Gang Pulp

Glycerined Gangsters By Henry Leverage

Racketeer Stories, November 1930

The Big Guy wanted The Spider, so he sent Indian Chick to find him. It sure takes an Indian to uncover a hide away — but it takes the brains of a Class A broad to blast ’em to hell!

When the Big-Shot sent for Chick Chester he knew that gangster had Indian blood in his veins.

It would take an Indian to find the whereabouts of the surviving members of The Spider’s gang. They had vanished after a battle royal in one of Chinatown’s narrow streets, leaving their dead piled on top of some of the Big-Shot’s best men.

The Big-Shot ruled the Rose Hill Gang with a rod of steel. He swiveled back in his chair when Chick Chester was announced. Between drags at a huge Cuban cigar Big-Shot Morphy gave Chick Chester the gist of what he wanted him to do:

“See me pay-off man. Get five ‘leaves’ from him. Duck tu Pop Griffith’s road-house an’ work from there ’till y’u locate wot’s left ov them guys ov Th’ Spider’s mob. I want tu know where they’re under cover. Y’u ken do it — ’cause it’ll take an Apache. They’re sure hid!”

Chick resembled a dark-haired, black-eyed Sheik in his tailor-made suit and custom-built shoes. His long features ended in a square jaw.

“Griffith’s?” he questioned the Big-Shot.

“Yeah! Out Moundville way. He used tu be Th’ Spider’s armorer. Now he belongs tu me. See? A young moll out there mixes th’ nitro fer his bombs. Name’s Gabby. She’ll help y’u locate Th’ Spider’s push.”

“Want ’em bumped-off, boss?”

Big-Shot Morphy let his cigar recoil in his mouth. He drew it out and flecked the ashes.

“I want th’ coppers tu do th’ dirty work if I can arrange it, widout belchin’ on ’em. If th’ coppers won’t — I will. ’Cause if I don’t get ’em they’ll get me.”

Chester went directly to Moundville. He entered Griffith’s Road House and introduced himself to the owner, a thin man with a tired air. A blond broad, not more than eighteen years of age, sidled up to her father. Chick noticed her hands were stained yellow in spots. He told Griffith what the Big-Shot wanted. Griffith shook his head.

“That Spider is a tough egg. He’s running a gambling house now, just opened one I heard. It’s a ‘scatter’ for his gang who’re wearing dress suits now. They got some of the rods an’ gats with them that they used in that Chinatown shootin’.”

Chick stared boldly at the moll. She dropped her eyes.

“Where’s his gambling-house located?”

“Search me. Somewhere in Windville. If you find his joint and the Big-Shot wants to get hunk, look out for a military machine-gun. I furnished ’em it, before I blew that mob. You remember the one I mean, Gabby?”

The moll shivered slightly. Then she threw back her chin and laughed:

“It’s a regular cannon. That Spider’s crazy lugging it around — when he could pull off a job better with the new sub-caliber air-cooled ones. He always was too rough to suit me, y’u know.”

Chick Chester, otherwise Chickasaw Long-Wolf, so called before he became a gangster, drawled “ye — s?” He had noticed that Gabby was the brains behind her father. She made the bombs and he peddled them for someone to throw.

“Y’u know,” repeated Gabby, “it’s the thing now for a gang to pretend they were chased out or bumped-off and wait for their chance. The Spider must look like hell running a stuss-house, in a dress-suit, y’u know.”

Again Chester regarded Gabby while Pop Griffith corrected her:

“He ain’t runnin’ a stuss-house, from wot I’ve heard. It’s a come-on joint in a brown-stone mansion. Faro, stud, draw poker and roulette. A place where suckers are steered, trimmed and taken for a ride if they squawk hard enough.”

Gabby placed her hands on her rounded hips.

“I’d go see Captain Jack if I was you,” she told Chester. “He’s got charge of Ward No. Nine, where The Spider must be in hiding. He’ll know the new night-clubs and gambling joints. He oughto, y’u know. He collects the gravy.”

“Ye — s,” said Chester. “Well I won’t do that, baby. Not me. Captain Jack and th’ rest of the coppers would give their shields to put their nippers on these.” Chick held out his dark wrists, exposing silk cuffs and diamond-studded links. “I’ll scout through his ward and get an earful from some wise underdog.”

