“Lit to the eyeballs,” Winnie told him.
“Well, den, we’ll eat an’ drift outa here. I’ll go to me tent, an’ youse try an’ steer Sweet in dere as soon as youse can. Get me? We gotta do some talkin’.”
“But what’ll I tell ’im, Slim?”
“Tell um anyt’ing to snare um. Tell um I wanta see um a minute. It won’t do f’r me to be seen shuntin’ um aroun’. Youse gotta do it.”
Winnie’s order of pork chops had been set before her, and she ate nibblingly, silent, her eyes on her plate.
“Slim,” she said at last, “I think it’s about time you was slippin’ me the dope. I’m off this stuff o’ workin’ in the dark. You promised me there’d be somethin’ big in this deal for me, but you never told me what you was gonta do nor what it’s all about. You wouldn’t trust The Whimperer, and now he’s gone and left you. And you won’t trust me. And I think you’d ought to, Slim. Ain’t I always played square? Then why do you keep me outa the know? I wanta know what I’m up against before I go any farther.”
“Look here, kid,” Slim husked, with a frown of annoyance: “I ain’t de kind dat spills everyt’ing, even to my best girl. When it’s all over, an’ we got de jack, youse’ll know all about it. So what’s de use youse knowin’ now?”
“I want to, anyway; I don’t see why you don’t trust me, Slim.”
“It ain’t dat, Win. I do trust youse. But dat’s a way I got. I keep me mout’ shut—see? I guess I got dat way in de reform school—I know I did. We had a way dere o’ moochin’ ’round like a lotta mice an’ sayin’ nuttin’ about our business, ’cause we never savvied who was gonta squeal on us. So dat’s de way it is wid me, an’—”
“But I don’t work that way,” Winnie the Weeper interrupted. “If you’re gonta lay up with me, Slim, you gotta come across with everything. I don’t keep nothin’ from you, kid—and you gotta do the same with me. And I’m tellin’ you right here that I wanta know what all this funny business is about, or I won’t have anything more to do with it. That’s me, old kid! And you can take it or leave it!”