Gang Pulp

When China Jo Lost His Woman By Vernon Rivers

Gangster Stories, November 1929

The Dude liked skirts — played around with them. But no matter what Hell they dragged him to, his guts and his 45’s carried him through.

Many of New York’s underworld frequented China Jo’s chop suey dive. That was on a second floor, off Mott Street. But nobody had ever been up the next flight of stairs, not even the police. That is, nobody but Jo’s henchmen, spying, sneaking, crafty devils; and, of course, China Jo himself. And Half-Breed Rose.

At the foot of that flight of stairs, a sleepy looking Chink sat smoking, smoking all the time. In reality, the slits of eyes were watching, watching continually.

But now, someone else reclined on a low divan covered with rare embroidered silks in the front room on the third floor. It was Dude Jim, the head of a rival gang.

“Women’s sure gonna be Dude’s finish,” the gang had decided long ago and it looked like it now.

But Dude didn’t think so. A hard man with his mob, he was soft with a swell looking dame. He knew it. What did it matter if he was a softy and talked too much when a jane’s arms were around his neck? He didn’t think then.

But let the jane blab! He could rely on himself to get out of any scrape. He thought fast. He shot straight. His muscles were iron. And then he had a sweet revenge doped out for all stools.

It was a woman who led him on this foolhardy adventure now. He had seen Half-Breed Rose dance downstairs several times. Tonight he had fallen and fallen hard. Tiny, voluptuous lips she had that looked soft and moist. Eyes that promised much if you looked into them — alone.

“But why do these Chink kids wear those damn long kimonas?” he said to one of the men at the table with him. “Can’t even see as far as their shoulders and I’ll bet they’re knockouts. I’d give both my gats to see her do that dance with no more clothes on than an American burlesque queen.”

Rose saw Dude looking at her and understood the look. It doesn’t take a girl of the underworld long to know that she is wanted. She knew he wanted her bad. And did she care? What woman failed to turn and look at him with the dark handsome head, muscular powerful flesh which she sensed beneath the neat blue suit. The look in his eyes made her warm. She moistened her lips.

But she belonged to China Jo. She turned away. Her mother had given her to China Jo when she was sixteen. She belonged to China Jo bodily. There were spying eyes that followed her everywhere, spying eyes that Jo sent. She belonged to that puny, brutal, sinister Jo always. Damn it! If it were only for herself, she might attempt an escape even though it would mean death, but it would mean sure death for the man she went with.

Warm with anger, now that she had seen to-night the reason for a desire to escape, she paused at the foot of the stairs before going on. She stopped to speak to the smoking guard. She saw that Dude had followed her to the hall. She saw nothing more. She must stop with the guard a minute to calm her anger. Jo might be met upstairs.

Unseen by her, unseen by even the keen-eyed guard, for Rose was in front of him, Dude had climbed to the banister, pulled himself up and over and silently and swiftly climbed to the third floor.

Rose did not see Jo as she ascended. She did not see him in the passage above. She reached the door that led to her apartment and entered. There was Dude. She stilled her surprise and rapidly closed the door behind her.

They were face to face now. He could reach out and grab her. The dare devil nerve of him thrilled her, as he lay on the divan and smiled up at her. The warmth she had felt downstairs during the dance returned, only more insistent. Yet there was dread. Better a rendezvous anywhere but here. Well she knew that the very walls of her room had ears, human ears, concealed even she did not know where.

He started to speak. She hushed him with a quick and imperative gesture. She bent low that he might whisper what he wished to say. His warm breath caressed her ear and neck.

“Rose,” he whispered, “I had to see that swell dance you were doing, again. Will you? Only not with that Chink mother hubbard.”

“I heard you say you’d give both your gats for that kind of a sideshow,” she whispered in return.

Was she trying to get him unarmed? After all, she belonged to China Jo’s tong. But he had made the proposition and he would stand by it. Two guns were flung into a heap of pillows opposite.

HaIf-Breed Rose rushed for the guns He was alert again. But she brought them to him as she glanced fearfully around. She knew well the peril he was in, she did not think of her own danger. She begged him to pocket the gats again.

“I tell you I’ll stand by what I said.” His voice was low but jaunty, taunting. “Now, your part of the bargain.”

Rose looked at him again and almost forgot his danger. She was no quitter. She would come through with the dance.

The kimona had covered her well. When she removed it to begin the dance, she felt almost naked. Dude reclined in blissful expectation, watching the waving of white arms, the flash of the rounded ivory flesh of perfect thighs.

“And to think some dumb guys don’t think a show like this is worth a little risk!” he breathed in her as she passed him.

