The kid from Cartagena was guilty of the most unmanly behavior. He was biting his lip and dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief. He could not speak. Steve Brackett, the gunner’s mate with the heart of a gentleman and the manners of a prince, looked inquiringly at Mike, but said not another word. The bartender nodded in the direction of the door. Steve took the hint. A hand on Rubio’s soft shoulder, he said:
“So-long, kid! I’ve got to shove off. Glad I could do you a good turn. Look me up if you get a chance, or drop a line care U.S.S. Patterson. Tell Mike your troubles and don’t hold out on him. That goes double for the boss of this dump. If the kid needs more than you can do for him, Mike, be sure to steer him against the boss, won’t you?”
“Sure, Steve. The kid could ha’ done worse than camp in the bar-room of The Broadway Front.”
The gunner’s mate hung his round white hat on three hairs and delayed to roll a cigarette. Meditatively he scratched a match. Rubio’s hand stole into his, in a clasp strong and grateful. Steve blushed a fiery red and jerked his hand away. Then he moved briskly to the door without glancing behind him.
Mike sat with his elbows on the table and regarded young Rubio Sanchez, not with the eye of a hawk, but with a scrutiny both pitiful and protective. The lad might have got away with it, he said to himself, if it hadn’t been for the big guy with the yellow hair. Even now there was more suspicion than proof. Taking Rubio by the arm, he spoke in confidential tones.
“Where are you staying at, son? The Tivoli? No? Right here? Don’t try to talk. You won’t be wanting to go through the crowded hall to get upstairs, till you sort of pull yourself together. I’ll have to be tending bar again. Here’s what you do. Go into the boss’s office an’ wait for him. The door in the corner yonder. No one’ll bother you. He ’phoned from his house that the wife had a headache an’ he would set with her an hour or so. This place may seem rough to you, but betwixt Mike an’ the boss you’re agoin’ to be looked after right.”
Alone in the private office, Teresa Fernandez heard Mike turn the key in the lock. She was not so much frightened as chagrined that she had miserably failed to play the rôle. But how could she help breaking down for joy and thanksgiving that she had been granted a blessed vision of Ricardo, alive, untouched by fate, towering on the bridge of a ship? God had guarded him. She also would be guarded. Her faith glowed like an illumined altar, and she felt safe even in a situation like this.
For a few minutes she stood looking out of a barred, open window into a dark rear yard enclosed by a high wall. The room was small and plainly furnished, a rolltop desk, two chairs, and a massive steel safe. One of the chairs was against the wall, at one side of the open window. She sank into it and was soothed by the hum of the electric fan. She wondered what the boss could be like, and why he commanded the implicit respect of Mike and the fine young gunner’s mate. How could he help her find a vanished ship? This was all that mattered.
The doorknob turned. She jumped to her feet, again the young man Rubio Sanchez, alert and on the defensive. A burly man of middle age entered the office. First impressions were alarming. He looked brutal and overbearing, a man fitted to dominate this Broadway Front. He had a jaw like a rock and the neck of a bull. The deep-set eyes were as hard as agates. Teresa watched his mouth. It was human, with a whimsical twist as he spoke from a corner of it.
“Sit down, Señor Sanchez, and make yourself at home. Have a cigar? No? I am Jerry Tobin and I won’t bite you. So let’s be sociable. Mike told me what he could, about your hunt for the Valkyrie and so on. You banked on picking up some news in Panama, didn’t you? And that goose is cooked?”