Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 105, No. 5, October 10, 1936

Chapter I Contact

Ed Kirby cut the air on the pneumatic drill and carried it to the tool shed. The motor on the compressor coughed a couple times then went dead. The day’s work was over. He joined the other workers as they climbed out of the shale-rock excavation sixty feet below the sidewalk level.

From the pocket of his whipcord breeches he took out a hand-kerchief and wiped his moist face. Men were all around him crowding, making coarse jokes and smoking.

Ed nodded casually to some of the workers he had known only a few days. But he didn’t have a word to say to any of them. He merely looked. All day long he had looked at new workers coming on the job, searching for a face stamped on his memory. There was about him an air of infinite patience.

A big man — Kirby, with blond hair, a lean jaw and grayish-blue eyes set deep into cavernous sockets. His upper body was naked and brown. He found his shirt and coat on the upper level and pulled them on.

Then he joined a line in front of the paymaster’s window. He had no pay coming. He got his pay through the Bureau of Criminal Investigation of the Department of Justice. But he received a pay envelope from the clerk behind the tiny window which he shoved carelessly in his pocket. The envelope, he knew, had nothing in it but blank paper. Then he took a position close to a rack of steel girders.

His eyes were on the faces of the men standing in line for their turn at the window. He watched them one after the other until the line had diminished to one man. Then three or four stragglers joined it, one of them in a blue serge suit. At sight of this last man, Ed Kirby suddenly became tense.

His grayish-blue eyes twitched. A grim smile puckered the corners of his lips. Dip Morengo had joined the line. No doubt about the gunman’s identity. Kirby had memorized the man’s face from photographs. He had a thin, pointed nose, bloodless lips, ears that were plastered flat against his head, and there was a slight trace of furtiveness about him. Morengo had come for his pay.

Ed Kirby moved fast — not towards Morengo, but through a gate in the high fence surrounding the excavation. He raised his arm in a pre-arranged signal to two men in police uniforms across the street. They sauntered towards Kirby but seemed wholly unaware of him. Three of the stragglers came through the gate. The officers ignored them. Morengo came through. Kirby’s head nodded ever so slightly.

The men in uniform converged upon Dip Morengo whose eyes slitted as he saw them and guessed their intentions.

“Don’t make any trouble, Morengo,” clipped one of the officers. “You’re coming with us. You’re wanted at headquarters.”

They ran their hands over his body. No guns. They grabbed his arms and hustled him beneath an overhead platform covering the sidewalk towards a side street. Ed Kirby followed close behind. The officers with their prisoner were not moving very fast. Ed overtook them just as they were turning the corner.

From the pocket of his coat he took a vicious-looking leather blackjack. But it wasn’t as formidable as it appeared. There was nothing but soft cotton beneath the leather. He slugged the man on Morengo’s right with the first uplift of his arm. The second officer whirled. The blackjack caught him on the side of the neck, staggering him. Ed socked him again before the officer could recover his balance. He sank to the sidewalk.

“Gee!” snarled Kirby, pocketing the leather weapon, “how I hate these bulls.” He wiped the back of a dirty hand across his mouth. “Beat it, fellow. Move fast, or we’ll get jammed!”

Morengo hadn’t said a word. Half way down the street, Ed Kirby grabbed him by the arm. “Down here,” he said, dragging him into a cluttered alley.

Behind them they could hear a confusion of voices, then the shrill tremolo of a police whistle. Kirby pushed his way through a stack of trash boxes to a screen door: He opened it and crowded through. Morengo came in with him.

They were in a steaming kitchen. A cook turned from his range and nodded to Kirby.

“How are yuh, chef?” Ed called out. “I’m bringing in a friend.”

“Sure,” grinned the rook. “Good supper tonight.”

Ed led the way through a swinging door to the hack part of the eating house. He had taken many meals there and was thoroughly familiar with its arrangements. He waved to a waiter. “Two suppers. Make the service snappy. And a couple bottles of beer.”

The beer came at once. Then hot plates of food.

“Why?” began Morengo, speaking for the first time, “the rush?”

Ed Kirby took a drink of his beer. “Eat, fellow. The cops will be here any minute now — not those I knocked out, but others. Make it look like we’ve been here a long time.”

As they started to eat, two police officers came through the front door. One of them spoke to the cashier. Kirby and Morengo could see the cashier shake his head from side to side. The second officer walked half way back between the tables, shrugged and went forward again. Then they left.

Ed Kirby drank the rest of his beer and lit a cigarette. “Scram, guy! The heat’s cooled off.”

Morengo leaned back in his chair. His slitted eyes studied the gtayish-blue ones of his rescuer. “And who the hell are you?” he asked.

“Kirby,” said Ed, “if it means anything to you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“That’s okay by me. Didn’t expect it would.”

“You working on the Starret job?”

Ed nodded. “Rock driller. Had to grab something in a hurry. Blew into New York again a week ago from the West Coast. Got hot out there, and I figured the change would prolong my health. Grabbed this job till something better comes along.”

“I see.” Dip Morengo relaxed in his chair. “I was on that Starret job myself till last week. I had some back pay coming so I dropped in to get it.”

Ed Kirby said nothing. He hunched down in his chair and stared towards the front windows.

“A driller, eh?” resumed Morengo. “Do any of that work out west?”

“Whose business is it what I did?” Ed’s voice took on a sudden edge.

“Don’t get jumpy, guy. You got me out of a jam. Guys don’t usually slug cops...”

“Me,” broke in Ed Kirby, flatly. “I’d slug a cop any time I had the chance. They rile me — cops and G-men!”

Morengo laid the palm of his right hand on the table and absently tapped the cloth with his fingers. “There might be an opening for you here in this town, Kirby.”

“Ummm!”

“Where you staying?”

“Blackmoor Hotel.”

“That’s a dive. A guy with ability ought to have an apartment with a swell-looking moll running the place.”

“Not on a driller’s pay.”

A thin laugh parted Morengo’s bloodless lips. “Guys in this town call me Dip Morengo. But I ain’t no dip, see?”

Ed Kirby didn’t see and said so. “If you ain’t a pickpocket what the hell are you?”

Morengo had no answer to this one. A silence fell between the two men so suddenly brought together. Finally Morengo pushed his chair back. “I’m leaving,” he announced.

Ed Kirby didn’t change his slouched position by as much as a hair. “Oke,” he said.

Morengo got halfway to the cashier’s desk, thought of something, then hurried back. A waiter came to the table. Both reached it at the same time.

“Another bottle of beer,” said Kirby.

“And give me the check,” added Morengo.

Ed Kirby shrugged. Morengo vanished.

Chapter II Up a Step

The Blackmoor Hotel on Twenty-eighth Street was dull and ugly as seen from the street. It was even more ugly in the lobby. There were four leather chairs facing the front windows. A short counter with a grilled ironwork protecting the cashier’s desk. A rack for keys. Some mail boxes, and a single telephone booth. There was an elevator and a spiral staircase leading upstairs.

Ed Kirby came in about eight o’clock. The night clerk, a man with a pock-marked face, took a key from the rack and handed it to him without a word. Kirby saw that the elevator wasn’t in the shaft, so he went up to the third floor by the stairs.

His room, 309, was at the front end of the building facing the street. In it was a bed, a bureau, a small table, a connecting bath, and two chairs.

He took off his work clothes and stepped under the shower. Then he shaved and put on a dark suit. The coat proved too warm. He took it off. In his shirt sleeves he sat down at the table, took a deck of cards from a small drawer, and dealt himself a hand of Canfield.

After a time he had six bottles of beer sent up. He drank the beverage slowly, flicking the cardboards in their appointed places. He knew that his chief in the Field Office would be waiting for a report. But Kirby wasn’t ready to make any. Not yet.

It was close to nine when he heard the clang of the elevator door in the hall outside. It occurred to him that he was going to have a visitor. Without a word having been said, he knew that Morengo would come to the hotel.

