Part 15 (2/2)

'I suppose so,' MacKinnon replied uneasily, and peered down the street. Then he turned back to speak again to Magee.

But Magee was gone. He had faded away into the shadows. There was neither sight nor sound of him.

MacKinnon started in the suggested direction with a heavy heart. There was no possible reason to expect Magee to stay with him; the service Dave had done him with a lucky kick had been repaid with interest-yet he had lost the only friendly companions.h.i.+p he had found in a strange place. He felt lonely and depressed.

He continued along, keeping to the shadows, and watching carefully for shapes that might be patrolmen. He had gone a few hundred yards, and was beginning to worry about how far it might be to open countryside, when he was startled into gooseflesh by a hiss from a dark doorway.

He did his best to repress the panic that beset him, and was telling himself that policemen never hiss, when a shadow detached itself from the blackness and touched him on the arm.

'Dave,' it said softly.

MacKinnon felt a childlike sense of relief and well-being. 'Fader!'

'I changed my mind, Dave. The gendarmes would have you in tow before morning. You don't know the ropes . . . so I came back.'

Dave was both pleased and crestfallen. 'h.e.l.l's bells, Fader,' he protested, 'you shouldn't worry about me. I'll get along.'

Magee shook him roughly by the arm. 'Don't be a chump. Green as you are, you'd start to holler about your civil rights, or something, and get clipped in the mouth again.

'Now see here,' he went on, 'I'm going to take you to some friends of mine who will hide you until you're smartened up to the tricks around here. But they're on the wrong side of the law, see? You'll have to be all three of the three sacred monkeys-see no evil, hear no evil, tell no evil. Think you can do it?'

'Yes, but -'

'No ”buts” about it. Come along!'

The entrance was in the rear of an old warehouse. Steps led down into a little sunken pit. From this open areaway-foul with acc.u.mulated refuse-a door let into the back wall of the building. Magee tapped lightly but systematically, waited and listened. Presently he whispered, 'Psst! It's the Fader.'

The door opened quickly, and Magee was encircled by two great, fat arms. He was lifted off his feet, while the owner of those arms planted a resounding buss on his cheek. 'Fader!' she exclaimed, 'are you all right, lad? We've missed you.'

'Now that's a proper welcome, Mother,' he answered, when he was back on his own feet, 'but I want you to meet a friend of mine. Mother Johnston, this is David MacKinnon.'

'May I do you a service?' David acknowledged, with automatic formality, but Mother Johnston's eyes tightened with instant suspicion.

'Is he stooled?' she snapped.

'No, Mother, he's a new immigrant-but I vouch for him. He's on the dodge, and I've brought him here to cool.'

She softened a little under his sweetly persuasive tones. 'Well -'

Magee pinched her cheek. 'That's a good girl! When are you going to marry me?'

She slapped his hand away. 'Even if I were forty years younger, I'd not marry such a scamp as you! Come along then,' she continued to MacKinnon, 'as long as you're a friend of the Fader-though it's no credit to you!' She waddled quickly ahead of them, down a flight of stairs, while calling out for someone to open the door at its foot.

The room was poorly lighted and was furnished princ.i.p.ally with a long table and some chairs, at which an odd dozen people were seated, drinking and talking. It reminded MacKinnon of prints he had seen of old English pubs in the days before the Collapse.

Magee was greeted with a babble of boisterous welcome. 'Fader!'-'It's the kid himself!'-'How d'ja do it this time, Fader? Crawl down the drains?'-'Set 'em up, Mother-the Fader's back!'

He accepted the ovation with a wave of his hand and a shout of inclusive greeting, then turned to MacKinnon. 'Folks,' he said, his voice cutting through the confusion, 'I want you to know Dave-the best pal that ever kicked a jailer at the right moment. If it hadn't been for Dave, I wouldn't be here.'

Dave found himself seated between two others at the table and a stein of beer thrust into his hand by a not uncomely young woman. He started to thank her, but she had hurried off to help Mother Johnston take care of the sudden influx of orders. Seated opposite him was a rather surly young man who had taken little part in the greeting to Magee. He looked MacKinnon over with a face expressionless except for a recurrent tic which caused his right eye to wink spasmodically every few seconds.

'What's your line?' he demanded.

'Leave him alone, Alec,' Magee cut in swiftly, but in a friendly tone. 'He's just arrived inside; I told you that. But he's all right,' he continued, raising his voice to include the others present, 'he's been here less than twenty-four hours, but he's broken jail, beat up two customs busies, and sa.s.sed old Judge Fleishacker right to his face. How's that for a busy day?'

