RIGHT AND LEFT
There had been a shiver and a scamper in that nether world of
which Craig for a period had been the unwilling “Napoleon.” There
was no doubt about that. The word had been passed: “Lay low.”
There was nothing new about this. Every now and then some such
warning went out--following some big crime, preceding some special
investigation, and especially around election time. But to a number
of the denizens of this underworld had the signal come with special
violence--particularly to those who had recently been in touch with
Three Sevens.
Count Wolf, with the nagging New York detectives on his trail, had
suddenly decided to put over his designs of vengeance on the man he
believed had betrayed him. Taylor Leamy suddenly wished he were back
in Cincinnati.
When the district attorney and the police got together for a real
clean-up, the millstones were turning--grinding. It was “Good night!”
to the weevils in the wheat.
Especially disquieting was that report that Three Sevens had been
taken and, in exchange for benefits, present and to come, had decided
to tell all that he knew. No one knew where this rumor originated.
No one knew how much it contained of truth. But there it was, with a
quality about it to furnish a shiver and a scamper even to those who
had believed themselves to be most immune.
It was the very fact that so little was known about Three Sevens,
himself, apart from that amazing delivery he had put over in San
Pedro, that this new rumor concerning Craig assumed the quality it
did. No one knew what he knew and what he didn’t know. A good deal
was taken for granted. Here was a man who could bargain with not only
the police, but the finicky and uncompromising district attorney.
“You can tell it to the whole world,” said Trick O’Ray, “I ain’t
scared of him, nor no other stiff.”
“It ain’t no disgrace to lay low for a while, though, Tricky,”
grinned Jarvis.
Jarvis knew that Trick was talking for the benefit of Violet rather
than for the mere enunciation of pure truth.
“The first chance I gets,” said Trick, “I put him in the morgue.”
Jarvis laughed genially.
He was perfectly willing to have Trick try. He was perfectly willing
to have almost anything happen to Tricky, too. He was, at any time,
especially now, with Violet’s not ungraceful shape occupying so much
of his physical and mental vision.
There was nothing dark and mysterious about this lair of the
well-known pair. It was just an ordinary little flat, far out in the
suburbs. There was even a touch of home about it. There was a red
tablecloth on the table at which the men sat. On this the lighted
lamp shone warmly. In the corner stood the cook stove radiating heat
and sausage smells, and the woman at the side of it might have been
the bride of any well-paid workman. Well-paid workmen were what Trick
and Jarvis might have been--if one didn’t examine their soft hands,
look too long at the inner hardness of their faces.
But, in general, they were very human--Jarvis, the man of the world,
and the superior of the two, listening tolerantly to an inferior whom
he secretly intends to dupe.
“Why didn’t you do it the last time you seen him?” demanded Violet,
with a touch of disdain.
Secretly, she also was dreaming of romance, not of the romance that
was in Ben Jarvis’ thought. Something more splendid by far. Once, not
so long ago, she had thought of forsaking Trick for Ben. But no more!
No, there was another. She thought of him now as she stood there
frying sausages, her thoughts skyrocketing--as they had done more or
less ever since she had met him--Three Sevens himself!
Why not?
She could recall every moment of their meeting, from the first
instant that she had seen him. What a thrill! Had she thrilled him
like that? Two fortune tellers and a trance medium had thus far
assured her that she had. And hadn’t he looked her in the eyes, and
spoken to her as if she were a lady, and held her hand the shred of a
century when they parted?
“I wasn’t born for this,” said Violet to herself as she fried the
sausage for the two thieves at the table, “I was born for something
better. My Gawd, I could love him so!”
She emptied the sausages into a plate and put this on the red
tablecloth. She reached down a loaf of bread from a shelf and added
this to the repast. Her ideas of domestic science were primitive. Her
thoughts were elsewhere.
Trick had taken a knife from his pocket. He opened this, showed he
was housebroken by wiping it on the tablecloth, then cut himself a
hunk of bread. He parted this and thrust a piece of the hot sausage
into the opening with the point of his knife. On his monkeylike face
had come a banquet look.
“Git us some coffee,” he commanded.
“What’s the matter with a can of suds?” Ben asked.
Ben had also helped himself. He had broken off a piece of bread and
folded this over into a sort of tongs with which he secured his meat.
