It was a mean crack that last one, but I couldn’t but feel a bit peeved at the way the girl had thought she was vamping me.
“Remember if you ever get before any court in this state I’m going to see you get a square deal,” shouted John Lambert as I went down the steps.
“Ed Jenkins,” called Mrs. Lambert, “I don’t like your use of profanity but you make a fine family friend. Please call again soon.”
I waved my hand and climbed into my roadster. The door banged shut and I pressed on the starter. I’d go get Bobo and we’d lay low for a little bit, keeping quiet until after things had settled somewhat on this Sly-Peavey-Caruthers case.
Just as I leaned forward to throw in the gearshift there came a flash of white, an odor of perfume, and warm, slender arms fastened about my neck.
“Oh, Ed,” said Lois, in soft tones, as her lips came to my cheek, “don’t misunderstand me like this. I did get acquainted with you because I wanted to play you against Sly. I recognized you and thought that one or the other of you would start trouble, and, after what that newspaper said about you, I thought sure you’d murder Ogden Sly. I knew he was blackmailing dad, and that he was going to force me to marry him to keep him from exposing dad, and all the rest of it. I could have killed him myself, would have, if he’d ever actually succeeded in making my marry him.”
I patted her shoulder.
“That’s all right, kid. You played your cards as you had ’em to play. Of course, Ogden Sly got jealous first. He wanted to get me out of the way so they planned to get into my apartment, and kill off the dog so they could take Caruthers there and kill him. I blocked that little game for them, and then I had to avenge the dog and make a little expense money. I know that you’re really in love with Walter Carter, and that you’ll marry him as soon as you’ve got this mess straightened out.”
She looked up at me, her white face showing as a blur in the dim starlight.
“Stupid!” she said. “I started in to vamp you all right, but I never did like Walter Carter. He’s crazy about that blonde that was with him, anyway. I told you the other night that after I got to know you I like you. Come and see me some time after things blow over. I’ve seen so many lounge lizards that I like to see a real man, and then you’re so old fashioned I get a kick out of you. I like the way you stare at my knees.”
With that she scampered into the house, and left me sitting there, hand on the gearshift, mouth open. And then, because she’d been such a square little shooter, and because her dad had acted white, and because there was a little soft spot in my heart for the whole blamed outfit, I did something I shouldn’t have done. I beat the police to Ogden Sly’s apartment and made the sort of a search that only a crook could have made, a search that found the original letters of C. W. Kinsington, the ones that had made all the trouble for John Lambert.
I was taking chances and I knew it, and I got out of the place only a few minutes before the police got in, but I made it, all right, and in my hand I had the parcel of dead men’s letters that Ogden Sly had been using as the basis of his blackmailing schemes.
Then with a smile on my face, and with Lois Lambert’s kiss tingling my cheek, I went down and picked up Bobo. We were going to take a little vacation, Bobo and I.
Laugh That Off
All of my life I’ve been in one scrape after another, and it doesn’t feel natural to settle down to a safe existence. As a crook that’s known to three nations, wanted in six states, but enjoying immunity from extradition from the State of California because of a technicality, I can’t call on the law for protection. The hand of the law is against me. It can’t take me out of the state of California because I’m not a “fugitive from justice” within the meaning of the law, but every crook in the state feels licensed to pick on me, and the cops are just waiting to get a chance to hang something on me.
That’s where I stand. I get no protection — and I don’t want any. I have to be a law unto myself and I’m glad of it. God knows I’d hate to be one of the machine-like wage slaves that put in their lives earning tax money for the politicians to spend. City taxes for the city politicians, county taxes for the county politicians, State taxes for the ones a little higher up, and then, if they save anything out of all that smear, the government levies a tax on their income for the national politicians to spend. In addition to all of that they get hit all along the line with sales taxes, license taxes, automobile and luxury taxes, gasoline and mileage taxes, poll taxes, school taxes, tariffs, street assessments, taxes on perfumes, taxes on drugs, taxes on moving picture shows, and I hear they’re figuring on putting a tax on near beer to make the expense of prohibition enforcement.
Well, I should worry. The law doesn’t protect me. I’m outside of the machinery of man-made government and I have to be my own law, my own tax collector. The crooks all try to frame me or double-cross me and the cops sit back and watch ’em with a smile. Let one crook kill another off.
From my last two scrapes I’d picked up a dog that’s part police dog, part hound of some sort or other, and part something else. He’s a big brute, and he’d been raised the same way I had — watching every man, living on and by his wits. Also I’d acquired some twenty thousand dollars from a couple of San Diego crooks who tried to bunko me; and I figured it wouldn’t be long before they’d get on my trail and try to get back that twenty thousand bucks or take it out of my hide.
Taken all in all I wasn’t advertising where I was living in the want-ad column of the Sunday newspaper. I didn’t want any visitors, and that meant everybody.
I’d been taking a stroll out through Golden Gate park, and came back feeling braced and refreshed, the fog rolling in from the ocean, the air crisp and bracing with that life-giving thrill which is all San Francisco’s own. Bobo, that’s the dog, had gone racing on ahead of me up the stairs while I came sauntering on behind.
When I got to the door of the apartment I knew there was something wrong, some strange odor or other that the dog could detect. He was standing before the door, his nose down to the crack at the bottom, and his feet spread wide apart, tail straight out behind, hair bristling.
That would probably mean someone in the apartment, and I stood still for a minute thinking things over. The California police didn’t have anything on me. Not that I hadn’t pulled anything, but the stuff I’d pulled had all been cases of where some crook was trying to trim me and I’d simply beat him to it. I figured the crooks couldn’t squeal. They’d lay for me and try to get vengeance all right but they wouldn’t squeal to the law. Their hands were tied by the same rope that tied mine.
I walked forward, inserted my key, opened the door a crack, and looked at Bobo.
“Go on in, boy,” I said, then closed the door as the huge, tawny dog slipped eagerly within. I waited outside, smiling. If there was anyone in that apartment he was due for a little real excitement. Bobo was a crook’s dog and proud of it. I’d spent a little time and a lot of patience training him, and he knew his onions, that dog.
I’d even trained him so that he knew if anyone was trying to follow me. I’d spent a month at Del Monte getting small boys to follow us around. I’d show Bobo I was trying to keep out of sight, and he spotted the idea almost from the start. After that I’d trained him so no one could follow him when he was coming to me. He was some dog and he knew what I wanted and did it. He’d watch my face and sometimes I’m satisfied could read my mind. Just the flicker of an eyelash was all he needed. You see he’d been a social outcast himself, and he’d learned in the school of experience. That was why he recognized a kindred spirit in me, and why he knew instinctively what to do.