See? He was tellin' about it on the train. I guess he was tellin'about it all the way across. But, anyway, he tells about it comm' fromPhilly this afternoon, an' French Pete an' Marny Day happens to be onthe train, an' they hears it, an' frames it up to annex the coin beforemorning, 'cause he's got in too late to get the money into any bankto-day."
Pinkie Bonn paused, and stuck his tongue significantly in his cheek.
Shluker was rubbing his hands together now in a sort of unctuous way.
"It sounds pretty good," he murmured; "only there's Danglar--"
"Youse leave Danglar to me!" broke in the Pug. "As soon as we hands oneto dem two boobs an' gets de cash, Pinkie can beat it back here wid decoin an wait fer me while I finds Danglar an' squares it wid him. Heain't goin' to put up no holler at dat. We ain't runnin' de gang intonothin'. Dis is private business--see? So youse just take a sneak widyerself, an' fix a nice little alibi fer us so's we won't be takin' anychances."
Shluker frowned.
"But what's the good of that?" he demurred. "French Pete and Marny Day'll see you anyway."
"Will dey!" scoffed the Pug. "Guess once more! A coupla handkerchiefsover our mugs is good enough fer dem, if youse holds yer end up. An' deywouldn't talk fer publication, anyway, would dey?"
Shluker smiled now-almost ingratiatingly.
"And how much is my end worth?" he inquired softly.
"One of dem thousand-dollar engravin's," stated the Pug promptly. "An'Pinkie'll run around an' slip it to youse before mornin'."
"All right," said Shluker, after a moment. "It's half past eight now.From nine o'clock on, you can beat any jury in New York to it that youwere both at the same old place--as long as you keep decently undercover. That'll do, won't it? I'll fix it. But I don't see--"
Rhoda Gray, as Gypsy Nan, for the first time projected herself into thediscussion. She cackled suddenly in jeering mirth.
"I t'ought something was wrong wid her!" whispered the Pug with mockanxiety. "Mabbe she ain't well! Tell us about it, Nan!"
"When I do," she said complacently, "mabbe youse'll smile out of deother corner of dat mouth of yers!" She turned to Shluker. "Youseneedn't lay awake waitin' fer dat thousand, Shluker, 'cause youse'llnever see it. De little game's all off--'cause it's already been pulled.See? Dere was near a riot as I passes along a street goin' to yer place,an' I gets piped off to wot's up, an' it's de same story dat Pinkie'stold, an' de crib's cracked, an' de money's gone--dat's all."
Shluker's face fell.
"I said you were fools when I first came in here!" he burst outsuddenly, wheeling on Pinkie Bonn and the Pug. "I'm sure of it now. Iwas wonderin a minute ago how you were goin' to keep your lamps on Peteand Marny from here, or know when they were goin' to pull their stunt,or where to find 'em."
Pinkie Bonn, ignoring Shluker, leaned toward Rhoda Gray.
"Say, Nan, is that straight?" he inquired anxiously. "You sure?"
"Sure, I'm sure!" Rhoda Gray asserted tersely. The one thought in herhead now was that her information would naturally deprive these men hereof any further interest in the matter, and that she would get away asquickly as possible, and, in some way or other, see that the police weretipped off to the fact that it was French Pete and Marny Day who hadtaken the old couple's money. Those two old faces rose before her againnow--blotting out most curiously the face of Pinkie Bonn just in frontof her. She felt strangely glad--glad that she had heard all of oldDainey's story, because she could see now an ending to it other thanthe miserable, hopeless one of despair that she had read in the Daineys'faces just a little while ago. "Sure, I'm sure!" she repeated withfinality.
"How long ago was it?" prodded Pinkie.
"I dunno," she answered. "I just went to Shluker's, an' den we comesover here. Youse can figure it fer yerself."
And then Rhoda Gray stared at the other--with sudden misgiving. PinkieBonn's face was suddenly wreathed in smiles.
"I'll answer you now, Shluk," he grinned. "What do you think? Thatwe're nuts, me an' Pug? Well, forget it! We didn't have to stick aroundwatchin' Pete an' Marny; we just had to wait until they had collectedthe dough. That was the most trouble we had--wonderin' when thatwould be. Well, we don't have to wonder any more. We know now that thecherries are ripe. See? An' now we'll go an' pick 'em! Where? Where d'yesuppose? Down to Charlie's, of course! I hears 'em talkin' about that,too. They ain't so foolish! They're out for an alibi themselves. Get theidea? They was to sneak out of Charlie's without anybody seem' 'em,an' if everything broke right for 'em, they was to sneak back again an'spend the night there. No, they ain't so foolish--I guess they ain't!There ain't no place in New York you can get in an' out of withoutnobody knowin' it like Charlie's, if you know the way, an--"
"Aw, write de rest of it down in yer memoirs!" interposed the Pugimpatiently--and moved toward the door. "It's all right, Shluker--allde way. Now, everybody beat it, an' get on de job. Nan, youse sticks widPinkie an' me."
