“It listens good,” said the hidden man. “Knowing Hoppy Joe shows you got the right connections, and the way you popped that punk out there wasn’t bad. But we ain’t much on knuckle stuff here. We leave that fer the kids. Can you use a rod?”
Agent “X” snorted and flicked ashes from his cigarette scornfully. “Listen, mister,” he said. “Along the Border they do some fancy shootin’, an’ they call hittin’ a silver dollar two out of five at fifteen feet pretty good. Four out of five was my average.”
“Yeah! Well, you’ll get plenty of target practice on this job, fella. But it won’t be silver dollars you’ll shoot at, see? Maybe you’ll do, Spats, and maybe you won’t. If you want the job you can have it. We’ll give you a chance to make good. An’ any time you want to quit the racket you can do it—via the morgue!”
The Agent heard a scraping sound behind him. A strip of the floor near the far wall was rising. It continued until it almost touched the ceiling. On a level with the rest of the floor was the platform of an elevator. “X” was instructed to stand on this. He did so, and the platform began to sink quickly.
ON the next level, “X” stepped into a cellar room lighted by a small yellow globe. The jaundiced light gave a ghastliness to the pinched face of the rat-mouthed, shifty-eyed little man who greeted the Agent in a high-pitched nasal voice. The twitching muscles and jerking movements proclaimed the hophead.
The guide took “X” down a long flight of stone steps into a winding passageway. Though they were underground, the air lacked dankness of an earthy odor. That was because the walls were of concrete. Somewhere down here, the Agent believed, were dry vaults where narcotics were stored. He wondered if this was the fountainhead from which free drugs poured forth on the country in a deadly, sinister flood.
At the end of the passage, the guide pressed a button that opened a door covered with bullet-proof sheet-iron. Ushered into a brilliantly lighted room, “X” viewed at least a score of men lounging in easy chairs, playing cards or billiards, or reading. The place could have been the clubroom of wealthy men, except for the amazing variety of types.
Pallor and nervousness marked the younger men as drug addicts. Some of the older ones, if they were victims of the habit, showed no evidence that narcotics ravaged their systems. A few of the oldest were of distinguished appearance, and the Agent’s impression was that they possessed more than front. Likely they were medical men, outlawed for illegal practices, who handled the details which required professional knowledge.
“This guy is Spats McGurn,” the guide introduced “X” to the crowd. “McGurn, make yourself at home. Plenty of reading material around. If you feel hungry, the cook will fix you a snack. Bunks are in the room on your left. Nothing to do but loaf now.”
“X” sensed that he was the focal point of frank distrust. In this place, a stranger was under suspicion until he proved himself a member of the underworld by some criminal action. The Agent scowled and sprawled in a chair.
Though he had reached the hideout, he was a long way from success. He was under probation. As far as he was concerned, this clubroom was an observation ward. Experience told him that he might be kept idle for a week or more, while he was watched and studied. During that delay, thousands of people might be enslaved to the insidious drug that was being unloaded upon the nation. Misery and tragedy would stalk across America, while a mobster determined whether “X” was worthy to shoot men down for the dope ring. He had to do something that would win the interest of the leader, that would end his probation at a stroke.
HE picked up a newspaper and rattled through it to the sports section. Behind the raised sheets, he listened intently. The conversation buzzed around the commonplace topics of small talk. He heard nothing about the activities of the ring.
The clock ticked oft valuable time, and “X” was learning nothing. He tried to single out the mob leader, but no one seemed to fit the part. The entire group appeared contented with idleness. This hideout wasn’t unlike firemen’s quarters, where there was little to do until an alarm came in.
The Agent puzzled over a means whereby he could start something and end this exasperating inaction. Trouble would do it, a quarrel, a fight. These men lived by the gun. It wouldn’t take much of an injury to pride or person to make them draw.
Yet he couldn’t brush up to a man and deliberately start a dispute. That would be too obvious. Vicious living had made them smart to tricks, overly suspicious. A play that was too open would suggest a hidden motive.
