The Big-Town Round-Up

by Raine, William MacLeod

A LATE EVENING CALL

  A young woman in an open-neck nightgown sat up in bed, a cascade of black hair fallen over her white shoulders. Eyes like jet beads were fastened on him. In them he read indignation struggling with fear.

  "Say, what are you anyhow—a moll buzzer? If you're a porch-climber out for the props you've sure come to the wrong dump. I got nothin' but bum rocks."

  This was Greek to Clay. He did not know that she had asked him if he were a man who robs women, and that she had told him he could get no diamonds there since hers were false.

  The Arizonan guessed at once that he was not in the room mentioned in the letter. He slipped his revolver back into its place between shirt and trousers.

  "Is this house number 121?" he asked.

  "No, it's 123. What of it?"

  "It's the wrong house. I'm ce'tainly one chump."

  The black eyes lit with sardonic mockery. The young woman knew already that she had nothing to fear from this brown-faced man. His face was not that of a thug. It carried its own letter of recommendation written on it. Instinctively she felt that he had not come to rob. A lively curiosity began to move in her.

  "Say, do I look like one of them born-every-minute kind?" she asked easily. "Go ahead and spring that old one on me about how you got tanked at the club and come in at the window on account o' your wife havin' a temper somethin' fierce."

  "No, I—I was lookin' for some one else. I'm awful sorry I scared you. I'd eat dirt if it would do any good, but it won't. I'm just a plumb idiot. I reckon I'll be pushin' on my reins." He turned toward the window.

  "Stop right there where you're at," she ordered sharply. "Take a step to that window and I'll holler for a harness bull like a Bowery bride gettin' a wallopin' from friend husband. I gotta have an explanation. And who told you I was scared? Forget that stuff. Take it from Annie that she ain't the kind that scares."

  The girl sat up in bed, fingers laced around the knees beneath the blanket. There was an insouciance about her he did not understand. She did not impress him in the least as a wanton, but if he read that pert little face aright she was a good deal less embarrassed than he.

  "I came to see some one else, but I got in the wrong house," he explained again lamely.

  "That's twice I heard both them interestin' facts. Who is this goil you was comin' through a window to see in the middle o' the night. And what's that gat for if it ain't to croak some other guy? You oughtta be ashamed of yourself for not pullin' a better wheeze than that on me."

  Clay blushed. In spite of the slangy impudence that dropped from the pretty red lips the girl was slim and looked virginal.

  "You're 'way off. I wasn't callin' on her to—" He stuck hopelessly.

  "Whadya know about that?" she came back with obvious sarcasm. "You soitainly give me a pain. I'll say you weren't callin' to arrange no Sunday School picnic. Listen. Look at that wall a minute, will you?"

  When he turned again at her order she was sitting on the side of the bed wrapped in a kimono, her feet in bedroom slippers. He saw now that she was a slender-limbed slip of a girl. The lean forearm, which showed bare to the elbow when she raised it to draw the kimono closer round her, told Clay that she was none too well nourished.

  "I'll listen now to your fairy tale, Mr. Gumshoe Guy, but I wantta wise you that I'm hep to men. Doncha try to string me," she advised.

  Clay did not. It had occurred to him that she might give him information of value. There was something friendly and kindly about the humorous little mouth which parroted worldly wisdom so sagely and the jargon of criminals so readily. He told her the story of Kitty Mason. He could see by the girl's eyes that she had jumped to the conclusion that he was in love with Kitty. He did not attempt to disturb that conviction. It might enlist her sympathy.

  "Honest, Annie, I believe this guy's on the level," the young woman said aloud as though to herself. "If he ain't, he's sure a swell mouthpiece. He don't look to me like no flat-worker—not with that mug of his. But you never can tell."

  "I'm not, Miss. My story's true." Eyes clear as the Arizona sky in a face brown as the Arizona desert looked straight at her.

  Annie Millikan had never seen a man like this before, so clean and straight and good to look at. From childhood she had been brought up on the fringe of that underworld the atmosphere of which is miasmic. She was impressed in spite of herself.

