Catanesi had anticipated Regan’s moves. When the cab skidded to a halt and Regan leapt out in front of the Killer’s imposing residence, he found the massive front door closed against him. Whipping out his guns, he pounded furiously on the panels. The door opened and the racketeer stepped into the darkness of the hall, peering intently about him.
Too late the Irishman whirled about, sensing the presence of the men cowering in the gloom behind him. A black-jack descended with stunning force on his skull.
The Killer was in his study, enjoying an intimate dinner with Billie Ross when the house phone rang. Catanesi listened with evident satisfaction. “Bring him right up,” he ordered.
Anxiously, the girl looked at the limp body of the man she loved, brought in on the burly shoulders of a Hungarian. Regan was unconscious and breathing heavily. The Hungarian let his burden slip to the ground, then propped the racketeer’s body against a chair.
Catanesi misinterpreted the girl’s glance. “I told the boys to be careful not to croak him,” he said with a triumphant sneer. “He’ll come ’round soon, an’ then we’ll see some fun!” He motioned the Hungarian to get out.
When the door had closed, Catanesi strode over to his concealed cellar. “I’m going to wake that big mick up so he can see his moll has given him the gate for a better man,” he told Billie. “Here, stick this glass of Scotch down his throat yourself.”
“You bet your sweet life I will,” returned the girl, playing her part of the tough moll to the hilt, “and I’ll give him a swift kick in the pants, too, for old times’ sake. Pour a couple more for us, Joe.”
Billie’s eyes had discerned a slight movement in the huddled mass on the floor. While Catanesi’s back was turned, she crossed swiftly over to Regan and stooped over him. Forcing the glass between his lips, she rapidly shoved the dead Charlie’s automatic into the limp hand of the Irishman, noted how his fingers closed over it with the return of consciousness. Then, to disarm the Killer, she stood up and kicked the prostrate man in the ribs.
“Don’t like him much, do you kid?” commented the wop with a satisfied sneer as he watched her small shoe dig repeatedly into the side of the defenseless man. “Come over here to me, Billie, and we’II drink to the swine when he comes to.”
“You bet we will,” the girl assured him with a parting kick at Regan. “Wake up, you big Irish stiff,” she taunted him, “and see what a man I’ve picked for myself!”
Catanesi’s chest swelled with pride. He strutted over to the table, put down the two glasses and came towards the girl, breathing heavily.
Mike Regan was struggling grimly up through a haze of pain to regain full control over himself. His head felt as if it were ten times its ordinary size, his whole body throbbed and pulsated.
But the liquor, and still more the knowledge that Billie, the girl he loved more than anything in the world, was alive gave him added strength. He fought hard to focus on the figures that danced crazily before him through a blood-red mist while his fingers tightened instinctively on the small gun the girl had slipped into his hand.
The mist cleared a little, and Regan ground his teeth with rage at the sight of the huge, awkward body of the Killer enfolding Billie’s clean, slender beauty in its horrible embrace. Again a feeling of nausea swept over him, the figures grew indistinct.
“Your moll’s left you for a better guy, a stronger guy, Micky Regan!” The taunting words burnt like fire into the Irishman’s brain. But he must keep calm until he could see more clearly, until his strength came back to him.
Again the Killer kissed the girl. Then, giving her one of the glasses, he raised his own mockingly.
“You’re going to give us a lot of fun in the next hour or two, Mr. Regan,” he said ironically. “Yeah, Billie and me, we’re going to hit it off swell, ain’t we, sweetheart?”
“Sure we are, Joe,” assented the girl with a laugh, longing for the moment when her man would rise to cram the cur’s words down his throat. Why hadn’t she taken her chance and shot him in the back? But that was not in her code. Even a swine like Catanesi couldn’t be shot from behind in cold blood!
“I’m going to pin your hands to the floor with a couple of knives,” remarked the Killer with anticipatory relish. “Then the fun’ll start!”
Regan’s eyes were closed; he gave no sign of the intense struggle he was putting up. If Catanesi came over to him, he’d discover the gun. Then the game would be up — for both him and Billie! For her sake he fought desperately to clear his fuddled, aching head of the mist that weighed on it.
“Another round of drinks. Joe,” suggested Billie to gain time. “Give Regan another glass, too, Joe. He’ll enjoy the fun all the more!”
Together, Billie and the Killer stood over Regan while the girl forced the glass between his lips. Then Joe went over to the concealed bar. Out of a drawer he took two knives. “These’ll make him sit up and take notice,” he said grimly.
At all costs, Billie realized that she must stall for time. That was the one element which would insure the success of her plan, time for Regan to recover, time for Red Conners to play his part. Quickly she poured another glass of Scotch and touched it to her lips: then she offered it to the Killer.
Out on Cranford Avenue the wintry wind howled a desolate song as it swept on through the scraggly brush and skeleton trees over the flats to the river. In the distance the sound of an approaching track could be heard. Men lurking in hedges, waiting tensely in cars hidden in a rutted lane, other men lying in readiness at an intersection, looked at their watches. The moment for action had come!
Suddenly, a wildly driven touring car came flashing around the bend of the road in front of the truck, forcing it to come to an abrupt halt. Instantly, the deadly rattle of a sub-machine gun tore through the night. The driver of the truck and his companion slumped sideways in their seats.
Men leapt from the tonneau of the touring car and hauled the two bodies from the truck, onto the side of the road. “Beat it, you two!” came a hoarse whisper. “All hell’s goin’ to be poppin’ here!” Regan had taken care to warn his friends at the factory; the men had played their parts to perfection.
A man swung himself into the driver’s seat of the truck and backed it across the road. Before it could turn, a venomous hail of bullets belched from rods concealed in the hedges. But the men in the touring car were prepared. A hot fire from two Thompsons projecting from each side of the car, ripped viciously into the enemy. The night air was alive with leaping, crackling, flashes of fire.
All at once there was a hoarse yell. Catanesi’s men jumped from their cover and ran toward the car, firing as they ran to surround it. Regan’s man in the truck had been put out of action long before.
Another moment, and the desperately fighting occupants of the touring-car would have been submerged by the wave of charging gangsters. But Red Conners picked that moment to swing into action.
Down the road three big cars roared toward the fight, cut-outs open, guns spewing lead from every window. Before the Chicago gang knew what had hit them, Conners’ men had left a trail of dead and dying men in the road.
“It’s a plant!” shrieked Mischek, the Killer’s lieutenant. “Beat it, boys, beat—” His warning died away into a choked cry, as a bullet from Conners’ grind-organ caught him full in the throat. A torrent of blood gushed onto the asphalt. The Hungarian’s hands clawed wildly at his neck, and he pitched forward onto the road.
Devotion to Regan, vengeance for the imagined murder of Billie Ross, filled Conners and his men with murderous blood-lust. Recklessly they chopped Catanesi’s men, careless of their own safety as long as they could kill an enemy. Regan’s orders of ‘no quarter’ were obeyed to the letter.