The Black Falcon

CHAPTER I THE BIG SHOT

A MAMMOTH limousine was parked in front of the Club Madrid. Curious bystanders, thronged beneath the lighted marquee of the glittering Manhattan night club, were buzzing among themselves. The chauffeur of the limousine, a grin on his tough face, was listening to the murmured comments of the handful who watched the car.

“That’s Rowdy Kirshing’s boat—”

“Say — it’s a big bus — and you can bet those windows are bullet-proof.”

“Take it from me, that chauffeur’s got a gun packed on his hip. Look at the face on him—”

“Here comes Rowdy Kirshing now!”

The final statement of a bystander caused all eyes to turn toward the entrance of the night club. A big man, his rough, scarred face looming uglily above a stiff tuxedo collar, was approaching from the door of the Club Madrid.

“The biggest of the big shots—”

The comment came from an onlooker as “Rowdy” Kirshing passed. It was whispered; and it brought a low answer from another bystander:

“Yeah — and that fellow with him is no softy. That’s Pinkey Sardon, his bodyguard.”

The man to whom attention had been directed was following close at Rowdy Kirshing’s heels. Like his master, “Pinkey” was attired in a tuxedo. He, too, was the possessor of an evil face. A squat, broad-shouldered ruffian, Pinkey Sardon had risen from the ranks of ordinary gorillas to serve as bodyguard to the most notorious racketeer in New York.

Rowdy Kirshing paid no attention to the throng of persons who observed his exit from the Club Madrid. He left that to his trusted follower, Pinkey Sardon. The bodyguard, glaring from left to right, kept one hand menacingly in his side pocket, while his chief entered the limousine. With Rowdy Kirshing safely in the car, Pinkey sprang in behind him. The chauffeur slammed the door and clambered to the driver’s seat. The wheeled leviathan pulled away from the curb, leaving the gaping spectators on the sidewalk.

“Plenty of gawks in New York,” observed Pinkey, with a gruff laugh. “They stand around like a bunch of hicks. Everywhere you go there’s a pile of mugs looking on.”

“Lucky for you there is,” growled Rowdy. “If those mugs weren’t around, I wouldn’t carry a bodyguard. It’s just the chance that there might be some sharpshooter pretending that he was one of the goofs. That’s why you’ve got your job, Pinkey.”

“Don’t I know it?” The bodyguard laughed. “Say, Rowdy, there’s no guy tough enough to take a plug at you in the open. I know why I’m working for you. I keep my eye out for snipers. They know it wouldn’t do them no good to take a pot-shot at you.”

Rowdy Kirshing nodded in reply. He was reaching for the speaking phone that communicated with the front seat. He uttered words to the chauffeur:

“Tenth Avenue, Danny.”

PINKEY SARDON grinned as he heard his chief’s order. He knew the spot on Tenth Avenue where Rowdy Kirshing was going. The king of racketeers was headed for one of gangdom’s strongholds — a place where bodyguards were not needed. This would mean a night off for Pinkey Sardon.

Rowdy Kirshing was evidently holding the same thought. From a side pocket the big shot brought out a massive roll of bills. He peeled off ten, each note of a hundred-dollar denomination.

“One grand, Pinkey,” stated Rowdy, as be thrust the money into his bodyguard’s hand. “That’s for the week. And here” — the big shot was counting off five more bills as he spoke — “is some extra change for a present.”

“Half a grand!” Pinkey whistled. “Thanks, Rowdy! Say — it’s knocked me goofy, the way you’ve been slinging the dough the past week. You gave each of those chorines a century at the Club Madrid tonight—”

“There’s plenty more where this came from,” growled Rowdy, in a tone that stopped Pinkey short. “I don’t have to look for the mazuma. It comes to me.”

“I know that,” agreed Pinkey. “But with the way some of the rackets have been taking it on the chin—”

“I’ve got others up my sleeve.”

Pinkey nodded. As Rowdy Kirshing’s bodyguard, the ex-gorilla had a general idea of his employer’s sources of revenue. He was frequently present when Rowdy received collections from small-fry racketeers. Yet Pinkey realized that his knowledge was only partial. Racketeers had been low on contributions of late. Expenses of maintaining gang leaders and their mobs had been as large as ever. Despite these facts, Rowdy Kirshing had flashed and spent money with keen abandon.

The limousine swerved around the corner of a side street. It rolled along Tenth Avenue, slowed its pace and turned into the open doorway of an old garage. Danny guided the car across vacant floor space until he neared another door that opened on a side street.

The interior of the garage was dimly lighted. Peering from the window of the limousine, Pinkey Sardon saw that no one was in sight except a lounging attendant back at the door which the car had entered. Pinkey growled that the way was clear.

Rowdy Kirshing alighted. Pinkey watched him approach an obscure door at the back of the garage. He saw the big shot press a button. He could hear the click of a latch.

As Rowdy Kirshing entered the door, Pinkey spoke to Danny through the tube. The chauffeur nodded and started the limousine out through the door to the side street.

BEYOND the small door through which he had passed, Rowdy Kirshing had arrived at the foot of a stairway. The door closed behind him, the racketeer marched upward. Dim light showed a barrier ahead; as Rowdy reached the top of the stairs, this proved to be a door of heavy steel.

A tiny peephole clicked open. An observing eye surveyed Rowdy’s roughened countenance. The peephole closed. The door slid to the right. Rowdy Kirshing entered a small anteroom where a brawny, red-faced fellow was waiting.

