The Big-Town Round-Up Part 17

CHAPTER XIII

A LATE EVENING CALL

A young woman in an open-neck nightgown sat up in bed, a cascade of black hair fallen over her white shoulders. Eyes like jet beads were fastened on him. In them he read indignation struggling with fear.

"Say, what are you anyhow--a moll buzzer? If you're a porch-climber out for the props you've sure come to the wrong dump. I got nothin'

but b.u.m rocks."

This was Greek to Clay. He did not know that she had asked him if he were a man who robs women, and that she had told him he could get no diamonds there since hers were false.

The Arizonan guessed at once that he was not in the room mentioned in the letter. He slipped his revolver back into its place between shirt and trousers.

"Is this house number 121?" he asked.

"No, it's 123. What of it?"

"It's the wrong house. I'm ce'tainly one chump."

The black eyes lit with sardonic mockery. The young woman knew already that she had nothing to fear from this brown-faced man. His face was not that of a thug. It carried its own letter of recommendation written on it. Instinctively she felt that he had not come to rob. A lively curiosity began to move in her.

"Say, do I look like one of them born-every-minute kind?" she asked easily. "Go ahead and spring that old one on me about how you got tanked at the club and come in at the window on account o' your wife havin' a temper somethin' fierce."

"No, I--I was lookin' for some one else. I'm awful sorry I scared you.

I'd eat dirt if it would do any good, but it won't. I'm just a plumb idiot. I reckon I'll be pushin' on my reins." He turned toward the window.

"Stop right there where you're at," she ordered sharply. "Take a step to that window and I'll holler for a harness bull like a Bowery bride gettin' a wallopin' from friend husband. I gotta have an explanation.

And who told you I was scared? Forget that stuff. Take it from Annie that she ain't the kind that scares."

The girl sat up in bed, fingers laced around the knees beneath the blanket. There was an insouciance about her he did not understand.

She did not impress him in the least as a wanton, but if he read that pert little face aright she was a good deal less embarra.s.sed than he.

"I came to see some one else, but I got in the wrong house," he explained again lamely.

"That's twice I heard both them interestin' facts. Who is this goil you was comin' through a window to see in the middle o' the night. And what's that gat for if it ain't to croak some other guy? You oughtta be ashamed of yourself for not pullin' a better wheeze than that on me."

Clay blushed. In spite of the slangy impudence that dropped from the pretty red lips the girl was slim and looked virginal.

"You're 'way off. I wasn't callin' on her to--" He stuck hopelessly.

"Whadya know about that?" she came back with obvious sarcasm. "You soitainly give me a pain. I'll say you weren't callin' to arrange no Sunday School picnic. Listen. Look at that wall a minute, will you?"

When he turned again at her order she was sitting on the side of the bed wrapped in a kimono, her feet in bedroom slippers. He saw now that she was a slender-limbed slip of a girl. The lean forearm, which showed bare to the elbow when she raised it to draw the kimono closer round her, told Clay that she was none too well nourished.

"I'll listen now to your fairy tale, Mr. Gumshoe Guy, but I wantta wise you that I'm hep to men. Doncha try to string me," she advised.

Clay did not. It had occurred to him that she might give him information of value. There was something friendly and kindly about the humorous little mouth which parroted worldly wisdom so sagely and the jargon of criminals so readily. He told her the story of Kitty Mason. He could see by the girl's eyes that she had jumped to the conclusion that he was in love with Kitty. He did not attempt to disturb that conviction. It might enlist her sympathy.

"Honest, Annie, I believe this guy's on the level," the young woman said aloud as though to herself. "If he ain't, he's sure a swell mouthpiece. He don't look to me like no flat-worker--not with that mug of his. But you never can tell."

"I'm not, Miss. My story's true." Eyes clear as the Arizona sky in a face brown as the Arizona desert looked straight at her.

Annie Millikan had never seen a man like this before, so clean and straight and good to look at. From childhood she had been brought up on the fringe of that underworld the atmosphere of which is miasmic.

She was impressed in spite of herself.

"Say, why don't you go into the movies and be one of these here screen ideals? You'd knock 'em dead," she advised flippantly, crossing her bare ankles.

Clay laughed. He liked the insolent little twist to her mouth. She made one strong appeal to him. This bit of a girl, so slim that he could break her in his hands, was game to the core. He recognized it as a quality of kinship.

"This is my busy night. When I've got more time I'll think of it.

Right now--"

She took the subject out of his mouth. "Listen, how do you know the girl ain't a badger-worker?"

"You'll have to set 'em up on the other alley, Miss," the Westerner said. "I don't get yore meanin'."

"Couldn't she 'a' made this date to shake you down? Blackmail stuff."

"No chance. She's not that kind."

"Mebbe you're right. I meet so many hop-nuts and dips and con guys and gun-molls that I get to thinkin' there's no decent folks left," she said with a touch of weariness.

"Why don't you pull yore picket-pin and travel to a new range?" he asked. "They're no kind of people for you to be knowin'. Get out to G.o.d's country where men are white and poor folks get half a chance."

The girl shrugged her shoulders. "Little old New York is my beat.

It's the biggest puddle in the world and I'll do my kickin' here."

Abruptly she switched the talk back to his affairs. "You wantta go slow when you tackle Jerry Durand. I can tell you one thing. He's in this business up to the neck. I seen his shadow Gorilla Dave comin'

outa the house next door twice to-day."

"Seen anything of the girl?"

"Nope. But she may be there. Honest, you're up against a tough game.

There's no use rappin' to the bulls. They'd tip Jerry off and the girl wouldn't be there when they pulled the house."

"Then I must work this alone."

"Why don't you lay down on it?" she asked, her frank eyes searching his. "You soitainly will if you've got good sense."

"I'm goin' through."

Her black eyes warmed. "Say, I'll bet you're some guy when you get started. Hop to it and I hope you get Jerry good."

"I don't want Jerry. He's too tough for me. Once I had so much of him I took sick and went to the hospital. It's the girl I want."

"Say, listen! I got a hunch mebbe it's a b.u.m steer, but you can't be sure till you try it. Why don't you get in through the roof instead o'

the window?"