“But good Lord, Yelton, what about the driver of the truck. He’ll be killed,” complained Yancey.
“That’s not our concern.”
“But unless you warn him, it’s murder.”
“We are only doing our duty; our duty as we see it. And it means promotion for us all.”
At the word promotion. Yancey dissented no longer. Not that the promotion in itself meant anything, but the bigger the job, the bigger the graft.
Eight o’clock that night found Shanty Hogan at the bar of his speakeasy on Tenth Street. He was tense, on edge, and because of it he drank. Whiskey straight was Shanty’s order.
He always felt that way an hour before setting out on one of his numerous ventures into crime. He wasn’t yellow, he didn’t have a case of nerves; Shanty was just pleasantly stimulated by the coming danger. It was all a game to him. A live and die existence.
Nothing sweeter than the acrid smell of burnt powder and the growl of gats.
After his third he entered his private back room strong-hold as cool and placid as a lilly on a mill pond. His mob was awaiting his arrival, a gay, carefree buccaneering crew headed by Smiling Jimmie and Groucho.
“Howdy, Boys,” greeted Shanty with an inclusive wave of his hand. “All rarin’ to go?”
“All set, Shanty,” replied Smiling Jimmie. “Just waiting for the word from you.”
“Artillery?” questioned the gang chief.
“Plenty,” growled Groucho. “And I got a weird hunch we’re going to eat smoke before we’re tucked into bed again.”
“Just so they don’t tuck you into a wooden kimono,” laughed Smiling Jimmie. “If they send you over the river tonight, buddy, I’ll guarantee you plenty of company.”
“Well, we’ve gabbed enough,” grinned Shanty. “Let’s go! The side door, boys. The cars are parked on Waverly Place. Groucho, you take the second car. Jimmie, you drive the first. I’ll step with you.”
At his words, Groucho opened a concealed door in the back wall and led the exit into a dark alley that ran the length of the house. The mob, pulling their caps still lower over glinting eyes and taking one last reassuring feel of their hips, followed him out into the night. Smiling Jimmie and Shanty brought up the rear.
Swiftly they piled into the cars and a moment later, with roaring exhausts, careened away from the curb. The staccato bellow of their pounding engines echoed thunderously through the canyoned streets, only to be carried away on the tearing blasts of wind that screamed around the corners of the tall buildings.
Little was said. There was no need for words. What lay before them was action; an argument to be settled with the whine of hot, searing lead and the ominous growl of revolvers.
The two black cars, with lights dimmed and license plates bespattered with mud, headed north and east, making a bee line for the tangled maze of streets that rotated from the hub of the bridge to Long Island at Fifty-ninth Street. The blobs of light from the street lamps flamed by with an ever increasing rhythmic regularity.
As they approached the shabby east-side section where they had decided to way-lay the truck-load of booze, an electric tension gripped the men.
Guns were smoothly pulled from hip holsters and carefully examined for the last time. Safeties were snapped back, and gnarled and grimy fingers crooked around a score of triggers.
If all went well as they had planned it, this was to be a quick raid, with or without blood-shed. They were to drill the driver of the truck if necessary, roll his limp body into the gutter and then make their get-away.
The expedition was dangerous in the extreme, right in the heart of the city, but fifty grand was worth plenty of risk.
There was no question but that Shanty Hogan and his mob expected trouble but little were they aware of the direction from which it would come. Two blocks away from the approach to the bridge. Shanty pulled the cars up to a halt in a dark, blind alley. It was a strategic point — for the booze truck, passing off the bridge, would have to pass within ten feet of his men. They waited; five, ten minutes. Time that seemed ages-long to their expectant nerves. Cigarettes were consumed at a furious rate and men on the ragged edge passed slurring remarks concerning the parentage of their companions. Remarks, which if passed under normal conditions, would have been answered by a flash of six inch steel or a hurtling hunk of lead.
Far down the deserted high-way a faint light twinkled. A moment later the hum and throb of a heavily loaded truck was carried on the chill night breeze to the waiting gangsters in the alley. Shanty made a last inspection of his men.
“Here she comes, boys,” he said. “When the truck is abreast of us, let’s go, and let the driver have it. Groucho, Jimmie and I are going to make for the wheel. You guys cover us in case he has a guard trailing him. Watch your fire. Don’t shoot unless you have to. But when you do burn smoke, make it count!”
The men replied with grunts and low spoken profanity. It wasn’t the first time they had hi-jacked a truck load of booze. Bring on that truck! Let ’em have it over with!
The Government man behind the wheel of the heavy, six-ton Mack, was congratulating himself upon an uneventful trip into the city, as he swung off the bridge onto the streets of Manhattan. If he was to have had trouble, it would have been on the dark, unfrequented roads of Long Island.
Here in the city, he had nothing to fear. His thoughts were of his home. His old woman and the kids would be waiting up for him.
In an excess of good spirits, he pursed his lips and piped out the chorus of the latest popular song.
Suddenly a whine past his ear; then a pang and the tinkle of glass. Simultaneously with the last, the man behind the wheel heard the growl of a revolver. Instinctively his foot jammed down on the gas and even as the heavily loaded Mack lurched forward with a roaring exhaust, a fusillade of shots broke out in the night. Spattering lead splintered his wind-shield. Vindictive bullets flattened themselves savagely against his instrument board. The broken tinkle of glass and the gurgle of flowing liquid told where an acid wasp had eaten into his precious cargo.
He crouched low behind his wheel, gave the bus all the sauce she had and drove straight ahead.
Shanty, at the head of his men, led the drive on the truck. He was three yards ahead of his mob, his gat flaming fire as fast as he could pull the trigger. But suddenly he staggered in his reckless charge, lurched forward and only by a tremendous effort of will saved himself from going down. A slug of burning lead ate its way into his shoulder and his automatic clattered to the asphalt from his nerveless fingers.
The shot that had drilled Shanty was evidently a signal, for a split second after it, a fusillade of shots rang out from the opposite side of the alley. The black night was pierced with stabbing flame.
The surprise attack took Hogan’s mob completely unawares and at the first burst of raking fire two of his men fell prone into the foul gutter.
Shanty was quick to realize that he had fallen into a trap. The booze truck was speeding by; was even now out of danger. To hell with it now! His men came first! His right arm was paralyzed, dead. A growing pain lived in his breast. Shanty fell back a few feet and rallied his men.
On the other side of the street, Hymie Zeiss was taking full advantage of his surprise maneuver. With guttural profanity he urged his mob on, leading the charge with two barking, sinister guns in his hands. He well knew that it was Shanty Hogan’s mob he ran into and now that the warfare had broken out between them — let it be finished. Gun Law would rule and Little Hymie had the most potent gang of killers in the city.
By his sheer guts under fire, Shanty saved his men from utter rout under that first withering burst of lead. He wrenched an automatic from the limp and bloody hand of one of his fallen henchmen and held his first line, insecurely fortified behind a galvanized garbage can.