Gang Pulp

The Highway to Hell By William H. Stueber

The Dragnet Magazine, January 1930

Sputtering machine guns, high-powered death cars, double-crossing gangsters... racing down the Highway to Hell!

A sudden, keen fear smote the three hard-boiled men in the powerful automobile tearing along the broad concrete road just south of the Canadian border.

The chauffeur, a bundle of nerves perilously close to snapping, clung to the steering wheel, kept his hard, narrow eyes glued to the roadway. Silently, he cursed the torrent of rain that was making the fifty-five mile an hour pace doubly dangerous; cursed the spasmodic flashes of blinding, zigzagging lightning and the ominous peals of thunder.

“What the hell do yuh mean — step on it?” he growled aloud. “I’m givin’ her all she’s got!”

“Yeah? Then it’s curtains fer us!” “Mad” Reddel snapped as his fearful eyes continued to stare through the rear window of the sedan. “Yuh ain’t losin’ that other car unless this old wagon comes to life. Why, damn it all, she used to do sixty-five without half trying. Gripes! They’re comin’ fast! We’ve got to do somethin’, and do it quick! I think—”

“Don’t!” the fidgeting hulk on the rear seat beside him roared. “You’ll get brain fever! What a fine kettle of fish you made out of this trip. Why in hell didn’t you let Mike stop when they hailed him?”

In a less tense situation, Reddel’s retort to the insult might have been a bullet. He was too busy mapping a course through which to escape the pursuing car to pay the slightest attention to his henchman’s thrust. Escape he would! Ten to fifteen years in the penitentiary, loss of twenty thousand dollars in contraband would be the price of capture. He was frantic, insane with rage.

“Slow down easy, Mike. Get that shot gun ready. Ace, you handle the machine gun — I’ll do my share with this brace of automatics. Hole everything ’till they’re abreast of us. Don’t stop altogether, Mike — don’t take her out of high! Be ready to give her the gun as soon as I yell.”

Hopefully, quickly, Mike obeyed the commands that spelled certain death for the pursuers. He threw out the clutch, gently applied the foot-brake. When a comparatively safe speed warranted it, he dropped his huge left hand from the wheel. In less than a minute he clutched a sawed-off shot gun, cradled the business end in the crook of his other arm. A nervous finger of his left hand was on the trigger, his right hand guiding the car.

Ace Christy fondled the portable machine gun, its death dealing nozzle resting on the sill of the open left window. The overwrought Reddel had lowered the rear window. The tips of both his automatics were trained on the car now rapidly approaching.

“Easy, Mike — and ready. A hundred yards to come. Steady now,” Reddel cautioned in a death-like whisper.

The hundred yards dwindled to fifty — to ten. The radiator of the pursuing car was even with the rear wheels of the gun car. A guttural growl, like that of a tiger preparing for the killing leap, escaped Reddel’s twisted lips. He saw two regulation State Troopers’ caps, the shoulder belts of two natty uniforms.

“Pull over there!” one of the officers commanded acidly. “Be quick about—”

“Let ’em have it!” Reddel yelled.

The command was given at the precise moment when the two victims were directly under Mike’s shot gun. Two blasts, two flashes seemed to come from Mike’s elbow. As the victims dropped back a trifle, Ace raked them with the machine gun.

“Step on it, Mike!” Reddel bellowed through the staccato of shots.

The car shot forward, not a second too soon to escape being rammed by the victim’s wildly careening car. Absolutely certain that both had died instantly, Reddel nevertheless emptied both his guns at the slumped figures in the front seat, distance making all save his first shots useless. With the last of his split-second shot, he squealed with fiendish delight as he watched the progress of the driverless car.

“They’re off the road. Bang! In the ditch and up against a tree! They’ll never butt into private business again!”

“For cryin’ out loud, Mike, get that accelerator down to the floor and keep it there!” Ace Christy implored fervently as chills chased each other up and down his spine and beads of clammy perspiration rolled from his forehead. “If I get out of this jam, yuh can bet your last buck I’ll never get mixed up in snow-running again!”

Hot automatics reloaded and crammed into his coat pocket, Reddel laughed raucously. “Won’t you? That listens sweet, comin’ from a guy that’s had me bulled into believin’ he was real hard. And you, Mike? You gettin’ soft too?”

“Hell no! I’ve bumped ’em off before. Why worry? It’s over now. It was them or us. The best men always win!” Mike answered with far more relief than he felt.

“Win?” Ace ejaculated. “Yuh talk as if we were out in the clear — safe already!”

