Gang Pulp

Blood Thirst By Tim Dunn

Gangland Stories, June-July 1930

Kate wanted the stench of blood and the reek of death... and she got what she wanted — in a way that she didn’t expect!

A long, low-hung motor, maroon color, drew up to the subdued entrance lights of an exclusive Sutton Place apartment. A man in livery hurried out under the pavement awning, and opened the gold monogrammed door of the car. The broad shoulders of a gentleman in evening dress appeared. J. F. McCann stepped out of his Pierce Arrow, nodded to the obsequious attendant, and crooked his elbow invitingly to the woman within the car.

A diamond buckled slipper was placed daintily on the running board, followed by a perfect leg, covered by a web of gossamer silk, and the lady known as Mrs. J. F. McCann laid a sparkling hand on the preferred elbow and glided across the pavement in an aura of rare perfume, jewels and costly sables.

The pair stepped silently over the deep rugs and into the automatic elevator, and silently left the elevator high above the street. No word was spoken as the man opened a heavy door and stood aside for the woman to pass into the huge entrance hall, where a fire flamed under the high, carved fireplace.

The man threw aside his top hat and stick and turned to relieve the woman of the furs which swathed her. The sable cape was a heap on the floor where the woman had stood and the woman herself was swinging with pantherish grace toward the wide windows which faced the lights of the East River.

For a moment, he stood, quietly regarding the shadowy ripple of muscles under the white flesh of her bare shoulders and back. There was a hint of amusement at the firm corners of his thin lips, but the keen gray eyes under the heavy brows were humorless.

He sank into a low chair, and picked up the folded newspaper laid ready on the small table beside it. The printed sheets crackled under his long, muscular hands. The woman whirled as though a shot had broken the stillness of the room.

“Damn you, Mack!” she cried in a voice that shrilled high against the rafters of the two storied room, “Are you ever going to open your trap?”

J.F. McCann glanced up casually from the stock quotations.

“I have already opened my trap, as you so politely phrase it,” he said calmly. “As far as I am concerned, the deal was closed on the way home from the theatre. You are sick of this ‘lousy life,’ to use your own elegant expression. And you are damn sick of me. You are perfectly free to go back where you belong.”

The woman sprang, tore the paper from his hands, and hurled it on the blazing logs. Swiftly, the man got to his feet and gripped her white arms with fingers that dug deep into the flesh. His steady gaze met her dark, blazing eyes indifferently.

“I dislike scenes, Kate,” he said quietly. “I know what you’d like to say. You’ve said it. You are tired of the silks I’ve given you to cover your white hide. You’re tired of the diamonds I’ve given you to play with. You’re tired of luxury. You’re tired of security. You’re tired of me. You want something more. I’m not giving it to you. All right, go out and get it!”

He thrust her aside roughly. She stumbled and fell sprawling across the polished table. Her flung hand came in contact with a heavy bronze vase. Her white fingers curled around it, tensed for a moment, then relaxed. She crept to him and circled the broad shoulders with arms that already showed faint purple marks where his fingers had gripped them.

“Mack,” she pleaded, “I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to leave you! I want you to go with me. The damn play got me going tonight. You and me, Mack, dressed up like a couple of dummies in a show window, sitting in a box, watching a lot of ham actors pretend to be gangsters!”

She threw back her dark head and laughed mockingly. He stood immovable, watching the pulsations of her full throat under the circle of diamonds. The laugh died abruptly on the brink of hysteria. Quietly, he lifted her jeweled hands from his shoulders, and turned toward the stairs to the gallery above.

“You know where you can find the real thing, Kate,” he said pleasantly. “Any number of them, ready to welcome you back, and all of them real, red-blooded, fast-shooting gangsters.”

“Gangsters!” she shrieked after him as he ascended the stairs. “Gangsters! You know damn well you’re a damn gangster yourself!”

A door slammed above, but she raised her voice still higher.

“Yes, damn it to hell, nothing but a gangster, even if you do use a fountain pen now instead of a rod!”

She flung herself on the velvet cushions of a davenport before the fireplace, and lay staring into the flames.

“I’d sell my soul to hell,” she muttered, “to see some real gun play again.” And she ran her tongue over her painted lips.

