“Ain’t playin’ the Marathon no more, are you, Jen?”

Jenny tossed off the straight drink and then blew out a mouthful of whiskey-laden breath.

“Don’t have to wit’ Lou and Harry lookin’ after me. They got a big proposition for me. Some new racket about handlin’ the stuff. Nothin’ but big dough in it. Everythin’ percentage. I’ll be makin’ plenty.”

Babe was intensely interested.

“Maybe with what you make and what I get from the Bearcat we can start a place of our own up here.”

Cokey Jenny smiled her approval of the idea as she refilled her glass.

“Yeah. A swell trade trick house, maybe?”

“Nothin’ but.”

Jenny gulped down her liquor and filled the glass up again to the brim. That finished the half-pint, and she looked at the empty bottle with regret.

“I got to be goin’, Babe,” she said. “Harry’s expectin’ me at the Pavillion.”

“Well, so long, Jenny. I’ll be seein’ you right along now.”

“So long, Babe.” The door closed after Jenny’s streaming bow.

Babe smiled to herself. “The sap,” she thought. She went to the pay telephone that hung on the wall, and, placing her mouth very close to the receiver, called the Pavillion. She asked if she could talk to Harry, said it was on business, and that she was phoning from Toni’s. Almost immediately she heard Harry’s cigarette cough over the phone.

“Hello,” he coughed.

“Harry?”

“Well?” he inquired cautiously.

“Babe—Babe Gordon.”

“Well, for the love of God! What are you doing at Toni’s at five-thirty in the afternoon?”

“Just dropped in; thought I might see you here,” Babe informed him. “But I met Jenny and she told me where to reach you.”

“How’s things?”

“Not so good. Oh, I got somethin’ important to tell you. Somethin’ you ought to know. Get me?”

“I guess so,” Harry said. “When can I see you?”

“Well, you’ll have to make it right away, because I have to get back downtown to meet the Bearcat. Where’s Lou?”

“Right here,” said Harry. “Listen, me and Lou will hop right over.”

Babe went inside and sat at a table in a corner. In a quarter of an hour Lou and Harry came in from the bar. They sat down with Babe.

Harry hung a cigarette on his lower lip and said:

“Hello, Babe. Quittin’ the Bearcat?”

Babe held her cigarette to the flame he offered her.

“Not this minute, but he’s all washed up fighting. Charlie bounced him. Driving a taxi, startin’ tomorrow. And he expects me to stick.”

Harry smiled cynically. And Lou asked:

“Are you?”

Babe bunched her mouth in an expression of distaste. Then she tapped the ash from her cigarette with a slender, well-kept forefinger.

“What are you offerin’ Jenny?” she shot at them.

Lou looked startled. Harry’s eyelids drooped and there came a cruel glint from under them.

“What did she say?” said Harry slowly.