from the residential district and very different from it. I went directly to a certain pool-parlor, unofficially called “The Hanged Cat,” which was a pool-parlor and many other things besides. Since the time I started on my valet job, I didn’t mix with any rough work, as I’ve said before, but I knew where to find the boys if I needed them. “The Hanged Cat” was their favorite social club.
It didn’t take me long to choose my men—three of them—and to get them into a dark corner, around an old, shaking table that had four legs all of different lengths.
“Boys,” I said, “I have a job for us and if we pull it through we can all retire and start putting burglar-proof alarms on our safes!”
I explained the whole thing. I told them just what I wanted them to do and also just how much they’d get from me. Two of them, Pete Crump and “Snout” Timkins, agreed at once, and enthusiastically, too. But the third, and I might have expected it, started trouble. The third was Mickey Finnegan.
I had known Mickey back in my Chicago days and we had always been rivals in business. That sap had the nerve to think he was as good as me, and just as much of a master-crook! Every success of mine always made him green with jealousy and every one of his didn’t make me pink, either.
Mickey was a big, husky fellow, with fists like water-melons, hair like a floor-mop, lips like beef-steaks, eyes like a fish and an atrocious odor of tobacco that he was always chewing, slowly and senselessly, like a cow. I had no respect whatever for that big brute’s mentality, of which he had a nickel’s worth. But I had to admit he was strong, and that’s what I needed now—strength.
I had hesitated before choosing him for my accomplice, but his hairy fists looked so promising and besides, I thought our old misunderstandings were forgotten. I was mistaken.
“It’s all right, Steve,” he said in his slow, dragging voice, “it’s fine—except one thing, which’s this: I’m gonna get half of it, see? Fifty-fifty.”
“What? You don’t mean that . . . !”
“Yeh, I do. I wasn’t never Steve Hawkins’ under-dog yet and I don’t crave to start now, neither. I’m just as good as you, and I’ll get just as much, so I will.”
“Well, for pity sakes, Mickey! Isn’t it my job? Didn’t I prepare it? Didn’t I spend two years on it?”
“That,” said Mickey, “don’t make no difference to me.”
I argued for some time, for a long time. But what was the use? Mickey had always been as stubborn as a bull-dog.
“Shut up,” he said finally, “you’re wastin’ yer breath and my time, and one o’them is valuable. It’s either I gets half of it or I don’t and if I don’t you don’t see none of Mickey Finnegan with your gang, either.”
“Mickey,” I said solemnly, “you’re a skunk.”
“Am I?” roared Mickey, and then followed something which is hard to describe, and which was stopped only by the other boys stepping between Mickey and me and tearing us apart. And the result of it was that I had to spit from my mouth two teeth knocked out by Mickey’s fist.
My two friends assured me that we could manage the job between the three of us and didn’t need Mickey at all. So I told him just what I thought of him and went home.
But when I got there and glanced into a mirror, I was terrified to see what my face looked like. My jaw was swollen and as I open my mouth very wide when I talk, the empty black hole on the side was very much in evidence.
What would Winton Stokes think when he saw his model valet with a mug like that? He might change his mind about taking me along. And he might even suspect something. My brilliant plan might be ruined because of Mickey. I shuddered.
“What happened to your face?” asked Winton Stokes calmly, when he saw me on the next morning.
“I—I had a fall. . . .” I stammered, rather uncertainly. “I fell on the basement steps in the dark, last night.”
He looked at me
It didn’t take me long to choose my men—three of them—and to get them into a dark corner, around an old, shaking table that had four legs all of different lengths.
“Boys,” I said, “I have a job for us and if we pull it through we can all retire and start putting burglar-proof alarms on our safes!”
I explained the whole thing. I told them just what I wanted them to do and also just how much they’d get from me. Two of them, Pete Crump and “Snout” Timkins, agreed at once, and enthusiastically, too. But the third, and I might have expected it, started trouble. The third was Mickey Finnegan.
I had known Mickey back in my Chicago days and we had always been rivals in business. That sap had the nerve to think he was as good as me, and just as much of a master-crook! Every success of mine always made him green with jealousy and every one of his didn’t make me pink, either.
Mickey was a big, husky fellow, with fists like water-melons, hair like a floor-mop, lips like beef-steaks, eyes like a fish and an atrocious odor of tobacco that he was always chewing, slowly and senselessly, like a cow. I had no respect whatever for that big brute’s mentality, of which he had a nickel’s worth. But I had to admit he was strong, and that’s what I needed now—strength.
I had hesitated before choosing him for my accomplice, but his hairy fists looked so promising and besides, I thought our old misunderstandings were forgotten. I was mistaken.
“It’s all right, Steve,” he said in his slow, dragging voice, “it’s fine—except one thing, which’s this: I’m gonna get half of it, see? Fifty-fifty.”
“What? You don’t mean that . . . !”
“Yeh, I do. I wasn’t never Steve Hawkins’ under-dog yet and I don’t crave to start now, neither. I’m just as good as you, and I’ll get just as much, so I will.”
“Well, for pity sakes, Mickey! Isn’t it my job? Didn’t I prepare it? Didn’t I spend two years on it?”
“That,” said Mickey, “don’t make no difference to me.”
I argued for some time, for a long time. But what was the use? Mickey had always been as stubborn as a bull-dog.
“Shut up,” he said finally, “you’re wastin’ yer breath and my time, and one o’them is valuable. It’s either I gets half of it or I don’t and if I don’t you don’t see none of Mickey Finnegan with your gang, either.”
“Mickey,” I said solemnly, “you’re a skunk.”
“Am I?” roared Mickey, and then followed something which is hard to describe, and which was stopped only by the other boys stepping between Mickey and me and tearing us apart. And the result of it was that I had to spit from my mouth two teeth knocked out by Mickey’s fist.
My two friends assured me that we could manage the job between the three of us and didn’t need Mickey at all. So I told him just what I thought of him and went home.
But when I got there and glanced into a mirror, I was terrified to see what my face looked like. My jaw was swollen and as I open my mouth very wide when I talk, the empty black hole on the side was very much in evidence.
What would Winton Stokes think when he saw his model valet with a mug like that? He might change his mind about taking me along. And he might even suspect something. My brilliant plan might be ruined because of Mickey. I shuddered.
“What happened to your face?” asked Winton Stokes calmly, when he saw me on the next morning.
“I—I had a fall. . . .” I stammered, rather uncertainly. “I fell on the basement steps in the dark, last night.”
He looked at me
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