Shorty McCabe Part 7

That fetched us up Second Avenue, but there wasn't any conversin' done until we'd put fifty blocks behind us. Then I reckon the Boss asked the Lady Brigandess if she'd missed any meals lately. From the way he gave orders to steer for a food refinery she must have allowed that she had.

Not having time to be particular, we hit a goulash emporium where they spell the meat card mostly with cz's. But they gave us a private room upstairs, which was what we wanted. And it wasn't until we got inside that we had a full length view of her. Say, I was glad we'd landed so far east of Broadway. Post me for a welcher if she wasn't rigged out in the same kind of a chorus costume that she wore when we saw her last, over there in It'ly! Only it was more so. It was the kind of costume that'd been all right on a cigarette card, or outside a Luna Park joint, and it would have let her into the Arion ball without a ticket; but it wasn't built for circulatin' 'round New York in.

"Piffle! Piffle!" says I to the Boss. "They'll think we've pinched her out of a Kiralfy ballet. Hadn't we better send for yer lady-fren's trunk?"

The Boss grinned, but he looked her over as satisfied as if she'd been dressed accordin' to his own water color sketches. She was something of a star, yes, yes! If you were lookin' for figure and condition, she had 'em. And when it came to the color scheme--well, no grease paint manipulator ever mixed caffy-o-lay and raspb'ry pink the way it grew on her. For a made-in-It'ly girl she was the real meringue.

"We'll see about clothes later," says the Boss, and ordered up seventeen kinds of sckeezedsky, to be served in relays.

She brought her appet.i.te with her, all right, even if she had mislaid her suit case. And, while she was pitchin' into what pa.s.ses for grub on Second Avenue, she told the Boss the story of her life. Leastways, that's what it sounded like to me.

The way I gets it from the Boss was like this: Her father, the old brigand pantanta, couldn't get over the way we'd bansheed his bunch of third rate kidnappers with our tin armor play. He acc.u.mulated a sort of ingrowin' grouch and soured on the whole push because they wouldn't turn state's evidence as to who had given us the dope to do 'em.

The Lady Brigandess she had stood that for a while, until one day she gets her Irish up, tells the old man how she tipped us off herself, and then makes tracks out of the country. One way and another she'd heard a lot about America. So she takes out yellow tickets on a few spare sparks and buys a steerage berth for New York.

Well, she hadn't more'n got past Sandy Hook before a Malabisto runner spotted her. So did the advance man of another gang. They sized up the gold hoops in her ears, her real money necklace and some of the other furniture she sported, and they invited her home to tea. Just how the sc.r.a.p began or what it was all about she didn't know, so the story by rounds hasn't been told. The next thing she knew though, they'd hustled her into the Bend and bottled her up in that back room, but not before she'd done a little extemporaneous carvin' on her own account. I gathered that three or four of the Malabistos needed some plain sewin'

done on 'em after the bell rang, and that the rest wasn't so anxious for her society as at first. She'd been cooped up for two days when she managed to get hold of a Dago woman who promised to carry that cuff to the place where old Vincenzo had told her we hung out in New York.

"So far it's as good as playin' leading heavy in 'The Shadows of a Great City,'" says I, "but what's down for the next act? Where does she want to go now?"

Say, you'd thought the Boss had been nipped with the goods on. He goes strawb'ry color back to his ears. Next he takes a look across the table at her where she sits, quiet and easy, and as much to home as Lady Graftwad on the back seat of the tonneau. She was takin' notice of him, too, kind of runnin' over his points like he was something rich she'd won at a raffle and was glad to get. But the Boss he braced up and looked me straight in the eye.

"Shorty," says he, "I want to call your attention to the fact that this young lady is something like three thousand miles from home, that we're the only two human beings on this side of the ocean she knows by sight, and that once she risked a good deal to do us a service."

"I'll put my name to all that," says I, "but what does it lead up to; where do we exit?"

"That," says the Boss, "is a conundrum."

"Ain't she got any programme?" says I.

"She--er--that is," says the Boss, trying to duck, "she says she wants to go with us."

"Whe-e-e-ew!" says I, through my front teeth. "This is _so_ sudden. Just tell the lady, will you, that I've resigned."

"No you don't, Shorty," says the Boss. "You'll see this thing through."

"But look at them circus clothes," says I. "I've got no aunts or grandmothers, or second cousins that I could unload a Lady Brigandess on."

"Nor I," says the Boss.

But he didn't look half so worried as he might. Say, when I came to figure out what we were up against, I could feel little cold storage whiffs on my shoulder blades. Suppose someone should meet you in the middle of Herald Square, hand you a ring-tailed tiger, and then skiddoo.

What? That would be an easy one compared to our proposition. It wasn't a square deal to shake her, and she'd made up her mind not to stay put anywhere again.

"Wait here until I telephone someone," says the Boss.

"De-lighted!" says I. "Better ring up the Gerry Society, too, while you're about it. They might help us out."

The Lady Brigandess and I didn't have a real sociable time while the Boss was gone. I could see she was watchin' every move I made, as much as to say, "You can't lose me, Charlie." It was just as cheery as waitin' in the Sergeant's room for bail.

When the Boss does show up he wears a regular breakfast food smile that made me leary, for when he looks tickled it don't signify that things are coming his way. Generally it only means that he's goin' to break out in a new spot.

"It just occurred to me," says he, "that I had accepted an invitation from the Van Urbans for the opera."

