Shadow 001 - The Living Shadow

CHAPTER XXII FRESH TROUBLE

THE big man in the back of the cab grunted as the car bounced along a poorly paved street. Evidently the driver did not know the best way to the address that had been given him.

The cab swung a corner, rolled along a street that was somewhat better, then began to increase its speed. Suddenly the passenger in back whistled.

“Whoa, boy,” he said. “Let’s stop in here a minute.”

He pointed to a lunch wagon they had just passed.

“Might as well let them know I’m in town,” he muttered to himself. “Now that I’ve fixed things with Wang Foo, there’s nothing to do until I see the old boy on Long Island. I’ll hear from him in time to plan another business trip.”

Stepping from the cab, he turned to the driver.

“Come in, boy,” he said to the taxi driver.

Harry got out of the front seat reluctantly.

“Don’t like to spare the time,” he began.

“Forget it,” replied the beefy-faced man. “Leave your meter running. This is on me.”

Together they entered the lunch wagon. A cry went up from two men seated there, and the cook waved his hand in recognition.

“English Johnny!”

The red-faced man laughed.

“They call me that,” he said, “but you fellows know I ain’t an Englishman.”

“Perhaps not,” said one of the customers, “but you’ve got some English in you, and you sure look English.”

English Johnny turned to Harry Vincent.

“Sit down, bud,” he said, “and order up.”

Vincent called for a cup of coffee. He listened to the conversation, but learned nothing except that the man they called “English Johnny” was well known and well liked.

“When did you get back, Johnny?” came a question.

“Tonight.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Well, I usually pick a downtown hotel, but I ain’t registered yet. Just came in from a trip, you know.”

“Starting any more wagons?”

“Expect to, soon.”

The talk drifted a bit. Harry had finished his coffee. The beefy-faced man had gulped down two sandwiches and had swallowed a cupful of tea. He rose and walked to the door, with Harry following.

As they neared the cab, another taxi drew up and the driver alighted.

“Hello, English Johnny,” the driver called.

“Hello, boy.”

The driver gazed curiously at Harry Vincent, but said nothing. Harry felt rather ill at ease. Perhaps he should greet this other man.

English Johnny detected the glance of the newcomer, but the taxi driver was evidently a mere acquaintance, and not a friend. Harry climbed into the cab and held the door open for English Johnny.

They rolled beneath the elevated. Harry stepped on the accelerator. It would be best to deliver the man in back before any trouble might arise. The street was deserted; this was a time for speed.

He went past a corner. English Johnny whistled at him. Harry slowed down.

“Where you taking me, fellow?” asked the beefy-faced man. “This ain’t the shortest way. Cut over to the left. Don’t you know your New York?”

“Not all of it, sir.”

“Looks like you don’t know none of it.”

Harry swung to the left; as he did so, a passing car honked warningly. There followed the grinding of brakes, and the other automobile narrowly missed a collision with one of the elevated posts.

An oath issued from the other car. Its driver stepped from one door and a policeman from the other. Harry was stopped in the middle of the street.

“What’s the idea?” demanded the policeman.

“Just turning left,” said Vincent.

“Where was your hand?”

“I had it out,” answered Harry truthfully.

The officer turned to his companion.

“Did you see him put his hand out?”

“No’” said the other man. “I’m glad I was giving you a lift, officer. You can see what we drivers are up against. These taxis think they own the streets. Why don’t you run him in?”

The policeman glowered at Vincent. He looked as though he was sorry there had not been an accident. He seemed to be after an excuse to make an arrest.

“Get out your driver’s license,” he said. “Show me your certificates.”

Vincent fumbled in the pocket of his uniform. He half expected to find the credentials there. Then he realized that he would be unable to sign properly - doubtless the officer would require that.

This was something that had not been anticipated; evidently no provision had been made for it. The pocket was empty.

“One chance in a million,” thought Vincent. “One chance that I would run into a mess like this.”

The policeman was opening the back door of the car.

“Let’s take a look at your mug back here,” Vincent heard him say.

“Do you mean me?” came the voice of English Johnny.

“No. I mean the picture of this bum driver you have in the license frame. But I’ll look you over, too if you want. What’s your name?”

“Well,” came the reply, “my name’s Harmon; but most of the boys know me by the title of English Johnny.”

The policeman looked up.

“English Johnny!”

“Sure.”

“The fellow that owns the lunch wagons?”

“The same one. I know some big men on the force, too.”

“I’ve heard that. Say, what’ll I do with this driver you’ve got here?”

“Let him take me out to my place, first. He’s been long enough getting me there.”

The officer laughed.

“Drive along,” he said to Harry. “This gentleman wants to get home.”

“What about running him in?” asked the man from the other car.

“Forget it,” said the policeman.

Vincent put the car in gear and drove hurriedly away. The interruption of English Johnny had been fortunate. He hoped there would be no more complications.

Just then another whistle from the back seat broke in on Harry’s thoughts.

“Pull up by the curb here,” came the voice of his passenger. Harry obeyed the order.

English Johnny stepped out of the door - he had ordered Harry to the left side of the street - now he looked sharply at the driver of the cab, whose face was clearly visible beneath the light of a street lamp.

“Listen here, fellow,” demanded English Johnny, “are you trying to give me the run-around?”

“No, sir,” replied Vincent.

“It looks like you were.”

“Why?”

“Because you talk like you know the streets, and yet you’ve been getting mixed up every few blocks.”

Vincent decided that a taxi driver would answer this sort of talk with some emphatic statements of his own. So he tried it.

