“He’s getting away! Powell — Lorimer — get the lead out of your feet and nab that Chink!”
Because of the danger of hitting Detective Bartholdy, Bower had the good sense not to order another burst of sub-machine gun fire. This was what “X” had counted on. He swung to the window ledge and was through the opening as Detectives Powell and Lorimer rushed to the window in the Ming house. They shouted commands for him to halt, threatened to drop him, but “X” ducked out of sight and ran into a room filled with frightened Chinese.
None of the Orientals tried to stop him. They saw him as a Manchu, a Mingman, and a brother. He opened a door. Three plainclothes men and two uniformed cops had reached the head of the stairs. They hadn’t seen him before and weren’t sure of his identity. Their hesitation gave “X” a chance to slam the door shut and lock it. Instantly there was an uproar on the other side, pounding on the panels, then the crash and splinter of wood as the officers rammed shoulders against the door.
A Chinaman directed “X” to another exit with a slight shift of his glance. The Agent streaked across the room and was through the door. He raced down three flights to the kitchen and got out the back way before the Chinese cooks recovered from their startled surprise.
He plunged down a twisting alley, vaulted a fence, and sped along the narrow space between two brick buildings, entering the first back door he reached. Here he found himself in a second-hand clothing store. The proprietor jumped up, uttering a startled yell. He made a grab for a phone, thinking evidently that “X” was a hold-up man. The Agent gave him a quick shove into a pile of old suits and streaked past him.
HE reached the street door and paused suddenly. For a moment his wild exertions over the past few minutes told upon him. An old wound in his side, received on a battlefield in France, and curiously enough drawn into a scar that was shaped like a crude “X,” gave him a twinge of pain. Surgeons at the time that wound had been made by a piece of whizzing shrapnel had predicted that he could not live. But the Agent’s amazing vitality and unconquerable will had won out. The X-shaped scar seemed symbolic of the qualities that made Secret Agent “X” a fighter who refused ever to quit.
He straightened now. Then strode calmly out into a street that during the daytime was a main business artery. Behind him lay Chinatown, swarming now with cops and detectives, searching through the chill fog for a mysterious Manchu.
Because there was still a slight chance that someone was on his trail, Agent “X” took a devious route to his mid-town hideout, an apartment furnished with equipment and clothes for his numerous disguises.
He rode a subway to an express stop, walked two blocks crosstown to an elevated, and rode the local a few stations downtown. After that he changed taxis three times, and finally paid off a cab driver a block from his apartment.
Once in his hideout, he went to work swiftly to create a new disguise. He removed the black mohair suit that had fitted the role of a dignified Manchu tongman. In his undershirt and shorts Agent “X” showed a lean, supple, muscular body that had the condition and reflexes of a champion pugilist’s.
Quickly he stripped off the makeup which had given him the appearance of an Oriental. Beneath it was a remarkable face that not even his few intimate associates had ever knowingly seen. Strong, distinguished features full of power and character were there. The slightly curving line of the nose marked hawklike stamina. The piercing, brilliant eyes were clear lenses that transferred sharply defined pictures to a highly geared brain mechanism.
Not only was the identity of this man marked with mystery, but there was mystery even in these features. For different lights changed them almost as effectively as did his disguises. Looked at from the front they seemed remarkably youthful. But light falling on them from an oblique angle brought out the maturity of one who had been through a thousand strange and harrowing adventures. Sometimes in overhead rays Agent “X” seemed to have the long sensitive face of a scholar. With light coming up from below, his broad, fighting chin was most prominent.
With dexterous, experienced fingers Agent “X” worked plastic, volatile make-up material over his face, covering the skin first with ingenious flesh-colored pigments. He got up from his triple-sided mirrors after a few minutes and put on a salt-and-pepper cheviot of shrieking design, such as one would expect a race-track tout to wear.
He added patent-leather shoes and spats, and tipped a dove-gray hat on his head so that the rim came just to the hair-line. Over his head he slipped an ingeniously made toupee fashioned in a sporty sailor’s haircut, with the back of the neck shaved up to where the thick hair bulged out.
When he walked from his hideout the “Man of a Thousand Faces” had achieved a new character. He was now “Spats” McGurn, professional mobster and gunman, eager to quote homicide rates to the highest bidder.
At a casual glance he didn’t look tough. He had slightly thickened one ear and broadened the bridge of his nose to suggest that he had served an apprenticeship in the prize ring.
THE Agent knew his characterization would be more effective if he didn’t give himself too tough an appearance. He looked like a person who spent his time in dance halls and pool rooms, one who prided himself on being a classy dresser. But “X” had changed the line of his mouth to suggest cruelty. He had molded his features so that he could if he chose register intense viciousness.
Taking a taxi to the slum districts of the city he got off at a section that did its share in keeping the state penitentiary populated. The Agent’s destination was the address given him by Lo Mong Yung. This was a pool room on London Avenue called the “Big Kid’s,” known to the police as a hangout of small-time gamblers, petty racketeers, sneak-thieves, and loafers who were studying to be criminals. What the police didn’t know was that below the pool room, a dope ring was organizing and plotting activities.
The Big Kid’s had a small bar, thirty pool and billiard tables, slot machines against the walls, and back rooms for card games where suckers could be cold-decked. The air was blue with tobacco smoke, loud with the click of pool balls and the profane talk of the players.
“X” spotted the proprietor, Dan Sabelli, whose three hundred pounds of quivering blubber deserved the name “big,” but who was forty years from being a “kid.”
He was a sweating, bleary-eyed, wheezing man, who controlled enough votes to swing the district to his advantage. His pouchy, flabby-jowled, veined face was familiar to police line-ups. He had been indicted sixteen times for crimes ranging from petty larceny to homicide, but had never been convicted. The Agent had business with him, but he took his time.
He looked over the pool players for a while, took part in a couple of games, then deliberately picked a quarrel with a thick-necked giant of a man. “X,” as Spats McGurn, insulted the giant, provoked a fist fight and neatly knocked him out with a tricky left and two well-placed rights.
Dan Sabelli, the Big Kid, lumbered over at once, wheezing, puffing, and growling orders to attendants to get the senseless man into a back room quickly. He stepped up to Agent “X” angrily.
“Listen, guy! If you’re feelin’ tough tonight scram out ’o here! Do you want to have the cops droppin’ in and botherin’ the boys? That ain’t no way to help business! Start lammin’ if you know what’s good fer yer.”
“Sorry, Dan,” the Agent apologized. “A mug insulted me and I had to let him have it. He was askin’ for it. They can’t get tough with Spats McGurn, see? An’ before I leave this lousy joint I got some business to transact. You’re makin’ a book, ain’t you? And while I’m here I’m gonna slap on a few bets fer tomorrow’s races. The ponies always act right when I’m wearing these rags.”