CHAPTER XXVIIITHE MICE WILL PLAY
It was apparent next day that relations were strained between the two men. Frost went about looking sullen and defiant and Devlin, when he was not up in his room sleeping, sat in the kitchen drinking coffee with ominous gravity.
Late afternoon came and Devlin appeared dressed to go out. He strode about the kitchen several times, then walked to the door. Frost eyed him curiously.
“Goin’ out, Boss?” he asked.
Devlin looked back and nodded. “I’ll be back early tonight.” He glanced at the boys. “You be ready to take a ride with Frost and me.”
He slammed the door and Nickie paled, noticeably. Frost sat idly at the table drumming his thick fingers upon the oilcloth cover. Skippy went to the window and watched until Devlin backed the big car out. Then he turned suddenly.
“Say, mister,” he said to Frost, “me an’ Nickie know what Devlin’ll take us on a ride for tonight.”
If Frost was surprised he did not show it. He glanced up at Skippy. “So you’re a wise kid, hey?”
“Nope, we just kept our ears open last night an’ heard plenty. Devlin talked loud enough so we put two and two together. Anyhow we know Timmy never went out West—we know he’s dead. Tucker got picked up in Chicago an’ that put the bulls wise Devlin was in a new racket.”
Frost was aghast. “How do you—you....”
Skippy put his cards on the table. “I know everthin’ now, I do, an’ I knew plenty before I ever seen Devlin. We’ll give you a break if you let us get away tonight. If you don’t Devlin’ll go to Pittsburgh with you an’ grab that dough—a blind guy could see he figures you’re givin’ him the double-x—an’ besides I heard him say he’d get you. Anyhow I know the cops’ll grab him there an’ if you’re with him you’ll be grabbed, too. So chaw on that a bit.”
Frost was plainly frightened. “He’s been actin’ so crazy lately he might take me for a ride at that and if I get grabbed with him I’ll get the hot squat too.”
Skippy used the best thrust he knew. “Sure, you will. The cops got that notebook right now—anyway if they ain’t, Carlton Conne’s got it an’ that’s as good as with the cops.” He waited a moment until that shot had found its mark and then he added: “I sent Carlton Conne a note an’ that notebook too the night Devlin took us to the doctor’s house—I told him how long it was from the time we had the accident an’ all about this house an’ what the hermit told you. So if you know anything about Carlton Conne you know he’ll find this joint sooner or later an’ if Nickie an’ me are dead, it’ll be tough for you if you’re found with Devlin. Now I’ll give you a break if you’ll give us one. How ’bout it?”
Like many of his ilk, Frost thought only of his own safety and as he had neither brains nor cunning, he did not stop to question nor consider anything but himself.
“Sure, I’ll give you kids a break—sure!” he was crying like the yellow creature he was. “You think I wanta burn with Devlin when I ain’t done nothin’ yet but help kids for him, hey? I met him in Chi and he brought me here and propositioned me. But I ain’t never tried the trick on any kids and them Greeks if they didn’t get drowned like they did, I couldn’t gone through with it—I know it. I got more feelin’s than Devlin, but I hadda stick and play up—get me? I come along in a car that night I see him first and saw him ship that Tucker kid over that cliff into the lake. I’d made a stick-up a few minutes before and I was makin’ my getaway without lights.”
“An’ you seen what he did?” Skippy asked eagerly.
“Sure. He didn’t hear me and he didn’t see me so I switched off under some trees and it was a lonesome road that hardly anybody traveled between midnight and morning. I see an old car stop and this guy gets out. It’s Devlin. Then you could have knocked me over when I sees him give the little car a shove right over the cliff. So me bein’ in a little racket myself I puts on my lights and chugs up to him and he waves me to stop. So he gives me a story that him and his son was ridin’ along and the car stalls. He gets out to crank it while his son gets behind the wheel to fix the spark. Well, the brake mustn’t been on, he tells me, when all of a sudden he sees the car headed right over the cliff to the lake. He just has time to jump out of the way, he says.”
“Such a warm-hearted guy he is!” Nickie said disgustedly.
