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

 

CHAPTER XXIII

The murder trial of Tony Camonte, the famous gang leader, who had come to be considered beyond the reach of the law, was the sensation of the year. The newspapers found it a God-send during a period when other news happened to be scarce, and devoted their front pages to little else. Public opinion as to Tony's guilt and deserving of punishment was sharply divided.

A certain cross-section of the populace poured down maledictions upon his head and consigned him to the gallows, with sighs of relief. But another group, equally numerous, who through the papers, had followed his daring exploits for years, had come to feel an admiration for this extraordinary man who had risen from vassal to czar. These people openly expressed sympathy for him and the hope that he would be acquitted.

For Tony himself, the period of the trial was a time of soul-wrecking terror. Not because of fear of punishment, for he did not fear it; but because of his overwhelming fear that his real iden­tity would be discovered.

Moran prosecuted, assisted by one of the lesser assistant D. A.'s, and it was obvious that they were fighting like tigers for a hanging verdict. Tony's defense consisted of two of the most brilliant criminal lawyers in the city, one a former assistant dis­trict attorney. And the fee they had already re­ceived would enable them to live in comfort for two or three years.

Rosie Guarino was the star witness for the state, of course, but only because Tony chose to allow her to be. His attorneys had relayed to him from his men various proposals for eliminating her from the case, scaring her out of the city, by bombing the Guarino store and home. They even planned kid­naping. And finally they decided upon a cold­-blooded plan for shooting her on the witness stand from the window of an adjoining building.

Tony had angrily vetoed them all, to the bewil­dered disgust of his lawyers and henchmen. He realized that he could stop her instantly by revealing his identity as her brother, but he was more afraid of that fact coming out than he was of the gallows. He had consented, however, to an offer of fifty thousand dollars being made her to slip out of the city and remain away until he had been acquitted and the case forgotten. This offer she had spurned indignantly and promptly given the facts to the newspapers, thereby furnishing them with another sensational headline. Tony secretly was rather proud of her; she was his own sister, all right.

The whole Guarino family was in court the day Rosie testified. Tony looked at them furtively from his position in the front of the court-room before the judge. They were all well-dressed and they seemed well and happy. He felt a little thrill of satisfaction. His ill-gotten gains had done them some good anyway; the generous monthly sum that he gave them secretly through an attor­ney had assured them luxuries and advantages that they never could have enjoyed otherwise.

He saw his mother, dowager-like in a glossy fur coat and a Parisian hat, look at him sharply. For a moment he thought she had recognized him and his heart sank, but he had taken his place so that the throng of spectators could see only the left, the scarred, side of his face. He saw his mother's keen glance turn to contempt and he felt relieved. At that moment he saw himself as others must see him, as a bad boy who hadn't grown up. He was pale and shaken when he turned his attention back to the witness stand.

Rosie gave her testimony with proud defiance and more than one venomous look at him. The prosecution, of course, did not bring out Mike Rinaldo's desperate character, and Tony had forbidden his own attorneys to do so; he refused to stain further the memory of his sister's dead husband. When the state had completed its direct examination of her, one of Tony's attorneys rose for cross-examination.

"Was Mr. Rinaldo completely within your sight from the time he opened the door until you heard the shots and saw him fall?" asked the attorney.

"Yes."

"Didn't you see him suddenly reach for his right hip?"

"Yes."

"Wasn't that before you heard the shots?"

"Yes."

"Then you didn't actually see the defendant shoot Rinaldo?"

"No, but—"

"That's all," said the attorney brusquely.

He turned away then smiled slightly at the sud­den stir that appeared at the prosecution's counsel table; the lawyers there were obviously disconcerted by the extreme shortness of his cross-exami­nation of their star witness.

It was plain that Rosie realized she had made admissions damaging to the state's case. She re­mained in the witness-chair, trying to qualify the statements she had made. But a court attendant ushered her out.

