CHAPTER IX
Jerry Hoffman's death created a sensation and for days the city was rife with conjectures as to who could have carried out such a daring murder plot. But the police and gangland both had a good idea as to who was responsible. The dicks took Johnny Lovo down to headquarters and questioned him for half a day but he told them nothing beyond proving an alibi for himself. Nor did he give the impression of defiantly holding back something. On the contrary, he blandly and smilingly convinced them that he actually knew nothing. But the North Side gang was far from convinced and some day they meant to have vengeance for the death of their chief.
Neither Tony nor Jane was ever mentioned in connection with the affair. Lovo gave them a thousand dollars each and thanked them profusely, promising to let them handle any other little jobs he might have in the future. In the meantime he sent an enormous and elaborate floral piece bearing his card to Jerry Hoffman's garish and expensive funeral and gave Tony various assignments in connection with the gang's activities. But he didn't send Tony back to the interesting but perilous task of proselyting saloonkeepers—he considered the boy too valuable an aid now to risk in such reckless fashion. No, Tony had become a staff officer now. His work consisted mainly in relaying Lovo's orders to the powerful leader's henchmen and in receiving reports that Lovo himself was too busy to hear. There was no detail of the gang's operation that Tony did not come to know.
He spent all his spare time in pursuing Jane Conley. And the more he saw of her, the more fascinated he became with her. Yet there was something elusive about her. He could never feel that he had a definite grasp upon her. Yet he finally got his courage up to the point of proposing that they take a flat together.
"I'm not interested in marriage," she answered with a shake of her shapely head.
"Neither am I," agreed Tony quickly. "But who said anything about marriage? I said I thought it would be nice for us to have a flat together."
Again she shook her head.
"I've never lived with a man."
"Well, you might find it a pleasant experience."
"Yes," she admitted frankly, looking him straight in the eye. "And then again I might not. I'm afraid it would be too—intimate; that people, even if they were very much in love when they started, would surely tire each other finally."
"Is there—somebody else?"
"Not particularly."
"But there is somebody?" he persisted jealously.
She laughed lightly. "There is always somebody else. Any girl knows more than one man and often likes more than one very much."
"Then you do like me a little?" He was at her side, with her hand caught in both of his.
She nodded.
"And you will think about what I proposed?"
"Yes, I'll think about it."
And with that he had to be content. This Jane Conley was a very strange woman, he reflected. He often wondered who she was, where she came from. As much as he had been with her, he really didn't know her at all. And he knew enough about women to realize that that very mystery and elusiveness was one of the main reasons why she fascinated him so intensely.
But he had enough on his mind without troublesome love affairs. Contrary to expectations, the North Side gang had found a new leader and apparently an able one, a wily little Italian rightly named Schemer Bruno. Rumor had it that he was reorganizing things in every direction and preparing to set out on a campaign of reprisals and business-getting that would set the city by the ears. That he was utterly ruthless and intended carrying on with gusto the feuds begun by his predecessor was proven by the fact that another of Johnny Lovo's best men was "taken for a ride," his body discovered out in the country with a scrawled note: "In Memory of Hoffman," tacked to his chest with the blade of a pocketknife.
"I tell you, Tony, I don't like this," said Lovo after the man's body bearing its gruesome message was brought in.
"Not gettin' scared, are you?" demanded Tony. He talked to Lovo now with the freedom of a privileged counselor.
"Hell, no!" snapped the gang leader, but he talked like a man who is assuming a falsely ferocious air to maintain his own courage. "But just the same I don't like it. It may be you next—or me. I don't want to spend the rest of my life having somebody shot and trying to keep somebody else from shooting me or my employees."
"Forget it!" advised Tony. "It's all in the game. We'll fight 'em to a finish and get this Schemer guy too if necessary."
"No, not yet. Maybe he'll quit now. I don't want to spend all my time in a war; it takes too much time away from making money."
Tony departed from that interview much disgusted with Johnny Lovo. He did not realize the essential differences between them; that Lovo was merely a shrewd and unscrupulous man willing to do anything for money; that he was much more a business man than a fighter; and that he had had none of Tony's war experience which had taught the younger man such a supreme contempt for human life.
Then for the first time Tony actually saw the close contact which exists between crime and the law. Lovo was summoned to the District Attorney's office and he took Tony along as a sort of bodyguard and aide-de-camp. The District Attorney was a little man with a flat nose, an undershot belligerent jaw and mean little eyes.
"This shooting has got to be stopped," he barked at Lovo. "It's—"
"But I'm paying—"
"Of course you are. And you'll keep on paying if you want to keep on doing business. It isn't your business that I'm objecting to; it's this damned shooting that's going on among you. It's getting the city a bad name and what's more important, the newspapers are beginning to ride me and my administration. I don't want to interfere with you boys any more than is absolutely necessary, but this killing has got to be stopped."
"I'm willing. It's that North Side outfit."
"And they say it's you. I had this Schemer Bruno in here for an hour this morning and he promised his mob would do no more killing if yours didn't. So that's settled, then. Now I don't want to hear of any more gang wars."
For six months there was peace, that is, on the surface. There were no killings but fist-fighting and stabbings occurred with too great frequency to be accidental. The rivalry for business was becoming keener and more bitter daily, and all sides knew that it was merely a question of time until somebody blew the lid off and started the old feuds all over again. The two South Side factions also were beginning to meddle in districts which belonged to other gangs and on the near west side a crowd of five brothers had suddenly set up in the bootlegging and allied rackets with a strong gang of their own.
Tony was growing restive from inaction. And he was deeply resentful of many things, of the fact that the last murder of a Lovo man was still unavenged, of the fact that other gangs were beginning to encroach upon the Lovo territory and that they were not being challenged by the bullets that should be poured into them. He had just about decided to begin a lone war of reprisal when the lid was blown off.
He and Johnny Lovo were dining at a table in the ground floor restaurant of the hotel where Lovo had his headquarters and which he owned. Suddenly there was a rapid staccato rattle of shots from outside somewhere, the tinkling crash of shattered plate glass windows and the spiteful whizzing of bullets. With one sweep of his arm, Tony overturned the table and dragged Lovo down behind it. He had recognized that peculiar stuttering of those guns outside. Machine guns! Why hadn't somebody used them before? Why hadn't he, an expert machine gunner, thought of them and brought them into play in this other war that was for money only? Well, if that was the way they were going to play now, he'd give them a nasty dose of their own medicine.
That shooting had been a direct attempt to get Johnny Lovo himself. It was the most daring move of the enemy so far. And it had been partly successful. Lovo had been hit in the shoulder. It wasn't a serious wound but the fact remained that he had been hit for the first time and it brought a hunted look into his eyes that remained there for ever after. Johnny wasn't a warrior when his own person was involved; his nerves weren't constructed to stand the strain.
That attempt to kill Lovo made Tony furious. He felt that it was a gesture of contempt which must not be allowed to remain unanswered if the Lovo organization was to continue and to endure. Without saying a word to anybody, he managed to purchase a machine gum himself. Then one night he set out on a little war of his own.
The headquarters of the North Side gang was upstairs over a florist's shop which had been the property and hobby of the gang's first and greatest leader, the famous Dean Martin, who had been shot down among his own flowers—the first post-war gang leader to die from the bullets of an enemy. The shop, which was directly across the street from a large cathedral, was located on a thoroughfare which was dark and quiet at night.
Sitting in the tonneau of the car with his machine gun on his lap, Tony ordered his chauffeur to drive slowly past the shop. As the car moved deliberately along, Tony lifted the machine gun to his shoulder—it was one of the new type that are operated much as a rifle—and riddled the front of the shop, both upstairs and down. There had been a light on the second floor which went off the moment he started firing and he had no means of knowing if he hit anybody. But he had certainly done plenty of damage, he reflected happily as the car raced away from the scene. He'd given them as good as they sent, and with their own weapon. Since machine guns had been introduced into the war, the score was even.
CHAPTER X
At first Tony had considered that long scar on the left side of his face a blessing because of the change it had made in his appearance. But now he was beginning to regard it as a curse. It was making him a marked man. Already he was known through the underworld, not only to the members of the Lovo gang but to those of other mobs, as "Scarface Tony." And to be so well known that he could be easily identified was distinctly not a part of his plans.
He felt, too, that that scar might be hurting his suit with Jane Conley, the gun girl. Women could not make themselves love men who had disfiguring marks of any kind and that scar, even though it was becoming less noticeable as time went on, was not a thing of beauty.
He and Jane were the best of friends, often going places together and seeing a great deal of each other. Yet he felt that he was actually no closer to her than he had been the first time they met, the night they had disposed of Jerry Hoffman. But the lure of her was growing upon him more and more, if such a thing were possible.
"Listen, girlie," he said one night, "I love you—more than I could ever tell you; I'm not much good at talkin'. But all I want is a chance to prove it. Please say 'yes' to that proposition I made you a long time ago."
Jane looked him straight in the eye for a moment and the directness of her gaze was rather disconcerting.
"All right," she answered. "We'll look around to-morrow for a place."
"You'll do it?" he cried, almost beside himself with elation.
"For one month—on trial. If at the end of that time I am not pleased with—everything, I am to leave and you are to say nothing, not even seeing me again if I ask you not to. Those are my conditions. Do you accept them?"
"Yes."
"Very well; it's a bargain."
"And if you are pleased with—everything?" he queried.
"The arrangement will probably last some time," she answered quietly.
Tony went away from the house that night, almost choking with triumph. At last he had won; that glorious creature was about to become his―even if only for a month. But he meant to make things so pleasant that the arrangement would last much longer.
But he said nothing about it to Lovo when they met next morning. In the first place, it was a private matter and nobody else's business; and in the second, the gang leader was obviously preoccupied. Tony watched him pace nervously around the office, his unseeing gaze now on the ceiling, now on the floor, with a funny little sense of fright catching at his heart. What was troubling Lovo?
"I want to talk to you, Tony," said the other finally. "Sit down."
Tony took his place on the other side of the desk, feeling an odd sense of drama as though important events were about to transpire. Finally Lovo sat down himself in his big chair and lit another cigar.
"I've heard about your shooting up the florist shop the other night," he began.
"Yes?" said Tony uneasily. He wondered if he was to be sharply reprimanded.
"It was daring and all that but terribly dangerous. You must learn not to risk yourself like that."
"I—I'll try. But there's a lot of fun in pulling a job like that."
"I suppose so," assented Lovo. "For those that like it. Well, I'm not one of them. I'd rather be peaceable and make money. When they drag in machine guns, it's a bit too much. I've got plenty of money, Tony; more than I can ever spend if I use common sense. I think I'll take a trip, to Monte Carlo or Havana or some other gay sporting place where life is pleasant."
"For how long?"
"Years. In fact, I doubt very much if I shall ever return."
"But the mob! You can't let it break up and go to pieces—"
"It would be a shame to let such a complete organization wreck itself, wouldn't it? Well, can't somebody else run it?"
"Certainly." Then remembering to whom he was talking, he added: "Perhaps not as well as you've run it, but they could hold the crowd together and keep things moving. And there's so much jack laying around just waiting to be picked up."
His voice almost became a groan as he remembered and mentioned the large illicit profits waiting to be garnered.
"I know," assented Lovo. "I'm not through with those profits yet myself. . . . Listen, Tony, do you think you could run this mob?"
"I know I could," answered the young man eagerly. "I wish you'd give me the chance."
"I'm going to. It's a heavy responsibility for a young fellow or even for an old one. But I'm going to take a chance on you and I believe you'll make good. You're to send half the net profits to me every month wherever I direct. If my payments don't come through regularly, of course I'll have to come back and—make other arrangements." Their eyes met as he said that and it was evident that they understood each other completely. "Of the other half, you're to keep two-thirds of it and give the other third to your first lieutenant, Steve Libati."
"You want him to work that close to me?" asked Tony. He disliked Libati intensely.
"Yes. He's much older at the game than you are and can give you good advice. Besides, he's always been completely loyal to me and I know he would never do anything that would hurt the organization. If—anything should happen to you, he is to take command."
"Does he know about all this?"
"No. But I'm going to tell him in an hour or two after you and I have gone over some details."
For two hours the gang leader and his successor discussed various aspects of the mob and its activities. Tony merely assented to whatever Lovo said but his own mind was formulating rapidly a plan of campaign, an aggressive, ruthless campaign that would leave the Lovo organization in command of the field. His eyes glinted as he thought of the many daring moves he wanted to make.
At last Steve Libati was called in and apprised of the situation. He was an ugly brute in the late thirties, a gangster of the old school, the type that wore sweaters and shapeless checked caps and lounged in front of frowsy corner saloons with a cigarette dangling from one corner of their ugly mouths while they talked hoarsely from the other. He had hard gray eyes and a nose bent slightly to one side and a mean mouth that sneered easily and nastily.
Tony disliked him intently and he had never evidenced any particular affection for Tony. They represented two entirely different epochs in gangland, and had practically nothing in common. Steve was of the pre-war "strong-arm" type, who knew nothing except the law of might. Tony was of the dapper, business-like, post-war type that went in for efficiency and regular business administration in crime, and that handled its necessary "rough stuff" with a breath-taking speed and thoroughness that accomplished the end without leaving any traces of the perpetrators.