Rhoda Gray, her mind in confusion, found herself being crowded hurriedlythrough the doorway by the three men. Still in a mentally confusedcondition, she found herself, a few minutes later--Shluker having partedcompany with them--walking along the street between Pinkie Bonn andthe Pug. She was fighting desperately to obtain a rip upon herself. Theinformation she had volunteered had had an effect diametrically oppositeto that which she had intended. She seemed terribly impotent; as thoughshe were being swept from her feet and borne onward by some swift andremorseless current, whether she would or no.
The Pug, in his curious whisper, was talking to her: "Pinkie knows deway in. We don't want any row in dere, on account of Charlie. We ain'tfer puttin' his place on de rough, an' gettin' him raided by de bulls.Charlie's all to de good. See? Well, dat's wot 'd likely happen ifme an' Pinkie busts in on Pete an' Marny widout sendin' in ourvisitin'-cards first, polite-like. Dey would pull deir guns, an' thoughwe'd get de coin just de same, dere'd be hell to pay fer Charlie, an' dewhole place 'd go up in fireworks right off de bat. Well, dis is whereyouse come in. Youse are de visitin'-card. Youse gets into deir bunkroom, pretendin' youse have made a mistake, an' youse leaves de dooropen behind youse. Dey don't know youse, an', bein' a woman, dey won'tpull no gun on youse. An' den youse breaks it gently to dem dat dere'sa coupla gents outside, an' just about den dey looks up an' sees me an'Pinkie an' our guns-an' I guess dat's all. Get it?"
"Sure!" mumbled Rhoda Gray.
The Pug talked on. She did not hear him. It s
eemed as though her brainached literally with an acute physical pain. What was she to do? Whatcould she do? She must do something! There must be some way to saveherself from being drawn into the very center of this vortex towardwhich she was being swept closer with every second that passed. Thosetwo old faces, haggard in their despair and misery, rose before heragain. She felt her heart sink. She had counted, only a few momentsbefore, on getting their money back for them--through the police. Thepolice! How could she get any word to the police now, without firstgetting away from these two men here? And suppose she did get away,and found some means of communicating with the authorities, it would bePinkie Bonn here, and the Pug, who would fall into the meshes of the lawquite as much as would French Pete and Marny Day; and to have Pinkie andthe Pug apprehended now, just as they seemed to be opening the gatewayfor her into the inner secrets of the gang, meant ruin to her own hopesand plans. And to refuse to go on with them now, as one of them, wouldcertainly excite their suspicions--and suspicion of Gypsy Nan was theend of everything for her.
Her hands, under her shawl, clenched until the nails bit into her palms.Couldn't she do anything? And there was the money, too, for those twoold people. Wasn't there any--She caught her breath. Yes, yes! Perhapsthere was a way to save the money; yes, and at the same time to placeherself on a firmer footing of intimacy with these two men here--if shewent on with this. But--She shook her head. She could not afford "buts"now; they must take care of themselves afterwards. She would play GypsyNan now without reservation. These two men here, like Shluker, wereobviously ignorant that Gypsy Nan was Danglar's wife; so she was--PinkieBonn's hand was on her arm. She had stumbled.
"Look out for yourself!" he cautioned under his breath. "Don't make asound!"
They had drawn into a very dark and narrow area way between twobuildings, and now Pinkie kept his touch upon her as he led the wayalong. What was this "Charlie's"? She did not know, except that,from what had been said, it was a drug dive of some kind, patronizedextensively by the denizens of the underworld. She did not know whereshe was now, save that she had suddenly left one of the out-of-the--wayEast Side streets.
Pinkie halted suddenly, and, bending down, lifted up what was evidentlya half section of the folding trapdoor to a cellar entrance.
"There's only a few of us regulars wise to this," whispered Pinkie."Watch yourself! There's five steps. Count 'em, so's you won't trip.Keep hold of me all the way. An' nix on the noise, or we won't get awaywith it inside. Leave the trap open, Pug, for our getaway. We ain'tgoin' to be long. Come on!"
It was horribly dark. Rhoda Gray, with her hand on Pinkie Bonn'sshoulder, descended the five steps. She felt the Pug keeping touchbehind by holding the corner of her shawl. They went forward softly,slowly, stealthily. She felt her knees shake a little, and suddenlypanic seized her, and she wanted to scream out. What was she doing?Where was she going? Was she mad, that she had ventured into this trapof blackness? Blackness! It was hideously black. She looked behind her.She could not see the Pug, close as he was to her; and dark as she hadthought it outside there at the cellar entrance, it appeared by contrastto have been light, for she could even distinguish now the openingthrough which they had come.
They were in a cellar that was damp underfoot, and the soft earthdeadened all sound as they walked upon it--and they seemed to be walkingon interminably. It was too far--much too far! She felt her nervefailing her. She looked behind her again. That opening, stilldiscernible to her straining eyes, beckoned her, lured her. Better to...
