CHAPTER XVII
The assistant chief of the powerful Lovo gang came in with an air of genial assurance that somehow seemed forced. His ugly face bore a smile but his eyes were narrowed and searching, as if he were anxious to know what sort of reception he was to receive.
"Sorry to hear about your accident, boss," he said. "The cops phoned that your car had been found out on the North Side somewhere. There's been a lot of reporters out here this morning, too; they say there's bullet-holes in the tires. But I told 'em you wasn't around—"
"Yeah," growled Tony sourly, "you're a big help to me." He stiffened and leaned across the desk, his mouth twisted in an ugly snarl. "What the hell did you miss Bruno for?" he demanded.
Libati shrugged. "Just a rotten break."
"What do you mean—a rotten break?" demanded Tony savagely. "Bullets go where they're aimed. . . . How'd you try to pull the job, anyway?"
Libati explained. One of the two gunmen that he had selected to help him murder Schemer Bruno, wily leader of the strong North Side gang, had discovered that Bruno was to visit a certain place at ten o'clock the night before. In a parked car across the street, they had lain in wait for him. He came out in a few minutes and just as they were ready to fire, another car had run through the street, obscuring their human target for a moment. When their opportunity finally came, he was walking rapidly toward his car. They had all fired a volley at him and then fled in their car, before his friends inside the saloon could pile out and make the gun fight two-sided.
"All three of you put a rod on him?" demanded Tony.
"Yeah."
"And all three of you missed?"
"I—guess so. The papers this morning says he wasn't hit by this ‘mysterious attack!’"
“Well, what a fine lot of gat-packers you are,” snarled Tony in disgust. "Why, I could throw a gat at a guy and hit him with it. . . . Why in hell didn't you finish the job?"
"But them guys inside—"
"If there's anything I hate, it's a quitter. . . . I s'pose you didn't know that if you missed, Bruno was sure to know who was behind the attack and set all his gorillas on my trail. . . . Listen, Steve, there's two kinds of guys that this mob ain't big enough to hold—those that can't obey orders and those that won't obey orders. And I think both counts fit you."
Libati flushed slowly until his swarthy complexion had turned a sort of dull purple. And his shifty black eyes had taken on a glittering menace.
"I—don't think I get you," he said slowly, and his lips compressed into a thin, hard line.
"No? Well, I'll put it plainer, so plain that even you can get it. Either you and the men you picked to help you get Bruno are no good or you sold out to the enemy and missed on purpose."
"Damn you!" gritted Libati, leaping to his feet, his right hand darting for his side coat pocket. But Tony, with the smooth ease and incredible rapidity of the expert, had lifted his automatic from the desk and had it trained on his lieutenant's middle coat button before the man was completely out of the chair.
"Don't pull, you fool!" hissed the leader. "I don't weaken and I don't miss. And you better not let that right mitt of yours get nervous again while you're in my presence. It's only my left arm that's broke, you know," he added with grim humor.
Steve let his gun hand fall to his side, then ostentatiously lifted it to light a cigarette that he had taken from his left hand pocket.
"You've been after my job ever since Johnny left," said Tony. "And you ain't the type to be particular how you got it—or anything else, for that matter. If I was dead, you'd have it, see? That's why it would be so nice for you to have Schemer Bruno still alive so he could get me. Well, I ain't dead yet, Steve, and I don't intend to be for a long time. So I think you're wastin' your valuable time around here waitin' for me to drop off." His voice dropped to the cold, monotonous level of a judge pronouncing sentence. "You and those two mugs who was with you last night are through with this mob."
"Don't talk foolish!" snapped Steve. "You can't fire me out of this mob. Johnny—"
"Johnny's gone. And he left me the boss. There's my authority," lifting the heavy automatic and gazing at it fondly. "From to-day on you don't get a dime out of here and if I hear of you hangin' around here, it's liable to be curtains. You're all through, see? You can either go out like you are or in a hearse, I don't care which."
For a long moment the two men looked into each other's eyes. Tony's were cold, hard, steady; Steve's shifty and blazing with fury. But at last the erstwhile lieutenant turned without a word and strode out of the room. Again Tony had won; permanently this time, it seemed.