A moment later, her jeweled heels were clicking swiftly up the gallery steps. At the top, she paused. The rigidity of her taut body dissolved into languorous grace, and voluptuous curves. The red lips that had so lately called for blood were sensuously moist as she swayed across the soft carpet to the closed door.

Two days later, J. F. McCann unlocked the door to his private office at the unheard of hour of eleven in the morning. “J. F.,” who always made a point of promptness, was late. He strode into the silent, spacious room, shrugged out of his overcoat, and settled at the huge, carved desk. There were six telephones on that desk, each one enameled a different color. J. F. bent over the pile of letters and documents waiting his attention. Swiftly, he ran through them, his thick brows knit in concentration. When he had finished, they were separated in neat piles on the polished surface of the desk.

He leaned back in his chair, and drew a small, white leather jewel from his pocket. He snapped open the lid. A ruby, like a huge drop of blood, gleamed on the satin lining of the box. J. F. reached for the telephone painted white.

A shrill jangle broke the intense quiet of the room. His hand moved to the instrument painted red.

“Yes?” he said, impatiently.

“Mike speaking,” said a huge voice which seeped out of the receiver McCann held to his ear. “I’ve been tryin’ to get you for hours, Mack. Trouble.”

“Turn the switchboard over to Joe, and come up by the private elevator.” said McCann, and hung up. He thrust the small white box back into his pocket, and whirled his chair to face the panelled side wall of the room. Presently, one of the heavy oak sections slid back, and a man stepped out of a small elevator and across the soft carpet.

“Sit down, Mike,” said McCann. “Have a cigar? What’s the trouble? Some of the clerks downstairs gone on a strike?”

Mike grunted and bit off the end of a cigar ferociously.

“You know damn well I wouldn’t bother you with that, Mack,” he replied. “I said trouble.”

McCann leaned back in his chair and studied the heavy figure of the man whose striped suit and yellow shoes made a glaring note in the subdued richness of the room.

“Mike,” said McCann casually, “will you ever learn how to dress for business? That flaming tie doesn’t set well on you at all, especially when your face is as red as it is now.”

Mike ignored the remark.

“Mack,” he said, leaning far over the desk, “there’s trouble brewin’. Hogan refuses to deliver. He says you’ll have to fight for it!”

McCann transferred his narrowed eyes from Mike’s loud shoes to the ceiling.

“Fight for it!” he said, quietly. “I don’t fight. I take. Cross Hogan’s off the list.”

“I’ve done that. Mack,” said Mike. “But that won’t settle it. Our man in Hogan’s mob says the Tenth Avenue bunch is backing Hogan. If he gets away with it with you, the Tenth Avenue push will pull the same trick. It means trouble, I tell you, Mack, and if...”

“It means more to you, Mike, than to me,” returned McCann. “Naturally, you’re a bit upset. Your cut-in on the booze racket is threatened. You see a nice, juicy ten-per cent fading out of your big fingers, eh? I don’t blame you. But, to me, Hogan and the Tenth Avenue mob and all the rest of the miserable little booze runners don’t mean that!” And he snapped his long fingers contemptuously.

“Yeah, maybe,” drawled Mike. “But you ain’t goin’ to let ’em get away with it, just the same, are you, Mack?”

McCann’s firm lips twisted in a smile.

“How much does Hogan think he’s going to get away with?” he asked.

“Two truckloads, scheduled to come in tonight. Our man says...”

“Who is our man in Hogan’s gang? Never mind. I remember. Little fellow — limps — black eyes — name of Bergen. Right?”

Mike’s red face relaxed into a broad grin.

“Beats me, Mack, how you can remember! Yeah, that’s the guy, all right, and he says...”

“Get him here,” interrupted McCann, and started to finger the papers on his desk. Mike rose. “You mean here?” he asked.

McCann frowned, but did not look up from the map he was studying.

“You’re getting slow on the draw, Mike. You know damn well no gangster steps foot in this office, or the one downstairs, either. Get Bergen on a wire somewhere, so I can talk to him,” and he nodded a curt dismissal.

The panelled wall slid closed on Mike again, and J. F. McCann reached for the white telephone.

