“Not good enough for you, eh?” he asked. “Who are you, anyway, coming in here? Want to tell me how to run the place?”
Several of Mike Larrigan’s small-time mobsmen gathered closer to listen to the argument.
Monk Thurman was standing at the end of the bar, his back to the corner beside the door. He paid no attention to the threatening glances of the rowdies who gathered about him.
“I might be able to tell you something,” he said to the bartender. “But there’s no use talking to any one here in Chicago.”
“Where do you come from, tough guy?” demanded the man behind the bar.
“New York,” answered Thurman, in a boastful voice.
The bartender leaned his elbow on the bar, and studied the tall man, with a sarcastic expression on his face.
“There’s a lot of funny guys come from New York,” he observed. “Fellows that think they amount to something. They don’t find it healthy here in Chicago. A lot of them die from lead poisoning.”
“That doesn’t worry me,” responded Monk Thurman. “I’m inoculated.”
“One New York gorilla got fresh a few nights ago,” continued the bartender. “The boys are out looking for him, now. Maybe they’ve got him already. Did you ever hear of him? His name is Monk Thurman.”