He half rose and touched her...

The dancing limbs tensed. The knob of the door had been turned. It had not yielded.

But without a pause, before Dude could reach the mass of pillows where his rods lay, an expert aim had smashed the door square at the lock and two Chinamen were in the room. The first covered Dude Jim with a gun. Behind him, safe, walked a short Chink in an elaborate mandarin coat of silk. He waved a fan slowly as he looked through two slits at his half-breed courtesan. The look was brief. He would settle with her later.

The cold, expressionless slits travelled to Dude. He looked at him long. As another gangster prying into the racket of Jo’s tong, he could be dispensed with quickly. There were strong chemicals known among his people that ate the heart’s blood quickly and destroyed the flesh with it.

But they would not do now. This white man deserved worse treatment — much worse.

He had approached China Jo’s woman.

China Jo did not have to pause to think out a scheme. His plans for vengeance were carefully thought out beforehand. A smile of immeasurable cruelty formed on the impenetrable mask of his face as he selected the revenge best fitted to the man before him. With a slight turn of the head he addressed the henchman with the gun.

“Down the shaft with him, to the red dungeon, Hip Sing.”

But Dude’s mind had been working, too, even faster than China Jo’s. His swift conclusion was, “I ain’t over anxious to investigate none of this Chink’s torture instruments in the cellar.”

But he would if he didn’t move quickly! One of the men in front of him was armed, but only one. His own gats were at least four yards away.

But there was a thick glass decanter on a stand nearby. He measured the distance without seeming to do so. He could reach it without making a step.

In a flash, he had seized it and had hit the one gun that covered him. The gun crashed to the floor. There was a shrill cry from the Chinaman as the decanter crashed on his hand. China Jo reached like a flash for the gun on the floor. Dude beat him to it, gripped him by the shoulders and flung the tiny shaking form against the wall. It slumped down and stayed there.

But the other Chink who had fallen back when the glass came hurtling at him, had seized a priceless vase of the Chinese Rain God from a low altar and was at Dude with it. Dude raised his left arm to ward it off. It smashed and splintered. Before the blood showed, before the other had raised an arm again, Dude shot in his right. It had to be sure. There would be others to Jo’s aid any minute. The sharp knuckles met the Chink’s chin with a brittle sound. The Chink fell.

And just in time! Swift feet were heard in the passage beyond the splintered door. Dude looked at Rose.

“So long, cutie! Be back soon!”

He made for the window. He smashed it with a chair he grabbed on the way and was on the sill. Could he make the roof? Just above the corner window where he stood, a huge green dragon formed the eaves and sloped up to the roof.

But it was the only way, anyway, and he heard men in the room behind him. He jumped. He caught a foot of the dragon. Thank God there had been some projection to grip! The thing was metal and slippery. But once he had pulled himself up, he could grasp the coping of the roof. He was on it in a flash, so quickly that he had not even been seen from the street. Maybe the Chinks hadn’t reached the roof yet. He looked and saw no one.

One swift look back. Rose was at the window. “Take me!” she screamed, “or Jo will!”

“Soon, kid,” he called back and was on over the roof, four roofs. The fifth had a loose hatch. He pulled it up and was down the stairs. So far so good. The Chinks were not on the roof yet. Then the thought flashed on him, “Maybe they stayed to shoot the works to Rose.” And he paused a second. “No, that damned Oriental will make it long and lingerin’ and I’ll be back before then.”

And he hurried on down the three flights and peered out into the street. He was safe. People walked the streets. A cop lolled across the way. No one would dare fire at him.

He adjusted his coat, wiped the blood from the arm where the Chinese idol had crashed, and sauntered out into the street. He stopped when he had crossed to the officer.

“Walkin’ my way, O’Neil?” he asked.

“Yeh. I guess so. Ain’t up to anything, are you, Dude?”

“Do I look it?” was Dude’s reply as he started on down the street past China Jo’s and back to his room on the second floor at Poker Maud’s.

He had lost his jaunty air now. He bounded up the stairs and into his room. Fortunately, Pete was there. So far, so good! He wasted no time.

“Get the gang together and follow me to China Jo’s,” was his order. He thought that enough and rushed for the door.

“What are you goin’ to do at Jo’s? Eat?” drawled Pete.

“We’re goin’ to get Half-Breed Rose.” And Dude started for the door again.

“Don’t be a damn fool,” Pete laughed. “You can’t get Rose out of that joint. There’s as many doors in that dive as New York’s got cops.”

Dude had his shoulders in a grip of steel.