“X” noticed that whenever he rattled his paper, a sniffing, hard-eyed, death’s-head of a man reading a book nearby, looked up with a scowl of irritation. The Agent’s eyes gleamed. Here was a chance.
He rattled his paper a little more. He gently kicked a table leg in nerve-rasping rhythm. He hummed a monotonous tune, drumming an accompaniment on the arm of his chair with his fingers. To this symphony of irritation he added the most agonizing noise in existence by repeatedly smacking his tongue against a tooth.
Suddenly the hophead sprang from his chair, cursing viciously at “X.” He snatched the paper, yelled, “You damn low-life! Go climb in a bunk before I put the heat on you, and shut you up for good. You’d drive a man nuts with them noises. Lay off that one-man band, or I’ll bend a gun-barrel over your thick dome.”
The snowbird interspersed his tirade with fighting words. “X” hid his satisfaction behind a savage scowl. Leaping erect, he lunged at the man, who sprang to one side and shot a fist at “X’s” head.
The blow landed, though the Agent rolled the force out of the impact. He answered with a vicious snarl and swung a chair overhead. Murder instantly flamed in the hophead’s eyes. Life had etched no humanity on his repulsive face. There was nothing but greed, and evil, and killing hate cut in the harsh lines.
He went into a fighting crouch, his right hand streaking to a shoulder holster beneath his armpit. The gun had half cleared the leather, when “X” dropped the chair. His own hand darted under his coat and appeared again, clutching an automatic.
The draw was swifter than the eye, a blur of movement, that made the others tense in amazement. “X” actually completed the draw the instant the chair struck the floor.
Usually he carried only his gas gun, but this time he’d packed a real bullet-shooting weapon. A mobster without a killing gun was like a plumber without a wrench. To avoid suspicion in that direction, the Agent had brought a rod along.
Then came the pounding crash of flame-spitting guns, and savage blasts filled the room with ear-bursting thunder.
Chapter III
SECONDS OF DEATH
THE reports seemingly were simultaneous; but one was a split-second late—and that wink of time was sufficient to dispel the shadow of death that hovered over the duelists.
The hophead’s automatic suddenly flew out of his grasp as the slug from “X’s” gun smashed against the frame. The man was yanking the trigger as the bullet struck, and the muzzle lanced flame while the gun was spinning in mid-air. The lead buried into the ceiling, sending a shower of plaster down on the billiard table.
Cursing madly, the hophead clutched at his hand and shrank back. Fear bulged his eyes, as he whimpered for help. But he did not need help, for “X” was finished with him. A slight bullet groove across the knuckle of the hophead’s right thumb was the only casualty. The Agent’s astounding display of marksmanship and cool steadiness immediately made him a personality to be respected and recognized.
“ALL right, rat,” “X” snarled. “Crawl into your hole and leave the rod work to professionals. You amateurs are always on the receiving end. You’re all thumbs. Your kind generally end up on the hot squat.”
The Agent addressed the others sarcastically.
“Sorry I disturbed you, gents. Don’t like to overstep myself—specially when I’ve just joined up with a mob. But I ain’t the sort to let a guy get funny with me. If they stay off my toes I’m like a milk-fed lamb. That’s my story, gents, straight and simp
le—and now I’ll finish my paper.”
The hophead had ducked into another room. From the look on the man’s face, “X” knew the snowbird still had ideas of murder. But the Agent wasn’t worried. As long as he didn’t turn his back to his foe, he doubted if the man had the skill or the nerve to get him.
No sooner had the Agent settled himself to listen again behind his newspaper than the others began coming up to comment on his gunwork and to voice profane admiration. The ice was broken. That brief trick had done more to put him in the favor of the mob than any overtures of friendliness or attempts at being a good fellow.
He learned that he had dueled with Teddy Eldon, “one of the best gunmen in the mob when he’s loaded with coke and waltzing on air.” But the Agent didn’t learn about the traffic in drugs.
Later, his rat-faced guide came in.
“You’re a quick worker, Spats,” the man said. “You’ve done the shortest trick at bench warming of any new guy. Generally a fella cools his heels for a coupla weeks, sometimes a month, before the chief lets on he knows the bum is alive. But he was watchin’ you when Teddy elected you a candidate for a marble slab. Martel wants to see you.”
