“Okay, y’ poor iggernant lug!” Johnny Dolan shouted. “Then here it lays. In the book it says how, up to noon tomorrow at least, I must have dealin’s only wit’ blond persons. An’ it says how between ten o’clock tonight an’ three tomorrow mornin’, great success will attend all my undertaking, see, if only I am darin’ an’ persistent, an’ I have nothin’ to fear whatsoever! An’ still furthermore, it says how tonight is very suspicious for all my love affairs an’ I will find great happiness... Of course, that is only for people like me, which is born in an aquarium. Get the idea?”
“John, I got no more notion what the hell you are talkin’ about than you have yourself,” Mr. Binney answered. His gimlet eyes were strangely moist and there was a distinct quaver in the steel-rasp sound-effect he used for a voice. “But me an’ you has been pals for many years, so we will now leave Sam to look after the joint an’ we will step down to the croaker’s an’ see is this somethin’ that can get fixed or do they really have to dust out a place for you in the booby-hatch at last.”
Johnny Dolan annoyedly shook off the hand that patted his arm.
“Kindly tie a can to the comedy, Red,” he said. “How this adds up, from what I am readin’ in the book an’ what Sniffy tells me o’ this job we have on hand, I will probably be retirin’ from business tomorrow an’ I think I will then go straight. What I mean, I will open some kind o’ fashionable clip-joint, wit’ a swell floor show an’ probably a dizzy wheel an’ a couple o’ good dealers upstairs, y’ know; an’ supposin’ we can get one o’ them plaster surgeons to fix over your map so it will not scare away trade, it might be you could take over the bar an’ — oh, hello, Sniffy.”
Mr. Sniffy O’Toole indeed had arrived. He was an odd-looking youth, lean, weak-muscled, twitchy, with stringy yellow hair and pale blue eyes that darted from side to side. He peered about warily for an instant and then glided over to the bar.
“Well?” he asked huskily, from the corner of his mouth. “So?”
“Well?” Johnny Dolan said, also from one corner of his mouth. “So what?”
“So was there one long an’ two shorts?”
“There was nothin’ you wouldn’t hear any evenin’ about this time,” Johnny Dolan said.
“Was you lissenin’?”
“Absolutely!”
“Was you lissenin’ careful?”
“Lissen, Sniffy,” Johnny Dolan said, “if I would’a lissened any harder, the insides o’ my ears would now be stickin’ out like the feelers on a bug.”
“Strange — strange,” Mr. O’Toole muttered, with a long, thoughtful sniff. “He should’a been here before this an’ — psst!” he cried, holding up one hand. “Wasn’t that one long an’ two shorts, Dolan?”
“That was one long, wit’ positively no shorts,” Johnny Dolan said firmly.
“Yeah?” Mr. O’Toole frowned doubtfully, with several rapid sniffs. “I’d certain’y’a said that was — psst! Was that one long an’ two shorts?”
“Absolutely not!” said Johnny Dolan. “That was two shorts, wit’ no long whatsoever.”
“Hey, lissen!” Mr. Binney cried brokenly, for even he had nerves. “Whatever this is, would you kindly roll it outside, on account of you are gettin’ me down wit’ all this—”
“Psst! Psst! Psst!” Mr. O’Toole shot at him angrily and waved both hands — and this time, to be sure, the single long blast of an automobile horn did sound from the street, and after it two shorter blasts. “Hah!” Mr. O’Toole said, with a great, relieved sniff. “That is probably sayin’ he wishes me to come steer him in here for a conference. Stay where you are, Dolan. I will hold up one finger if it is okay for you to foller us into the back room. Binney! Kindly chuck out whosoever is in there, on account of we have to talk very private.”
He glided across the sawdust floor and up the steps to the street. Mr. Binney passed one horny hand over his forehead.
“Lissen, John,” he said hoarsely, “an’ t’ hell wit’ whatever this stromology book is tellin’ you, you still got time to beat it out through the back window, an’ if this goof shows again I will paste him one wit’ the bung-starter an’—”
He subsided, lips parted. Mr. O’Toole had already returned and beside him hurried a curious figure — a stocky man in a long dark overcoat, with wide collar turned up until it met his black slouch hat, which was pulled far down in front. So that, Johnny Dolan reflected with a slight shiver, for all you could really see this guy might have a head or it might just as easy be that his lid was simply resting on his collar, with nothing whatsoever inside. It made a person feel quite peculiar along the backbone.
“Dolan!” Mr. O’Toole croaked.
“Yeah?” Johnny Dolan said thinly.
“Psst!” said Mr. O’Toole, and held up one finger. “An’ lock the door after you.”
At least, Johnny Dolan noted when he had locked the door, the party had a head, once his collar was turned down, and the more you looked at this head the more puzzled you got, on account of you knew positively you had seen it somewheres before, maybe only in a newspaper picture.
There was a very fine pan on the front of this head, with a little white moustache and a jaw with large bumps at the back corners and a couple of sharp gray eyes which seemed like they were probably going straight through your clothes and your skin and looking over what you had for dinner.
“Psst, Dolan!” Mr. O’Toole said. “Pull your chair over close to the table here, on account of we have to whisper. Dolan, as you can doubtlessly see, this is Mr. Cyrus P. Van Inkle in person an’... an’ this is Johnny Dolan, Mr. Van Inkle.”
Mr. Van Inkle nodded, how it looked to Johnny Dolan, with about three hairs of one eyebrow.
“I guess it seems quite peculiar, Dolan, how a slug like me would be knowin’ a rich gent like Mr. Van Inkle,” Mr. O’Toole pursued genially, “but it is somewhat like this. Monday I am to a certain polo game, see, lookin’ to see what this guy has in his pockets an’ then makin’ a very quick getaway an’ lookin’ to see what some other guy has in his pockets; an’ it seems that Mr. Van Inkle, which has very fine eyes, is watchin’ me an’ gets greatly interested, on account of he says I move exactly like a ghost.”
“Can you move like a ghost, too?” Mr. Van Inkle snapped. “It is essential. I must have two men on this job, and O’Toole says you can.”
“Why, absolutely!” Johnny Dolan replied. “I could also make noises like a ghost an’ if necessary I could—”
“Well, anyhow,” Mr. O’Toole pursued smugly, “it seems Mr. Van Inkle gets more an’ more interested in this way which I move, on account of he is needin’ somebody which moves exactly like a ghost, an’ so he follers me an’ gives me the sign an’ we go sit in the clubhouse, which is empty—”
“I’ll do the talking, O’Toole,” Mr. Van Inkle clipped off, and now you saw them eyes could get very mean, like when the assistant D.A. is telling the jury how you should get a five-to-ten stretch. “In the first place, understand one thing. I’m a very wealthy man. Slip up on me, play just one trick, and I have lawyers who will send you up for life — and that’s a guarantee! If you even claim to have talked with me, at any time in your lives, I’ll bring fifty witnesses to prove you were robbing a bank at the time. On the other hand, play straight with me, do your job well, and I’ll make you both rich. Is that clear?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Van Inkle!” Mr. O’Toole said briskly. “An’ I will state we are very honest crooks, which would greatly prefer gettin’ rich to gettin’ the book, so—”
Mr. Van Inkle was now gritting his large teeth so you could hear them and he was also getting very mad indeed, on account of his face was now the same color as the top of a turkey before they chop off his head.