Chick Chester gave a backward glance at Gabby when he left Griffith’s Tavern. She waved her hand. He went on with his heart thumping. What a moll to pal with! Just his type — blond and talkative. No squeal in her.

He rather thought he could use Gabby in the search for The Spider’s mob. It was going to be no small job finding an unknown gambling house in Windville. The Big-Shot, with all the gangsters he needed under his thumb, had evidently failed to locate the gang he wanted wiped out completely.

Chick Chester spent a day and a night running down every clue. He was forced to be careful on account of the police. His record as a bad man with a rod was enough to send him away for life.

Two ex-gamblers and a handbook tout, whom Chick knew, were skeptical regarding The Spider’s gang. The tout gave Chester a long list of houses he knew. “Some’s just started up,” he sniffled. “Take a chance, I’m takin’ ’em every day. Pick up a taxi-bucker that’s hip an’ have him make th’ rounds. Try that fellow over there. He’d kill a guy for ten bucks.”

Chester rather favored the suggestion. The driver over there was an ex-pug with a pock-marked chin. He confessed ignorance to The Spider’s hangout but he offered to let Chick ride for a week, free, if he couldn’t find it.

“Ye — s?” said Chester. “Here’s an X. Start her up and let me look around the town.”

The thug-ugly chauffeur grinned at the crinkling bill.

“You’re part Indian, ain’t youse?”

“It’s none of your damn business what I am!” Chester retorted. “As long as I got jack I’m a prince in this burg.”

Chick visited six houses, without results, and began to doubt if The Spider was in that section of the city. The yellow gangleader may have spread his web somewhere else. The color of Chester’s features grew darker and more determined. He had talked with housemen, croupiers, faro-dealers, proprietors and runners. He lost fifty dollars wandering from table to table. No one could give him the slightest clue concerning the Big-Shot’s worst enemies.

He phoned Morphy who shot back:

“Keep movin’, y’u! See th’ pay-guy if youse need more kale.”

The overworked taxi-driver began to think his fare was goofy. “Wot t’ell y’us lookin’ fer?” he asked Chick.

“A sneaking welcher named Gronto. Spider Gronto.”

He continued:

“I want to locate a new come-on joint, brown-stone front house, somewhere in Captain Jack’s ward. It’s probably got a back entrance.”

“Th’ Spider’s.”

“Ye — s?”

The driver scratched his head. “Wot’s he look like?”

“Thin... thin as I am. Bent over. Grayish brown hair, a nick on the lobe of his right ear — a gash across his chin. Bad actor.”

A light began to dawn in the depths of the driver’s eyes.

“Say, cull, I saw that baby onct — last week. Sure I piped him, good an’ plenty. Why didn’t youse tell me y’u wuz lookin’ fer him?”

Chester gripped the driver’s muscular arm.

“Come clean!”

“Oh, all right.” The chauffeur drew away from Chester’s intense stare. He recognized the steel beneath his passenger’s velvet manners. Getting out a map of the city, from a side-pocket, he ran a grimy thumb over it. “Say, cull, I saw that guy — or a ringer fer him, in Prospect Square. I had two fares from there. I knew the dump they came out ov wuz queer. How did I know? By the squawk a sucker put up about losing a lousy ninety bucks. Th’ other guy, th’ one wid evening clothes an’ a gash on his chin, got rid of th’ squealer by payin’ him off. Wot a dirty look he gave him. Then this guy had me take him back tu th’ square. He looked like a killer who didn’t want tu smear things up fer that little kale.”

“Ye — s? What number Prospect Square?”

“No. 6.”

“Did you hear this man’s name?”

“Th’ sucker, who wuz trimmed, called him every name that ain’t fit tu print. Funny how them honest guys ken beat us regulars when it comes tu cussin’.”

Chick Chester looked at his platinum watch.

“Make for the nearest coffee house. We’ll feed, on me. Then stop at a garage and fill up with gas. I want to take a look at that house before they put the blinds up.”

“I’m on, cull.”

The driver hurtled Chick northward, swung corners on two wheels and beat the red-set semaphores at the narrowest margins. He stopped at one corner of a green Square and said out of the side of his mouth:

“All th’ numbers run on one side ov th’ street. Y’u ken mooch along, while I wait here.”