“It’ll be daylight before some hick finds the bodies,” Reddel reassuringly prophesied, “and by that time we’ll be so far away we will be safe.”

Ace found little comfort in the words, the confidence of his allies.

“Fools have too much luck,” he moaned. “Somebody’s liable to find ’em in half an hour. And suppose they ain’t dead? The cops and the troopers will burn up the telephone wires. Cripes! We ain’t got a chance!”

Reddel’s anger got beyond control. His bony fingers closed about Ace’s throat like a suddenly sprung steel trap. He blazed with venom. “You yellow-livered mutt! Another groan out of you, and you’ll be joinin’ them dead troopers!”

“Hey! Lay off him, Reddel,” Mike yelled over his shoulder. “Get out of one jam ’fore yuh lay pipes for another!”

“Aw, he gives me the willies!” Reddel exploded and released the cowering, sniveling Ace. “Burnin’ up the telephone wires — with what kind of information? If they do talk, I doubt like hell they will, all they can say is that it was a Glen-dann sedan. I had brains enough to smear the license plates with mud. Why damn it, they didn’t even know how many of us was in here!”

Neither Mike nor Ace replied. For the best part of an hour, Mike kept the sedan hurtling through the pouring rain. Suddenly he swerved the car to the white concrete guard posts at the right and halted abruptly. Beyond the ghost-like posts with the two strands of heavy cable was a stretch of thick woodland. Mike turned the spotlight affixed to the windshield toward it. He glanced back at Reddel.

“I ain’t worryin’. But just the same, we’d better unload the artillery. Ace might be right about burnin’ up telephone wires, and havin’ the guns in the car certainly ain’t goin’ to help us wiggle loose if we are stopped.”

Raging inwardly, Reddel was mute. For the first time in his miserable life he wished he could drive a car. Instead of unloading artillery, he would have unloaded two corpses!

“Well?” Mike thundered. “Do we or don’t we? If we don’t. Ace and me will be leavin’ you here and now!”

With an empty chuckle supposed to be a laugh, Reddel flung open the car door, stepped out into the downpour. The small machine gun was cradled in his arm, the two automatics in his pocket.

“O.K. with me,” he said with perfectly feigned amiability. “But if we bump into more trouble where artillery would help us more than chin waggin’, don’t blame me.”

“We won’t—”

“One thing more, just so we understand each other. Every dollar I’ve got in the world is tied up in this load of coke. We’re goin’ to get it through to Fu Wang — get it through somehow. Understand? If we don’t — well, the less said about that, the better.”

“Meanin’?” Ace inquired meekly, his voice surcharged with mixed fear and curiosity.

“Aw, nothin’ much — only that you two came along fer a share of the profits, and by God yuh’ll get a share of the profits of killin’ those two troopers if we’re nabbed. They can only burn you once — they burn you just as crisp fer two murders as they do for six! If we ditch the artillery and get stopped, we’re S.O.L. — if we keep it, we can shoot our way clear.”

“Tell yuh what,” Ace said slowly, carefully. “Let’s keep the automatics. They ain’t hard to hide. Just ditch the shot gun and the machiner.”

Reddel laughed. He yanked the two automatics from his pocket, flung them on the seat beside Ace. “Thought yuh’d see the light. When we get back to New York, yuh’II see other lights, too!”

Ace winced under the veiled threat. Mike thrust the shot gun toward the boss of the expedition with a terse, “make it snappy. I craves distance!”

Reddel snatched the weapon, walked swiftly to the road guard. He was over the cable, trudging down the slight slope of ankle deep mud. Just as he reached the first of the gigantic oaks, the sharp bark of an automatic roared above the sound of rain pelting upon trees.

A gargling noise escaped Reddel’s agonized lips. Death cut short his incoherent plea for mercy. He staggered a few feet as though badly intoxicated. He dropped the cumbersome weapons of death. At the base of an oak he pitched heavily to the soft blanket of dead leaves.

“I guess we won’t see those other lights he was chinnin’ about, hey Mike?” Ace barked.

“No. We won’t — if you go and make sure he ain’t goin’ to recover.”

“Sure I’ll go. I’ll take both the automatics with me! I ain’t the wise guy Reddel always claimed to be — but I’ve got some common sense. And I know that twenty grands’ of coke might make yuh try ter slip me the same dose Reddel got!”

“I won’t. I’ll play square with you as long’s you do the same with me.”

Ace took the automatics with him nevertheless. It was a useless precaution. Reddel was as dead as the leaves. Ace was back in the car again in a moment, slamming the door.

