Dave Henderson

“ And suddenly Dave Henderson swallowed hard. Sixty-two days! Old Tony hadn't much more than that. Perhaps another year at the outside, and the old lifer would be free, too.
Dave Henderson's mind reverted to Lieutenant Joe Barjan, of the plain-clothes squad. It was perfectly true that playing a lone hand against the police of all America was a desperate game—desperate in the sense that success was in jeopardy. ”

“ Dave Henderson's laugh rang with a devil's mirth through the boxcar again. That was all! They hadn't split on a pal. They had left the pal to him. Runty Mott had told the story—and Runty Mott's story went! He, Dave Henderson, wouldn't change it! They didn't know, and Bookie Skarvan didn't know, that he knew. They had left Bookie Skarvan to him—and they had made Mrs. Tooler's pigeon-cote as safe as a vault.
The slue of the car on a curve flung him with a savage wrench from his elbows to his back again, and he groaned in agony. ”

“ From the moment you step outside these walls you're a marked man, and not for just a little while either, but for all your life. They'll never let up on you, Dave. Let that sink in! And it ain't only just old Joe Barjan you've got to fool. Talking racey, Dave, your number's up on the board on every police track in this country from one end to the other. You can't beat that kind of a game. I'm talking straight, and you know it. Come on now, Dave, pry them lips of yours apart, and come across!” Dave Henderson's lips parted—but it was only to touch them with the tip of his tongue. ”

“ It was Square John Kelly,” said Dave Henderson quietly—and recounted briefly the details of his visit to the Pacific Coral Saloon the night before.
Nicolo Capriano had propped himself up in bed. He leaned over now as Dave Henderson finished, and patted Dave Henderson's shoulder in a sort of exultant excitement.
“Good! Excellent!” he exclaimed. “Ah, my young friend, I begin to love you! It brings back the years that are gone. But—bah!—I shall get well again—eh? And I am not yet too old—eh? Who can tell—eh?—who can tell! ”

“ Dave Henderson had sunk his elbows on the iron railing, his chin resting in his hands, and was staring at the strange, fluted sky-line where the buildings jabbed their queer, uneven points up into the night. It was a long time before he spoke.
“It's kind of queer, Teresa,” he said slowly. “It's kind of queer. You're something like a friend of—like a man I know. It's kind of queer. Well, you've given me my chance, you've risked your life to give me my chance, you've played as square as any woman God ever made—and now what are you going to do?” ”

“ Snuffed out! There was a queer, choking sensation in Dave Henderson's throat. A guard ran along the gallery. Dave Henderson edged silently close up to the door of his cell again. He couldn't see very much—only a gleam of light from Lomazzi's cell that fell on the iron plates of the gallery. There was no sound from within the other cell now.
Snuffed out! The thought that old Tony was dead affected him in a numbed, groping sort of way. It had come with such startling suddenness! He had not grasped it yet. He wondered whether he should be sorry or glad for old Tony—death was the lifer's goal. ”

“ You were never meant for a crook, Dave. There's not a crooked thing in the world about you, except this one distorted brain kink that's got hold of you. And now you're in wrong. Look at it from any angle that you like, and it doesn't pay. It hasn't paid you so far—and it never will.”
“Hasn't it!” snapped Dave Henderson. “Well, maybe not! But that's because it hasn't had the chance. But the chance is here now, and it's all bust wide open. You can forget everything else, Millman, except just this, and then you'll understand once for all where I stand: Here's the money—and I'm dead!” ”

“ Dave Henderson shoved the man roughly out of the way, stepped quickly forward to the wall, switched on the light—and swung around to face Bookie Skarvan.
For an instant Bookie Skarvan stood there without movement, the little eyes dilating, the white face turning ashen and gray, and then great beads of sweat sprang out upon the forehead—and a scream of abject terror pealed through the room.
“Go away!” screamed Bookie Skarvan. “You're dead! Go away! Go back to hell where you belong!” His hands clawed out in front of him. “Do you hear? You're dead—dead! Go away! ”

