"No--no, I ain"t a-worryin" none, but--Clay, I"d hate a heap for any harm to come to that li"l" girl." His voice quavered.
"Sho! We"re right on their heels, Johnnie. So are the cops. We"ll make a gather and get Kitty back all right."
Miss Annie Millikan"s pert smile beamed through the window at Clay when he stepped up.
"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Flat-Worker," she sang out. "How many?"
"I"m not going in to see the show to-night. I want to talk with you if you can get some one to take yore place here."
"Say, whatta you think I am--one o" these here Fift" Avenoo society dames? I"m earnin" my hot dogs and coffee right at this window. . . .
Did you say two, lady?" She shoved two tickets through the window in exchange for dimes.
Clay explained that his business was serious. "I"ve got to see you alone--now," he added.
"If you gotta you gotta." The girl called an usher, who found a second usher to take her place.
Annie walked down the street a few steps beside Clay. The little puncher followed them dejectedly. His confidence had gone down to chill zero.
"What"s the big idea in callin" me from me job in the rush hours?"
asked Miss Millikan. "And who"s this gumshoe guy from the bush league tailin" us? Breeze on and wise Annie if this here business is so important."
Clay told his story.
"Some of Jerry"s strong-arm work," she commented.
"Must be. Can you help me?"
Annie looked straight at him, a humorous little quirk to her mouth.
"Say, what"re you askin" me to do--t"row down my steady?"
Which remark carries us back a few days to one sunny afternoon after Clay"s midnight call when he had dropped round to see Miss Annie. They had walked over to Gramercy Park and sat down on a bench as they talked. Most men and all women trusted Clay. He had in him some quality of unspoken sympathy that drew confidences. Before she knew it Annie found herself telling him the story of her life.
Her father had been a riveter in a shipyard and had been killed while she was a baby. Later her mother had married unhappily a man who followed the night paths of the criminal underworld. Afterward he had done time at Sing Sing. Through him Annie had been brought for years into contact with the miserable types that make an illicit living by preying upon the unsuspecting in big cities. Always in the little Irish girl there had been a yearning for things clean and decent, but it is almost impossible for the poor in a great city to escape from the environment that presses upon them.
She was pretty, and inevitably she had lovers. One of these was "Slim"
Jim Collins, a confidential follower of Jerry Durand. He was a crook, and she knew it. But some quality in him--his good looks, perhaps, or his gameness--fascinated her in spite of herself. She avoided him, even while she found herself pleased to go to Coney with an escort so well dressed and so glibly confident. Another of her admirers was a policeman, Tim Muldoon by name, the same one that had rescued Clay from the savagery of Durand outside the Sea Siren. Tim she liked. But for all his Irish ardor he was wary. He had never asked her to marry him.
She thought she knew the reason. He did not want for a wife a woman who had been "Slim" Jim"s girl. And Annie--because she was Irish too and perverse--held her head high and went with Collins openly before the eyes of the pained and jealous patrolman.
Clay had come to Annie Millikan now because of what she had told him about "Slim" Jim. This man was one of Durand"s stand-bys. If there was any underground work to be done it was an odds-on chance that he would be in charge of it.
"I"m askin" you to stand by a poor girl that"s in trouble," he said in answer to her question.
"You"ve soitainly got a nerve with you. I"ll say you have. You want me to throw the hooks into Jim for a goil I never set me peepers on. I wisht I had your crust."
"You wouldn"t let Durand spoil her life if you could stop it."
"Wouldn"t I? Hmp! Soft-soap stuff. Well, what"s my cue? Where do I come in on this rescue-the-be-eutiful heroine act?"
"When did you see "Slim" Jim last?"
"I might "a" seen him this afternoon an" I might not," she said cautiously, looking at him from under a broad hat-brim.
"When?"
"I didn"t see him after I got behind that "How Many?" sign. If I seen him must "a" been before two."
"Did he give you any hint of what was in the air?"
"Say, what"s the lay-out? Are you framin" Jim for up the river?"
"I"m tryin" to save Kitty."
"Because she"s your goil. Where do I come in at? What"s there in it for me to go rappin" me friend?" demanded Annie sharply.
"She"s not my girl," explained Clay. Then, with that sure instinct that sometimes guided him, he added, "The young lady I--I"m in love with has just become engaged to another man."
Miss Millikan looked at him, frankly incredulous. "For the love o"
Mike, where"s her eyes? Don"t she know a real man when she sees one?
I"ll say she don"t."
"I"m standin" by Kitty because she"s shy of friends. Any man would do that, wouldn"t he? I came to you for help because--oh, because I know you"re white clear through."
A flush beat into Annie"s cheeks. She went off swiftly at a tangent.
"Wouldn"t it give a fellow a jar? This guy Jim Collins slips it to me confidential that he"s off the crooked stuff. Nothin" doin" a-tall in gorilla work. He kids me that he"s quit goin" out on the spud and porch-climbin" don"t look good to him no more. A four-room flat, a little wifie, an" the straight road for "Slim" Jim. I fall for it, though I"d orta be hep to men. An" he dates me up to-night for the chauffeurs" ball."
"But you didn"t go?"
"No; he sidesteps it this aft with a fairy tale about drivin" a rich old dame out to Yonkers. All the time he" was figurin" on pinchin"
this goil for Jerry. He"s a rotten crook."
"Why don"t you break with him, Annie? You"re too good for that sort of thing. He"ll spoil your life if you don"t."
"Listens fine," the girl retorted bitterly. "I take Jim like some folks do booze or dope. He"s a habit."
"Tim"s worth a dozen of him."
"Sure he is, but Tim"s got a notion I"m not on the level. I dunno as he needs to pull that stuff on me. I"m not strong for a harness bull anyhow." She laughed, a little off the key.
"What color is "Slim" Jim"s car?"
"A dirty blue. Why?"
"That was the car."
Annie lifted her hands in a little gesture of despair. "I"m dead sick of this game. What"s there in it? I live straight and eat in a beanery. No lobster palaces in mine. Look at me cheap duds. And Tim gives me the over like I was a street cat. What sort of a chance did I ever have, with toughs and gunmen for me friends?"
"You"ve got yore chance now, Annie. Tim will hop off that fence he"s on and light a-runnin" straight for you if he thinks you"ve ditched "Slim" Jim."
She shook her head slowly. "No, I"ll not t"row Jim down. I"m through with him. He lied to me right while he knew this was all framed up.