XXIII—THE RENDEZVOUS

It was night again in the underworld.

Billy Kane slipped suddenly into the dark shadows of a doorway. Fifty yards ahead of him, up the poorly lighted, narrow and miserable street, three men had paused on the sidewalk, and were engaged in what was apparently an animated discussion. Billy Kane’s eyes narrowed in a puzzled, perturbed, and yet grim way, as he watched them. He had followed them for an hour now—from a saloon, where he had found them, to a disreputable pool room, and from there again to a saloon, and now here.

He did not understand. It was one of those strange portals, so extraneous to the aim of clearing his name of the murder of David Ellsworth, and yet, too, so essentially a corollary of the Rat’s rôle that he played here in the underworld, at which he was knocking again. His lips curled in a queer smile. How long would it be before the end? And what would that end be? In his possession now, save for a portion of the rubies, perhaps half of them, was everything that the murderers of David Ellsworth had stolen from the old philanthropist’s vault on that night which seemed now to belong to some past age and incarnation. He knew now that the Man with the Crutch was the actual murderer—but there he faced a blank wall. He had even fought with the man in the blackness of old Barloff’s room last night, not knowing until too late who his assailant was, and the man had got away.

His hand at his side clenched. It could not endure very long—this impossible situation in which he found himself with that strange, unknown woman, who, believing him to be the Rat, held the threat of Sing Sing over his head. And there was the Rat himself whose name and personality and home, such as it was, he had usurped during the latter’s absence, an absence that might terminate at any moment. And there were the police who dragged the city and the country from end to end for Billy Kane. From anyone of these three sources, swift as a lightning stroke, without an instant’s warning, the end might come with that goal of life still unreached, and, greater than life, his honor, still unreclaimed. And it seemed to-night somehow that his chances were bitterly small, that somehow the odds seemed to be growing and accumulating against him. He was on another errand now, because he could not help himself. He was allowing precious moments that should have been devoted to the one chance he had, that of searching ceaselessly, pitilessly, remorselessly, for the Man with the Crutch, to be directed into other channels—because he could not help himself.

He stepped out from the shelter of the doorway, and started forward again along the street. The three men had turned from the sidewalk, and had disappeared inside a dingy, black and tumble-down tenement. Billy Kane’s lips tightened a little. It was a hard neighborhood, nestling just off the Bowery—as hard almost as the three characters themselves who had just vanished from sight. There were a few pedestrians here on the side street, a few figures that skulked along in the semi-darkness, rather than walked, but not many; and for the most part, though it was still early, not more than nine o’clock, the buildings that flanked the street were dark and unlighted.

Billy Kane jerked his slouch hat farther down over his eyes as he walked along. He did not understand. Two hours ago he had been sitting in the Rat’s den with Whitie Jack—who had ventured out of hiding again, safe now since the interest of the police in Peters’, the butler’s, murder had become definitely centered in the Man with the Crutch—and someone had knocked at the door. Whitie Jack had answered the knock, and had brought back the message that Bundy Morgan was wanted at the telephone in a little shop across the street. He, Billy Kane, in his rôle of the Rat, alias the said Bundy Morgan, had perforce answered, and, as he had picked up the receiver, he had instantly recognized the voice of the woman whom he knew by no other name than the one he himself had given her—the Woman in Black. He was subconsciously rehearsing the rather one-sided conversation now, as he moved along.

“Is that you, Bundy?” she had asked. “And do you know who is speaking?”

“Yes,” he had answered.

“Listen, then!” Her voice had been quiet, deliberate, and yet pregnant with a curiously sharp, imperative command. “Find Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe at once, and shadow them to-night. Do not let them out of your sight. And see that you do not fail! Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he had replied mechanically; “but——”

That was all. She had hung up the receiver at the other end of the line.

He had heard of Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe in the days when he had frequented the Bad Lands on old David Ellsworth’s philanthropic missions, for the very simple reason that they were notorious and outstanding criminal characters even in the heart and center of the worst crime and vice in the city. They were both lags, both men with prison records, and marked by the police. Also they were versatile. They had in turn been apaches, gangsters, box-workers, poke-getters and second-story sneaks; and they were credited with measuring human life purely as a commercial commodity—worth merely what they could get for it.

