Again he leaned over to the window, this time to listen. Joe squeezed up close that he might hear also.
“Where do you suppose he is?” one man was saying in a gruff voice.
“Left town, mebbe,” another answered. “Just plain slipped out on us, an’ him owin’ us a lot of dough.”
“The dirty tramp!” a third said with an oath. “We’ll get him, don’t you worry. No guy can put anything over on us!”
“He’s afraid of the cops, no doubt,” the first said. “Maybe—— But say! Speakin’ of cops, we saw a couple of guys at the house next door to him, and nobody lives there. Haven’t for two months. They might have been detectives.”
“He means us,” whispered Joe. “We scared them off, I guess.”
The man who had been silent now spoke.
“You may be right,” he said. “It don’t take them detectives long to get on a guy’s trail. If you stick around where you been keepin’ yourself they’ll get you sure. That’s prob’ly the reason why this guy ain’t home. Give him time. He’ll settle with us.”
But the first man was impatient.
“We want our dough now!” he bawled. “We was supposed to have it at noon an’ he didn’t come. He owes us a good many bucks, and for the spark machine too. He was supposed to pay for that, you know.”