Just when I was ready to let go all holds and fall into their arms, I felt the iron clasp of the one that had me around the body slacken slowly. One of them exclaimed: “Look out!” Then I heard Sanc’s voice. It was not clear and soft as usual. There seemed to be a slight impediment or obstruction in his speech, which was positive enough but so different that I doubted for a minute if it was he. His precise and careful English was gone, too.
“Hey, youse, let go uh that guy or I’ll tear your heads off. Want to git yourselves plugged over a bunch of junk dat’s insured? Git inside an’ stay there or I’ll smoke the both of youse off.”
My confidence came back, and I found a foothold on the porch rail. My captors were backing slowly, silently toward the door they came out of. Sanc, a fearsome object, his coat collar up, hat down over his ears and eyes, stood in the shadow of a large bush six feet away, waving some shiny thing at them. “Don’t try any funny business,” he said to them as I jumped to the ground. “You might get us to-morrow but not to-night. Phone your head off if you want, but don’t poke it out of the house while we’re in the block.”
“Did you connect, Kid?” he asked when we were on the street.
“Yes, a coat pocket full,” I said, brushing the cobwebs and dust off my clothes; “but why did you tell them to phone?”
“I’ll explain all that to you later. You’ve got to outthink them. You have to have something besides guts at this racket. I sent them to the phone so they wouldn’t follow us out. I couldn’t have stood them off on the street with this bottle. I had to keep waving it about wildly for fear they would see it wasn’t a gun. I found it right at my hand on the porch, and it served the purpose,” he said, throwing it into a yard. “I seldom carry a gun at this evening work because I can flatten the average man with a punch. However, I think I shall put a small ‘rod’ in my coat pocket hereafter.”
We walked away briskly without attracting attention; it was early evening and there were people in every block. At a corner I started to turn toward downtown. He stopped me. “No, no; we must assume that they phoned because they did not follow us. That way you might meet the coppers on their way out.”
A short walk brought us to a car line. “Take this car, Kid, and go straight to your room. I’ll be on the next one; and don’t lock your door when you go in. It looks and sounds suspicious at seven o’clock in the evening in a decent, quiet hotel.”
He came in ten minutes after me, without knocking, and locked the door softly. “Now, kid,” he said in his best manner, “we will proceed to estimate the intrinsic value of our takings in dollars and cents. That amount, divided by four, will give us an idea of what we have earned this evening.”
“Why divide it by four, Sanc?”