Steps sounded outside the door and stopped. Someone knocked. Kirby’s eyes raised. “Come in,” he called.

He was still holding cards in his hand when Morengo and a stocky man with a cherubic face entered.

Ed Kirby looked surprised at seeing Morengo. “Hello,” he said. “You again?”

“Yeah,” said Morengo. “It’s me — and a friend. A guy you ought to know. He can do things for you.”

Kirby flipped the cards to the table. “So.”

Morengo made the introduction. “Kirby, this is a good friend of mine — Joe Wyman, owner of the best gyp joint in town — the Golden Mirror.”

“Glad to meet you, Wyman,” said Ed. “Heard about your place in Denver, New Orleans and Detroit.”

Joe Wyman’s cherubic face broke into a wooden smile. “You must move around a lot, Kirby.”

“I do. Have to the way I’m fixed.”

“Working?”

“Was — if I haven’t lost my job with the Starret people. Someone might have turned me in for getting sore and slugging, two cops. There were plenty of men around who knew me by sight.”

“How’d you like to work for me as a bouncer? I need someone, who is tough and can take it.”

“Thanks,” said Ed, shaking his head. “It’d bore me stiff. I don’t get any kick handling suckers and drunks.”

“Spoken like a gentleman,” broke in a strange voice. The hall door had opened. Framed in the opening stood a tall man in a dress suit. His face was flushed. “Drunks and suckers. That’s me. Hi, Joe, you old bandit you. Rye. I want rye. Get a bottle of it. Get a case!”

Joe Wyman sighed. “Monty, what the hell you doing here?”

“I saw you come in from the street. ’Scuse the hiccups! Followed. Thought you were opening a new place. Didn’t want to be left out. Not Monty.” He turned and bowed low from the hips towards Ed Kirby.

Had the other two men seen Monty’s face, they might have wondered why his left eyelid drooped ever so cunningly in a wink.

Monty straightened. He was a perfect gentleman at all times. “Sorry to intrude, sir. Truly. My mistake. The liquor they serve nowadays is abominable.” He grinned. “Off we go. See you later, Joe.” He turned around in the door opening, weaved, belched and went humming down the hall to the elevator.

But Ed had not forgotten Monty’s drooping eyelid, and the meaning it conveyed. “Nice boy friend,” he observed. “Where’d you pick him up?”

“He just happened,” said Wyman. “One of those playboys you hear about. But he spends plenty in my place as well as in other night clubs, so I put up with his foolishness He’s a nut I guess. Well, I think I’ll move on. No harm in offering you that job, Kirby?”

“Not a bit, Wyman. Thanks.”

“I’m staying for a few minutes, Joe,” said Morengo as he opened the door for his friends. “See you later.”

He closed the door after the owner of the night club had left, and took the chair Wyman had vacated. “You turned down a good job, Kirby. There’s plenty of gravy in being a bouncer at the Golden Mirror — plenty of rich gravy.”

“I’m not looking for gravy,” said Kirby. “What I want is meat.”

“Tough pickings in this town.”

“I can wait.”

“Know any big shots around here, Kirby?”

Ed shook his head. “I’ve been away for a couple years and I just got back. No, I don’t seem to be acquainted no more.”

“Who did you work for on the West Coast?”

“What is this — an inquisition?”

“I’m trying to get a line on you. Maybe you’re regular. Maybe you’re a damned Federal...”

Ed Kirby got to his feet. His eyes were shot with danger signals. He grabbed Morengo by the collar, lifted him bodily from the chair and struck him in the face. Morengo jerked free and backed away.

Morengo’s right hand whipped beneath the lapel of his coat. But before he could get within touching distance of his armpit holster Ed Kirby’s left hand streaked forward. And Morengo found himself staring into the black muzzle of an automatic.

A faint smile of derision parted Kirby’s lips. “When you start calling me names, Morengo — learn to smile. Now, put the notion out of your head that you’re going to pump lead into me. It won’t work. For I should hate to leave this hotel just because I shot a guy. That’s how it stands between us, Morengo. And I don’t hold no grudge.”

There was something close to admiration in Morengo’s slitted eyes. “You’ll do, Kirby,” he said. “If the boss wants someone to vouch for you, I’ll do it myself.” His hand emerged from under his coat — empty.

“Boss?” Ed Kirby’s eyebrows lifted. “You mean Joe Wyman?”

“Hell, no!” Morengo laughed. “I’m talking about the Big Guy.”

“Oh!” Ed Kirby sat down and poured himself a glass of beer. “Help yourself, Morengo. I don’t know who the Big Guy is you’re talking about. I’m not asking you. I don’t give a damn. See? I’m open for business with this Big Guy. But I do things my own way. And I work at my trade. My job is my alibi. Dicks never bother a guy with a steady job.”

“Yeah,” nodded Morengo. “I feel the same way. Right now I’m working on the tunnel job under the East River. Timekeeper. I’m in strong with the office superintendent. If you get canned from the Starret job, come down to the river. And I’ll see that you’re taken care of.”

“Thanks,” said Ed. “Maybe I’ll do that little thing.”

Dip Morengo rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I wish,” he mumbled, “I knew what those two cops wanted of me. It’s got me worried. They ain’t got nothing on me. I’m in the clear.”

“You and me are never in the clear. What do you care what they wanted of you? It would have been plenty if they once got you down to headquarters.”

Dip Morengo shook his head. “Not with the mouthpiece the Big Guy would furnish me. I’ve been through the mill before. But it gets me — what in hell did those cops want when they nailed me?”

“Don’t ask me.”

Morengo didn’t, again. Nor did he say anything more about the Big Guy. Between them they finished the beer, talked about various jackets, women and firearms, then Morengo got to his feet.

“Do like I say, Kirby. If the Starret people let you out, or you think it’s too hot to report for work in the morning, come down to the tunnel. I’ll fix things like I said.”

“That’s a swell idea,” agreed Kirby.

Alone, after Morengo had left, Ed Kirby resumed his game of solitaire. At ten o’clock he got up, yawned, stretched in full view of the window, then switched off the light.

But he didn’t immediately go to bed. Instead, he pulled a chair close to the window and stared out into the lighted street. His mind went over everything leading up to this living in this miserable room, eating in cheap restaurants and working as a skilled mechanic on construction jobs.

A new racket had sprung up in the city and other cities as well. Murder at prices ranging from five hundred to ten thousand — depending, of course, on victim and his standing. This new racket did away with numberless gangs. In some cities certain gangs had been wiped out by the new order of hired killers. Money was paid on the spot. The murder generally took place within twenty-four hours.

The city police had requested help from the Department of Justice because this racket, unless curbed, would soon become nation-wide. Two politicians, an assistant district attorney, and one G-man had already been rubbed out — murdered in cold blood at an agreed price.

Others were undoubtedly due for sudden extinction among them was G-man Nelson Grant. Quiet, courageous, and shunning all contacts with crooks and murderers, he was the exact opposite of Ed Kirby. But his distaste for publicity could not keep him from being known, feared and hated. Grant was born to riches, with talents that far exceeded Kirby’s. Yet he and Kirby had always worked together through failure and success, linked by a friendship sealed many times in the past in blazing bursts of gunfire from an aroused gangdom.

But Nelson Grant had disappeared. The murder racketeers were trying desperately to trace him. In time they’d uncover him, unless.

Ed Kirby smiled bleakly in the dark. His thoughts at that moment were not on his friend, Nels Grant, but on another man entirely — the so-called Big Guy. For weeks he had been running down one dead after another. Without exception they had all ended at the blank wall of utter failure.

And then, under grilling, a vicious little rat-bookie had unconsciously dropped a hint that led to Morengo. And tonight, through trickery, Ed Kirby had won the respect of Morengo. Would his patient combing of all the dark alleys of crookdom end as before against the usual Blank wall of defeat?

Ed Kirby got up slowly, stretched his big frame-out-on the bed, placed his automatic close to his hip, and closed his eyes. The constant strain of his precarious existence would not allow him to relax. The tiny muscles beneath his eyes jerked continuously.

