Mystery and detective stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
In spite of herself, his bay-rummed nearness was not unpleasant to her.
"Cut it out--here, Getaway," she said through a blush.
He hooked her very close to him by the elbow, and together they crossed
through the crash of a street bifurcated by elevated tracks.
"You hear, Marylin," he shouted above the din. "Marry me and you'll wear
diamonds."
"Getaway, you're up to something again!"
"Whadda you mean?"
"Diamonds on your twenty a week! It can't be done."
His gaze lit up with the pointiness. "I tell you, Marylin, I can promise
you headlights!"
"How?"
"Never you bother your little head how; O.K., though."
"_How_, Getaway?"
"Oh--clean--if that's what's worrying you. Clean-cut."
"It _is_ worrying me."
"Saw one on a little Jane yesterday out to Belmont race track. A
fist-load for a little trick like her. And sparkle! Say, every time that
little Jane daubed some whitewash on her little nosie she gave that
grand stand the squints. That's what I'm going to do. Sparkle you up!
With a diamond engagement ring. Oh boy! How's that? A diamond engagement
ring!"
"Oh, Getaway!" she said, with her hand on the flutter of her throat and
closing her eyes as if to imprison the vision against her lids. "A pure
white one with lots of fire dancing around it." And little Marylin, who
didn't want to want it, actually kissed the bare dot on her left ring
finger where she could feel the burn of it, and there in the crowded
street, where he knew he was surest of his privacy with her, he stole a
kiss off that selfsame finger, too.
"I'll make their eyes hang out on their cheeks like grapes when they see
you coming along, Marylin."
"I love them because they're so clear--and clean! Mountain water that's
been filtered through pebbles."
"Pebbles is right! I'm going to dike you out in one as big as a pebble.
And poils! Sa-y, they're what cost the spondulicks. A guy showed me a
string of little ones no bigger than pimples. Know what? That little
string could knock the three spots out of a thousand-dollar bond--I mean
bill!"
It was then that something flashed out of Marylin's face. A shade might
have been lowered; a candle blown out.
"Getaway," she said, with a quick little dig of fingers into his
forearm, "you're up to something!"
"Snuff, I said."
"What did you mean by that word, 'bond'?"
"Who built a high fence around the word 'bond'?"
"Bonds! All that stuff in the newspapers about those messengers
disappearing out of Wall Street with--bonds! Getaway, are you mixed up
in that? Getaway!"
"Well, well! I like that! I had you doped out for fair and warmer
to-day. The weather prophet didn't predict no brainstorm."
"That's not answering."
"Well, whadda you know! Miss Sherlock Holmes finds a corkscrew in the
wine cellar and is sore because it's crooked!"
"Getaway--answer."
"Whadda you want me to answer, Fairylin? That I'm the master mind behind
the--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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