Tony's next act was to arrange a bodyguard for himself, an ample one. Then, with a retinue befitting a person of his importance—and danger, he returned to his apartment. From now on he would travel as he was doing now, between two watchful henchmen in the rear seat of a sedan with a steel body and bullet-proof glass while the well-armed chauffeur and the man beside him, as well as the four men following closely in a similar car maintained a constant vigil in every direction for suspicious automobiles or people.
Tony entered his luxurious apartment briskly, his hard eyes glinting with anger. There were a lot of things he wanted to ask Jane, the notorious "Gun Girl" who, recently, had been living with him.
He found her curled up in a big chair in the living-room, reading a novel and munching a box of chocolates with what he considered unpardonable placidness. She looked up in surprise at his entrance, then her eyes widened in shocked amazement as she noted his appearance.
"Why, Tony!" she exclaimed. "What's happened?"
"A lot you care! " he growled. "I go around the corner to put the car away and don't come back till the next day and you look as if you hadn't even wondered what kept me."
"But I have wondered, Tony. I've been terribly anxious. But I supposed that you knew your own business and I thought you might resent my butting into your affairs."
"Yeah? Well, the Bruno mob tried to take me for a ride last night. And I think you knew they were goin' to."
"Tony!" The girl's face had gone deathly white and her eyes were glittering. "How can you say—"
"Who was that dame at the cabaret last night, the good-lookin' moll in white with that dark mug in a dress suit?"
"I—I don't know."
"Yes, you do. I pointed her out to you and I could see in your eyes that you knew her." He went close to her, caught her arm in a vise-like grip and twisted cruelly. "Who was she?" he rasped.
"She's—a gun girl," panted Jane finally. "Schemer Bruno's moll."
"So that's it, eh?" He released Jane's arm and stepped back, gazing down at her with sneering contempt.
"Was that Bruno with her?"
"Yes."
"God! If I'd only known that," gritted the gang leader, murder in his eyes. "And you knew it all the time and wouldn't tell me."
"No. If I had, you'd have tried to bump him off right there. And you would have either been killed by some of his mob—he always has a bodyguard with him—or been pinched by the cops and tried for the job."
"Humph! Don't make me laugh! They couldn't hang anything on me in this town."
"Don't be too sure! Bootlegging's one thing; murder's another."
"What made you want to leave right away when you saw her and Bruno?"
"I—was afraid they might be going to try to pull something. I wanted to get home—to get out of their reach."
“Humph! Looks to me like you were more afraid of your own hide than mine.”
"What if I didn't want to get bumped off?" demanded the girl, a trace of her usual defiant assurance returning. "Nobody wants to croak at my age. But I was worried about you, too, Tony," she continued hurriedly as she saw the storm clouds gathering in his face. “Haven't I tried for days to make you fix a bodyguard for yourself?”
Tony considered, realizing the truth of that. She had pleaded with him for the past two weeks to arrange a competent bodyguard for himself. But he had hesitated, feeling that to move around constantly surrounded by a squad of gunmen was a reflection upon his own courage and marksmanship. Yet he could not rid himself entirely of the idea that she had been treacherous to him. And his ruthless direct mind could find only penalty for treachery—Death.
“I love you, Tony,” she went on while his piercing glance surveyed her. "And I've been doing everything I could to protect you."
"Yeah? Well, I have my doubts. But I'll give you a chance to prove it. If you love me, get Schemer Bruno for me."
Her eyes widened slowly as she realized the enormity of the assignment and the thoughts within his mind that must have prompted it. Tony laughed.
"Lost your nerve?" he demanded.
Jane gazed at him with sudden contempt, "Of course not!" she snapped. "I've got as much guts as you—any day in the week, big shot."
"Yeah? Then prove it and your love for me by gettin' the Schemer."
"What a nice chivalrous mugg you turned out to be!" she rasped contemptuously. "Handing me the job of bumping off the biggest rod in town—next to you. And alone. You know damn well, Tony, that I never pulled a job by myself. But I'm quite a help, if you'll just remember back to the time that we got Jerry Hoffman together that night in the Embassy Club. But if you'll help, I'll do my part. I'll snoop around until I find when he'll be on a spot. Then we'll pull the job together."
