"Oh! . . . Well, just as I started into the theater to-night the meanest looking man I ever saw stepped right in front of me and jammed a note into my hand. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had started to murder me right there. But he went on. When I got into my dressing-room I read what he had given me. It was written in pencil, all scrawled and dirty, but plain enough. This is what it said: 'If you stand me up again, your life won't be worth a lead nickel. Remember that!' It was from Al, of course," she finished.
"Yeah, Another one o' his muggs tried to bluff me at the pool-room to-night but I told him I was able to take care of myself with Spingola or anybody else."
They drove to the same restaurant as the night before and were shown to the same little private dining room. Half an hour later the door was thrust open violently and Al Spingola stood framed in the opening. His swarthy face was a sort of ghastly gray, his eyes blazed with the fires of hell, and his brutal mouth was set in a nasty snarl. Most important of all, his right hand was plunged deep into his side coat pocket.
Tony had turned a strange greenish white and his eyes were glazed. The encounter between