“Kate,” he said softly, when the number was through, “I’ve got it — the ruby pendant you wanted.”

“I usually do manage to get what I want, Mack,” said the woman at the other end of the wire, and laughed softly.

The man’s lips tightened a little. “Yes, when you want the things I’m willing to get for you, Kate,” he said. “I’m glad you came back to your senses, old girl. I didn’t want to lose you.”

“You’re not going to lose me, Mack, not yet...”

McCann’s long fingers tightened around the telephone till the knuckles gleamed white.

“What do you mean — yet?” he began, and turned his head at a slight sound from the wall.

“Oh, just a little joke,” said the woman’s voice in his ear, but he did not reply. His eyes were fixed on the slowly opening panel of the wall. A man stepped jauntily from the elevator behind the wall, and removed a tilted derby from his slick black head. McCann’s hand flashed inside his coat. The man patted a bulge in the pocket of his checked overcoat, and smiled suggestively.

McCann drew forth a thick gold fountain pen, laid it carelessly on the polished top of his desk, and turned to the telephone.

“A little matter of business has come up.” he said quietly. “I’ll talk with you later.”

He hung up, and faced the man who still stood with his back to the wall, one hand in the bulging pocket, the other, gloved in bright yellow chamois, holding the black derby against his chest in a gesture of mock humility.

McCann fingered his gold fountain pen.

“Well, Derby Dan, it’s a long time since we met. What can I do for you?” he said, casually.

Derby Dan’s spatted feet took a stride forward.

“And how the hell did you get here?” continued McCann in an icy voice.

“Rode up in the classy lift,” returned Derby Dan, in a high nasal voice, and slid into the chair lately vacated by Mike.

“No,” he protested, as McCann reached for one of the ’phones. “Don’t bawl ’em out downstairs. Ain’t their fault. Only, you shouldn’t hire good lookin’ girls down there, Mack. They’re liable to let things slip by into the elevator, when the things is as nifty lookin’ as Derby Dan.”

“That’s enough,” snapped McCann. “You’re here, what do you want? Remember the last time we met, and make it snappy.”

“Yeah, I ain’t forgettin’,” said Derby Dan. “The last time we met, you near choked the heart out o’ me, McCann, because you thought I wanted that damn skirt of yours, the lousy...”

“Cut that,” said McCann, leaning far over the desk. “She happens to still be my skirt, understand?”

“Yeah, and maybe she won’t be when I get through talkin’, Mack,” said Derby Dan, with a yellow-toothed smile.

McCann made a move to spring from his chair. Derby Dan went on grinning.

“I’m here to talk, Mack, and I’m goin’ to talk, if I have to plug you first and talk to a stiff after. I’m here to do you a favor, see? And what’s more, I’m keepin’ you damn well covered while I do it.”

McCann raised the gold fountain pen an inch or two above the desk.

“You’re damn well covered yourself, Derby Dan,” he said quietly. “And have been ever since you pushed yourself into my private office. You can talk, but first, you can discard that sawed-off you’ve got in your coat. Put it in the center of the desk.”

Derby Dan stared at the point of the gold fountain pen. It was trained directly at his heart, and the manicured fingers of J. F. McCann were holding it steadily at just that point.

“It’s a .38, Derby Dan,” said McCann.

Derby Dan placed the sinister sawed-off in the exact center of the polished table.

“Now,” said McCann, “talk.”

“It’s about Kate,” began Derby Dan sullenly.

“Of course,” said McCann casually. “You think you’ve got something on her. You’ve been out to get something on her ever since she turned you down for me. Let’s have your little rat tale. I don’t want to seem impolite to an acquaintance of the old days, but the perfume you slather on yourself is abominable.”

McCann leaned carelessly back in his chair, with his steady gaze on the beady eyes of the man before him, and the fountain pen poised for instant action.

“A helluva way to treat a guy...” began Derby Dan.

“Talk,” said McCann, and raised the pen an inch higher.

“Kate’s been seen in Hogan’s speakeasy,” said Derby Dan, and waited for an explosion. None came.

“What of it?” said McCann. “I can’t keep a wealthy woman with lots of time from doing a little slumming.”

