Tuesday's Serial: “Scarface” by Armitage Trail (in English) - VIII.

 

CHAPTER XV

Tony took Jane Conley, “The Gun Girl,” to one of the swankier night resorts that evening. They both enjoyed such high-powered diversion and it always brought back memories. It was at Ike Bloom’s that Tony first had seen her and been struck by her beauty. It was at the Embassy Club, while they sat waiting for Jerry Hoffman to come in so that they could carry out the death sentence pronounced on him by their employer, Johnny Lovo, that they really had become acquainted.

Tony, his evening clothes immaculate and per­fectly fitted save for a slight bulge under his left arm where an automatic hung suspended in a shoulder holster, looked about the luxurious but crowded and noisy place, then glanced at Jane with satis­faction glowing in his expressive eyes. She was the most beautiful woman in the place, or the “joint,” as he mentally worded it. He wondered, with a sudden twinge of jealousy, if she would stick with him after the thirty-day probationary period had expired.

He observed that she seemed somewhat distrait to-night. Her hands fluttered nervously, little lines of concern wrinkled her forehead, and her glance kept wandering around as though she were looking for somebody yet hoping that she wouldn't see him.

"What'sa matter, baby?" asked Tony expan­sively.

"Nothing. I just don't feel very well."

"Aw, cheer up! Let's dance!"

They rose and moved out on the small, crowded floor, quite the handsomest couple in the place. Jane was a superb dancer and Tony, with his na­tive Latin grace and sense of rhythm, equally good. Nobody watching them would have dreamed that they both had killed, not in the heat of passion, but coolly and deliberately—for money; and that they would kill again whenever the occasion seemed to demand. And yet they were not murderers, ex­cept legally. In their own minds, they felt com­pletely justified for everything they had done. And their operation never had been and never would be the slightest menace to the general pub­lic. When they stalked with murderous intent, they invariably were after some certain person who "had it coming to him" and who would have done the same to them without any more compunc­tion than they showed. And they always took care not to harm innocent bystanders.

When the cabaret's gayety was at its height in the wee hours, Tony saw Katherine Merton, the mysterious girl who, in the guise of a newspaper reporter, had visited him at headquarters and questioned him at length about many things. She was seated now on the other side of the club, attired in a somewhat daring evening gown of flashing sequins, and escorted by a dark, handsome man in a dinner jacket, whose general appearance, some­how, was anything but reassuring to Tony.

He wondered suddenly why she was here, if there was anything behind her presence beyond participation in the general gayety. The possi­bility worried him. He wondered if she had seen him, and hoped she had not.

"Say, Baby," he said, "do you know that dame over there, the one with the diamond dress?"

Jane turned and her glance searched the room. When she finally saw the mysterious girl, her eyes widened and she bit her lip.

"No," she answered sharply. Then: "Let's go!"

Puzzled, Tony escorted her from the club. He knew she had lied. But why? Newsboys were crying the early editions of the morning papers. Tony bought one, then his face set and an involun­tary “Hell!” burst from his lips.

"What's the matter?" asked Jane anxiously.

"Steve missed, the damn dumb-bell!" snarled Tony.

The girl took the paper from him and looked at it. An attempt had been made that night on the life of Schemer Bruno, now leader of the North Side gang. But miraculously he had come through it unscathed. Questioned by police, he had ad­mitted that he had an idea who was behind the at­tack but had refused to give them any information. It was thought by the police that the attack meant the beginning of a new gang war.

"The clumsy fool!" snarled Tony. "I should have known better than to trust that job to him. Now Bruno will be after us right. And he'll be so careful himself that we may not be able to get another crack at him for a hell of a while."

“Oh, Tony, that worries me!” said Jane. “You must be very careful.”

He drove home in wordless wrath, his active mind racing with murderous plans for annihilating his enemies. In front of the luxurious apartment house where they lived he stopped and let Jane out.

“I'll put the car away and be right back,” he said absently.

At the corner he swung to the left and headed for the garage a block away. Suddenly the angry whine of a heavy car approaching from the rear at high speed obtruded itself into his consciousness. Instantly suspicious, he increased his own speed. But the other car came alongside. He could see that it was long and low and black, with side cur­tains in place—the typical death car. Then a thin red stream burst from its side, he heard the rattle of machine-gun fire, and bullets tattooed against the side of his own car. But the body of his sedan was heavy steel and the glass was bullet-proof. It shed bullets as a duck does water. Yet these ene­mies, whoever they were, would not be satisfied until they had accomplished their murderous mis­sion.

