For just a split second the light got to it, in all its glory, and he forgot to breathe in or out. Then instinctively he whipped it out of sight into his lap and crouched protectively forward above it, hiding it with the upper part of his body.
He knew enough not to take time off even to stuff it into his pocket. He just had time to slap down the flap of the bowl, before the searching man looked over at him. Had he seen him fish the diamonds out? Keogh looked sleepily down at the floor, seemed to be drowsing over his coffee. The other fellow moved again. Now he was just one table away, facing Keogh.
“He has a gun on him,” Keogh thought. “Ten to one he has. He didn’t come after a thing like that without one. If he catches on I’ve already found it, he’ll use it on me first, and ask for his trinket back later. If I get up and try to walk out, he may suspect what happened. But if I wait, he’ll run out of tables — and then he’ll be sure!”
It was hot, of course. Either smuggled or stolen. And it was pretty easy to guess what must have happened. The other had had the necklace on him earlier in the day — no longer ago than that, for the sugar in these bowls was renewed about once every twenty-four hours.
He’d found out he was being shadowed by dicks along the mangy avenue outside. He had to get rid of the gems in a hurry, knowing he was apt to be pinched and caught red-handed with them at any moment. Afraid that if he jumped into a cab or car he’d be overhauled and searched before he could get to some place he’d be safe, he’d popped in here, the first doorway that offered itself, and cached the necklace in one of the sugar bowls in the instant he had before they sized him up through the glass front.
Then when they’d made their pinch and hauled him away, he was clean. They’d had no evidence on which they could hold him, so he’d gotten himself sprung almost at once. Making good and sure he wasn’t tailed a second time, he’d come back here to get his loot. It was a desperate expedient, but not as bad as dropping the diamonds down a sidewalk grating or letting them be found on him.
He’d had to hide the thing in such a hurry, with his eyes on the plate-glass front, that he probably wasn’t sure now just which table it had been. Or else he thought the bowls had gotten transposed during the course of the day’s hash-slinging. Right now he must be sweating blood!
But Keogh would be doing more than sweating it. He would be bleeding it from a couple of bullet punctures if he didn’t get out of here pretty fast, he knew. He’d located the bulge now, under the guy’s left arm. It was not very noticeable, but it wasn’t just made by a pack of old letters, either!
As for turning the necklace back, walking up to the guy and saying, “Here, I found this and you seem to be hunting for it. I’m hard up. Is it worth forty or fifty bucks to you—” He wasn’t that much of a fool.
He might get the fifty, sure, on loan for about five minutes. Then he’d get a couple of slugs in addition at the first dark corner he came to after leaving, just as insurance that he really kept his mouth shut. No, thanks!
The other man had finished dredging the tureen at the table where he was, and Keogh’s was the next in line. Fortunately, the counterman had showed up again, and the hunter didn’t seem to want to make the move without any excuse. It was easy to see the people in this place weren’t in on it with him, and he didn’t want to arouse their curiosity or suspicion.
By now he apparently couldn’t stomach any more of their putrid coffee, so this time for an excuse he got up and went over to the water filter. And when he came back, it was going to be to Keogh’s table.
The riskiest place to carry the diamonds would be the safest in the long run, Tom Keogh decided quickly. Pockets were a dead giveaway, and it would take too long to put them in his sock. The water ran out of that cooler into the glass awfully fast, and the outfit was some kind of polished metal that reflected the whole room behind the fellow’s back almost as well as a mirror. Keogh couldn’t make any suspicious moves. The necklace was bunched up in Keogh’s lap, and he had one hand sheltering it sidewise from observation. He gathered it into the hollow of that hand, then tucked it in and folded his fingers down over it without moving another muscle of his body.
Then he yawned, as if coming out of his lethargy. He brought his arms up, elbows out, and stretched in his chair. He kept the backs of his hands turned toward the gunman at the filter. Then he opened his clenched fingers a little, with his hands up in full sight. Not much, but enough to guide the string of jewels in the right direction.
His cuff was baggy and shapeless, as wide open as a firemen’s net. He felt the thing go wriggling down his wrist like a cold, rough-edged little snake, and his sleeve swallowed it. It fell all the way down to the crook of his arm, bringing up against his biceps.
He got a good grip on the bottom of his cuff with that same hand, doubling it back on itself and tucking it shut tight around his wrist. Then he brought his arms down again, and yawned.
The necklace dropped right back down his sleeve again, of course, but it couldn’t get out. There wasn’t any slack left in the cloth now, the way he was holding it. The jewels stayed in. The awkward position of his fingers was barely noticeable, and then only if you looked closely down at the hand. Most people carry their fingers curving loosely inward a bit anyway, not stretched out stiffly like an Egyptian bas-relief.
The hard guy was coming toward the table with his glass of water. Tom Keogh scraped his chair back, picked up his check with his free hand and sauntered aimlessly toward the cashier. He put the check down, reached in his pants and dug out his last nickel, dropping it on top of the slip of cardboard. The cashier, interrupted halfway down Walter Winchell’s column, gave him a dirty look for staying that long on a five-cent check and banged the coin into the till.
Out on the sidewalk, Keogh turned his head slightly and glanced back in. This time the guy was not messing the sugar bowl at the table Keogh had just left. Instead he was staring intently at it as if something about it seemed to show it had already been searched.
Keogh struck a quicker gait, but had hardly gotten started when the voice behind him stopped him with a sickening fear. He’d only gotten one doorway down the street, but luckily that was a good dark one.
“Just a minute, buddy! Hey, you! Take it easy!”
There was a feline softness about the voice, almost a purr, that was somehow more menacing than the loudest shout. The fellow stood revealed for a moment outside the lighted cafeteria doorway, as Keogh turned, then suddenly was standing next to him, without seeming to have moved at all.
“Trouble you for a light, buddy?” he asked, still purring.
Keogh knew better than to run for it. He tapped his pocket halfheartedly. “Didn’t they have one in there?”
“Couldn’t say, buddy, didn’t ask them,” was the answering drawl. “Lemme help you look, I’m good at finding things. Just move back a little closer to this doorway, out of the drafts.”
There was a maddening quality about that smooth, silky tone of voice. Perhaps it was intentional, to provoke men to their deaths. Keogh, goaded, would have grappled with him then and there, but the gun had come out.
“What is this, a holdup?” he asked bitterly. “I haven’t anything on me. Why don’tcha pick some one that—”
The other’s pronunciation became even slower and softer.
“Ju-ust relax, buddy. Don’t say anything you’ll be sorry for. There’s nothing to get excited about.”
Keogh didn’t argue the point. The other had him now with his back pressed flat against the closed doorway behind him. The gunman held his gun hand back a little, and hidden close up against his own body. You couldn’t have noticed what was going on from a yard away.