“Slumming, hell!” yelled Derby Dan, then suddenly lowered his voice. “That damn skirt was mighty thick with Hogan, Mack. She thought nobody seen her, hidin’ away with him, talkin’ low, in a booth.”

“What of it?” asked McCann. “Hogan’s a friend of mine.”

“The hell he is,” exclaimed Derby Dan, his voice rising to a whine. “Say, you ain’t so dumb you ain’t heard...”

Derby Dan abruptly relaxed in his chair. His eyes darted about the room, everywhere but at the intent face of the man behind the desk.

“So,” said McCann slowly, “you’re in on that little business dispute between Hogan and me, too, eh?”

He reached into a drawer with one hand and placed a large, leather bound book on his desk. Still with one hand, he turned the indexed pages to “H,” and ran down a list of names.

“I don’t see you here, Derby Dan,” he said. “Have you joined up with Hogan recently?”

“No, I ain’t.”

McCann transferred the sinister pen to his left hand, and picked up a pencil. The man at the side of the desk watched him trace the name, “Derby Dan,” under the long list of Hogan’s men, and started forward as the pencil wrote the word “rat” after that name.

“You got me wrong, Mack,” he whined. “I ain’t workin’ for Hogan!”

“No, you’re ratting on him,” replied McCann. “Because you can’t forget that a woman once turned you down for a man.”

Derby Dan fumbled with his hat.

“Have it your way, Mack. What the hell? I’m here to tell you there’s been a lot of talk goin’ around about what Hogan’s goin’ to do to you, a lot of it, since last night, and it was last night that hell cat of yours was conflabbin’ with Hogan.”

McCann closed the book with a snap and rose to his feet.

“Well, Derby Dan, if you have nothing more interesting to report than a conversation which you didn’t hear, I’ll have to ask you to go. Use the public way this time.”

“I heard enough of the conversation,” muttered Derby Dan. “And what’s more, I seen enough. She wasn’t so careful when she got tanked up later on in the evenin’ and spent an hour in Hogan’s shootin’ alley, flourishin’ a gat, and braggin’ about the blood she could draw.”

“I trust she wasn’t wearing her diamonds?” said McCann, with the first show of interest since the conversation began. “They’re too valuable to flaunt around in a place like Hogan’s speakeasy, when one considers the type that frequent the place.”

“Cut the wise cracks, Mack,” returned Derby Dan. “I ain’t the type that lifts sparklers, if that’s what you mean. She had ’em on, though, strung around her neck, and I’d like to have choked the breath out of her double crossin’ heart with ’em. I hate her guts!”

“Good-day,” said McCann, quietly opening the outer door. “You might take your gun with you.”

Derby Dan picked up the sawed-off, eyed the point of the steady gold pen for a moment, and slunk toward the door.

“A helluva way to treat a guy,” he said through his nose, as McCann politely bowed him out, and locked the door after him.

McCann crossed quickly to one of the windows and flung it wide. There were bitter lines about his mouth as he snapped the small white box open, and dangled the sparkling gem on its thin platinum chain over the sidewalk twenty stories below. For a long moment, the ruby hung there, gripped in his strong fingers, then he laughed a low, grim laugh, withdrew his arm, placed the pendant in its satin resting place, and turned to the desk. His hand hovered over the white telephone, then switched to the red. As he drew it toward him, another one of the six instruments buzzed.

“Limpy Bergen,” boomed a voice, as McCann answered.

“Put him on,” said McCann quickly. “That you, Bergen? Where is Hogan planning to store the two truckloads due to-day?”

McCann smiled as he heard the answer.

“Good,” he said finally. “How do you get into this place?... Good. That’s all I want. Except this. You’re going to have an accident sometime today, Limpy, lose your arm, or leg or something.”

Shocked protests from the other end of the wire.

“No, nobody’s going to take you for a ride, Limpy. You’re too good a man. On second thoughts, maybe a headache would serve as well. Anything that lays you off your job with Hogan for tonight, unless you want to mix in a fight, understand?”

He hung up, and wrenched the receiver of the red telephone from its hook.

“Send Mike up here immediately,” he barked into the mouthpiece without waiting for an answer.

Presently, the wall panel slid open again, and Mike lumbered into the room, his beefy face two shades darker with excitement.