He wondered as he lay there in the dark if the end of his search for the murder ring was not closer than it seemed. Would he be asked to join the gang in their butchery of human beings? He hoped so — and he even prayed that it would be soon, before other men were shot down by these commercial butchers.

Then he fell asleep, and his body jerked with muscular spasms. He woke up. Beads of sweat were on his forehead. He turned over on his side, felt for the reassuring chunk of metal beneath his hip, and dropped to sleep again.

Chapter III The Big Shot Waits

The distance between the Blackmoor and the lunchroom where Ed Kirby ate his breakfast was about two blocks. But before Ed had covered it the next morning he discovered he was being followed.

The knowledge was pleasing. It meant that certain people thought he was worth watching. His play in freeing Morengo from the cops was bringing results. They were watching him to see what contacts he made — if any. Kirby knew then that he must keep away from telephones, that he must not try to contact his chief unless absolutely sure that he wasn’t being watched.

The deception must be continued until the last barrier of suspicion was down. There was no other way to gain the confidence of the murder ring. He must continually act the part of a hard, vicious enemy of law and order.

After breakfast he went to the construction job where he had been working. A chunky man in a gray suit accosted him near the gate.

“Kirby?” he asked, speaking without moving his lips.

“Why not. Who the hell are you?”

“Never mind who I am. I was sent here. Don’t go through the gate. I guess you know why.”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”

“There’s a couple of headquarters men in there. They know who it was that helped Morengo get into the clear.”

Ed Kirby’s smile was slow in coming. He knew the man was lying. But he didn’t know why this was so unless they wanted him to be working closer to Morengo. He lit a cigarette. “Oke. Thanks for the tipoff.” He decided then that his cue was to get in touch with Morengo. This fitted in with his plans perfectly.

The man in the gray suit said, “So long!” and went down a side street.

Ed took the nearest subway downtown to where the tunneling operations under East River had just begun. A caisson had been sunk near the river’s edge in the quicksands. It was a huge thing of riveted metal slabs that rested on the shifting sands many feet below the ground level. There was a wooden building near the street, and Dip Morengo, with time cards in his hands, lounged against it.

“ ’Lo, Kirby,” he said.

Ed nodded. “A guy in a gray suit tipped me off to stay away from the Starret job. So I came here.”

“I got it fixed,” said Morengo. “The gang is ready to go down. This is your shift.”

Kirby followed him inside the workings. Here Morengo left him. With about eighteen other men, Ed Kirby entered a compression lock — a steel cylinder eight feet in diameter and probably twenty feet in length. The bottom end of this lock connected with a hollow, metal shaft that ran down to the working chamber at the bottom of the caisson.

With others of the work crew, he seated himself on one of the parallel benches inside the lock. The foreman closed the metal door leading outside, sealing the chamber within. Another man opened a valve controlling the air. Into the lock rushed a blast of furnace heat. Kirby could feel it pressing against his eyes, nose and ears. Then the first discomfort of compression was over.

The pressure dial after a time indicated forty pounds of compressed air — the same pressure as in the working chamber below. When sufficient time had elapsed, a door leading to the vertical shaft was opened, and the sand hogs crawled down the metal rungs fastened to its steep sides.

It was a long way down to the working chamber. Ed Kirby was sweating freely when he reached the bottom. The other gang was just coming out. Through the haze caused by the fluctuating air pressure, he could see the face of the metal shield that was going to go through the caisson wall and thence under the river. But before that shield could go through, an opening had to be cut into the tough metal. Men with torches would do this work — a little at a, time. It was a job that called for patience, skill and an utter disregard for personal comfort.

The air in the chamber was heated to a high temperature. Water had been allowed to seep in for immersion purposes when human bodies became over-heated. Ed Kirby knew what he was about. At a nod from the boss he took a blow torch from the hands of another man, pulled on goggles, snapped the lighter and got a flame. Skillfully he adjusted it till the flame was a thin, purplish-blue spear of heat.

He looked around him then. There was a half-naked man standing behind him with a hose in his hands. He waved to Kirby. All this, man had to do during the one-hour shift was to squirt water on Kirby’s back and shoulders.

The flame from Kirby’s, torch scorched a section of the caisson wall, chewed into it, digested it and flung back a shower of molten sparks. Ed swayed backwards, knocked the glowing chunks of metal from his shirt and continued to bore with the tiny flame.

Metal kept flicking against his shoulders. The man with the hose watched him constantly and sprayed him with water. But under that terrific pressure, things burned as though in a blast furnace. Ed’s wet shirt presently burst into flames. He cut his torch and flung himself into the brackish water covering the floor. Already he had two blisters on his shoulders.

He picked, up his torch again and adjusted the flame. Again sparks leaped and sizzled around his body. After a time he had a section cut through, and sand was pressing through from the opposite side of the caisson wall. Miners came up and fitted short planks against the opening, bracing them firmly.

Ed Kirby went on with his boring. He had worked under pressure before, and knew how to conserve his strength. At the end of the shift, his hands were smarting as he climbed the metal rungs for the decompression chamber above. Forty minutes were spent in the lock before his body became accustomed to normal air pressure.

“Five hours off,” spoke the superintendent to Kirby, “then your shift goes down again. Think you’ll stay with us?”

Kirby nodded. “Sure.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw a company phone. He wanted to use that instrument. But he didn’t dare. Morengo was standing only a few feet away.

Morengo came towards him. At a nearby restaurant they had beer and sandwiches. They talked of other contracts they had worked on to kill time. Finally Kirby said: “I might not be able to hold this job, Morengo. There was a guy tailing me this morning. I don’t know whether he belonged to the police or the government mob. I don’t like being followed.”

“Yeah? Well, he don’t work for either of them.”

Ed laughed thinly. “You telling me?”

“That’s what I said. The guy that was tailing you doesn’t work for either mob. I know.”

“My mistake,” acknowledged Kirby. “Then who the hell does he work for? And why is he gumshoeing around?”

“Quit asking questions!” Morengo snapped.

“Check!” said Ed Kirby, evenly. For three days, Ed was constantly aware of the man who followed him wherever he went. On the fourth day, his shadow was gone. Still wary, Ed kept away from all phones, seldom spoke to anybody outside his fellow workers, and minded his own business. It was time, he reasoned, for the Big Guy to show his hand.

Ed Kirby came out of the bathroom Saturday night after supper and dressed carefully in a dark suit. Barely had he finished when Morengo knocked on the door and pushed into the room.

“The Big Guy wants to see you,” he announced.

Kirby showed no surprise. “Wyman?”

“No.”

Ed knotted his tie with exaggerated care. “Suppose, bright boy, I’m not anxious to meet this Big Guy you keep telling about? After all I’ve got a good job. Things are quiet. I’m not worrying about cops placing their dirty paws on my shoulder.”

“You’ll be turning down heavy dough, Kirby. Another thing.” Dip Morengo lowered his voice. “It might not be wise, or healthy, Kirby, to turn down the offer from the Big Shot.”

Ed Kirby considered. “There’s that angle, too. And I like money. I like plenty of it in my fist when I go out to have a good time in a swell joint like Joe Wyman’s. I’ll bet there’s some grand janes hanging out in his place.” He fitted a felt hat to his head at a rakish angle. “Like a bottle of beer, fellow, before we start?”

“Naw. No time. There’s a sedan waiting outside to pick us up.” He took a leather case from his pocket and extracted a pair of dark-colored glasses constructed in such a way as to curve around the outer edges of the eyes. “The boss ain’t sure of you, Kirby. You’re new. Put these over your eyes. I know you won’t be able to see. But that’s what they’re for. Maybe the next trip we make to see him you won’t have to wear them.”

Kirby’s heart began to hammer against his ribs, but his voice was calm enough when he spoke. “Sure, Dip. Nothing like being careful. Your boss must be a big shot all right.”

“He’s got a swell racket, Ed. Absolutely new. With a few more good rod men in it, we’ll be rich in a year.”