“Howdy, Steve,” growled Rowdy.

“Hello, Rowdy,” returned the guard, as he pressed a switch to close the outer door.

No further words were given. Steve gave a signaling rap against the inner door. It slid to the right. Rowdy walked through and Steve followed. Rowdy uttered a brief greeting to a beefy inner guard:

“Howdy, Mac.”

The big shot was in the lounging room of a palatial club. In amazing contrast to the dingy garage beneath, this apartment was furnished, on an extravagant scale. The chairs and tables were of heavy mahogany. The ornate, tufted carpeting seemed inches thick. The paneled walls were decorated with gold-leaf ornamentation.

At the left were barred and shuttered windows, almost completely hidden by heavy velvet curtains. To the right was an open doorway, beyond it the cross-section of mahogany bar with polished brass rail beneath.

The sight of a white-liveried bartender handling a shaker, the click of glasses and the tones of laughing conversation, were evidence where most of the patrons of this club were lurking.

Rowdy Kirshing, however, did not turn in the direction of the barroom. He went straight ahead, crossing the deserted lounge room until he reached one of three doors that were set in a row. He opened the barrier and grinned as he poked his head into the room.

Four men, seated at a heavy card table, looked up as Rowdy arrived. With one accord, they beckoned to the big shot. Rowdy entered and closed the door behind him. One of the players, rising, invited the racketeer to join the game. Rowdy accepted.

These men were spenders. Hardened figures of the underworld, who gained their revenue through racketeering, they used this unnamed club as their meeting place. The size of their poker game was apparent when Rowdy Kirshing counted off five thousand dollars from the roll in his pocket and received fifty chips in return.

THE deal began. The game proceeded. Amid clouding cigar smoke, the five players kept up terse snatches of conversation as hundred-dollar chips changed hands as lightly as if they had been worthless disks of cardboard.

“Seen Velvet Laffrey lately?”

Rowdy Kirshing, squeezing five cards in his left hand, peered from the corner of his eye as he heard one player address the question to another.

“No,” came the reply. “Maybe he’s scrammed from town.”

“They say the bulls are looking for him.” The speaker paused; when no return comment came, he added: “Maybe they think he was the guy who hooked Hubert Apprison.”

Silence followed, broken only by the clicking of chips. The speaker’s reference had been to the disappearance of a prominent banker. Newspaper reports were to the effect that Hubert Apprison had been kidnapped.

The man who had brought up the subject said no more. Direct references to individual crime activities were taboo at this protected club. Rowdy Kirshing, his poker face inflexible, dropped four chips on the center of the table to raise a bet.

The game continued. Rowdy’s stack of chips was dwindling. Some one commented on the fact. The big shot laughed.

“Guess I’ll be buying some more,” he asserted. “It always takes a few grand to get started.”

“What’s a few grand to you, Rowdy?” laughed one of the players.

“Not much,” decided Rowdy. “I go in for big dough. And it’s as big as ever.”

With this retort, the big shot arose from the table. He reached in his right coat pocket and counted off the remainder of his roll, a matter of four thousand dollars. He pulled a revolver from his pocket and planked it carelessly upon the table, while he fished in his pocket for loose bills.

Grinning as he found none, Rowdy reached into his left pocket. He drew out a fat bundle of crisp notes. The stack was encircled with a broad strip of paper. The eyes of the players bulged as they saw the high denominations on the bills when Rowdy Kirshing riffled the ends.

Holding the stack in his left hand, the big shot tried to pull a group of bills free from the others. He wanted to do this without breaking the encircling paper band. The speculative players wondered why, but gave the matter little thought. Had they been able to view the side of the packet that was toward Rowdy’s eyes, their passing curiosity would have become keen interest.

THE near side of the band was marked, not with a printed or written statement of amount, but with a most unusual emblem. Thrust through the band itself was a feather of jet-black hue.

It was this object that Rowdy Kirshing did not want the other men to see. That was why he did not tear the band. He glowered, as the tightly-packed bills failed to come free. The players leaned back in their chairs and waited.

Thus came momentary silence, that lacked even the slight clicking of poker chips. It was the sudden lull that caused Rowdy Kirshing to look up quickly as his ears detected an unexpected sound from across the room.

Rowdy was facing the door; the other men stared as they caught the expression that appeared upon the big shot’s face. Rowdy’s hands stopped their motion. Gripping the ends of the packet of bills, the racketeer gazed in petrified horror.

The others turned their heads in alarm. Like Rowdy, they became as statues. Unseen, unheard, some stranger had entered the secluded gaming room. Like a specter from the night, a figure had appeared before these men of crime.

Looming just within the door was a tall form clad in black. A cloak of sable hue hid the arrival’s body. The upturned collar concealed his features. The turned-down brim of a black slouch hat obscured the visitor’s forehead. All that showed from that darkened visage was a pair of burning eyes that focused themselves upon the crisp bills gripped in Rowdy Kirshing’s hands.

From a black-gloved fist extended a huge automatic, its mighty muzzle looming with a threat of instant death. It was the sight of that weapon that caused five watching men to quail.

Then, as no one moved, there came a token more terrifying than either the being himself or the mammoth gun which he displayed. A whisper crept from unseen lips. It rose to a quivering, shuddering laugh that echoed sibilantly through the room.

That was the laugh feared throughout the underworld. It was the cry that men of crime knew for a knell of doom.

The laugh of The Shadow!