“What’s wrong, Mack?” he spluttered. “Joe said you was fightin’ mad.”

“I dislike that expression, Mike,” said McCann. “Sit down. Derby Dan has just paid me a call.”

“Derby Dan! How in hell did he get in here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” drawled McCann.

Mike’s jowls shook. “Cripes, Mack,” he exclaimed loudly, “I swear to hell it ain’t my fault...”

“Never mind, Mike. As it happens, Derby Dan furnished me with some interesting information — very interesting. But don’t let it happen again. Now, about this little matter of Hogan...”

J. F. McCann, the perfectly dressed, suave man of business, and Mike, his loud mouthed, cursing assistant, went into conference. When it was over, Mike’s huge face was beaded with the sweat of excitement, and J. F. McCann stood ready for the street, one gloved hand on the door, the other twirling a malaca stick.

“Till to-night then, Mike,” he said, and stepped out into the hall.

“Cripes, he’s a cool ’un!” said Mike, and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his jazzy suit.

J. F. McCann stepped quietly into the huge entrance hall of his Sutton Place apartment, and handed his things to a trim maid.

“I hope Mrs. McCann is at home?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Shall I...?”

“No, there she is now. That is all, thank you.”

Kate, in a crimson negligee, was leaning over the railing of the gallery.

“You’re home early, Mack,” she called, stifling a yawn.

“I couldn’t wait to bring you what you wanted, Kate,” he said. “Come down and get it.”

The white leather box was in his hand as she approached him. He held it away from her, and lifted her chin, critically.

“You look tired! I hope you didn’t sit up late last night waiting for me?”

“No,” said Kate, her eyes avid on the box in his hand. “Don’t keep me waiting, Mack, let me have it!”

“Don’t be in such a hurry, Kate,” he said, as her eager hands clutched for the box. “I’ve something much better in store for you tonight — something you want much more.”

She lifted her eyes from the ruby, wonderingly.

“Put it on,” he urged. “You must wear it tonight. It’s the color of blood.”

He gripped her suddenly by the shoulders which the flaming negligee left bare.

“And tonight, my girl, you’re going to see what you long to see — gunplay, good, old-fashioned, blazing gunplay.”

Her eyes did not meet his. They fastened on the glowing ruby in her hands, but her body tensed under his gripping fingers.

“Where?” she breathed.

“A little affair at Hogan’s speakeasy. Won’t amount to much, I’m afraid. Hogan refuses to deliver two truckloads that belong to me. I know it’s stored in his cellar and I’m sending four or five picked men over there to load it out. It’ll be over in a few minutes. Hogan won’t be prepared. And he won’t suspect anything when he sees us strolling in. He always was a good friend of yours, eh, Kate? We’ll take a grandstand seat on the balcony over the dance floor. It won’t be the same as engineering a rumpus yourself, Kate, but maybe it will amuse you.”

He dropped his hands and turned from her. She stood, hesitating a moment, then made for the stairs.

“I must dress,” she said, and there was an undercurrent of excitement in her voice.

“Plenty of time, Kate,” said McCann softly. “Come and talk to me a while.”

“I really must,” she insisted. “I’m... I’m going out for a moment.”

McCann picked up a book.

“Run along,” he said, carelessly, leafing over the pages. “I know you must have preparations to make for this little affair tonight. You’re the sort of woman who’d wear her best gown to a murder, Kate.”

“Yes,” she said, nervously. “I really must get my hair done. Mack.” And she darted up the stairs.

A door slammed above. McCann picked up the ’phone, and gave a number in guarded tones.

“Mike?” he said, his lips close to the mouthpiece. “Double the order for tonight. Understand? The customer is going to be warned.” And he hung up quietly and took the book from the table again.

He had not turned a page before Kate was down the stairs in street clothes and swiftly circling the room toward the door. He intercepted her, and seized her in a steel embrace.

“Mack!” she cried. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

His long, muscular fingers crept to her white throat and circled it. For a long moment, he held her so, his gray eyes blazing into hers, his teeth bared in a slow smile.

Then he bent, pressed his mouth brutally to the red lips, and let her go.

“Just a little joke, Kate — gang stuff. Go out now and do what you have to do.”

