The Glass Key Read Online Free PDF

from the bathroom, and drew a chair up to the bedroom-window. He sat there smoking, drinking, and staring down at the other side of the street until his telephone-bell rang.
    "Hello," he said into the telephone. "Yes, Jack… Just now… Where?… Sure… Sure, on my way."
    He took another drink of whisky, put on the hat that did not quite fit him, picked up the overcoat he had dropped across a chair-back, put it on, patted one of its pockets, switched off the lights, and went out.
    It was then ten minutes past nine o'clock.

2
    Through double swinging glazed doors under an electric sign that said Tom & Jerry's down the front of a building within sight of Broadway, Ned Beaumont passed into a narrow corridor. A single swinging door in the corridor's left wall let him into a small restaurant.
    A man at a corner-table stood up and raised a forefinger at him. The man was of medium height, young and dapper, with a sleek dark rather good-looking face.
    Ned Beaumont went over to him. "'Lo, Jack," he said as they shook hands.
    "They're upstairs, the girl and those Brook people," Jack told him. "You ought to be all right sitting here with your back to the stairs. I can spot them if they go out, or him coming in, and there's enough people in the way to keep him from making you."
    Ned Beaumont sat down at Jack's table. "They waiting for him?"
    Jack moved his shoulders. "I don't know, but they're doing some stalling about something. Want something to eat? You can't get anything to drink downstairs here."
    Ned Beaumont said: "I want a drink. Can't we find a place upstairs where they won't see us?"
    "It's not a very big joint," Jack protested. "There's a couple of booths up there where we might be hidden from them, but if he comes in he's likely to spot us."
    "Let's risk it. I want a drink and I might as well talk to him right here if he does show up."
    Jack looked curiously at Ned Beaumont, then turned his eyes away and said: "You're the boss. I'll see if one of the booths is empty." He hesitated, moved his shoulders again, and left the table.
    Ned Beaumont twisted himself around in his chair to watch the dapper young man go back to the stairs and mount them. He watched the foot of the stairs until the young man came down again. From the second step Jack beckoned. He said, when Ned Beaumont had joined him there: "The best of them's empty and her back's this way, so you can get a slant at the Brooks as you go over."
    They went upstairs. The booths-tables and benches set within breast-high wooden stalls-were to the right of the stair-head. They had to turn and look through a wide arch and down past the bar to see into the second-floor dining-room.
    Ned Beaumont's eves focused on the back of Lee Wilshire in sleeveless fawn gown and brown hat. Her brown fur coat was hanging over the back of her chair. He looked at her companions. At her left was a hawk-nosed long-chinned pale man, a predatory animal of forty or so. Facing her sat a softly fleshed red-haired girl with eyes set far apart. She was laughing.
    Ned Beaumont followed Jack to their stall. They sat down with the table between them. Ned Beaumont sat with his back to the dining-room, close to the end of his bench to take full advantage of the wooden wing's shelter. He took off his hat, but not his overcoat.
    A waiter came. Ned Beaumont said: "Rye." Jack said: "Rickey."
    Jack opened a package of cigarettes, took one out, and, staring at it, said: "It's your game and I'm working for you, but this isn't a hell of a good spot to go up against him if he's got friends here."
    "Has he?"
    Jack put the cigarette in a corner of his mouth so it moved batonwise with his words. "If they're waiting here for him, it might be one of his hang-outs."
    The waiter came with their drinks. Ned Beaumont drained his glass immediately and complained: "Cut to nothing."
    "Yes, I guess it is," Jack said and took a sip from his glass. He set fire to the end of his cigarette and took another sip.
    "Well," Ned