to me. Thaler got up to shake hands.
His hoarse whispering voice said:
'I hear you've declared war on Poisonville.'
'Don't blame me. I've got a client who wants the place ventilated.'
'Wanted, not wants,' he corrected me as we sat down. 'Why don't you chuck it?'
I made a speech:
'No. I don't like the way Poisonville has treated me. I've got my chance now, and I'm going to even up. I take it you're back in the club again, all brothers together, let bygones be bygones. You want to be let alone. There was a time when I wanted to be let alone. If I had been, maybe now I'd be riding back to San Francisco. But I wasn't. Especially I wasn't let alone by that fat Noonan. He's had two tries at my scalp in two days. That's plenty. Now it's my turn to run him ragged, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Poisonville is ripe for the harvest. It's a job I like, and I'm going to it.'
'While you last,' the gambler said.
'Yeah,' I agreed. 'I was reading in the paper this morning about a fellow choking to death eating a chocolate eclair in bed.'
'That may be good,' said Dinah Brand, her big body sprawled in an arm-chair, 'but it wasn't in this morning's paper.'
She lit a cigarette and threw the match out of sight under the Chesterfield. The lunger had gathered up the cards and was shuffling them over and over, purposelessly.
Thaler frowned at me and said:
'Willsson's willing for you to keep the ten grand. Let it go at that.'
'I've got a mean disposition. Attempted assassinations make me mad.'
'That won't get you anything but a box. I'm for you. You kept Noonan from framing me. That's why I'm telling you, forget it and go back to Frisco.'
'I'm for you,' I said. 'That's why I'm telling you, split with them. They crossed you up once. It'll happen again. Anyway, they're slated for the chutes. Get out while the getting's good.'
'I'm sitting too pretty,' he said. 'And I'm able to take care of myself.'
'Maybe. But you know the racket's too good to last. You've had the cream of the pickings. Now it's get-away day.'
He shook his little dark head and told me:
'I think you're pretty good, but I'm damned if I think you're good enough to crack this camp. It's too tight. If I thought you could swing it, I'd be with you. You know how I stand with Noonan. But you'll never make it. Chuck it.'
'No. I'm in it to the last nickel of Elihu's ten thousand.'
'I told you he was too damned pig-headed to listen to reason,' Dinah Brand said, yawning. 'Isn't there anything to drink in the dump, Dan?'
The lunger got up from the table and went out of the room.
Thaler shrugged, said:
'Have it your way. You're supposed to know what you're doing. Going to the fights tomorrow night?'
I said I thought I would. Dan Rolff came in with gin and trimmings. We had a couple of drinks apiece. We talked about the fights. Nothing more was said about me versus Poisonville. The gambler apparently had washed his hands of me, but he didn't seem to hold my stubbornness against me. He even gave me what seemed to be a straight tip on the fights--telling me any bet on the main event would be good if its maker remembered that Kid Cooper would probably knock Ike Bush out in the sixth round. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and it didn't seem to be news to the others.
I left a little after eleven, returning to the hotel without anything happening.
IX. A Black Knife
I woke next morning with an idea in my skull. Personville had only some forty thousand inhabitants. It shouldn't be hard to spread news. Ten o'clock found me out spreading it.
I did my spreading in pool rooms, cigar stores, speakeasies, soft drink joints, and on street corners--wherever I found a man or two loafing. My spreading technique was something like this:
'Got a match?... Thanks.... Going to the fights tonight?... I hear Ike Bush takes a dive in the sixth.... It ought to be straight: I got it from Whisper.... Yeah, they all are.'
People like inside stuff, and anything that had Thaler's name to it was very inside in Personville. The news spread nicely. Half the men I gave it to worked almost as hard as I did spreading it, just to show they knew what was what.
When I started out, seven to four was being offered that Ike Bush would win, and two to three that he would win by a knock-out. By two o'clock none of the joints taking bets were offering anything better than even money, and by half-past three Kid Cooper was a two-to-one favorite.
I made my last stop a lunch counter, where I tossed the news out to a waiter and a couple of customers while eating a hot beef sandwich.
When I went out I found a man waiting by the door for me. He had bowed legs and a long sharp jaw, like a hog's. He nodded and walked down the street beside me, chewing a toothpick and squinting sidewise into my face. At the corner he said:
