Tony viciously jabbed his cigaret into a tray. “Who’s the punk?”
“Slim Withers,” said Hardy with narrowed eyes. “That guy won’t lissen to reason. He claims that you bumped off a buddy of his and swears he’s gonna get hunk. See?”
The racketeer leaned still closer to Tony Scilli. “One of my boys said that he seen Slim take a car and a shotgun out tonight. And before the little runt drove off he said something about getting you at closing time tonight.” Hardy tapped the gangster on the chest. “That’s the kind of a pal I am, Tony.”
The stocky Italian nodded slowly for some minutes. “I getcha, Steve. I’ll take some Tommy men up to the corner and give this punk a swell welcome.” Then Tony smiled crookedly at the Broadway racketeer. “You’ve done me a favor, Steve; now I’ll do one for you. And she’s some hot mama!”
“Yeah,” smirked Hardy. “Blondes is my dish, Tony.”
“There’s a wow downstairs, a hoofer from the big time,” Tony smiled inquiringly. “Want to meet the broad?”
Steve said that he did and about an hour later he was making fine progress in one of the private rooms in Tony’s dance-hall dive. Steve was not a heavy drinker, but whatever his blonde companion poured out he swallowed.
Through a drifting cloud of blue-gray cigarette smoke Steve leered at his gay girl friend. Again he took in her fuzzy, bleached hair; the greasy mascara smeared around her starry eyes; the streaks of powder half-concealing the dissipated wrinkles of her cheeks; and the cherry-red lips that were boldly inviting.
“You know, big boy,” she cooed, “I just adore handsome clever papas like you. And I—”
“That’s me all over, kiddo,” admitted Steve, lifting another glass. “You know, tonight I’m pullin’ the damnedest, cleverest little job. Fact is, kiddo, I’m too clever for one man. Wait up! Pour me another.
“You see, blondie—”
“But,” cut in the actress, “I don’t think you’re as clever as little Tony. I ain’t heard so much about you.” She had already made one bottle of gin look sick and started on another. “Tony has his picture in the paper every day,” she pointed out between gulps of gin. “He’s a Big Shot and—”
“Hell he is,” blurted out Hardy nastily. “He’s nothing but a cheap dago!”
“You big mutt,” she dared up, “don’t you dare call my little Tony a—”
“Aw, go to hell!” Steve pushed her in the face and she toppled off the chair to the door. She started up, then sank back. The door was nice and comfortable and she was full of gin. So Blondie didn’t bother to get up. Steve struggled into his vest and coat. Then grabbing his hat slammed out of the room. In the hallway he stopped muttering to himself.
“So I ain’t as clever as that little wop, ain’t I?” He stopped suddenly at the door leading into the main dance door. There, talking to Tony Scilli was Detective McCarthy. They seemed to be arguing. Suddenly Tony turned abruptly and walked off into his private office. Steve Hardy waited until McCarthy looked his way and then beckoned to the detective. McCarthy swaggered into the hallway with a surprised look on his face.
“Don’t ask questions, Mac,” snapped Hardy reeling slightly. “Listen to me. I’m gonna give you a great chance to get Tony red-handed so you can send him up the river to burn. That wop is as slow as hell with his payments to you. Now if I take over his territory, Mac, I’ll make you a rich man. You know me, Mac. We get along swell.”
“Sounds good, Hardy, but if you double cross me I’ll—”
“Take it easy, Mac, it’s on the up and up. Now listen. In about an hour Tony is gonna take some Tommy guns and get a guy in a blue sedan up at the next corner. Never mind who the punk is. Let him shoot the guy. Then you and the two carloads of dicks jump Tony. Easy, ain’t it? You got the punk that was killed and the guy that did it. How’s it sound, Mac?”
“It’s a go, Hardy.”
Then McCarthy saw the gangster coming out of his office, so he left Steve in the darkened hallway and went to meet Tony.
Hardy looked over his shoulder at the room where the actress was sprawled on the floor. “I ain’t clever, eh?” he sneered. “Fact is. I’m too damn clever for this racket.” He steadied himself against the wall. “Well, I’m sure doing things tonight. Saving my neck for killing that bull in Brooklyn, getting rid of that runt Withers, the only guy who knows about it, letting Tony do the dirty work and then sending Tony to the chair. Haw! Haw! And on all that I’m getting in solid with Mac and headquarters.” Steve adjusted his tie and hat. “And that dumb broad said I wasn’t as clever as Tony.”
Hardy pulled himself together and walked out into the main room. Glancing at his watch he saw that it was five minutes of three. Just one more hour and Slim Withers would ride into his double-baited trap.
The racketeer chuckled to himself. It was pleasant to think that he would be master of gangland at four o’clock! Again he consulted his watch. Good time now to be getting out before the fireworks started.
At the cigar counter in front of the dance-hall. Hardy met the stocky Italian gangster. Grinning from ear to ear, Hardy slapped him on the back. “Swell broad, Tony. Me and her hit it up great. She’s sleeping it off now. Don’t bother her, will you.” Then Hardy stepped closer to the mob leader. “Get your men out there, Tony, and burn up that mutt Withers. We’ll make a great team, Tony. Both be in Florida in a few months. That’s the kind of a pal I am. See?”
With that Hardy pushed through the door to the street. A short flight of stone steps and he was on the sidewalk. His own car with an armed chauffeur was a block and a half down the street. Walking to the curb he signalled to it.
He was so busy looking down the street that he did not see the stealthy approach of a blue sedan around the other corner. Did not see it slow down as it came even with him.
Then with a choked cry Hardy saw the sedan and the white face peering over the gaping muzzle of a double-barreled shotgun.
Crash!
The street rocked with the terrific roar of the double-charged shotgun.
When Tony Scilli and his mob of gunmen reached the street they saw a mangled form sprawled grotesquely over the curb. From nowhere at all Detective McCarthy popped into sight. He strode up to Tony, who was questioning the frightened chauffeur.
Then he looked down at the mangled body of Steve Hardy. Clasped in one outstretched hand was the gleaming face of a watch. It read two minutes past three. McCarthy muttered the time aloud.
Hardy’s scared chauffeur looked up quickly at McCarthy as the officer spoke the time. His pinched face brightened. “Naw, Mac, yer just one hour behind the times. Cripes — didn’t you see in the papers that daylight saving time begins tonight? Didn’t you shove yer watch an hour ahead? Cripes, Mac, it’s four o’clock!”
Gangster’s Revenge
By Joe Archibald
The Dragnet Magazine, December 1929
A story of an underworld Czar’s revenge on the one who dragged him from his throne — a tense, fighting, dramatic tale of gangland’s most dangerous rods!
Out of the windy darkness of a side street a man emerged, hugging close to a building as he rounded the corner into the faint light cast by a gas lamp which leaned crookedly from the curb. Just above the collar of his overcoat, pulled well up over his face, high cheek bones protruded. A flat derby was pulled well down on his head but the shadow cast by the brim failed to hide the glittering whites beneath peculiar, elongated lids.
After a momentary pause and a furtive glance around, he plodded silently onward for another half block, and then melted into the darkness of a doorway.