  "Say, why don't you go into the movies and be one of these here screen ideals? You'd knock 'em dead," she advised flippantly, crossing her bare ankles.

  Clay laughed. He liked the insolent little twist to her mouth. She made one strong appeal to him. This bit of a girl, so slim that he could break her in his hands, was game to the core. He recognized it as a quality of kinship.

  "This is my busy night. When I've got more time I'll think of it.

  Right now—"

  She took the subject out of his mouth. "Listen, how do you know the girl ain't a badger-worker?"

  "You'll have to set 'em up on the other alley, Miss," the Westerner said. "I don't get yore meanin'."

  "Couldn't she 'a' made this date to shake you down? Blackmail stuff."

  "No chance. She's not that kind."

  "Mebbe you're right. I meet so many hop-nuts and dips and con guys and gun-molls that I get to thinkin' there's no decent folks left," she said with a touch of weariness.

  "Why don't you pull yore picket-pin and travel to a new range?" he asked. "They're no kind of people for you to be knowin'. Get out to God's country where men are white and poor folks get half a chance."

  The girl shrugged her shoulders. "Little old New York is my beat. It's the biggest puddle in the world and I'll do my kickin' here." Abruptly she switched the talk back to his affairs. "You wantta go slow when you tackle Jerry Durand. I can tell you one thing. He's in this business up to the neck. I seen his shadow Gorilla Dave comin' outa the house next door twice to-day."

  "Seen anything of the girl?"

  "Nope. But she may be there. Honest, you're up against a tough game. There's no use rappin' to the bulls. They'd tip Jerry off and the girl wouldn't be there when they pulled the house."

  "Then I must work this alone."

  "Why don't you lay down on it?" she asked, her frank eyes searching his. "You soitainly will if you've got good sense."

  "I'm goin' through."

  Her black eyes warmed. "Say, I'll bet you're some guy when you get started. Hop to it and I hope you get Jerry good."

  "I don't want Jerry. He's too tough for me. Once I had so much of him

  I took sick and went to the hospital. It's the girl I want."

  "Say, listen! I got a hunch mebbe it's a bum steer, but you can't be sure till you try it. Why don't you get in through the roof instead o' the window?"

  "Can I get in that way?"

  "Surest thing you know—if the trapdoor ain't latched. Say, stick around outside my room half a sec, will you?"

  The cattleman waited in the darkness of the passage. If his enemies were trying to ambush him in the house next door the girl's plan might save him. He would have a chance at least to get them unexpectedly in the rear.

  It could have been scarcely more than two minutes later that the young woman joined him.

  Her small hand slipped into his to guide him. They padded softly along the corridor till they came to a flight of stairs running up. The girl led the way, taking the treads without noise in her stockinged feet. Clay followed with the utmost caution.

  Again her hand found his in the darkness of the landing. She took him toward the rear to a ladder which ended at a dormer half-door leading to the roof. Clay fumbled with his fingers, found a hook, unfastened it, and pushed open the trap. He looked up into a starlit night and a moment later stepped out upon the roof. Presently the slim figure of the girl stood beside him.

  They moved across to a low wall, climbed it and came to the dormer door of the next house. Clay knelt and lifted it an inch or two very slowly. He lowered it again and rose.

  "I'm
a heap obliged to you, Miss," he said in a low voice. "You're a game little gentleman."

  She nodded. "My name is Annie Millikan."

  "Mine is Clay Lindsay. I want to come and thank you proper some day."

  "I take tickets at Heath's Palace of Wonders two blocks down," she whispered.

  "You'll sure sell me a ticket one of these days," Clay promised.

  "Look out for yourself. Don't let 'em get you. Give 'em a chance, and that gang would croak you sure."

  "I'll be around to buy that ticket. Good-night, Miss Annie. Don't you worry about me."

  "You will be careful, won't you?"

  "I never threw down on myself yet."

  The girl's flippancy broke out again. "Say, lemme know when the weddin' is and I'll send you a salad bowl," she flashed at him saucily as he turned to go.

