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.
