Crooks Go Straight

CHAPTER IV. OUT OF THE PAST

IT was evening in Manhattan. Times Square, with its galaxy of lights; broad avenues with lesser, yet brilliant illumination — these were the channels that attracted the pleasure-seeking throngs of the great metropolis.

In contrast were the side streets, where lights dwindled as one left the brilliance of the avenues. Here shaded seclusion dwelt amid the teeming city. Nervous pedestrians, as they passed certain spots, could sense impressions of lurking danger.

Not far from Times Square stood a dark-fronted building that seemed pinched between taller structures on each side. The first floor, a full six feet above the street level, was occupied by a Chinese restaurant.

Above the eating place were blackened windows that signified unoccupied rooms.

A man from the side street came up the steps that led to the Chinese restaurant. He entered a hallway at the top of the steps; but instead of passing through the curtained doorway to the restaurant, he kept straight ahead along a poorly lighted hall and took to a stairway at the end.

He followed the steps to the second floor. There, by a single gas light, he noted the second door on the right, toward the rear of the building. A dim light shone through the glass-paneled front; but the door bore no name. The arrival opened it and entered.

BEHIND a dilapidated counter stood a wizened, droop-faced man who eyed the newcomer with an almost startled gaze. There was reason for his semblance of fright — for the intruder was a square-set, hard-faced ruffian whose features carried a malicious leer.

“Your name’s Dangler?” inquired the intruder, closing the door behind him.

“Yes,” replied the wizened man with a nod. Then, in a whining voice: “Are you sure you have the right office? I am a dealer in postage stamps. My name is not yet on the door; but—”

“Cut it,” snorted the hard-faced man. “I’m not a dick. You’re running this biz on the up and up, ain’t you?”

Dangler nodded.

“Then don’t spill a line like that,” growled the intruder. “It sounds fishy. Like you was a guy with a record. Nobody’s got nothing on you, Dangler, even though you was in the green-goods game. Don’t be scared of no bulls — nor Feds, neither.”

An expression of enlightenment dawned on Dangler’s face. The wizened man managed a grin.

“Are you Mr. Ortz?” he questioned.

“That’s me,” chuckled the hard-faced rogue. “I’m Lucky Ortz. The guy you’ve been expecting from Beak Latzo. I was over to your old joint; I found the card there saying that you’d moved.”

“The rent was cheaper here,” explained Dangler, “and the place is more secluded. I’ve been expecting you to stop in almost any time, since Beak told me that you would call for him. But that was three months ago.”

“Beak’s been out of town,” growled “Lucky.” “He wasn’t expecting nothing while he was away. But he figured maybe you might’ve got a letter for him lately—”

“I have.” Dangler was emphatic in his interruption. He dived beneath the counter and brought out an old, disused postage stamp album. Fishing through the pages, he produced an envelope. “This came in yesterday. Wednesday.”

“Good!” Lucky took the envelope, noted the scrawled address. It had been forwarded from Dangler’s former office. “I’ll take it along to Beak. So long, Dangler. Paint your moniker on that door and give the bulls the haha if they bother you.”

A grin on his hard face, Lucky stumped from Dangler’s office. There was something contemptuous in Lucky’s leer. To this man, lieutenant of Beak Latzo, fear of the law was something to ridicule.

Leaving the building that housed Dangler’s office, Lucky strode eastward and then turned along an avenue. He came to the steps of an elevated station. He ascended to the platform, took a south-bound train and rode for several stations.

When he again reached the street, Lucky had arrived in a most dilapidated neighborhood. He was in a district that fringed the underworld, where patrolmen were frequent, their wary eyes on the lookout for dubious characters.

Lucky passed several policemen; his gait, neither shuffling nor hurried, attracted no attention. Turning into a secluded alleyway, Lucky unlocked the door of a dilapidated house. He stepped into a darkened hall, blundered up a flight of stairs and gave five short knocks at a door that he discovered in the blackness.

A key turned. The door opened inward. Lucky stepped into a gas-lighted room with drawn shades. He was face to face with a man who looked tougher than himself. This was Beak Latzo.

THE mobleader’s sobriquet was a good one. Long, rangy and fierce-faced, Beak Latzo possessed a nose that was definitely prominent. It was a large nose, that might once have been beaklike. At present, however, it bore a flattened look — an indication that its wearer had suffered from punches dealt in fistic combat.

In fact, Beak Latzo’s nose was a target at which a battler would logically aim. Moreover, it was an item of physiognomy that would unquestionably identify its owner. That accounted for the fact that Beak Latzo was at present occupying a hideout; the only course by which he could keep his presence in New York unknown.

“Well?” Beak’s question came in a raspy tone. “Did you find the goof? Dangler?”

“Yeah,” returned Lucky. “Not at his old place, though. He’s moved to a dumpy office up over a chop suey joint.”

“That’s all right. Just so long as you found him. Anything there for me?”

“This is all.”

Lucky produced the envelope. Beak Latzo blinked with beady eyes as he noted the scrawled address.