  Clay was already busy with the door.

  CHAPTER XIV

  STARRING AS A SECOND-STORY MAN

  Darkness engulfed Clay as he closed the trapdoor overhead. His exploring feet found each tread of the ladder with the utmost caution. Near the foot of it he stopped to listen for any sound that might serve to guide him. None came. The passage was as noiseless as it was dark.

  Again he had that sense of cold finger-tips making a keyboard of his spine. An impulse rose in him to clamber up the ladder to the safety of the open-skyed roof. He was a son of the wide outdoors. It went against his gorge to be blotted out of life in this trap like some foul rodent.

  But he trod down the panic and set his will to carry on. He crept forward along the passage. Every step or two he stopped to listen, nerves keyed to an acute tension.

  A flight of stairs brought him to what he knew must be the second floor. To him there floated a murmur of sounds. They came vague and indistinct through a closed door. The room of the voices was on the left-hand side of the corridor.

  He soft-footed it closer, reached the door, and dropped noiselessly to a knee. A key was in the lock on the outside. With infinite precaution against rattling he turned it, slid it out, and dropped it in his coat pocket. His eye fastened to the opening.

  Three men were sitting round a table. They were making a bluff at playing cards, but their attention was focused on a door that evidently led into another room. Two automatic revolvers were on the table close to the hands of their owners. A blackjack lay in front of the third man. Clay recognized him as Gorilla Dave. The other two were strangers to him.

  They were waiting. Sometimes they talked in low voices. For the most part they were silent, their eyes on the door of the trap that had been baited for a man Clay knew and was much interested in. Something evil in the watchfulness of the three chilled momentarily his veins. These fellows were the gunmen of New York he had read about—paid assassins whose business it was to frame innocent men for the penitentiary or kill them in cold blood. They were of the underworld, without conscience and without honor. As he looked at them through the keyhole, the watcher was reminded by their restless patience of mountain wolves lying in wait for their kill. Gorilla Dave sat stolidly in his chair, but the other two got up from time to time and paced the room silently, always with an eye to the door of the other room.

  Then things began to happen. A soft step sounded in the corridor behind the man at the keyhole. He had not time to crawl away nor even to rise before a man stumbled against him.

  Clay had one big advantage over his opponent. He had been given an instant of warning. His right arm went up around the neck of his foe and tightened there. His left hand turned the doorknob. Next moment the two men crashed into the room together, the Westerner rising to his feet as they came, with the body of the other lying across his back from hip to shoulder.

  Gorilla Dave leaped to his feet. The other two gunmen, caught at disadvantage a few feet from the table, dived for their automatics. They were too late. Clay swung his body downward from the waist with a quick, strong jerk. The man on his back shot heels over head as though he had been hurled from a catapult, crashed face up on the table, and dragged it over with him in his forward plunge to the wall.

  Before any one else could move or speak, Lindsay's gun was out.

  "Easy now." His voice was a gentle drawl that carried a menace. "Lemme be boss of the rodeo a while. No, Gorilla, I wouldn't play with that club if I was you. I'm sure hell-a-mile on this gun stuff. Drop it!" The last two words came sharp and crisp, for the big thug had telegraphed an unintentional warning of his purpose to dive at the man behind the thirty-eight.

  Gorilla Dave was thick-headed, but he was open to persuasion. Eyes hard as diamonds bored into his, searched him, dominated him. The barrel of the revolver did not waver a hair-breadth. His fingers opened and the blackjack dropped from his hand to the floor.

  "For the love o' Mike, who is this guy?" demanded one of the other men.

  "I'm the fifth member of our little party," explained Clay.

  "Wot t'ell do youse mean? And what's the big idea in most killin' the chief?"

  The man who had been flung across the table turned over and groaned.

  Clay would have known that face among a thousand. It belonged to Jerry

  Durand.

  "I came in at the wrong door and without announcin' myself," said the cattleman, almost lazily, the unhurried indolence of his manner not shaken. "You see I wanted to be on time so as not to keep you waitin'. I'm Clay Lindsay."

