第12章

"Because there's more money in it. And because it's safer."

"Safe! Aw, hell!" The smouldering jealousy and hatred glared out of Barney's greenish eyes. "I always knew you had a yellow streak!

Something safe! Aw, hell!"

"Don't blow up, Barney. What is the new game, Larry?" queried the old man.

Larry regarded the two men steadfastly. He seemed reluctant to speak.

"Well?" prompted Old Jimmie. "Is it something you don't want to let us in on?"

"Of course I'll let you in on it, and be glad to, if you want to come in," Larry replied in his level tone. "As I said, I've thought it all out and it's a great proposition. Here's the game: I'm going to run straight."

For a moment all three sat astounded by this quiet statement from their leader. Nothing he might have said could have been more unexpected, more stupefying. The Duchess alone moved; she turned her head and held her sunken eyes upon her grandson.

Simultaneously the two men and Maggie stood up.

"The hell you say!" grated Barney Palmer.

"Larry, you gone crazy?" cried Old Jimmie.

Maggie moved a pace nearer him. "Going to go straight?" she asked incredulously.

"Listen, all of you," Larry said quietly. "No, Jimmie, I've not gone crazy. I'm merely going a little sane. You just said I was a wonder at business, Jimmie. I think I am myself. I thought it all over as a business proposition. Suppose we clean up fifty or a hundred thousand on a big deal. We've got to split it several ways, perhaps pay a big piece to the police for protection, perhaps pay a lot of lawyers, and then perhaps get sent away for a year or several years, during which we don't take in a nickel. I figured that over a term of years my average income was mighty small. As a business man it seemed to me that I was in a poor business, with no future. So I decided to get into a new business that had a future. That's the size of it."

"You're turning yellow--that's the real size of it!" snarled Barney Palmer, half starting toward him.

"Better be a little careful, Barney," Larry warned with tightening jaw.

"You really mean, Larry," demanded Old Jimmie, "that you're going to drop us after us counting on you and waiting for you so long?"

"I'm sorry about having kept you waiting, Jimmie. But we've parted definitely." Then Larry added: "Unless you want to travel my road."

"Your road! Never!" snapped Barney.

"And you, Jimmie? " Larry inquired, his eyes on Barney's inflamed face.

"I don't see your proposition. And I'm too old a bird to start something new. No, thanks. I'll stick to what I know."

His next words, showing his long yellow teeth, were spoken slowly, but they were hard, and had a cutting edge. "You've got a sweet idea of what's straight, Larry: dropping us without a leader, just when we need a leader most."

Larry's composed yet watchful gaze was still on Barney. "You're not really left in such a bad way. Barney here is ready to take charge."

"You bet I am!" Barney flamed at him, his hands clenching. "And the bunch won't lose by the change, you bet! The bunch always thought you were an ace--and I always knew you were a two-spot. And now they'll see I was right--that you were always yellow!"

Larry still leaned against the safe in the same posture of seeming ease, but he expected Barney to strike at any moment, and held himself in readiness for a flashing fist. Barney had been hard to hold in leash in the old days; now that all ties of partnership were broken, he saw in those small gleaming eyes a defiance and a hatred that henceforth had no reason for restraint. And he knew that Barney was shrewd, grimly tenacious, and limitless in self-confidence and ambition.

"And listen to this, too, Larry Brainard," Barney's temper carried him on. "Don't you mix in and try any preaching on Maggie." He half turned his head jealously. "Maggie, don't you listen to any of this boob's Salvation Army talk!"

Maggie did not at once respond, but stood gazing at the two confronting figures. To her they were an oddly dissimilar pair: Barney in the smartest clothes that an over-smart Broadway tailor could create, and Larry in the shapeless garments that were the State's gift to him on leaving prison.

"Maggie," he repeated, "don't you listen to this boob's talk!"

"I'll do just as I please, Barney."

"But you're going to come our way?" he demanded.

"Of course."

He turned back to Larry. "You hear that? You leave Maggie alone!"

Larry did not answer, though his temper was rising. He looked over Barney's head at Maggie's father.

"Jimmie," he remarked in his same even voice, "anything more you'd like to say?"

"I'm through."

"Then," said Larry, "better lead your new commander-in-chief out of here, or I'll carry him out and spank him."

"What's that?" snarled Barney.

"Get out!" Larry ordered, in a voice suddenly like steel.

Barney's fist swung viciously at Larry's head. It did not land, because Larry's head was elsewhere. Larry did not take advantage of the opening to strike back, but as the fist flashed by he seized the wrist, and in the same instant he seized the other wrist. The next moment he held Barney helpless in a twisting, torturing grip that he had learned from one of his non-Christian friends at the Y.M.C.A.

"Barney--are you going to walk out, or shall I kick you out?"

Barney's answer came after a moment through gritted teeth: "I'll walk out--but I'll get you for this!"

"I know you'll try, Barney. And I know you'll try to get me behind my back." Larry loosed his grip. "Good-night."

Barney backed glowering to the door; and Old Jimmie, his gray face an expressionless mask, silently followed him out.

All this while the Duchess had looked on, motionless in her corner, a dingy, forgotten part of the dingy background--no more noticeable than one of her own dusty, bizarre pledges.