There were other spectators in the court-room that interested Tony. His moll, for instance, Jane Conley, widely known by reputation to police and the underworld as "The Gun Girl," but known by sight to practically none. He was a little puzzled about Jane. She hadn't come near him during his period of incarceration.

As she sat in the court-room, stylishly dressed and easily the most striking woman in the throng of spectators, she gave him no sign of recognition. He resented her air of detachment.

Yet, wanting to find an excuse for her seeming unfriendliness, he was able to find one. The fact that she was his moll had been kept a close secret and it was better that it remain so. The less that was known about the private affairs of a man in his position, the fewer loopholes his enemies had to try to strike him through.

His brother, Detective Lieutenant Ben Guarino, was a constant and interested spectator at the trial. He was a little surprised at his brother's appearance. Ben had taken on weight and his face looked bloated. He'd been hitting the high spots and it was beginning to tell on him.

The last afternoon of the trial, Tony saw his brother seated beside Jane in the first row of spectators. Occasionally they chatted in whispers and several times he saw them exchange a smile. Jealous rage flowed through the gang leader like molten metal and his eyes blazed. With an effort he turned his attention back to the course of the trial. The climax was approaching rapidly.

In their summation to the jury, Moran and his assistant obviously did their utmost to induce the twelve men to bring in a verdict of murder in the first degree. As they verbally flayed him with all the biting vituperation and sarcastic innuendo of which clever criminal lawyers are capable, Tony found it almost beyond his powers of self-control to remain in his chair. His strong hands gripped the chair arms until his knuckles gleamed white with the effort. His swarthy face flushed to a deep purple and his fingers itched to get at the throats of these hypocrites who characterized him an in­corrigible menace to mankind. The automobiles in which they rode had been paid for with his money.

But he relaxed when his own attorneys had their inning. He even smiled slightly once or twice at some of their cleverly sarcastic quips at the ex­pense of the prosecution. They made the thing out so simply; showed the whole charge to be utterly ridiculous and unproved. They characterized a possible conviction as the most monstrous miscarriage of justice that could ever blot the records of a state. But the jury seemed less interested in the vividly pictured horrors of guilty consciences for convicting an innocent man than they did in the appearance of ten of Tony's best gunmen seated in the first two rows of spectators. They were swarthy, well-dressed young men who surveyed the jurors unsmilingly with cold, hard eyes.

The judge had been paid $10,000 to make his instructions to the jury as favorable as possible to Tony and he went as far as he dared, to earn his fee. The jury required just fourteen minutes to bring in a verdict of "Not guilty." And everybody realized that those ten grimly silent young men had been the deciding factor.

There had been instances where jurors convict­ing gangsters had been shot, their homes bombed or their children kidnaped. Law and order and duty were all very well, but there was no appeal from a bomb or a bullet. And the law is notoriously lax in protecting its upholders, once their use­fulness has ceased.

Tony shook hands with every juror. And some of them were as flustered as though meeting the President. The next day he sent each one a case of uncut whisky.

Tony waited, chatting with his lawyers, until the spectators had dispersed, then he walked out of the court-room a free man, but a man full of deep grievances that must be avenged.

In the doorway lounged Detective Lieutenant Ben Guarino.

"You'll get yours yet. Big Shot," he rasped.

Tony hurried on without indicating that he had heard. In the hallway, his bodyguard awaited him. Quickly they surrounded him, as they had been trained to do and escorted him downstairs and out­side to the big sedan with the bullet-proof glass. At a respectful distance watched a crowd that filled the street. The flutter and craning of necks that followed his appearance would have satisfied the greatest celebrity.

Nearby a half-dozen newspapermen clamored for an interview and innumerable photographers were frantically trying to snap pictures. Being slightly shorter than the average, Tony purposely had chosen for his bodyguard the tallest men in his mob. Ordinarily they served to protect him from the bullets of ambitious assassins. Now the ring of men served equally well to protect him from the almost as annoying camera lenses. But he spoke to the reporters for a moment.

