Cronin happened to glance backward at that particular moment, yet he saw nothing. For the door had opened softly and slowly, and the man who had come through the opening was clad in a black cloak that made him invisible in the gloom of the alley.
TWENTY minutes later, Steve Cronin arrived at Hallahan’s garage. He glanced up and down the street before he entered the building. Then he stepped through the doorway, and immediately spotted the touring car for which he was looking.
The automobile stood in an obscure corner. The gangster walked to it, unobserved, and climbed in the large back seat. He noted that the flap curtains were on the sides of the car. That was natural, for the night was cloudy, and rain was threatening.
A voice spoke from the darkness.
“That you, Cronin?”
“Right.”
“Lay low then. I’m McGinnis. We’ve got a couple of minutes to wait for Brodie. He’s driving us to night.”
Steve Cronin recognized the name of Brodie. He realized that he was with two of the most stalwart workers in Nick Savoli’s mob of killers.
Brodie was the man who had driven the car in which Savoli had escaped the gunfire of a rival gang chief — a man who had been killed afterward as a reward for his attempt on Savoli’s life. “Machine-gun” McGinnis was reputed to have fired the fatal shots that had brought down two of Savoli’s enemies while they were walking along Michigan Boulevard.
“Here’s Brodie now,” whispered McGinnis.
Steve Cronin turned toward the door through which he had entered the rear seat, and thought he detected a motion of the curtains. Then he heard a noise on the other side, and looked to see Brodie entering the driver’s seat. He could not distinguish the man’s features in the darkness.
“Funny thing,” said Cronin, half aloud. “I thought he was getting in back with us.”
He looked around to make sure that he had not been deceived. A pile of robes lay on the other side of the back seat, and as Cronin reached in that direction, his hand encountered cold metal — the barrel of a machine gun.
“Stay over on this side,” warned McGinnis. “I’ve got the typewriter ready, there, under the blankets. Don’t touch it until we need it.”
“Ready?” asked Brodie.
“Go ahead,” replied McGinnis. “You know where we’re going. Over by Birch’s drug store.”
The touring car rolled slowly from the garage, and as it reached the street, McGinnis drew Cronin to the floor beside him.
“Lay low,” he whispered. “Make it look like the car was empty. We’ll get the typewriter ready in a minute.”
In gangland’s parlance, the word typewriter meant machine gun; the instrument of death was so called because its rapid clicks resembled the noise of typewriter keys.
“We’re working from this side,” explained McGinnis. “This guy Clarendon is something of a dumb cluck, even though he thinks he’s smart. He’s going to be waiting on the corner for us.”
“How was that fixed?” asked Cronin.
“I don’t know,” replied McGinnis. “But he fell for some line of hokum, or he wouldn’t be there now. There’s just a chance that we won’t find him, but Borrango says that he’ll be there, sure.”
The automobile swung into a wide street. Far up ahead an electric sign displayed the name of Birch.
“That’s the spot, up ahead,” whispered McGinnis to Cronin, preparing the gun for action. “He ought to be outside right now.”
As a matter of fact, Morris Clarendon was outside of Birch’s drug store at that very moment. He had been waiting for more than fifteen minutes, and he intended to wait indefinitely. For the assistant prosecutor had arranged a meeting, at that place, with a man whom he believed would be an important material witness in a forthcoming trial.
Clarendon did not know that the person whom he expected would never keep the appointment. Gangsters had killed the man two nights before, and the victim’s body had not yet been found.
Savoli’s emissaries were thorough in their methods. They had learned of the rendezvous, and they knew that Clarendon had promised to wait until his man arrived. The drug store had been chosen as a meeting place because it was in a district unfrequented by gangsters.
The young attorney had no thought of impending danger. He paid no attention to the vehicles passing in the street. Standing in the full light of the corner, he was watching for the approach of the man he expected.
It was a freak of chance that warned Morris Clarendon of the doom which threatened him; and like so many of Fate’s grim jokes, the warning was to come too late.
A gust of wind swept across the sidewalk, and carried a hat from a man’s head. Clarendon saw the hat roll into the street. It was captured by its owner, and the man leaped back to the sidewalk to escape an approaching car.
Clarendon saw this, and the movement of the car immediately held his attention. For the automobile was a touring car with sideflaps; it was swinging toward the curb in an eccentric fashion; and its whole appearance and action betrayed its purpose.
Morris Clarendon recognized it as a death car, and in one brief instant he realized that he was the object of its threat.
He looked for a place to dodge; but he was too late. The car was almost upon him, now.
He was standing twenty feet from the corner, against the wall of the building. There was no doorway near. Clarendon’s knees could not respond to his desire to rush for safety.
All was futile. The car was at the curb, swinging slowly onward, and beneath the flap of the rear seat the young district attorney saw the projecting muzzle of the machine gun — a blackened muzzle that looked like the mouthpiece of a telephone.
That muzzle meant death! Quick death, and sure death. There was no escaping it.
So, with grim determination, Morris Clarendon flattened his body against the wall, ready to receive the fatal bullets which would end his life.
CHAPTER X
THE SHADOW SPEAKS
THREE grim men were ready for business when the car swung up to the spot where Morris Clarendon was standing.
Brodie, at the wheel, had spotted the assistant prosecutor one hundred feet away, and had slackened the speed of the car so that the victim would be a perfect target for Machine-gun McGinnis and his unerring aim.
“Ready,” was all he said, and Steve Cronin repeated the word to McGinnis.
There was no mistaking Morris Clarendon, and he was the only man in sight. Of all the jobs that Machine-gun McGinnis had performed for Nick Savoli, this one appeared by far the easiest.
The killer chuckled as he prepared to pull the trigger, and his mirth was echoed by Steve Cronin, ready at his side.
Both men were intent upon the lighted wall where the living target stood.
Morris Clarendon had given himself up for lost, and was facing death with true bravery. But to such mobsters as McGinnis and Cronin, his attitude brought nothing but ridicule.
This deed was business to them. They were about to earn new service stripes in the cause of Nick Savoli; and the simplicity of this execution made them laugh.
With their eyes peering from the curtains, these grim men gave no thought to the blackness that surrounded them in the back seat of the touring car.
As for Brodie, the chauffeur, his thoughts were completely away from the scene.
He had picked the route which he intended to follow. The work of execution belonged to the others. He was ready to swing down the street to safety, and he was oblivious to anything but his duties as driver.
Machine-gun McGinnis rested his finger on the trigger with a professional air. He was picking the exact moment to release the hail of steel-jacketed bullets that would seal the fate of Morris Clarendon.