Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 5, 1928 — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

624 you need a new girl. It’s funny that at the same time her fellow should should show up at Nick’s, “He got in a row with Kid Boru and knocked him fora loop. Nick took him under his wing. “T don’t know what insurance com- pany he was working for, but Ill bet a nickel he’s still with ’em and work- ing under cover. If I was you I wouldn’t leave anything important ly- ing around. It’s my opinion these two kids are laying to get you.” Korbeck laughed. “Get me? Say, where the hell do you get that stuff? They got a fat chance. I know how to deal with sneaks, by God! “ What's the fellow’s name?” “Rand. Barry Rand.” “Well, we'll soon cook Mr. Rand’s goose.” And Korbeck laughed again. CHAPTER XIII. PANIC. ICK EUTHOPOPOLIS — was ‘panting as he ran up the stairs that echoed hollowly beneath his pounding feet. At the top he clutched the banister railing and pulled himself up to the landing and then almost tum- bled into the darkened pool parlor. His breath wheezed audibly so that he clutched his throat with one hand as if to still its noise. Nick was trying to listen for some significant sounds. The pool room was deserted except for Johnny the Nutmeg Grater. His pock-marked face was lined with an expression of alarm as he came from behind the cigar case. “What’s a matter, Nick?” he asked in a tone of deep concern. A bull.” Nick gasped the word, but continued to listen. “Aw, they ain’t got anything on you,” said Johnny in an effort to be consoling, but he looked frightened. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “This one slipped up on me while I was shifting license plates on a car I bent s’afternoon.”’ “ Recognize you?” “Don’t know. If he follows me here I’ll plug him sure. I won't doa stretch. I won't.” “ But what did you have to be both- ering with a car for? Why di’n’t you let a expert do that for you?” “Had a few drinks, Johnny. Lis- ten!” A step had sounded on the stairs out- ° side. There was a profound silence; then the creaking of more steps. Some one, a heavy some one was mounting the flight. Almost viciously Nick waved his as- sociate into the shadows of the dark- ened room in which the covered shapes of pool tables seerned like the cata- falques of dead giants. Behind one of these Nick took his stand. At his back was the wall closet with a glass door in which were the switches controlling all the lights in the big chamber. A shadow loomed across the glass doors at the head of the stairs. Then Nick heard the knob rattle and the squeak of a dry hinge as one of the doors swung inward. One of Nick’s hands was inside his coat, clutching the butt of his forty- five automatic. The other hand trem- bled at the small handle of the switch controlling the flood light at the door- way. Seconds of time elapsed that were so charged with emotion that Nick’s throat seemed to bubble at the pulses. They were seconds in which Nick could have been induced to renounce bur- glary if only he could have been as- sured of immunity from arrest. Two facts were beating against his better judgment. The man whose car he had stolen earlier in the afternoon had seen him and would be able to identify him if he was arrested. ‘The shadowy figure now standing in his doorway had come to arrest ne A Gomichooks (E@)