Ed fitted the glasses over his eyes. “Can’t see a damn thing,” he complained. “Give me your arm, Dip.”

His free arm was close to his side, hand in his pocket. For a moment he hung back allowing Morengo to get ahead. Then his hand came out of his pocket and an ordinary playing card dropped inconspicuously to the curb and fell into the gutter — an ace of spades. Its special significance might be summed up in a single word: Follow.

The black sedan into which Kirby had entered moved slowly down the street. Monty, still clad in his dress suit, walked to the edge of the curb. His eyes saws the card lying face up. He signaled a cab, got in, and gave terse instructions to the driver.

Chapter IV Murder to Order

Ed Kirby made no attempt to remember the various turnings made by the black sedan. When the machine came to a stop he didn’t know whether he was uptown or downtown.

Clinging to Morengo’s arm, he was pushed through a narrow door which slammed shut after him, then was guided into an elevator. As he stepped from the cage after a short ride no more than three floors, Morengo said: “Take off the blinders. We’re here.”

Kirby looked around. He was in a narrow hall. There was a door on the right side, closed. There was another at the far end, also closed. It opened, and a man came out into the hall — a man who walked with a shuffling movement on the sides of his feet.

“ ’Lo, Leon,” called out Morengo. “I’ve brought Ed Kirby. The boss wants to look him over.”

Leon nodded. “He’s waiting for you. Come on in.”

Kirby followed Leon through the door at the far end of the hall. As he passed through he heard Leon say: “This is Ed Kirby.”

The room, Kirby could see, was large, and there were several doors opening from it, but no windows. Behind a low desk sat a man. A single word might best describe him — malignancy. He was deformed. His shoulders were twisted and hunched. His head was entirely bald. Within the depths of his sockets smouldered eyes that were like black tunnels. And his mouth was like a gash between nose and chin point.

The voice of the deformed man was sharp. He spoke without disturbing the gash that was his mouth. “Come closer, Kirby. Let me look you over. Ummm! How are you, Ed Kirby?” The gash twisted with a sardonic grimace.

Ed walked to a spot within touching distance of the desk. A wintry smile froze his face. “Just fine,” he answered. “How are you?”

The black tunnel eyes seemed to retreat into their sockets. “I don’t suppose you know who I am, do you, Kirby?”

Kirby turned his head sideways and back. “No, mister, I don’t know who you are.”

“I’m known by various names, Kirby — none of them important. To you and others I am Fleming. My organization is growing. I need new talent — men with nerve and brains. That’s why I had you brought here.”

Ed shrugged. “I didn’t ask to be brought here.”

“I was the one who sent for you. You saved one of my men, Morengo, from the cops. The only reason you did this, apparently, was because you hate cops. Right?”

“Right.”

“How would you like to work for my organization?”

“I’ve got a job, thanks.”

“You can work for me between times — nights and on days off.”

Ed studied the deformed man intently. “I still don’t get where this talk is heading. Hell, let’s place our cards on the table. I’m Ed Kirby. I’ve worked all parts of this country. I’ve been a bodyguard for a lot of big and little shots. I never tried to climb too high. And I’ve never been mugged and finger-printed. I’ll work for a price. But it’s got to be a big job or I won’t touch it. I’m not a punk.”

“I didn’t think you were,” observed Fleming, “or I wouldn’t have sent for you. Few men ever get into this room, Kirby. And only a small fraction that get in know where the place is — only those I can trust. You got in. You’re armed. You could kill me easily. But you’d never live to get out.”

Ed Kirby yawned noisily. “So?”

Fleming smiled coldly. “Don’t close your eyes, yet. I haven’t finished.” He took a package of currency from a desk drawer and tossed it to his desk top. “Fives, tens and twenties, Kirby — two grand in all.”

Ed Kirby’s eyes seemed to expand with greed.

Fleming noticed this and became more expansive. “You want this money; Kirby. And I want you to have it.”

“I know, Fleming. I have to earn it. Well, I can. How?”

Fleming laid a snapshot on the desk, drew a heavy automatic from the desk drawer. “That’s a picture of Detective Jim Rawlings of the Homicide Squad. Personally, I haven’t a thing against Rawlings. But others — their identity need not concern you — want him removed. My organization handles little affairs of this kind — expertly and swiftly. The job requires a first-class gunman.”

Ed wet his lips. His eyes were on the package of currency. Fleming’s fingerprints would be on it — latent fingerprints, but valuable evidence. He rubbed the palms of his hands together. “When,” he asked quietly, “do you want Rawlings bumped off?”

The murder-ring chieftain looked at his watch. “Rawlings leaves the Centre Street headquarters a little before eleven at night and goes over to Third Avenue for something to eat — unless he happens to be away on a case. But he isn’t away tonight. Your job is to get him as he passes under the elevated.”

Constriction tightened around Ed Kirby’s throat. For a split second, he wondered if he could take the automatic Fleming was offering him and capture the members of the ring single-handed. But even as the cold metal came into his hand, he could see them spread in well-chosen positions all over the room. He couldn’t hope to win out against such overwhelming odds.

The only things he could do was to play his cards as close to his chest as possible — which was too close for comfort — and to hope for the breaks later on. His voice was a trifle husky when he spoke:

“Okay, Fleming. I’ll handle the bump-off of this headquarters dick. But in my own way. And when do I collect?”

“I’ll arrange the payment through another party. You’ll get your pay immediately I receive word of Jim Rawlings’ demise. Clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“Very well. That’s all, Kirby.”

His bald head nodded dismissal. And that same sardonic contortion was twisting the gash that was his mouth as Ed Kirby pivoted and followed Morengo through the narrow hall to the elevator.

Here he put on the glasses. Holding Morengo’s arm he went down the elevator. Between the time he passed through the door leading outside and stepping into the back of the sedan, a drunk in a dress suit got out of a taxi near the curb and broke into a ribald song:

The tenseness went out of Ed Kirby’s face as he recognized the singer’s voice. He relaxed on the back seat of the sedan. “Dip,” he said, “I’m not going to have much time. I have to report for the 12 o’clock shift at the workings.”

“Me, too, Ed. And I hate night work. It cuts into my good times.”

The sedan braked to a stop half an hour later. The two men got out. And the machine pulled away — silently, and lost itself in the maze of night traffic.

“Take ’em off,” said Morengo.

Ed removed the glasses and looked around. “Centre Street is a long ways from here,” he said, looking at his watch. “You gonna stick with me and watch me turn on the heat when I bump Rawlings?”

“Not me. I’m hunting me an alibi. S’long, Kirby. Be seeing you.”

Ed watched Morengo fade down a cross street, shrugged and hurried towards Broadway. Some distance downtown from where he left Morengo, he became aware of the fact that he was once more being followed. A frown darkened his face. This was one time he had no wish to be followed and watched.

He tried various dodges to make certain that he wasn’t mistaken, then whirled and went back to where his follower stood looking at a window display. Argument was out of the question. Kirby hadn’t the time nor the inclination. There was only one way to get rid of the man. He took it.

His knotted fist slammed into his follower’s face. The man spun around and reached beneath the lapel of his coat. Kirby’s left smacked him down. His head banged the sidewalk. Moaning, his lights went put.

A woman screamed hysterically. “Shut up!” rasped Kirby.

Bystanders crowded close. Ed stood over his victim, scowling, making no move to get away. From around the corner slewed a radio car. A cop jumped from the running board and thrust back the crowd.

“What’s going on here?” he rapped out.

“This guy tried to nick me for my roll,” lied Kirby.

“Yeah? Well, maybe I’d better take you both to the station, and you can shoot off your mouth there.”

“I can do that, too,” Ed grinned.

The station surgeon took charge of the still unconscious man, and Kirby was hustled before the lieutenant on desk duty. The lieutenant, blue-jowled and truculent, glared at Ed Kirby with suspicious eyes as the radio officer turned in an oral report.