“Get this straight, you dumb yegg. We’re gonna get her. We gotta get her now. And what’s more, it’s either Jo’s tong or our gang now. I already been up on that third floor. Get me now? If we don’t get them first, they’ll be here and we ain’t ready. Get the men.”

“A skirt again!” grumbled Pete. But he shook himself loose and beat it for the door. They both dove down the stairs.

“Guess the Chink’ll shoot her the same works he wanted to shoot me. Make for the red dungeon, Pete.”

“Where’s...?”

“How do I know?” growled Dude as he yanked open the front door. “Sounds like some side show rigged up in the basement. Find it, where ever it is, see?”

Dude was off alone down the street.

As he neared China Jo’s, he walked slower. What was his next move? He could wait for the fellows to arrive and walk into the restaurant backed safely by his gang. Nothing could happen then. The chop suey joint was still too crowded with people for any rough stuff. He could reach as far as the second floor that way. But what could he do then? He could not get beyond. A move farther and then the blazin’ would start.

“Blazin’,” he laughed to himself. “Guess the Chink is too clever for that! He’s got other and less noisy means of sendin’ a guy to hell.”

Dude took the other side of the street and slunk past Jo’s and up as far as the house from which he had made this exit from the roof just a short time before. He waited in the vestibule a minute, hands on his gats.

Had a look-out at Jo’s seen him and followed? He waited another minute, watchful, ready. He was safe so far. They had not seen him. They didn’t expect him back so soon — and alone.

He started up the stairs. Then he paused. He would not try the roof again. Best not try the same thing twice. They might be waiting for him there.

He came back down the stairs, turned, and walked slowly along the dark, smelly hallway, and out the back door. He was over fence after fence like a cat. Finally, the lights on the second floor showed him he was at the back entrance of China Jo’s. Best go easy now! That door was never unguarded. He hugged close to the wall and noiselessly reached the door. He flattened himself against the wall next the door and made a sound with his foot.

As he expected, yellow ears had caught the sound. It had worked. A latch slipped. The back door flung open and a head appeared. He brought his billy down and a body fell across the threshold.

Still he was wary. He would not enter that way. He pulled the inert body clear out and closed the door. A window next to the door yielded noiselessly to his jimmy and he was in the back room of what was supposedly a Chinese grocery. He would not trust himself to use a flash. He crept around the wall, feeling with his sensitive fingers. He could glide without a sound.

“If there’s a secret shaft down to the basement,” he figured, as he continued along the wall, “it’s not in the hall. That’s too easy for the bulls. It would have to stick out from the rest of the wall some. And it ain’t in the grocery in front or anybody could see it. I’m in the room with it now, unless that damn Chink was just tryin’ to throw a scare into me.”

His hand met a joining. It was not the corner. In the darkness he could make out the wall two feet beyond. He had struck the shaft!

Now his real difficulty began — to get into that shaft and down it. He continued to feel around. If he attempted to remove plaster and lath he would be heard. Maybe even the shaft was lined with steel. And above all, it would take at least a quarter of an hour. Too long, much too long. One of his spread fingers sunk a little in the plaster!

“Luck for the first time to-night,” was his thought. “China Jo ain’t so damn clever.”

He pushed his finger again, harder. The entire side of the shaft, as high as the ceiling, had opened almost half an inch. He pushed harder. It would open no more. This entrance to the shaft was evidently little used. He tugged at the open half inch. There was a grating noise. No time for delicate operations now. He may have been heard.

Dude ripped it open the rest of the way. He was sure that noise had been heard outside. In a second he had grasped the cable in the shaft, slid to the cellar and crouched against the brick wall in the darkness.

No sound above. Maybe the Chinks knew the dangers of the cellar and did not think it necessary to follow. He dared not move without his flash now. The ray of light revealed a long, dark passage. And thank God he had turned on the flash!

Directly at the entrance to the passage was a pit in the floor — a long drop. Dude trained the flash down — a sheer wall down of — he could not see how many feet.

He shivered as he pictured his mangled body at the bottom. He made the jump across and was about to start up the dark passageway when there were lights behind and above. Voices! Not one — several.

Dude was back at the pit. He grasped the edge and lowered himself. His head was below the floor level. Only the tips of clutching fingers above. Maybe they would pass over him and not see him. It was a chance.

He could hear the voices more plainly now.

“A cinch, so far,” one whispered.

“There’s some trap,” another insisted. “Never knew a tong guard to fall asleep at a door before and leave a trap door open. Good we didn’t have to sink some lead through him and bring on the cops.”

“You dumb gunman, you” — Dude recognized the voice as Pete’s — “that tongman wasn’t asleep. He’s out for the count. Must have been the same way Dude came, see? Watch out here. A pit. Jump it!”