He had heard of Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe—who hadn’t?—but as to their lair, or where they were to be found, he had not had the slightest inkling. Whitie Jack, however, had solved that problem for him. He had sent Whitie Jack out to run them down, and Whitie had returned within an hour with the report that they were in a certain far from reputable saloon, and that they had been joined by the Cherub. He, Billy Kane, had never heard of the Cherub, but an adroit leading question or two had set Whitie Jack’s glib tongue in motion. The Cherub had proved a topic that had aroused an unbounded enthusiasm in Whitie Jack.

“Dey ain’t got nothin’ on de Cherub—none of ’em has,” Whitie Jack had asserted, switching his cigarette butt from one corner of his mouth to the other in order to permit of an admiring grin. “He’s de angel kid—he is! Youse’d think he spent his life handin’ around hymn books an’ leadin’ de singin’ down at de mission joints—only he don’t! If he got enough for it he’d pull a gun an’ blow yer bean off, an’ youse wouldn’t believe it was him even while he was doin’ it, he’d look dat innocent. Believe me, Bundy! He’s got ’em all skinned, an’ he ain’t got no limit except de sky. Mabbe some day de police’ll get wise, but dey ain’t fallen to de sweet little face of him wid his baby eyes yet. But, aw, say, wot’s de use! Youse know him as well as I do. Youse’d think dey’d just lifted him out of a dinky little cradle an’ soused him all over wid Florida water—dat’s de Cherub. But de guy dat knows him ducks his nut—dat’s all.”

Billy Kane shook his head in a sort of savage perplexity. He had dismissed Whitie Jack then, picked up Clarkie Munn, Gypsy Joe and the Cherub, and had followed them here. He had come abreast of the tenement in which they had disappeared now, and he looked quickly around him. There was no one on the street close enough to pay any particular attention to his movements; and there was no doorbell to ring, for in that locality the formality of entering a tenement, where humans hived instead of lived, and where at all hours the occupants came and went as a matter of course, consisted in pushing the door open without further ceremony. His hand slipped into the side pocket of his coat, and his fingers closed in a reassuring touch upon his automatic. For what particular reason he was to watch Gypsy Joe and Clarkie Munn he was as much as ever in the dark; but one thing was clear—there was only one way to keep in touch with his quarry.

He stepped from the sidewalk, and, with well-simulated unconcern, pushed the tenement door open, entered, closed the door softly behind him, and stood still, listening intently. The place was gloomy and dark, and heavy with a musty, unsavory odor of garlic and rank, stale tobacco; but ahead of him, along what seemed like a narrow passage flanking the stairs, a faint glow of light struggled out into the blackness, as though from a partially opened door, and from this direction a murmur of men’s voices reached him.

He moved stealthily forward for a few steps; and then halted abruptly, and pressed back against the wall. Yes, here were the men he sought. In so far as locating them in the tenement was concerned, he was in luck. The hallway had widened out beyond the staircase, and from where he now stood, through a half-opened door, a door that was in poverty-stricken and disreputable repair, whose panels, smashed and broken probably in some fracas of former days, were patched with strips of cardboard that in turn, hanging by a tack or two, gaped blatantly, he could make out Clarkie Munn’s dark, scowling, unshaven features, as the man sat sprawled out on a chair in the centre of the room; also, Clarkie Munn was swearing viciously:

“Well, where’s Shaky Liz—eh? Where’s Shaky Liz? Who’s right now about comin’ back here? Her tongue’s been hangin’ out fer a drink now fer two weeks, an’ she’s bust loose. Dat’s wot she’s done—yes, an’ probably queered de whole lay too! I told youse so! I told youse youse’d have to show me about Shaky Liz before I’d go de limit. See! I ain’t fer any juice chair up de river—not yet! Savvy?”

“Aw, shut up!” The words were clipped off; the voice was almost a boyish treble. “Can yer croakin’, Clarkie, youse give me a pain! Youse came back here because I said so—dat’s why! I had to steer clear of Shaky Liz while she put de stunt across, an’ we got to know now if de girl fell fer it all right.”

“Yes,” growled Clarkie Munn, “an’ Shaky Liz has gone an’ got drunk, an’ spilled de beans! I know her!”

“If she has,” purred the other, and there was something of finality made the more horrible by the boyish tones, “she gets hers—instead of de other, dat’s all. An’ anyway, youse have no kick comin’! Youse an’ Gypsy here, an’ me, an’ Shaky Liz has all got a century apiece to start wid. We can’t lose, can we?”