“You want to make any charges?” the lieutenant asked of Kirby.

“No. Keep him locked up. Do him good. Can I use your phone?”

The lieutenant called out mockingly to the sergeant at the signal monitor. “Hear that, Sergeant? He wants to use our telephone.”

“I want,” said Ed Kirby, grimly, “to talk with Dave Lawrence of the D. of J. And I want to talk fast. I’m in one hell of a yank.”

Suspicion went out of the police lieutenant’s eyes. “Why didn’t you say all this in the first place?” he snapped.

Ed said nothing. He picked up the phone and spoke a number. “A slight misunderstanding,” he told the voice that answered. “I’m in a mid-town precinct station. Fix it for me. Have them hold the prisoner till I send a man around. Good. I’ll be right down to see you.”

A few minutes later, Ed Kirby left the station by the back entrance. He entered a taxi and was driven to a drab-looking building near City Hall Park. Here he went inside to the offices of the C. I. Bureau of the Department of Justice.

David Lawrence, his chief, met him just inside the door. They gripped hands warmly. The faces of both men were grave. Briefly, for the time was growing short, Ed Kirby outlined his plan of action relative to the make-believe killing of Detective Jim Rawlings. The plan seemed fool-proof.

Lawrence nodded. “It ought to work.”

Ed smiled heavily. “But understand, Dave,” he told the chief, “I don’t like this idea of working with these rats of the underworld even to get evidence.”

Lawrence placed a kindly hand on the G-man’s shoulder. “I know how you feel, Ed, but in the work we’re doing, we’re not supposed to have any feelings. Our job is to go out, collect evidence and convict. Smashing crime is our job. Forget it.”

He took his hand from Kirby’s shoulder and returned to his desk. “I’ll assign Stevens and Weatherby to help you. You can tell them what you want. Meanwhile I’ll get in touch with Rawlings.”

As Kirby made ready to leave the office some minutes later, he faced the two clean-cut young agents who were to back his play. “Stevens, you’re to keep me in sight all the time. We’re handling dynamite tonight. If I make a single mistake, somebody’s going to get hurt. As soon as I finish the job on lower Third Avenue, I’m going to the tunnel workings for my night shift. Hang around the place. Keep an eye on Morengo, See if anybody comes to see him. He’s the timekeeper.”

He turned to the other young agent. “Weatherby, I want you to be down on Third Avenue. When everything is over, and I’m in the clear, go at once to the precinct station commanded by Captain Burke. He’ll point out a certain prisoner that’s to be released. Tail him. See where he goes. It’s important. Clear? Let’s go.”

Without speaking again, he left the building and headed for the subway, with Stevens and Weatherby trailing him not too far behind.

Chapter V Slip-Up

Detective Jim Rawlings swung his big bulk from the curb at the exact moment an “L” train roared over the tracks above the avenue. He had just crossed the first pair of surface-car tracks beneath the “L” structure when Ed Kirby, gun in hand, stepped from behind a steel pillar.

Mingling with the roar of the train going uptown came the staccato thunder of Kirby’s .38 Colt automatic. Rawlings did not immediately fall, but lunged backwards and jerked his own gun from its holster on his hip, adding its booming to the reverberating thunder beneath the steel structure of the elevated. Then he grunted and collapsed into a big heap.

When a radio patrol car reached the scene a short time later, there was only the huddled body of big Jim Rawlings on the pavement and a crowd of the morbid curious.

The police herded them back from a too-searching investigation. Internes in white jackets hopped out of an ambulance that was miraculously Close at hand, and Jim Rawlings was lifted to a stretcher and carried away.

But one man remained — long after the others had gone. He was the man in the gray suit who had warned Kirby away from the Starret job. He stood for some moments in danger of being struck by passing cabs, staring at the spot where Rawlings’ body had rested on the pavement after the rattle of gunfire had died away.

Abruptly he knelt close to the reddish smear on the pavement. In the semi-darkness beneath the elevated that smear looked queer. His fingers pawed the pavement and closed around the rounded end of a thin, glass test tube. There was less than a quarter of an inch of the glass, and adhering to the sides was a clear liquid, almost a drop. He dipped his finger into the color and applied it to his tongue.

Sudden cunning gleamed in his eyes. The red stuff was not blood. It was bitter to the taste — like ink. There were harsh glints in his eyes, and a savage twitching in his jaw muscles as he shoved both hands in his pockets and headed towards Bellevue Hospital where the ambulance had taken the body of Detective Rawlings.

Kirby’s foolproof plan had developed a flaw. The cards had been cleverly stacked, but Rawlings had muffed the deal.

The young agent, Weatherby, meanwhile, had faded from the scene. He had remained only long enough to see Rawlings placed in the ambulance. Then he hailed a taxi and was driven to the mid-town precinct station. Ten minutes after his arrival the prisoner was released following the telephoned instructions from the Chief of the Bureau of Investigation. Weatherby obtained a good look at the man in the station house without himself being seen — or so he thought.

On the street once more, he trailed his quarry uptown to the Seventies — a region of basement restaurants and night clubs where the cab he was following came to a stop.

Still watching his man, Weatherby walked down on the opposite side of the cross street. There was a neon sign with small block letters: THE GOLDEN MIRROR near a canvas canopy stretching out over the walk. The man he was following went beyond the night club’s canopied entrance and turned into a small parking lot adjoining the edge of the building.

Casually, Weatherby sauntered across the street, saw his man vanish behind a black sedan, then heard the distinct closing of a door that seemed to come from a spot beyond the sedan. Weatherby figured there must be a door in the brick wall of the building that was not visible from where he stood. He determined to investigate.

Alert to danger, he looked carefully around him. So far as he could see, there was no attendant watching the half-dozen cars parked on the small lot. He glanced cautiously up and down the cross street. No one was coming from either direction. It looked safe.

He walked into the parking place, edged around a gleaming Packard, followed the building wall with an outstretched hand towards the black sedan and a shadowy doorway that was dimly visible — then fell into the trap.

A darkish shape loomed up close to the running board of the sedan. An arm rose and fell. There was a muffled thud, and a thousand-watt light exploded in the exact center of Weatherby’s head. A low gasp trembled on his lips. He clutched futilely at the brick wall, reeled, and slumped to his knees, stunned and without strength to fight back.

Hands curved under his armpits and dragged him through the door in the wall. The silence in the parking lot had hardly been disturbed.

Leon, Fleming’s bodyguard, opened the hall door. “Berman’s here,” he said, “with a guy he slugged down on the lot.”

The gash that was the deformed man’s mouth twitched faintly. “Send them in,” he ordered, curtly.

Berman entered, prodding the now fully conscious Weatherby with a gun. The young agent’s face was pale. A thin trickle of blood had run down from his head across his cheek. He was a trifle unsteady on his feet.

“Who is he?” asked Fleming, quietly.

Berman shook his head. “I don’t know any more than you do. Here’s what happened. Figure it any way you want to.”

Fleming’s black, malignant eyes snapped impatiently.

Berman continued: “Listen, I tailed Ed Kirby after he parted company from Morengo the way I was supposed to. He must have got wise. Anyhow he cornered me down on Broadway and slapped me. God, how that guy can sock! I woke up in the station house charged with attempted robbery. Can you beat that? But Kirby didn’t appear against me and the dicks let me go.

“This guy, here” — indicating Weatherby — “was standing close to the monitor desk when I was brought before the lieutenant’s desk. As soon as I was on the sidewalk I spotted him tailing me. I slugged him down below. It was the only thing I could do. Well?”

Fleming’s eyes shifted to Weatherby “Where do you fit in?”

Weatherby tried to wipe the caked blood from his cheeks. “That heel’s nuts,” he scoffed. “I wasn’t following him. And I wasn’t near or in no station house. I was looking for a car.”

“What kind of car?”

A new one. These guys who go to places like the Golden Mirror are just saps enough to leave the switch keys inside. That’s the kind of a car I was looking for. An easy one.”

“Who you working for?”