Not like this had Three Sevens eaten, Violet reflected. He had joined
her and Trick and Ben in the rear room of a saloon which was also a
restaurant of sorts, and they had regaled themselves together. She
herself had been scarcely able to eat--pretending she had a headache.
It was so she could watch Three Sevens, be ready to meet his eye
whenever he should chance to look at her. And he had looked at her.
“Sure, a scuttle o’ suds,” said Trick.
Trick was in a quiver of eagerness. His mouth was full. He was eating
with a sort of ferocious delight.
Ben was but little less absorbed, but he had a glance for the girl
as she took a tin bucket from the window sill. She went out of the
little flat without a word.
Neither of them was ever to see her again.
Craig saw her, at the bottom of the dark stairs, three flights down.
He spoke to her.
“Hello, Violet----” the merest whisper.
She suppressed a cry. Then Craig was speaking to her rapidly.
“Keep right on going, but give me the key to the flat. You can give
me the bucket, too, if you want to.”
“Where----” she began, stifled.
“You’ve got a brother in Waukegan.”
“How did you know?”
“I found out.”
“Was it--did you----”
“Think about you? Yes. Go to him. Later, go West.”
“What’s the matter? What are you going to do? Will I----”
“Violet, do what I tell you, now! Agreed?”
He got her affirmative without a word from her. She had passed him a
key. There was a shyness and a confidingness about her, somehow, and
all of a sudden, that made it seem to Craig that he was talking to a
little child--as if, here in this somber and also sinister hall, a
kindly fate had moved the years back for Violet and made her a child
again.
It was in that sort of a spirit that Craig put his hands on Violet’s
shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. It was a fraternal kiss.
That was their leave taking. And that was the sum and climax of
Violet’s romance. After all, many a woman and man has had to be
satisfied with less.
Craig didn’t look back of him. He didn’t have to. He had that species
of omniscience--small and human, but none the less a variety of
omniscience itself--that permitted him to know that Violet had fled
away through the night, to fairer fields and happier, he hoped.
With a thought like that he came to the door of the flat where the
two fugitives gorged and waited for their beer. Craig didn’t need the
key. He had the signal that would have caused them to open. But it
would be easier with the key. He smiled as he fitted the key to the
lock.
He was smiling as he pushed the door open. He was smiling still as
the silence fell. He smiled because he was thinking of Violet, and
then of what old Eddie Yarmouth used to say:
“’Tis a thought that’ll bring you luck.”
Eddie was right. The surprise was perfect. Craig spoke softly.
“How’ll you ride?” he asked. “Taxi--or an ambulance?”
* * * * *
There were a dozen places in any one of which Taylor Leamy might have
sought refuge, and all of these Craig had visited while the night was
still young, as Taylor Leamy himself was to discover. And in each one
of these Craig had left an impression that was at once ensnaring and
disquieting.
Leamy, that night, had eaten his dinner in a quiet little restaurant
back of a brewery. He was almost the only customer in the place. The
quiet had appealed to him. Also, it had given him time to reflect.
Getting a little old, a little fat, a little soft. No, it wouldn’t do
for him to make any more false plays. The idea of prison nauseated
him--the hardness, the violence, the ugliness of everything. He hoped
that Craig would prosper. Perhaps he could get as much as ten--as
much as twenty--thousand dollars out of Craig. For Craig also must
hate prison. But what had been the meaning of that tip he had got
from Bender to lay low, let Craig alone for a while?
Bender was a shyster lawyer. In times past, Leamy had paid Bender
thousands of dollars. Was Bender now giving him a straight tip? Or
had Bender accepted a fee from Craig himself?
The message had come to Leamy at his lodging house, a quiet place,
kept by a respectable widow.
He had taken to living much at night, since his return to Chicago,
sleeping mostly in the daytime. It wouldn’t do for him to stumble
into the wrong sort of person and get recognized. And yet he couldn’t
be too cautious, either. His funds were running low. Now, if he could
only blackmail Craig out of a comfortable sum!
The waiter who had served him hastily approached from the other end
of the hall.
“Beg pardon,” said the waiter. “Are you Mr. Finch?”
It was the name that Leamy had adopted since his return. He was Finch
to Three Sevens.
“Yes,” he said cautiously. “I’m Mr. Finch.”
“Just before you came in,” said the waiter, “a gentleman gave me this
card for you. I almost forgot.”
Leamy took the card. It was a plain card. There was a message written
on it as follows:
Y 630
Report before midnight.
