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

 

CHAPTER XIII

Tony read the newspapers next morning with unusual interest and a mounting fury. "GANG LEADER FLEES" was the big, black headline on all of them. Beneath that was a chronicle of Johnny Lovo's abdication and departure and of the succession of Tony Camonte, a young, little known gangster to his place as commander of the mob. And all the papers carried an interview with Cap­tain Flanagan, chief of detectives, in which he calmly assumed credit for having run Lovo out of the city. The captain also intimated in the interview that the Lovo mob had been so thoroughly harassed by the men in his department that it was completely disorganized and would soon be a thing of the past. The captain closed with a trite, high-sounding but really meaningless statement as to the inevitable triumph of law and order when properly administered and promised the people that he would continue to exert his utmost efforts to rid the city of gangs. It was easy to see where the papers had received their information; the temptation to grab unearned glory had been too much for the captain.

"That ———" Tony's voice crackled with venom as he spat out the epithet between clenched teeth. "I'll get him yet."

Tony drove to his headquarters with a ferocity that brought down upon him the profane maledic­tions of innumerable pedestrians and other motor­ists. But by the time he reached his desk his fury had cooled to an icy, wordless anger infinitely more dangerous. Never yet had he failed to get even with a betrayer.

"The D.A.'s been callin' up every five minutes for the last hour," said Al, the little, rat-faced door­-man. "Said you was to give him a ring the minute you come in. Sounds like he's awful upset about somep'm."

"To hell with him!” snarled Tony. "If he wants to talk to me, he knows where to find me. We ought to get some service out of that ‘bit’ we pay him every month."

"Better be careful with him. Chief," warned Al. "He's more dangerous than any mob leader in town. He's got a strong-arm squad that's took many a poor guy for a ride."

Tony considered a moment then, with an angry grunt, reached for the telephone and called the Dis­trict Attorney's office. At last there came to him over the wire a gruff voice that he recognized from that conference long ago to which he had accom­panied Johnny Lovo.

“Camonte?” barked this voice brusquely. “This is District Attorney Crowder. I see in the morn­ing papers that Lovo's left town.”

"Yeah."

"And that you're in command of his mob now."

"Yeah, that's right."

"Well, I presume you are familiar with his—er—arrangement with me?"

"Yeah, I got a complete ‘pay-off’ list of the ‘bits’ and I'll keep takin' care of 'em just as he did."

"Don't say things like that over the phone," commanded the D.A, sharply, in his voice such con­cern that Tony grinned. "Then things are going to go right ahead?"

“Yeah, only more so. This mob's been too quiet lately.”

"Well, keep things out of the papers."

"That'd be easy, if the ‘dicks’ wasn't so damn mouthy."

“I know. All right, then. I'll send Moran out to see you to-morrow afternoon."

Tony hung up, his lips curved in a sneering smile. The D.A. had been worried about his monthly bit, now that Lovo had gone. And he was sending Moran out for it the next afternoon. Moran was one of his younger assistants, a bril­liant prosecutor when he and his chief wanted him to be, but in the meantime the collector for his superior.

Reporters besieged the headquarters all morning but Tony refused to see them or even to send out a statement. The less publicity he got, the better he liked it.

Shortly before noon Al brought in a note to him. It was written on cheap white paper in a graceful feminine hand and read:

 

Dear Mr. Camonte:—

May I see you for five minutes? Thanks!

Katherine Merton.

 

Tony looked up, frowning in annoyance.

"Who's this dame?" he demanded.

"Don't know, chief. Never saw her before. But she sure is a swell looker."

"Yeah?" Tony seemed to brighten up a bit. "She don't look like a gun girl or anything?"

"Naw. A dame with eyes like this one's got couldn't hurt a kitten."

"All right, I'll take a chance. Send her in."