"I'm through with all the rackets, boys," he announced. "I've got enough money and I'm done. Johnny Lovo had the right idea. I'm going into the real estate business."

He stepped into the sedan and the escort of three cars swept away. Tony Camonte was a czar again.

 

 

CHAPTER XXIV

Tony felt a trifle uncertain as he entered his luxurious Lake Shore Drive apartment half an hour later. And the cool, questioning way in which Jane surveyed him was not reassuring.

"Jeez! I'm tired!" he exclaimed wearily. And he was. The strain of the trial had taken more out of him than he realized.

"Listen, Tony," said Jane, and there was an edge in her voice, "just what is this dame to you?"

"What dame?"

"This Rosie person, the one you killed Mike over."

"She ain't anything to me."

Jane laughed scornfully. "Do you expect me to believe that? Then why'd you bump off Mike for gettin' her?"

"I didn't. It was about somep'm else."

"Don't try to kid me. You and Mike were the best of friends up to the night that happened. The boys say you turned absolutely green when you saw Mike come in with her. Right away you went upstairs and five minutes later Mike was dead."

"You're crazy! I—I never saw her before. If she'd—meant anything to me, do you's'pose she'd have turned me up the way she did?"

"A woman's feelings can change."

"So can a man's." He looked at her narrowly; his tone was significant.

"Yeah? Well, don't worry. Big Shot, there's plenty of men that'd be glad to have me."

"Mebbe. But you'd find it pretty hard to find one that could or would pay the price I do. For the amount I spend on you, I could just about have my pick and don't forget it!"

"Why don't you?" she demanded furiously.

“Been too busy to think about it,” he retorted loftily. "But I may not be so busy later on . . . while we're on the subject, I noticed you were mighty chummy with that dick lieutenant in court?"

"Which one?"

"Were you chummy with more than one? I wouldn't be surprised. But I only noticed one. Ben Guarino, the brother of this dame.

"Oh? So you know all about the whole family, eh?"

"Shut up!" he snarled suddenly, advancing on her menacingly. "I've had all your lip I intend to take."

For a moment they gazed at each other with blazing eyes, their teeth gritted and their fists clenched.

"What's the use of us fightin' this way, baby, as long as we been together?" said Tony finally and his voice was weary. "Honest to God, I never had nothin' to do with that dame. And there's impor­tant things to be done now."

"For instance?"

"Gettin' Flanagan and Moran, the damned dirty double-crossers. After all the dough I've paid them! Flanagan could give me a buzz and let me get out of sight that night. But did he do it? No, he comes out himself and nabs me. And even puts the bracelets on me, like I was a common, cheap, petty larceny crook. And Moran, that dirty Irish—"

The oaths crackled off Tony's competent tongue. "Him and that crooked D.A. boss of his. They knew they had a poor case and they knew that Mike's bein' bumped off was a civic improvement. What they shoulda done was forget it. But do they? No, they do their damndest to gimme the rope because they know they could collect more if there was a lot of big shots in the racket instead of just me controllin' the whole works. Well, I've paid and what did I get? Tramped on, the minute they thought they had a chance to railroad me. Now, they're goin' to pay and pay plenty."

And so they forgot their personal jealousies and differences while Tony outlined his plans for ven­geance against those who had betrayed him. But the rift between them had widened. Doubt, once planted, is almost impossible to kill, and upon the slightest provocation can grow with appalling speed into conviction.

Tony went out to his headquarters the next day. And his men greeted his return with the curious silence and the grim, tight-lipped smiles of their kind. But he sensed an uneasiness in their bearing. Something was wrong; he wondered just what it was.

He had not long to wait. Within a few minutes half a dozen of his more prominent henchmen came up to his private office on the top floor of the hotel. One of them, a square-jawed, hard-eyed hoodlum named Finaro, cleared his throat noisily.

"We was wonderin' about that piece in the papers, Chief," he began, "about you goin' to quit the racket and go in the real estate business. That was just talk, wasn't it?"