“ For a minute Dave Henderson eyed the other incredulously, then he threw back his head and laughed, but it was not a pleasant laugh.
“You will, eh!” he said. “Well, if you feel that way about it, go to it! Maybe you can afford it; I can't!”
“Yes,” said Millman soberly, “as far as that goes, I am a rich man, and I can afford it. But, Dave, I want to say this to you”—he was standing up now—“the richest man in the world couldn't afford to part with a nickel as well as you could afford to part with that hundred thousand dollars there. It isn't money that you've got at stake, Dave. ”

“ Rotten raw! To get away with a hundred thousand dollars was a sporting proposition, a gambling and a fighting chance, but to double-cross a man who placed that money in one's keeping in good faith was in Bookie Skarvan's line—not his!
Well then—how?
The miles and the minutes and the half-hours passed. Tight-lipped, the clean-shaven face set and hard, the dark eyes introspective as they held on the road ahead, Dave Henderson sat there, almost motionless, bent over the wheel. Once he stopped to replenish his supply of gasoline, and then the car roared on again, rocking in its speed. ”

“ Are you in doubt about anything? Why don't you get up, and undress, and go to bed, and sleep quietly? You've got the money now, you're fixed for all your life, and nothing to worry you—Millman pays the bills.”
“Five years!” Dave Henderson muttered. “Five years of hell—for nothing?”
His face hardened. That was Nicolo Capriano lying over there on his bed, wasn't it?—and plucking with thin, blue-tipped fingers at the coverlet—and eyeing him with those black eyes that glittered virulently—and twisting bloodless lips into a sardonic and contemptuous sneer. ”

“ Get me, Dave? And I go out of here now and tell the warden it ain't any good, that I can't get you to talk. I guess that looks nifty enough, don't it, Dave?” #
There was a fly climbing up the wire netting. It zigzagged its course over the little squares. It was a good gamble whether, on reaching the next strand, it would turn to the right or left, or continue straight ahead. Dave Henderson watched it. The creature did no one of those things. It paused and frictioned its front legs together in a leisurely fashion. ”

“ Dave Henderson turned away from the bench, and followed the guard; but the act was purely mechanical, born out of the years of discipline and obedience. A visitor—for him! There was no one in the outside world, not a soul, who cared for him; not many even, to whom his existence was of enough interest to cause a second thought—except Barjan. And Barjan had visited him yesterday. Another visitor—to-day! Well, whoever it was, the visitor had been in no hurry about it! The little attention was certainly belated! His lips thinned bitterly. Whoever it was had waited almost five years. ”

“ He warmed to the old Italian, an almost hysterical admiration upon him for Nicolo Capriano's guile. But transcending all other emotions was the sense of freedom. It surged upon him, possessing him; it brought exhilaration, and it brought a grim, unholy vista of things to come—a goal within possibility of reach now—Millman first, and then Bookie Skarvan. He was free—free as the air. He was dead. Dave Henderson had passed out of the jurisdiction of the police. To the police he was now but a memory—he was dead. ”

“ It depended entirely upon whether he, Dave Henderson, could get his hands on the money without accepting it as a trust from the old millionaire.
“You're a poor fool!” Dave Henderson informed himself, with a sharp laugh. “What's the difference? You pinch it either way, don't you?”
He shook his head, as the car tore forward.
“Mabbe,” he muttered, “mabbe I am, and mabbe there ain't any difference—but there's nothing doing that way. I got a little reputation myself—left. No guy ever put a bean in my mitt that he didn't get a square deal on, and that's on the level—in spite of Skarvan! ”

“ Millman did not answer for a moment, nor did he look at Dave Henderson—his eyes, through the curling cigarette smoke, were fixed on the package of banknotes.
“I'm sorry, Dave,” he said at last, in a low, strained way. “I'm sorry you won't take the biggest chance you'll ever have in your life, the chance you've got right now, of coming across a white man clean through. ”

“ He leaned across the table, and laughed raucously again, and stared with cynical humor at the other. “I'm dead—see? Dave Henderson is dead. A friend of mine pulled the trick on them in 'Frisco. They think Dave Henderson is dead. The book is closed, slammed shut forever—understand? I'm dead—but I've got this money now that I've fought for, and paid for with the sweat of hell, and it's going to pay me back now, Millman! Understand? It's going to pay the dividends now that I've earned—and that, by God, no man is going to take away from me!” ”

