The latter was snarling curses and threats again. This time Mart did not interrupt. Every second was precious. When the mouthings ceased suddenly, Mart said, “Listen — when will you feel brave enough to take a chance?”
For a few long seconds there was no answer. Then the other said, “What’s that?” but his voice was a half whisper now.
“You swear fine,” Mart went on desperately, “but I still think you’re a filthy coward. See here, skunk — I‘ll play any game you can think of — adjoining hotel rooms — meet on a corner — anything. I don’t want to have to wait to ship your carcass back to Chi so they can be planting you while Dogs Miller is being put away.”
“Ye-ah?” It was Chi Kid’s turn to taunt now. “Don’t forget your other curly-toothed bandit down here — the one with his face smashed in. He’s going to need some burying too — and that’s saying nothing of the nice funeral the boys’ll frame up for you. That’ll be something forth—”
The line went dead. Mart jiggled the hook, but the only result was a belated “Number, please?” from the operator.
Mart sank dispiritedly into his chair. Either through craft or accident, Chi Kid had sensed danger. Damn the luck! Now he’d be on his way to another hideout. The Windy City crook was getting all of the breaks. It wasn’t humanly possible for Chimp to be anywhere near Fat’s place yet.
He lifted his wrist and consulted the face of his watch. It was nearly four o’clock. He’d have to go back to Fat’s and send Skillman and the others home, and too, he must find out if Chi Kid really had claimed two more victims.
He was exhausted, mentally and physically. It was the let-down which comes with failure even to men as iron as he. The thought of a reviving shower came to him like an inspiration. Five minutes later, rejuvenated, he was getting into clean linen and a light suit of neutral color.
He donned his shoulder holster and gun, his coat and a limp-brimmed Panama, then started for the door.
A telephone shrilled again. This time it was the mellow ring of his private line — a number known only to his aides. He picked up the receivers but listened for a moment before speaking.
A confused sound of men’s voices made an overtone above the crackling on the line. “Probably from a speakeasy or night club,” he reflected as he settled in his chair and said, “Yes?”
“Mart! Mart! Jeez, chief, I got him!”
It was Chimp’s hoarse voice, shrill now with excitement.
“I got him down here at Fat’s place — tied up — waitin’ fer youse. Come on, Mart — hurry!”
“Chimp!” Mart shouted joyously. ‘“Are you sure?”
“Soit’nly” the other replied. “W’en I run outta de house Eddie Moran was comin’ along in his new cab — an’ he jerked me down here in no time.
“We was two blocks fr’m Fat’s w’en I seen a little guy wit’out a hat, doin’ a lam. So I gotta hunch an’ scrooched down in de cab, tellin’ Eddie t’ pick dc guy up if he flagged him.
“Sure enough, dat’s w’at happened — an’ I folded him all up in a bundle w’en he started t’ get in. Hot cats, Chief, but maybe that sucker isn’t sore! Hey, when’r youse down?”
“Now, Chimp!” Mart exulted.
Dawn was breaking as he left the house.
Chimp, a transformed, joyous victor, opened the door as Mart leaped from his cab and ran along the passageway.
“Get a load of dat, Mart,” he husked happily, pointing to what at first seemed a blood stained bundle of clothing lying in a corner.
The Chi Kid it was, in truth, but under the deft handling of the Chimp he had been metamorphosed from a natty, cold nerved gunman into a bloody, chattering Thing.
“I woiked ’im over some,” Chimp confessed naively. “He socked me in de eye wit’ his t’umb — an’ ’en he needed it anyhow.”
The Chi Kid’s face was a mass of purple bruises; the beak of a nose puffed and patently broken at the bridge. His eyes were mere slits, and one of his ears was horribly cauIiflowered. What Chimp lacked in science, he more than made up for in strength.
The final indignity was the manner in which the Chicago killer had been rendered helpless. Ankles and wrists were lashed together in such a way that the Chi Kid’s body formed a painful “U.” His agony must have been excruciating but as Mart approached he could hear the man gurgling curses in his throat.
“Hello, Chi Kid,” Mart said in a casual tone. “Let me see that rod you were going to show me — you gutless punk!” The last words blazed from his lips as the face of Dogs Miller flashed into his memory.
“Well,” the Chi Kid snarled. “It took a man to get me — not a white collar simp.”
“When’re yuh gonna croak him, Mart?”
Chimp, breathing heavily at his elbow, interrupted Mart’s reply.
“Not for a little while,” he said. “This punk’s going to tell me a lot of things about the Chicago racket before he gets out of those ropes.”
“An’ then you’ll gimme him?”
Mart smiled bitterly.
“I think not, Chimp,” he said slowly. “You see, he killed my pal and I promised him over the telephone that we’d make it man to man. He told me too that he’d killed Paddy and Fat — know anything about that?”
With the words the others made a concerted rush for the stairs of the upper room, but Mart called them back.
“Just Skillman, please,” he said, “I don’t want any rummaging done up there until I see what papers Fat may have been keeping.”
He was watching the faces of Red and Eltner as he spoke, and noted that both flinched and looked covertly at one another.
Skillman was back in a matter of seconds, whitefaced and nauseated. He nodded his head affirmatively.
“Both of them,” he said. “He cut Fat’s head nearly off and Paddy’s face looks like a mule had kicked him.”
A ghastly chuckling came from the bloody bundle which was the Chi Kid.
Mart leaped and caught Chimp from behind in a choking throat lock as the gangster threw himself forward intent on finishing the killer with his hands.
“Wait!” he commanded. “He’d rather be knocked off quick than to tell what he’s going to tell before he goes. Quiet, I tell you!” His great muscles, a fair match for those of Chimp, were cutting off the latter’s breath. Finally he felt Chimp’s arms go lax at his sides and released the hold.
“Aw, cripes, Mart!” he wheezed. “I can’t stand his gigglin’ over killin’ Dogs ’n Paddy. Hell wit’ dose Chi mobs. Lemme pull him t’ pieces!”
For answer Mart drew two tables together and with one lurching swing of his shoulders, lifted the Chi Kid from the corner and laid him on his side, while the others clustered around the improvised couch.
“Now Chi Kid,” Mart said calmly, “here’s a proposition for you. I told you over the telephone while I was stalling you an hour ago, that I’d make it man to man.
“You dirty louse, I mean just that!
“When you’ve told me what I want to know, I’ll give you back your rod, give you time to get the kinks out — and then we’ll shoot it out. If you get me, you walk out, a free man, but you won’t get me, Kid — you’re going to pay for Dogs and Paddy.”
“Bunk!” the Chi Kid mumbled. “Kid somebody else, nitwit.”
He had managed to force one puffed eyelid open and his beady, black eye was studying Mart’s face venomously.
“No kidding about it,” Mart replied. “Take it or leave it, Chi Kid, you can have that chance or I’ll give you to Chimp.”
Despite his iron nerves, the prisoner could not control the shudder which shook his frame.
“What do you want to know?” he mumbled.
“You came here to get me and to knock off my lieutenants, didn’t you?”
“Yes — you know that anyhow.”