Grant grabbed the wheel of his coupe. At the first corner he swung left and headed for Julia’s neighborhood.
“That,” he said, after a half dozen blocks, “that sort of snapped me awake, kid. But what the devil was it all about.”
Julia, pale and shaky, thrust her half-emptied thirty-two back into her handbag. She had been shooting, too.
“God, Jim,” she quivered, “I don’t know. Except that you got me out of a damn tough spot. One of those apes looked like Moon Gardner!”
“One of Slim Hammond’s gorillas? What the hell! Has your brother Pug been tangling with him again?”
Julia shook her head. “No,” she declared. “But after this, he’s going to wipe Slim Hammond out, I’m telling you!”
Suddenly her bravado left her and she drooped her trembling body against Grant, burrowing her head into his shoulder. Then she gave way to half-hysterical weeping.
“Jim darling,” she said, jerkily, after a moment, “if it hadn’t been for you, those rats would have—oh, Jim, let’s get out of all this—let’s go away somewhere, and start over. Pug can’t say no, after what has just happened. Please, Jim, let’s blow!”
Fiery, impulsive Julia Dorni was making a play that was well-nigh irresistible. And yet, Grant had work to do. More so now than ever, for now there was not only his obligation to rescue Foo Yong, but also to track down Gus Svenson and rescue Mary Smith.
The snatching of Mary Smith, he was certain, was purely a personal play of the big Swede’s. The move against Julia Dorni looked more as though there was a sinister, organized purpose behind it, namely, to hold her as a hostage, possibly to force Pug Dorni into an alliance with Slim, Snake-eyes Hammond. However, since it had failed, it would produce an opposite effect For, after this attempt at kidnapping his sister, the earless, gold-toothed ex-pugilist would certainly go gunning for the Hammond outfit.
Grant needed such an ally. With Hammond and the On Leon Tong working on him together, on two widely separated fronts, Pug Dorni’s gorillas would be useful that is, as long as Pug could be trusted.
Grant, busy with these thoughts, let Julia Dorni babble on about getting away from gangdom until they reached her apartment. Within her room, some of her usual fire returned.
“Jimmy,” she insisted, “let’s have a showdown. Haven’t I proved I would be a real wife for you—snatching you away from the coppers like I did? Haven’t I, Jimmy?”
“You certainly have,” Grant admitted uneasily, “but we’d better wait until I clean up this tong mess. Dodging lead; or stopping it, is a hell of a way to spend a honeymoon.”
Julia’s face lit up eagerly.
“Oh Jimmy, do you honestly mean that?” she breathed, sweeping herself into his arms.
CHAPTER IX
Shotgun Wedding
Hating himself for the deceptive part he was playing, yet not at all hating that which the playing of the part involved, Grant wrapped his strong arms around her, drew her vibrant form to him, and pressed hot kisses upon her upturned lips, her cheeks, her neck.
Finally he released her.
“Oh, Jimmy, you do care—you do—you do—!” she breathed, as she sank into a chair. “Don’t ever leave me.”
“Julia, dear,” he soberly replied, “there’s a war on, and I’ve got to get back to Joe Murray’s.”
“You’re sure that’s where you’re going,” she asked suspiciously.
“Cross my heart.”
“Come back here, later this evening.”
“I can’t, Julia, but I’ll keep in touch with you.”
She kissed him good-bye, lightly. “Just like an old married couple,” Grant sniffed to himself. Then he sped back through the night to Halsted Street in his coupe.
On the way, he turned the situation over in his mind as analytically as was possible for a man fresh from the embrace of a woman so vital as Julia Dorni. Was he being true or false to Mary Smith? He was sure that the dainty little blonde Iowan would never countenance his liaison with the voluptuous Julia, regardless of his motives. And yet loyalty to Mary herself and to his other friends, demanded that he make alliance with Pug Dorni, regardless of the price. But was he really unwilling to pay the price? Wasn’t the price the chief attraction?
“Damn!” he ejaculated to the empty night air. “I’ll rescue Mary Smith and Foo Yong, if I have to sell my soul—or something.”
These last two words conjured up a pair of big blue eyes in a sweet face, framed in an aureole of golden hair; and that vision blotted out all thought of two other faces, one slant-eyed and piquant, and the other dark and blazing.