A moment later Miss Merton came in and Tony's first glimpse of her made him glad that he had granted the interview. Al's description of “a swell looker” was all right as far as it went but it did not take into account her dignity and charm. She was the sort of girl that immediately and un­ consciously made a young man ambitious for more intimate acquaintance and an old man regretful for his age. Tall, with an athletic figure and an easy, graceful stride, she walked into the office with a calm, unbrazen assurance. She was dressed in a gray tweed suit and a small gray and black hat that fitted closely the fine contour of her head.

"How do you do, Mr. Camonte," she said, and extended her hand. "I'm Miss Merton."

Tony accepted the hand and felt sorry that he had no right or excuse for holding it longer than he did. Her voice was rich and soothing, well-placed and completely poised, and her frank blue eyes held an engaging twinkle of understanding good humor.

"I want to ask a favor of you, Mr. Camonte," she began. "I've found that men of your type are almost always chivalrous if they have the oppor­tunity to be."

"Yeah, sure," mumbled Tony, embarrassed. "Be glad to do anything I can."

"I thought so. Now, the problem is this: I have a job that I very much want to keep. And right now you are the only person in the city who can help me keep that job."

"Yeah? How's that?"

"I'm with the Examiner," continued the girl gently, almost regretfully. "And the city editor told me this morning that if I didn't succeed in getting an interview with you he'd fire me."

"A reporter!" exclaimed Tony in amazement and his expressive black eyes flashed angrily. "I'm not seeing any reporters."

"I knew you wouldn't, of course. And I under­stand just how you feel. But you see how it was with me—I had to come out here and try to see you or lose my job. I guess, though, that I'll lose it anyway."

She sighed and, succeeding in looking small and miserable for a moment, sniffed audibly. Tony growled under his breath and lit a cigarette.

"Well, miss, I can't tell anything about my busi­ness," he objected doggedly.

"Of course you can't." She seemed amazed at the mere idea. "And I wouldn't think of asking you anything like that, even to save my job. All I wanted to know was if Mr. Lovo really had left and if you really were going to be the commander from now on—my, I should think it would require unlimited brains and nerve to manage an—er—operation like this. And you look so young to have such an important position."

During the ensuing twenty minutes Miss Mer­ton secured her interview. Her questions were adroitly harmless on the surface, dealing only with things which were already known or soon would be known about the gang and its operations, and Tony had no realization of how much he had said.

"I'll bet you'd make a wonderful husband," she said finally, her eyes sparkling in a way that gave him an unaccountable thrill. "Men who lead ad­venturous lives always do; they like the relief of a quiet, comfortable home."

Thus she steered the conversation into romantic channels and for some little time they dealt with love, marriage and so on. Mostly they talked in generalities but occasionally she elicited from him a personal opinion that would be "meat" for a sen­sational newspaper story on "A Gang Leader's Ideas of Love" or some such "shop-girl-appeal" topic.

"By the way," she said at last, "did you ever know a girl named Vyvyan Lovejoy?"

The question gave Tony such a shock that he almost cried out. Only his iron reserve enabled him to keep from betraying himself by an obvious reaction. Did he know Vyvyan Lovejoy? Did Romeo know Juliet? Vyvyan was the burlesque leading woman who had been his first love. He had killed Al Spingola, the city's most important gang leader at that time, in order that he might have her for himself. It was his reckless love for her that had started him on his career beyond the law. And when he had come back from the war and found her living with another man he had killed them both. At the mention of her name, all these events had rushed through his mind like a private mental movie. As it came to an end, his eyes narrowed and his mouth set grimly.

"No," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"I interviewed her once," answered the girl smoothly. "And you look a great deal like a pic­ture she had. There's something about the eyes—"

Tony felt considerably upset. To his knowledge, Vyvyan had never had a picture of him. Nor had any one else. In fact, he didn't know of his picture ever having been taken. He didn't believe in pictures; they were too liable to fall into the wrong hands and some time be a means of identi­fication.

"And by the way," continued Miss Merton smoothly, "do you ever see that stunning brunette who was with you at the Embassy Club the night Jerry Hoffman was shot?"

