to play now, he'd give them a nasty dose of their own medicine.
That shooting had been a direct attempt to get Johnny Lovo himself. It was the most daring move of the enemy so far. And it had been partly successful. Lovo had been hit in the shoulder. It wasn't a serious wound but the fact remained that he had been hit for the first time and it brought a hunted look into his eyes that remained there for ever after. Johnny wasn't a warrior when his own person was involved; his nerves weren't constructed to stand the strain.
That attempt to kill Lovo made Tony furious. He felt that it was a gesture of contempt which must not be allowed to remain unanswered if the Lovo organization was to continue and to endure. Without saying a word to anybody, he managed to purchase a machine gum himself. Then one night he set out on a little war of his own.
The headquarters of the North Side gang was upstairs over a florist's shop which had been the property and hobby of the gang's first and greatest leader, the famous Dean Martin, who had been shot down among his own flowers—the first post-war gang leader to die from the bullets of an enemy. The shop, which was directly across the
