“The only plan, Targon,” returned Delhugh, quietly. “You will find that new associations are necessary to your success. I have convinced Zurk that I can influence his future. I hope that I have convinced you in the same manner.”
“You have,” stated Jack. “You and Steve. The way he took it helped.”
Delhugh was smiling as he picked up the stacks of papers from the desk. Jack noted scrawled letters among Steve’s documents. In his own pile, he observed slips of paper that looked very much like bad checks that he had passed, years before.
The young man smiled sheepishly at sight of this evidence of abandoned crime. Delhugh did not notice the expression. He was putting the papers back into the drawer. Jack Targon turned his eyes away as Delhugh stepped from behind the desk. Then Benzig arrived to announce that Targon’s cab was at the door.
Delhugh clapped a friendly hand upon Jack’s shoulder. The young man grinned, no longer sheepish.
Then, strolling after Benzig, he went from Delhugh’s study, faring forth, like Steve, upon a new career.
Perry Delhugh resumed his seat behind his desk. His square face wore a meditative smile as he recalled his observations of these men to whom he had given aid. They had been as he had expected them to be, fitting perfectly to the descriptions that he had gained of them.
Delhugh’s smile remained as the philanthropist lighted a fresh cigar. In all his work of welfare, this keen, dynamic man had never before encountered cases that afforded such unusual contrast and such rich promise of future results.
CHAPTER IV. OUT OF THE PAST
IT was evening in Manhattan. Times Square, with its galaxy of lights; broad avenues with lesser, yet brilliant illumination — these were the channels that attracted the pleasure-seeking throngs of the great metropolis.
In contrast were the side streets, where lights dwindled as one left the brilliance of the avenues. Here shaded seclusion dwelt amid the teeming city. Nervous pedestrians, as they passed certain spots, could sense impressions of lurking danger.
Not far from Times Square stood a dark-fronted building that seemed pinched between taller structures on each side. The first floor, a full six feet above the street level, was occupied by a Chinese restaurant.
Above the eating place were blackened windows that signified unoccupied rooms.
A man from the side street came up the steps that led to the Chinese restaurant. He entered a hallway at the top of the steps; but instead of passing through the curtained doorway to the restaurant, he kept straight ahead along a poorly lighted hall and took to a stairway at the end.
He followed the steps to the second floor. There, by a single gas light, he noted the second door on the right, toward the rear of the building. A dim light shone through the glass-paneled front; but the door bore no name. The arrival opened it and entered.
BEHIND a dilapidated counter stood a wizened, droop-faced man who eyed the newcomer with an almost startled gaze. There was reason for his semblance of fright — for the intruder was a square-set, hard-faced ruffian whose features carried a malicious leer.
“Your name’s Dangler?” inquired the intruder, closing the door behind him.
“Yes,” replied the wizened man with a nod. Then, in a whining voice: “Are you sure you have the right office? I am a dealer in postage stamps. My name is not yet on the door; but—”
“Cut it,” snorted the hard-faced man. “I’m not a dick. You’re running this biz on the up and up, ain’t you?”
Dangler nodded.
“Then don’t spill a line like that,” growled the intruder. “It sounds fishy. Like you was a guy with a record. Nobody’s got nothing on you, Dangler, even though you was in the green-goods game. Don’t be scared of no bulls — nor Feds, neither.”
An expression of enlightenment dawned on Dangler’s face. The wizened man managed a grin.
“Are you Mr. Ortz?” he questioned.
“That’s me,” chuckled the hard-faced rogue. “I’m Lucky Ortz. The guy you’ve been expecting from Beak Latzo. I was over to your old joint; I found the card there saying that you’d moved.”
“The rent was cheaper here,” explained Dangler, “and the place is more secluded. I’ve been expecting you to stop in almost any time, since Beak told me that you would call for him. But that was three months ago.”
“Beak’s been out of town,” growled “Lucky.” “He wasn’t expecting nothing while he was away. But he figured maybe you might’ve got a letter for him lately—”
“I have.” Dangler was emphatic in his interruption. He dived beneath the counter and brought out an old, disused postage stamp album. Fishing through the pages, he produced an envelope. “This came in yesterday. Wednesday.”
“Good!” Lucky took the envelope, noted the scrawled address. It had been forwarded from Dangler’s former office. “I’ll take it along to Beak. So long, Dangler. Paint your moniker on that door and give the bulls the haha if they bother you.”
A grin on his hard face, Lucky stumped from Dangler’s office. There was something contemptuous in Lucky’s leer. To this man, lieutenant of Beak Latzo, fear of the law was something to ridicule.
Leaving the building that housed Dangler’s office, Lucky strode eastward and then turned along an avenue. He came to the steps of an elevated station. He ascended to the platform, took a south-bound train and rode for several stations.
When he again reached the street, Lucky had arrived in a most dilapidated neighborhood. He was in a district that fringed the underworld, where patrolmen were frequent, their wary eyes on the lookout for dubious characters.
Lucky passed several policemen; his gait, neither shuffling nor hurried, attracted no attention. Turning into a secluded alleyway, Lucky unlocked the door of a dilapidated house. He stepped into a darkened hall, blundered up a flight of stairs and gave five short knocks at a door that he discovered in the blackness.
A key turned. The door opened inward. Lucky stepped into a gas-lighted room with drawn shades. He was face to face with a man who looked tougher than himself. This was Beak Latzo.
THE mobleader’s sobriquet was a good one. Long, rangy and fierce-faced, Beak Latzo possessed a nose that was definitely prominent. It was a large nose, that might once have been beaklike. At present, however, it bore a flattened look — an indication that its wearer had suffered from punches dealt in fistic combat.
In fact, Beak Latzo’s nose was a target at which a battler would logically aim. Moreover, it was an item of physiognomy that would unquestionably identify its owner. That accounted for the fact that Beak Latzo was at present occupying a hideout; the only course by which he could keep his presence in New York unknown.
“Well?” Beak’s question came in a raspy tone. “Did you find the goof? Dangler?”
“Yeah,” returned Lucky. “Not at his old place, though. He’s moved to a dumpy office up over a chop suey joint.”
“That’s all right. Just so long as you found him. Anything there for me?”
“This is all.”
Lucky produced the envelope. Beak Latzo blinked with beady eyes as he noted the scrawled address.
Then he ripped open the envelope, spread out the letter that was within and began to read with eagerness.
“Is it from Steve Zurk?” questioned Lucky, noting his chief’s enthusiasm.
“You bet it is!” chortled Beak. “Take a squint at it, Lucky.”
“Say, its a scrawl, ain’t it?” snorted Lucky, trying to read the letter after Beak handed it to him. “All I can make out is the beginning — and ‘Steve’ at the end of it.”