“The steadier that speedometer sticks around sixty, the better I’ll like it,” he said.

That delightful ecstasy of a man who suddenly, unexpectedly finds himself the possessor of a tidy sum, warmed Mike. He settled down to the business of lessening the miles that lay between their location and the almond-eyed, parchment-skinned power of the underworld who would eventually exchange crisp greenbacks for the cocaine. Mike was effervescent with good cheer.

“How’s it feel to be rich?” he laughed over his shoulder.

“I ain’t thinkin’ about that!” Ace grumbled, a tremor in his voice. “I never count my eggs ’till I’ve got chickens to lay ’em. I’d give a lot to be in Fu Wang’s den right now. I’ve got a hunch we’re headin’ fer the cemetery. Wish I’d have steered clear of this whole damned business.”

The words inspired Mike. Twenty thousand dollars’ worth of the insidious drug would, profit considered, soon be converted into twenty-five thousand dollars in cold, easy-to-spend cash. Twenty-five thousand divided between two. Humph. Not so bad — and yet, why divide it? If he could have it all... he would! The resolution came as sharply, as suddenly as the terrible flash of lightning that seemed to strike close at hand. Mike glanced at the miniature watch upon the dash.

“I’ll make Albany by three o’clock,” he remarked with extraordinary friendliness. “You’ll just be in time to grab a ticket and swing on to the New York bound Montreal Limited. If your knees are rattlin’ that bad, yuh can go—”

“And leave all the snow with you?” Ace snapped belligerently.

“Cripes! I’ve heard about guys wantin’ doughnuts with a dime plate of soup — you tie ’em! You’d get a kick out of me takin’ all the chances and handin’ yuh half the pickin’s on a silver platter, hey?”

A brief struggle between lure of cash and fear locked Ace’s lips. Eventually he hurled defiantly, “I’ll stick! I’ve gone through half of it — I won’t leave all the cake fer you!”

Mike scowled blackly. A blaze of hatred and greed seered him.

“Stick then, but quit groanin’. And if there’s another shindy, don’t forget to do your bit! You can start now by takin’ this wheel fer a while.”

The switching of places was an ill-destined move. Ace had barely settled down behind the wheel when an illuminated sign at the roadside brought a screeching of brakes.

“Construction work ahead. Proceed with caution and at your own risk,” Mike read aloud with drooping spirits.

The overwrought Ace cursed a blue streak and started the car again. A stiff grade, deep holes and treacherous mud made difficult going for some minutes. At last they reached the summit of the tortuous stretch, rounded the last bend and were face to face with a steep descent.

“Long Valley,” Mike informed, as through the gloom the blinking cluster of lights far below met his eyes.

“Looks like we were on the top of a mountain — as if that was hell way down there,” Ace groaned and hesitated about beginning the perilous dip.

“Sit here and wait!” Mike barked. “Maybe an angel will carry us down.”

“I’d better go down in — God! What’s that?”

The three words were brimful of agony. Half way down the rutted, sharp decline, a tiny white light was bobbing up and down. Mike’s eyes were wide with wonder; Ace’s with fear. Simultaneously their minds reverted to earlier events of the dismal, fatal night. They were experiencing again that spasm of fear, that need of a quick decision that faced them when two troopers had signalled them to stop; signalled them in this very positive manner.

For a few seconds they were mute with terror, both their minds blazing with possibilities. Had Ace’s prophesies of burning telephone wires come true? The car started backward with a jerk.

“You damned fool, you can’t turn around here!” Mike snarled. “There isn’t room enough — they’d be here before you got half way ’round! Go ahead! There’s no two ways about it — yuh’ve got to go down. Here! Take one of these gats — let them do any talkin’ that’s necessary. Step on it! Damn the springs — let ’em break!”

Teeth chattering, hands trembling, Ace shot the car forward. The hill, the heavy foot upon the accelerator, soon resulted in a forty-five mile clip. The sedan bobbed around like a cork in an angry sea. Closer came that waving, sinister light; tenser became Ace’s and Mike’s fears for tires, springs, mechanical failings.

With an agonized cry, a realization that death was probably a matter of scant minutes, the pair discerned a light car diagonally across the torn road. There was no room for them pass; neither to the left nor right. In the glare of their own headlights they saw the tell-tale shining belt of a trooper’s uniform.

“The left!” Mike screamed frantically. “Your only chance! Ram it — ram it hard! That light boiler will swing around!”

