“Ain't you glad to see me, Dave?” demanded Bookie Skarvan quite jocularly. “'Cause, if you ain't now, you will be before I go.”
“What do you mean?” inquired Dave Henderson coolly.
“Notice anything queer about what's doing here right at this minute?” Bookie's left eye closed in a significant wink. “Sure, you do! There ain't any guard butting in, Dave. Get me? Well, I fixed it like that.”
Dave Henderson relapsed into the old vernacular.
“Spill it!” he invited. “I'm listening.”
“Attaboy!” Bookie grinned. “You bet you're listening! We ain't forgotten those years you and me spent together, have we, Dave? You know me, and I know you. I kept away from here until now, 'cause I didn't want 'em to get the right dope on the betting—didn't want 'em to think there was any chance of us playing up to each other.”
“You mean you didn't want them to get wise that you were a crook, too,” suggested Dave Henderson imperturbably.
Bookie Skarvan had no false modesty—his left eyelid drooped for the second time.
“You got the idea, Dave,” he grinned again. “They've got to figure I'm straight—that's the play. That's the play I've been making in waiting five years—so's they'd be sure there wasn't nothing between us. Now you listen hard, Dave. All you've handed the police is a frozen face, and that's the right stuff; but I got a dead straight tip they're going to keep their eyes on you till hell's a skating pond. They're going to get that money—or else you ain't! See? Well, that's where I stepped in. I goes to the right source, and I says: 'Look here, you can't do nothing with Dave. Let me have a try. Maybe I can handle him. He worked for me a good many years, and I know him better than his mother would if he had one. He's stubborn, stubborn as hell, and threats ain't any good, nor promises neither; but he's a good boy, for all that. You let me have a chance to talk to him privately, and maybe I can make him come across and cough up that money. Anyway, it won't do any harm to try. I always liked Dave, and I don't want to see him dodging the police all his life. Tydeman's dead, and, though it was really Tydeman's money, I was a partner of Tydeman's, and if anybody on earth can get under Dave's shell I can.'” Bookie put his face closer to his own particular stretch of wire netting. He lowered his voice. “That's the reason I'm here, and that's the reason the guard—ain't!”
There was almost awe and admiration in Dave Henderson's voice.