He met her gaze and shuffled forward.
"You the one that slides out the dope on what's gonna happen?"
The woman inclined her head.
"Yes. Come in."
The visitor stepped into the room hung with the faded blue draperies. Madame Sovio closed the door after him. She indicated he should take the chair opposite her across the table.
"Do you wish a horoscope or a reading?" she inquired as he sat down.
He stared.
"A spinner on the docks give me the gab that you had steered him straight on the bang-tails. I'm due to gay-cat tonight on something important. I want a frame telling me how my luck is gonna break."
Madame Sovio twined her claw fingers together. She understood the youth to mean that some client who had sought her advice as to making bets on the races had recommended him to her.
"The stars," she began, following a usual procedure, "plan and compel! Their influence falls directly on each mortal. What is planned cannot be changed. A man's planetary destiny is as inflexible as Fate. It is Fate. I charge one dollar for a reading."
The red-faced youth produced a crumpled dollar and pushed it across the table.
"Give me the dope on how I'm gonna make out. Am I gonna be lucky or not? Get the hop working and give me a buzz. Should I or shouldn't I?"
The seamy lips of the astrologer came together.
"What is your name?" she asked in a business-like voice. "What is the date of your birth? Upon what hour of that day or night were you born? I must know these things before I read the messages of the heavenly bodies."
The youth continued to stare at her for a long minute. He muttered the name of Joe Carney, informed her of the date of his natal day and, without hesitation, said he had been born at the precise hour of midnight.
Madame Sovio became engrossed in a deep study of her charts.
While she bent her gray-crowned head over the table Joe Carney settled back in his chair. He glanced about idly and wrinkled his nose at the familiar odor of gin that could not be disguised by the perfume of the cloves. He sat patiently until a slight exclamation moved his eyes to the woman across the table. He was surprised to see she was staring at a chart with every indication of horror.
"Not one hour of the twenty-four is propitious! The day is ill-omened! All the plentary influences are dark and evil. Mars, Saturn, Uranus and Mercury are adverse. Jupiter is in a hostile position and is ringed with red. This is the star that guides your footsteps through this constellation. Its scarlet rim foretells but one thing."
Joe Carney met her gaze.
"What's that?"
Madame Sovio moved her hand slightly.
"Murder!" she said quietly. "At midnight you came upon this earth and at midnight the stars plan you shall be removed from it. Uranus intrudes and blurs the horoscope. I can read no further. That is all."
Joe Carney laughed harshly.
"The hell it is! I pay a dollar for that song and dance? Give me the money back. You're a robber!"
Madame Sovio pushed the dirty bill he had laid on the table across to him.
"Take it! It will bring you no good. You are in the shadow."
The red-faced youth pocketed his money, shrugged with contempt and slouched out, banging the door after him. For an interval the woman sat motionless, fingers picking at the thumb-marked chart before her.
"The red ring," she said half-aloud. "Blood on the stars — murder on earth—"
Emerging onto Sixth Avenue, from the narrow entrance of the building housing the two rooms of the star-reader, Joe Carney laughed under his breath.
"A hell of a spiel!" he said to himself. "I should get glomed for a bone to get that bunk dished out. " The old dame is nuts."
He crossed to the west side of Sixth Avenue and walked north. A firm believer in the Black Arts, he wished he had not listened to the dock-walloper who had told him of the astrologer. He could have interviewed a palmist or crystal-gazer and not wasted his time. He knew nothing, and now it was too late to seek another seer. Within twenty minutes he had an appointment with Stanley Ray, the leader of the Duster Band; final plans for the night's adventures were to be unfolded to him.
In sight of the shopping district Carney entered a side street. He put a number of avenues behind him, passed under the scaffolding of an overhead railroad and presently was on the threshold of the small area of the city, controlled by Stanley Ray's band of thugs and gangsters. Tenement houses stood shoulder to shoulder in flanks of brick. Down the slope of the side street an avenue where freight cars rolled was visible; further distant was the waterfront and the Hudson River. Frowsy women leaned from countless windows; children played in the gutters; the summer air was dank with the stench of salt water.
Into the avenue where the freight trains ran Joe Carney stepped. He put two blocks behind him and presently came upon a water-front hotel — a building that had been old when the city was young. Joe Carney passed through the hostelry's yawning front door and moved into a small lobby. A few loafers, smoking nauseous pipes, played checkers silently or slumbered loudly, shaggy heads tilted forward on flanneled chests.
Apart from the group, brooding over his cigarette, sat a tall, heavily built young man with a dark, sinister face in which was largely written both determination and courage. This man stood up as Carney entered, nodded his head slightly and opened a white-washed door a few feet back from where he had been sitting. When Carney had followed him into a small room that was used as a refuge for drug-peddlers and their victims, he closed the door and turned the key.
Joe Carney promptly sat down.
"Well, I'm here."
Stanley Ray inclined his head slightly.
"So I see." He pulled up a chair and dropped into it. "Listen carefully. I'm passing you the word that you turn the job on Tenth Avenue tonight. I've never told you where you're to go or what you've to do. All that you know is you've been picked out by me to swing a deal and keep your peep closed. The frame is set so that all you have to do is to walk in, help yourself and walk out. A half-wit could turn this without a mistake. That's how soft it is."
Joe Carney fished in his pocket for the half-consumed cigarette. He lighted it and inhaled deeply.
"I make you. Let's have it all."
Stanley Ray went to the door and listened. He returned to his chair and leaned forward. He lowered his voice.
"Limping Lou has turned straight — by request. He works for the gas company. Tuesday he went to a flat on Tenth Avenue to read the cellar meter. In the front basement of the place are two rooms rented by a woman called Mrs. Garber. Lou had finished reading the meter and was passing out when he heard a clinking noise. It came from inside Mrs. Garber's front room. Lou tried to look through the keyhole, but it was plugged. So he went out into the alley and found the side window of the same room. This window was protected by bars, but was open at the top. Lou found a barrel, stood up on it and looked through the top of it."
Joe Carney drew a breath!
"What did he see?"
Stanley Ray leaned still closer.
"He saw Mrs. Garber sitting before a trunk — counting money! Lou said she was tying up bales of the green stuff in old aprons. He watched her until she put the aprons in the trunk, filled it to the top with old clothes and then shut it up! That's what he saw!"
Joe Carney dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his heel.
"What else?"
"I stuck a plant up there," Stanley Ray resumed "I found out this Mrs. Garber is out every afternoon. She makes her money playing the stock market. It's no use trying to get into the room during the day because the janitor of the building and a bunch of ginnies are laying pipe in the cellar. I sent the Turk up yesterday. He took a fall out of the bars. He filed them to the bone. A couple of pulls will yank them out. The window's always open and you can go in over the top of it."