“Sir. i have quit you slim as your a no good sun of a gun an somday im going to get you for the roten way you treted me. I saw cole an told him all i know about you an the son of a gun was tight an would not give me anything much to beet it on. just the same slim he told me something that youd like to know mity well. You wont cetch me because im gone from you old timer. But if you want to know what i got from cole you send twenty five dollars to me in the care of mother duffy at the oakland bar in sacermento. then ill slip you what i know. goodby you big stiff. ill get you somday.
“the Whimperer.”
The envelope was postmarked “Spur, California,” and the date was the day before.
“Well, for the love of Mike!” gasped Winnie the Weeper. “What’re you goin’ to do about it, Slim?”
Slim rested his cadaverous chin in one bony hand and meditatively ran the long nicotine-stained fingers of the other hand up and down over the six golden buttons on his billiard-top vest.
“Aw,” he husked finally, “he’s tryin’ to string me. Maybe he played stool pigeon to Cole, all right, but he don’t know nuttin’ to tell. I was too wise to let um know anyt’ing—see? But what would Cole be tellin’ him that would be any use to me, kid?”
“I don’t know,” mused the girl. “Looks to me like the big stiff’s got somethin’ to peddle, Slim. He didn’t make any promises—none o’ this big honest-to-God business. Just said ‘lay ’er down,’ like he meant business. I’d take a chance, Slim. You threw the fear of Christ into that tramp, and he wouldn’t dare double-cross you by holdin’ out on you after you’d sent the jack. He’ll remember how easy you located him before. And what’s twenty-five—to us?”
Slim Wolfgang’s thin sandy eyebrows drew lower, and his leering, gangster’s face was not good to see. “I gotta take a chance,” he decided finally. “So you get a money-order, kid, an’ do like dat dam’ —— says. He’s got me; an’, as youse said, wot’s twenty-five? Slip us a kiss, now, kid, an’ I’ll be gettin’ back to de game. Dey oughta be driftin’ in pretty soon. Oh, hell, I’d like to beat it outa here after next payday!”
“Here, too,” sighed Winnie. “God, I got more jack than I ever saw before, an’ it’s goin’ to waste in this rotten hole. Say, if we was in N’ York, Slim—”
“Yes, I know—I’ve heard dat spiel before. But we ain’t dere, an’ we can’t go dere till dis business is off me han’s. Beat it, now, an’ send dat jack like De Whimperer says. An’ if he’s tryin’ to make a sucker outa me, by God he’d better ramble some!”