* * * *
The following morning Grant called at the offices of McGillicuddy & Sharpe, the private detectives who handle his side lines of investigation, or through their police connections contrived to throw dust into the eyes of authority.
McGillicuddy’s squat, chunky form was wedged into a spacious swivel-chair; and his number twelves were parked on the cluttered top of his desk. A dead cigar stump was thrust into one corner of his stupid pug dog face, which effectively concealed the keenness, at times betrayed by the alertness of his small eyes. His partner, Sharpe, garbed in a rusty black frock coat like an undertaker, stalked up and down the office, with fingertips placed sanctimoniously together, as he listened to Grant.
“There is something screwy about the whole mess,” concluded Grant, “The long arm of coincidence gets stretched all out of joint when you consider the various slants in the light of probability. How did Gus Svenson arrange the kidnapping of Mary Smith just when she was expecting me, and so let him and his crew in when he phoned up that he was me? And how the hell did Julia Dorni just happens along, a few, seconds after the circus was over?”
“Your girlfriend mighta spilled something,” was McGillicuddy’s sage comment, punctuated by spitting a torn piece of cigar-butt into a corner.
“Quite so. Yes, indeed,” was Sharpe’s sepulchral echo.
“Nuts!” snapped Grant “I busted in on the party before they’d had time to parley. Besides, how come that Slim Hammond’s mob happened to follow Julia Dorni and tried to snatch her? How did they know just exactly where to plant the sedan that blocked us? They expected me at Miss Smith’s, and got in by pretending to be me; but they did not expect to find me with Julia. How did they know so much in the one case, and so little in the other?”
McGillicuddy tilted his derby hat to a slightly new angle, shifted his heavy feet on the desk, bit off a piece of his cigar, and spat it into a corner.
“Why didn’t yer ask the dame what she was doing outside the lady’s door?” he sagely inquired.
Grant actually colored. “I—I was—I guess I must have been thinking of something else.”
Sharpe nodded his sad visage several times lugubriously.
Grant continued hurriedly: “Now here’s your job. Look into it and give me all the dope. I’m going to be busy as the devil, trying to find Mary Smith myself. You do the clue-chasing. I’m posting five thousand berries reward for her return, as a mask for my own efforts and yours.” He reached for his hat, and concluded, “I don’t know whether five G’s interest you boys or not”
“Yes—they would,” asserted McGillicuddy solemnly, as though his remark was the result of deep thought. Sharpe nodded his head as usual, but there was an avaricious gleam in his cavernous eyes.
From the office of that team of dumb-looking but efficient detectives, Grant drove to the Pink Canary, where he met Pug Dorni and Joe Murray in the back room. He found the burly Irishman and the Italian gang chief eyeing each other with nicely dissimulated hostility. Dorni’s battered face and black velvet ear-muffs combined with his faultless cutaway coat and gardenia to make a picture which Grant with difficulty regarded with courteous gravity.
From force of habit, Pug Dorni’s pig eyes squinted suspiciously; then he recollected that thi
s was supposed to be a friendly conference, and a gold-toothed grin flashed, as his diamond-laden hand shot out to welcome Grant.
“Sis told me youse blasted de faces off a couple Hammond’s mugs last night an’ dat youse guys’ll team up wit’ us ter trim dat coughin’ chiseler’s toe nails. Zat so?”
“Correct Pug,” agreed Grant “I want a dozen rods to join us in Frisco to help clean up on the tongs there and on Hammond’s West Coast mob.”
“I don’t like dis splittin’ up,” protested Pug. “You send your torpedoes west an’ mine’ll hold dings down in Chi.”
“Faith, Pug,” snorted Joe Murray, “do yez think Oi was born yisterday? Phwat a fat chance thadd be, lavin’ all of yer mob in Chi to look out fer my interests.”
As they glared at each other, Grant laughed and interposed. “It’s this way, Pug: with all of Joe’s mob out of town, Snake-Eye Hammond’d realize you were holding things down alone. But with both of us keeping enough rods in Chi for window dressing, he won’t know where he stands. And the moral effect of having some of your men on the line with mine in Frisco, and teamed up with the Hep Sing long, will crack his nerve. Right?”