He realized that he dare not go into the garage for the death car would follow and finish him there. And the employees would be of no help. He must get to his own district, where these men would hardly dare follow and where, if they did, his gangsters always loafing around that all-night cigar store on the ground floor of the hotel which was his headquarters would come to his assistance and make short work of them.

Abruptly he pressed the accelerator to the floor and the big car leaped forward. At a crazy pace he raced through the dark, deserted city streets. And that other car hung doggedly to his trail. Sev­eral times they gained slightly, coming almost close enough to use their guns again. But always he managed to keep ahead of them.

On and on and on went that strange race, for him a race for life, for them a race for death—his death; careening around corners, streaking along on the straightaway. If only he could reach his head­quarters before something happened. Surely they would not dare to follow him there.

From behind came the stuttering rat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire again. Two of his tires, evidently pierced by the bullets, blew out with loud reports. The car slewed to the right, struck the curb with terrific force and turned over. Tony felt himself falling then everything went black.

When he regained consciousness he was lying prone but in an uncomfortably cramped position. There was a carpet under him and feet all around him and he was aware of a jolting, swaying motion. Abruptly he realized that he was on the floor of a car tonneau and that the car was moving. It couldn't be his car. Then it must be that of the enemy. He sat up, wildly staring about him. There were two men in the rear seat but it was too dark to distinguish their faces.

"He ain't dead, after all," said a strange voice. "Jeez! ain't that too bad?"

"What the hell's the idea?" demanded Tony.

"You'll know soon enough."

"Well, let me up on the seat there. This is too damned uncomfortable."

He tried to get up and found that he was weak and very dizzy. One of the men reached out and jerked him into the seat between them. He could see now that the front seat also contained two men.

"You want to enjoy this ride, kid!" snarled a voice in his ear. "Because it's the last one you'll ever take."

Tony's heart almost stopped. He'd faced dan­ger and been in tight places before; but never a situation like this. He was being taken for a ride, about to be made the victim of the most feared and the most conclusive of all the means gangland used for ridding itself of its enemies. He turned to the man who had spoken.

"This is some of that damn crooked North Side outfit, I suppose," he said bitterly.

“Yes.”

“Who the hell are you?”

"Me?" The man laughed mirthlessly, a menac­ing laugh strangely like the rattling of a snake about to strike. “I'm Jerry Hoffman's brother.”

 

 

CHAPTER XVI

Mentally Tony rehearsed the steps ahead of him. The swift, ominously silent ride out into the country. Then when a sufficiently deserted spot had been reached, he would be kicked out of the car, riddled with bullets and left dead in a ditch, to be found by some passerby or perhaps picked to pieces by buzzards if the place were remote enough.

A fellow had some chance in a street gun-fight, no matter what the odds against him, but "a ride" was more inexorable than the death sentence imposed by a jury and court. For there was no ap­peal from it. There was no possibility of escape from it. It was carried out with the cool, precise deadliness of a state execution. And it was even more inevitable—at least it always had been.

A nervous or sensitive man, faced with cruel and certain death within an hour, would have shouted, screamed, pleaded, perhaps battled his captors with that reckless strength born of despair. But Tony was neither nervous nor sensitive. A man who requires a steady trigger finger can't be. Tony was thinking. Not with frantic, chaotic haste; but coldly, deliberately, resourcefully.

The hopelessness of his situation did not appall him. It merely stimulated that abnormally keen animal cunning which had made him, while still in the twenties, the most daring and powerful gang leader in that city noted for daring and powerful gang leaders.

And at last his agile mind found a possibility—focused upon it. It was a mad scheme; the chances were a hundred to one against his coming out of it alive even if it worked. He realized that, yet experience had taught him that a plan seem­ingly impossible of success sometimes succeeded because people thought nobody would be silly enough to try it. As things stood, he was sure to be dead within an hour; if he attempted his mad plan, he had a bare chance. He decided without a second thought to assume the risk.

Calmly, coolly, he bided his time, sitting there in the tonneau of the big car between two of his captors while the other two occupied the front seat. At last he saw a car approaching from the other direction. His gaze narrowed as he tried to gauge their relative speeds and the distance between them.

Then, with a sudden, panther-like spring, he leaped forward, launching a terrific blow at the chauffeur's head and grabbing for the wheel. The speeding car staggered crazily. But the surprised driver was still hanging on. Tony was battering the man's head, trying to strangle him, with one hand while he tugged at the wheel with the other. He felt blows raining on his own head and back, then a gun flashed and roared in the tonneau and he felt a sharp burning in his side. But he gritted his teeth and stuck to his task.