“X” was taken to a luxurious office, with blue, modernistic decorations and furnishings. The carpet was thick, the room air-conditioned, the lighting indirect, and behind a broad desk sat a gross bulldog of a man, an iron-jawed symbol of evil prosperity with a long black cigar jammed in the corner of a square, firm mouth.
Martel was obviously not a victim of the drugs he sold. His eyes were as clear as they were cold. His skin was tanned by the sun, and his walking beam shoulders looked as though they would be more at home in a gymnasium than a night club. He was the embodiment of vicious strength. It would take a hard-fisted, ruthless man like him to handle that nondescript gathering of cokeheads in the big room.
“I’m going to break a rule, Spats,” Martel told “X.” “I saw your swell work with Teddy Eldon. Just a slug, that guy. A good man for his job, but he’ll end up in the death house or be carted to potter’s field. You, Spats, you’re different. I heard about you freezing a punk upstairs with a punch. You’ve got brains, enterprise, nerve. You say you’ve been in the dope racket yourself. Then you know what it’s all about. And you know that the main thing in life is power.”
Martel boomed the word. “I came out of the gutter, Spats. I never opened a school book in my life. But I’ve got doctors, lawyers, professors, statesmen, big shots in business, right in the palm of my hand.” Martel emphasized this by squeezing a huge, beefy hand into a formidable fist.
“Why?” he boomed. “How is it these mental marvels are kids in my grasp? I ain’t a wizard. No! But I control the stuff that makes me a wizard, see? Dope! Load a guy with dope, get him to where his nerves are on fire, and every inch of him is crawling for want of a shot, and never mind how high-hat he is—if you control his supply of junk he’s your sucker. Dope—power!”
MARTEL puffed furiously on his black cigar. “I run a good layout, Spats,” he went on, “but now I’ve got competition, rotten, dirty competition. And I’ve got to break it!” His teeth clicked as though he were biting off the words.
“Somebody’s muscling in on your territory, eh?” said “X” casually, “Have you got a line on them, chief? I don’t always treat guys gentle. Maybe I could do your outfit some good.”
“You bet you can!” said Martel emphatically. “I don’t know who’s running this other mob. But, damn them, they’re not underbidding me. No, sir! The dirty heels are giving the stuff away! I’ve been gathering cannon. That’s why you’re here. I’ve had spies out. A tip just came in. This other mob is bringing an auto load of dope down from up-state. I’m hi-jacking the stuff tonight, and by the holy cow, I’ll give the junk away under the Martel banner.”
The Agent hid a smile of elation. The mob chief didn’t know who was behind this other ring, but he’d said enough so that “X” was no longer working at loose ends.
“I’m sending you out tonight, Spats,” Martel said. “You’re in the pick of my six best rodmen. On this job tonight depends your future standing with me. I want that load of junk! I’m going to blast that gang off the face of the earth. If they show fight, give ’em the works, see? And remember, a guy with rigor mortis don’t talk.”
That was the interview. A few minutes later the Agent was in a high-powered sedan with five of the hardest-faced men seen outside of a penitentiary. “X” was made to ride in the front seat with the driver. That was a measure of precaution. He was not entirely accepted. The others didn’t relish having their backs to him.
The driver was “Fat” Hickman, a homicide expert, who actually had spent six months in the Sing Sing death house, and had finally been acquitted on a technicality. He was dangerous as a rattlesnake, and actually eligible for the electric chair on a dozen counts.
“Them babies are going to give us a picnic, sure enough, Spats,” he said. “They enjoy puttin’ the heat on a guy to see him fall. When we welcome them to our fair city, put your whole heart into your work. Give the undertaker a decent break.”
The talk as they rode along was light and bantering, on the surface. Four of them were so hopped up with cocaine that they could have laughed at a firing squad. Hickman had a natural killer’s nerve. He didn’t need a narcotic to deaden his mind against peril. The Agent’s self-mastery always served him faithfully when danger threatened.
