Van let that sink in. Then he added: “What I want from you now is a little information.”
Hope gleamed in Guido’s eyes at that. “Yeah? S’posin’ I won’t give it?”
“That’s up to you. I’m going to hand you over to the police anyway, and they’ll send you up the river. Your only chance is to turn State’s evidence. I’m not premising anything for a rat like you. But if you squeal, tell everything you know, you might get off with a life sentence.”
Guido began to perspire. There was an air of cold finality in the way the Phantom spoke. Van went on and told in a casual voice about the old house with the swimming pool in it, and how the Chief appeared. Guido broke at that.
“Hell, what’s the use, Phantom! You’ve got the dope anyway. Don’t let ‘em send me to the chair, and I’ll turn State’s evidence like you say. The rats I got workin’ for me let me down, anyway.”
Van began firing questions, and in five minutes he got the information he wanted – the signals Guido used on the electric button behind the molding to let the Chief know all was clear, and the fact that the murder gang had not been able to find Simon Blackwell.
VAN listened as Guido spoke, not only to his words, but to the inflections of his voice. And his eyes were hawklike as he watched Guido’s every expression.
In a moment he held up his hand. “Okay, Guido! That’s enough for now. The rest you can tell in court. I’m going to leave you here for a while – and first I’m going to give you a cocktail.”
Guido’s eyes followed Van with sudden suspicion as Van went to a small cabinet and poured a brownish liquid from a bottle into a glass. Guido spoke hoarsely as Van came toward him.
“You – you ain’t gonna poison me, Phantom?”
“Not poison you, no. There’s just enough laudanum mixed with this brandy to put you to sleep for the next twelve hours. It’s healthier than the arsenic compounds you ordered Doc to feed those hopheads.” When Guido hesitated to swallow the drink which Van placed against his lips, Van said softly: “I can use the blackjack again if you prefer.”
Guido gulped the brown liquor with sweat streaming from his face.
Van left the room. When he returned in ten minutes Guido was sleeping like a baby.
Van had already removed his taximan’s makeup and laid the foundation for another. And now, with a strong mercury-vapor light turned on Guido’s face, Van commenced an impersonation which took all his skill. There must be no slip-up this time, no fatal flaw that would give him away, as there had been when he made up as Dopey O’Banion. Too much depended on success. What he was going to do tonight might save human lives, prevent other murders.
He worked slowly, painstakingly – and in twenty-five minutes Blackie Guido’s exact double was standing in that room.
CHAPTER XV
UNDER cover of the darkness a score of New York’s finest detectives moved stealthily. Singly and in pairs they converged on that house of mystery behind the high brick wall. They were armed to the teeth. Blackjacks, tear gas, riot guns, automatics.
Farragut, head of the Homicide Squad, led them. They had orders from him as strict and detailed as those of a shock-brigade in some invading army. Yet their success tonight depended on one man – the Phantom.
Van had already preceded them. Using Guido’s keys he had slipped through the gate, approached the house, and quietly entered a ground floor door. He knew his way now, knew approximately how the rooms were arranged. After he was once inside he made no attempt to be stealthy.
A flashlight suddenly winked on and fell on his face. “Hello, Blackie.”
Under that light Van didn’t hesitate or wince. He was too sure of his impersonation, He wore Guido’s Chesterfield, Guido’s derby. There were spats on his feet and pigskin gloves in his hands.
But these were mere embellishments to his makeup. He would have been taken for Blackie Guido no matter what clothes he had come in. For his face was swarthy, his nose hawklike. He had even inserted over his eyes two optical disks that appeared to give him agatelike black eyes. With adhesive plaster and facial putty he had molded his features into a perfect likeness of the Chief’s key man.
He didn’t answer the greetings of the guard with the flashlight. He simulated Blackie’s sullen mood, merely nodded, slapped his gloves, and stalked on to the billiard room beyond which the mob members were gathered. They tensed as soon as he made his appearance. Blackie Guido was feared and hated. And there was terror in the air tonight.
The cold-blooded murder of Bowers and others of their own mob had cast a spell upon them. They were uneasy because Simon Blackwell had not been found. Grim wolves of murder had combed the whole city the night before without success. They had even visited Channel Point. All through the day Guido’s killers had slunk through the streets. But their quarry evaded them.
The man called Doc greeted Van with his fawning grin. “I got rid of those hopheads for you. They never woke up this morning, The boys took them and Bowers out to the sticks and dumped them in a pond.”
Still Van was silent. He gazed at Doc with morose disinterest. Doc cringed.
“What are you going to do – about Blackwell?” he asked. “What are you going to tell the Chief?”
“That’s my business!”
Van paced the loom tigerishly, glanced at his watch. It was one-thirty now. He had told Farragut not to let his men cross the wall nor show themselves too plainly around the neighborhood until after two. At exactly two-ten they were to surround the house and break in.
It was up to them to catch the Chief’s mobsters, or as many of them as they could. Van held himself solely responsible for the capture of the Chief. For there was no way of letting detectives into the gymnasium while the Chief was there. Any shooting before he arrived, any unusual noise would surely keep him away.
Doc lighted an evil-smelling cigar. “It was tough, Blackie, about Reggie Winstead! But he hasn’t died yet. Maybe he took that poison just a cover up. Maybe he is the Chief.”
Van was wondering the same thing. But he was skeptical. The Chief had said he’d be here tonight. Van had the feeling that the Chief was as grimly certain to arrive as death. And what would he do when he was face to face with arch-killer? Van had no inflexible plan of action. It would depend largely on how things turned out.
But he fingered the butt of the heavy.45 Webley he had brought tonight and wore in a shoulder holster. A bullet from that, if it sped true, should smash the goggle glass of the Chief’s helmet; make it impossible for him to submerge.
Doc’s trembling hands and white face showed his anxiety. “It’s tough about Blackwell,” he repeated. “Wonder what the Chief will do?”
“Shut up!” Van spoke so harshly, so venomously that Doc withdrew. Van had a purpose in wanting to break down the morale of these men as much as possible. It would make it easier for the detectives.
He lighted a cigarette and silently puffed it. No one in the big room spoke. Resentful, criminal eyes fixed themselves on Van, slid away again, furtively. There were those present who would have filled him with lead if they dared. But as Guido he was the paymaster, and he was the only one among them in personal contact with the Chief.
Minutes passed, and the air of the room seemed to thicken. They all felt they were approaching a crisis. They didn’t guess what kind. The big gas heater sizzled. Cards slapped fitfully as a man playing solitaire dealt himself hands. These were the only sounds.
Then Van flung down his cigarette, stepped on it, turned toward the gymnasium door. It was one-forty-five. The Chief, if he was coming at all, would come in five minutes.