He was recalling what had occurred a few nights before — how living hands had come through the cellar grating to subdue him as easily as if he had been a child. Pedro did not smile as he reached the corner, yet his teeth were gleaming in the brightness of the street lamp. His expression was one of expected vengeance.
The Mexican turned several corners, finally stopping on a side street before a cigar store. He entered the shop. He purchased two packs of cigarettes, each of a different brand.
He loitered about for several minutes, then, lighting a cigarette, he started for the door. There he hesitated a moment and felt carefully in his pocket as though to make sure that he had something about which he might be anxious. With a satisfied smile he stepped into the street and walked away.
While the big Mexican had been standing in the store, a man sitting in a chair at the rear had risen and entered a telephone booth. Shortly after Pedro's departure, this man, a stoop-shouldered, crafty-looking fellow, sidled from the door of the tobacco shop.
The man behind the counter saw him go, but did not regard the matter as significant. He knew the fellow as a customer who idled about the shop on various occasions. Had the storekeeper been conversant with the underworld, he would have recognized the man as "Spotter" — one of the strangest characters in the realm of gangland.
Spotter's claim to fame rested upon his ability to recognize faces and the ease with which he could trail any one whom he might follow. Immediately upon leaving the cigar store he became the least conspicuous person in the street.
He moved stealthily, going from one corner of a building to another, sliding behind lamp-posts, obscuring himself beside empty ash cans. People walked by him without detecting his presence.
Yet with it all, Spotter moved with amazing rapidity. Within a few minutes he was in sight of Pedro the Mexican, and his quick eyes were following the big man's course.
Yet it was not Pedro himself that Spotter seemed to be watching. His gaze was fixed some distance behind the Mexican, and as Spotter maintained a space of fifty yards between himself and the man ahead, a perplexed look appeared upon his face.
"This ain't right," whispered Spotter to himself. "Where's de guy I'm supposed to watch? Maybe he dropped out somewhere."