Arizona -- Fiction; Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Fiction; Western stories
"I think you are a fool headed straight for the devil," answered the
officer succinctly. "Now listen to me, Nucky. I've knowed you ever
since you started into the school over there. I mind how the teacher
told me she was glad to see one brat that looked like an old-fashioned
American. And everything the teachers and us guys at the police
station could do to keep you headed right, we've done. But you just
won't have it. You've growed up with just the same ideas the young
toughs have 'round here. All you know about earnin' money is by
gambling." Nucky stirred, but the officer put out his hand.
"Hold on now, fer I'm servin' notice on you. You've turned down every
job we got you. You want to keep on doing Luigi's dirty work for him.
Very well! Go to it! And the next time we get the goods on you,
you'll get the limit. So watch yourself!"
"Everybody's against a guy!" muttered the boy,
"Everybody's against a fool that had rather be crooked than straight,"
returned the officer.
Nucky, his face sullen, descended from the chair, paid the boy and
headed up MacDougal Street toward the Square.
A tall, dark woman, dressed in black entered the Square as Nucky
crossed from Fourth Street. Nucky overtook her.
"Are you comin' round to-night, Liz?" he asked.
She looked at him with liquid brown eyes over her shoulder.
"Anything better there than there was last night?" she asked.
Nucky nodded eagerly. "You'll be surprised when you see the bird I got
lined up."
Liz looked cautiously round the park, at the children shouting on the
wet pavements, at the sparrows quarreling in the dirty snow drifts.
Then she started, nervously, along the path.
"There comes Foley!" she exclaimed. "What's he doin' off his beat?"
"He's seen us now," said Nucky. "We might as well stand right here."
"Oh, I ain't afraid of that guy!" Liz tossed her head. "I got things
on him, all right."
"Why don't you use 'em?" Nucky's voice was skeptical. "He's going down
Waverly Place, the blank, blank!"
Liz grunted. "He's got too much on me! I ain't hopin' to start
trouble. You go chase yourself, Nucky. I'll be round about midnight."
Nucky's chasing himself consisted of the purchase of a newspaper which
he read for a few minutes in the sunshine of the park. Even as he sat
on the park bench, apparently absorbed in the paper, there was an air
of sullen unhappiness about the boy. Finally, he tossed the paper
aside, and sat with folded arms, his chin on his breast.
Officer Foley, standing on the corner of Washington Place and MacDougal
Street waved a pleasant salute to a tall, gray-haired man whose
automobile drew up before the corner apartment house.
"How are you, Mr. Seaton?" he asked.
"Rather used up, Foley!" replied the gentleman, "Rather used up!
Aren't you off your beat?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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