“Maybe I know the streets better than you,” he growled in a sullen voice. “I’m driving the cab. I know my business.”

“Maybe you’re all right,” replied English Johnny, as though half convinced. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“I’m all right.”

“Well, you kinda got into trouble back there at the elevated.”

“That’s all in the day’s work. Every cab driver runs into mix-ups like that.”

“Well, you acted kinda funny. Then, when you got lost again, I thought I’d better see what it was all about. I ain’t trusting myself with no half-drunk taxi driver.

“I haven’t been drinking.”

“I know that now, bud. Still, things ain’t right - least, they don’t seem that way to me.”

“Why not?”

“You ain’t handling the car like you knew where you were going.”

Harry was silent.

“Tell me where we are going,” demanded English Johnny. “What was the address I gave you?”

Harry was about to blurt out the reply when he sensed something in the man’s pugnacious red face. He knew instinctively that English Johnny was suspicious. For some reason the man was sorry that he had given his address to this strange taxi driver.

“Come on!” English Johnny persisted. “Where did I tell you to take me?”

“I can’t remember, sir,” replied Vincent.

“You don’t remember?”

“No, sir.”

“What kind of a taxi driver are you, anyway?”

“I’m an all-right driver; I just forgot the address you gave. All I can remember is East One Hundred and Something Street. I was figuring on asking you again when we got up around the Nineties.”

“So that’s it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Didn’t you check up on the number when I gave it to you - back where I got in the cab? Repeat it to yourself, I mean, so you wouldn’t forget it?”

“No, sir. I didn’t catch it exactly when you gave it to me. Then we stopped at the lunch wagon; and after that trouble back on the avenue, I got so mixed up that I couldn’t even remember the street you told me.”

Another taxi pulled up in back of Vincent’s cab. The driver came forward to listen to the argument.

“What’s the row?” the fellow asked Harry.

“Don’t ask him,” interrupted English Johnny. “He wouldn’t know.”

“How so?” asked the newcomer, surveying the beefy-faced man suspiciously. That was natural enough, Harry thought. One taxi driver would side with another.

“Looka here, bud,” said English Johnny. “I gotta right to be taken straight to a place, ain’t I? But this fellow ain’t doing it. He admits he forgot the number I gave him. I don’t believe he ever drove a cab before.”

“Show him your licenses, pal,” said the taxi man.

“That’s right,” English Johnny chimed in. “Show ‘em to me.”

Harry fumbled in his pocket, playing for time.

“He hasn’t got ‘em,” jeered English Johnny. “I shoulda let the cop run him in. He’s a phony.”

The other man was studying Harry curiously.

“I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “He don’t look like a regular taxi man. What’s the racket, fellow? There’s been a lot of cabs snatched off the street lately. You pulling that game?”

“We’ll find out quick enough,” growled English Johnny, glancing back down the street. Harry twisted around in his seat and saw a policeman approaching.

English Johnny waved an arm for assistance.

Silently, Harry slipped the car into gear.

But English Johnny had leaped on to the running board. His beefy face, usually affable, was now distorted with anger. The cab hadn’t started rolling yet.

“Cab stealer, eh?” he shouted. “Maybe you were going to run me out somewhere to grab my dough. Well, your game’s up!”

His huge hand clamped upon Harry’s shoulder. An instant later, the man at the wheel swung his left elbow straight upward. It landed squarely on the point of English Johnny’s chin.

The man with the bulldog jaw was staggered for a moment. The interfering taxi driver joined English Johnny on the running board, and saved him from falling off.

Turning the wheel sharply with his right hand, and stepping on the gas, Harry drew back his left and thrust the open palm against English Johnny’s face. The big fellow went back, and the sharp turn of the car caused him to lose his balance and tumble in the street.

The other man was spilled from the running board by the force of English Johnny’s catapulting bulk.

Harry looked back over his shoulder. English Johnny had regained his feet. He was in the middle of the street, shaking his mighty fist and shouting incoherently.

The genuine driver ran back to give chase in his cab. The policeman had reached the scene of the recent action.

Harry swung his car grimly as he turned a corner. He raced down an avenue, cut off to the right along a side street, and commenced a twisting, bewildering course to elude pursuit.

Harry was driving rapidly. He had the feel of the wheel, and he was pleased with the easy way in which the cab handled. He roared onto Tenth Avenue and whirled down that broad thoroughfare until he reached the Excelsior Garage.

An attendant opened the door. Vincent parked the car in the vacant corner and changed to his street clothes.

“I’ll get the cab tomorrow,” he remarked as he left the garage. “Maybe I’ll send some one after it.”

He walked down the avenue and called to a passing cab, and was whisked to the Metrolite Hotel.

The telephone bell rang just as he was getting into bed.

“Mr. Vincent?” came a voice.

“Yes.”

“I wondered where you were. Did you forget that I was to call you this evening? I am the man who sold you the radio set for your friend. Where do you want it to go?”

Vincent caught the emphasis instantly.

“Where did the man go?”

The man must be English Johnny.

Slowly and carefully, Harry repeated the address that had been given him in the cab - the address which he had so wisely pretended to have forgotten.

“Thank you, Mr. Vincent,” came the voice.

The receiver clicked.

Harry walked to the window and whistled a soft tune as he gazed out at the twinkling lights of Manhattan. It had been an exciting night. He had tumbled into trouble and out again. English Johnny Harmon! What did this fellow have to do with the game?

He shrugged his shoulders. The whole affair was a mystery to him. What would be his next mission?

He was still wondering when he fell asleep.