With a long, lanky stride, like an Apache after a scalp, Chick glided up the street, pretending to be looking at nothing in particular. His black eyes saw everything — the marks on the asphalt where many taxis had stopped, the cigarette-butts in the gutter thrown by waiting chauffeurs, spots of oil that stretched along for half a block. A slight feeling of doubt came to him when he noticed the doors of No. 6. These were frail looking, unlike any kind The Spider would order. That gangleader favored boiler plate and ax-proof protection.

The windows of No. 6 were shaded with green blinds. The steps leading upward had been scrubbed until they shone. A big 6 was painted on a transom.

Crossing the asphalt to a wall that fenced in the Square, Chick studied the row of houses intently. It was an aristocratic-looking neighborhood. Just the place no one would look for The Spider. Behind the houses were private garages, on an alley.

Springing over the stone fence Chick Chester detoured through the Square and came out by the side of the waiting taxi.

“How about it, cull?” queried the chauffeur.

“Looks good. Get me to the nearest drug-store.”

Chester entered a sound-proof telephone-booth and called up Griffith’s. He was connected with Gabby. “I’ve got two ‘yards’ for you,” he promised her. “I need a swell broad for a job. One that can stall for me.”

“I’m cooking some pineapples,” chortled the moll.

Chester insisted: “Put the cooking away for a day. The Big-Shot wants certain information you can get for us. Meet me near Hadden Towers, early this evening.”

She consented, saying she would drive in and take a load of stuff back to the tavern on her return. “Stuff off a boat,” she laughed. “Y’u know, Dad sells it.”

“It was after six when Chester finished his preparations. He greeted the taxi-bucker and ordered him to rush to Hadden Towers. Gabby was already parked near the building. She sprang out of a long, black touring car.” Chester shook his head.

“You see, I’m here with my bus,” said Gabby.

“Yes? Say, sweetie, I wouldn’t drive that machine much if I were you. Every hooch runner uses that brand. You ought to know better.”

The moll bent down and adjusted a garter. “Gimme th’ two ‘yards.’ Two centuries, I gotta have clothes.”

Chick peeled two one-hundred dollar bills from his bank-roll. He folded them up and handed them to Gabby. “Now, come along with me,” he said. “You needn’t worry about glad rags. You better worry about that wreck you’re driving.”

Gabby dove again for her garter, where she concealed the two bills. She straightened a youthful back and swung on one high heel toward the parked phaeton.

“That’s a stall,” she explained. “A throw-off, y’u know. I never had any glycerin or hooch in it. I use taxis loaded to the axles. They trail that wagon, and if some sap copper stops it, the taxi turns around and beats it.”

The Indian blood in Chick recognized a ruse, remarkably effective. Brains were better than bullets.

“Say,” said Gabby, “if y’u stand there looking like that much longer, I’ll fall for you. Y’ur a swell looker, but y’ur cheek-bones are too high. Maybe you don’t fall for me. We might not mix any more than fulminate an’ nitroglycerine!”

Chester gripped the moll’s round brown arm. “Come along, kid. I’ve located The Spider, or think I have. We’ll both stand aces with the Big Shot if it’s true. We’ve got to check up and make sure. That’s a trick I’ve planned for you. The Spider is so shifty he’ll beat it at the first rumble.”

“Do you want me to vamp him?”

“No! He’s so tough he wouldn’t fall for ten joy-broads. I want you to identify him without exciting suspicion. Do you know what he looks like?”

“Dad told me, y’u know.”

Gabby’s catching little “y’u know” fascinated Chick Chester. He felt himself falling for the moll. He drew her toward the taxi. “The Big-Shot,” he explained, “has called on most of the gangster talent of this city to find out what The Spider is scheming. It’s the fear of not knowing what he is doing or planning, or where he is in hiding, that gets the Big-Fellow’s goat. Morphy is Czar of Windville.”

“Yes, I know. Them Czars are easy marks with an army smoke-wagon like The Spider lugs around.”

Chester felt the red-hot presence of a live aid as the taxi rolled toward Prospect Square. He got out two blocks from No. 6. To the chauffeur he whispered: “The street is slippery. Go on and make a good job of skidding in front of the house. Crash a lamppost. Smear things up. Then lug the dame up the steps and ring the bell. Don’t take no for an answer when the doorman comes.”

The taxi-driver squinted at the street, then at Chester. “How tu hell did th’ street get so wet? It ain’t been rainin’.”

“Ye — s? Well, somebody high up ordered it sprinkled about an hour ago. Just a little idea of mine.”

