“Do like I say, Kirby. If the Starret people let you out, or you think it’s too hot to report for work in the morning, come down to the tunnel. I’ll fix things like I said.”
“That’s a swell idea,” agreed Kirby.
Alone, after Morengo had left, Ed Kirby resumed his game of solitaire. At ten o’clock he got up, yawned, stretched in full view of the window, then switched off the light.
But he didn’t immediately go to bed. Instead, he pulled a chair close to the window and stared out into the lighted street. His mind went over everything leading up to this living in this miserable room, eating in cheap restaurants and working as a skilled mechanic on construction jobs.
A new racket had sprung up in the city and other cities as well. Murder at prices ranging from five hundred to ten thousand — depending, of course, on victim and his standing. This new racket did away with numberless gangs. In some cities certain gangs had been wiped out by the new order of hired killers. Money was paid on the spot. The murder generally took place within twenty-four hours.
The city police had requested help from the Department of Justice because this racket, unless curbed, would soon become nation-wide. Two politicians, an assistant district attorney, and one G-man had already been rubbed out — murdered in cold blood at an agreed price.
Others were undoubtedly due for sudden extinction among them was G-man Nelson Grant. Quiet, courageous, and shunning all contacts with crooks and murderers, he was the exact opposite of Ed Kirby. But his distaste for publicity could not keep him from being known, feared and hated. Grant was born to riches, with talents that far exceeded Kirby’s. Yet he and Kirby had always worked together through failure and success, linked by a friendship sealed many times in the past in blazing bursts of gunfire from an aroused gangdom.
But Nelson Grant had disappeared. The murder racketeers were trying desperately to trace him. In time they’d uncover him, unless.
Ed Kirby smiled bleakly in the dark. His thoughts at that moment were not on his friend, Nels Grant, but on another man entirely — the so-called Big Guy. For weeks he had been running down one dead after another. Without exception they had all ended at the blank wall of utter failure.
And then, under grilling, a vicious little rat-bookie had unconsciously dropped a hint that led to Morengo. And tonight, through trickery, Ed Kirby had won the respect of Morengo. Would his patient combing of all the dark alleys of crookdom end as before against the usual Blank wall of defeat?
Ed Kirby got up slowly, stretched his big frame-out-on the bed, placed his automatic close to his hip, and closed his eyes. The constant strain of his precarious existence would not allow him to relax. The tiny muscles beneath his eyes jerked continuously.
He wondered as he lay there in the dark if the end of his search for the murder ring was not closer than it seemed. Would he be asked to join the gang in their butchery of human beings? He hoped so — and he even prayed that it would be soon, before other men were shot down by these commercial butchers.
Then he fell asleep, and his body jerked with muscular spasms. He woke up. Beads of sweat were on his forehead. He turned over on his side, felt for the reassuring chunk of metal beneath his hip, and dropped to sleep again.
Chapter III
The Big Shot Waits
The distance between the Blackmoor and the lunchroom where Ed Kirby ate his breakfast was about two blocks. But before Ed had covered it the next morning he discovered he was being followed.
The knowledge was pleasing. It meant that certain people thought he was worth watching. His play in freeing Morengo from the cops was bringing results. They were watching him to see what contacts he made — if any. Kirby knew then that he must keep away from telephones, that he must not try to contact his chief unless absolutely sure that he wasn’t being watched.
The deception must be continued until the last barrier of suspicion was down. There was no other way to gain the confidence of the murder ring. He must continually act the part of a hard, vicious enemy of law and order.
After breakfast he went to the construction job where he had been working. A chunky man in a gray suit accosted him near the gate.
“Kirby?” he asked, speaking without moving his lips.
“Why not. Who the hell are you?”
“Never mind who I am. I was sent here. Don’t go through the gate. I guess you know why.”
“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”
“There’s a couple of headquarters men in there. They know who it was that helped Morengo get into the clear.”
Ed Kirby’s smile was slow in coming. He knew the man was lying. But he didn’t know why this was so unless they wanted him to be working closer to Morengo. He lit a cigarette. “Oke. Thanks for the tipoff.” He decided then that his cue was to get in touch with Morengo. This fitted in with his plans perfectly.
The man in the gray suit said, “So long!” and went down a side street.
Ed took the nearest subway downtown to where the tunneling operations under East River had just begun. A caisson had been sunk near the river’s edge in the quicksands. It was a huge thing of riveted metal slabs that rested on the shifting sands many feet below the ground level. There was a wooden building near the street, and Dip Morengo, with time cards in his hands, lounged against it.
“ ’Lo, Kirby,” he said.
Ed nodded. “A guy in a gray suit tipped me off to stay away from the Starret job. So I came here.”
“I got it fixed,” said Morengo. “The gang is ready to go down. This is your shift.”
Kirby followed him inside the workings. Here Morengo left him. With about eighteen other men, Ed Kirby entered a compression lock — a steel cylinder eight feet in diameter and probably twenty feet in length. The bottom end of this lock connected with a hollow, metal shaft that ran down to the working chamber at the bottom of the caisson.
With others of the work crew, he seated himself on one of the parallel benches inside the lock. The foreman closed the metal door leading outside, sealing the chamber within. Another man opened a valve controlling the air. Into the lock rushed a blast of furnace heat. Kirby could feel it pressing against his eyes, nose and ears. Then the first discomfort of compression was over.
The pressure dial after a time indicated forty pounds of compressed air — the same pressure as in the working chamber below. When sufficient time had elapsed, a door leading to the vertical shaft was opened, and the sand hogs crawled down the metal rungs fastened to its steep sides.
It was a long way down to the working chamber. Ed Kirby was sweating freely when he reached the bottom. The other gang was just coming out. Through the haze caused by the fluctuating air pressure, he could see the face of the metal shield that was going to go through the caisson wall and thence under the river. But before that shield could go through, an opening had to be cut into the tough metal. Men with torches would do this work — a little at a, time. It was a job that called for patience, skill and an utter disregard for personal comfort.
The air in the chamber was heated to a high temperature. Water had been allowed to seep in for immersion purposes when human bodies became over-heated. Ed Kirby knew what he was about. At a nod from the boss he took a blow torch from the hands of another man, pulled on goggles, snapped the lighter and got a flame. Skillfully he adjusted it till the flame was a thin, purplish-blue spear of heat.
He looked around him then. There was a half-naked man standing behind him with a hose in his hands. He waved to Kirby. All this, man had to do during the one-hour shift was to squirt water on Kirby’s back and shoulders.