The Agent puzzled over a means whereby he could start something and end this exasperating inaction. Trouble would do it, a quarrel, a fight. These men lived by the gun. It wouldn’t take much of an injury to pride or person to make them draw.
Yet he couldn’t brush up to a man and deliberately start a dispute. That would be too obvious. Vicious living had made them smart to tricks, overly suspicious. A play that was too open would suggest a hidden motive.
“X” noticed that whenever he rattled his paper, a sniffing, hard-eyed, death’s-head of a man reading a book nearby, looked up with a scowl of irritation. The Agent’s eyes gleamed. Here was a chance.
He rattled his paper a little more. He gently kicked a table leg in nerve-rasping rhythm. He hummed a monotonous tune, drumming an accompaniment on the arm of his chair with his fingers. To this symphony of irritation he added the most agonizing noise in existence by repeatedly smacking his tongue against a tooth.
Suddenly the hophead sprang from his chair, cursing viciously at “X.” He snatched the paper, yelled, “You damn low-life! Go climb in a bunk before I put the heat on you, and shut you up for good. You’d drive a man nuts with them noises. Lay off that one-man band, or I’ll bend a gun-barrel over your thick dome.”
The snowbird interspersed his tirade with fighting words. “X” hid his satisfaction behind a savage scowl. Leaping erect, he lunged at the man, who sprang to one side and shot a fist at “X’s” head.
The blow landed, though the Agent rolled the force out of the impact. He answered with a vicious snarl and swung a chair overhead. Murder instantly flamed in the hophead’s eyes. Life had etched no humanity on his repulsive face. There was nothing but greed, and evil, and killing hate cut in the harsh lines.
He went into a fighting crouch, his right hand streaking to a shoulder holster beneath his armpit. The gun had half cleared the leather, when “X” dropped the chair. His own hand darted under his coat and appeared again, clutching an automatic.
The draw was swifter than the eye, a blur of movement, that made the others tense in amazement. “X” actually completed the draw the instant the chair struck the floor.
Usually he carried only his gas gun, but this time he’d packed a real bullet-shooting weapon. A mobster without a killing gun was like a plumber without a wrench. To avoid suspicion in that direction, the Agent had brought a rod along.
Then came the pounding crash of flame-spitting guns, and savage blasts filled the room with ear-bursting thunder.
Chapter III
THE reports seemingly were simultaneous; but one was a split-second late — and that wink of time was sufficient to dispel the shadow of death that hovered over the duelists.
The hophead’s automatic suddenly flew out of his grasp as the slug from “X’s” gun smashed against the frame. The man was yanking the trigger as the bullet struck, and the muzzle lanced flame while the gun was spinning in mid-air. The lead buried into the ceiling, sending a shower of plaster down on the billiard table.
Cursing madly, the hophead clutched at his hand and shrank back. Fear bulged his eyes, as he whimpered for help. But he did not need help, for “X” was finished with him. A slight bullet groove across the knuckle of the hophead’s right thumb was the only casualty. The Agent’s astounding display of marksmanship and cool steadiness immediately made him a personality to be respected and recognized.
“ALL right, rat,” “X” snarled. “Crawl into your hole and leave the rod work to professionals. You amateurs are always on the receiving end. You’re all thumbs. Your kind generally end up on the hot squat.”
The Agent addressed the others sarcastically.
“Sorry I disturbed you, gents. Don’t like to overstep myself — specially when I’ve just joined up with a mob. But I ain’t the sort to let a guy get funny with me. If they stay off my toes I’m like a milk-fed lamb. That’s my story, gents, straight and simple — and now I’ll finish my paper.”
The hophead had ducked into another room. From the look on the man’s face, “X” knew the snowbird still had ideas of murder. But the Agent wasn’t worried. As long as he didn’t turn his back to his foe, he doubted if the man had the skill or the nerve to get him.
No sooner had the Agent settled himself to listen again behind his newspaper than the others began coming up to comment on his gunwork and to voice profane admiration. The ice was broken. That brief trick had done more to put him in the favor of the mob than any overtures of friendliness or attempts at being a good fellow.
He learned that he had dueled with Teddy Eldon, “one of the best gunmen in the mob when he’s loaded with coke and waltzing on air.” But the Agent didn’t learn about the traffic in drugs.
Later, his rat-faced guide came in.
“You’re a quick worker, Spats,” the man said. “You’ve done the shortest trick at bench warming of any new guy. Generally a fella cools his heels for a coupla weeks, sometimes a month, before the chief lets on he knows the bum is alive. But he was watchin’ you when Teddy elected you a candidate for a marble slab. Martel wants to see you.”
“X” was taken to a luxurious office, with blue, modernistic decorations and furnishings. The carpet was thick, the room air-conditioned, the lighting indirect, and behind a broad desk sat a gross bulldog of a man, an iron-jawed symbol of evil prosperity with a long black cigar jammed in the corner of a square, firm mouth.
Martel was obviously not a victim of the drugs he sold. His eyes were as clear as they were cold. His skin was tanned by the sun, and his walking beam shoulders looked as though they would be more at home in a gymnasium than a night club. He was the embodiment of vicious strength. It would take a hard-fisted, ruthless man like him to handle that nondescript gathering of cokeheads in the big room.
“I’m going to break a rule, Spats,” Martel told “X.” “I saw your swell work with Teddy Eldon. Just a slug, that guy. A good man for his job, but he’ll end up in the death house or be carted to potter’s field. You, Spats, you’re different. I heard about you freezing a punk upstairs with a punch. You’ve got brains, enterprise, nerve. You say you’ve been in the dope racket yourself. Then you know what it’s all about. And you know that the main thing in life is power.”
Martel boomed the word. “I came out of the gutter, Spats. I never opened a school book in my life. But I’ve got doctors, lawyers, professors, statesmen, big shots in business, right in the palm of my hand.” Martel emphasized this by squeezing a huge, beefy hand into a formidable fist.
“Why?” he boomed. “How is it these mental marvels are kids in my grasp? I ain’t a wizard. No! But I control the stuff that makes me a wizard, see? Dope! Load a guy with dope, get him to where his nerves are on fire, and every inch of him is crawling for want of a shot, and never mind how high-hat he is — if you control his supply of junk he’s your sucker. Dope—power!”
MARTEL puffed furiously on his black cigar. “I run a good layout, Spats,” he went on, “but now I’ve got competition, rotten, dirty competition. And I’ve got to break it!” His teeth clicked as though he were biting off the words.
“Somebody’s muscling in on your territory, eh?” said “X” casually, “Have you got a line on them, chief? I don’t always treat guys gentle. Maybe I could do your outfit some good.”