Paul Pry spoke in a subdued voice.
“I guess it was mine, officer.”
“That’s the way. How much was the fender worth?”
“Well,” opined the flivver driver, “the tyre is cut and—”
“Forget it, forget it!” broke in the cop. “I’m gettin’ you a settlement here. You got a battered fender that got torn off. It’s an old wreck in the first place. How much do you want to settle?”
“Twenty dollars.”
The cop snorted.
“I’ll pay it,” agreed Paul Pry, with suspicious alacrity.
“All right,” said the officer. “That’s up to you. The whole car ain’t worth forty dollars.”
But Paul Pry made no move toward his pocket.
“Well, come across,” said the flivver driver.
Paul lowered his eyes.
“I haven’t got it with me,” he said, and his tone dripped consciousness of guilt.
“Yeah. I thought so,” sneered the flivver driver.
“He’s got a car,” said the officer.
“Huh, a drive-yourself bus that he rented. The deposit he left will be taken for straightening his own fender,” said the irate flivver owner.
“Tell you what,” suggested Pry, “I’ve got a sister who works in a barber shop halfway down the block. She’ll give me the money. You wait here with the cars, and the officer can come with me if you think I’m going to beat it. I’ll be back with the twenty dollars inside of five minutes.”
The man nodded, spat into the gutter.
“Suits me,” he said, “provided the cop goes with you, an’ stays with you.”
“Come on, come on,” said the officer. “We ain’t got all day. I got work to do.”
They started for the sidewalk.
“That’s the place, the Palace Barber Shop,” said Pry.
“Huh,” snorted the man in uniform, “if you was to get yourself a job instead of wearing all the glad rags and sportin’ a fancy stick, you might not have to make a touch on a frail whenever you smashed a car.”
Paul Pry took the rebuke meekly.
“Yes, officer, I’ll try; and would you mind waiting outside? I don’t want to alarm sister, or cause the man that runs the place to think I’m making a scene. She’s awfully nervous, sis is, and she’ll think I’m in trouble. You can stand right up against the window where you can look in to the place and see I’m not making any getaway.”
“All right, but make it snappy.”
“I’ll make it snappy. But you be sure and stand where sis can see you. Otherwise she might think I was just trying for a touch. I’ve already tried for a loan today, and she said nothing doing. I’ve got to let her know I’m in trouble of some sort—”
“All right, all right,” growled the officer, “only I’d oughta run you in. Why don’t you go to work, you big cake-eater? Makes me feel like a boob helpin’ you get money out of a workin’ girl. But that flivver driver’s entitled to his money, an’ if you get it, I don’t know as I care how. Skip inside an’ make it snappy.”
Paul Pry opened the door. The barbers looked up. The girl at the manicurist’s table looked up.
She saw Paul Pry turn for a last word with the officer. She saw the officer nod and take up his station directly in front of the plate glass window. She saw the watchful frown at the corners of his squinted eyes, the belligerency of his attitude. The girl’s hand went to her throat.
Paul Pry approached, bent over her.
“Sis,” he said, “I’ve got no wish to make this painful.”
The girl tried to speak, but words failed to emerge from her constricted throat. White to the lips, she stared in dumb terror.
“If you come clean there’s a chance I can beat the rap for you,” said Paul Pry, still bent over the girl. “But make it snappy and don’t stall.”
For one swift instant she contemplated defiance.
“What are you trying to do?” she flared, but she kept her voice low, so that the barbers might not hear the conversation.
“Tryin’ to make it easy for you, sister,” assured Paul Pry. “There’s the harness bull outside. There’s your record for reefing britches. There’s Big Front Gilvray. There’s Samuel Bergen, the poor sucker. It’s quite a case. Kick through and I’ll let you off.”
“Yes you will!”
“I mean it. Come across and I’ll walk out. I’m after bigger stuff. You’re a frail, and you got roped into this. Gilvray had to bulldoze you a bit to get you into it.”
The girl nodded.
“I’ll say he did. I got this job and I was going straight, when he nosed me out and put it up to me to turn this one trick. Said he’d spill the beans to my boss and to the cops if I didn’t. You see, he got ahold of a guy I used to work with on these dip jobs, and believe me, when that boy talked he talked plenty. Gilvray knows enough to send me up — so I had to pull this one. Anyway, it looked like a cinch. Just had to play sweet to that Bergen for a while till I got what I wanted.”
Paul Pry tossed Samuel Bergen’s business card on the desk.
“Baby!” he said fervently, “I’m fallin’. I believe you. I suppose this guy thinks you’re on the up and up, and I’m not going to spoil it for you. I won’t tell him a single word of this.”
She snorted.
“He’s a married bozo that thinks his wife don’t understand him. I only played him along because Big Front put it up to me cold turkey. I’m goin’ to bounce him back so hard he’ll stick.”
The officer tapped on the glass.
They turned, saw his frowning face jerk in an impatient gesture toward the door.
“Hurry up!” whispered Paul Pry to the girl, “fork over what you took out of that wallet.”
Her hand darted into the front of her dress, came out with a folded paper.
“What were you instructed to do with this paper?”
“Meet a guy with a pink carnation in his coat on the corner of the Cody Building at five twenty-five sharp and turn it over to him. An’, so help me, mister, that’s all I know, except I got a wad of dough. I s’pose I gotta cough that up,” and she reached for her purse.
Paul Pry shook his head.
“Nope, sister. The dough’s yours. Forget all this. If anybody asks you questions, tell ’em to go to headquarters and they can get all the information they want. So long.”
The officer opened the door.
“Say, are you goin’—”
Paul Pry grinned.
“Got what we came after, old top. So long, sister, be good till I see you again.”
“Good and careful,” said the girl, with emphasis.
Paul Pry took the officer’s arm, thrust a crumpled twenty dollar bill into his palm.
“There you are, officer, that’ll pay the damage. I got it just like I promised.”
The officer jerked his arm away.
“I’d oughta run you in as a vag,” he growled. “Livin’ off’n your kid sister that way. Bah!”
They returned to the corner. The flivver driver received his money, the officer made his report. The crowd that had stood around in eager expectation of a fight sighed and dispersed. The cars were driven away. The corner became as usual.
Paul Pry unfolded the document he had received from the girl. It was an original and duplicate bill of lading of the “Interurban Motor Express Company,” calling for the delivery of one package sent by Samuel Bergen to one Herbert Dangerfield at Midland.