Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SUNDOWN CAFE. belonged in the stables and not in respect- able company. Cora Herzog saw in the new barkeep a strength that most women would have been apt to miss. They got together. It was afternoon. The fountain played. The wind was in the swamp palmettoes, bringing with it an in- vigorating pungence from the muskrat marshes and mud shoals. There was a set- ting in that little old hacienda back there! In the vine-covered walks one might im- agine a Creole beauty playing upon some stringed instrument while a handsome wind- burned seafarer came to make ardent love. Cora and Al Boscoe did not quite justify their background, but. love is the same in one heart as in another. Al Boscoe’s in- tentions, in fact, were of the best, for he firmly intended to marry the woman—pro- vided they could get rid of that pop-eyed, ‘unwashed, nerve shattered, little man—her husband. They sat at a table in the patio directly below a crevice in the wall which had been dug by the whizzing knife of that famous bullfighter, Sefior El Gato of the City of Mexico. Cora pointed the historical mark out to her employee. The other did not shudder at it. He had seen knife marks—bullet marks—in fact had them on his own person. This chink in the wall meant nothing. ‘Tl tell you where that there knife ought to have landed _.at,” he said confidentially, leaning over his glass of cuevo. “ Right in the miserable little sweatin’ carcass of that husband of yours.” Cora laughed jovially. It was a splendid conception. “ Look here,” Al went on, “ I’m a good stoo’rd, ain’t I now? I know how to mix drinks. I can make a olive float in a glass of jackass brandy or sink or stay in the middle—just according to how I mix the stuff. That makes me a good barkeep. But I’m something else, too. Look at that fist. Ain’t that something to be proud about?” He held up what looked like a chunk of iron with circles of rust and scaly skm that would have made any man pale. Cora stared, Al Boscoe went on: “ That’s fit 809 to do something else besides making a olive float, ain’t it now?” “Tt sure is,” the innkeeper’s wife agreed enthusiastically. ‘“* Now I’ve been here just a week and I ain’t had any chance to do any sockin’ yet —except on a Mex—and he don’t count. But have patience. I know how to take care of a place—particularly a place where you have Cajans, Greek shrimpers and Dago winch hands throwin’ knives at theirselves because a mechanical piano in- toxicates them. You need me, lady, that’s all. You need me every hour right here behind the bar. I’m the bird you want to be general manager of the Sundown Café. Now this old man of yours with the trembles every time he sees a man come in from the sea—”’ “Tht!” Cora ejaculated impressively. Al Boscoe spat. ‘‘ Why don’t you cast him off? Here I am holystonin’ the bar for you and that little crimp swells around as my master. Why should I stand that? Why I asks you, when I could use this fist of mine on his button as well as anybody else’s. I'll sock him, by cripes! I can’t bear to look at him. He turns yellow every time he catches my eye.” ‘Like as not he can read murder in it,” Cora laughed. He’ll dope you, too, the first chance he gets. He has his way, that little mole. If I could get my thumb on im I’d make ’im squirm. This here tavern is his’n, and he knows it. Threatens to kick me out whenever I don’t stand by. He don’t go agin the law, that’s the trouble. Otherwise I’d get the upper hand. I’d make im hop too, you can bet.” Al Boscoe spat in his hand again and plastered his jet black hair so that it looked like a patent leather tongue hanging be- tween his narrow set eyes. ‘It looks to me,” he burst out suddenly, “you could frighten that skunk.” Cora looked up, exhaling a cloud of smoke thoughtfully. ‘“‘ That ain’t so bad.” “You can frighten him now, can’t you? He’s got a weak spot, a nerve in his ol wobbly carcass that trembles and vibrates and shivers when you touch it.” “What nerve?” the woman asked. “You’re getting beyond my depth, Al.” COMED OOo! (©