CHAPTER XIV
Charlie Martino, the “alky” truck driver, who had been hi-jacked and shot the night before, died during the afternoon, without regaining sufficient strength to relate the details of what had occurred to him or to give a description of his assailants. Tony looked down at the boy a moment, then, using again that uncanny yet unconscious knowledge of psychology which he possessed, ordered every member of the gang who could be reached to come in a few at a time and view the body. He felt that the sight of one of their own dead would put the spirit of battle in them. At last he ordered a fine funeral for the boy and went back to his private office in grim silence, vowing vengeance on the North Side gang.
Tony, in a savage humor from the day’s events, was just ready to go home shortly after ten that night when Mike Rinaldo, the dapper gunman, arrived. And the three men who followed him into Tony’s office proved that he had succeeded in his quest. For the man in the center was obviously a prisoner.
"Got him, Chief," announced Mike with an elegant gesture toward the glowering captive.
"Who is he?" demanded Tony. His manner indicated that nothing short of Caesar himself would be acceptable.
"Benny Peluso, one of the 'big shots' in the North Side crowd."
"Frisk him?"
"Certainly," answered Rinaldo, evidently aggrieved at the query. "Found a nice load of gats too."
"Well, frisk him again here. Strip him to the hide."
From his vantage point behind the big desk Tony surveyed the captive while his three hench men stripped the man and searched every inch of his clothing for possible weapons. The fellow was short and slightly stocky, with a heavy brutal face that instantly bred distrust. His black eyes, now blazing with anger, were shifty and set far too close together.
Tony removed a heavy automatic from the desk drawer and laid it on the desk conveniently close to his practiced right hand.
"All right," he said when the three men had completed their fruitless search and the prisoner was indignantly donning his coat. "You," pointing the pistol at the captive, "sit down there. The rest of you wait outside until I call you."
He toyed silently with the weapon until the door had closed behind his men. Then he looked at Peluso and stared at him until the man's glance dropped.
"Do you know where you are?" demanded Tony suddenly.
"Yeah," snarled the prisoner.
"Speak nicer if you expect to get out of here alive," snapped Tony. "Do you know who I am?"
"No."
“Well, I'm Scarface Tony Camonte, the new chief of the Lovo mob. And I'm just about ten times as hard-boiled as Johnny Lovo ever thought of bein'. I've bumped off six or eight myself and another one—especially a rat like you—wouldn't mean a thing in my young life. Get me?”
“Yeah.” But the man's tone now had changed from defiant anger to sullenness and his glance remained riveted hypnotically to that pistol.
"There's some things I want to know. And you're goin' to tell me."
"You got the wrong man, brother. I won't spill nothin'."
"The hell you won't!" Tony leaned across the desk, the pistol pointed unwaveringly at the hapless captive. "Do you want a load of that in you?"
"Naw, course not. But if I talked, my own crowd would bump me off."
"Maybe not." Tony leaned back. "How much jack do you make with your mob?"
"'Bout three ‘C’s’ a week. Sometimes more."
"Three ‘C’s,’ eh? That's not very much, is it, for all the work you do and the chances you take?"
"I'm wort' more," agreed the man darkly.
"Yeah. But you'll never get it, not with this Bruno guy, from what I hear of him. Where do you think he got that name Schemer anyhow? When a guy has a monicker like that hung on him there's a reason for it. Now, Benny, I'm not a bad guy when you don't cross me. And I'm always willing to see the boys get a piece of change for themselves." He leaned across the desk. How would you like to have fifteen grand—in one chunk?"
The prisoner's eyes sparkled and he licked his lips.
"Jeez!" he exclaimed. "Dat's a lotta jack, even if y'ain't got it."
"I've got it. And it's yours if you want to talk."
"What do you want to know?"
"That's more like it," smiled Tony. "I want to know a lot of things about the Bruno mob, where their warehouses are, and their breweries and their main alky cooking plants. I want to know what garages they keep their trucks in and what roads they use mainly in haulin' their stuff in and out of town. I'll think of a few more things as we go along."
"God! I couldn't tell you all dat stuff."
"Why not?"
"Dey'd bump me off sure."
"Well, if you don't tell me what I want to know, I'll bump you off."
"An' if I do tell you, dey will. What chance has a poor guy got?"
"Listen, mug!" snapped Tony. "Don't you know that fifteen grand's a lot of dough? That's as much as you make in a year with the mob, and if you stay here with them you'll never have that much in one chunk. If you had that much jack, you could go to Frisco or New York or even Mexico or some other crazy place and open a gambling house or get in some kind of a racket and be set for life."
"Yeah, I know. I—I'd like to have it, all right. But dem guys would follow me any place."
