A half hour later Nosey Snedden, with a swift, surreptitious glance behind him entered police headquarters. Straightway he made for the detective’s room. Cassidy looked up from the depths of a racing sheet.
“Hello, Rat,” he greeted affably.
Snedden’s teeth jammed together and yellow hate flamed from his eyes.
“What’s the idea?” he demanded. “What the hell’s the idea of coming near me in Nigger Mike’s? Christ! If that gang knows I’m talking to you, they’ll croak me quicker than you’d cross me.”
“What do you expect?” returned the other. “That’s all part of your racket. Now listen, Nosey. I gotta tip, see? I know the Mullins mob is going to pull something tonight. I wanna know what it is and where!”
The hate in Nosey Snedden’s eyes was chastened by a haunting fear.
“I don’t know, Cassidy. Honest to God. I don’t know. This is the first I heard of it!”
“Yeah,” drawled the other. “I said I want to know what and where.”
The venom on Nosey’s face was conquered by the terror that gnawed at his heart. His voice cracked to an alto whine.
“Honest to God, Cassidy. Honest to God—”
“You wanna burn?”
“Honest to God—”
“Shut up. I can send you to the chair, Rat! And I’ll do it. I’m not asking you again.” He placed a thick hand on the telephone. “Come through.”
Nosey Snedden’s lips trembled. A single bitter tear streaming down his check, he came through.
“Get out!” said Cassidy and the contempt in his voice was vitriol. “You’re lower than I thought. I had to have the info. It’s my job. But I know and every mob in this town knows that Mullins dragged you out of the gutter when your name meant murder in this town. And now you rat on him!”
“Honest to God, Cassidy—”
“Screw!” said Timothy Cassidy.
The underworld was actually shocked. Mullins the Great was gone! The midnight Post Office robbery had ended in utter rout. Mullins was lying in the morgue his carcass riddled with police bullets. Shannon was laid out in the parlor of the Catholic home that he had left long ago, his face an unrecognizable bloody mass. Vittri was in the Police Hospital as the internes probed his abdomen for a .45 bullet. Nosey Snedden alone had escaped unharmed.
Nosey walked slowly into Nigger Mike’s. His face was drawn and pale. His narrowed eyes darted nervously here and there.
He started toward an occupied table with a greeting, but stopped half way. In response to his forced laugh, he found a duo of hard, unsmiling faces. He turned to an empty table and sat down.
This time he ordered double whiskey. The burning liquor poured his throat and surged through his veins. The screaming of his nerves was somewhat quieter.
He glanced again about the room and flushed uneasily at the suspicious looks that came his way. The third drink aroused a measure of defiance.
“To hell with them!” he muttered. “They can’t prove anything. Let ’em think. They won’t give me the works till they’re sure.”
He drummed nervously on the table. His wandering eyes shot toward the door and remained fixed upon what he saw.
A dry flame licked his throat, and the familiar form of Cassidy loomed through the entrance. Nosey Snedden stared at him as he entered. His heart hammered against his thin chest. His toes tightened against the soles of his shoes. His jaw tensed as his teeth came together.
Every eye in the house followed Cassidy. Usually he sauntered, strolled aimlessly through the bar, but tonight he walked direct — a purposeful walk.
Nosey Snedden gripped the whiskey glass. An almost palpable shadow of fear hovered over him. Closer and closer came Cassidy. Was he? No, he couldn’t!
The bulky form stopped and stretched out a hand.
“Howdy, Nosey,” said Cassidy. “Howza boy?”
He slapped him heartily on the back and then was gone. Nosey Snedden watched him stride toward the door. Each footstep marked off the time that Nosey Snedden would live. For a moment he was physically chained. Paralyzed. The awful intelligence that his brain had received was not yet translated to his rigid muscles. Cassidy’s pudgy hand was on the swinging door.
A brittle silence fought with the screech of the door hinge. Nosey Snedden’s muscles broke the spell. The glass dropped, shattered to the floor; the table banged over, as Snedden, his eyes distended marbles, his fingers claw like, saliva slobbering his jaws, sprang to his feet.
“Honest to God—” he shrieked. “Honest to God!”
The swinging door obscured Cassidy’s body.
Snedden’s hazy stare saw merciless eyes, thin bloodless lips. A score of hands flashed below the table.
“Honest to God—” screamed Nosey again. “Hon—”
A thud in his breast like a hammer blow! He screamed again in fear. He felt no pain. His mind was a searing flash of lightning. A roar sounded in his ears. His mouth framed words that were never uttered.
“Honest to—”
But a bursting bubble of blood drowned the end of his words.
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.