He moved stealthily forward for a few steps; and then halted abruptly, and pressed back against the wall. Yes, here were the men he sought. In so far as locating them in the tenement was concerned, he was in luck. The hallway had widened out beyond the staircase, and from where he now stood, through a half-opened door, a door that was in poverty-stricken and disreputable repair, whose panels, smashed and broken probably in some fracas of former days, were patched with strips of cardboard that in turn, hanging by a tack or two, gaped blatantly, he could make out Clarkie Munn’s dark, scowling, unshaven features, as the man sat sprawled out on a chair in the centre of the room; also, Clarkie Munn was swearing viciously:
“Well, where’s Shaky Liz—eh? Where’s Shaky Liz? Who’s right now about comin’ back here? Her tongue’s been hangin’ out fer a drink now fer two weeks, an’ she’s bust loose. Dat’s wot she’s done—yes, an’ probably queered de whole lay too! I told youse so! I told youse youse’d have to show me about Shaky Liz before I’d go de limit. See! I ain’t fer any juice chair up de river—not yet! Savvy?”
“Aw, shut up!” The words were clipped off; the voice was almost a boyish treble. “Can yer croakin’, Clarkie, youse give me a pain! Youse came back here because I said so—dat’s why! I had to steer clear of Shaky Liz while she put de stunt across, an’ we got to know now if de girl fell fer it all right.”
“Yes,” growled Clarkie Munn, “an’ Shaky Liz has gone an’ got drunk, an’ spilled de beans! I know her!”
“If she has,” purred the other, and there was something of finality made the more horrible by the boyish tones, “she gets hers—instead of de other, dat’s all. An’ anyway, youse have no kick comin’! Youse an’ Gypsy here, an’ me, an’ Shaky Liz has all got a century apiece to start wid. We can’t lose, can we?”
“Sure, we can!” complained Clarkie Munn. “We can lose de other two hundred dat’s comin’ when de job’s done, can’t we?”
Another voice spoke in a curiously meditative, raucous way:
“I never thought I’d be workin’ fer him. He handed me one once dat I ain’t fergot. But dere ain’t no one dares to touch him now—he’s too big. Youse’d get smeared off de map. He’s got de coin, but he’s no good anyway else, except dat he’s sharper’n hell. D’ye remember de roll he coughs up when he peels us dem century notes dat night? Say, I guess he packs dat along wid him all de time. Say, I wish we had him wid de girl to-night—I guess we’d get our two hundred apiece, all right, all right.”