“Ask me something else. You think I want my head shot off?”

“Wise and tough, eh?” sneered Fleming. “Maybe after a little working over you won’t be so tough.” He motioned to Berman. “Lock him up in the corner room. We’ll check his story later.”

Berman’s automatic jammed against Weatherby’s ribs. “Start walking, wise guy, towards that second door to your left and open it carefully. You’re in a jam in case you don’t know it, and it’s, going to take a lot of explaining to get out of it.”

After a few minutes Berman returned, sheathing his automatic as he entered the room. “What do you think about that guy?” He indicated with a pointed thumb the room where Weatherby was being held a prisoner.

The fingers of the deformed man drummed thoughtfully on the top of his desk. “I don’t know what to think. The punk may be telling the truth. I can’t figure him. On the other hand, he may have tailed you as you left the station because somebody ordered him to. That’s what we’ll have to find out.”

Berman paced the floor with nervous tread. He looked worried. “Where’s Harry?” he wanted to know.

The shoulders of the deformed man hunched in a shrug. His hairless head settled down between twisted shoulder blades. “I don’t know. He hasn’t got back yet, and he hasn’t phoned in.” He pawed for a moment at a loose button on his coat sleeve, then snapped: “Sit down! You make me nervous walking up and down the carpet. Harry’ll phone in the first chance he gets. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Your alibi is perfect. You were in a precinct station.”

At midnight Leon opened the hall door to admit the man in the gray suit, and closed it behind him, guarding it with his back.

Fleming’s eyes raised questioningly. “Where the devil you been keeping yourself, Harry? And don’t tell me the cops picked you up like they did Berman.”

Harry’s voice was low and strained. His eyes were still shot with harsh glints. “Give me a drink. And take one yourself, Fleming. You’re going to need it.”

From a cabinet beside his desk Fleming took out a bottle of old Scotch and some glasses. He set them on the desk. They all took a drink. Harry gulped a second for a chaser. He was breathing swiftly, jerkily.

“Talk, man!” rasped Fleming, sensing that something had gone wrong.

Harry wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I saw everything that happened when this new rod-man, Ed Kirby, met Detective Rawlings under the elevated. Kirby was standing behind one of the pillars as the dick stepped from the curb. He eased around till he stood in front of the dick. Then his gun started to make a hell of a noise.

“Rawlings yanked out a police positive and turned a few slugs loose that bounced all over the ironwork. Then he sort of grunts and takes a flop to the pavement.”

The gash in Fleming’s mouth twisted into something meant for a smile. “Well,” he sighed. “It looks like Ed Kirby has two grand due him. We’ll have to pay him off right away.”

Harry set the glass down on the desk. “Keep the two grand till you hear the rest of what I got to spill. Now listen. Along comes a radio car. It must have been spotted up the avenue to get there so quick. Even the follow-up ambulance showed up right behind it. Clockwork. It was too pretty a set-up. D’yuh see?”

Fleming gestured impatiently. Harry went on with his story:

“After things quieted down I went over to where Rawlings’ body had rested on the pavement. You know how blood, is. It turns black damn quick. The stuff I saw was still red. I knelt down and found the end of one of those tubes a chemist uses. There was still a little of the color inside the curve of the glass. I tasted it. It was bitter. Blood is salty. This stuff was like gall. Get it? Jim Rawlings was never shot. He faked death when he wasn’t even scratched and tried to make it real with this red stuff in the glass tube.”

Berman’s face went white. He sat down and poured himself another drink.

For several moments Fleming said nothing. But his eyes had narrowed, and the gash that was his mouth started twitching. He returned the package of money to the drawer. Finally he spoke:

“Are you sure of all this, Harry?”

“Damn right I’m sure. The whole set-up was a phony. Now listen. The ambulance came from Bellevue. So I went there to do a little checking. Finally I got the lowdown from one of the internes who was in on the deal, and it cost me plenty to bribe him into talking. But in the end he spilled everything. There not a damn thing the matter with Detective Rawlings. He’s in a private ward at Bellevue.”

The deformed man ran the tip of his forefinger along the gash that was his mouth. His tunnel-black eyes seemed to stare into far space as if he was looking into the future. And he didn’t seem happy at what he saw.

“We’ll have to move fast, Harry. This fellow Kirby fooled me completely. He got the edge on me by that stunt he pulled when he cracked those two cops over the head and sprung Morengo.”

“Hell!” granted Harry. “This Kirby is a cop himself.”

“Wait, Harry,” counseled Fleming, speaking in a flat voice. “We mustn’t make any mistakes. This business goes deeper than a play by the metropolitan police. There is something sinister about it that makes me wonder. Kirby is a blond. A big man, bard and cold as ice, quick on the draw and wise.”

“You mean,” croaked Harry, sucking in a deep breath, “that Kirby...”

“He’s had his hair bleached,” Fleming went on. “It was brown. Now it’s light. And he’s posing as a working man. He took a leaf out of Morengo’s book. Listen, the both of you. Ed Kirby is the missing G-man down on our list for a bump-off. He’s Nelson Grant. He must be!”

Harry began to dribble curses as he paced the floor.

“Swearing won’t help matters,” snarled Fleming. He hunched his twisted shoulders, and it made him look like a gnome behind the desk — a gnome with all the evilness of a Satan. “I’ve never seen Nelson Grant,” he went on. “None of us have. He always kept himself in the background. Very little publicity. But he was always in the forefront when the Department made a raid. Bullets have never reached him. They say he can’t be killed.”

The last statement seemed to amuse him. The gash above his chin twisted cruelly. Out of it came an almost inhuman sound. Fleming was laughing, harshly, bestially. Suddenly he stopped. His eyes became brooding wells of sheer malignance. His hairless head dropped forward. He cupped his forehead in the palms of his hands and seemed to barter his warped soul to Satan as bait for Ed Kirby’s sudden and horrible death. And the Devil laughed! For that soul was already doomed.

Fleming straightened. He took the receiver from the hook and called the tunnel construction company. To the voice that answered the call he asked: “May I speak with Mr. Morengo?”

The person at the other end obliged by calling the timekeeper to the phone. Fleming’s voice was crisp. “Dip,” he said, “did Kirby show up for work? Oh, he did. Good. And he’s working in the caisson? Now listen. Any chance of being listened-in oh? All right. Here’s what I want you to do. If you fail me — it will be the last thing you’ll ever do. Remember that. Kirby is not what we thought he was. He’s a sneaking, double-crossing agent of the heat-squad...”

Chapter VI Resurrection

Stripped to nothing but pants and shoes, Ed Kirby was, along with other torch men, still cutting away at the steel wall of the caisson. The circle through which the cutting shield was to drive through on its trip beneath the river was gradually taking shape. Great chunks of the metal had been cut away, and heavy planks braced against the sand and water that constantly menaced the lives of the men in the working chamber.

Only the powerful air pressure maintained by the compressors on the street level kept that sand and water back. Forty pounds of it swirled through pipes into the space below the steel deck of the caisson and pressed against every square inch of space.

The pressure caused the air to swirl in eddies like fog, and was almost as concealing. The temperature was high — always high, coming close to a hundred and forty degrees. An hour under such conditions was enough for the toughest of men.

But Ed Kirby was immune to the discomfort. He was willing to go through with anything in order to reach his goal — the destruction of the racketeer murder-ring.

Only vaguely was he conscious of the ghostly figure of fellow-workers, the hiss of air, the clank of hammers, and the sharp crackling of acetylene flames biting into hard steel.

His hour shift was nearly up. Then five hours of rest. During that five hours he must move and act swiftly. He must keep on playing the part until he found out more about the murdering. He believed he had evidence enough. But he wanted to obtain more. He knew that by tomorrow he would be in a position to get it if...

His mind suddenly went slack. He was conscious of something that didn’t seem quite right. He snapped off the flame of his torch and turned around slowly. The sand hogs had quit their work. Every man present in the underground chamber had the same thought in his mind as had Kirby: “What had happened to the air pressure?”