Gabby sank back on the cushions and set her eyes in front of her when the taxi started. Chick, after a look around for gangmen, strolled after the cab. He saw the driver slide toward the wall of the Square, strike it, rebound, and skid over the wet asphalt toward a lamppost in front of the brown-stone house.

The smash that followed seemed a natural one. Glass showered to the pavement. The taxi’s lamps and mudguards were bent. Gabby fell staggeringly, out an open door, to the curb. She lay still, with her blond hair covering most of her face.

A white-whiskered granddaddy came running up. He recoiled, and dropped his cane when the chauffeur muscled him away, lifted Gabby and marched up the steps. A small crowd gathered. Balefully glaring back, like a gorilla with a prize maiden, the driver jabbed at the vestibule button. The inner door opened revealing an English butler.

Chester sauntered along in time to see the driver and Gabby disappear inside. The door was shut with a click.

It came to Chick that The Spider was rather overdoing things. An English butler, who looked honest, was a strange guardian for a mob of killers.

Believing that he would soon learn something from the clever moll concerning The Spider, Chick moved on to a corner east of the wrecked taxi. He saw the driver come out of No. 6, without Gabby. A doctor’s coupe arrived. Soon after it came an emergency ambulance.

Chick began to worry about Gabby. The rouge the moll daubed on her cheeks and chin, to resemble blood, would hardly deceive a good physician. Gabby might come out of the house, with The Spider wise that a spy had visited him.

Walking toward the house Chick put on a pair of “cheaters,” with thick tortoise-rims. The gangsters inside the house might be watching through the windows, he thought. The clothes were unlike those he usually wore. Dark in hue, they were a throw-off from his usual ones.

An altercation between a cop and the taxi-driver, caused Chester to pause near the wrecked machine.

“What happened?” asked the cop.

The harness-bull ignored the question and charged up the steps of No. 6.

“Want tu use her as a witness against me fer reckless drivin’,” spat the chauffeur. “Ken y’u beat that?”

“She’ll be a good witness — for you.” Chester started, stepped rapidly to a railing and placed his back against it, with his hand on his hip. The door of the old brown-stone house had opened in the face of the officer. Out through it came Gabby, followed by an indignant doctor and the staid butler. They started explaining something when the moll reached Chester.

“Come! Blow!” she pleaded.

Chester was stoic as any Indian. He did not ask what had happened, in No. 6.

“Run across the street,” he suggested. “Climb that fence. Go through the Square and wait at the entrance, under the arch. I’ll tail an’ croak any gangster who follows you.”

“There is no gang—”

Gabby gathered up her skirts and ran for the wall. Chester waited. He saw the chauffeur motion for him to make a get-away. Searching for Gabby, after he leaped the fence, like an agile cougar, he reached the high, stone arch at the entrance. Gabby was rubbing her red-stained chin with a handkerchief.

“Ye — s?” asked Chick.

“It’s all right, y’u know,” the moll giggled. “Swell stuff, pal. Y’u sent me on a bum steer. I got a good eye-full before that croaker came. He touched the rouge and spilled the beans.”

“Ye — s? And The Spider?”

“Doesn’t hang out there. It isn’t the kind of house you think it is, y’u know. It’s respectable as hell. Woman there named Ambrose. Husband’s a big guy in the coffee business, downtown.”

“Ambrose?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure, kid?”

“Take a look in the telephone-book.” Gabby finished removing the blood-like stains from her face. She arranged her clothes and sent a spiteful glance across the Square, in the direction of No. 6. “I ought to have another ‘leaf’!” she suggested. “For damage to personal property.”

They walked toward a drug-store. “That driver,” said Chester, “gave me the dope about a man resembling The Spider steering a sucker away from No. 6. That, taken in connection with the information I have about The Spider’s scatter being a come-on joint, caused all this trouble. The taxi-bucker was so sure — too sure. He said there was a big 6 on the transom. There is.”

Gabby suggested: “Why don’t you stall around a while and see if The Spider comes out of there.”

“A coffee merchant, named Ambrose, wouldn’t be shielding gunmen.”

“Say, sweetheart, anybody will do anythin’ in Windville for enough jack, y’u know.”

“Ye — s? Come on in this drug-store.”

Chester consulted a telephone-book while Gabby stalled. He read aloud: “Ambrose, J. J. No. 6. Prospect Square. Asia 7598.”