At this question, Tony did start. Even his iron-like nerves could not withstand a shock like that. He and Jane Conley, "The Gun Girl," the girl with whom he was now living, had killed Jerry Hoffman, then leader of the North Side gang, that night at the Embassy Club, the city's most exclusive night resort. Johnny Lovo had given the orders and paid for the job being done. And so far as Tony knew, Lovo was the only other person besides him­self and Jane who even knew that they had been in the club that fatal night.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"You see, I was there that night and my escort pointed out all the notables to me. You were among them. He said he thought you would make a great success in your chosen profession." She laughed lightly.

"Who was your escort that night?" demanded Tony.

"Oh, I don't think it would be fair to tell." She rose, smilingly, and extended her hand. "I won't take up any more of your valuable time now, Mr. Camonte. But perhaps some other time we can chat a bit. Anyway, thanks so much for a very interest­ing interview; it will enable me to keep my job."

And she departed, leaving behind her a much perturbed gang leader. Now that he was no longer under the influence of her personality—and her ex­pert flattery—he realized that she was a smooth worker, that she had attained her objective in spite of him. And how had she known so much? And what could possibly have been her object in mentioning those past occurrences to him? The more he thought about it the more worried he became. At last, in response to a sudden awful suspicion, he picked up the telephone and, calling the Ex­aminer, asked to speak to Miss Katherine Merton. A moment later he hung up slowly, feeling dazed and very uneasy. The Examiner had no one by that name. Then who was the girl? And what had been her object?

 

 

CHAPTER XIV

Charlie Martino, the “alky” truck driver, who had been hi-jacked and shot the night before, died during the afternoon, without regaining sufficient strength to relate the details of what had occurred to him or to give a description of his assailants. Tony looked down at the boy a moment, then, using again that uncanny yet unconscious knowledge of psychology which he possessed, ordered every mem­ber of the gang who could be reached to come in a few at a time and view the body. He felt that the sight of one of their own dead would put the spirit of battle in them. At last he ordered a fine funeral for the boy and went back to his private office in grim silence, vowing vengeance on the North Side gang.

Tony, in a savage humor from the day’s events, was just ready to go home shortly after ten that night when Mike Rinaldo, the dapper gunman, ar­rived. And the three men who followed him into Tony’s office proved that he had succeeded in his quest. For the man in the center was obviously a prisoner.

"Got him, Chief," announced Mike with an ele­gant gesture toward the glowering captive.

"Who is he?" demanded Tony. His manner in­dicated that nothing short of Caesar himself would be acceptable.

"Benny Peluso, one of the 'big shots' in the North Side crowd."

"Frisk him?"

"Certainly," answered Rinaldo, evidently ag­grieved at the query. "Found a nice load of gats too."

"Well, frisk him again here. Strip him to the hide."

From his vantage point behind the big desk Tony surveyed the captive while his three hench­ men stripped the man and searched every inch of his clothing for possible weapons. The fellow was short and slightly stocky, with a heavy brutal face that instantly bred distrust. His black eyes, now blazing with anger, were shifty and set far too close together.

Tony removed a heavy automatic from the desk drawer and laid it on the desk conveniently close to his practiced right hand.

"All right," he said when the three men had completed their fruitless search and the prisoner was indignantly donning his coat. "You," point­ing the pistol at the captive, "sit down there. The rest of you wait outside until I call you."

He toyed silently with the weapon until the door had closed behind his men. Then he looked at Peluso and stared at him until the man's glance dropped.

"Do you know where you are?" demanded Tony suddenly.

"Yeah," snarled the prisoner.

"Speak nicer if you expect to get out of here alive," snapped Tony. "Do you know who I am?"

"No."

“Well, I'm Scarface Tony Camonte, the new chief of the Lovo mob. And I'm just about ten times as hard-boiled as Johnny Lovo ever thought of bein'. I've bumped off six or eight myself and another one—especially a rat like you—wouldn't mean a thing in my young life. Get me?”

