LITMIR.BIZ

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she suddenly ejaculated. The blue-lidded eyes were now staring and wide-opened. Their owner's air of esoteric mystery suddenly evaporated, pricked like a soap-bubble by that one betraying exclamation.

      "Hully-gee, if it ain't old Willsie himself!"

      Wilsnach looked quickly yet casually about, to make sure they were alone. "Sadie," he solemnly murmured, "you're fine!"

      "Well, I ain't feelin' the way I look! But it kind o' sets me up, Willsie, to lamp that classic map o' yours!" She stared at him long and hungrily. Then ​she sat back with an audible sigh. "I guess yuh ain't back none too soon!"

      "Why?" asked Wilsnach.

      "B'cause yuh're sure goin' to lose your little stick-up, if yuh leave her long in this dump!"

      "Anything happened?"

      "Yes, lots! And here's a letter Kestner sent on for yuh."

      Wilsnach took the note from her hand. But he stood smiling down at her, without breaking the envelope's seal.

      "Sadie, you're fine!" he repeated.

      "Fine!" she cried, wuth a hoot of derision. "I was more'n that. I was dog-goned near fined!"

      "Wait," commanded Wilsnach. "What was it I told you about that enunciation of yours?"

      "Oh, gee, teacher, I just gotta denounce a while b'fore I can stop to pr'nounce! I always get weak on the English when I get indignant. And I've been some little bob-cat for the big-gunners o' this swamp!"

      "But why were you nearly fined?"

      "Well," began the seeress, with an abandoned rush of words that contrasted strangely with her earlier air of immobility, "I hadn't been stuck up in ​this drum two days b'fore a flatty lamped me street-sign and blew in for a two-dollar palm-readin'. So I took 'im by the mitt and said he was sure goin' to make a journey soon. And he sez to me, 'Excuse me, miss, but yuh're the guy who's goin' to do the travelin'! And it's goin' to be right over to the Island,' he sez, 'for I'm a plain-clothes man from Headquarters!' Seein' Kestner and yuh'd told me the Feds had ev'rything fixt, I give him the glassy eye and sez, *Nix, honey-boy, nix! Save that for the web-foots,' sez I, 'for I'm hep to this burg and what yuh kin pull over on the chief! I ain't been hibernatin' up-state wit' the hay-tossers, son, and I wouldn't be exhumin' this ol' stuff if I didn't have purtection!' 'Well,' sez the flatty, showin' his badge, 'yuh'd better send in a hurry call for them purtectin' spirits, for I'm goin' to gather yuh in, and I'm goin' to do it right now! So git your street-rags on!'"

      "Why didn't you do as we said, and phone Hendry?"

      "That gink wouldn't let me git near a phone, nor git long enough out'n his sight to stow away a box o' smokes. He towed me acrosst to Eight' Avenoo b'fore he even melted enough to let me call a taxi. He was jus' swingin' the door open when a cop come ​along. That cop sez, 'Whadda yuh doin' wit' the skirt, Tim?' The gink climbs in beside me. 'Pinchin' her fur palm-readin',' he sez, as he waves for the driver to git under way. And that cop was all that saved me from being disgraced for life! He put a hand on me friend's arm and sez, 'Nuttin' doin', Tim! If they hadn't jus' brought yuh in from the goat-cliffs yuh'd a-knowed the green lamps was givin' this lady the wink! She's a federal plant, son, and yuh'd better git her back before the whole ward gives yuh the laugh!' And he got me back. But when I got back I was so hot under the collar I cudda jumped the Service for life!"

      "We all have our troubles, Sadie, at work like this," soothed Wilsnach, as he studied her pert young face. He realized, as he watched her, that the very audacities which had once made her a trying enemy were converting her into an invaluable colleague.

      "But this stall's bin trouble from the first crack out o' the box!" complained the young seeress as she lighted a cork-tip cigarette. "It's easy enough to say not to talk and jus' feed your sucker list on a few Mong-jews and Wollas and Sack-rays, for to make 'em think I'm French. But I ain't no more ​French 'n a Frankfurter, and I can't git away wit' it! I jus' can't!"