"I haven't decided yet," answered Tony coolly. "I have got enough dough to quit and enjoy life if I want to."

"Yeah. But who helped you make it. Chief? We've all had a hand in buildin' up that pile you got. And you owe it to us to keep things movin' and give us a chance to keep gettin' our bit. We've stuck by you through some damn tight times and now when the sailing's easy, you gotta stick by us. If you quit now, the mob'd go to pieces overnight. And then where'd we be? You just can't quit now and leave us in the lurch."

The others nodded in hearty assent as he fin­ished. The man's tone and manner had been re­spectful enough but his eyes were hard. Tony, his own eyes glowing with inward anger at this first sign of insubordination within the ranks, was about to dismiss them brusquely. But his better judgment told him not to. He sensed an air of menace in the attitude of the group.

He realized suddenly that in organizing and perfecting this powerful gang that ruled the underworld activities of a great city, he had built a Frankenstein, a monster that, acting upon the prin­ciples he had instilled into it, would feel justified in destroying him should he attempt to desert now.

In one great vision, he saw that these men felt a loyalty to him only as long as his agile mind planned activities that afforded them a handsome livelihood. The moment his value to them had ceased they would unhesitatingly turn upon him the assassin's bullets that he now could command them to direct at his enemies. He could never quit; they wouldn't let him.

"Forget it, boys," he said, trying to make his tone pleasant. "I was just talking for the benefit of the cops. Carry on everything as usual."

Tony lost no time in carrying out his vengeance upon those who had betrayed him.

For five days he had Captain Flanagan shadowed day and night. Then, with the reports of his spies in hand, he spent two days in working out the actual plan. At last all was ready.

At eleven o'clock one night he had himself driven home to the fancy apartment building where he and Jane lived. He gave the uniformed doorman a cigar and paused a moment to comment on the state of the weather. To the middle-aged, digni­fied elevator man he gave another cigar and, ap­parently doubtful of the accuracy of his watch, checked it up with that of the older man. Thus he had impressed his arrival and the time of it upon the two attendants.

His apartment was on the third floor and at the end of the corridor was an iron fire escape that led both upward and downward. Carefully he opened the French doors that gave access to it, stepped out and closed the doors behind him. Then he climbed rapidly but silently down to the ground.

His rubber-soled shoes making no sound, he flitted through the dark alley and stepped into the sedan waiting in the deserted street beyond. The big car sped smoothly away, preceded and followed by another just like it.

At a quiet corner far out on the North Side the three cars paused. Then one proceeded easily through the tree-lined residential street to the next corner. Then another moved slowly forward. In the middle of the block and across the street from a brick two-story house which was still brightly lighted, it stopped against the curb. The four men in it crouched down so that the car appeared empty. Already one of the rear door windows was fully lowered, the cool night air fanning the flushed tense faces of the four men.

Tony waited a moment, then nudged one of his companions. The man lifted a police whistle to his lips and blew three shrill blasts. Almost immediately two shots rang out at the next corner. Abruptly the front door of the house across the street flew open and a burly man emerged, a revolver glinting in his right hand. It was Flanagan!

Another shot rang out at the corner. Flanagan ran down the steps, his revolver ready for action. Slowly Tony lifted the ugly black snout of a sub­-machine gun, resting it on the car door, and took careful aim. Then with a grim smile he squeezed the trigger. The death rattle of the weapon deafened him and his companions but Flanagan crumpled to the ground, at least two-score bullets having found their mark in his body. The cars roared away down the street.

Tony went to bed with exultation welling strong within him. He had returned the same way he had departed and, he was positive, without being seen. When the police questioned the attendants of the building as they were sure to do, the two men would earnestly and unknowingly furnish him with a perfect alibi, for there was no other available entrance to the building save the one at which they were on duty.

Flanagan was gone. A score that had been accumulating for years had finally been settled. Now for Moran!