The big car swerved to the right, dropped into the ditch with a blinding crash, then turned over and over, its engine racing madly with a shrill, agonized whine, and finally came to rest on its side, still quivering, like a stricken animal.

Tony piled on top of the other two men who had been with him in the tonneau, shook his whirling head in an effort to clear it. His whole body seemed to be only a mass of excruciating pains, but he was still conscious. He realized dully that none of the others had moved or spoken. His left arm was twisted under him in an unnatural way. He tried to move it and found he couldn't. It was hurting terribly, too. Cautiously he reached out with his right hand, feeling the pockets of his inert companions. Finding a familiar bulge, he reached in and pulled out a .45 automatic.

The feel of the cold steel against his flesh, the realization that he was armed again, revived him like cold water. He struggled upward, seeking a way out of the twisted wreckage. Then he heard approaching footsteps clicking on the frozen ground and a shadowy figure appeared beside the over­turned car. That was somebody from the other automobile, of course; he had counted on that.

"Say!" he said hoarsely, and was provoked to find his voice shaky. "Help me out of here, will you?"

A flashlight was snapped on, then its conic yel­low beam penetrated the tonneau and finally came to rest on his face.

"Sure!" said the stranger. "But I'm surprised any of you are alive. God! That was an awful sight!"

He helped Tony out through a smashed and twisted door, then turned his light on the others. The driver and his companion were obviously dead, their faces horribly cut by the broken glass. The two men in the tonneau were unconscious but looked to be alive.

"Come on, let's go," said Tony.

"But the others—" objected the stranger in amazement.

"To hell with the others!" snarled Tony harshly. "They're gangsters and they was takin' me for a ride. I hope they're all dead. I guess I ought to make sure—"

He produced the pistol and aimed at the two inert figures in the tonneau.

"For God's sake!" gasped the stranger, laying a trembling hand on his arm. "Don't! You can't—"

Tony turned and stared at him for a moment, then shrugged contemptuously and allowed his gun hand to drop to his side. He had decided that it would probably be best not to do any murdering before a witness, especially when he needed that witness badly for the next half hour.

"All right!" he growled. "But you're goin' to take me where I want to go, and take me fast. Come on!"

He prodded the stranger with the automatic then almost grinned as the man shivered and hastily began leading the way back to his own car parked on the road. Tony ordered the man to make all speed for the gang's headquarters then silently settled back in the seat with a sigh of relief and began making plans for vengeance. But his own misery would not allow his mind to dwell on that enticing problem. His left arm was broken; his right side throbbed and burned from the bullet wound; he found it impossible to assume a position which was even remotely comfortable. And pain and warm little trickles warned him that his own face had not escaped the flying glass. Altogether he felt, and imagined that he looked, a total wreck.

The man beside him obviously was burning up with curiosity. Several times he tried to question his passenger but Tony either answered in grunts or not at all and he finally gave it up. But he drove like fury; they pulled up before the hotel gang headquarters much sooner than Tony expected.

"You're all right," said the gang leader briefly, reaching for his wallet. He found it contained three hundred and forty dollars and generously thrust the whole wad of bills into the surprised stranger's still trembling hand. "There's a little gas money," he said with an attempt at a smile. Then his face sobered into a frown and his voice came hoarsely from between gritted teeth, "But keep your mouth shut about this!" he commanded savagely. "Or you'll get what they tried to give me to-night."

Even at that hour of the morning, there were a few gangsters lounging in the all-night cigar store and in the small, dark lobby of the hotel. Tony's entrance in such a condition created a sensation and they all looked eagerly curious.

"Been in an automobile wreck," volunteered Tony curtly, then immediately ascended to his own private quarters on the top floor and called a doctor.

An hour later, his wounds dressed and his broken arm set, Tony went to bed. He felt certain he would be unable to sleep, yet it was after noon when he awakened. Laboriously he hauled his weary, battered frame out of bed and tried to dress. But with only one arm, and it so stiff and sore that he could hardly move it, he had to call Al, the little, rat-faced doorkeeper to help him.

Fortunately Tony kept part of his extensive wardrobe at the hotel; he would have looked funny transacting the day's business in evening dress. He had a big breakfast sent up then went to his desk and sent for Steve Libati. And his eyes flashed as he gave the order. This was to be a day of set­tling scores.