“There's nothing like credit in this wicked world,” Bookie Skarvan confided sapiently to himself. “I may have to run up quite a bill with Mr. Cunny Smeeks before I'm through, mabbe quite a fat little bill—but he can always send it to Baldy—if I'm not here! What? It's beginning to look good again. Five years I've been trying to get the grappling hook on that coin. It looks pretty good now, and I guess I can see it coming—and I guess I won't have to wait as long as Baldy will!” He wagged his head pleasantly. “I never was fond of San Francisco—and I always wanted to travel! Perhaps Baldy and Mr. Cunny Smeeks won't be such good friends by-and-by. I dunno! I only know that Bookie Skarvan won't be sticking around to see them go into mourning for their share of that hundred thousand that they think they're going to get—not so's you'd observe it!”
Bookie Skarvan's eyes swept the den indifferently and without interest. They fastened finally on the toe of his own boot. The minutes passed, and as they passed a scowl came gradually to Bookie Skarvan's face, and a fat hand in a sudden nervous gesture went to his forehead and brushed across his eyes. His thoughts seemed to have veered into a less pleasant channel.
“Yes,” he muttered, “you can take it from me that I ain't sorry Dave Henderson's dead—not very! He never saw all my cards, and that's the one hold Baldy had on me.” The room was apparently over-heated—for a fat man. A bead of sweat came out on Bookie Skarvan's forehead. He swore savagely. “You damn fool, can't you forget it! You're not afraid of a dead man now, are you!”
The Scorpion came back.
“Come on!” he said, from the doorway. “It's fixed! He put up a howl and wouldn't stand for it at first, and he kicked so hard that I guess he's in with the girl all right. He said he had no place to put anybody; but he came across all right—with a twist of the screws. You're a friend of mine, and your Baltimore spiel goes—see?” The pale blue eyes darkened suddenly. “You get what I've done, don't you? Dago George don't forgive easily, and if this thing busts open and Dago George tumbles to what I've handed him, I'm mabbe going to have a little gang war on my hands.”
“I get you!” said Bookie Skarvan earnestly, as he joined the other in the doorway. “And that goes into the bill at a hundred cents on the dollar—and you know Baldy well enough to know what that means.” The Scorpion laughed.
“Oh, well, it's nothing to worry about! As I told you, I've never been very fond of Dago anyhow, and I guess I can take care of anything he wants to start. There'd be only one of us in at the finish—and it wouldn't be Dago George! You can go the limit, and you'll find you've got the biggest backing—on any count—in little old New York! Well, come on over, and I'll introduce you.”
“Sure! That's the stuff!” said Bookie Skarvan, as he accompanied the other to the street. “Baldy said you were the real goods—and I guess I got to hand it to Baldy!” He chuckled suddenly and wheezingly, as they went down the block. “The Baltimore crook—eh? Me and Dago George! Leave it to me! I guess I can handle Dago George!”
And twenty minutes later, in a room on the third floor of The Iron Tavern, Bookie Skarvan, “handling” Dago George, laid a detaining hand on the proprietor's arm, as the latter was bidding him good-night.
“Look here,” whispered Bookie Skarvan. “I know you're on the level because Cunny Smeeks says so; but I got to lay low, damned low—savvy? I ain't for meeting people—not even for passing 'em out in the hall there. So how about it? Have I got neighbors? I ain't taking any chances.”