“I’ve got a lot of money coming to me, Red.” Vance spoke lazily, tauntingly. “And I need that money.” He drew on his cigarette, casually blew the smoke into the redhead’s face, and drawled, “Why, do you know the laundry charges twenty-six cents just for doing a pair of pajamas? I need money.”
“Sleep in your underclothes,” said O’Leary.
Vance laughed. Nancy Regan smiled, but in a bewildered way. She didn’t seem to know what it was all about, but she couldn’t help knowing that it was about something.
O’Leary leaned forward and spoke deliberately, loud enough for any to hear:
“Bluepoint, I’ve got nothing to give you—now or ever. And that goes for anybody else that’s interested. If you or them think I owe you something—try and get it. To hell with you, Bluepoint Vance! If you don’t like it—you’ve got friends here. Call ’em on!”
What a prime young idiot! Nothing would suit him but an ambulance—and I must be dragged along with him.
Vance grinned evilly, his eyes glittering into O’Leary’s face.
“You’d like that, Red?”
O’Leary hunched his big shoulders and let them drop.
“I don’t mind a fight,” he said. “But I’d like to get Nancy out of it.” He turned to her. “Better run along, honey, I’m going to be busy.”
She started to say something, but Vance was talking to her. His words were lightly spoken, and he made no objection to her going. The substance of what he told her was that she was going to be lonely without Red. But he went intimately into the details of that loneliness.