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Garrick rose, stretched himself, yawned as though bored, and together we lounged out into the public hall, just as someone from the outside clamoured for admission to the stuss joint through the strong door. The door had already been opened, when Garrick deftly inserted his shoulder.
He was the sole support of his mother and sisters, for Louis, as chef d'orchestre in a Second Avenue restaurant, constantly anticipated his salary over stuss or tarrok in the rear of his employer's café. "How much would it take?" he asked Louis after a silence of several minutes. Louis shrugged. "Who knows?" he replied. "Fifty dollars oder a hundred, perhaps."
They are all on the street by this time. Quick before anyone catches us in the rear." We had been not a moment too soon in gaining the street. Though we had done nothing but attempt to get into the stuss room, ostensibly as players, the crowd in the cafe was pressing forward. On the street, we saw men filing quickly from a cellar, a few doors down the block.
Because a week ago Max eats some stuss in Bridgetown, y'understand, which he is sick in bed for three days. And while he is laid up yet Sammet Brothers cops out a thousand-dollar order on him." "Ai gewoldt!" Morris cried, with ready sympathy. "You don't tell me?" "And now that poor feller walks the streets looking for a job; and a fine show he's got it, an old man like him."
He could hobnob with bartenders and red-lighters, pass unnoticed through a slum, join casually in a stuss game, or loaf unmarked about a street corner. He was fond of pool and billiards, and many were the unconsidered trifles he picked up with a cue in his hand. His face, even in those early days, was heavy and inoffensive. Commonplace seemed to be the word that fitted him.
"Why shouldn't he hold a job, Abe?" Morris asked. "If I would have a crackerjack drummer, for my part he could play the whole book of Hoyle, from klabbias to stuss, and it wouldn't affect me none so long as he sold the goods." "Maybe you're right, Mawruss," Abe admitted. "But when a feller fools away his time at auction pinochle his business is bound to suffer."
Cards were whisked away as if a ghost had taken them. In a moment there was no more evidence of gambling than is afforded by any roomful of men, so easy was it to hide the paraphernalia, or, rather, lack of paraphernalia of stuss.
It was the custom, I knew, for criminals, after they had made a haul to retire into such places as these stuss parlors, not only to spend the proceeds of their robberies, but for protection. Even though they were unmercifully fleeced by the gamblers, they might depend on them to warn of the approach of the "bulls" and if possible count on being hidden or spirited off to safety.
"There's no use staying here," remarked Garrick to me under his breath, affecting not to notice the scowls, "unless we do something. Are you game for trying to get into the stuss joint?" He said it with such determination to go himself that I did not refuse. I had made up my mind that the only thing to do was to follow him, wherever he went.
Apparently we had come just at a time when there were some criminals in hiding among the players. It was the only explanation I could offer of the strange action that greeted our simple attempt to gain admission to the stuss room. Whether they were criminals who had really made a haul or mere fugitives from justice, I could not guess.
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