Marie was silent. She was brooding deeply on her past. A thought occurred to her and she chuckled slightly at the humor of it. She decided to come clean.
“Pete,” she said. “Do you want to hear the straight lay of it.”
“Well, what is it all about.”
“Do you want to know why I tipped you off last night to the raid?”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want them to kill you, Pete. You see, you killed my man, the only man I ever loved. You killed Dirk, and” — she paused then finished a trifle breathlessly. “I want to be the one to lead you to your death.” Her nerves cracked under the strain. “You dirty, thievin’ murderer, now you’ll get what you...”
Pete stopped her with a curse and slapped a broad hand heavily across her face. She was flung back into the corner of the car by the blow and her hands, caught in the pockets of Robinson’s great coat, could not ward off the next punch. They came in contact with something hard. Pete’s revolver! Then the car that had been following them shot alongside crowding them towards the ditch. Pete cursed wildly, grotesquely in his girl’s attire. But he was unheard. The attention of Red’s gunmen was concentrated on the man’s figure sitting alongside of him, crouched, as though with fear, into the corner of the seat. A terrific crash of shots rang out and the roadster, as though freed of control left the road and went into the ditch.
Joe stopped his car and Red and Mike ran out with guns drawn. The other car had not overturned, but all was quiet. And when they looked they received a tremendous shock. The driver of the car, in the girl’s coat and hat, at whom they had not aimed was Pete Robinson. He was stone dead, with a bullet hole in his right temple. An impossible wound for them to have delivered. Alongside of him, and wearing his coat and hat was Dirk’s moll, Marie. Her face, what remained of it, was terribly battered. She had been instantly killed by the fuselage fired by Red’s men. In her right hand she held Pete’s .38, which cleared up the mystery of Robinson’s death. Her left hand was lingering Dirk’s picture, which hung framed about her neck. And over her ghost of a mouth, even in disfigured death, there still played that queer, twisted, enigmatic smile.
Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, April 1930
The criminal must be curbed. He is running rampant over the country.
Not a day passes but that the daily newspapers feature on their front pages the intimate details of some exploit of an underworld character. It is obvious that the public is sincerely interested in these accounts; otherwise the daily press would not be so intent upon the giving over of its columns to crime and criminals.
The stories in this magazine are superbly done, but they are not the real thing as published in the newspapers. They are but dreams and figments of our writers’ imaginations. Yet, in spite of this, they are moving lessons that should help us guard our homes and our dear ones from these modern desperadoes.
The restless army of the underworld waves its tattered banners in a wind of newspaper words. The world stands aghast as this terrible cavalcade goes by our front doors. What can be done about it?
The police and the secret service are working day and night to protect our fireside from these beasts of a jungle that come to our very hearthstones — a jungle where the cries of the lost are like the drone of a myriad tropical insects humming through the menace of a fungus darkness.
In the pages of this magazine the criminal cannot win, any more than he can in real life. Death, or Fate or Justice overcomes him in the end. There is no escaping the net of human law and order that is spread for the criminal.
Truth is power, whether in story or in fact. Here, in these pages, the underworld excites like a fairy-tale spun for grown-up entertainment — a glittering series of yarns selected each issue with infinite care on the part of our editors.
We aim to please you, but at the same time we are glad to serve as a guide to warn you against hidden pitfalls that are on every side.
Faithfully yours,
Harold Hersey
Gangland
The Gangster never wins. In the long run, he is caught, either by the law, or by another Gangster — and his end is swift, sudden and terrible. This department is a resume of the news of the Underworld to-day, taken from the leading newspapers of the country, and as you read it over, one fact will strike you about each story: The Gangster never dies of old age!
A Department Gathered from the News
The fight for the leader’s seat over the Dock Gang, in the Red Hook district of Brooklyn, has long been a much coveted position, although a dangerous one. The fight for the control of dock loading privileges has cost many a man his life. Among the ranks was the famous old racketeer Wild Bill Lovett, who was the first leader.
Red Donnelly was an old hand in the game. He was fifty years old, which is pretty old for a gangster, and he had old-fashioned ways, which didn’t please some of the new members of his gang. They wanted him to go in for liquor and dope running — a much better paying racket.
But Red refused. He was satisfied with the stevedore racket, and he could control it entirely, so why butt in on booze and junk peddling, when he would have to share with every other gang leader in Brooklyn?
Red began to hear rumors floating around with the wash of the water against the slimy piles that unless he got a bit more modern, his gang wanted a new boss. And everyone knows what happens to the old boss when a new one steps in! But that didn’t bother Donnelly. He just laughed; a short contemptuous laugh. He was used to this sort of thing. Held five times for murder, and he laughed himself out of the court house.
Things were quiet for a while after that, with only one or two minor shootings along the waterfront. But then one night, while Red was watching the stevedore at work, a man came up to him and said:
“You’re wanted down on the pier, in the checker’s booth.”
With a gruff “Okey,” Red walked down the pier towards the booth.
The workers, who were left on the dock, saw him enter the booth; almost at once they heard two shots.
Quickly dropping their work, they ran toward the booth, grabbing anything they could use for weapons. When they got to the booth, they found Red sprawled across the sill, with his head sprayed full of lead. Blood was slowly seeping into his hair, turning the grey back to the flaming red color it once used to be.
That left the gang without a leader. Naturally, there were plenty who wanted the seat, but there’s a difference between wanting it, and getting it. Who was going to get it?
Jimmy Murray, old timer, and former lieutenant of Wild Bill Lovett, finished a ten year rap the other day. He was a high man in the gang when it first started, and there was never a doubt in his mind that he would be the leader now that Red was out. So he stepped in.
This didn’t please the gang any too much, because Murray, like Red Donnelly, refused to peddle dope and booze. And he had another quarrel with the gang; they had neglected to keep him supplied with his cigarette and chewing gum money while he was in stir.
They were all sitting together in the Dock Loaders Rest Room. Murray got up to lay out the plans for the gang in the future. He said he would not only take over his old leadership in the Smoky Hollow district, which is the waterfront extending from Joralemon Street south to the Erie Basin, but also would step into Red’s place as controller of the dock area from Joralemon Street north to Dock Street.