Then a low, strange, unfamiliar sound attracted his attention. Shanty recognized it at last as the sound of weeping. A girl was crying softly by his side. He stirred.
“Shanty! Shanty! Tell me they didn’t get you. Tell me you’ll pull through,” pleaded Sadie’s tearful voice.
With a great effort Shanty slowly moved his lips and spoke.
“Sure, kid, I’ll pull through,” he muttered weakly.
The crying ceased. Sadie snuggled her young warm body up to the stricken gang chief.
“I’m sorry, Shanty, sorry I got you into this,” she whispered. “But anyway, it’ll show you I didn’t rat on you.”
“I never really thought you did,” answered Shanty. “It’s okay, kid, we’ll pull out of this.”
Their whispered conversation was abruptly cut short by the opening of a door. Solly Gold entered, holding a lamp before him, followed by Lefty and the Chink. The three traitors stood above the prostrate figures and gloated. To show his contempt, Lefty savagely kicked Shanty in the ribs with a heavy boot.
“So you’ve come to, have you?” he growled.
“Yes, I’m okay, you rat,” answered Shanty. “What the hell’s the big idea?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” answered Gold. “Your days as a tough guy are over, Hogan.”
“Let me up out of here, and I’ll damn soon show you different.”
“The only way you’ll go out of this room is in a wooden box,” laughed Gold. “Now just keep your mouth shut and nobody’ll step in it. We got you where we want you. The next guy we’re after is Little Hymie.”
“Hymie is too slick a guy for you to get the way you got me,” scorned Shanty.
“Well, if he’s slick, we got a slick trick he’ll fall for.”
Without more ado, he bent down, grabbed the hem of Sadie’s skirt and yanked. The flimsy material was rent in two, revealing a dainty array of silken underthings. The three mugs guffawed uproariously at Sadie’s futile efforts to conceal her shapely limbs.
“Never mind that stuff, Sadie,” laughed Lefty. “It all won’t matter in a little while.”
“What are you going to do with that skirt?” she demanded.
“Send it to Little Hymie. Even if he is on the outs with you, that Jew brother of yours will come looking for you hot foot if he thinks you’re in trouble.”
“So you’re the three punks who’ve been playing the double-crossing act?” snarled Shanty.
“Punks, hell!” laughed Gold. “We got brains. After tonight we’ll have the three gangs and all the gravy.”
“Don’t bank too much on that,” warned Shanty. “The night ain’t over and I ain’t croaked yet. You might get a nice quiet funeral instead.”
Ten o’clock next night found Little Hymie snozzling beer with his henchmen in his headquarters, back of the water front warehouse. A game of poker was suggested and in a few minutes the men were busily engaged in cheating each other out of huge sums of money which they in turn had fleeced from some one else.
A half hour after the game had been in progress, there came an interruption. The guard at the door ushered into the inner sanctum a little gutter-snipe with sniveling nose.
“There he is, kid,” said the guard pointing out Little Hymie.
The street brat approached Zeiss with awe in his eye.
“Say, mister, are you the guy they call Little Hymie?”
“Yep, that’s me, son. What are you doin’ here?”
“A broad give me this to give you,” said the urchin and with the words he reached inside his greasy blouse and extracted the tattered remnant of Sadie’s skirt.
Little Hymie took it from him and turned it slowly over in his hand a moment before he recognized it. Then he flushed and if his swarthy complexion would have permitted it, he would have paled a moment later. His arm shot out and grabbed the urchin with a vise-like grip.
“Where’d you get this, kid?” he demanded.
“Don’t hurt me, mister. I’ll tell you.”
“Well?”
“A lady give it to me. Shoved it out of a crack in a window. Told me to give it to you and to take you there. Said you’d give me a saw-buck, mister!”
“Anything you want, kid, if you can take me there.”
“Sure. Come on. But do I get the ten spot?”
Little Hymie crushed a crisp bill into his hand, considerably larger than the requested saw-buck. Then, literally picking the boy from the floor, he strode towards the door.
“Need any help?” flung out Butch after him.
“No. I’ll handle this alone,” answered Little Hymie.
The brat led Little Hymie down many dark alleys and around many twisting corners. So sure was the gang chief that Sadie was in trouble, that he never once thought that he was being put on the spot. At last the urchin stopped before a dreary, three story red brick building on Mulberry Street. The place had every appearance of desertion and decay.
“That’s the place, mister,” said the boy, pointing with his finger.
“All right, kid. Thanks. Now beat it!” growled Little Hymie.
The youngster took him at his word, turned and scampered down the street, clutching the fifty dollar bill tightly in his fist.
Hymie eased the gun in his hip pocket and stealthily mounted the steps to the front door of the house. Slowly his hand went out to the knob. He tried it and to his surprise it turned. Gently he eased the door open a foot and then squeezed his massive bulk through the opening. Then as carefully, he closed the door behind him.
A faint rustling came from the dark shadows in his rear. Little Hymie spun around with lightning precision, but just too late. He felt the breeze fan his face before the blow struck. Then something murderously heavy sloughed down on his skull. He threw his hands up instinctively but the blow crushed home. He was conscious of a blazing flash of heliotrope made jagged with vivid streaks of red. The smoky taste of sulphur was in his mouth. Then utter blackness.
Little Hymie’s knees sagged. Unconscious, out on his feet, he staggered forward for two steps, then crashed headlong to the floor. Where he lay, a thick pool of blood collected around his head.
The three traitors to the gangs found China Cholly not so easy to deal with. One ruse after another failed to entrap him and as a last resort the rats had to carry out a daring piece of kidnapping right off the crowded pavements of the Bowery. True, they got China Cholly in an off moment and before he had a chance to make a draw, two blunt nosed automatics were grinding away at his guts.
It would have been asking for death then and there, to have refused the invitation to go for a ride. Silently China Cholly obeyed. He stepped into the car and crushed himself on the seat beside Lefty, closely followed by Solly Gold. The Chink took the wheel of the machine and frisked them away to the sinister house on Mulberry Street.
When the thick skull of Little Hymie finally threw off the stunning effects of the blow he had received, he came to, to find himself amongst friends, as it were. At least, he had a very intimate knowledge of all those present in the room. Propped up against the wall on either side of him were his two underworld rivals, Shanty Hogan and China Cholly, and a little further on he saw with relief his sister, Sadie.
Facing them, leering, triumphant, sneering, were the three rats, automatics held suggestively in their hands. Little Hymie took in the motley gathering with a wry smile. Then he bravely essayed a grin.
“Jeez,” he said, “I’ve been trying to get together with you mugs for a long time. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t have to be shanghaied to do it.”
“And before the night’s over you’ll be dead!” croaked Solly Gold.
“Well,” answered Little Hymie, “worse things than that have happened. But I ain’t dead yet, see. I ain’t dead till you plug me in the heart with a load of lead. And you, you crawling scum, you ain’t got the guts.”