still open for
business at this hour, as the bright lights within proved. Above its
door showed the small blue sign that marked it as containing a
telephone pay booth. For Trencher's purposes a closed booth in a small
mercantile establishment was infinitely to be preferred to the public
exchange in the terminal--less chance that the call could be traced back
to its source, less chance, too, that some inquisitive operator, trying
to kill time during a dull hour, might listen in on the wire, and so
doing overhear things not meant for her ears. He crossed over and
entered the drug store.

Except for a sleepy clerk at the rear there was no one visible within
the place. Trencher crowded his bulk into the booth, dropped the
requisite coin in the slot and very promptly got back the answering hail
from a certain number that he had called--a number at a place in the
lower fringe of the old Tenderloin.

"Is that the Three Deuces?" asked Trencher. Then: "Who's speaking--you,
Monty? . . . Know who this is, at this end? . . . Yes, that's right.
Say, is the Kid there--Kid Dineen? . . . Good! Call him to the phone,
will you, Monty? And tell him to hurry--it's devilish important."

A short pause followed and when Trencher spoke again he had dropped his
voice to a cautious half-whisper, vibrant and tense with urgency. Also
now he employed some of the argot of the underworld:

"Hello, Kid, hello! Recognise my voice, don't you? . . . Good! Now listen:
I'm in a jam. . . . What? . . . Never mind what it is; you'll know when you
see the papers in the morning if you don't know sooner. I've got to lam,
and lam quick. Right now I've got the bulls stalled off good and proper,
but I can't tell how long they'll stay stalled off. Get me? So I don't
want to be showing my map round any ticket windows. So here's what I
want you to do. Get some coin off of Monty, if you haven't got enough on
you. Then you beat it over to the Pennsylvania Station and buy me a
ticket for Pittsburgh and a section in the sleeper on the train that
leaves round one-twenty-five to-night. Then go over on Ninth Avenue to
Silver's place----What? . . . Yes; sure, that's the place. Wait for me
there in the little room upstairs over the bar, on the second floor.
They've got to make a bluff of closing up at one, but you know how to
get up into the room, don't you? . . . Good! Wait for me till I show up, or
if I get there first I'll wait for you. I ought to show inside of an
hour