The Man Who Couldn't Sleep Part 51

"Cut out that name," commanded Crotty.

"Well, Babbie then, if that suits you better. And it's a landslide for her!"

"Ain't she earned it?" demanded her silvery-haired old guardian.

"Strikes me as being pretty good pay for gettin' bunted over with a play-car and not even a shin-bruise."

"Well, ain't her trainin' worth something, in this work?"

"Sure it is--but how 'n h.e.l.l did she get that blood streakin' across her face so nice and life-like?"

The silvery-haired old gentleman chuckled as he put down his gla.s.s of square-face.

"That's sure our Babbie's one little grand-stand play! You see, she keeps the pulp exposed in one o' her back teeth. Then a little suck with her tongue over it makes it bleed, on a half-minute notice.

That's how she worked the hemorrhage-game with old Bronchial Bill all last winter, before the beak sent him up the river."

I stood there, leaning against the soiled shelf across which must have pa.s.sed so much of the liquid that cheers depressed humanity. But never before, I feel sure, did anything quite so cheering come through that sordid little speak-easy. I was no longer afraid of that malignant-looking trio so contentedly exulting over their ill-gotten victory.

"Well, it's a cinch," went on the droning voice, "if The Doc'll only cut out the dope for a couple o' days and your Babbie doesn't get to buckin' over the footboard!"

"It ain't Babbie I'm worryin' over," explained old Crotty. "That girl'll do what's expected of her. She's got to. I've wised her up on that. What's worryin' me more is that cuff-shooter who b.u.t.ted in over there on the Island."

Still again I could hear Latreille's little snort of open contempt.

"Well, you can put that bug out of your head," quietly averred my ex-chauffeur. "You seem to 've forgotten that guy, Zachy. That's the b.o.o.b we unloaded the Senator's town car on. And that's the Hindoo I framed, away back on Hallow-e'en Night. You remember that, don't you?"

I leaned closer, with my heart pounding under my midriff and a singing in my ears. But old Crotty didn't seem to remember.

"On Hallow-e'en Night?" he ruminated aloud.

"Why, the stiff I asked you to stand ready to give the glad word to, if he happened round for any habeas-corpus song and dance!" prompted the somewhat impatient voice of Latreille. "Don't you mind, back on last Hallow-e'en, how the Big Hill boys stuffed that suit of old clothes with straw and rags, and then stuck it up in the street? And how we hit that dummy, and how I made the chicken-hearted pen-wiper think that he'd killed a man and coyoted off the scene?"

I don't know what old Crotty's reply to those questions were. I wasn't interested in his reply. It wasn't even rage that swept through me as I stood listening to those only too enraging words.

The first thing that I felt was a sense of relief, a vague yet vast consciousness of deliverance, like a sleepy lifer with a governor's pardon being waved in his face. I was no longer afraid for Mary. I was no longer afraid of life, afraid of myself, afraid of my fellows.

My slate was clean. And above all, I was in no way any longer afraid of Latreille. _I_ was the chicken-hearted pen-wiper--and I hated him for that word--who had been "framed." _I_ was the over-timorous victim of their sweet-scented conspiracies. _I_ was the b.o.o.b who had been made to shuffle and suffer and sweat. But that time was over and done with, forever. And the great wave of relief that swept through me surged back again, this time crested with anger, and then still again towered and broke in a misty rush of pity for Mary Lockwood. I thought of her as something soft and feathered in the triple coils of those three reptilious conspirators, as something clean and timid and fragile, being slowly slathered over by the fangs which were to fasten themselves upon her innocence, which were to feed upon her goodness of heart. And I decided that she would never have to go through what I had been compelled to go through.

I didn't wait for more. There was, in fact, nothing more to wait for, so far as I and my world were concerned. I had found out all I wanted to find out. Yet I had to stand there for a full minute, coercing myself to calmness. Then I tiptoed across the room to a second door which stood in the rear wall, unlocked it, and stepped out into the narrow and none too well-lighted hallway. This led to a washroom which in turn opened on another narrow pa.s.sageway. And from this I was able to circle back into the bar-room itself.

