CHAPTER XXIV
Tony felt a trifle uncertain as he entered his luxurious Lake Shore Drive apartment half an hour later. And the cool, questioning way in which Jane surveyed him was not reassuring.
"Jeez! I'm tired!" he exclaimed wearily. And he was. The strain of the trial had taken more out of him than he realized.
"Listen, Tony," said Jane, and there was an edge in her voice, "just what is this dame to you?"
"What dame?"
"This Rosie person, the one you killed Mike over."
"She ain't anything to me."
Jane laughed scornfully. "Do you expect me to believe that? Then why'd you bump off Mike for gettin' her?"
"I didn't. It was about somep'm else."
"Don't try to kid me. You and Mike were the best of friends up to the night that happened. The boys say you turned absolutely green when you saw Mike come in with her. Right away you went upstairs and five minutes later Mike was dead."
"You're crazy! I—I never saw her before. If she'd—meant anything to me, do you's'pose she'd have turned me up the way she did?"
"A woman's feelings can change."
"So can a man's." He looked at her narrowly; his tone was significant.
"Yeah? Well, don't worry. Big Shot, there's plenty of men that'd be glad to have me."
"Mebbe. But you'd find it pretty hard to find one that could or would pay the price I do. For the amount I spend on you, I could just about have my pick and don't forget it!"
"Why don't you?" she demanded furiously.
“Been too busy to think about it,” he retorted loftily. "But I may not be so busy later on . . . while we're on the subject, I noticed you were mighty chummy with that dick lieutenant in court?"
"Which one?"
"Were you chummy with more than one? I wouldn't be surprised. But I only noticed one. Ben Guarino, the brother of this dame.
"Oh? So you know all about the whole family, eh?"
"Shut up!" he snarled suddenly, advancing on her menacingly. "I've had all your lip I intend to take."
For a moment they gazed at each other with blazing eyes, their teeth gritted and their fists clenched.
"What's the use of us fightin' this way, baby, as long as we been together?" said Tony finally and his voice was weary. "Honest to God, I never had nothin' to do with that dame. And there's important things to be done now."
"For instance?"
"Gettin' Flanagan and Moran, the damned dirty double-crossers. After all the dough I've paid them! Flanagan could give me a buzz and let me get out of sight that night. But did he do it? No, he comes out himself and nabs me. And even puts the bracelets on me, like I was a common, cheap, petty larceny crook. And Moran, that dirty Irish—"
The oaths crackled off Tony's competent tongue. "Him and that crooked D.A. boss of his. They knew they had a poor case and they knew that Mike's bein' bumped off was a civic improvement. What they shoulda done was forget it. But do they? No, they do their damndest to gimme the rope because they know they could collect more if there was a lot of big shots in the racket instead of just me controllin' the whole works. Well, I've paid and what did I get? Tramped on, the minute they thought they had a chance to railroad me. Now, they're goin' to pay and pay plenty."
And so they forgot their personal jealousies and differences while Tony outlined his plans for vengeance against those who had betrayed him. But the rift between them had widened. Doubt, once planted, is almost impossible to kill, and upon the slightest provocation can grow with appalling speed into conviction.
Tony went out to his headquarters the next day. And his men greeted his return with the curious silence and the grim, tight-lipped smiles of their kind. But he sensed an uneasiness in their bearing. Something was wrong; he wondered just what it was.
He had not long to wait. Within a few minutes half a dozen of his more prominent henchmen came up to his private office on the top floor of the hotel. One of them, a square-jawed, hard-eyed hoodlum named Finaro, cleared his throat noisily.
"We was wonderin' about that piece in the papers, Chief," he began, "about you goin' to quit the racket and go in the real estate business. That was just talk, wasn't it?"
"I haven't decided yet," answered Tony coolly. "I have got enough dough to quit and enjoy life if I want to."
"Yeah. But who helped you make it. Chief? We've all had a hand in buildin' up that pile you got. And you owe it to us to keep things movin' and give us a chance to keep gettin' our bit. We've stuck by you through some damn tight times and now when the sailing's easy, you gotta stick by us. If you quit now, the mob'd go to pieces overnight. And then where'd we be? You just can't quit now and leave us in the lurch."
The others nodded in hearty assent as he finished. The man's tone and manner had been respectful enough but his eyes were hard. Tony, his own eyes glowing with inward anger at this first sign of insubordination within the ranks, was about to dismiss them brusquely. But his better judgment told him not to. He sensed an air of menace in the attitude of the group.
He realized suddenly that in organizing and perfecting this powerful gang that ruled the underworld activities of a great city, he had built a Frankenstein, a monster that, acting upon the principles he had instilled into it, would feel justified in destroying him should he attempt to desert now.
In one great vision, he saw that these men felt a loyalty to him only as long as his agile mind planned activities that afforded them a handsome livelihood. The moment his value to them had ceased they would unhesitatingly turn upon him the assassin's bullets that he now could command them to direct at his enemies. He could never quit; they wouldn't let him.
"Forget it, boys," he said, trying to make his tone pleasant. "I was just talking for the benefit of the cops. Carry on everything as usual."
Tony lost no time in carrying out his vengeance upon those who had betrayed him.
For five days he had Captain Flanagan shadowed day and night. Then, with the reports of his spies in hand, he spent two days in working out the actual plan. At last all was ready.
At eleven o'clock one night he had himself driven home to the fancy apartment building where he and Jane lived. He gave the uniformed doorman a cigar and paused a moment to comment on the state of the weather. To the middle-aged, dignified elevator man he gave another cigar and, apparently doubtful of the accuracy of his watch, checked it up with that of the older man. Thus he had impressed his arrival and the time of it upon the two attendants.
His apartment was on the third floor and at the end of the corridor was an iron fire escape that led both upward and downward. Carefully he opened the French doors that gave access to it, stepped out and closed the doors behind him. Then he climbed rapidly but silently down to the ground.
His rubber-soled shoes making no sound, he flitted through the dark alley and stepped into the sedan waiting in the deserted street beyond. The big car sped smoothly away, preceded and followed by another just like it.
At a quiet corner far out on the North Side the three cars paused. Then one proceeded easily through the tree-lined residential street to the next corner. Then another moved slowly forward. In the middle of the block and across the street from a brick two-story house which was still brightly lighted, it stopped against the curb. The four men in it crouched down so that the car appeared empty. Already one of the rear door windows was fully lowered, the cool night air fanning the flushed tense faces of the four men.
Tony waited a moment, then nudged one of his companions. The man lifted a police whistle to his lips and blew three shrill blasts. Almost immediately two shots rang out at the next corner. Abruptly the front door of the house across the street flew open and a burly man emerged, a revolver glinting in his right hand. It was Flanagan!
Another shot rang out at the corner. Flanagan ran down the steps, his revolver ready for action. Slowly Tony lifted the ugly black snout of a sub-machine gun, resting it on the car door, and took careful aim. Then with a grim smile he squeezed the trigger. The death rattle of the weapon deafened him and his companions but Flanagan crumpled to the ground, at least two-score bullets having found their mark in his body. The cars roared away down the street.
Tony went to bed with exultation welling strong within him. He had returned the same way he had departed and, he was positive, without being seen. When the police questioned the attendants of the building as they were sure to do, the two men would earnestly and unknowingly furnish him with a perfect alibi, for there was no other available entrance to the building save the one at which they were on duty.
Flanagan was gone. A score that had been accumulating for years had finally been settled. Now for Moran!