Furthermore, Tony had none of Lovo's faith in either Steve's ability or his loyalty. He had never seen the fellow do anything that proved either one. And he resented having the man handed to him on a plate and being told to make the best of it. But already he had resolved one thing—if he and Steve didn't get along well together, he intended to rid himself of the fellow. There were ways. . . .
"Well, kid, we'll hit it off together in great shape, won't we?" exclaimed Steve with a great show of heartiness when the conditions of Lovo's virtual abdication had been explained to him. But there was a sly look in his hard eyes and a patronizing note in his rough voice that angered Tony.
"I hope so," he said coldly and turned to say something to Lovo.
Tony walked out of the hotel in the grip of a strange mixture of emotions. He was elated, of course, at being elevated to command of the big Lovo organization—it furnished him with the "break" he had always wished for and which would give him a chance to make good in a big way and clean up. But he resented Steve Libati. The more he thought about him, the more he disliked and distrusted the fellow. He could see him only as a spy for Lovo and as a general meddler. Oh, well, that problem would work itself out in time.
He met Jane and they went flat-hunting together. He told her of his big promotion and she was as excited as a child over a new toy.
"What a marvelous opportunity!" she exclaimed over and over. "You ought to be able to clean up and retire in a couple of years."
"Who wants to retire?" he demanded. "I want to live. Just because I'm the boss don't mean that I'm goin' to hide myself in an office some place and let somebody else have all the fun. I'm goin' to be out on the firing line myself every now and then. You and I are goin' to pull some more little jobs, girlie; don't forget it. And there's goin' to be plenty of jobs to be done. If I'm to run this mob, I'm goin' to run it, and no half way business. Moreover, I'm either goin' to run the competition out of town or kill 'em off."
They found a handsome furnished apartment in a large building in a fashionable section. The rent was enormous but they both liked the place and Tony was a "big shot" now. They rented the place for one month and he paid the rent in cash. And the following day found them installed, Jane as tremulously happy as a bride on her honeymoon.
Lovo departed on Friday. Tony drove him to a small station on the far South Side where he took a train for New York. Thus, there were no reporters or photographers around and the public at large had no inkling that he was gone. Tony wanted to have everything running smoothly and have his own position and leadership thoroughly established before Lovo's absence was known.
Returning to Lovo's former office in the hotel to take command, Tony found Steve Libati comfortably established there, tilted back in Lovo's big chair, his feet on the desk, smoking a cigar.
" ’Lo, kid!" he greeted Tony. And again his voice held that patronizing tone that made the younger man furious.
"Would you mind moving to another chair?" asked Tony coldly. "I want to sit there."
"Oh, all right." Steve shifted to another chair and Tony sat down at the desk. "As we're goin' to run the mob, I thought you and I ought to have a little talk."
"I don't know what about," retorted Tony coolly, picking up some papers and riffling through them in a This-is-my-busy-day manner. "I haven't decided on any definite plans yet. When I do. I'll let you know and give you your orders for your part in them."
For a long moment the two men stared at each other. Tony's right hand had moved quietly to his side coat pocket. He was waiting for definite insubordination. It did not come. Steve's mean eyes narrowed and his ugly mouth twisted into a snarl. Then he relaxed and forced a smile.
"All right," he said, "if that's the way you feel about it." He picked up his hat and walked out. Tony had won the first tilt. But he realized that the inevitable serious trouble between them had only been postponed.
Tony worked hard the rest of that day and evening and all the next day and evening, getting things organized both in his head and on paper. The gang had been gradually falling lately, both in efficiency and income, because of Lovo's reluctance to carry out reprisals. There was much to do. The first thing was to carry out successfully two or three daring coups—preferably killings— against the enemy so as to give the boys some confidence and pride in their own outfit. Then would come the serious organization work that meant big profits. Within sixty days, Tony meant to have those profits bigger than they had ever been under Lovo's leadership.
It was almost ten o'clock on Saturday night when Al, the little rat-faced gangster who acted as guard and doorman for the office, came in to Tony.
"Captain Flanagan's here," he announced.
Tony looked up quickly.
"Who?" he demanded.
"Captain Flanagan, chief of the dicks at head quarters."
A grim smile played about Tony's lips. So Flanagan was here! Well he remembered that bullying officer whom he had knocked down in the cabaret for insulting Vyvyan and who thereafter had practically run him out of town. The shoe was on the other foot now. Tony took an ugly automatic out of a drawer and laid it on the desk within easy reach.
"Show him in!" he ordered grimly.
