Роберт Чамберс - The Dark Star

And, to Curfoot:

"Listen, Doc. We was up against it. You heard. Every little thing has went wrong since Eddie done what he done—every damn thing! Look what's happened since Maxy Venem got sore and he and Minna started out to get him! Morris Stein takes away the Silhouette Theatre from us and we can't get no time for 'Lilith' on Broadway. We go on the road and bust. All our Saratoga winnings goes, also what we got invested with Parson Smawley when the bulls pulled Quint's―!"

"Ah, f'r the lov' o' Mike!" began Brandes. "Can that stuff!"

"All right, Eddie. I'm tellin' Doc, that's all. I ain't aiming to be no crape–hanger; I only want you both to listen to me this time. If you'd listened to me before, we'd have been in Saratoga today in our own machines. But no; you done what you done—God! Did anyone ever hear of such a thing!—taking chances with that little rube from Brookhollow—that freckled–faced mill–hand—that yap–skirt! And Minna and Max having you watched all the time! You big boob! No—don't interrupt! Listen to me ! Where are you now? You had good money; you had a theaytre, you had backing! Quint was doing elegant; Doc and Parson and you and me had it all our way and comin' faster every day. Wait, I tell you! This ain't a autopsy. This is business. I'm tellin' you two guys all this becuz I want you to realise that what Eddie done was against my advice. Come on, now; wasn't it?"

"It sure was," admitted Curfoot, removing his cigar from his lean, pointed visage of a greyhound, and squinting thoughtfully at the smoke eddying in the draught from the open window.

"Am I right, Eddie?" demanded Stull, fixing his black, smeary eyes on Brandes.

"Well, go on," returned the latter between thin lips that scarcely moved.

"All right, then. Here's the situation, Doc. We're broke. If Quint hadn't staked us to this here new game we're playin', where'd we be, I ask you?

"We got no income now. Quint's is shut up; Maxy Venem and Minna Minti fixed us at Saratoga so we can't go back there for a while. They won't let us touch a card on the liners. Every pug is leery of us since Eddie flimflammed that Battling Smoke; and I told you he'd holler, too! Didn't I?" turning on Brandes, who merely let his slow eyes rest on him without replying.

"Go on, Ben," said Curfoot.

"I'm going on. We guys gotta do something―"

"We ought to have fixed Max Venem," said Curfoot coolly.

There was a silence; all three men glanced stealthily at Neeland, who quietly turned the page of his book as though absorbed in his story.

"That squealer, Max," continued Curfoot with placid ferocity blazing in his eyes, "ought to have been put away. Quint and Parson wanted us to have it done. Was it any stunt to get that dirty little shyster in some roadhouse last May?"

Brandes said:

"I'm not mixing with any gunmen after the Rosenthal business."

"Becuz a lot of squealers done a amateur job like that, does it say that a honest job can't be pulled?" demanded Curfoot. "Did Quint and me ask you to go to Dopey or Clabber or Pete the Wop, or any of them cheap gangsters?"

"Ah, can the gun–stuff," said Brandes. "I'm not for it. It's punk."

"What's punk?"

"Gun–play."

"Didn't you pull a pop on Maxy Venem the night him and Hyman Adams and Minna beat you up in front of the Knickerbocker?"

"Eddie was stalling," interrupted Stull, as Brandes' face turned a dull beef–red. "You talk like a bad actor, Doc. There's other ways of getting Max in wrong. Guns ain't what they was once. Gun–play is old stuff. But listen, now. Quint has staked us and we gotta make good. And this is a big thing, though it looks like it was out of our line."

"Go on; what's the idea?" inquired Curfoot, interested.

Brandes, the dull red still staining his heavy face, watched the flying landscape from the open window.

Stull leaned forward; Curfoot bent his lean, narrow head nearer; Neeland, staring fixedly at his open book, pricked up his ears.

"Now," said Stull in a low voice, "I'll tell you guys all Eddie and I know about this here business of Captain Quint's. It's like this, Doc: Some big feller comes to Quint after they close him up—he won't tell who—and puts up this here proposition: Quint is to open a elegant place in Paris on the Q. T. In fact, it's ready now. There'll be all the backing Quint needs. He's to send over three men he can trust—three men who can shoot at a pinch! He picks us three and stakes us. Get me?"

Doc nodded.

Brandes said in his narrow–eyed, sleepy way:

"There was a time when they called us gunmen—Ben and me. But, so help me God, Doc, we never did any work like that ourselves. We never fired a shot to croak any living guy. Did we, Ben?"

"All right," said Stull impatiently. And, to Curfoot: "Eddie and I know what we're to do. If it's on the cards that we shoot—well, then, we'll shoot. The place is to be small, select, private, and first class. Doc, you act as capper. You deal, too. Eddie sets 'em up. I deal or spin. All right. We three guys attend to anything American that blows our way. Get that?"

Curfoot nodded.

"Then for the foreigners, there's to be a guy called Karl Breslau."

Neeland managed to repress a start, but the blood tingled in his cheeks, and he turned his head a trifle as though seeking better light on the open pages in his hands.

"This here man Breslau," continued Stull, "speaks all kinds of languages. He is to have two friends with him, a fellow named Kestner and one called Weishelm. They trim the foreigners, they do; and―"

"Well, I don't see nothing new about this―" began Curfoot; but Stull interrupted:

"Wait, can't you! This ain't the usual. We run a place for Quint. The place is like Quint's. We trim guys same as he does—or did. But there's more to it. "

He let his eyes rest on Neeland, obliquely, for a full minute. The others watched him, too. Presently the young man cut another page of his book with his pen–knife and turned it with eager impatience, as though the story absorbed him.

"Don't worry about Frenchy," murmured Brandes with a shrug. "Go ahead, Ben."

Stull laid one hand on Curfoot's shoulder, drawing that gentleman a trifle nearer and sinking his voice:

"Here's the new stuff, Doc," he said. "And it's brand new to us, too. There's big money into it. Quint swore we'd get ours. And as we was on our uppers we went in. It's like this: We lay for Americans from the Embassy or from any of the Consulates. They are our special game. It ain't so much that we trim them; we also get next to them; we make 'em talk right out in church. Any political dope they have we try to get. We get it any way we can. If they'll accelerate we accelerate 'em; if not, we dope 'em and take their papers. The main idee is to get a holt on 'em!

"That's what Quint wants; that's what he's payin' for and gettin' paid for—inside information from the Embassy and Consulates―"

"What does Quint want of that?" demanded Curfoot, astonished.

"How do I know? Blackmail? Graft? I can't call the dope. But listen here! Don't forget that it ain't Quint who wants it. It's the big feller behind him who's backin' him. It's some swell guy higher up who's payin' Quint. And Quint, he pays us. So where's the squeal coming?"

"Yes, but―"

"Where's the holler?" insisted Stull.

"I ain't hollerin', am I? Only this here is new stuff to me―"

"Listen, Doc. I don't know what it is, but all these here European kings is settin' watchin' one another like toms in a back alley. I think that some foreign political high–upper wants dope on what our people are finding out over here. Like this, he says to himself: 'I hear this Kink is building ten sooper ferry boats. If that's right, I oughta know. And I hear that the Queen of Marmora has ordered a million new nifty fifty–shot bean–shooters for the boy scouts! That is indeed serious news!' So he goes to his broker, who goes to a big feller, who goes to Quint, who goes to us. Flag me?"