Just what was the low-down on the ill-fated expedition? Was it just a quirk of fate that had brought Little Hymie and China Cholly there on the scene at the same time as himself?
Who had tipped off the Federals that the attack was to be made? There were many questions, bitter and brutal, that Shanty mulled over in his mind that night.
The heavy, rumbling voice of Groucho thrust itself in on his meditations.
“Well, Shanty,” he began, “what did I tell you?”
“Don’t rub it in,” growled Shanty. “Hell! I feel lousy enough now.”
“The whole damn lay is queer,” put in Smiling Jimmie. “Something damned crooked some place. Jeez, with the three of us fighting it out and Yelton piling down with the machine guns, I thought it was curtains for all of us. If you hadn’t come through then, Shanty, Yelton would be collecting a bonus from the state on all our hides right now.”
“Hell!” complained Shanty. “You’re trying to let me down easy. I didn’t do anything but get you all into a lot of lead and lose half our men.”
There was a deep silence between the men for a few minutes. They sucked greedily at their cigarettes, each one preoccupied with the problem of the double-crossing rat in their midst.
“Say, listen Shanty,” said Groucho at last. “I hate like hell to mention it but I have to.”
“What?”
“Well,” began Groucho slowly, feeling for the right words, “there’s a leak somewhere. You know that. Has been for some time. This isn’t the first little party of ours that’s gone wrong. And always there’s been the Jew and the Chink to screw up our plans. Now, I put it to you, what do you make of that?”
Shanty had a sneaking idea to what he was referring but for the sake of discipline he wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
“What the hell you driving at?” he demanded. “Don’t give me none of your riddles. Ain’t in the humor for ’em. Speak out! If you have something to say, spill it.”
“Now don’t get sore, don’t get sore,” persisted Groucho. “It’s this. You’ve been running around a lot with Sadie. Now I ain’t saying that Sadie ain’t on the level, but after all she’s Little Hymie’s sister. You couldn’t blame her much if she—”
But Groucho never had a chance to finish his accusation. With a bellow like that of an infuriated bull, Shanty threw himself across the table and entwined his sinewy fingers around the throat of his lieutenant. The weight of his hurtling body crashed Groucho clear out of his chair onto the floor and as he fell, Shanty plunged down upon him. His hands tightened about the throat of his henchman until Groucho’s eyes bulged.
Smiling Jimmie dove across the room and flung himself on his chief’s back. It took all the strength of his hands to pry his fingers from Groucho’s throat.
“Easy, Shanty, easy,” he begged. “Now what do you want to do a thing like that for?”
Shamefacedly the Irishman released his lieutenant and then helped him to his feet.
“Sorry Groucho,” he apologized. “My nerves are ragged. Forget it.”
“Sure,” growled Groucho, rubbing his swollen throat. “Sure. No hard feelings. I know how you feel.”
“But Groucho is right,” put in Smiling Jimmie. “Shanty, you got to look the facts in the face. You been running around with Sadie. Nice skirt and all that. That’s okay. But maybe she is squealing to Little Hymie.”
The first seeds of suspicion and doubt had been planted in Shanty Hogan’s brain. His hands constricted into hard knots. His eyes narrowed and shot fire. His rugged jaw shot dangerously forward.
“By God!” he exclaimed. “If she is, she’ll never squeal again.”
“Now don’t do nothing hasty,” counselled Smiling Jimmie. “Maybe she’s on the level. Figuring her crooked don’t explain China Cholly. We have to go at this thing slow. We can’t make any mistakes.”
“We can’t make any mistakes, all right,” agreed Shanty, “but we can’t go slow.”
Shanty Hogan was not the only one who spent an anxious questioning time that night. Hymie Zeiss, too, put many unanswerable questions to himself as he stamped the length of his headquarters after the disastrous fiasco with the booze truck.
He did not know whom to curse first for the misadventure that had cut down so many of his best men.
Of course, there was Shanty Hogan, but then Shanty, by rallying the three gangs, had saved them all from destruction. And China Cholly had been there, too! There was no getting to the bottom of the thing. There had been a leak; a double cross — that alone was clear. Little Hymie concentrated all his mental powers on finding the rat.
For a half hour his yellow crooked teeth masticated the mangled end of a cigar. Then a cruel streak of suspicion entered his brain. His hairy nostrils dilated and his brown eyes narrowed down to dangerous pin points.
“Matz!” he bellowed to the outer room of his hangout.
The imperious summons was answered by a hatchet-faced, blue-bearded individual.
“Go out and get Sadie,” snapped Little Hymie. “I want to see her at once. Here!”
Matz grunted his understanding and shuffled out of the room. Little Hymie continued his impatient pacing of the room. It was the bitterest blow of all to be compelled to doubt his sister, but he could see no other possible leak.
Ten minutes later Sadie entered. Little Hymie eyed her shrewdly in silence. Sadie was none abashed by his scowling glare and answered him eye for eye. She flippantly swished her abbreviated skirt aside and perched jauntily on the corner of the table, revealing a tantalizing length of silk clad calf. Her body was lithe and slender but plump enough to the touch.
“Sadie,” began Little Hymie, “I got to speak to you.”
“Shoot kid,” replied Sadie. “I’m here. What’s eating you?”
“Plenty, kid. I got a good idea to croak you!”
Sadie’s slender leg was suddenly stilled. Her pretty, full mouth sagged open a moment in utter surprise.
“You’re going to do what, Hymie?” she asked.
“Nothing!” he replied curtly. “Listen, you little tart. There’s been a leak out of my place. Info is getting to Shanty Hogan. Somebody is squealing!”
“Why you dirty, low down crumb!” flared out Sadie. “Are you insinuating that I’m spilling any dirt to Shanty?”
“How does he get the dirt on every move I make?” insisted Shanty.
Sadie jumped off the table and like a flaming Amazon charged across the room at her brother. Her small, sleek head jutted out until it was within a foot of the gangster’s distorted features.
“How the hell do I know how it leaked? But I’m not that kind of a rat — see? And anyway if I was, do you think Shanty would listen to me?”
Little Hymie by now was pretty convinced that Sadie was on the level but he could not back out of his accusation just then. He shifted his attack.
“You think that dumb Irishman is a pretty wise guy, don’t you?” he scorned. “You know I’ve told you a hundred times to quit running around with him. Now I got enough. You got to make a choice. Either you quit Shanty Hogan or you quit me. Which is it?”
Sadie backed away a few feet from Little Hymie and surveyed him contemptuously with searing eyes.
“Well, if you want me to choose, I will. I’ll take Shanty. You can go to hell!”
That was only the beginning of Sadie’s “say” to her brother but he cut her taunting hot words short by slapping her viciously across the mouth with his open palm. This parting love token presented, the gang chief turned on his heels and stamped out of the room.
At one of the beer tables in the dark shadows of Silent Joe’s place on Christopher Street a little celebration was on foot that night. A celebration of three; a Jew, a Chink and an Irish Harp. Hogan, Zeiss and China Cholly would have been mighty interested to have heard the words that passed between the men. Lots of things and incidents that were puzzling and mysterious would have been readily cleared up. And there would have been three more stark figures on the cold marble slabs in the morgue.