The wizened little rat grinned.
“Sure!” he said, out of the corner of his mouth. “Youse can leave it to me, Nicolo. I'm wise.”
Nicolo Capriano patted the other's arm approvingly, and smiled the man away.
“You have the whole day before you, Little Peter,” he said. “I am in no hurry.”
Once more Nicolo Capriano lay back on his pillows, and closed his eyes, and once more the guileless smile hovered over his lips.
At intervals through the day he murmured and communed with himself, and sometimes his cackling laugh brought Teresa to the door; but for the most part he lay there through the hours with the placid, cunning patience that the school of long experience had brought him.
It was dusk when Little Peter stood at the bedside again.
“Youse called de turn, Nicolo,” he said. “Dat was de guy, all right. I got next to some of de fly-cops, an' dey ain't got no doubt about it. Dey handed it out to de reporters.” He flipped a newspaper that he was carrying onto the bed. “Youse can read it for yerself. An' de gang sizes it up de same way. I pulled de window stunt on 'em down at Morrissey's about an hour ago. Dey was all dere—Baldy, an' Runty Mott, an' all de rest—an' another guy, too. Say, I didn't know dat Bookie Skarvan pulled in wid dat mob. Dey was fightin' like a lot of stray cats, an' dey was sore as pups, an' all blamin' de other one for losin' de money. De only guy in de lot dat kept his head was Bookie. He sat dere chewin' a big fat cigar, an' wigglin' it from one corner of his mouth to de other, an' he handed 'em some talk. He give 'em hell for muss-in' everything up. Say, Nicolo, take it from me, youse want to keep yer eye peeled for him. He says to de crowd: 'It's a cinch dat Dave Henderson's dead, thanks to de damned mess youse have made of everything,' he says; 'an' it's a cinch dat Capriano's story in de paper is straight—it's too full of de real dope to be anything else. But if Dave Henderson told old Ca-priano dat much, he may have told him more—see? Old Capriano's a wily bird, an' wid a hundred thousand in sight de old Dago wouldn't be asleep. Anyway, it's our last chance—dat Capriano got de hidin' place out of Dave Henderson. But here's where de rest of youse keeps yer mitts off. If it's de last chance, I'll see dat it ain't gummed up. I'll take care of Capriano myself.'”
Little Peter circled his lips with his tongue, as Nicolo Capriano extracted a banknote of generous denomination from under his pillow, and handed it to the other.
“Very good, Little Peter!” he said softly. “Yes, yes—very good! But you have already forgotten it all—eh? Is it not so, Little Peter?”