Mechanically Ace obeyed. Things happened with Gatling gun rapidity. A blue uniformed figure hurled grotesquely through the rain. Steel crashed into steel. Mike’s automatic barked three times. Then a terrible scream — a woman’s scream — rang out.

A sickening sensation turned Ace’s stomach as he realized that the other car was fast entangled with their own. In spite of his best efforts, the motor of the sedan labored — stalled. A frightful oath came from between his clenched teeth. He was out of the car like a shot. Quick as he was, Mike was quicker. They saw the sturdy steel bumper of the other car between the spokes of their rear wheels.

The superhuman strength of madmen was behind each tug at that cold, twisted bit of steel. With the help of the slippery clay, they did succeed in dragging the front of the lighter car aside sufficiently to free their own. They then turned their excited attention to their front left mudguard which the impact had forced down upon the tire. Together they grunted and groaned as they remedied that condition. Meanwhile the rain had abruptly ceased.

Ace was behind the wheel again with the agility of a trained acrobat. He cursed the leisurely moving Mike who was coming around the front of the car.

Mike suddenly froze in his tracks. A queer sound came from his mouth as he swooped upon something laying in the sticky clay of the road; something that Ace could not see.

“Holy mackerel! What a streak of dumb luck that I stepped on this,” Mike laughed and held their front license plate for Ace’s inspection. “Our goose would be well-cooked if we left this here!”

“Put it on! Stop chinnin’! Come on!” Ace commanded with the anxiety of a man eager to be moving from a ghastly scene.

“Hold your horses — I’m goin’ to see if they’re both dead—”

“Then by God yuh’ll stay here alone!” Ace fired with white hot heat, immediately pressing the accelerator.

With a catlike leap, Mike reached safety, swung to the running board. Momentum fairly hurled him into the seat. If Ace had been low in Mike’s regard before, he was at sea-bottom level now. Mike was burning with rage, thoroughly disgusted with his confederate. Yet he eased the pressure on the trigger of the automatic in his right hand. It would not do to kill Ace while the car was traveling at 35 miles an hour over the bumpy road — time enough for that minor detail later.

“Later” arrived when they were again on the smooth concrete, and Ace stopped the car with a whimpering, “You take it — I’m half blind.”

“With fright,” Mike exclaimed emphatically and stepped out gingerly.

Ace squirmed past the gear shifting lever into the seat Mike had vacated. Even before he could voice a protest against the just accusation, there came the terrifying realization that the business end of the automatic in Mike’s steady hand was aimed at his heart. Ace saw the flash, felt the cruel stabbing pain of death.

The sole survivor of the crimson expedition leaped to the car door. A few minutes sufficed to unload the remains of the last barrier between him and the twenty-five thousand dollars. With a fiendish chuckle, Mike carried the inert form to a nearby clump of underbrush, unceremoniously dumped it from his shoulder. He dashed for the car. In a twinkling he was on his way again.

“Twenty-five thousand! Twenty-five thousand!” he gloated with unadulterated joy. “A good night’s work — damned if it ain’t! And to think how it would have all been spoiled if I hadn’t stepped on that damned license plate!”

He was in an entirely too jovial mood to give even a moment’s serious thought to his chances of getting through to Fu Wang; entirely too busy, erecting rosy air castles of the future, to think that perhaps somewhere on this road of death was the slight accusing thread that often winds about the necks of his kind and draws them relentlessly toward the chair.

It was evening of the following day when Mike sought a conference with the wily, hard-bargaining Fu Wang. With light footsteps, highest hopes, he followed the sandaled yellow servant into the gorgeously furnished room where Wang usually discussed important business.

The Oriental master bowed low, his face as blank as a poker player’s.

“That stuff you wanted ‘Mad’ Reddel to get for yuh from Canadian friends is in town,” Mike fired straight from the shoulder.

“And my friend Reddel?”

“Is gone on a long journey! That shouldn’t cut any ice—”

“None — except perhaps that he would not take unkindly to this humble person’s regretful saying that the need for the stuff has passed,” the clever Wang drawled as he read the meaning of long journey; knew that here was a splendid opportunity for securing contraband at a great bargain. “You see, my friend, the police have grown weary of watching my other sources of supply — I have plenty on hand. However, since you have no doubt risked life and liberty in my humble behalf, I will—”

“Take the stuff off my hands for about half what it’s worth, hey?” Mike rasped. “Well, the price stands at what you offered Reddel — take it for that, and take it quick or the market’s going up! Twenty-five thousand in cash. If that hurts your ears, Soy Ling will be glad to see me.”