“Damn you! Get off my fingers,” and as Pete jumped back and leveled his rod, Dude pulled himself out of the pit, shaking his bruised hand.

Orders were fast now. They crept on along the passage. A blind alley. No door at the end. Suddenly, a scream! A woman’s scream of fear.

“It’s somewhere on this wall on the left,” said Dude.

A search revealed no door. They were about to try the other wall when a streak of light showed on the wall they had searched. The streak widened. A tongman came out. Dude had his throat. Pete trained the flash on him. Tango’s silencer clicked. The Chink smashed on the concrete floor.

A louder scream. The door was closing. Dude jumped quick. He was inside the door, both guns drawn. The door closed fast behind him. His gang was on the other side, pounding. Their blows were useless against tested steel. He was alone in China Jo’s stronghold.

But there were only three other men in the room. With one gun, Dude had covered the cringing tong leader Jo, as he sat enthroned on a high carved chair against the wall. The other was ready to fire at either of the two henchmen opposite.

They had hold of Half-Breed Rose and were dragging her, bound, terrified, naked, to a colossal image, an enormous porcelain furnace in reality. From the god’s gaping mouth shot tongues of flame. Marble steps led from the floor to the greedy, fiery jaws.

“No such delicious morsel,” said Dude, indicating with a nod of his head Rose’s figure stretched on the floor; “No such delicious morsel ain’t goin’ into yon big god’s pot belly. Now, open this door!” he commanded.

“I will do so” — China Jo reached for a button.

“No,” came a shriek from the floor. “Jump, Dude!”

He did, just in time, but his guns never shifted their aim. The floor had opened where he stood. A quick glance down showed darkness.

Dude’s nostrils expanded in fury.

“Get over with the other two, you damn Chinaman,” he yelled. “Now, let the girl loose.”

Rose stretched her cramped arms. Immediately, she was conscious of her naked flesh, and reached for a silken cloth at the foot of the idol.

“Come here, Rose. I want you to let my men in. They’re back o’ this door.”

Even China Jo’s scowling eyes did not prevent her from obeying. Dude’s voice carried authority. She reached to press a spring under the arm of the chair in which the tong leader had sat. The steel door began to open. Dude’s gang was behind him.

But China Jo had seen his opportunity. When the door began to open, he pressed a lever in one of the great god’s feet. From inside came two of his men who had tended the fire in a compartment underneath. They were armed. Shots rang.

“Hit the floor, Rose!” shouted Dude. “At ’em boys!” And both of Dude’s guns flashed. Two of the Chinamen fell. There was a yell of pain from Pete, but he stood his ground.

A volley of shots from China Jo’s side. Dude had slid behind a chair.

“Save China Jo for me!” he yelled into the din of ringing shots.

He picked off another Chink and Tango’s silencer listed another casualty.

“The last of ’em! Now, me for Jo!” And Dude shoved his rods in his pockets as he strode swiftly across to the crouching figure of China Jo. Dude yanked him to his feet.

“Now, you little baby he-devil, you, I’ll settle with you.” His voice was low in the Chink’s ear. “It was either me or you, Jo, and I kinda guess it’s you.”

“Time, please, time! Prayer — I make prayer!”

“Prayer,” sneered Dude. “You want time to push another button.”

“No, no! Prayer!”

“Oh, yeh? O.K. with me.” He was carrying the whimpering writhing form up the marble steps.

“I got a great idea, Jo,” Dude was saying. “You want to pray. Well now, where’s there a better place than in the great big belly of your great big heathen god. See the point, Jo?”

Dude was at the top of the marble staircase. His powerful arms stretched the body into the air. Jo’s slant eyes looked in terror. His scream was muffled as he fell through the flaming mouth below.

Rose gave a little cry of pity.

“Don’t waste any tears on that yellow scoundrel,” said Dude. “It might have been you or me or both of us!”

Dude was the softy again as he held Rose’s yielding form in his arms.

“It’s good for us, boys,” he said, “that China Jo had sound proof walls in this hole, or we’d have had the cops here before this. And if there’s anything annoys me, it’s a lot of flat feet buttin’ in.”

Soon Rose was dressed again in the clothes that had been taken from her at the idol’s feet.

They were all on the street. The gang scattered. Rose and Dude sauntered on down the block. Rose started a little as a cop rounded the corner.

“Evenin’, O’Neil.” Dude was casual.

“Evenin’, Dude. Livin’ peaceable?”

“Me? Sure! Just spendin’ a quiet evenin’ with the girl friend!”