“ But how about a certain little package now? I'll trouble you to hand that over, Millman!”
Millman shook his head in a sort of tolerant expostulation.
“As we used to say 'out there,' I don't get you, Dave!” he said slowly. “You are acting very strangely. I've been looking forward to this meeting—and you haven't even a handshake for an old friend. I don't understand.”
“I don't myself!” returned Dave Henderson evenly. “There's a whole lot of things that don't fit. But it's five years since I've seen that package, and maybe I'm a trifle over-anxious about it. ”

“ Dave Henderson studied the other's face complacently. The man was not as old as Nicolo Capriano; the man's hair was still black and shone with oil, and in features he was not Nicolo Capriano at all; but somehow it was Nicolo Capriano, only in another incarnation perhaps. He nodded his head. He was not sorry to learn that The Iron Tavern was ultraexclusive!
“That's too bad,” he said quietly. “I've come a long way—from a friend of yours. Perhaps that may make some difference?”
“A friend?” Dago George was discreetly interested. ”

“ Dave Henderson drained his glass.
“To Nicolo Capriano!” he echoed heartily.
“Good!” said Dago George brightly. “One more little glass? No? You are sure? Well, you have said that you are tired—eh? Well, then, to make you comfortable! Come along with me!” He picked up the dress-suit case, opened the door, and led the way into the hall He was still talking as he mounted the stairs. “There will be many things for us to speak about, eh? But that will be for to-morrow. We are perhaps all birds of a feather—eh—or Nicolo Capriano perhaps would not have sent you here? ”

“ He shrugged his shoulders. “You see, young man, it is not easy for me to steer my way unmolested even when I am wholly innocent. But I, too, do not forget! I do not forget Tony Lomazzi! Tell me exactly what you want me to do. You think you can find the man and the money if you can throw the police and the others off your trail?”
“Yes!” said Dave Henderson, with ominous quiet. “That's my job in life now! If I could disappear for three or four days, I guess that's all the start I'd need.” There was a tolerant smile now on the old bomb king's lips. ”

“ Dave Henderson spoke again.
“I remember what I said last night—that I couldn't buy you that way. And—and I'm not trying to now. It's going back because I haven't any choice. A man can't take his life from a woman's hand, and from the hand of a friend take the life of the woman who has saved him—and throw them both down—and play the cur. I haven't any choice.” His voice broke suddenly. “It's going back, Teresa, whether it means you or not. Do you understand, Teresa? ”

“ Take it from me!”
“I wasn't thinking about the money,” said Dave Henderson slowly. “I was thinking about that story.” He closed his eyes. The room was swimming around him. Five years—chalked up to Bookie Skarvan! His hand on the coverlet clenched, and raised and fell impotently to the coverlet again. He was conscious that Barjan was leaning over the bed to catch his words, because he wasn't speaking very loud. “I was thinking it was a long time to wait—to get even.”
A woman's voice seemed to come drifting out of space... that would be the nurse, of course... a woman's voice.... ”

“ Dave Henderson brushed his hand across his eyes again, and bent his head to the other's lips to catch the words.
“You make-a da fool play when you come in here, Dave—for me. But I never, never forget. Old Tony no forget. You no make-a da fool play when you go out. Old Tony knows. You need-a da help. Listen—Nicolo Capriano—'Frisco. You understand? Tony Lomazzi send-a you. Tony Lomazzi take-a da life prison for Nicolo. Nicolo will pay back to Tony's friend. ”

“ Outside the enclosure, a squat, fat man, the perspiration rolling in streams down his face, tugged at his collar with frantic, nervous jerks, as he leaned in over the side of a high-powered car, and with his other hand gripped at the arm of the young man in the driver's seat.
“Dave, listen to 'em! My God, listen to 'em!” snarled the fat man.
Dave Henderson, with the toe of his boot, moved the little black satchel that the other had dropped on the floor of the car farther to one side ”

“ He held out his hand, wrung Square John Kelly's in a hard grip, turned abruptly away—and staggered out into the barroom.
Clutching his ten dollars in his hand, and glancing furtively back over his shoulder every step or two, Dave Henderson neared the door. Here, apparently reassured that his benefactor was not watching him, and apparently succumbing to an irresistible temptation, he sidled up to the bar—beside the man with the brown peaked cap.
“Kelly's all right—s'il right,” he confided thickly to the other. “Ol' friend. Never turns down ol' friend in hard luck. Square John—betcher life! ”