Just tell the
proprietor you saw the gas company's wagon on the next block and
come up here and tell me."
I entered. There was a sinister-looking man, with a sort of
unscrupulous intelligence, writing at a table. As he wrote and
puffed at his cigar, I noticed a scar on his face, a deep furrow
running from the lobe of his ear to his mouth. That, I knew, was
a brand set upon him by the Camorra. I sat and smoked and sipped
slowly for several minutes, cursing him inwardly more for his
presence than for his evident look of the "mala vita." At last he
went out to ask the barkeeper for a stamp.
Quickly I tiptoed over to another corner of the room and ground
the little bottle under my heel. Then I resumed my seat. The
odour that pervaded the room was sickening.
The sinister-looking man with the scar came in again and sniffed.
I sniffed. Then the proprietor came in and sniffed.
"Say," I said in the toughest voice I could assume, "you got a
leak. Wait. I seen the gas company wagon on the next block when I
came in. I'll get the man."
I dashed out and hurried up the street to the place where Kennedy
was waiting impatiently. Rattling his tools, he followed me with
apparent reluctance.
As he entered the wine-shop he snorted, after the manner of
gas-men, "Where's de leak?"
"You find-a da leak," grunted Albano.
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