"This guinea didn't put the cops on, because he wanted to get you himself, you see? He's out for the money—the mazume. So he beats it up here and drops Tabor a love-letter. But, he's just out of the jug, you see? An' he knows the force'll watch out for him. So he'll mix up with a lot of other dagoes, an' maybe get a job daytimes, so's to have an excuse for bein' here. Well, he don't love work, but he does love booze; an' he gets through at five p. m. with an awful thirst. So we'll hunt for him first where they sell the demon rum."
He dived into the police station, leaving me standing outside, and presently emerged with the lust of the hunter in his eye.
"I've located every cheap red-eye emporium in our beautiful little city. Now you spot all the fruit stores an' shoeblacks an' guinea grocers we pass, an' we'll take them later."
"You'll have to be careful how you inquire after him," I said.
"I ain't. I'm lookin' for his cousin, Giuseppe, that looks like him. Blue, an' hairy, an' tattoo-marks on his hands, you said. Come on."
We went through two or three saloons, where Maclean loitered what seemed to me an unconscionable time, weaving into an elaborate discussion of things in general, some curiosity as to the whereabouts of an Italian debtor whose name and personal affairs varied surprisingly without in the least altering his description. I knew that Mac had an inventive genius, but I was astonished at its fertility of detail.
"I didn't expect anythin' in those joints," he confided, as we pushed through a swinging door. "They're a peg too good for him. I just wanted to hear myself talk, an' get up my speed. Now, this place looks better. You take seltzer after this, or a cigar. Their snake-medicine'd poison you. Me, I'm immune."
It was low-ceiled and smoky, and full of large cuspidors and small tables. The bottles were fewer, and glittered with gilt ornamentation, like the bottles in a barber shop. A veil of dingy mosquito netting protected the mirrors. The bartender was blue-shaven and deliberate, with a neat trick of sliding bottles and glasses, without upsetting them, several feet along the dark, dull surface of the bar.
"Giovanni Scalpiccio been in to-night?" Mac asked casually, after ten minutes of excise problems and the pure food law.
"If he has, he ain't left his visiting-card," returned the bartender. "What do you think I am—delegate from the organ-grinders' union? I don't keep tab on every I-talian dago that comes into the place. What kind of a lookin' feller is he?"