3777
Leamy lingered a little longer picking his teeth. He made of it an
elaborate operation. But all the time that he was doing this he could
feel the blood draining back to his heart and leaving something of a
weight and a coldness there. He remembered that “Y 630.” How well he
remembered it--his own private mark on the books of San Pedro!
He would have to get rid of this feeling. So he told himself when
he was out in the street. He went to a small political club of the
neighborhood where he had been wont to slay a few of his heavy hours
with a game of billiards. And he played there now, indifferently,
albeit with a passion of forced attention, until a certain marker,
just back from an errand, noticed him and handed him a card:
Y 630
Heigh-o! He pocketed the card, put up his cue.
Leamy yawned. All right, he was willing to let it go at that. A man
of his age appreciated a good night’s sleep. He paid his reckoning.
He thought with appreciation of the quiet room that was awaiting him
at the widow’s house.
A little later he let himself in with a pass-key. The hall of the
widow’s house was dimly lighted. Leamy started for the stairs. He
stopped short.
Odd, but there for a moment he was almost certain that the woman who
stood there in front of him was a certain other widow who had once
confronted him, telling him that he had robbed her of her last cent.
Then Leamy pulled himself together. It was no one but his landlady.
“Goodness, Mrs. Travis,” he exclaimed, with a touch of the jocular,
“you almost frightened me.”
“Maybe it was because I was frightened myself,” said Mrs. Travis.
She was a woman who had lost all sense of humor if she had ever
possessed any.
“I should have rung the bell,” said Leamy.
“It wasn’t that,” said she. “It was the gentleman who was just here
looking for you. He was a fine-looking gentleman, but there was
something in his face I can’t forget.”
Leamy felt a thin, fine quiver in his spine.
“To see me? What did he want?”
“He didn’t say. He said you’d know. He said: ‘Tell him Three Sevens
said’--what does that mean?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Mrs. Travis.”
“But he said you would. He said: ‘Tell him Three Sevens orders him to
come to his office, without fail, before midnight.’”
“Oh, yes,” said Leamy, “I remember, now. It’s something about our
lodge.” And Leamy turned and left the house. He was in need of air.
As a matter of fact he had been in need of air--although he hadn’t
recognized the necessity at once--ever since Mrs. Travis had reminded
him of that other widow.
It was an hour later before Leamy succeeded in getting Bender, the
shyster lawyer, on the telephone. Bender, it appeared, had been
dining with friends and was in a jovial mood.
“What did you mean by that message?” Leamy asked, as soon as he had
established his identity.
“See you to-morrow.”
“Listen,” said Leamy passionately. “I’ve been standing here in the
stuffy telephone booth for an hour----”
“--’s what I’m telling you----”
“Bender, let me see you to-night.”
“See you to-morrow.”
Leamy caught the strain of music.
“Listen, Ike! Three Sevens----”
For the first time since the attempted conversation began, Bender’s
voice came clear and cold. It was a question:
“Did you ever hear of some one listening in?”
There was a rasping click, and Leamy knew that Bender had “hung up.”
“I’ll do what Three Sevens said,” Leamy agreed with himself. “After
all, there was that deal he was going to let me in on. I was to have
seen him at six. Bender steered me off.”
Bender was a shyster. On the other hand it was perfectly true
that Bender had valuable relations with the police and certain
magistrates. And Leamy hesitated after he had signaled the car that
would have carried him past the Courtney Building. For a second the
conductor was frowning at Leamy. Then the conductor jerked his bell
and the car rumbled on.
It was another car he took, and one that went in the opposite
direction an hour or so later, and in that hour the coldness and the
weight about Leamy’s heart had grown like an icicle under a glacial
drip. Two more of those cards had been added to his collection now.
One he had picked up at the Sagamore Buffet, where the bartender was
an old and trusted friend of his, and the bartender had looked at him
with pity. The other he had picked up at the Hotel Columbine.
Leamy rode and rode, until he noticed how a man who stood beside the
motorman kept staring back at him. Then Leamy got off and found that
he was in a part of the city that was unfamiliar to him.
He was near a stream of water. He saw the dancing reflections of
it through blackness. And there came to him a peculiar jolt of
consciousness that there may have been a bit of truth in that
death notice of Taylor Leamy he had read, after all; and that this
shimmering dark water was what he had come to find.