Then he ripped open the envelope, spread out the letter that was within and began to read with eagerness.

“Is it from Steve Zurk?” questioned Lucky, noting his chief’s enthusiasm.

“You bet it is!” chortled Beak. “Take a squint at it, Lucky.”

“Say, its a scrawl, ain’t it?” snorted Lucky, trying to read the letter after Beak handed it to him. “All I can make out is the beginning — and ‘Steve’ at the end of it.”

“He writes lousy,” admitted Beak. “I knew his scrawl the minute I saw the envelope. It’s easy to read when you’re used to it, though. No trouble for me, even though I haven’t heard from Steve since the last time he broke out of the big house. Here — give it to me. I’ll tell you what it’s about.”

Beak took the letter, referred to a paragraph and then began to paraphrase a translation of Steve Zurk’s poor penmanship.

“Steve figures he’s in the money,” explained Beak. “He’s here in New York — got a job with an importer — all fixed for him by some ritzy guy named Perry Delhugh. But he’s got to make it look like he’s gone straight. Savvy?”

“Sure,” acknowledged Lucky, in a laconic tone. “With the governor pardoning him, he’s got to put up a front.”

“There’s only one mug wise to me knowing Steve,” continued Beak. “That’s a bird named Jack Targon — the one that the governor pardoned along with Steve. But Steve and Jack have split. And this guy Targon won’t squawk so long as he thinks Steve is staying on the level.”

“You mean Targon is really going straight?”

“That’s it. But he was a pal of Steve’s. So there’s no trouble there so long as we stay under cover. That is, keep Steve in the clear. Savvy?”

“I get it.”

BEAK LATZO folded the letter and thrust it into his pocket. He crossed the room, seated himself upon a rumpled bed and lighted a cigarette. A knowing smile appeared upon his thick, coarse lips.

“Steve thinks he can pick some nifty lays,” declared Beak. “He ought to, being close to that moneybag guy, Delhugh. I’m to sit tight and wait for tips. They’ll come through Dangler. Like this letter.”

“You won’t see Steve, then?”

“Not unless he says to. That would queer the racket. What’s more, I’ve got to keep my own mug under cover. If the bulls spot me, they might think of Steve.”

“They never hooked you up together, did they?”

“They may have. No telling about that. Not likely, but it would be too bad if they had. That won’t worry me, though, about being in on the jobs.”

“Why not?”

“Because Steve Zurk is a fox. When he picks a job it’s good. Like clockwork. He figures everything — the setup, the blow-off, the get-away. It’s a cinch working with him.”

“And a double cinch this way, Beak.”

“You said it, Lucky.”

Another pause. Beak puffed at his cigarette, then rasped an ugly laugh.

“Nobody knows you’re working with me, Lucky,” he declared. “Not even the gorillas that you’ve lined up. This hideout’s a pip; and there’s others just as good, in case I’ve got to dive out of here.

“What’s more, you’re sitting pretty. The bulls have nothing on you. Even the stoolies aren’t watching you for a hot tip. Besides that, they didn’t lie when they called you ‘Lucky.’ You know how to grab the breaks.”

Lucky grinned. His square shoulders hunched back as his chest swelled at Beak’s commendation. The mobleader had spoken a known fact. Lucky Ortz was one character of the bad lands who always managed to ease out of trouble’s toils.

“Don’t say much to the gorillas,” warned Beak. “Just keep them ready. We’ll want them on tap; because Steve moves fast when he sees a chance. It’s up to you to keep going in and out of Dangler’s new place. We don’t want any message of Steve’s to lie around until it’s cold.”

“Dangler’s all right?” questioned Lucky. “He looks like a scary sort of guy to me.”

“That don’t matter,” retorted Beak. “That’s the way he ought to be. Scary. He was in with a green-goods outfit — I told you about it — and we chopped down the crew. He was out when we got the others; he never knew who got them.

“I went to see him, friendly like, and made him think I was a pal of the goofs that got rubbed out. Told him to lay low and keep mum. That’s what he did. Knowing how scary he was, I used him for a mailing address, figuring he’d be safe.

“Just dumb enough to be useful. That’s Dangler. He knows nothing, so he can’t spill anything that will hurt. Steve used him before he sent me messages. It’s a sure bet, particularly with you doing the collecting.”

With a satisfied leer, Beak Latzo lighted another cigarette, then nudged his thumb toward the door.

“So long, Lucky,” he suggested. “It don’t do any good hanging around here. Check up on the mob; we’re going to need them. And keep an eye on Dangler.”

Lucky nodded. Donning his hat, he strolled from the hideout and closed the door behind him.

Beak Latzo turned the key in the lock. With an evil chuckle, the mobleader dropped back in his big chair.

There was reason for Beak’s satisfaction. To his way of thinking, prosperous days were due. For Beak Latzo had confidence in the cunning of Steve Zurk. To Beak, the letter that had come through Dangler was a prophecy of profitable crime.