Then below:

“Ambrose and Cunningham. Coffee Importers. No. 45 West Street. Garden 7320.”

Lifting the receiver Chick dropped a nickel in a slot. He asked the operator for Asia 7598. “Hello?” he drawled.

He swung his lithe form toward Gabby after asking a single question and receiving an answer. “I’m going back and crown that taxi-bucker. I’m beat, so far. Ambrose is not covering up The Spider’s mob. He’s real.”

“Well, y’u know, I thought so when they sent for a regular croaker. It didn’t look like a come-on dump to me.”

Gabby sprung an idea:

“Couldn’t that pock-marked driver been wrong about the house, y’u know? There’s a row of them that look alike to me.”

“It’s a slim chance, kid, but—”

“Shoot it. But what, Chick?”

“One worth a gamble. Nobody will make me, with these cheaters on. I’m going back to No. 6.”

Gabby had learned to think as gangsters reason. She had encountered some of the sharpest brains of the underworld, while helping make bombs in her father’s tavern.

“Go on, Chick,” she urged. “I’ll stall round, out of sight. That driver is either crooked or straight, y’u know. Beat him up an’ find out which way he leans.”

Trailing Chick, with the stone fence between them. Gabby swished the grass of the Square with her skirts. She saw that the wrecked taxi had been towed away.

Nearing the fence she leaned over it and beckoned to Chester. “Come here a minute,” she whispered when he strode over the street.

“Ye — s?” he asked her.

“Take a look. Why did they sweep the broken glass up the gutter, over there? See it, y’u know. And that lamppost has been moved.”

Chick’s Indian-dark eyes flashed along the row of brown-stone fronts. He saw details Gabby overlooked. The lamppost had not been moved. The windshield glass was in the same spot. No. 6 was on the transom of Ambrose’s mansion. There was also another No. 6 three doors away. The light through that transom was reddish, baleful.

“I get yeh!” Chick exclaimed. “Notice the blinds at the other No. 6. All drawn down, like a gambling house. They’re expecting a sucker, or going to get rid of one. The taxi-bucker was right, Gabby, when he stated he left a man resembling The Spider at No. 6.”

“Easy, kid. Swell stall. That transom on the other number 6 can be swung around to read No. 9, its right number.”

Gabby bobbed her head. “You’re a clever brain-worker, Chick. We better blow. Climb over the fence before they spot us.”

He crossed the Square with her. “I’ll phone the Big-Shot, kid. I’ll collect a couple yards for you when I see the pay-off man. You take your big phaeton home and get back as quick as you can with a couple of pineapples. Just strong enough to blast the doors in of No. 9. Those doors are probably steel-lined.”

“Sure, if The Spider’s mob hang out there.”

“Two bombs,” repeated Chick. “I’ll gather a bunch of killers. We’ll lay in a car we have, near the alley, going north. We’ll block the south end with an old wagon.”

“I don’t get you yet,” said the puzzled Gabby.

“Easy. The Spider and his yellow curs will beat it in the car they have planted in their garage. We’ll give them the works when they come out the north end of the alley.”

“Maybe they’ll stick in the house, y’u know. Even if the doors are blown to pieces.”

“Have you any tear-gas at the tavern?”

“Dad can get some from the station house. The captain in charge has a bunch of tear-gas bombs. And he’s crookeder than hell.”

“That’s set then, kid. Beat it and meet me where the wagon is blocking the south end of the alley. I’ll have two more centuries for you. How long will it take you?”

A gold wrist-watch flashed from Gabby’s shapely wrist.

“A couple of — three hours, sharp.”

Chick Chester sensed a note of doubt in Gabby’s voice. “Three hours, ye — s? What’s the matter, kid? Don’t you want to do it?”

“I want to do it! Sure. But I don’t want to see you croaked in one of them dog-fights. The Spider will lug along that machine-gun, y’u know. The one Dad copped from some arsenal. It’s a hell of a thing, and ain’t sub-caliber.”

“We’ll get the drop on them and — that’s all there will be to it. If we don’t get that bunch of snakes tonight, they’re going to get us an’ get the Big-Shot. He knows what they’re planning.”

“I wouldn’t have them croak you before you can croak them, y’u know. Give me a kiss and I’ll go after the stuff.”

Chick watched the moll glide through the dark shrubbery of the Square. “Best ever,” he said to himself. Out came his watch. He marked the hour hand with his polished finger-nail.