“Yeah.” But the man's tone now had changed from defiant anger to sullenness and his glance re­mained riveted hypnotically to that pistol.

"There's some things I want to know. And you're goin' to tell me."

"You got the wrong man, brother. I won't spill nothin'."

"The hell you won't!" Tony leaned across the desk, the pistol pointed unwaveringly at the hapless captive. "Do you want a load of that in you?"

"Naw, course not. But if I talked, my own crowd would bump me off."

"Maybe not." Tony leaned back. "How much jack do you make with your mob?"

"'Bout three ‘C’s’ a week. Sometimes more."

"Three ‘C’s,’ eh? That's not very much, is it, for all the work you do and the chances you take?"

"I'm wort' more," agreed the man darkly.

"Yeah. But you'll never get it, not with this Bruno guy, from what I hear of him. Where do you think he got that name Schemer anyhow? When a guy has a monicker like that hung on him there's a reason for it. Now, Benny, I'm not a bad guy when you don't cross me. And I'm always willing to see the boys get a piece of change for themselves." He leaned across the desk. How would you like to have fifteen grand—in one chunk?"

The prisoner's eyes sparkled and he licked his lips.

"Jeez!" he exclaimed. "Dat's a lotta jack, even if y'ain't got it."

"I've got it. And it's yours if you want to talk."

"What do you want to know?"

"That's more like it," smiled Tony. "I want to know a lot of things about the Bruno mob, where their warehouses are, and their breweries and their main alky cooking plants. I want to know what garages they keep their trucks in and what roads they use mainly in haulin' their stuff in and out of town. I'll think of a few more things as we go along."

"God! I couldn't tell you all dat stuff."

"Why not?"

"Dey'd bump me off sure."

"Well, if you don't tell me what I want to know, I'll bump you off."

"An' if I do tell you, dey will. What chance has a poor guy got?"

"Listen, mug!" snapped Tony. "Don't you know that fifteen grand's a lot of dough? That's as much as you make in a year with the mob, and if you stay here with them you'll never have that much in one chunk. If you had that much jack, you could go to Frisco or New York or even Mexico or some other crazy place and open a gambling house or get in some kind of a racket and be set for life."

"Yeah, I know. I—I'd like to have it, all right. But dem guys would follow me any place."

"They wouldn't know where you was. They'd think you'd been took for a ride. Don't plenty of mugs from these mobs around here disappear every year?"

"Yeah, I guess they do. But I couldn't do it. They'd get me sure. And what good's dough to a dead man?"

"Come on, now, don't be a fool!" snarled Tony menacingly and aimed the pistol again. "Either you talk or you get it."

The man's eyes glittered against the background of his ghastly pale face and he licked his lips con­stantly.

"Well, I know I'm goin' to get it if I do talk," he answered doggedly. "So I guess I'll have to take my chances of gettin' it if I don't."

"So you won't spill it, eh?" gritted Tony.

The hole in the muzzle of that automatic must have looked as big as a barrel to the prisoner. But he caught his breath suddenly, closed his eyes and shook his head.

"I think you will!" said Tony. "Get up!"

He called in his henchmen from the other room.

"He's a hard nut," he explained. "Got to take him to the cellar."

Rinaldo paled. He could shoot a man down without even giving serious thought to the matter but the mere thought of what was in that cellar made him weak.

"Come on!" snapped Tony and included them all with a comprehensive gesture of the automatic.

"Ya takin' me for a ride?" asked the prisoner as they descended in the elevator.

"No," retorted Tony grimly. "Not yet."

The place to which they took him was a sub­-cellar beneath the regular cellar under the hotel. It was reached by a rather rickety wooden stairway and proved to be a large square room with con­crete walls from which were suspended by chains various strange-looking iron appendages. Before Peluso could hardly realize what was happening he had been stripped to the waist and rigged up against the wall, his arms stretched high overhead, his body suspended from the wrists which were en­circled by tight iron bands. Tony motioned to one of his men who stepped over to a small, furnace­ like arrangement. Tony himself caught up a large, razor-edged knife and, fingering it significantly, looked at his prisoner.

