“There’s a hundred thousand he’s holding—a third of it’s mine. You don’t think I’m going to take a Mickey Finn on that, do you?”
“Course not! Supposing we get the hundred-grand?”
“How?”
“Leave it to me, kid; leave it to me! If I swing it, will you go with me? You know I’ll be good to you.”
She smiled contemptuously, I thought—but he seemed to like it.
“You’re whooping right you’ll be good to me,” she said. “But listen, Hook: we couldn’t get away with it—not unless you get him . I know him! I’m not running away with anything that belongs to him unless he is fixed so that he can’t come after it.”
Hook moistened his lips and looked around the room at nothing. Apparently he didn’t like the thought of tangling with the owner of the British drawl. But his desire for the girl was too strong for his fear of the other man.
“I’ll do it!” he blurted. “I’ll get him! Do you mean it, kid? If I get him, you’ll go with me?”
She held out her hand.
“It’s a bet,” she said, and he believed her.
His ugly face grew warm and red and utterly happy, and he took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. In his place, I might have believed her myself—all of us have fallen for that sort of thing at one time or another—but sitting tied up on the sidelines, I knew that he’d have been better off playing with a gallon of nitro than with this baby. She was dangerous! There was a rough time ahead for this Hook!