  The more talkative of the gunmen from the East Side flashed one look at the two automatics lying on the floor beside the overturned table. They might as well have been in Brazil for all the good they were to him.

  "For the love o' Mike," he repeated again helplessly. "You're the—the—"

  "—the hick that was to have been framed for house-breaking. Yes, I'm him," admitted Clay idiomatically. "How long had you figured I was to get on the Island? Or was it yore intention to stop my clock for good?"

  "Say, how did youse get into de house?" demanded big Dave.

  "Move over to the other side of the room, Gorilla, and join yore two friends," suggested the master of ceremonies. "And don't make any mistake. If you do you won't have time to be sorry for it. I'll ce'tainly shoot to kill."

  The big-shouldered thug shuffled over. Clay stepped sideways, watching the three gunmen every foot of the way, kicked the automatics into the open, and took possession of them. He felt safer with the revolvers in his coat pocket, for they had been within reach of Durand, and that member of the party was showing signs of a return to active interest in the proceedings.

  "When I get you right I'll croak you. By God, I will," swore the gang leader savagely, nursing his battered head. "No big stiff from the bushes can run anything over on me."

  "I believe you," retorted Clay easily. "That is, I believe you're tellin' me yore intentions straight. There's no news in that to write home about. But you'd better make that if instead of when. This is three cracks you've had at me and I'm still a right healthy rube."

  "Don't bank on fool luck any more. I'll get you sure," cried Durand sourly.

  The gorge of the Arizonan rose. "Mebbeso. You're a dirty dog, Jerry Durand. From the beginning you were a rotten fighter—in the ring and out of it. You and yore strong-arm men! Do you think I'm afraid of you because you surround yoreself with dips and yeggmen and hop-nuts, all scum of the gutter and filth of the earth? Where I come from men fight clean and out in the open. They'd stomp you out like a rattlesnake."

  Clay moved back to the door and looked around from one to another, a scorching contempt in his eyes. "Rats—that's what you are, vermin that feed on offal. You haven't got an honest fight in you. All you can do is skulk behind cover to take a man when he ain't lookin'."

  He whipped open the door, stepped out, closed it, and took the key from his pocket. A moment, and he had turned the lock.

  From within there came a rush that shook the panels. Clay was already busy searching for Kitty. He tore open door after door, calling her loudly by name. Even in the darkness he could see that the rooms
were empty of furniture.

  There was a crash of splintering panels, the sound of a bursting lock. Almost as though it were an echo of it came a heavy pounding upon the street door. Clay guessed that the thirty minutes were up and that the Runt was bringing the police. He dived back into one of the empty rooms just in time to miss a rush of men pouring along the passage to the stairs.

  Cut off from the street, Clay took to the roof again. It would not do for him to be caught in the house by the police. He climbed the ladder, pushed his way through the trapdoor opening, and breathed deeply of the night air.

  But he had no time to lose. Already he could hear the trampling of feet up the stairs to the second story.

  Lightly he vaulted the wall and came to the roof door leading down to number 123. He found it latched.

  The eaves of the roof projected so far that he could not from there get a hold on the window casings below. He made a vain circuit of the roof, then passed to the next house.

  Again he was out of luck. The tenants had made safe the entrance against prowlers of the night. He knew that at any moment now the police might appear in pursuit of him. There was no time to lose.

  He crossed to the last house in the block—and found himself barred out. As he rose from his knees he heard the voices of men clambering through the scuttle to the roof. At the same time he saw that which brought him to instant action. It was a rope clothes-line which ran from post to post, angling from one corner of the building to another and back to the opposite one.

  No man in Manhattan's millions knew the value of a rope or could handle one more expertly than this cattleman. His knife was open before he had reached the nearest post. One strong slash of the blade severed it. In six long strides he was at the second post unwinding the line. He used his knife a second time at the third post.

  Through the darkness he could see the dim forms of men stopping to examine the scuttle. Then voices came dear to him in the still night.

  "If he reached the roof we've got him."

  "Unless he found an open trap," a second answered.