"Well, all right," he growled. He had cooled off considerably from his first anger and as he surveyed the girl's ample charms, but illy concealed by expensive negligee, he decided that it probably would be best not to lose her just yet. But of course he must not let her realize that. He stepped forward and caught her arm again. "But you little devil," he rasped through gritted teeth, "if I ever catch you turnin' me up or doin' be any kind of dirt, it'll be curtains. See?"
So these two, who never had failed to complete a killing assigned them, assigned one to themselves and verbally signed Schemer Bruno's death warrant. Yet Tony's doubts and the ensuing quarrel had opened in their relations a rift which was to have far-reaching consequences.
CHAPTER XVIII
Tony immediately set out on a reckless yet precisely deadly campaign of reprisal against the North Side mob led by the redoubtable Schemer Bruno. He was beginning to have a sneaking respect for the notorious Schemer. He had seen plenty of examples of that wily leader's sagacity and ruthless courage and that business at the cabaret had been the final touch. A man who could, an hour after an attempt had been made on his life, sit in a cabaret but a few tables away from the man he knew to be responsible for that attempt, was a man worthy of admiration. But the realization of his opponent's courage and ability only strengthened Tony's will to win and forced him to plan out amazing coups.
They bombed warehouses, hi-jacked trucks both singly and in fleets, intimidated still-owners who helped supply the North Side outfit into moving and shot a few as an example to the others, browbeat saloonkeepers into shifting their allegiance and promised them ample protection for doing so; killed off half a dozen of Bruno's best gunmen and threatened others with the same fate if they didn't leave town; repeatedly held up and robbed gambling houses known to be owned by Bruno and bombed those that put in the "speakeasy" system of locked steel doors and peep-holes: and in general harassed the other gang in every way possible to a daringly resourceful leader and a powerful organization.
When his campaign was rolling merrily along, Tony had Benny Peluso, the former Bruno lieutenant, who had been captured and forced to "talk," brought before him. After all, the success of his present campaign was due largely to the information which Benny had unwillingly given.
The squat, ugly gangster looked sullen and more than a little frightened as he came in between the two gunmen who originally had captured him and brought him in.
"Well, Benny," said Tony, "the dope you gave me has proved O.K. And here's the dough I promised you," tossing an envelope across the desk. "These men will take you to a train bound for the West; they're to guard you from any of the Bruno mob who may try to get you."
The little gangster who had been compelled to squeal on his associates for a price seized the envelope and greedily thumbed through the fifteen $1000 bills it contained. Then he looked up at Tony and smiled gratefully. In gangland, it was indeed a pleasure to find an enemy—or even a friend—who kept his word when he didn't have to.
"T'anks," he said. "I didn't t'ink you'd come t'rough!"
"I always keep my word—good or bad," retorted Tony, his former enemy's sincere gratitude touching him as much as anything could. "On your way—and good luck!"
Tony's own gunmen, the dapper, polished Mike Rinaldo in command of the little party, escorted Peluso away. An hour later, Rinaldo returned, looking rather downcast.
"Got a little bad news to report, chief," he said. "On the way down to the depot, another car forced us into the curb and a coupla Wops bumped Benny off before we could pull our gats. We jumped out of the car and beat it before the cops came. Some of the Bruno mob must have found out we had him here and been on the lookout for him to come out."
"All right," said Tony wearily. "I s'pose the cops and newspapers will blame me for having him bumped off because so far as they know, he was still an enemy of ours. . . . See that we get the car back."
Tony thought over that report for some time after the dapper but dangerous Rinaldo had gone. He was wise in the ways of gunmen and he had a strong hunch that Rinaldo and his assistant had murdered Peluso themselves for the $15,000. But there would be no way of pinning it on them; the savage enmity that the Bruno mob was sure to feel against Peluso if they suspected what he had done prevented direct suspicion being leveled against the two gunmen. Well, what was the difference; he had kept his end of the deal in good faith, and Peluso was a yellow rat anyway. In his heart, Tony knew that they were all yellow rats when faced with a situation that demanded character and moral courage. His suspicions were verified, to a certain extent, when Rinaldo appeared the following week driving an expensive new car.