For several strained moments there was a silence of dull uncertainty as minds groped with the impending tragedy. Ed Kirby broke it. His body splashed through the hot water on the floor bottom as he raced towards the field telephone hanging to the caisson wall. He rattled the receiver hook impatiently. No answer. The line was dead.

A shift superintendent appeared out of nowhere. “Pressure’s going down fast,” he stated, calmly. “What’s the matter with the phone?”

“Dead,” said Kirby.

Men came crowding over to where Kirby and the superintendent stood. Anxiety and fear were revealed in their mud-streaked faces at something they did not yet want to believe. One of them rushed over to what looked like a long, metal chimney stretching up to the sky. This was the man-lock used for entering and leaving the pressure chamber.

Kirby heard him scramble up the metal rungs and hammer on the closed door at the bottom of the compression lock above his head and shoulders.

“Water’s coming up!” choked a second voice. “It’s gurgling past the cracks in the planks. Some of them are beginning to bend inward already.”

Kirby and the superintendent stumbled forward. The water was indeed rising. With air cut off from its source above, and becoming steadily weaker in the working chamber beneath the caisson, the enormous pressure from the river was beginning to get in its deadly work. And there was nothing they could do. These men were trapped.

Kirby’s lips curled. He could hear the braced timbers cracking and groaning from the strain. How long could they stand it? Nothing but thick concrete or steel could hold back the mighty pressure of the river bearing down on the puny planks. They’d snap like matches.

Mud-covered sand hogs floundered through the water towards the safety of the chimney leading to the man-lock above. But this would be a hopeless place once the river started to pour in. Higher and higher lifted the water, driving human beings towards the false security of the chimney.

Air was whistling through the planks. Sand was already beginning to blow through. Once the first plank gave way the whole structure would collapse into an avalanche — a flood. Kirby kept away from the milling bodies.

He wasn’t afraid of death. Too many times had he faced it, felt its fetid breath, and stood in its awful shadow. But to die without being able to fight against it was like tasting the bitter gall of failure. He clenched his hands. Water was surging around his hips, his chest, his neck — then the silence of the death tomb was abruptly shattered by the hiss of air as it poured into the working chamber of the caisson. The flood was momentarily checked.

There was a quivering tenseness about Ed Kirby’s lips, and dark shadows in his eyes when he emerged from the decompression lock on the street level. Stevens was waiting for him. “You all right?” he asked, huskily.

Ed nodded. “Tell me. How’d it happen?”

“Morengo. I was watching him, but I didn’t get on to what he was up to. I don’t know much about tunnel workings. He went into that little place over there,” indicating a housing built around the air compressors. “The engines were making so much noise I couldn’t hear a thing. But I saw him come out soon afterwards, look around to see if anyone was watching him, then hurry out through the gate to the street. I watched him disappear, then decided to investigate.

“I found the mechanic in charge of the compressors lying on the floor. He had been struck on the head with a pipe wrench. I poured a bucket of water over his face and he roused up long enough to tell me what to do. I opened the air valves leading to the caisson like he told me to, but I couldn’t do anything about the smashed telephone. Then I called in one of the superintendents.”

Ed Kirby lit a cigarette. The smoke cleared his head and made him feel better. One thing was certain, Morengo had attempted to kill him at the sacrifice of many other human beings by cutting off the air pressure in the working chamber of the caisson. Clearly, Morengo must have been forced to do this by someone else — the Big Guy — Fleming.

Something had gone wrong. Somewhere along the line Kirby knew that he had made an error. Where? Had Weatherby been captured? Had the deformed murder chieftain outguessed and outthought him from the very beginning? Ed Kirby would have given a lot to have known the answers to these troubled questions. He turned to the young agent beside him.

“Stevens,” he said. “If you hadn’t turned on those valves when you did I’d have been a bloated corpse by now.” He sighed. “Well, Morengo’s got a good start on us. And my guess is that he’ll be at that address Grant phones in to the chief. And that’s the hot spot we’re going to visit — before dawn!”

Stevens felt for the gun beneath his armpit. “You want me to phone headquarters for additional men?”

“I don’t know,” mused Kirby, thoughtfully, “how dose we are to the showdown with this murder-ring. Weatherby might be in a jam. I won’t know for sure until I phone the chief to find out if he’s made a report. Then there’s Grant to keep in mind. I think I’ll figure our move after I’ve talked with the chief. That’s the best way.”

Fleming’s black, malignant eyes glared at the hard faces of the three gunmen in front of his desk. “What am I going to do?” he flung at them. “What do you suppose? I’m going to sit tight. Nothing’s going to happen. This punk in the back room is out. We can play safe by planting a bullet through his head.”

He pounded the desk with the palms of his hands. “The early morning papers will be out soon — extras. We’ll know for certain then about both Rawlings and Kirby.” He centered his gaze on Morengo. “Dip, are you sure you fixed Kirby for keeps?”

Morengo’s smile was sickly. “Kirby and everybody else that was in the chamber beneath the caisson.”

“Do you see?” explained Fleming, turning to the other men. “Kirby was alone in this — Kirby or Grant, whoever he is. With him wiped out, we’ve got nothing to worry about. Take a drink and forget about it.”

A buzzer beneath his desk caused him to inhale sharply. He waited a few seconds before taking down the receiver of a special telephone whose wires led to a spot close to the elevator in the hall below. His face went green as he listened. Beads of sweat popped out on his hairless head. His voice, when he spoke into the mouthpiece, rasped like a dull file on steel.

“Bring him up, Leon,” he said, thinly, “and keep him covered.” He slammed the receiver to the hook and glared once more at the ring of taut faces in front of his own. “The dead comes to life,” he told these faces. “Kirby, alive and well, is on the way up.”

Berman and Harry both reached for their guns. Morengo slunk against the wall, his jaw aslack.

“You men let me do the talking,” ordered the deformed man. “And take it easy. I’ll give you the cue when to start shooting. Keep your guns out of sight. He’s in the hall outside — now!”

Through the hall door came Ed Kirby, arrogant and swaggering in every move he made. His felt hat was pushed back well above his forehead. On his face was something that might be misunderstood as a smile. Leon was close behind him, hands in the side pockets of his coat.

Harry and Berman moved out towards the center of the room. The door clicked shut. Leon now had his back against it. Off to one side, Dip Morengo, his eyes slitted to cover the inner confusion of his mind, crouched close to the light switch.

Ed Kirby placed both hands on his hips. “ ’Lo, everybody. Why so tense?” His eyes stabbed from one man to another and stopped when they sighted Berman. Recognition lighten them. “We meet again, fellow. Didn’t know who you were or I wouldn’t have been so rough. Honest, I thought you were a snooping dick.”

His eyes swerved to where Fleming sat hunched behind his desk. “How’s things by you, Boss? You don’t look happy at seeing me. Thought I couldn’t find this dump, eh? Brought me here with blinders on my eyes. Hell, it was a cinch. Had a little accident at the tunnel tonight. I almost croaked. So I quit. Went out to the street and damned if I didn’t fall in with the taxi driver that Morengo hired when he came here after the — the little accident.”

No one spoke. So Kirby continued: “That’s the way it was. Well, aren’t you muggs glad to see me here, safe? You don’t act it. You act like you was scared of me — or something.” His voice became suddenly harsh. “What’s eating you — all of you?”

Fleming spoke for the first time. “I’m glad you came, Ed.”

“Well, you don’t look it. Not welching on the two grand, are you?”

“No, Kirby, I never welch — not if my men play straight with me.”

“You mean — say, what the hell’s wrong?”

“Everything. Rawlings isn’t dead. He’s in a private ward at Bellevue. Nice little show you put on down at Third Avenue. Only it didn’t jell, Kirby.”

Ed’s eyebrows moved up. “Now ain’t that nice?”

“Not for you — Special Operator Nelson Grant.”