I didn't tarry to make any explanations to the worthy called Mickey, or to advertise my exit to his even worthier friends. I slipped quietly and quickly out of that unclean street-corner fester-spot, veered off across the street where the early spring twilight was already settling down, and went straight to the house which I knew to be Crotty's.

I didn't even wait to ring. I tried the door, found it unlocked, and stepped inside. There, no sign of life confronted me. But that didn't for a moment deter my explorations. I quietly investigated the ground floor, found it as unprepossessing as its proprietor, and proceeded noiselessly up the narrow stairway for an examination of the upper regions.

It wasn't until I reached the head of the stairs that I came to a stop.

For there I could hear the m.u.f.fled but unmistakable sound of somebody moving about. It took me several minutes to determine the source of these movements. But once I had made sure of my ground I advanced to the door at the back of the half-darkened hall and swung it open.

On the far side of the room into which I stood staring I saw a girl in house-slippers and a faded rose-colored _peignoir_ thrown over a none too clean night-dress of soiled linen. In one hand she held a lighted cigarette. With the other hand she was stirring something in a small graniteware stew-pan over a gas-heater. Her hair was down and her shoulders were bare. But all her attention seemed concentrated on that savory stew, which she sniffed at hungrily, almost childishly, between puffs on her cigarette. Then she fell to stirring her pot again, with obvious satisfaction.

I had the door shut behind me, in fact, before she so much as surmised that any one else was in the room with her. And when she looked up and saw me there her eyes slowly widened and she slowly and deliberately put her spoon down on the soiled dresser-top beside her. It wasn't exactly fear that I saw creep into her face. It was more the craft of the long-harried and case-hardened fugitive.

"Bab," I said, addressing her in the language which I imagined would most forcibly appeal to her. "I don't want to b.u.t.t in on your slough.

But time's precious and I'm going to talk plain."

"Shoot!" she said after a moment of hesitation followed by another moment of silent appraisal.

"The cops are rounding up The Doc and old Crotty for claim faking.

They're also coming here, Bab, to gather up a girl called Car-Step Sadie for dummy-chucking under the car of that Lockwood woman and bleeding her for one hundred and ten bones, and--"

"Those bulls 've got nuttin' on me!" broke out the disturbingly dishabille figure in soiled linen, as she stood staring at me with a sort of mouse-like hostility in her crafty young eyes.

"But they're bringing a police-surgeon along with 'em," I went glibly on, "for they claim, Bab, you've got a hollow tooth you can start bleeding any time you need to stall on that internal-injury stuff. And they've dug up a couple of cases that aren't going to sound any too good over in the District Attorney's office. Now, I'm not here to give advice. This is merely a rumble. And you can do what you like about it. But if you're wise, you'll slide while the sliding is good."

She stood once more silently studying me.

"What's all this to yuh, anyway?" she suddenly demanded.

"It's so little, my dear," I airily acknowledged, "that you can do exactly as you like about it. But--"

"Where's The Doc?" was her next quick question. "Where's Crotty?"

I had to think fast.

"They've ducked," I a.s.serted, amazed at my own newly-discovered facility in fictioneering.

"Who said they'd ducked?"

"Do you know Mickey's, over there on the corner?" I ventured.

She nodded as she darted across the room and threw aside the faded _peignoir_. The movement made my thoughts flash back to another and earlier scene, to the scene wherein one Vinnie Brunelle had played the leading role.

"Latreille," I explained to the girl across the room, "dropped in at Mickey's and tipped Crotty and The Doc off, not more than a quarter of an hour ago."

"And they rabbited off wit'out throwin' me a sign?" she indignantly demanded.

"They did," I prevaricated.

She suddenly stopped, swinging about and viewing me with open suspicion.

"Where'd yuh ever know that Latreille guy?" she demanded.

"Latreille worked with me, for months," I declared, speaking with more truth, in fact, than I had intended.

"Then me for the tall timber!" announced that hard-faced little adventuress as she began to scramble into her clothes.

"Don't you want me to get you a taxi?" I inquired, backing discreetly away until I stood in the open door.

"Taxi nuttin'!" she retorted through the shower of soiled lingerie mat cascaded about her writhing white shoulders. "What d'yuh take me for, anyway? A ostrich? When I get under cover, I go there me own way, and not wit' all Brooklyn bawlin' me out!"