Baroni was getting the worst of it. There was no question about that. This was a battle to the death. Dwyer was fighting to wipe out a rival group, to eliminate competition with the quick scalpel of hot lead. And Baroni’s small bodyguard was already reduced by two.
Slowly, mercilessly, Dwyer’s men moved in fanshaped formation, trying to reach a point where their crossfire would do the most damage. Baroni, his eyes bulging, his face sagging with fright, still lay on the floor. Either the big gangster carried no gun or he was afraid to draw it. He was depending on his men, waiting for death, palsied with terror.
A third Baroni man dropped his gun now. His arm hung limply. He tried to pick the gun up with his left hand, failed. There were only three of them left, crouching, white-faced youths whose lives had been spent under the shadow of fear and quick death. They were fighting with the desperation of cornered animals, knowing that their minutes were numbered.
“Get Baroni,” Dwyer hissed. “The yellow-bellied punk is hiding behind that table.”
Agent “X” saw the mobsters’ fire shift, saw splinters begin to fly from the table behind which Baroni crouched like a sodden, frightened hog.
Then quietly, deftly, the Agent moved his hands. He took a small tool from his pocket — a pair of pliers. They were not ordinary pliers. There was a trough in the middle of them for wires to slip into, a needle point centering in this trough. He snapped the pliers over the cord of the electric table light. His wrist tensed. The needle point was driven through the rubberized insulation, through the strands of copper wire beneath. It formed an instantaneous short circuit. There was a brilliant spark, a puff of smoke. The lights went out as every fuse in the building blew.
The Agent slipped out of his seat. Risking death from the leaden hail of bullets, he crossed the floor, slipped to the side of Baroni. He touched the man’s arm, heard him cry out in fear.
“Keep quiet,” the Agent hissed. “I put the lights out. I can save you.”
He had a reason for this. He felt no friendship, no sympathy for the craven gang lord who had, in his day, ordered the deaths of many men. But there was a chance that Baroni could lead him where he wanted to go — along the trail of the Black Master.
Dwyer’s men, taking advantage of the blackness, were circling in like sinister wolves in the night. A bullet plucked at the sleeve of the Agent’s coat close to the shoulder.
Then someone, a member of Dwyer’s gang, clicked on a flash light, setting it on a chair and leaping back. Its rays illumined one of Baroni’s decimated bodyguards. A volley of bullets riddled him, made him collapse like a slumped sack of grain, before he struck. Only two were left now.
THE Agent smiled grimly. Dwyer’s men were all around them. Guarding the exits, guarding the windows. Dwyer planned to wipe Baroni and every man of his gang out, leave no witnesses of the terrible battle. He would kill the Agent, too, if he got the chance.
But Agent “X” was busy. From a deep inner pocket, he took a small vial with a screw cap. It seemed a strange thing to bring out at such a time, a strange thing to pit against a dozen flaming automatics. In the vial were a score of tiny pellets, like pills.
He unscrewed the top of the vial with deft, quick fingers, then waited a moment while air seeped in. There had been only a vacuum in the vial before. It had been airtight.
On contact with the air the tiny pellets began to smoke and glow.
Suddenly the Agent made a sweeping motion with his arm. The pellets left the mouth of the vial, scattering around the room, rattling on the floor.
A second later one made a report like a giant firecracker exploding. It seemed fantastic that such force could be contained in such a small body. A second exploded close to one of Dwyer’s men. The man screamed with fear, dropped his automatic, and leaped back.
The firing ceased abruptly. Dwyer cursed and screamed orders.
Then a half-dozen of the Agent’s harmless-looking pellets let go, and the room became a crashing, exploding medley of sound. Air waves hurtled this way and that. The windows rattled.
The Agent, calm through it all, spoke sharply in Baroni’s ear.
“They are harmless — come with me.”
The fat gang leader, shaking with terror, floundered to his feet. He stood dazed, rocking, while the din of the exploding pellets kept up.
Leaving his side a moment, the Agent went to the nearest of his henchmen who was still alive.
“Come,” he said.
The man turned with the squeal of a rat, tried to shoot; but the Agent knocked the gun from his hand.
“Fool!” he hissed.
He rounded up the other man, drew them to Baroni’s side. The gang leader gave a brief explanation.
“This guy did it,” he said. “Let’s scram.”
They slunk out of the room, passed an exit from which Dwyer’s men had fled in terror as one of the Agent’s pellets burst close to it. They crept down the stairs unmolested, and out into the street.
An excited crowd was gathering outside. Baroni lumbered through it, scattering people right and left like a hippo ploughing through reeds. His two henchmen and the Agent trailed him.
Down the block two big limousines stood, the fenders of one touching the rear of the other. Baroni piled into the first car. One of his surviving torpedoes took the wheel. Baroni, the other gunman, and the Secret Agent were in the rear. “X” was sticking close to the gangster now, calmly carrying out a preconceived plan.
Gears whined and the car sped away into the darkness. Behind them, police sirens were screaming as a half-dozen radio cruisers, summoned by the frantic appeals from headquarters, converged on the Mephistopheles Club. No doubt the emergency squad cars would be called out, too. It was the biggest gangster battle of the season.
Nick Baroni, slumped and speechless, was mopping his fat face with a silk handkerchief. Rhythmically, monotonously, his plump hands moved round and round. It seemed to afford him relief. His gunman, shivering and crouched like a frightened rat, said nothing as the car tore ahead. But once his eyes shifted strangely, fearfully, to the face of the Secret Agent.
The Agent’s features were the bland, even features of a young clubman. His immaculate tuxedo was not even creased. He fingered his tie for a moment, straightened it. Only his burning eyes showed the dynamic fire of hidden emotions.
NICK BARONI spoke then as the speeding limousine carried them to safety, carried them beyond the noise and turmoil of the Mephistopheles Club.
“What’s your name, guy — an’ what made you chisel in?”
The Agent spoke quickly. This was a question he had been expecting. He was ready for it.
“You seemed to be getting a tough break — and I felt like a little excitement.”
The crafty eyes of Nick Baroni, regaining some of their arrogant poise now, focused on him thoughtfully, taking in his patent leather shoes, his sharply creased trousers, his well-fitted coat.
“Just a playboy out for a little fun, eh!” he said.
The Agent stiffened. Irritation leaped into his eyes for a moment.
“Did I act like a playboy?” he asked harshly.
Baroni seemed to wilt. He opened his mouth, spoke quickly. There was a sudden uneasy look in his eyes, as though he sensed for the first time the uncanny power of the stranger beside him.
“Don’t get me wrong, mister. You came in at the right time. It’s O.K. by me. Those Dwyer rats might have made it a little tough for me. And that popcorn of yours? What the hell was it? How did you think it up?”
“Just a few fireworks,” said the Agent quietly. He had slipped back into his role, hiding his dislike for the man beside him, hiding his contempt for the man’s arrogance and callousness. For Baroni was pretending now that he would have won the fight with Dwyer anyway. He was ignoring the fact that four of his bodyguard lay dead on the floor of the Mephistopheles Club.