Children of the Whirlwind | Page 8

boss. He's a wonder at thinking up new stunts, and then at working out safe new ways of putting them across."
"But the police landed him at last," commented Hunt.
"Yes, but that was only because another man muffed his end of the job."
The handsome Barney Palmer had been restless during Old Jimmie's eulogy. "Oh, Larry's all to the good--but he's not the only party that's got real ideas."
"Huh!" grunted Old Jimmie. "But you'll remember that we haven't put over any big ones since Larry's been in stir."
"That's been because you wouldn't listen to any of my ideas!" retorted Barney. "And I handed out some peaches."
Even during the period of Larry's active reign it had irked Barney to accept another man as leader, and it had irked him even more during the interregnum while Larry was guest of the State. For Barney believed in his own Napoleonic strain.
"Don't let yourself get sore, Barney," Old Jimmie said appeasingly. "You'll have plenty of chances to try out your ideas as the main guy before you cash in. You know the outfit wanted to lay low for a while, anyhow. But we'll be putting over a lot of the big stuff when Larry gets out."
Hunt had noted a quick light come into Maggie's dark eyes while her father praised the absent leader. He himself suddenly perceived a new possibility.
"Maggie, ever think about teaming up with Larry?" he demanded, with his audacious keenness.
She flushed, and hesitated. He did not wait for her slow-coming reply, but turned to her father.
"Jimmie, did Larry ever use women in his stunts?"
"Never. Whenever we suggested using a skirt, Larry absolutely said there was nothing doing. That's one point where he was all wrong. Nothing helps so much, when the sucker is at all sentimental, as a clever, good-looking woman. And Larry'll come around to it all right. He'll see the sense of it, now that he's older and has had two years to think things over."
Old Jimmie nodded, showing his yellow teeth in a sly grin. "You said something a second ago: Maggie and Larry! They'll make a wonder of a team! I mean that she'll work under him with the rest of us. I've been thinking about it a long while. Mebbe you haven't guessed it, but we've been coaching her for the part, and she's just about ripe. She's got the looks, and we can dress her right for whatever job's on hand. Oh, Larry'll put over some great things with Maggie!"
If Hunt felt that there was anything cynically unpaternal in this father planning for his daughter a career of crime, he gave no sign of it. His attention was just then all on Maggie. He saw her eyes grow yet more bright at these last sentences of her father: bright with the vision of approaching adventure.
"The idea suits you, Maggie?" he asked.
"Sure. It'll be great--for Larry is a wonder!"
Barney Palmer suddenly rose, his face twisted with anger. "I'm all fed up on this Larry, Larry, Larry! Come on, Jimmie. Let's get uptown."
Wise Old Jimmie saw that Barney was near an outburst. "All right, Barney, all right," he said promptly. "Not much use waiting any longer, anyhow. If Larry comes, we'll fix it with the Duchess to meet him tomorrow."
"Then so-long, Maggie," Barney flung at her, and that swagger ex-jockey, gambler, and clever manipulator of the confidence of people with money, slashed aside the shabby burlap curtains with his wisp of a bamboo walking-stick, and strode out of the room.
"Good-night, daughter," and Old Jimmie crossed and kissed her. She kissed him back--a perfunctory kiss. Maggie had never paused to think the matter out, but for some reason she felt little real affection for her father, though of course she admired his astuteness. Perhaps her unconscious lack of love was due in part to the fact that she had never lived with him. Ever since she remembered he had boarded her out, here and there, as he was now boarding her at the Duchess's--and had only come to visit her at intervals, sometimes intervals that stretched into months.
"Barney is rather sweet on you," remarked Hunt after the two were gone.
"I know he is," conceded Maggie in a matter-of-fact way.
"And he seems jealous of Larry--both regarding you, and regarding the bunch."
"He thinks he can run the bunch just as well as Larry. Barney's clever all right, and has plenty of nerve--but he's not in Larry's class. Not by a million miles!"
Hunt perceived that this daring, world-defying, embryonically beautiful model of his had idealized the homecoming nephew of the Duchess into her especial hero. Hunt said no more, but painted rapidly. Night had fallen outside, and long since he had switched on the electric lights. He seemed not at all finicky in this matter of light; he had no supposedly indispensable north