Mere mention of his most formidable competitor in narcotics gave Wang a tremor. An offer rose to his tongue. He gulped it as Mike already turned toward the door.

“Never be it said that this humble party retracted an offer — I pay you the set price, pay you gladly — when you deliver the goods here!”

“Nix! You come with me to where the goods are; you give me the cash and bring the men to lug the stuff away!”

Wang shrugged his stooped shoulders. “It is well. I most humbly agree. The address?”

“Oh, no you don’t, Wang! You pulled that stunt on Jenks — got the address and hijacked him out of the stuff. Fer this deal you pay cash and then carry. And until you’re safely on your way, just about a dozen gats will be ready to spit lead at the first sign of a double-cross.”

“We will go—”

“Now!” Mike ejaculated decisively.

“My friend does not reckon with the hour — nor my own caution. Banks are closed and I do not have twenty-five thousand dollars at my unworthy fingertips.”

“Then at nine thirty in the morning—”

“Be of good cheer, my friend, the drug it does not require great haste. It does not evaporate. In the morning I am busy. I will await your pleasure after the hour of four tomorrow afternoon,” Wang declared with convincing finality.

“No — aw, all right then. Four o’clock and with twenty-five thousand in your jeans — and no schemes in your nut, either! Get me?”

Mike was bowed out as elegantly as he had entered.

Leaving the wily Fu Wang, he hastened to his rooms. Through his dirt-streaked window that opened on a filthy court, he could see the long row of tin garages, one of which housed the car and the dope. He turned to the paper he had snatched on his way from Wang’s. Its glaring headlines brought a chuckle to his lips — a chuckle and a greater sense of security. He plunged into the fine type, the story of the mysterious slaying of two State Troopers by assailants who left not a single clue.

Further down the page, in a tiny footnote, he read of the finding of the body of one readily identified via the Rogues Gallery as “Mad” Reddel. Ace Christy’s passing merited an even smaller notice, and on the next page the mysterious death of State Trooper Neldan and his fiancé were amusingly recorded as a lover’s quarrel that ended in suicide and murder.

Mike flung the paper from him, chest puffed with conceit. “If I ever get so dumb that I can’t make a living otherwise, I’ll join the police force. Of all the fatheads in the world, they’re the cream! Imagine not being able to hook those three things together,” he soliloquized while a broad smile swept his face.

Fully clothed he tiling himself upon the filthy bed and thought of the morrow and the twenty-five thousand dollars that would be his. How long he lay there, he did not know. Suddenly the creak of a rusty hinge brought him to his feet like a released jack-in-the-box.

Frantically he dashed to the window. Three figures were idly trudging through the two rows of garages. They did not hesitate. They were soon lost in the shadows. With tremendous relief, and a deep sigh, Mike slumped into a chair. He could see the lock on his own garage shining in the moonlight. The men had evidently been in one of the other garages — perhaps that creaking hinge had been mere imagination.

In spite of his own repeatedly mouthed assurances that all was well, Mike found sleep an utter impossibility. All night he sat at that window telling himself that he had nothing to fear; but finding a denial in the very air.

At dawn he was haggard and drawn. By three o’clock he was on the verge of insanity from the rigid suspense. With a prayer of thanks that at last the hour had arrived, he made ready for his trip to Wang’s, made ready by cramming an automatic in each hip pocket and making dire predictions against the health of the yellow man, at the first false move. He went down the dark hall cautiously; down the rickety stairs two by two.

His eyes narrowed, his heart seemed to stop as he opened the vestibule door and looked across the street. A man bearing all the tell-tale marks of a detective was intently studying the front of the tenement house. Their eyes met.

Mike knew retreat would arouse suspicion. Boldly, with a nonchalant whistle and a weak mental reassurance, Mike stepped to the street. As he walked hurriedly, fearfully, he watched the other out of the corner of his eye as long as possible.

“Imagination.” Mike mumbled to himself as he walked another block and was not followed. He quickened his steps toward Wang’s, feeling more secure with each step.

His happiness died a sudden, violent death as he laid his hand on the doorknob of Wang’s and saw what appeared to be that same detective on the next corner. There was no choice. He had to go in!

“To Hell with your damned tea!” he growled at Wang’s proffered hospitality. “Dimes to apple pie I’m being trailed!”

He dashed to the window opening on the street, turned wild eyes toward the corner. He laughed uproariously as a second man approached the first and wrung his hand. Arm in arm the pair trudged off.