"What kind of a bluff did you throw?" says I.

"None at all, Shorty," says he. "I just asked if they would have room for three, and they said they would."

Say, the Boss don't need no nerve tonic, does he? You know about the Van Urbans, don't you? They weigh in at something like forty millions and are a good fifth on Mrs. Astor's list.

"Straight goods, now," says I, "you don't reckon to spring this aggregation on the diamond horse-shoe, do you?"

"We must put in the time somehow," says he.

I thought it might be all a grand josh, until I'd watched some of his moves. First we drives over to Fift' avenue and stops at one of those places where it says "Robes" on a bra.s.s plate outside. The Boss stays in there four minutes and comes out with a piece of dry goods that they must have stood him up a hundred for--kind of an opera cloak, ulster length, all rustly black silk outside and white inside. The Lady Brigandess she puts it on with no more fuss than as if she'd been brought up on such things and had ordered this one a month ahead.

Next we heads for our own quarters, having shifted our Mott street chariot for the real article, with rubber tires and silver plated lamps. About that time I got wise to the fact that the Boss and her Ladyship were ringin' me into their talk, and I was gettin' curious. I see the Boss shaking his head like he was tryin' to prove an alibi, and every once in a while pointin' to me. First thing I knows she'd quit his side of the carriage and was snugglin' up alongside of me, and cooin'

away in some outlandish kind of baby talk that I was glad I didn't savvy. I made no kick though, until she begins to pat me on the head.

"Call her off, will you?" says I. "I'm no lost kid."

"The young lady is just expressing her thanks," says the Boss, "to the gallant young hero who so n.o.bly rescued her from the Malabistos. Don't shy, Shorty; she says that anyone so brave as you are needn't worry about not being handsome."

He was kiddin' me, see? I knew he'd given her some fairy tale or other, but I didn't have any come back that she could understand. I felt like a monkey though, having my hair mussed and thinkin' maybe next minute she'd give me the knife. And the Boss he sat there grinnin' like a Jack lantern.

I didn't get a chance to break away until we got to our own ranch. Then we left her sitting in the buggy while we went up to make a lightnin'

change. Sure, I've got a head waiter's rig; bought it the time I had to lead off the grand march at the Tim Grogan a.s.sociation's tenth annual ball, but I never looked to wear it out attendin' grand opera.

"I hope the Van Urbans will appreciate that I'm givin' 'em a treat,"

says I.

"They'll be blind if they don't," says the Boss. "Is it your collar that hurts?"

"No, it's the shoes," says I, "but the pain'll numb down by the time we get there."

We made our grand entry about the end of the second spasm. The Van Urbans had taken their corners. There was Papa Van Urban, lookin' like ready money; and Mamma Van Urban, made up regardless; and Sis Van Urban, one of those tall Gainsborough girls that any piker could pick for a winner on form and past performance.

Say, it took all the front I had in stock just to tag along as an also ran, but when I thought of the Boss, headin' the procession, I was dead sorry for him. And what kind of a game do you think he hands out?

Straight talk, nothin' but! Course he didn't make no family hist'ry out of tellin' who his lady-fren' was, but as far as he went it tallied with the card, even to lettin' on that she was a Lady Brigandess.

"Out we go now," says I to myself, and looks to see Mamma Van Urban throw a cat fit. But she didn't. She just squealed a little, same's if someone had tickled her behind the ear, and then she began slingin' that gurgly-gurgly Newport talk that the Sixt' avenue sales ladies use. Sis Van Urban caught the same cue, and to hear 'em you'd thought the Boss had done something real cute. They gave the Lady Brigandess the High Bridge wig-wag and shooed her into a stage corner chair.

She never made a kick at anything until they tried to take away her cloak. Not much! She was just beginnin' to be stuck on that. She kept it wrapped around her like she knew the proprietor wa'n't responsible for overcoats. The Boss tried to tell her how there wa'n't any grand larceny intended, but it was no go. She had her suspicions of the crowd, so they just had to let her sit there draped in black. And at that she wa'n't any misfit.

Now I'd been inside the Metropolitan once or twice before, havin' blown myself to a standee just for the sake of lookin' at the real things with their war paint on, but I wasn't feelin' any more to home in the back of that box than I would in the pilot house of an air ship.

But the Lady Brigandess didn't show no more stage fright than an auctioneer. She just holds her chin up and looks out at all that display of openwork dressmaking and cut gla.s.s exhibit without so much as battin'

an eyelash. She was takin' it all in, too, from the bargain hats in the fam'ly circle, to the diamond tummy warmers in the parterre, but you'd never guessed that she'd just escaped from a Dago back district where they have one mail a week. If I hadn't seen her chumming with a hold-up gang that couldn't have bought fifteen cent lodgings on the Bowery, I'd bet the limit that she was a thoroughbred in disguise.

There was some rubberin' at her, of course, and I expect we had the safety vault crowd guessin' as to what kind of a prize the Van Urbans had won, but it didn't feaze her a bit. She just gave 'em the Horse Show stare, as cool as a mint frappe. The ringin' up of the curtain didn't disturb her any, either. When a chesty baritone sauntered down toward the footlights and began callin' the chorus names she glanced over her shoulder, casual like, just to see what the row was all about, and then went on sizin' up the folks in the boxes. She couldn't have done it better if she'd taken lessons by mail.