Tony again directed his attention to the campaign against the North Side outfit with undiminished zest. For Schemer Bruno was not lying supine under the onslaught of his enemies. He was fighting back with every resource of his wily, daring brain and his strong organization. Altogether it was as desperate a reign of terror as has ever been produced on this continent in time of peace. And the newspapers began to howl about the rights of citizens, the danger to the lives and property of innocent bystanders.
"Damn ’em!" growled Tony to Jane one night. "Don't they know that we don't hurt nobody but ‘hoods’? Neither me nor any of my men ever hit anybody except the mugg we was after. And I never heard of any other mob that did. And we never throw a pineapple unless we know what's goin' on inside the place. If decent citizens own some of the property, let 'em keep the racketeers out; you can't tell me that a man don't know what's goin' on in a building he owns. If he wants to take the chance to get a bigger rent, he's no better than the hoodlums he rents to and he's got to take the chance of the place being blown up."
But the next morning Tony received a telephone call from the District Attorney.
"Camonte?" demanded the familiar overbearing voice. "I want to see you this afternoon. Suite F, in the Sherman Hotel. Two o'clock sharp."
"Why not at the office?" objected Tony. "What's up, anyhow?"
"Never mind. Be there, that's all." And the D.A, hung up.
Until one-thirty Tony puzzled over that official command. He couldn't figure it out. For awhile he suspected a trap and almost decided not to go, then he realized that the District Attorney would not dare to be “in” on a murder plot against a leader as prominent as he. But one thing certain, it boded no good.
He was still sunk in gloomy and somewhat uneasy thought when he rode downtown accompanied by his bodyguard. Piling out of their two cars in front of the huge hotel, the men formed a close circle around him and escorted him inside. They crowded quickly into an empty elevator, practically filling it, then commanded the operator to take them to Suite F, and "make it snappy." The operator hesitated, waiting for two or three more passengers, then took another look at those he already had and obeyed their command.
Released into the hallway of an upper floor, the entire party was immediately surrounded and taken in hand by a dozen detectives, who began disarming them with systematic and none too gentle thoroughness.
"Hey! What's the idea anyhow?" demanded Tony belligerently.
"You'll find out soon enough," retorted a burly dick. "Pass over your gats, too. There's goin' to be nobody bumped off here to-day."
Tony ground his teeth but he offered no resistance. Killing a detective in the heat and obscurity of an alley gun battle was one thing while shooting one deliberately in a prominent hotel in the presence of a dozen of his fellows was quite another. But Tony was outwardly very indignant and inwardly very uneasy. His followers were silent and docile, as modern gangsters always are when disarmed and outnumbered.
When the disarmament program had been completed, the crowd was led down the hall to an open doorway and Tony's henchmen were herded inside.
"You're to stay in here until we come after you," said the detective who seemed to be in command. "And don't make any fuss or we'll take you down to the bureau and give you all a treatment with the rubber hoses we keep on hand for hoodlums like you."
Then he locked the door, pocketed the key, and leaving two of his men on guard before the portal, led Tony on down the hall to a closed door marked "F." He knocked, then opened the door and practically shoved Tony inside. Tony heard the door shut behind him and a key grate in the lock. Then his glance riveted upon the scene of which he had become a part and he stiffened.
Around a large table in the middle of the luxurious parlor sat half a dozen men. There was one empty chair, evidently for him. Tony recognized all those men. At the head of the table, alone, sat the District Attorney, a squat, slightly corpulent man with mean little eyes and a heavy, bulldog jaw. The other men included every prominent gang leader in the city and county, including Schemer Bruno.
"Come on and sit down, Camonte," snapped the D.A, brusquely. "The meeting's ready to begin."
Tony walked forward slowly, assuming a bold air of cool calm that he did not feel, and sat down, glaring at Bruno, who allowed a slight smile to curve the lips of his lean, handsome face as he noted Tony's left arm in its sling. It was their first meeting.
"What's the mater with your arm?" he asked. His tone and manner were polite, yet there was an underlying note of contempt and amusement that made Tony's blood boil.
"I was in an auto wreck the other night," retorted Tony. "But there were other people hurt, too," he added with grim relish as he remembered that overturned car with its cargo of dead and injured.
Bruno's smile faded like a dab of dirt that is wiped away with a quick dash of a cloth and his face froze into a hard, expressionless mask in which the eyes were the only sign of life. But they burned with an intense, malevolent hatred. From his own feelings, Tony knew that Bruno's right hand was itching for a gun.
