CHAPTER IV
While the preparations for dinner were going on in the studio, down
below Larry turned a corner and swung up the narrow street toward the
pawnshop. He halted and peered in before entering; in doing this he
was obeying the caution that was his by instinct and training.
Leaning over the counter within, and chatting with his grandmother's
assistant was Casey, one of the two plain-clothesmen who had arrested
him. Larry drew back. He was not afraid of Casey, or of Gavegan,
Casey's partner, or of the whole police force, or of the State of New
York; they had nothing on him, he had settled accounts by having done
his bit. All the same, he preferred not to meet Casey just then. So he
went down the street, crossed the cobbled plaza along the water-front,
and slipped through the darkness among the trucks out to the end of
the pier. Under his feet the East River splashed sluggishly against
the piles, but out near the river's center he could see the tide
swirling out to sea at six miles an hour, toward the great shadowy
Manhattan Bridge crested with its splendid tiara of lights.
He stretched himself and breathed deeply of the warm free spring. It
tasted good after two long years of the prison's sealed air. He would
have liked to shed his clothing and dive down for a brisk fight with
the tingling water.
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