Martin leaned on the table.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. “Heroin can’t hurt you, apparently.”
“Yes, it can,” said the Duke, nervously pressing a small blue butterfly which was tattooed on his wrist. “Sometimes it hits me like dynamite, and I’ll go on a mad rob for a dollar. But it’s worse when I get cop-fever. Then I go back to my room—Christ!” he said, wiping his face. “Sometimes I crawl back of the dresser. Say—maybe I get peddled the wrong junk?” He looked at Martin hopefully.
“No,” said Martin, “the stuff is all right. You know your contact.” But he was beginning to see certain signs in The Duke’s eyes even now. “Get the tea down,” he continued, “and we’ll move out. Where’s your room?”
With a grotesque, frightening look, the Duke sat up.
“I’m cut short,” he said, the sweat breaking out on his face. “God, Mart!—get me back to my room! Jesus!—it’s the snow!... Cut off the cold wind, Mart!—it’s down on my head!” The Duke’s white face seemed blue in the yellow light. “God, Mart!... Mate!—ah!” he cried, the perspiration running from his forehead in streams.
Martin snapped his fingers at the Chinese waiter who was watching The Duke with placid, averted eyes, took a bill from his pocket and laid it on the table.
“Quickly—where does my friend live?” he asked.
“I do not know, sir,” the waiter smiled.