“My mistake, Wang!” Mike said apologetically. “He wasn’t a gumshoe artist after all — just waitin’ fer another bozo. I will take a cup of that tea — stronger than tea if you have it!”

Wang yanked a heavy silk cord hanging near the door. Within a minute he hoisted his glass, clinked it against Mike’s.

“To our mutual success and the damnation of the police!”

“To the police! Our jails would be full if they was smarter!”

Mike, Wang and two stolid Chinamen went out through the back door, down a rank smelling alley; hurriedly entered a waiting car. Mike’s hands were on the butts of his guns even while he directed the chauffeur. Not until the last minute did that solemn-faced individual know his ultimate destination.

“We’re here, Wang. And don’t forget what I told you about gats waiting fer the first crooked move,” Mike lied perfectly with a purposeful glance at the windows of the tenements.

Wang bowed regally. “It is said that only a fool tempts fate.”

Quickly Mike unlocked the garage door. The four entered: the door was then closed and latched on the inside. “Under the rear seat you’ll find the stuff. Let’s feel the cash!”

The servants dove for the seat while Wang surrendered a pile of greenbacks. Mike snatched them like a starved man snatches food. Then suddenly came an ominous pounding on the door.

A gun flew from Mike’s pocket: his face was twisted with rage. “You lousy yellow dog! You may gyp me after all — but by God you’ll pay for it with your life!”

Wang cowered before that wavering gun. Fear of death was in his eyes; his knees trembled. “May all my honorable ancestors be eternally damned if I have done anything wrong!”

The patter of many feet drifted through the door — the crunch of a heavy object smiting the flimsy wood. The shining edge of an ax came flashing through at the second stroke. Mike jerked the trigger of the automatic in his hand; jerked it as rapidly as nerves could be commanded. Gun emptied, he flung it aside; drew its mate from his pocket, emptied that.

A stifled scream from the outside. A harshly barked, “trade lead with ’em, if that’s what they want!”

The rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun, the splintering of wood, the whine of lead followed hard on each other. Bullets chewed a circle of wood from the door, then came streaming in without restraint. The two yellow servants were first to feel the bite of lead, Wang next.

Even before the agonized scream of Wang had died out, Mike felt three terrible hot stabs of pain about his neck and chest. The whole world seemed to tremble, to whirl, to turn black. He felt himself falling, felt the additional torture of his head heavily striking the stone floor.

Slowly, painfully, Mike opened his eyes. Sight of a blue uniform, brass buttons shining beneath the glare of electric lights, stabbed him worse than his bodily pain. Through the haze came the realization that he was in a hospital ward. He smiled inanely, tugged at the blue on the right side of his cot. “Hey — what happened?”

“You got in the way of lead and—”

“Cripes, you’re as thick as the rest of ’em. I know that! I mean what wised you guys up to me?”

“Nothing. You’d better lay back there and try to sleep now...”

“Hey! Don’t try ter pull the wool over my eyes — I... I know I’m going. I’d go laughin’ if I knew how—”

“Then I’ll tell you. You led us a great chase. You would have gotten away with this, all of it, if only that license plate hadn’t come off your car when you crashed into the trooper’s — who by the way told us before he died that his car was disabled and he signalled you merely to ask for a tow.”

“But — I found — it — we didn’t leave the license plate — behind—”

“No, you didn’t. But somebody stepped on it and the letter C and the first three numbers on it were imprinted into the clay of the road. Too bad it didn’t rain more and wash that trade mark away. It didn’t! Then all we had to do was check up on all cars with plates beginning with C 3-5-9.

“Last night we found Reddel’s name in the license bureau. What a fool he was to register his car in his correct name and address! We turned up his garage, found the car smashed, learned from nosey neighbors that you brought it in last! We got a duplicate key from the owner of that row of garages and found the drug under the rear seat.”

“Wise guys, hey? Decided — to — wipe out Fu Wang at the — same time, hey? And that stuff in the newspapers — that was bunk?”

“Yes. Bunk! It’s always our motto to get two birds with one stone.”

“Yeah — but you can’t convict me — you can’t convince a jury that I killed anybody — you can’t—”

“No, we can’t. Your case is in a judge’s hands who doesn’t have a jury in the court room.”

A spasm of agony gripped Mike. Through clenched teeth he laughed; groaned, “Twenty-five thousand bucks! Twenty-five-thousand—”

He sank back upon the white pillow. A shudder passed through him, shook him like a gale shakes a sapling. His wide eyes lost the sparkle of life. He was on the main highway to Hell.