Red was at the wheel, driving fast. The moon was full, and the road lighted by its reflection flashed by swiftly. There was little talk in the car. Each man concentrated grimly on their single motive. Revenge. And at the same moment, revenge in another form was complicating their carefully laid plans.
Dirk’s tiger moll was at the telephone.
“Hello, lemme speak to Pete Robinson.
“Never mind who I am, I want Pete.
“Hello. Pete? Listen, this is Marie. I know damn well it was you, but Dirk’s dead now an’ he’s outa the picture. If a message comes tellin’ you to hop down to the Morgan Pike hideaway you keep, remember, it’s a frame-up. Never mind how I know, but I’m warnin’ you, and say, Pete, maybe we can get together again.” Her voice sounded seductively soft over the phone, and her gracefully molded body arched towards the phone, as she purred into the mouthpiece. Then abruptly she hung up! There was an enigmatic glint in her eyes that had turned hard and treacherous. But Pete Robinson was not there to see her. For him was the memory of her warm tones and sensuous appeal.
Scarcely twenty minutes later, Red’s car slowed down from its mad pace and turned off the Morgan Pike. He drove up a dirt path for twenty yards or so, then turned the car around and backed half-way into the nearby underbrush. There it was hidden from casual sight and ready for instant flight should the need arise.
“Where’s the lay?” Mike whispered.
“About thirty yards through these trees. It’s a small bungalow. You and Joe sneak up the back and Tony and Jack come with me.” The men nodded. Silently they filed through the woods till the bungalow confronted them. Then Joe and Mike departed to get around to the back of the house to cut off any escape. Only a dim light showed through one of the side windows and not a sound was to be heard. Even the night breeze seemed muffled as it moaned through the trees, and for a few moments a drifting cloud obscured the moon.
Red motioned to his two accomplices to stand alongside the door, then, with his left hand in his pocket and his hat pulled down over his eyes, he rapped on the door. Silence, for another moment. Then the sound of shuffling feet, and a man’s cautious voice.
“Who’s there? What do you want this time o’ the night?”
“Is Pete Robinson in?” Red spoke in a low voice.
“Pete who? Don’t know the guy. You got the wrong address.”
“Yell. Well, we’re Prohibition agents, see? And we’ve a warrant to search this dump. So open up.”
“I’m not opening up for anyone. What are you goin’ to do about it?” There was a false bravado in the man’s tone.
“Let’s crash the door in,” Jack whispered. “We can blow the lock off.”
Red hesitated. It was lonely there, but still, he wasn’t ready to disturb any sleeping neighbors and have the bulls break up the reception he was going to hold for Robinson.
“Give you ten to open up, then we blow the lock off!” He spoke sharply. There was no answer.
“One — Two — Three...”
While he was counting there was noise of a scuffle at the back of the house. Then a muffled curse and a deep grunt. Joe sang out.
“O.K., Red. He tried to get away back here. I slapped him stiff with me black jack. He’ll come to in a minute.”
Red chuckled. His ruse had worked and they had made no noise at their entry. “Bring him inside,” he called, “and let us in.”
A bucket of water doused over White’s head brought him to. Then a long draught of Robinson’s best three-star sufficiently revived him so that he was able to sit up weakly and glare at his captives. They hadn’t bothered to bind him, for it was known that he had a chicken heart. Red nudged him with his boot. There was a command in his voice when he spoke that the palsied gangster was quick to note.
“Get to the phone and do what I tell you to do. No stallin’ or” — and he shoved an automatic into the man’s ribs.
White clambered to his feet and took the phone in his hands.
“Now, you lousy hound, call up your boss, I mean Pete Robinson, and tell him this place is raided.
“Tell him the bulls landed here and we want to be squared aplenty if he’s to get off. And have him hurry right down here, alone. See? One bad word from you and you won’t live to say another. Get busy!”
Al White delivered his message. And for it he was rewarded by as hot, as furious and as elegant a burst of long-distance profanity as it had ever been his fortune to hear. But there was one sentence he could repeat and did repeat to Red. It was to “tell them blankety-blank crawling worms that I’m comin’ to pay them in full!”
At Red’s directions. Joe and Tony left the house and took up a strong position on either side of the entrance. They were hidden back of fallen logs, and each had a sawed-off shotgun and his automatic; those precautions, in case Pete came with his mob. But they didn’t think it likely.
Jack stayed at the back window with his automatic and a hand-grenade. Mike and Red were at the front, with their Thompson submachine gun, their eggs and automatics ready to receive their visitors. Poor Al White lay trussed on the floor in the inner room.
In a very few minutes they heard a car roar up to the path that led to the front door and stop. Its lights were out, but evidently the driver was well acquainted with the topography of the place. For about twenty seconds absolute silence prevailed. Then a cautious voice called out:
“Come on out if you want to see me.” There was a sound of shuffling. Evidently the car was being vacated. Then a heavy, powerful light that stood by the front running-board nearest the house was played full onto the scene. Behind, the car was in absolute darkness. “Come on out! What in hell are you afraid of, you lousy bulls!”
The door of the bungalow, in the white glare of the light opened, and a nervous figure, blinded by the dazzling light, shuffled into the open. Then came the deluge! Spatatatat! It was a hidden gun playing its deathly tune. The advancing man staggered for a moment, curiously like a trussed fowl with its head chopped off, and then fell prone.
Before the occupants of the car, startled by the unexpectedness of the killing they had done, could recover from their surprise, a hail of hot lead poured out on them from three sides. They were taken by surprise. They had no target for their machine gun and could only play it wildly onto the bungalow that was spraying their car with lead. One by one, the occupants of the car either fell groaning, or ducked for cover and raced back into the darkness. From the woods came a vicious sweep of tearing lead. Crash! A grenade had been skillfully tossed with experience born of trench service at the Meuse, and the car was literally transformed into a twisted carnage.
There was the sound of a car that had come up the road being stopped. Then swiftly turned around. Red instantly guessed that their quarry was escaping. He had been too canny to fall into the trap and had sent his cohorts ahead to a terrible death. Of the machine’s occupants, three lay dead, and two possibly, no more, had escaped, wounded or otherwise.
“Quick!” he shouted. “After that car!” But they were too late, for the car, gathering speed, had disappeared into the darkness. With barely a glance at the prostrate form of Al White who had walked with his hands bound behind him, and gagged, a victim to the sacrifice, Red gathered his men together and made for their car. They could never catch up to the speeding Robinson, but they were not to be denied their revenge.