At ten o’clock that night, the maroon Pierce Arrow with the gold monogram drew up to the dirty doorway of Hogan’s speakeasy. J. F. McCann handed out the woman known in Sutton Place as Mrs. McCann, and familiar to the underworld as Kate. He whispered a few words to the liveried chauffeur, and the car drew silently away from the curb.

There was real color surging under the rouge on Kate’s cheeks as the pair passed through the dingy hall and signaled on the heavy door at the end for admittance. She entered the noisy, smoky room beyond, with the grace of a stalking panther, the rounded limbs slow and sure under the deep red satin that clung to them, the dark head high, the nostrils dilated. Her eyes were on fire. Her lips, moist and full.

Hogan himself came forward to greet them, rubbing his pudgy hands together, the fleshy folds of his face creased in a set smile. He did not look at Kate.

McCann bowed slightly to the huge bulk that was Hogan.

“Evening, Hogan,” said J.F. McCann. “You know Kate, don’t you?”

Hogan turned his pig eyes to the resplendent figure beside McCann, but his gaze went no farther than the blood red ruby on her breast.

“Sure,” he chuckled, “it’s a long time, Kate...”

“Kate’s homesick for old times, Hogan,” said McCann casually. “How about a seat on the balcony?”

“Sure, sure,” said Hogan. “Walk right up.”

Kate swept through the room to the stairs at the back without a glance. The man at her side seemed absorbed in her, but his keen gray eyes were busy with the curtains of the booths which bulged and swayed suspiciously, and the figures lolling at the small tables through which they threaded their way — men, all of them — not a woman in the place.

“Let’s sit here,” she whispered eagerly, as they reached the top of the stairs. “We can see your men come in the front from here.”

“No,” said McCann in a low tone, and his hand was urgent on her elbow as he guided her down the dim, narrow back of the balcony and around to one of the little tables at the side. “This is the best place, and much safer.”

“Safer!” muttered Kate. “What the hell do I care about that? You can’t see a damn thing but the booths downstairs from here.”

“Well,” said McCann, pulling out one of the wrought iron chairs for her. “They might be interesting, too. Look! Hogan seems terribly excited about something. He’s waddling in and out of those booths like a fat hen. Stay here and watch him. I’ve something to attend to.”

He turned, and stepped toward the window which faced the dim section of the balcony on which they stood.

She was beside him in an instant, her hands clawing at his shoulders.

He faced her. There was a gold fountain pen in his hands. He turned it over casually.

“Nice little trinket, this, Kate,” he said quietly. “It shoots a .38 bullet. Go back to your table.”

Her dark eyes were fixed on his in the half light. The end of the fountain pen pressed under her breast, gently. Understanding dawned whitely on her face, as she saw him unfasten the window beside him with his left hand, and saw the lower pane yield, slowly, noiselessly, to the upward pressure of his long, sinewy fingers. Still she stood, motionless, till the night air from the open window blew full upon them. He jerked the spangled white scarf from about her shoulders, and waved it out of the window three times, then quietly motioned her to her seat. He slid the window down silently before he followed her.

The gold fountain pen rested under his hand on the small table between them, as a waiter hurried to them.

McCann ordered a bottle of the best. The waiter disappeared. Presently, another waiter appeared, and hovered about, busily dusting the vacant tables near them. McCann leaned over the railing of the balcony.

“Not very complimentary, Hogan,” he murmured. “Only one man to take care of J. F. McCann, and a waiter, at that!”

He turned to the woman who sat silent, with her dark eyes fastened on the scene below. She started as a draft of cold air struck her bare shoulders. A muffled thud sounded behind her. Her lips opened.

“Quiet!” said McCann, tensely, and lifted his hand with the venomous gold thing from the table. “Everything depends on quiet — for you, Kate! Nothing’s happened yet, except our extra waiter has disappeared.”

As he spoke, two silent figures edged through the window he had left unfastened, and crept along the wall of the balcony, toward the rear. They were carrying something heavy between them.

McCann went on talking.

“Just a few extra men of mine, Kate,” he said, smiling. “You see, I decided to make this a real gun fight, after you went out this afternoon. A little surprise for you, eh? Here comes two more of my men. The thing they’re carrying is a machine gun, Kate. There ought to be plenty of blood down there, when the fight’s over.”