“Three a.m. is The Spider’s time to get the works,” he said with Indian grimness.

Connecting with the Big-Shot and getting his permission to wipe out The Spider’s gang was a delicate matter, which Chick knew best how to do. Morphy was under-cover so deeply it took him fifteen minutes before he heard his voice on a private, relayed wire. “Hol’ on,” grunted the Big-Shot, “before goin’ ahead. I’ll get th’ low-down on No. 9, through me own channels.”

Chester waited. The word came back to work fast and hard and go the limit. “Unleash the Rose Hill rodmen.”

A bunch of gangmen, crowded in a hundred-horse-power sedan that had a steel shutter at the rear, met Chick by appointment. The pay-off man attended to blocking the alley with a junk-wagon. A beer truck was moved to the cross street above No. 9 and backed to the curb so that any escaping gangsters from the alley should turn in an easterly direction. A runabout, containing a driver and a “thrower,” were waiting to blast out The Spider.

The moll, driving her phaeton like an expert, appeared sooner than she had promised. Chick aided her with a quick arm when she finished parking and sprang from the seat. She reached back and lifted up a package.

“Don’t drop this,” she warned him. “There’s enough soup in it to blow up the block, y’u know.”

“Wait,” said Chester. He crossed the street and handed the package to the “thrower” in a runabout. “Blast goes off at three-forty-five. Circle at the corner of Prospect Square and give No. 9 the tear-bomb on the way back. Nine is three doors from the lamppost. They’ve got a changeable number on the transom. It may read 6, but it’ll be 9.”

The car rolled from the curb. Chick went back to Gabby. He saw her hastily conceal something under her skirt. The object appeared to be larger than a gat.

“What’s the idea, kid?” he asked her.

“Nothing. That is, not much. I’m in on this too, y’u know.”

“What do y’u mean?” Chester’s black eyes searched the girl’s form. There was an unusual bulge on her right hip. She quickly covered it with her coat.

“Come clean, kid.”

“Say, who do’y’u think I am? A rummy? You come clean — with the jack. I’m going to do a little private work of my own on this job. Where’s the two C’s?”

Chester handed her the money. Again he looked intently at the moll. He gripped her arm. “We’re going to start in a few minutes,” he said evenly. “I can’t drag you along when The Spider’s mob get what’s coming to them. Sure you’re not going to gum things up?”

“I’m going to stay right here. I’ll be sitting in that old bus of mine when you come back — if you do come back.” Gabby averted her head. “Be careful,” she whispered. “I’ve fallen hard for you. Don’t get croaked!”

He walked away from her with a soft feeling in his heart. This feeling changed when he slipped up to the waiting sedan and instructed the driver: “Keep the front, right hand seat for me. I’ll be back when I give the job the once over.”

The net drawn around The Spider’s lair was tighter than a French “fly-trap.” Chester saw with satisfaction that the junk wagon effectively blocked the south alley. The beer-truck, laden with near-beer in kegs, apparently had broken down across a respectable street. A Rose Hill gangster, in greasy overalls and cap, was taking off a double-tired wheel. He nodded curtly when Chick went by him, coughing that everything was O.K.

Avoiding No. 9, Chick detoured for three blocks and came up to the rear of the waiting sedan. Its curtains were drawn. Two rodmen had their subcaliber machine-guns ready to run out the side windows. The steel shutter protected the rear of the car.

Swinging beside the driver Chester pulled out his watch. He looked up and down the dark, deserted street. “Start your engine,” he drawled. “Listen, pals. It’s time — it’s overtime — for—”

A roar and the reverberations of the roar came crackling through the misty air. A second roar sounded. The “pineapples” manufactured by Gabby had not been duds. Chester gripped the driver’s arm.

“Wait. Now, there they go. No. 9 is one hell’s mess now. It’s full of gas.”

The black runabout had flashed over the asphalt and swung at the Square’s stone arch.

Chester ordered. “Step on it. Round the corner. Now up to the next. Slow down. Wait. You heard me. What do you see by the beer-truck?”

“Nothin’ at tall. Yeah, that them. Comin’ out dat alley. Wot tu hell. They’re crashin’ th’ truck. No — say, they took th’ sidewalk, chief! See Th’ Spider’s car? It’s turned at th’ Square. They ain’t comin’ dis way.”