“Sure, we can!” complained Clarkie Munn. “We can lose de other two hundred dat’s comin’ when de job’s done, can’t we?”

Another voice spoke in a curiously meditative, raucous way:

“I never thought I’d be workin’ fer him. He handed me one once dat I ain’t fergot. But dere ain’t no one dares to touch him now—he’s too big. Youse’d get smeared off de map. He’s got de coin, but he’s no good anyway else, except dat he’s sharper’n hell. D’ye remember de roll he coughs up when he peels us dem century notes dat night? Say, I guess he packs dat along wid him all de time. Say, I wish we had him wid de girl to-night—I guess we’d get our two hundred apiece, all right, all right.”

Clarkie Munn sat suddenly bolt upright in his chair, staring across the room, obviously at the last speaker.

“I’d be wid youse, Gypsy!” he said eagerly. “Him an’ me don’t belong to de same lodge neither. We’re all right, we are, fer dirty work, dat’s where we stand; but where do we ever get a look-in when dere’s anything juicy goin’! But youse’d have to know he had de roll on him. Youse wouldn’t get anywhere unless youse did. I’d be wid youse, Gypsy. I wish something like dat’d break loose.” He swung around in his chair. “Eh, Cherub?”

“Youse give me a pain!” murmured the boyish voice.

“When youse gets a chance to get dat guy, youse’ll get a chance to hang yer hat in a bathroom suite in de swellest joint in town, an’ use a limousine fer a gape wagon, an’ wear white spats an’ yellow gloves in summer time. Can de wish stuff!”

Billy Kane, hugging close against the wall, moved silently farther on toward the rear of the hall until he was beyond the radius of light from the doorway of the room. The street door had opened, and a footstep, hesitant, scuffling, was out there somewhere behind him. The step came nearer, and now he could make out a woman’s form, that, either in reality or as an illusion due to the uncertain light, seemed to sway a little unsteadily as she walked. Opposite the door she stood still, and now in the fuller light Billy Kane could see her quite distinctly. Obviously, it was the woman they had referred to as Shaky Liz—an old, unkempt, hag-like creature, who blinked sore, red-rimmed eyes in apparent astonishment and consequent indecision at the partially open door and the light from within. And then she stepped forward into the room, and the next moment the door closed with a slam behind her, and with the slam her voice rose in a curious, gurgling cry that seemed to mingle terror and an unbridled fury.

In an instant, Billy Kane had retraced his steps, and was crouching against the closed door. He could see now even better than before. The gaping strip of cardboard that did duty for the smashed panel, dislodged still farther by the violent slam of the door, afforded him an almost unrestricted view of the interior. Clarkie Munn had not moved from his chair, and a little away from him, legs swinging from a dilapidated, rickety table, Gypsy Joe, black-visaged and swarthy, sucked indifferently at a cigarette; but over in the far corner of the room by the bed, the woman, her hat knocked to the floor, her tangled gray hair draggling about her eyes, was engaged in a violent struggle with a small boyish figure, who had her by the throat and was shaking her head savagely back and forth. Billy Kane drew in his breath. He remembered Whitie Jack’s description of the Cherub in action—and it was literally true. The blue eyes were bland and round and seemed to smile, the young face was the face of a guileless youth in repose, and yet the boy—he couldn’t be much more than a boy—was in a passion worthy of an incarnate fiend.

“Youse have been out hittin’ de can, have youse?” snarled the Cherub. “I’ll teach youse! Do youse think I’ve spent two weeks hangin’ around dis dirty hole of yers, an’ standin’ fer youse being me sick, disabled grandmother wid me supposed to be doin’ me best to keep bread in yer mouth, an’ playin’ poor, an’ having to listen to her tryin’ to get me jobs, an’ handin’ me de soft, goody-goody talk—d’ye think I’m standin’ fer dat just to have youse go out an’ kick de stuffin’ outer de whole lay! I’ll teach youse!”

“It’s a lie!” screamed Shaky Liz. She shook herself suddenly free, and with crooked fingers clawed like a wild cat at the Cherub’s face. “I didn’t crab no game! It’s a lie! I got it all fixed before I went out. I guess I got a right to a drink now, ain’t I?”

The Cherub warded off her attack with a vicious sweep of his fist.

