Her dress rustled as she squatted down to where the dog crouched watching Burkhardt. She gave a wordless little exclamation. It was the detective who spoke:
“Two tens!”
“See?” Marty cried triumphantly.
The detective wouldn’t give in. “Yeah, and I found twenty more of them in that humidor. You’re only building up my original case against you. The way you tell it, it’s too hit-or-miss a way of collecting for sharks like them to rely on. If the buyer happens to have the money, all well and good. If not, what’s to stop him from helping himself and not depositing anything in return?”
“He could try that just once. He knows he’d never get any again when he needs it most. And he knows he’d get caught up with and have the amount outstanding beaten out of his hide sooner or later. I’ll admit it’s kind of a hit-or-miss system and they wouldn’t use it ordinarily, but you’ve driven ’em underground and they have no choice until the heat goes down. At that, I could only supply one customer at a time for them. But one customer a day they’re sure of, with absolutely no risk to themselves, is better than nothing. And I suppose they have others like me all over town they’re using right now — flower venders, chewing-gum peddlers, pushcart owners. And now if I turn you loose and give you back your gun, will you give me my chance to square myself?”
“What’s that?” asked the detective, with reservations in his voice.
“Why, just go for my regular outing in the park like I’ve been doing every day, but with you keeping me in sight. On the way back, whoever stops me to take the money out of Dick’s leg, that’s your man, that’s who you want to follow. I’ll know when it happens, and I’ll find some way of tipping you off in time. You keep him in sight and he’s bound to lead you where you want to go, eventually, to the higher-ups.”
Burkhardt must have been nine tenths detective. Or maybe he was just sore at having had one put over on him by a blind man and wouldn’t have given in to anything. “Or maybe he’ll lead me on a wild-goose chase, and you’ll conveniently sprout wings and disappear while my back’s turned. I could lie to you, for the sake of getting my hands free, but I wouldn’t stoop to that with a man twice my age and blind in the bargain, after you already got the better of me once. I’m giving you fair warning. If you turn me loose and give me back my gun. I’m going to take up right where I left off, finish the job I started out to do: haul you in with me and turn over the evidence I’ve got against you!”
Marty took a deep breath, more of regret than resentment. “Then I’ll have to go it alone,” he said.
“Without even being able to see where you’re going, you expect to accomplish what our whole squad has been trying to do all winter long, without succeeding so far?” Burkhardt scoffed. “With what?”
“My ears, my dog, and whatever brains God gave me,” answered Marty.
Chapter VI.
Trailing by Ear.
He came out of the house with Dick at his usual time the next day. Again Mrs. Schultz, the janitress, was loitering on the doorstep, said good morning as he went by. Everything seemed just like other days. Only, Celia hadn’t gone to work today. She was upstairs in the flat with a raging, unshaven, tied-up detective on her hands, with orders to see that he stayed where he was until her grandfather had his chance to clear his name.
There would be no danger attached to it so far as he was concerned, Marty had assured her over and over. Naturally he couldn’t expect to tackle a gang, bring them in unaided. But he would find some way of singling out whoever it was had been using him for a dope runner, maybe even tracing him back to his base of operations: and the rest was up to the narcotic squad. To which Burkhardt growled contemptuously:
“Sure! You’re so inconspicuous, with your smoked glasses and peglegged dog, no one would ever notice you following them! What d’ye expect to do, tie a cowbell around his neck?”
“When I come back,” Marty answered, “I’ll be able to tell you where the headquarters of this dope ring is, which is more than you’ve been able to find out by yourself, with two good eyes!”
They advanced along the street now in their usual fashion. Yesterday’s twenty-dollar “take” had been carefully replaced in Dick’s leg, since but for the intervention of Burkhardt, Marty would never have known it was there in the first place, and he wasn’t supposed to even now.
The usual crowd of rubbernecks started to form as soon as they were out of their own neighborhood, and the usual foolish questions were asked. Then the usual “Missourian” stepped forward, impeded them while he inspected the leg.
Was this his man? Marty didn’t make any attempt to find out. It was daylight all around him, for everyone but him; the odds were still too unequal, like last night before he’d smashed that light bulb. On the way back was the time to try to tag him.
Two crossings away, as they stood waiting for the light, he ordered Dick: “Stand up and take my hat off for me.” This was only so that he could get the dog in a position where he could find out if the switch had already been made, without bending over and examining the leg, which would have tipped his hand. Eyes might still be watching him from a distance. The dog reared up against him on its two hind legs, caught the brim of Marty’s hat between his teeth, removed it for him. Eut while Dick was up against him like that, body to body, Marty quickly thrust one exploring finger into the leather shield. The wad of folded money was gone. A cube of paper, folded tightly over something crumbly, was there instead. So that had been his man back there just now.
Loiterers still hanging around watching, applauded the dog’s cleverness as it dropped down again to all fours with the hat between its jaws. A coin or two dropped into it in appreciation; that covered up what he had just done beautifully, as far as Marty was concerned. They went on again. That was Step 1. “I’m one up on them now,” he thought. “I knew what I’m carrying, and they still don’t know that I knew.”
They found their usual bench in the park, sat down on it.
“Step 2 will take place pretty soon. Fold your leg under you,” Marty told Dick, and jogged it with the tip of his stick; “that’ll give him away to us.”
Footsteps sounded in the distance, drew nearer, came to a halt opposite them.
“What’s that, a wooden leg your dog has?”
Marty felt like saying: “How do you know? You can’t see it from where you are.” But he didn’t. He wasn’t interested in this poor wretch, anyway. He and others like him had already been picked up long ago by Burkhardt’s squad, then turned loose again for come-ons.
“Stretch your paw out a little, doggie, so I can see it.”
“And get my bum jolts,” added Marty to himself.
He let the steps fade away in the distance, then he bent over and ran his finger under the leather cushion a second time. The little paper cube was gone now; the spongy feel of folded money was back again.
“We’re getting there,” he told the dog softly. “The preliminary stages are over with now. At dusk, when we go out of here, our job begins.”
The wheels of a little cart came creaking along the path about an hour later. Marty knew who it was; they were old friends.
“Hello, Silvestro,” he said. “I got a sweet tooth today. What you got that’s extra sticky and makes a lotta noise when you chew it?” “Popcorn dip’ in molasses, she’sa make the most noise, she’sa the worst sticky thing I got ona whole cart. You getta on your fingers, you never getta off again, issa worse than fly pape.”
“Gimme a dime’s worth of it.”
But the sweet tooth must have gone sour on him; after the little cart had trundled on, he put it all in his pocket, still wrapped up; didn’t even taste it.