The other car shot by. One bullet from the killers’ machine-gun caught the taximan in the side. He screamed with the sudden pain of it and fell forward across the wheel as the cab reared up on the sidewalk and turned over with a shattering crash.
CHAPTER VIII
HELL’S SWITCHBOARD
DICK VAN LOAN jerked at the handle of the door above him, pushed up quickly, and heaved himself out. He was bruised, shaken, but uninjured.
He looked around, then caught his breath in a whistling gasp and clawed wildly at the side of the driver’s seat. For the black murder car was backing up! He could hear the high-pitched scream of its gears, see its dark shadow racing at him. A machine-gun began to chatter again, spraying lead savagely, even as he got his hands on the wounded driver. The man was groaning, trembling with fear.
Van hoisted him bodily, and left the warm stickiness of blood on his hand. He knew that in a moment those killers ahead would return to finish the job. A bullet spattered against the cab as he got the taximan in his arms and raced with him across the sidewalk.
He clenched his teeth. There was an almost insane fury in the way that machine-gun hammered, waking a thousand spitting echoes along the dark street. Van had stirred up a hornets’ nest of murder. Bowers’s assassins had been instructed to get him, wipe out any possible chance of being identified or followed. The man who had disguised himself as Dopey O’Banion was marked for death.
BUT Van was thinking more of the wounded driver than of himself as he plunged through a wrought-iron areaway gate into a front court that was slightly lower than the level of the street. He had got the taximan into this scrape and must see him through it. He laid the wounded man prone on the flags of the court, told him to lie flat. Then he whipped out his.38, flung himself down also, and began firing at the approaching car.
There was a moment, a five-second period, when Death seemed to be debating whether or not to end the career of the Phantom. The killers’ bullets came close, whining and screaming through the areaway fence, glancing off the flags of the court, digging sinister pockmarks onto the building behind Van. A slug burned through his coat sleeve, searing the skin. Another slapped viciously across the heel of his left foot.
But his own aim was calm, deadly. Many times in his strange career the Phantom had been under fire. He wasn’t only a man brilliant in his deductive methods; he was a born fighter. The flash of cordite, the searing heat of bullets seemed to forge a razor edge of alertness to his nerves. The murder ring must not make an innocent victim of the taxi driver, and they must not kill the Phantom, with his work on this strange case barely begun.
One of his shots made spider-web cracks in the shatter-proof glass of the killers’ car. He swung his gun, flung bullets savagely toward the driver’s compartment The backing car swerved a little, as Van’s lead either struck or unnerved the driver.
The screaming volley from the machine-gun was deflected. A basement window in the house behind Van broke into shattering fragments. Then the black car slowed suddenly, stopped, reversed the direction of its movement, and roared away. Van had beaten off the murderous attack upon him.
His thoughts turned instantly to the wounded driver. Fear had made the man lie on the flags as still as death. Van pocketed his gun, whipped out a small flashlight. He was glad to see that the driver’s wound was in the right side, far over. He peeled the man’s coat and shirt back. A brief examination convinced him that the wound wasn’t fatal. It was a searing, painful furrow, with a possible fractured rib underneath.
Lights had sprung up in windows all along the street. Running feet sounded, and a policeman’s visored cap swung into view. Van waited quietly till the officer came up, gun in hand.
“Stand still there, you two!” the cop ordered. “What’s going on here?”
Van spoke softly. “The show’s over. It was an attempt at murder that fell through.”
“Yeah! Well keep your hands where I can see them. Come on out here, fella – make it snappy!”
The cop was eying Van’s ugly disguised face, the face of Dopey O’Banion, with deep suspicion. But Van’s hand flashed into his pocket in spite of the warning.
Then the patrolman stiffened. For in Van’s fingers as he stepped forward, gleamed under the rays of the distant street light, was the badge in the shape of a mask; the badge of platinum incrusted with small, brilliant diamonds.
The cop looked at it, gulped, glanced at Van’s face again. “I’ve heard of that shield!” he said huskily. “You must be – the Phantom!”
Van nodded. “Call an ambulance. Get this wounded man to the hospital.”
“There was shooting,” said the cop. “What was it? I gotta make my report.”
“Let that pass now. See to this wounded man. I’m going to leave him with you.”
The cop touched his cap, turned, and ran toward his corner call-box. Plainclothes detectives and bluecoats along the beat had been instructed to take orders from the Phantom. He had aided the department so many times in its fight for law and order that even men on the force who had never seen him had learned to respect him. Van bent over the wounded cabman.
“Don’t worry, buddy. You’re going to be okay. As for that smashed bus – it’ll be paid for.”
He waited till the officer came back. Then, with a brief nod, he turned and swung off into the darkness. He couldn’t stop now to give the cop a detailed account of what had happened.
The trail was still hot. The Phantom had a clue to work on. The killers had escaped but, without knowing it, had left the Phantom with a lead that held real promise.
The telephone number Bowers had dialed back there in the hideout! The Phantom’s photographic memory had retained it. KLondike 5-9292.It might bring him close to the real brains behind this carnival of murder.
The Phantom phoned Information and asked for the name of the party under which the phone was listed. He was surprised when the answer came back. The Square Deal Candy and Cigar Store. He came to the conclusion at once that the store must be a mere connecting link in the murderers’ activities. A relay spot perhaps. He got the address, hopped in another cab, and sped to it.
In the darkness of the cab’s interior he made quick changes in his make-up. He removed the black wax from his teeth, the nostril spreaders, the feverish tint that he had used for Dopey O’Banion’s drug-induced flush. He might run into the murder gang again and didn’t want to be recognized.
When he paid his fare two blocks from his destination, the cabman stared at him in startled wonder. One man had entered the cab and another seemingly was leaving it. Van walked away with the driver staring after him, frowning.
HE glanced at the street numbers, crossed to the side opposite from those for which he was looking, and strolled by the Square Deal Candy and Cigar Store. It was a small, run-down shop with a single grimy window and a door at the left. A clutter of candy jars and cigar boxes was visible. There was a dim light burning somewhere in the rear. Van crossed over again, walked by the store, closer this time, and saw that the light was coming through an open transom.
There was no one in sight anywhere along the street. Van stepped into the store’s vestibule, cautiously tried several skeleton keys he carried, and found one that fit. He got the door open and entered silently, the fingers of his right hand clamped around the butt of his.38. The smell of tobacco and candy flavors stung his nostrils.
He closed the door, moved stealthily toward the rear. There was no phone anywhere in sight. He searched carefully, behind boxes, under counters, along the walls.
Then he went to that door, above which the light was coming, and put his ear to it. It seemed to him that he heard a faint sound of breathing. He tried the door, found it locked, too, and used another of his pass-keys.