"They wouldn't know where you was. They'd think you'd been took for a ride. Don't plenty of mugs from these mobs around here disappear every year?"
"Yeah, I guess they do. But I couldn't do it. They'd get me sure. And what good's dough to a dead man?"
"Come on, now, don't be a fool!" snarled Tony menacingly and aimed the pistol again. "Either you talk or you get it."
The man's eyes glittered against the background of his ghastly pale face and he licked his lips constantly.
"Well, I know I'm goin' to get it if I do talk," he answered doggedly. "So I guess I'll have to take my chances of gettin' it if I don't."
"So you won't spill it, eh?" gritted Tony.
The hole in the muzzle of that automatic must have looked as big as a barrel to the prisoner. But he caught his breath suddenly, closed his eyes and shook his head.
"I think you will!" said Tony. "Get up!"
He called in his henchmen from the other room.
"He's a hard nut," he explained. "Got to take him to the cellar."
Rinaldo paled. He could shoot a man down without even giving serious thought to the matter but the mere thought of what was in that cellar made him weak.
"Come on!" snapped Tony and included them all with a comprehensive gesture of the automatic.
"Ya takin' me for a ride?" asked the prisoner as they descended in the elevator.
"No," retorted Tony grimly. "Not yet."
The place to which they took him was a sub-cellar beneath the regular cellar under the hotel. It was reached by a rather rickety wooden stairway and proved to be a large square room with concrete walls from which were suspended by chains various strange-looking iron appendages. Before Peluso could hardly realize what was happening he had been stripped to the waist and rigged up against the wall, his arms stretched high overhead, his body suspended from the wrists which were encircled by tight iron bands. Tony motioned to one of his men who stepped over to a small, furnace like arrangement. Tony himself caught up a large, razor-edged knife and, fingering it significantly, looked at his prisoner.
"You know, Benny," he said grimly, "a lot of these mugs they find out on the road somewhere after they've been took for a ride don't look so pretty; ears off, tongue out, and other little details like that. And all those things always happen before the guy is actually bumped off. Nice to think about, ain't it?"
Tony turned back toward the furnace. Rinaldo followed him.
"I don't like to say nothin'. Chief," said the gun man hoarsely in a low tone, "but, honest to God, I don't believe I can stand this."
"Then look the other way or get out. I don't like it any better than you do but it's got to be done. Makin' this bird talk means that our mob will control the city before long. And don't forget this, Mike; Bruno or any of that North Side mob of his would do this same thing to you or me or any of us in a minute if they had the chance." He turned abruptly to the other man. "Ready?" he demanded brusquely.
"Here you are, Chief." From within the furnace, the gangster drew out a long, thin iron bar. One end of it was red hot. Tony caught it up by the cold end and approached the trussed prisoner.
"Now, damn you," he snarled, "you'll either talk or I'll ram a hole clear through you with this."
And he started the sizzling iron bar slowly but surely toward the gangster's bare flesh. The man cringed and his eyes widened with terror. Finally he yelled, though the iron had not yet touched him.
"Go ahead and yell," said Tony grimly. "Nobody'll hear you."
Facing a pistol is one thing; facing red hot iron against one's bare flesh and other unknown tortures is another. Peluso cracked.
"I'll talk! I'll talk! I'll talk!" he gibbered when the iron was yet half an inch from him. "God! take that away."
For an hour they cross-examined him, Rinaldo and the others jotting down details while Tony asked the questions. The leader's eyes were sparkling; he was gaining a complete knowledge of the operations of his most important enemy.
"Well, do I get the dough?" asked Peluso when he finally had convinced them that he knew no more.
"Yes," retorted Tony. "After we've checked up on this story of yours and carried out a plan or two I'm hatching up right now. In the meantime, you stay here; I'm not takin' any chances with 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.
"Well, I guess we're about all ready for the war to start. What's the first move?"
"I'll let you know when I've decided," retorted Tony coolly.
"How about this mug, Peluso? What are we goin to do with him?"
"Do with him! Why, as soon as the campaign on the North Side gang is well opened up, I'm goin' to give him the jack I promised him and have him taken to a train for the West. I imagine he'll be glad enough to blow town."
"I'd think so. But surely you're not goin' to be such a sap as to pay him off now. He's told us all he knows. Why not take him for a ride and save the dough?"
Tony, unaccountably shocked by the cold-blooded proposal, looked up with flashing eyes.
"I keep my word, Steve, whether to friend or enemy, and no matter what I've promised, either good or bad," he retorted grimly. "The other day I gave you an assignment to get a certain man. You haven't done it yet. Do you remember what I promised you if you didn't carry it out?"
Steve's glance shifted uneasily. "Yes."
"Well, that stands. And I don't intend to wait all Summer either. Better get a move on."