"You know, Benny," he said grimly, "a lot of these mugs they find out on the road somewhere after they've been took for a ride don't look so pretty; ears off, tongue out, and other little details like that. And all those things always happen before the guy is actually bumped off. Nice to think about, ain't it?"

Tony turned back toward the furnace. Rinaldo followed him.

"I don't like to say nothin'. Chief," said the gun­ man hoarsely in a low tone, "but, honest to God, I don't believe I can stand this."

"Then look the other way or get out. I don't like it any better than you do but it's got to be done. Makin' this bird talk means that our mob will control the city before long. And don't forget this, Mike; Bruno or any of that North Side mob of his would do this same thing to you or me or any of us in a minute if they had the chance." He turned abruptly to the other man. "Ready?" he demanded brusquely.

"Here you are, Chief." From within the furnace, the gangster drew out a long, thin iron bar. One end of it was red hot. Tony caught it up by the cold end and approached the trussed prisoner.

"Now, damn you," he snarled, "you'll either talk or I'll ram a hole clear through you with this."

And he started the sizzling iron bar slowly but surely toward the gangster's bare flesh. The man cringed and his eyes widened with terror. Finally he yelled, though the iron had not yet touched him.

"Go ahead and yell," said Tony grimly. "Nobody'll hear you."

Facing a pistol is one thing; facing red hot iron against one's bare flesh and other unknown tortures is another. Peluso cracked.

"I'll talk! I'll talk! I'll talk!" he gibbered when the iron was yet half an inch from him. "God! take that away."

For an hour they cross-examined him, Rinaldo and the others jotting down details while Tony asked the questions. The leader's eyes were spar­kling; he was gaining a complete knowledge of the operations of his most important enemy.

"Well, do I get the dough?" asked Peluso when he finally had convinced them that he knew no more.

"Yes," retorted Tony. "After we've checked up on this story of yours and carried out a plan or two I'm hatching up right now. In the meantime, you stay here; I'm not takin' any chances with you rushin' to Bruno and blabbin' everything to him so that he could change his whole line-up be­fore I can ruin it for him."

Tony immediately selected his half dozen clever­est men—including Mike Rinaldo—and sent them out to investigate what Peluso had told. For over a week they worked day and night, circulating around the city, spying, asking apparently aimless questions, doing a great deal of motoring, snooping carefully but efficiently in many quarters. And they reported back that every detail of the pris­oner's story seemed correct.

Elated, Tony at once set in motion the machinery over which he now had control. A dozen new machine guns were imported from New York by devious methods. And certain members of the gang who were acknowledged experts in that line were set to work constructing powerful bombs, or "pineapples" as they are known in gang circles. Tony was a veritable dynamo of energy during these preparations and his vigorous―and murderous―enthusiasm gradually communicated itself to the others until the entire gang was a real fighting machine anxious to get a chance at the enemy.

Libati came swaggering into Tony's private office late one afternoon.

"Well, I guess we're about all ready for the war to start. What's the first move?"

"I'll let you know when I've decided," retorted Tony coolly.

"How about this mug, Peluso? What are we goin to do with him?"

"Do with him! Why, as soon as the campaign on the North Side gang is well opened up, I'm goin' to give him the jack I promised him and have him taken to a train for the West. I imagine he'll be glad enough to blow town."

"I'd think so. But surely you're not goin' to be such a sap as to pay him off now. He's told us all he knows. Why not take him for a ride and save the dough?"

Tony, unaccountably shocked by the cold­-blooded proposal, looked up with flashing eyes.

"I keep my word, Steve, whether to friend or enemy, and no matter what I've promised, either good or bad," he retorted grimly. "The other day I gave you an assignment to get a certain man. You haven't done it yet. Do you remember what I promised you if you didn't carry it out?"

Steve's glance shifted uneasily. "Yes."

"Well, that stands. And I don't intend to wait all Summer either. Better get a move on."