“Yo’ can’t think when dey takes yo’ man away fum yo’. It ain’t so bad when dey takes yo’ man’s money away fum yo’, but when some dirty low tripe takes yo’ man’s heart fum yo’, dat’s when it hurts.”

Liza opened the gin Jenny had brought over.

“Yere. Take a drink o’ dis stuff an’ pull yo’self togedder.”

Jenny went to Liza’s phone and called the number to Babe’s apartment on Riverside Drive. Pearl answered. Jenny asked if Babe was in, to find out what they knew about her. The maid said Miss Gordon was out.

Jenny hung up and turned to Ida.

“You don’t need to worry. She’ll be here a long time yet.”

Jenny then called Baldwin’s office but he had just left.

XXIII JENNY’S DOUBLE-PLAY

IT WAS about seven-thirty that evening when Cokey Jenny ran across the Bearcat. The meeting was accidental but Jenny never missed a trick.

The Bearcat was sitting in his cab, where he was parked near the subway entrance at 125th Street and Broadway. He was keeping up his training during the mornings. In the late afternoon and early evening he operated his taxi. He had won his fight with Red Dorgan, the fighter Charlie had matched him with, and was staging a sensational come-back. Nevertheless he was worried over the disappearance of Babe.

When he reached New York after his months in the mountains he went at once to the Five and Ten in Harlem and there learned that Babe had been out of the place for some time. He searched all over Harlem for her, watching the various resorts that Babe had once frequented, but he saw nothing of her. He did not give up hope, though, but ran his cab whenever possible in the Harlem district, feeling that sooner or later he would run across her.

Now Jenny saw him and hurried up to him. She could hardly wait to tell him where he could find his wife.

“Hello, Bearcat,” she greeted him.

“Hello,” he said, surprised at seeing Jenny. “Where’d you come from?”

“Just come from a place where your wife is.”

“What!” The Bearcat almost leapt out of his seat. “You just seen Babe? Where is she, Jenny? Tell me—where is she?”

Jenny’s mouth twisted in a vicious grin.

“Why, you’ll find her up at West 127th Street, near Lenox Avenue. She’s—”

But Jenny didn’t get a chance to say more, because the Bearcat threw his motor in gear and was off around the corner.

When the Bearcat arrived in 127th Street he re membered that in his excitement he had forgotten to get from Jenny the number of the house. But he saw the disreputable-looking row of houses and felt sure that Babe was in one of them, so he parked his car on the corner where he could watch for her.