Dave was the center of approving interest, but the party with the tic persisted. 'That's all very well, but I asked him a fair question: What's his line? If it's the same as mine, I won't stand for it-it's too crowded now.'

'That cheap racket you're in is always crowded, but he's not in it. Forget about his line.'

'Why don't he answer for himself,' Alec countered suspiciously. He half stood up. 'I don't believe he's stooled -'

It appeared that Magee was cleaning his nails with the point of a slender knife. 'Put your nose back in your gla.s.s, Alec,' he remarked in a conversational tone, without looking up, '-or must I cut it off and put it there?'

The other fingered something nervously in his hand. Magee seemed not to notice it, but nevertheless told him, 'If you think you can use a vibrator on me faster than I use steel, go ahead-it will be an interesting experiment.'

The man facing him stood uncertainly for a moment longer, his tic working incessantly. Mother Johnston came up behind him and pushed him down by the shoulders, saying, 'Boys! Boys! Is that any way to behave?-and in front of a guest, too! Fader, put that toad sticker away-I'm ashamed of you.'

The knife was gone from his hands. 'You're right as always, Mother,' he grinned. 'Ask Molly to fill up my gla.s.s again.'

An old chap sitting on MacKinnon's right had followed these events with alcoholic uncertainty, but he seemed to have gathered something of the gist of it, for now he fixed Dave with serum-filled eye, and enquired, 'Boy, are you stooled to the rogue?' His sweetly sour breath reached MacKinnon as the old man leaned toward him and emphasized his question with a trembling, joint-swollen finger.

Dave looked to Magee for advice and enlightenment. Magee answered for him. 'No, he's not-Mother Johnston knew that when she let him in. He's here for sanctuary-as our customs provide!'

An uneasy stir ran around the room. Molly paused in her serving and listened openly. But the old man seemed satisfied. 'True . . . true enough,' he agreed, and took another pull at his drink, 'sanctuary may be given when needed, if-'His words were lost in a mumble.

The nervous tension slackened. Most of those present were subconsciously glad to follow the lead of the old man, and excuse the intrusion on the score of necessity. Magee turned back to Dave. 'I thought that what you didn't know couldn't hurt you-or us-but the matter has been opened.'

'But what did he mean?'

'Gramps asked you if you had been stooled to the rogue-whether or not you were a member of the ancient and honorable fraternity of thieves, cutthroats, and pickpockets!'

Magee stared into Dave's face with a look of sardonic amus.e.m.e.nt. Dave looked uncertainly from Magee to the others, saw them exchange glances, and wondered what answer was expected of him. Alec broke the pause. 'Well,' he sneered, 'what are you waiting for? Go ahead and put the question to him-or are the great Fader's friends free to use this club without so much as a by-your-leave?'

'I thought I told you to quiet down, Alec,' the Fader replied evenly. 'Besides-you're skipping a requirement. All the comrades present must first decide whether or not to put the question at all.'

A quiet little man with a chronic worried look in his eyes answered him. 'I don't think that quite applies, Fader. If he had come himself, or fallen into our hands-in that case, yes. But you brought him here. I think I speak for all when I say he should answer the question. Unless someone objects, I will ask him myself.' He allowed an interval to pa.s.s. No one spoke up. 'Very well then . . . Dave, you have seen too much and heard too much. Will you leave us now-or will you stay and take the oath of our guild? I must warn you that once stooled you are stooled for life-and there is but one punishment for betraying the rogue.'

He drew his thumb across his throat in an age-old deadly gesture. Gramps made an appropriate sound effect by sucking air wetly through his teeth, and chuckled.

Dave looked around. Magee's face gave him no help. 'What is it that I have to swear to?' he temporized.

The parley was brought to an abrupt ending by the sound of pounding outside. There was a shout, m.u.f.fled by two closed doors and a stairway, of 'Open up down there!' Magee got lightly to his feet and beckoned to Dave.

'That's for us, kid,' he said. 'Come along.'

He stepped over to a ponderous, old-fas.h.i.+oned radiophonograph which stood against the wall, reached under it, fiddled for a moment, then swung out one side panel of it. Dave saw that the mechanism had been cunningly rearranged in such a fas.h.i.+on that a man could squeeze inside it. Magee urged him into it, slammed the panel closed, and left him.

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