      "Then you've already had visitors ?"

      "Visitors? Say, a street-sign like mine brings the nuts down like an October black-frost! Gee, but the ginks yuh bump into at this game! The first ol' guy who got a dollar readin' turned confidential and said he was a widower and wanted me to join him in a Back-to-Natcher Society and take dew-baths in his back yard. Then a fat Swede who'd been a ring-thief in a Turkish-bath joint wanted me to work the Riviera wit' him as a hotel-sneak. Then a fat woman wit' three chins and no lap, the same claimin' to be the slickest clairvoyant on the Island, pleaded to know jus' how I could git p'lice purtection, especially wit' a face like mine! The ol' cat! Then a yellow-faced undertaker wit' a front yard full o' spinach and a white string-tie wanted me for his housekeeper up in Syracuse. Natcherally, I said nuttin' doin', Grandpaw!"

      "Go on!" prompted Wilsnach.

      "Then a mutt in the sash, door and blind trade wanted to move in wit' his trunks, bein' soused to the gills and tempor'ry furgittin' home and mother up in Ithica. Zuleika rolled him down the steps and ​left him cryin' ag'inst a hydrant fit to break your heart! Then a mulatto lady bookmaker come in to git me to dream track-numbers for her. So in me off time I'm makin' a stab at pickin' the circuit winners. Then' another washed-out ol' guy wit' a patented Elixir O' Life wanted me to run his Second Ark O' The Sacred Elect and be his spirit-wife on the side. I told him to git ready for the grave b'fore his mind went any worse!"

      "Is that all?"

      "Not by a long shot! Yesterday a couple o' promoters dropped in. One wanted me for a come-on to a company o' his to make blood oranges by stabbin' 'em wit' a needle-ful o' saccharine and red aniline. The other had doped out a scheme for makin' a million or two importin' the Guatemalan kelep-ant to kill all the boll-weevil out o' the cotton states. He offered to split even and pay travelin' expenses if I'd get out and lobby for state grants. Then a widow come in for a message from her husband, and got cryin' all over the place until I hadda warn her she was spottin' me plush-goods. I give her back her money and told her this spirit-rappin' game was all bunk. Then a couple o' sailors come in from the Navy Yard, and—"

      ​"Sailors?" snapped out Wilsnach.

      Sadie dashed his hopes. "They was soused to the gills—worse'n the sash and door guy! They was so lit up I short-changed 'em a couple o' bones, jus' for squeezin' me hand durin' business hours!"

      "There doesn't seem to be much for us to work on in that group," meditated Wilsnach, after a moment or two of silence.

      "What I wantta know," demanded Sadie, fixing him with a rebellious eye, "is jus' why I'm planted here, and jus' what good I'm doin' at this palm-readin' guff!"

      "There's a reason for it, Sadie, and the reason is this: We've got to rake this big city for a man named Dorgan. We don't know where he is, or where he's headed for. All we know is that he's hidden away somewhere in New York."

      "But where d' I come in?" demanded the seeress.

      "You come in as the decoy-duck who's going to persuade the gun-shy stranger to dip down into your neighborhood. For before this man came to our city, Kestner tells me, he'd been consulting a fortune-teller named Madame Fatichiara."

      "Then I ain't the one and only?" demanded Sadie Wimpel, with a distinct note of disappointment.

      ​"No, you're merely the one particular kind of fly our particular kind of fish will rise to. I mean by that, Sadie, that if our man sees your sign, or stumbles across your newspaper advertising, it's reasonable to assume he'll come out of hiding and try to have a talk with you."

      "I don't quite git that!" objected Sadie.

      "You're his friend of other days," explained Wilsnach. "You were his adviser before he went under cover."

      "Then why'd he go under cover?"

      "Because ten days ago when he was fired from the Sinclair Steel Plant he stole a bundle of chart plans of one of our Navy boats. That boat's our new long-cruising submarine known as the Carp-Mouth Submersible. It's

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