“Um—well—maybe,” Pug grudgingly conceded. “And wit’ de spot youse guys is on, I can figger Joe ain’t goin’ to have time ter try an’ catch me wit’ my pants down, here in my own territory—”
“Bedad, ’tis too dom suspicious yez are, Pug,” chuckled Joe Murray, pounding his beefy fist on the table. “Wid Jim here nutty as a hoot owl about that foine fogger av a colleen, yer iligant little sister, why the hill would he be crossin’ yez?”
Then, ignoring Grant’s hearty kick in the shins, he continued, “Shure, she’s a nate little darlin’, an’ if Oi wasn’t a gray-haired owld buzzard, it’d be mackin’ a large play for her meself, Oi’d be.”
Pug Dorni eyed the battered, broad-shouldered collegian.
“Youse ain’t de punk I t’ought youse was,” he generously conceded, “an’ I always did humor Sis. I’ll play wit’ youse ter knock Hammond for a row. But if yer double-cross de kid, I’ll burn youse both outa de picture. Do youse get it?”
“Faith, Pug, an’ Oi mesilf’ll march spalpeen to th’ nearest prayst as soon as we’ve kicked thot dom Hammond out of the game.”
Grant’s second kick made Murray wince. His left eyelid drooped for a scant flicker, and he continued, “Shure, an’ yez can count on me, an’ Oi’ll be the bist man. Oi’d have ’em marry immediately, but it’s a dangerous foight ahead, an’ ye’d not want thot swate little girl a widely before she got through bein’ a bride, would yez?”
“Youse guys’d better stick to that tune when the smoke clears up,” was Pug Dorni’s amiable verdict. “All right, I’ll send a dozen of my mob to the airport. And I’ll be seeing youse guys at Julia’s roost fer dinner before yer check out.”
Joe Murray reached for his hat, planted it on his sparse gray locks, and led the way to the side door. As they stepped into his car, he said to Grant, “Me bye, Oi’m a thinkin’ yez had better hop diot plane o’ moine an hour or two ahead o’ schedule. That Dago kicked in too quick, an’ if yez go to that sweetie’s shack, it’ll be a prayst an’ a brace of shotguns ye’ll foind there. So do yez clear out, an’ Qi’ll kid th’ pretty Eyetalian jane out of it—she’s a swate one, an’ pwhy yez don’t take her more seriously, Oi can’t figger out.”
But Grant wondered what was behind old Joe Murray’s raillery. Something serious had crept through the smoke screen of jest. He wondered if Murray really was plotting an alliance between two of gang-land’s royal families. He wondered if Murray was using Julia as a red herring to sidetrack the quest for Mary Smith. Mary might, Murray realized, forever ruin Grant as a mob leader, while Julia wouldn’t. And the old Irishman, faithful to Grant’s father, didn’t want Jim to quit the mob his father founded.
Late that afternoon, Grant phoned to the detectives McGillicuddy & Sharpe, but their office had no developments to report. Then Joe Murray drove him and Torchy to the airport. The mob’s plane was waiting.
“Now do yez hop aboard,” Murray said. “Thot dago Pug won’t spill anny beans before yez come back, fer fear ov bustin’ up the weddin’.”
Grant looked back at the shrinking flying field, and saw the stocky figure of Joe Murray herding two auto-loads of burly brutes into a trans-continental plane. He watched, until the scene was blotted out by distance.
Then he settled back in his seat once more and casually remarked, “Well, Torchy, good old Joe doesn’t waste rime, does he?”
The door of one of the sleeping compartments swung open, and a sweetly feminine voice echoed, “Neither do I, Jimmy.”
Grant wheeled around at the sound, and faced Julia Dorni. She was standing in the doorway, her dark beauty effectively set off by a sunflower-yellow sports ensemble. Torchy Cullinane coughed apologetically, then devoted himself to his control panel.
“What in the devil!” Grant ejaculated. Julia’s small hand stopped his outburst as she planted herself on his knees. Then she was smothering him with shimmering, be-rouged kisses.
“Darling,” she murmured, when his agitation had somewhat abated, “I left a note telling Pug that we’re eloping. You can’t get away from me, Jimmy—I won’t have you fighting highbinders a thousand miles away. You’re so crazy reckless, Jimmy—oh—” she paused with a catch in her voice. A tear touched Jimmy’s cheek. “Jim, I’m—I was afraid you wouldn’t ever come back, so we’re—we’re taking our honeymoon on the way out.”