“Yes!” he snarled again. “An’ suppose she’d seen youse! Or suppose she’d come back here by any chance an’ found de poor bedridden grandma gone out fer a drink—eh! Blast youse, couldn’t youse wait a few hours more? De whole outfit ’ud be glad if youse had drunk yerself to death den!”

Shaky Liz dashed the hair out of her eyes, and swept her hands in a half angry, half expostulating gesture toward the others.

“I didn’t queer no game!” she insisted truculently. “I guess I know wot I’m doin’; an’ youse ain’t comin’ in here to pull no rough-house business neither!”

“Aw, let her alone, an’ give her a chance to tell her story,” drawled Gypsy Joe from the table. “We ain’t got all night to stay here.”

“Sure!” said the Cherub softly, and smiled beneficently, as he sat down on the edge of the bed and calmly lighted a cigarette. “Go on, Liz, spill it!”

The old hag stared at him for a moment in silence, as she dug again at her dishevelled locks.

“Youse dirty little runt!” She found her voice at last, and in spite of her scowl there was a grudging note of admiration in her tones. “Youse are pretty slick, ain’t youse?”

“Sure!” admitted the Cherub imperturbably. “If I wasn’t, youse wouldn’t have a hundred dollars in yer kick now, an’ two hundred more comin’ to-morrow—if youse ain’t queered it fer yerself. Go on, give us de dope!”

Shaky Liz preened herself. She adjusted the threadbare bodice of her dress that seemed to bulge and sag uncomfortably, picked up her hat, and smirked at her audience.

“It’s all right!” She wagged her head secretively. “Youse don’t any of youse need to worry. When de Cherub pipes me off this afternoon dat de stunt is to be pulled to-night, I sends fer her as soon as he gets out of de way, an’ she comes on de run. She don’t suspect nothing, ’cause wid two weeks’ acquaintance she——”

“Can dat!” interrupted the Cherub politely. “We all knows dat fer two weeks youse an’ me has been gettin’ acquainted wid her, an’ feedin’ on her jellies, an’ dat I’m de errin’ child dat’s taken a shine to her an’ dat mabbe can be influenced fer good—if she tried hard enough. Wot did she say when she comes here dis evening?”

“Wot did she say?” repeated Shaky Liz, with a sudden and malicious grin. “Why, she falls fer it, of course! Wot d’ye expect? Me, I was lyin’ dere on de bed when she blows in. She asks me how I was, an’ I says I ain’t no worse dan usual, but dat it’s me young grandson dat’s troublin’ me, an’ how I ain’t got no one to tell it to except her, an’ how I dunno as I durst tell even her. An’ den she says I oughter know well enough dat I can trust her, an’ dat she won’t say nothin’, an’ den I gives her de spiel. I says I ain’t slept all de last night thinkin’ about it. I tells her it wouldn’t do no good me talkin’ to youse, ’cause I ain’t got any influence wid youse an’ she has, an’ besides dat I was afraid of Gypsy an’ Clarkie if dey got wise to me. An’ I tells her wot a good boy youse are, too, Cherub, an’ how though mabbe youse might be better it ain’t all yer fault ’cause youse’re easily led by bad company, but dat youse have stood by yer old grandmother. Savvy?”

“De one bright spot in me life,” said the Cherub sweetly, “is dat me own grandmother is dead, an’ don’t know de raw deal I’m handin’ her. She looked just like youse, too—not!”

Shaky Liz scowled.

“Youse close yer face!” she flung out. “I tells her dat me grandson has got pulled in by two of de toughest crooks in New York.” Shaky Liz’s scowl became a grin. “Dat’s youse, Clarkie, an’ youse, Gypsy. I tells her who youse are, an’ dat last night youse three was here, an’ dat youse all thought I was asleep, but dat I heard youse whisperin’ together, an’ dat Clarkie an’ Gypsy was persuadin’ me little boy to pull a trick down to Kegler’s dock on de East River, ’cause dey didn’t dare do it demselves on account of de police bein’ leery about dem ever since dey comes down from Sing Sing de last time. I tells her how I hears youse two crooks explainin’ dat Kegler’s got a bunch of coin in his safe to pay off some sand barges dat he had expected yesterday, but dat had got held up down de Sound, an’ dat instead of takin’ de money back to de bank he was lettin’ it rust in his box, knowin’ dat de barges’d be along de day after to-morrow, an’ dat youse had de combination of de safe, an’ de key to de front door, an’ dat dere wouldn’t be nobody around dere, an’ dat, anyway, nobody’d suspect me little lad, an’ dat he was to go down dere alone at ten o’clock to-night an’ make de haul, an’ den meet Clarkie an’ Gypsy uptown somewhere fer de split.”