Pinkie had halted again. She bumped into him. And then she felt his lipspress against her ear.
"Here we are!" he breathed. "They got the end room on the right, so'sthey could get in an' out with out bein' seen, an so's even Charlie'dswear they was here all the time. You're too old a bird to fall down,Nan. If the door's locked, knock--an' give 'em any old kind of a songan' dance till you gets 'em off their guard. The Pug an' me 'll see youthrough. Go it!"
Before Rhoda Gray could reply, Pinkie had stepped suddenly to oneside. A door in front of her, a sliding door it seemed to be, openednoiselessly, and she could see a faintly lighted, narrow, and very shortpassage ahead of her. It appeared to make a right-angled turn just a fewyards in, and what light there was seemed to filter in from around thecorner. And on each side of the passage, before it made the turn, therewas a door, and from the one on the right, through a cracked panel, atiny thread of light seeped out.
Her lips moved silently. After all, it was not so perilous. Nobody wouldbe hurt. Pinkie and the Pug would cover those two men in there--and takethe money--and run for it--and...
The Pug gave her an encouraging push from behind.
She moved forward mechanically. There were many sounds now, but theycame muffled and indeterminate from around that corner ahead--all savea low murmuring of voices from the door with the cracked panel on theright.
It was only a few feet. She found herself crouched before the door--butshe did not knock upon it. Instead, her blood seemed suddenly to runcold in her veins, and she beckoned frantically to her two companions.She could see through the crack in the panel. There were two men inthere, French Pete and Marny Day undoubtedly, and they sat on oppositesides of a table, and a lamp burned on the table, and one of the menwas counting out a sheaf of crisp yellow-back banknotes--but the other,while apparently engrossed in the first man's occupation, and while heleaned forward in apparent eagerness, was edging one hand stealthilytoward the lamp, and his other hand, hidden from his companion's viewby the table, was just drawing a revolver from his pocket. There was nomistaking the man's murderous intentions. A dull horror, that numbed herbrain, seized upon Rhoda Gray; the low-type brutal faces under the raysof the lamp seemed to assume the aspect of two monstrous gargoyles, andto spin around and around before her vision; and then--it could onlyhave been but the fraction of a second since she had begun to beckon toPinkie and the Pug--she felt herself pulled unceremoniously away fromthe door, and the Pug leaned forward in her place, his eyes to the crackin the panel.
She heard a low, quick-muttered exclamation from the Pug; and thensuddenly, as the lamp was obviously extinguished, that crack of lightin the panel had vanished. But in an instant, curiously like a jaggedlightning flash, light showed through the crack again--and vanishedagain. It was the flash of a revolver shot from within, and the roar ofthe report came now like the roll of thunder on its heels.
Rhoda Gray was back against the opposite wall. She saw the Pug flinghimself against the door. It was a flimsy affair. It crashed inward. Sheheard him call to Pinkie:
"Shoot yer flash on de table, an' grab de coin! I'll fix de other guy!"
Were eternities passing? Her eyes were fascinated by the interior beyondthat broken door. It was utterly dark inside there, save that the rayof a flashlight played now on the table, and a hand reached out andsnatched up a scattered sheaf of banknotes; and on the outer edge of theray two shadowy forms struggled and one went down. Then the flashlightwent out She heard the Pug speak:
"Beat it!"
Commotion came now; cries and footsteps from around that corner in thepassage. The Pug grasped her by the shoulders, and rushed her back intothe cellar. She was conscious, it seemed, only in a dazed and mechanicalway. There were men in the passage running toward them--and then thepassage had disappeared. Pinkie Bonn had shut the connecting door.
"Hop it like blazes!" whispered the Pug, as they ran for the faintglimmer of light that located the cellar exit. "Separate de minute we'reoutside!" he ordered. "Dere's murder in dere. Pete shot Marny. I putPete to sleep wid a punch on de jaw; but de bunch knows now some oneelse was dere, an' Pete'll swear it was us, though he don't know who wewas dat did de shootin'. I gotta make dis straight right off de bat widDanglar." His whispering voice was labored, panting; they were climbingup the steps now. "Youse take de money to my room, Pinkie, an' waitfer me. I won't be much more'n half an hour. Nan, youse beat it fer yergarret, an' stay dere!"
They were outside. The Pug had disappeared in th
e darkness. Pinkie wasclosing, and evidently fastening, the trap-door.
"The other way, Nan!" he flung out, as she started to run. "That takesyou to the other street, an' they can't get around that way withoutgoin' around the whole block. Me for a fence I knows about, an' we gives'em the merry laugh! Go on!"
She ran--ran breathlessly, stumbling, half falling, her hands stretchedout before her to serve almost in lieu of eyes, for she could make outscarcely anything in front of her. She emerged upon a street. It seemedabnormal, the quiet, the lack of commotion, the laughter, the unconcernin the voices of the passers-by among whom she suddenly found herself.She hurried from the neighborhood.