"That'll do," snapped the D. A. "I'm doing the talking to-day."
The six men, most important of the city's underworld leaders and representing its every element except petty thievery, turned and looked at the man who was the most powerful of the law-enforcing agencies, the man who had been elected by trusting citizens to protect them from the machinations and henchmen of the men with whom he now sat in conference. All were paying him heavily and all despised him, feeling for him the contempt that must always be the lot of the one who betrays his trust. Yet secretly they all feared the great power which was his, the extermination which he could mete out to them if he wished.
"This war's got to stop!" exclaimed the D.A., pounding the desk to emphasize his command. "The newspapers are raising hell and even some of the big politicians are worried about it. Some of the influential men here have gone to the governor and told him that the city's getting such a bad name people are afraid to come here and that it's hurting business. There's even talk of appointing a special prosecutor—some wealthy, fearless lawyer who couldn't be ‘reached’—and a special grand jury to investigate the gang situation. And you know what that would mean.”
The gang leaders shifted uneasily. They did know what such an investigation would mean—a lot of unpleasantness and, perhaps, extinction.
"Camonte," continued the D.A., glaring at Tony, "I know that you and Bruno are the guilty ones in this latest outbreak, the most savage we've ever experienced. But I also know that the only reason you other fellows aren't in it is because you're not big enough to compete with these two and you've got sense enough to know it. . . . There's enough business here for all of you and you've got to declare a truce and operate peaceably, all taking your share."
"Do you think he'd keep a truce?" demanded Bruno, with a contemptuous nod at Tony.
"You wouldn't, that's one damn sure thing," blazed Tony, his mouth curled into a nasty snarl.
"I wouldn't dare to—with you. Who wants to be shot in the back?"
"Why, you dirty—"
"Shut up!" snapped the D. A, savagely. "And listen to me. Or I'll run you out of town."
"You'd lose a good part of your income if you did," sneered Tony, roused to fury by his altercation with Bruno.
Stung to anger by the impudent remark, the D.A, frowned and turned upon him a baleful glare.
"I'd better have a part of my income than none at all," he retorted through gritted teeth. "Another crack like that out of you and you'll be the first to go."
Tony subsided but he was seething with fury. Given sufficient time he would get all his enemies, perhaps even the D.A, himself. Stranger things had happened, and he certainly had it coming to him.
The District Attorney had spread out on the table a large map of the county, which included the large city which took up most of it. Already the map was divided by red lines and inside of each square thus produced was written the name of one of the men present.
"Here are the territories I've assigned to each of you," continued the D.A. "And I think all of you will agree that I have been very fair. You big fellows have been allotted most of it, of course, but the little mobs have their proportionate share because they have to get along, too."
The gang leaders stared at the map. And in their own hearts they all realized that the D.A. had made a fair division of the territory. Each of them also realized that within the district assigned to him for sovereignty lay sufficient business to keep him and his mob busy and to make them exceedingly prosperous. Yet their code had always been to hold their own territory and fight the other fellow for his, just as they expected him to fight them for theirs. And to the victor belonged the spoils of both.
"Here are other maps just like this one, a copy for each of you, with your territories outlined on it," continued the D.A., passing the folded papers around. "And the first man who oversteps his bounds gets run out of town, I don't care who he is. Furthermore, you are to report this arrangement to your respective gangs, acquainting them thoroughly with the limits in which they may operate, and see that they obey. Each man is responsible for the acts of his mob; if he can't control his men and make them obey his orders, he's not fit to be leading the mob. And no more shooting, or I'm going to prosecute the guilty people for murder, I don't care who they are. . . . You can go now—Camonte, you first with your men. You others can go later one by one after he and his bodyguard have left. And be sure you leave at once, Camonte. I have detectives watching outside and any loitering in the expectation of exacting vengeance upon anybody here will be met with arrests and prosecution."
Tony rose and surveyed the gathering, giving Bruno a particularly thorough stare, then turned and strode out of the room. For him, the conference had served one good purpose—he had met Schemer Bruno face to face. He knew exactly what his arch enemy looked like and, from now on, would be able to identify him with certainty even at some little distance. Which was a great help for accurate night shooting.