“Listen, sweetheart,” Jimmy was more profoundly moved by the girl’s pathetic manner than he realized, “I’m heading straight into a hellish mess. It’s no place for a woman—”
“I think you’re noble, Jimmy,” she cut in, “risking your life for just a Chink butler—”
“I’ve got other things to do besides that,” Grant explained.
“Oh!” Julia’s eyes narrowed. Her tears miraculously evaporated. For a moment she stared at him appraisingly, then she said: “Listen, darling, I hope you’re not thinking of that peroxide floozy that tried to put you on the spot.”
Grant’s cheeks flamed angrily. “What do you mean by that crack?” he rasped. He grasped Julia’s shoulders and shook her roughly.
Undaunted, Julia’s eyes snapped. “I mean what I said, you idiot!” she cried. “You don’t honestly believe it was by accident that those mugs were in that floozy’s room, all set to turn the heat on you, do you?”
Her voice dropped again, appealingly. “I got wise and tried to head you off but couldn’t quite make it. That’s why Slim Hammond’s gang tried to snatch me. They were trying to get even—by rubbing me out.”
Grant’s jaw hardened. “You’re crazy!” he growled.
Julia Dorni shook her head. “I’m not crazy, you sap!” she cried out “Listen you—how did the tong war happen to start in the House of a Thousand Dragons just when you were feeding that bleached chiseler?”
“See here, Julia,” Grant snapped, “stop calling her names!”
“Oh, shut your trap, and listen to me!” the girl jeered. “How did the On Leon Tong know who to offer twenty grand for, before the Chink you killed was cold? Who told ’em who you were when you pulled that fool stunt of waving your death in their faces and trying to collect the twenty G’s yourself? And ain’t it a scream that little Mary’s boyfriend should happen to be calling on her, just one lap ahead of you?”
Grant sighed wearily. The indictment of Mary was damning. “Maybe you’re right, Julia,” he weakly conceded.
“Well,” instantly Julia was smiling again, like a changeable child, “now that’s over, come on into my cabin, where we can have a little privacy. I told that redheaded pilot that I’ll blast his teeth out through his collar; if he don’t keep his ears folded in until we’ve crossed the Sierras.—Aren’t you glad to see me, Jimmy?”
She slid off his lap and hel
d out her hand to him, to lead him into the compartment. But Jim Grant had been too severely jolted to be compliant. A fierce resentment at Shay Smith’s duplicity surged through him, making him hate all women at that moment. God, if Shay was a double-crosser, no woman on earth deserved a man’s confidence!
“No, Julia,” he refused, pushing the dark-haired girl into her cabin. “You overplayed your hand. Damn if I’m in the mood to look at any girl—even you—right now. Go on to bed!”
Julia shrugged. She knew that mood would pass.
“Okay, big boy,” she said. “But you don’t know what you’re missing by being stubborn. Besides, you’ll never convince Pug that you sat up alone all night, with me on board this crate.—Good night!”
Her door closed behind her with a slam.
CHAPTER X
Real War Starts
Around midnight, Grant, red-lidded and sleepless, emerged from his compartment “I’ll take over, Torchy,” he said. “Grab yourself some shuteye.”
The little red-headed Irishman looked up with a grin on his heckled features. “Okay, as soon as you’re dressed,” he replied. “And, say, Jimmy, here’s a letter dat Joe told me to give youse as soon as we got a safe distance out of Chi.”
Grant took the note and went into his own compartment. The note read:
Dear Jim:—I planted the dame on you or else it was shotguns and a priest. Don’t let her pin anything on you. If them detectives learns anything about Mary I’ll give you the office.
JOE
Grant sat down heavily on the edge of his neatly made bunk and ran his strong fingers through his brown hair. What a laugh! “The detectives” learn anything about Mary? He already knew too damn much about that little double-crosser and her alliance with Slim Hammond. And don’t let Julia pin anything on him, eh? The advice was a bit late. What a laugh!
Snapping out of his mounting rage, he dressed and shaved hurriedly, then took Torchy’s place at the controls, driving the eleven-hundred horsepower motor through the night like a roaring cloud, to relieve his pent-up feelings.
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