Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/164

 Now the fellow stepped up and said, "Take a good look at George Baretta."

"What?" asked Calvin.

"Take a damn good look at George Baretta," the fellow repeated distinctly in a low, careful tone; and Calvin discerned that he was a young man, short but broad-shouldered. He spoke in a resonant voice, which, together with his mention of Baretta, suggested to Calvin that he was an Italian, but the flatness of his inflection and the lack of accent told that, if of Italian blood, he had learned to talk in Chicago and probably had been born here.

"Who?" asked Calvin.

"Baretta," the fellow again repeated. "Three-G. George. Say, ain't you Clarke of the State's office?"

"Yes," Calvin admitted.

"Then you know Baretta and give him a good once-over," the fellow iterated and backed away a few steps, suddenly turned and hurried off across the street, leaving Calvin to the realization that when he had visited the automat he must have been recognized and that afterwards he had been followed by this short, broad-shouldered young man who had taken advantage of the darkness in order to speak against Baretta.

As the fellow had assumed, Assistant State's Attorney Clarke well knew George Baretta, whom he considered to be one of the most menacing of the mongrel men in Chicago, debasing and debauching American civilization. Baretta bore an Italian patronymic because his father, killed in a knifing several years ago, probably had been predominantly Neapolitan. A huge, florid matron, who invariably appeared in court when Baretta was arraigned and who testified that she was his mother, gave her own birthplace as Livonia, near Riga.

Her son George was tall, florid and, although he