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It was reported that there was to be no new barber shop, but that over on West Street a poolroom, also run by a city stranger, was already doing business. Several people had passed it that morning on their way to church and all said it had a peculiar appearance. "Looks like one of those woebegone city dens, with its green plush curtains so you can't see what's going on inside.
"But then he was such a night-hawk that anything might easily have happened and no one be the wiser. Since you saw him enter the gambling joint the night of the raid, I've been unable to get a line on him. He must have gone through the tunnel to the ladies' poolroom, but after he left that, presumably, I can't find a trace of him. Where he went no one seems to know.
But, under any circumstances, well guarded as that poolroom fortress stood, its resistance could be only a matter of time, and of strictly limited time, once the reserves were on the scene. Durkin's first thought, accordingly, was of the roof, for, so far as he knew, all escape from the ground floor was even then cut off.
"Well, well!" says I. "Had an operator who'd tapped a poolroom wire and could hold up returns, didn't they?" "That's it!" says Uncle Jimmy. "They explained just how it was done; but I'm a little slow understandin' such things. Anyway, they took me to a place where I saw one of 'em win two thousand inside of ten minutes; and b'gum, if I'd been a bettin' man, I could have made a heap!
"The chicken gives a shriek, 'n' starts to hug me right in front of the swell guy. "'I seem to be dee tro, says he, 'n' backs out the door. "'Where did you get the money? says the chicken, countin' the roll. 'Why! There's over a hundred here! "I takes fifty bucks fur myself, 'n' hands her the rest. "'I cops it at a poolroom, I says. 'A ten-to-one shot comes through fur me. Now get busy.
The boys in the Elite poolroom stand grinning in the doorway. Old Norske Tobias is on a tear again, his red face shining with the memory of Stavanger storms, his beard bristling like a north cat's back. An Odin in caricature. They watch him pass. Drunker than a fiddler's wench. Drunker than a bootlegger's pal. Drunk as the devil himself and roaring at the top of his voice: "Belay, there!
"I had her at work getting evidence against a ladies' poolroom in Forty-seventh Street an elusive place that we've never been able to 'get right." Garrick shot a quick glance at me. Evidently we were on the right trail, anyhow. "I don't know yet just what happened," continued Dillon, "but I do know that she had the goods on it.
I want to go away." His voice rose and hatred flamed up in him. "You wait," he boasted. "I'll make men stop being fools. I'll make children of them. I'll " Pausing he looked at his two companions. Beaut poked the ground with a stick. The boy sitting beside him laughed. He was a short well dressed black haired boy with rings on his fingers who worked in the town poolroom, racking the pool balls.
As we stood on the landing while Garrick went over the markers, I found myself wondering, even, where Forbes had been that night after he hurried away from us at the ladies' poolroom and Warrington had taken the journey that had ended so disastrously for him. The more I learned of what had been taking place, the more I saw that Warrington stood out as a gentleman.
"But she isn't alive," concluded Garrick, "and there is nothing to show that there was anyone else at the poolroom for women who interested him and well, this isn't getting back to business." He turned toward the street. "Let's go down on a surface car," he said. "I think we ought to learn something down there at the Old Tavern, now.
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