The cunning brain of The Spider had sensed a trap after he retreated to the garage in the rear of No. 9 and started his car. He acted contrary to the route framed for him.

The snarls from the gangmen at the machine-guns rang in Chester’s ears. “Beat it through — same way they went!” he told the driver. “Keep ’em in sight. We got the fastest car.”

The roaring sedan avoided a fireplug, scraped an iron railing, swerved with its right wheels on the sidewalk, tore off the bumper of the truck, and spun the corner at full speed. Ahead two blocks, The Spider’s phaeton was speeding, with open muffler.

“Der’s a guy behind a cannon, pointin’ at us,” gritted the driver at Chester’s side.

“Forget it. Go through, an’ we’ll give ’em the works. There must be ten in that car. Pass them so they can’t use that army gun.”

The chase was short. The hundred-horse-power sedan gained on the rocking, overloaded phaeton. Chester ducked his head and drew out his gat. He stared around the windshield.

“Why don’t they turn that buzz-saw loose?” protested the Rose Hill driver. “I gotta have me guts full ov lead before I get mad.”

“Duck, it’s coming,” said Chester. “Get a death grip on that wheel.”

An evil-visaged gangster rose in the rear of the touring-car. He pointed the army machine-gun at the front of the sedan. The Spider shouted something from the front of the car. The gangster drew back on the automobile trigger, behind the oil-cooled barrel. To Chester, crouched and watching with his dark eyes afire, there should have come a hail of hot fire.

Instead yellow and flamingo and purple light burst all around the phaeton. A ball of incandescence was in front of the sedan. A gust of wind and smoke blotted out everything. Through this acrid smoke the sedan plunged, struck an obstruction, turned partly over and righted itself when the driver twisted the wheel.

Looking back, Chick saw the remains of The Spider’s get-away phaeton strewn about the street. Torsos, heads, quivering limbs and blood smeared the curbs. Again Chester looked when the driver slowed the sedan to a legal limit.

“Cripes!” he heard one of his pals say. “There ain’t any ov ’em left!”

Intuition told Chester what had happened — what had probably saved his life. The machine-gun had exploded with all its big-caliber ammunition.

“Stop at this corner,” he instructed the driver. “Right there. I’m going back — you go on and get under cover.”

A north-bound taxi swung around at Chester’s hand-signal. He sprung in and said to the bucker, “Take me south, along Prospect Square, to the arch. Make it snappy.”

The driver started up, after adjusting the meter. He turned his head.

“I can’t go through by th’ Square, sir. Been an accident.”

“Ye — s? What kind?”

“A hell ov a big touring-car blew up. Five killed an’ two are dyin’. Tore a hole in everythin’. Must have been luggin’ dynamite. Guess they were gangsters.”

“Was one of them a man with a nick in his ear, scar across his chin?”

“Sure. Friend ov yours? All that wuz left ov him wuz not worth pickin’ up.”

“Take me to Hadden Towers,” smiled Chester. “I’ve changed my mind.”

Knowing The Spider had been effaced, Chick’s stride was buoyant when he approached Gabby’s ancient phaeton. She perched at the steering wheel. Chick got in and clutched her arm.

“They got th’ works, kid. All of them. The Big-Shot will be tickled to death. He’ll be—”

An innocent roguish smile curled the moll’s red lips.

“Did something explode? I thought I heard a blast, y’u know?”

“You heard one, kid. And you turned the trick for us. What was that you hid under your skirt when I left you?”

“Quart of nitroglycerine. M’ own brand.”

“Ye — s?”

“I didn’t want tu see you shoot it out with The Spider’s gang. I sneaked up the alley, before the pineapples went off, and pried a window open in the garage, at No. 9.1 crawled in, y’u know. The army machine-gun was in a big car. I’d seen it before, when Dad had it. I... I unscrewed the lower drain-plug of th’ cooling chamber.”

“Ye — s?” Chick’s black eyes snapped.

“That let the commercial glycerin out. It was a shame to leave the chamber empty, so I pours m’ quart of nitro in. Anybody firing that cannon would set it off, an’ blooey for them!”

Chester looked at Gabby’s inviting lips. His face neared hers.

“Gimme a kiss, kid. You’re one swell pal.”

A harness bull strolled past the phaeton. He rapped the hood with his night stick. “No petting parties allowed!” he said gruffly. “Move on!”

“I can’t move,” gurgled Gabby. “He’s holding both my arms!”