The woman’s livid face twitched. Her throat worked spasmodically.

“Take it calmly, Kate,” continued McCann. “After all, it’s just a gun fight, and that’s what you craved. I’m staging it for your benefit, Kate. The two truckloads of liquor are a side-issue. They’re already loaded out of the second hand shop Hogan had them stored in this afternoon. They’re probably in one of my warehouses, now. This is just a little play I’m putting on for your amusement. We might call it ‘The Fate of a Double Crosser.’ Smile, Kate. Hogan’s looking up at you.”

Kate’s ghastly face peered over the edge of the balcony at the red, upturned moon of Hogan. Mechanically, she smiled. McCann called down in an annoyed tone.

“I wish you’d hurry up the service a little, Hogan. Things are getting a bit dull up here.”

As he uttered his complaint, two more silent figures inched along the dark wall behind, carrying a heavy load. And at the window, and on the fire escape outside the window, a dark mass of men waited, with glinting gats ready in their hands.

Suddenly, from below, came the sound of a heavy door slammed back on its hinges. Kate leaned far over the rail. McCann made a motion above his head to someone on the balcony behind. The lolling men at the tables below were on their feet, their necks thrust forward toward the entrance, their hands bristling with guns.

“At ’em, boys!” yelled Kate, but her voice was lost in the volley of shots that came from the doorway. Instantly, the room below was a hell of shattering sound. Kate swung her body far out over the railing, striving to peer through the curling smoke of guns that cut the blue haze of tobacco.

“They’ve dropped,” she screamed, “four of ’em, at the door! At ’em, boys!” She was shrieking now, heedless of the man beside her, heedless of everything but the smell and sound of battle, and the men below, creeping now toward the four prone figures at the door. Her form swung perilously over the frail wooden railing. She slipped, almost lost her balance, but a firm hand pulled her back.

“Don’t throw yourself over yet, Kate,” said a quiet voice in her ear. “There’s more to come.”

She turned on him. Her face was burning with mounting blood, her painted lips loose, her white bosom heaving.

“To hell with you! Bring on your battle, if there’s more to come...”

The ominous clatter of machine guns cut her short. It came from the rear of the balcony. Three deadly black nozzles were slowly swinging over the railing at the back, slowing swinging death down into the scurrying men below.

Miraculously, the four prone figures at the door below raised the sinister noses of sawed-offs and blazed fire into the men who sought escape that way. The floor was a milling mass of humanity, fighting for cover, stumbling over fallen bodies, slipping in spilled blood.

The bulging curtains of the booths below parted and disclosed men with rods belching burning lead toward the balcony above. But the slow swing of the meat choppers went endlessly on, spraying a thousand deaths a minute toward the trapped crowd beneath them. Sub-machines pushed their black noses through the side railings of the balcony and picked off those who were out of the radius of the machine guns. Eternity passed in those few minutes of clattering death.

Then, silence — sudden, intense. Not a movement, except the slow, curling smoke over the still bodies below.

Kate tore her eyes, mad with the lust of battle, from the bloody floor, and whirled on the man beside her. Her voice shrilled through the deadly, waiting silence.

“A damn good fight, McCann, while it lasted!”

The curtain of a booth below stirred. Another voice broke the silence — a high pitched, nasal whine. “There’s the damn hell cat that double crossed us, Hogan!” It screeched. A yellow gloved hand thrust itself through the curtain. Red flame spurted swiftly toward the crimson figure at the railing above.

A dozen shrieking bullets from the balcony pierced the curtain through which the chamois glove had appeared, but Kate was not there to savor the stench of their burning powder, or hear the single nasal whine of agony that came from the booth. For Kate was a grotesque heap on the floor of the balcony.

The man she had double crossed bent over to lift her from the pool of blood in which she lay.

Death spewed into what was left of Hogan’s mob. More bodies joined the gory spectacle which J. F. McCann had staged for the woman who wanted blood. And J. F. McCann lay gasping beside that woman, with a gold fountain pen clutched in his chilled fingers and a bullet under his heart.

“You got what you wanted, Kate,” he breathed into the dead woman’s ear, and spoke no more.