“Yeah, he ain’t got no heart,” Frost said, with more composure. “But to make it quick, I tell him I’m wise and what’s his racket. So we get real chummy and he tells me to drive on and when we do he says it’s insurance that he’s working.”
“Insurance!” Skippy repeated as if he must never forget the word.
“Yeah, he tells me it’s a good payin’ racket. He says he can get orphans so they don’t have no real near folks inquirin’ after ’em. He can get ’em insured and wait a month or so, then he can take ’em out in a car, an old closed car he likes to get that don’t cost him more’n a few bucks—you know, the kind that’s ready for the junk yard. If they can swim he can dope ’em a little with some stuff he’s got so by the time they get where he wants, all he has to do is to get out and push the car over to the water.”
“So that’s how he worked it, huh?” Skippy asked, feeling rather sick.
“Sure,” Frost answered readily. “If they can’t swim, he likes it better. Then he uses that stallin’ business to get out, leavin’ off the brake. He thought he had Tucker sure, but the kid comes to and gets out in time so Devlin thinks he don’t give him enough dope.”
Nickie shuddered visibly. “So he reports it an accident?”
“Yeah, and with that funeral face Devlin gets away with it. When the whole business is over he collects the insurance.”
“Gee whiz!” Skippy murmured. “It’s awful!”
“Yeah, don’t think I liked it when he told me!” Frost said, on the defensive. “But he told me I wouldn’t have to do no part of that. He said all I had to do was the details like he called it. So what could I do when he had told me all that and asked me to come in on it with him? He’d have put me on the spot for what I knew about him if I didn’t. Besides, he said it was goin’ to be safe and that he’d worked it out so’s we couldn’t get caught.”
“Why didn’t you stay in Pittsburgh?” Skippy asked suddenly. “You wanted to, I betcha.”
“Sure, I did. But he’da found me—if it was years he’d find me so I thought I’d better come back.”
“You can go back to Pittsburgh tonight if you help us get away. You can start back now—the coupe’s out in the barn, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, but he might...” Frost began.
“Tell him you took us out for the air an’ we beat it.”
Nickie was aroused, jubilant at the new turn of events. “Yeah, an’ say, Frost, tell him you chased us down in the woods where the bog gets tough, but that we give you the slip there, hah?”
“That’s the stunt, Mister Frost. And tell him you’ll hunt us on one side while he hunts on the other. Then, when he’s gone, you beat it fast, ’cause we’ll have the cops in here after him by that time. He can’t chase you to Pittsburgh when he’s in jail, can he?”
Frost fell as Skippy afterward termed it, “hook, line and sinker.” “Sounds like it’s fool-proof, kids,” he said. “And the dicks don’t know about me, hey?”
“How would they?” Skippy assured him.
Frost got up. “I’ll get my keys,” he said, “and we’ll beat it pronto. I’ll take you to the highway and make out I won’t be glad to beat it.”
Nickie looked at Skippy while they were waiting. “It ain’t true you sent that notebook, is it?” he asked incredulously.
Skippy grinned. “Gee,you’renot fool-proof, Nickie. How could I get that book without Devlin seein’ me that night, huh? Didn’t I have a big enough job on my hands gettin’ that note into the old lady’s pocketbook? I hadda spread it on thick to frighten him right off an’ make him think the cops had that book—well, it ain’t a lie exactly ’cause they’ll have it some day an’, boy, is that enough to send Devlin where he can’t be sent any more, huh?”
“An’ how!” Nickie agreed. “Then it’s still out there behind the barrel, hah?”
“Sure, an’ it’s gonna stay there till the cops come an’ get it. I’ll tell ’em where it is—nobody else would think to look for it there. We can’t let Frost see us takin’ it now an’ even if we could, I don’t like it on us in case anythin’ goes wrong.”
“Aw, what could go wrong now, hah?” Nickie said confidently. “Frost takes us out to the road where we’re safe, so we should worry.”
Skippy felt somewhat less confident. He could not, try as he would, put away from him the feeling that nothing was sure in the dark, forgotten swampland of Devil’s Bog. When they were once clear of it entirely, he told himself, he would be able to laugh at the fears which he felt now.