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164
SCARFACE

you rushin' to Bruno and blabbin' everything to him so that he could change his whole line-up be­fore I can ruin it for him."

Tony immediately selected his half dozen clever­est men—including Mike Rinaldo—and sent them out to investigate what Peluso had told. For over a week they worked day and night, circulating around the city, spying, asking apparently aimless questions, doing a great deal of motoring, snooping carefully but efficiently in many quarters. And they reported back that every detail of the pris­oner's story seemed correct.

Elated, Tony at once set in motion the machinery over which he now had control. A dozen new machine guns were imported from New York by devious methods. And certain members of the gang who were acknowledged experts in that line were set to work constructing powerful bombs, or "pineapples" as they are known in gang circles. Tony was a veritable dynamo of energy during these preparations and his vigorous―and murderous―enthusiasm gradually communicated itself to the others until the entire gang was a real fighting machine anxious to get a chance at the enemy.

Libati came swaggering into Tony's private office late one afternoon.