"GABE!"

    They all three looked up, startled. Here came Vangie. She was waving a wallet in front of her as if to shoo away horseflies. "You two get away from him. Get away! Go on git!"

    The two guys looked at each other. The gamy guy shook his head, the partner shrugged.

    Vangie hurried across the street. "Go on. On the run, before I call the police."

    "Yeah," the gamy guy said, "that'll be the day." His lip curled. "This dude belong to you, Miss Kemp?"

    "Yes. And I'll thank you to keep…"

    "All right… all right. We'll do you a little favor this time." The gamy guy stuffed the empty sack back under his coat and made as if to tip his hat but only tugged at the brim a little. He said to Gabe, "All right, friend, we'll take our leave. But a word of advice-you hang around this female, you better count your fingers every time she touches your hand." And the two of them turned and sloped off.

    Gabe felt a lot better without those birds crowding him the way they had. He said, "What was that all about anyhow?"

    "Roscoe and his partner? They're crimps."

    "Crimps? What's that?"

    "They shanghai people. To get crews for the ships."

    Gabe paled. "To go on the ocean?"

    "An awful lot of sailors jump ship when they get to San Francisco," she said. "They all want to head for the gold fields. So the ships need crews, and that means there's good money to be made in crimping."

    "Oh, I couldn't take the ocean," Gabe said.

    "Good thing I came back when I did." She seemed calmer than necessary, under the circumstances. Handing him the wallet she'd been brandishing, she said, "Here. Now come buy me dinner."

CHAPTER SIX

    Ittzy Herz was happy. He was out on his own and that was a rare treat. His Mama kept saying all the time, "Ittzy, you got to stay home where it's safe, people always want to take advantage of you. You got to stay home in your room where it's safe." Never had a man had such a protective Mama, and never had a man needed one less.

    He didn't mind sitting in the back room while the rubes paid a quarter to look in at him through the peephole. It made him feel important. And it gave him time to read, play solitaire, and think about where he'd go and what he'd do when he was finally free for good. What he minded most was Mama fussing over him all the time. And maybe even worse than that was the times when store business was brisk and peephole business was slack-like it had been tonight. Mama would make him put on an apron and get behind the counter just like everybody else in the family.

    Ittzy didn't like that at all. After all he was in show business.

    So today when her back was turned he'd scooted out of his apron and out of the store. And here he was: free. It was the first time he'd run away in quite a while, and it was just as much fun as always. All the people gawking at him, trying to touch him, fawning over him as if he were royalty.

    He didn't quite know what all the fuss was about. Everybody seemed to think Ittzy led a charmed life. Well, his father before he'd died had been fond of reading from the Book, and it said right in the Book that a man had threescore years and ten. So Ittzy knew he still had plenty of years to live. The Book said so. What was everybody so surprised about? Ittzy was only thirty-four years old-he still had thirty-six to go.

    He stopped into the Golden Rule Saloon for a beer and people crowded one another aside at the bar to get near him. Ittzy saw people he knew and he waved to them the way he'd seen opera stars wave from their open coaches to the applauding crowds they passed.

    Over at a table with a skinny Easterner and a whole lot of food was a nice girl named Evangeline Kemp whom Ittzy knew slightly. He waved to her and she waved back with a pretty smile, and Ittzy felt good. He thought he might write a poem about a pretty girl's smile. It sounded like a good original idea, and he began to work out the wording in his head. He'd written thousands of poems. Someday someone would recognize his genius and publish one of them.

    A big fellow with an enormous moustache came rolling into the saloon and slugged his way to the bar near Ittzy, although Ittzy had the feeling the man hadn't seen or recognized him. The man slammed a hammerlike fist down on the bar and roared, "Anybody around here sell anything that'd approximate a drink?"

    Ittzy sipped his beer and basked in all the admiring attention he was getting. But he glanced from time to time at the guy with the huge moustache, who was just about the only person in the room who didn't seem to have noticed Ittzy's presence. It bothered Ittzy to have somebody who didn't know who he was. Especially since he was sure he'd seen that face before.

    The big fellow's drink was delivered by a sweating barkeep and the guy took a healthy swallow, almost gagging on it. He said hoarsely, "Christ, they seem to be puttin' bigger snakes in these here bottles this season." His eyes were watering and he shoved his face into the crook of his elbow to wipe his eyes on his sleeve. When he dropped his arm his eyes lit on Ittzy for the first time. He froze.

    Ittzy began to smile, enjoying his little triumph, even if it was belated. At least the guy recognized him now.

    The guy with the moustache stared at him without blinking-without even seeming to breathe. Then his face slowly changed. It got dark, suffused with blood. The big jaw under the mustache crept forward to lie in a grim belligerent line. The guy's hand dropped off the bar and he suddenly bent over, lifting one foot.

    Ittzy couldn't figure out what the man was doing. But then he saw he was working the boot off his foot.

    Finally the boot came off and the big fellow turned and hobbled toward Ittzy on one booted foot and one dirty socked foot.

    Ittzy frowned.

    The guy with the moustache came right up to him, elbowing everybody else out of his way, and shouted right in Ittzy's face, "You're the fellow sold me this boot!"

    Ittzy just looked at him. He couldn't figure out what the fellow was getting at.

    The big man waved the boot in Ittzy's face, and the sole flapped open and shut as though it were the boot talking instead of the man. "This is what you sold me!" the big fellow said (or the boot said). "What you aim to do about it?"

    "Me?" Ittzy didn't think of it as his problem; it wasn't his boot, and it wasn't his store. "Nothing," he said, turning back to his beer.

    The big fellow grabbed his elbow. "I say you sold me this boot!" he yelled.

    "Did I?"

    "You're damn right you did! Two hours ago!"

    Ittzy smiled in friendly fashion. "Maybe you better talk to my Mama," he said. "It's her store."

    "I'm talking to you!" the big fellow yelled, flapping the boot some more like a ventriloquist. "You're the one sold me this boot!"

    "I'm just trying to drink my beer here," Ittzy said, still working at being friendly.

    "You got to make good on this!"

    "My Mama doesn't put any guarantee on her goods."

    "Two hours!"

    Ittzy shook his head and went back to his beer. All he wanted was a little peace and quiet in which to enjoy this rare moment of freedom before his Mama came looking for him, as inevitably she would.