“Oh, hell!” spat Kirby. “You guys have got the jitters. Me, Nelson Grant?” He exhaled sharply. “That calls for a drink. Mind?” he asked, reaching for the Scotch.

He poured a tumbler half full and drank it neat. “I knew there was a catch in this somewheres,” he went on, setting down the glass. “I’ve been gypped on the pay-off before. But the guys that gypped me never had any fun spending the money they held out. I’m that way, Fleming. Thought you’d better know.”

The tunnel-black eyes of Fleming were veiled. He took a package of currency from a desk drawer and tossed it to Kirby. “Take it.”

Ed caught it and tucked it inside his pocket. “Fair enough,” he said. “What’s next?”

Fleming turned to Berman. “Bring in that punk you found prowling down below.” Weatherby was brought in.

Ed Kirby never batted an eye. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he showed no signs of it.

The voice of the deformed man crackled like a machine gun. “Harry, you and Berman keep your rods on this guy who calls himself Ed Kirby. Leon, get yourself ready. All right, mister,” speaking to young Weatherby. “I’m going to ask you a few questions. And you’re going to have the right answers ready.”

Leon sauntered over to Weatherby’s side.

Twisting around in his chair, Fleming spoke first to Kirby. “Ever see this wise guy before?”

The lips of Ed Kirby scarcely moved. “Never.”

“Smack the kid down,” rasped Fleming.

Leon’s bludgeoning fist crashed against the young agent’s face. Weatherby staggered against the wall, pain twitching his features.

“Smack him again,” Fleming ordered.

Leon complied. Weatherby sagged against the wall, his will unbroken.

“Talk!” raged Fleming, glaring at the defiant youngster. “You know this guy Kirby. You work for him. He had you tail one of my men. Come clean!”

Weatherby smiled contemptuously. “I don’t know him, I tell you. Never saw him in my life. I—”

Again Leon struck, first with a right then a left. Weatherby’s head snapped. His left eye started to puff and go closed. Ed Kirby remained motionless, his face a rigid mask.

“You aren’t so smart as I thought you were, Fleming. This beating up a kid won’t get you nowheres. Hell, you think I’m Nelson Grant. Prove it. Then turn your guns on me if you’ve got the guts.”

There was an interruption in the hall. A drunk was outside — singing and mumbling to himself as his body swayed from one wall to the other. They heard him fumble at the knob. Then the door opened.

Monty, the playboy souse, in a wrinkled dress suit, stood smirking in the opening. “You gentlemen are having a party and left Monty out. Hi, Joe. Come a running. Whisky all around. Bring in a bottle! Bring in a case!”

“Get out!” snapped Fleming. “Harry, get this crazy man.”

Joe Wyman appeared in the hall. “Come on, Monty,” he soothed. “This ain’t any place for you. This is a business conference. Come on back into the club. This ain’t my place.”

“Any place suits me, Joe,” hiccuped Monty. “Pour the drinks, somebody. Let’s get going. Fix up the boys in the back room. Joe, where’s all your waiters?”

Wyman grabbed his wandering customer by the shoulders and swung him around. Monty let out a whoop and pinned Joe’s arms to his side. In the resulting confusion their entangled bodies collided with those of the gunmen, Harry and Berman, throwing them off balance.

Ed Kirby’s voice cut like a whiplash through the room. He was braced against the wall — a gun in each hand. “Stick ’em up, everybody. This is a pinch!”

Leon’s gun was the first to crack from the side pocket of his coat. Burning cloth settled to the floor, smouldered for a second, then went out. A bullet smacked the wall close to Kirby’s head.

Harry lunged free from the struggling bodies of Monty and Joe Wyman and hauled out a slim-barreled Webley. Monty, no longer the easy-going drunk, swung hard on Harry’s jaw, knocking the gunman against the wall. Berman was on his knees, a stubby automatic in his right fist. Not a single hand went up that didn’t clutch a gun — and those weapons all started to erupt at once.

The blast that thundered in the enclosed space was terrific during that first moment. Ed Kirby, his eyes half closed, had his shoulders to the wall so that no one could get behind him. He sent a bullet into Harry’s leg and the gunman fell sideways.

A bullet knicked Kirby’s left shoulder. It was as though someone had sliced out the flesh with a white-hot knife blade. It stung but did not cripple. He dropped to one knee just as Morengo snapped the light switch, plunging the room into blackness.

Intermittent stabs of orange flame criss-crossed each other. Lights flashed on again as Weatherby reached the switch and clicked it on. Morengo tried to reach it a second time. Weatherby jumped him. They tangled and went to the floor in a writhing heap.

Kirby, kneeling by the wall, called out again: “You muggs had your chance. Now take it!” His gun fanned in a slow arc, spitting out death. Leon cried out and fell sprawling close to the hall door. Harry, rearing up like a striking snake from the floor, took careful aim at Ed Kirby’s chest.

Monty kicked him in the wrist, sending the gun skittering across the carpet. Berman choked, and collapsed grotesquely. Then all was quiet except for the slobbering intake of men breathing.

Crossing the room to pick up Harry’s automatic, Monty was checked by a voice with a metallic ring.

“Leave it alone!” The voice was Fleming’s.

The thing happened so quickly that Ed Kirby was taken completely off guard. The front and one side of the deformed murder chieftain’s desk dropped down.

One moment Fleming was seated behind his desk contemplating the carnage before his eyes. The next, he was crouched behind a sub-caliber Thompson machine gun capable of firing three hundred .45 caliber bullets a minute. There was a Cutts compensator attached to the gun’s muzzle to lessen its tendency to lift and fire high.

As the first stuttering chatter burst from the machine gun, Ed Kirby flung himself to the floor. Monty and Weatherby jumped to escape the heat so suddenly and violently turned on.

Kirby fired at the deformed man’s bald head and missed. The Thompson barrel swung towards his prone body. He reared up. The door leading to the hall opened suddenly and knocked him flat. Stevens, with two cops, crowded through the opening and collapsed in a pulsing heap of flesh.

Stevens’ limp fingers dropped a pear-shaped object. Ed grabbed it. Aimed and flung it for the spot on the wall behind the chattering gun. Two bullets lanced the flesh of his upflung arm. Crabwise, he crawled to Leon’s curled-up body. As he crouched behind it, leaden slugs tore off chunks of his clothing.

He flattened his head and shoulders till his face dug into the carpet. He could feel Leon’s body trembling with the shock of thudding bullets, A sharp, rancid odor stung Ed’s eyes and nose — fumes from the tear gas bomb. Then the machine gun stopped abruptly.

Ed reared up a second time. He could hear Fleming coughing and see him rubbing his eyes into the sleeve of his coat. He raised his gun, saw Monty leaping towards the death instrument, then heard a muffled thud as a gun butt lashed the deformed man’s skull.

He got up. One hand was useless, but the other still froze to a heavy automatic. His eyes were almost blinded from the fumes of the gas bomb. He went reeling across the room opening doors and the windows in the rooms beyond these doors. Then he came back to where Monty was wiping his eyes on a silk handkerchief.

He grabbed him by the arm and spoke softly, “You staying for explanations, Nels?”

Nelson Grant shook his head.

“You’re in charge, Ed. I want to keep out of it. I’m still Monty to a lot of big and little shots in this town. Chicago’s next in line for a crack down. Play the game. I’m fading.”

He stepped over the bodies of men near the door and vanished down the stairs leading to the bar of the Golden Mirror. The elevator door clanged in the hall outside and suddenly the room was filled with cops and special agents.

Ed Kirby sat down and poured himself a drink. His eyes blinked as he watched other men sort over the living from the dead, then strayed with curious detachment to the crimson stream darkening the back of his hand.

“But I’m still alive,” he thought. “Still alive till the next showdown. And the next — and the next!” A slow smile spread over his tense face. He wouldn’t have had it otherwise. For Ed Kirby belonged to that breed of men who go down fighting for law and order. Let the Devil laugh. Ed Kirby could also laugh, and did, too, as he lunged to his feet and began to snap out orders.