“You dubs,” he called back, as he stepped out into Great Jones Street, “better bring your gatts!”
Gatts is East Sidese for pistols.
Harrington didn't like the looks of things. He was sorry, he said, addressing Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, but he wouldn't be able to accompany him to that Third Avenue tryst. He must see Goldie Cora home. The Police had just issued an order, calculated invidiously to inconvenience and annoy every lady found in the streets after midnight unaccompanied by an escort.
Eat-'Em-Up-Jack hardly heard him. Personally he wouldn't have turned hand or head to have had the company of a dozen Harringtons. Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, while lacking many things, lacked not at all in heart.
The New Brighton closed in due time. Eat-'Em-Up-Jack waited until sure the junction of Great Jones Street and Third Avenue was quite deserted. As he came 'round the corner, gun in hand, Tricker—watchful as a cat—stepped out of a stairway. There was a blazing, rattling fusillade—twelve shots in all. When the shooting was at an end, Eat-'Em-Up-Jack had vanished. Tricker, save for a reason, would have followed his vanishing example; there was a bullet embedded in the calf of his leg.
Tricker hopped painfully into a stairway, where he might have advantage of the double gloom. He had lighted a cigarette, and was coolly leaning against the entrance, when two policemen came running up.
“What was that shooting?” demanded one.
“Oh, a couple of geeks started to hand it to each other,” was Tricker's careless reply.
“Did either get hurt?”
“One of 'em cops it in th' leg. Th' other blew.”