They traveled out of the city about ten miles along the highway north. Then Hickman swerved off onto a macadamized country road. It was a lonely section, a sharp contrast to the congestion and clangor of the city.
“X” looked at his watch. It lacked a few minutes of two. Suddenly headlights pierced the gloom ahead like two gigantic serpent’s eyes. The mobsters ducked down. Machine guns were thrust through holes in the re-enforced body of the sedan.
Hickman slowed the car, then stopped it crosswise on the road, so that the other machine would not be able to pass unless it ran into a brush-choked ditch. The car ahead stopped about fifty yards away. The occupant waited. Then he began to back up.
“Picked a blank that time,” commented Hickman, starting the machine. “That fella figured we’re stick up artists.”
When the gunman swung the car to the right side of the road, the other machine gathered speed, and whizzed by at sixty miles an hour. Three times Hickman blocked the road for the wrong car. Then they heard the purr of a high-powered auto traveling at great speed.
“That sounds like business,” said the former death-house resident with an evil leer.
He brought the car to a skidding, rubber-screeching stop. A large sedan hummed over the knob of a hill. There was a mad grinding of brakes. Blinding headlights glared on the blue-steel barrels of Tommy guns protruding from the side of the Martel car. Deathly silence prevailed for a few tense moments. Then the lonely, quiet country road became a thunderous battlefield.
Hickman had stopped the right car at last.
THOSE in the other sedan needed no explanation of gun-barrels projecting from an automobile parked across the road. The gunmen in the dope car started hostilities without challenge or interrogation. They knew they were facing hi-jackers. Martel’s men had the advantage, however, for their machine was crosswise, and they could blast their foes with a fierce broadside. A Thompson sub-machine gun was thrust into “X’s” hands. Grim of face, his eyes gleaming as coldly as the unwinking stars above, the Secret Agent put the weapon into operation. Its roar was savage and intense, but his aim was deliberately wide. The bullets whirred harmlessly into the night.
A thunderous attack from the dope car smashed against the bullet-proof windows of the sedan and ricocheted from the re-enforced body. In time the glass would be drilled through, but before that happened an alarm would go through the countryside, and the clashing mobsters would have the law surrounding them.
Some one in the dope car let out a shriek of agony. Fat Hickman cackled like a madman. His eyes glittered with mu
rderous light, his thick, drooling lips were drawn back in a wolfish leer. Flushed and sweating, he was on his knees, a hulk of viciousness, the stock of his hot and smoking Tommy gun bucking against his fat-padded shoulder.
“We’ve got ’em!” he yelled exultantly. “That ain’t bullet-proof glass. We’ll pour so much lead into them babies that the undertaker will have to melt ’em to get ’em into their caskets. Give ’em the works, Spats! This is our night. We’ll collect a bonus fer this job!”
Agent “X” muttered savagely to himself. He had hoped that Martel’s men would capture the rival mobsters, or trail their car. But here he was in the thick of what would probably be a massacre. The car would become a shambles, a bullet-wrecked hearse. His five gunmen companions wanted no survivors of the dope car. The thunder of gunfire sounded like an attack on a front-line trench. When the smoke cleared, the road would be strewn with corpses.
The opposing gangsters were hidden. Suddenly a big barrel, thicker than that of a shotgun, was thrust over the bottom part of the shattered windshield’s frame. That puzzled “X.” Machine gun bullets had been ineffective on the Martel sedan. Certainly buckshot against the car would be like trying to smash a stone wall with a sling-shot.
A terrific, deafening explosion jolted the sedan. The car rocked as though it had been rammed by a truck. Violently thrown against the side of the machine, the Agent struck his temple against the metal crank used to lower the window. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. Luckily his great strength threw off the effects of the blow quickly, or he would have been burned alive.
HE regained tortured senses to find himself alone, deserted in the sedan that had become like a furnace, stifling and searing. The top of the car was a flaming mass, and fire was licking up around the machine. The mobsters were to the left, concealed in the heavy brush and pouring destruction at the dope car.
Secret Agent X : The Complete Series Volume 3 Page 34