Gypsy Joe, on the table, circled his lips approvingly with the tip of his tongue.

“Dat’s de stuff, Shaky!” he commended. “Don’t youse mind dese guys, dey ain’t neither of dem got anything on youse. I’m fer youse, old gal!”

Shaky Liz grinned complacently.

“Me, I was cryin’ good an’ hard by dis time,” she said, and grinned again, “an’ she had a face dat white youse’d think she was goin’ to pull de faint act. I says I ain’t slept all de last night tryin’ to think wot to do, an’ dat’s why I sent fer her. An’ she asks me if I’m sure de boy was goin’ to do it. An’ I says I am. An’ she asks me where he is, an’ I says I don’t know, an’ dat I don’t know where to find him; dat he went out just before I sent fer her, an’ dat he says he won’t be back till late to-night, an’ dat’s wot makes me sure he’s goin’ to do it. Sure, I was cryin’ good an’ hard den—savvy?

“An’ I says he’s a good boy, an’ if I tells de police dat’ll finish him; an’ I says I’m sick an’ can’t walk, an’ can’t go down dere myself, an’ dat she’s de only one I dares trust, an’ besides dat she’s got a lot of influence wid de boy, an’ dat I knows she can persuade him not to fall fer it, an’ den nobody’ll know anything about it. An’ she says: ‘Yes, of course—I’ll do anything. But where is he? Where can I find him?’ An’ I says dere ain’t only one place I knows, an’ dat’s down to Kegler’s, an’ dat he’ll be all alone dere, an’ dat if she gets dere before ten o’clock she’ll be in time to try an’ stop him. An’ she bends over me, an’ pats me hands, she does, an’ she says: ‘Don’t youse worry, Mrs. Cox,’ she says. ‘I’ll go.’ An’ I says: ‘An’ youse won’t tell nobody, nor take nobody down dere, so’s anybody’d know about me little lad’s disgrace?’ An’ she says: ‘No, I’ll go alone; an’ I’m sure I can promise youse it’ll be all right.’ An’ den she goes away. Dat’s all!” Shaky Liz was fumbling with the bodice of her dress again, and suddenly pulled out a black, square-faced bottle. “Dat’s all!” she announced with a cackle. “An’ I guess I gotta right to dis if I wants it—ain’t I?”

“Youse can bet yer life youse have!” agreed Gypsy Joe with fervent heartiness—and reached for the bottle.

In a flash the Cherub was up from the bed, and between them.

“Nix on dat, Gypsy!” he said sharply. “Shaky’s end is all right, I guess; but we ain’t through yet. Nix on dat—get me!” He stepped closer to both Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe. “Now, den,” he said briskly, “since we’re satisfied wid Shaky, we’ll get down to tacks—eh? Everybody makes sure dey knows dere own play, an’ we don’t make no renigs. I goes down dere, an’ youse two are trailin’ out of sight behind, an’ she buttonholes me, an’ I gets her inside widout youse if I can, but anyway we gets her inside widout any noise, an’ de trap-door where dey shoots de sweepings from de warehouse into de water under de dock does de trick. If dere’s enough weight on her she’ll be dere forever. An’ dere’s one thing more. Nix on de easy-fingered stuff wid any safe business, or anything loose lying around dat looks like meat! Savvy? To-morrow morning de place looks like it did when dey left it to-night. De girl’s disappeared, dat’s all—an’ dere’s nothing to show dat Kegler’s dock had anything to do wid it. Get me? Dey’ll never find her, an’ dat’s wot’s wanted, an’ why we’re gettin’ two hundred apiece more.”

Gypsy Joe removed the cigarette from his mouth, watched the blue spiral of smoke from its tip curl upward for a moment, and pursed his lips in a ruminative pucker.

“I wonder wot de Rat had it in fer her fer as hard as dat?” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “She must have——”

The—Rat! She—the girl they were talking about! The room seemed suddenly to swirl before Billy Kane’s eyes, the figures inside to become but blurred, jerky objects—and then it was black around him. Automatically he was stepping backward with a catlike tread; automatically he was feeling his way along the black hallway. And then the cool evening air fanned his face, and he was in the street.