The Dropper’s reputation among the powers that preyed was—unsavory. There had been rumors in the old days that he was a pigeon. The den and joint he managed sheltered cheap dips, pennyweighters and store-histers who bragged of their miserable exploits.
Fay entered the hallway that led up to the Dropper’s, like a duke paying a visit to a tenement.
A gas-light flared the second landing. An ash-can, half filled with empty bottles, marked the third. Fay paused by this can, studied a fist-banged door, then knocked with light knuckles.
As he waited for a chain to be unhooked and a slide to open, he sniffed the air of the hallway. Somewhere, some one was smoking opium.
A brutish, shelving-browed, scar-crossed face appeared at the opening. Steely eyes drilled toward the cracksman.
“What d’ye want here?”
“Gee sip en quessen, hop en yen?”
“Who to hell are yuh?”
“A friend,” said Fay. “A man to see Charley O’Mara’s daughter.”
Fay carried no revolver. He scorned such things. The police rated him too clever to commit murder. Only amateurs and coke-fiends did things like that.