Hymie, Cholly and Sadie were quick to obey and before the sweating policemen knew what had happened, the commandeered car was careening down the street in high. Shanty gripped the wheel in two strong hands while Little Hymie ground the siren to a high moaning wail.
Traffic officers cleared the streets for them for blocks ahead. Like a red juggernaut of doom the gangsters sped through the streets, their course of destruction speeded on by the hand of the Law. Sadie alone appreciated the humor of the situation and could not resist the temptation to thumb her nose at each flatfoot they passed.
The three rats, each one with the particular mob he had betrayed, did their work well. So well, in fact, that when the gangs converged from three points of the compass, in the neutral strip of territory between the East and West sides, flaming hell broke out with a cataclysmic roar. The heavy artillery went into immediate action and the sinister grow l and rattle of sub-machine guns sounded like a skeleton’s dance.
The gangs tore right up to each other and went into a desperate hand to hand conflict. No time this for seeking refuge down dark alleys; no time this for spotting off a bloke from the security of a roof top. There was bitter hatred between the men; hatred that could only be purged by personal contact.
A savage horde of madmen, a raging mob of insane demons, the gangs milled about the street, bleeding, sweating, cursing. Sawed off shot guns were jammed into enemy guts and emptied of their leaden poison; the asphalt became slimy with the tangled bowels of fallen men.
Ever and anon a pineapple would be dropped in the midst of half a dozen struggling gorillas, with the result that friend and foe alike were rent asunder by the flying shell.
The struggle was elemental, colossal! Here were bitter foes, struggling with brute force, face to face. There was no subtlety of brain in play here. There was no master mind strategy or ingenuity. Lust was given full play. Kill, kill, kill or be killed! That was the Law!
The massacre could not have lasted for long. There was only one inevitable outcome to it. Another half hour more and all there would have found a blessed annihilation in gory death.
Suddenly, however, there darted straight into the swirling haze of gun smoke, a streaking red car. With a scream of brakes it pulled up directly in the center of the fire. The advent of the hurtling machine was so sudden and unexpected that for a moment there was a lull in the bitter warfare.
The three gang chiefs were quick to take advantage of the brief respite. As one man they stood up in the captured police car, waved their arms violently and shouted hurried words. A terrible silence filled the air. The gang chiefs rejoined the torn and battered remnants of their once powerful organizations. Sobs of sorrow and hate struggled for dominance in their throats, as they surveyed the shambles.
And for this massacre three double crossing rats were responsible. God help them!
So great was their grief that they were momentarily stunned into inactivity. It was quick-thinking Sadie alone who saved them from another disastrous blunder. Her eye caught a furtive movement among the mob of restless gangsters, where the three rats edged their way to one of the parked cars.
Swiftly she wrenched a heavy colt .45 from a limp wrist and confronted the three traitors. A savage feline ferocity marked her face with terrible doom. Her lips curled evilly into a cruel smile revealing two rows of sharp white teeth. Teeth she would have been glad to sink into the traitors’ throats.
The rats fell back before her, more in fear of her passion-distorted face than of the threatening gun in her hand with which she covered them with a slow fan-like movement.
“Shanty!” she called. “The rats! Watch them or they’ll make a getaway.”
At her words the three chiefs started towards her.
The traitors saw their plot go sky-high on Sadie’s words. Death was all about them. They made a break and on the instant Sadie’s gun barked three times. The three explosions came so close together that they sounded like one and the three rats tumbled simultaneously to the gutter.
Little Hymie rushed to his sister.
“What’d you do, kid,” he asked hurriedly. “Kill ’em dead?”
“Hell, no,” replied Sadie. “Just drilled ’em to keep ’em quiet. I’m saving them for the boys to finish off proper. They deserve it.”
A half hour later a weird and terrible scene was being enacted in a dirty, musty room of Little Hymie’s warehouse. The three rats had been strung up by their wrists to a raftered beam in the ceiling and their ankles manacled together. Then the terrible revenge of the underworld began!
Each of the survivors of the now united mobs, all armed with evil, glinting knives, marched by the dangling figures and slashed. It was a slow death! A torturous, horrible death. The blows were struck cunningly with hateful lust, just deep enough to torture, not deep enough to kill at once. For a half hour the gruesome retribution lasted, then silently the three chiefs and Sadie, followed by their henchmen, left the scene of horror.
The three, dangling, disfigured corpses bore mute testimony to the terrible revenge the underworld wreaks on a traitor — a rat!
“Drinks, men, the best in the house for all of us,” said Little Hymie when the mob had left the death chamber. “From now on the three gangs are one.”
“And Sadie here,” said Shanty, putting one arm affectionately around her, “has agreed to become Mrs. Shanty Hogan. It’s this kid here, boys, that saved us all from being sent to hell by those stiffs inside.”
Bottles of good rye! Lifted glasses! A toast!
“Death to all traitors. Long life and prosperity to the new mob. A mob of Chink, Jew and Irish! Skoal!”
One Hour Before Dawn
By William McNeil
Gangster Stories, December 1929
The moll belonged to Big Jim Regan, and the mob thought she belonged to Italian Joe, and maybe Eddie the Dope knew where she DID belong, but—
Floss O’Connor was Big Red Regan’s moll. The fact that Red was doing a stretch up in the Big House that would take five long years out of his life, and hers, hadn’t seemed to change her a bit at the start. Even the tabloids had spoken of her as a loyal, courageous girl.
That is why the river mob were struck dumb when she took up with Italian Joe Mercurio. The wise ones shook their heads knowingly. One or two felt sorry for Red, but then, that was something for Italian Joe and Big Red to settle between themselves — someday.
There were those who hinted that Italian Joe had framed Big Red Regan. The olive-skinned, oily haired wop and Big Regan had clashed on several occasions. But the big, good natured Irishman, secure in his control of the river mob had laughed it off. Only once had he given a display of the killer that he was. He had openly slapped the Italian across the face.
“Some day, Joe,” he snarled, “I’m gonna burn you down.”
Italian Joe’s face on that occasion had displayed no greater emotion than it had on that later day when he stood staring at the door through which they had taken Big Red. He was one of the last to leave the crowded courtroom when the session was over.
At first Floss O’Connor had fought tooth and nail to aid her man. She knew that the jury wouldn’t give Red half a chance. His reputation had been against him from the start. In her futile rage she threatened to ‘get’ Phil Moran, the detective who brought Red in. She had argued it out with Moran later on the street.
“You cheap flatty!” She twisted her full lips into a snarl as she spoke. “Red Regan was planted an’ you know it!”