“You mean, can I get them all to be there? Morgan, Salvis, Pietro — “
Savoli interrupted the listing.
“I mean all of them that count,” he said. “Every man that has a mob. So we can work together from now on.”
“I can do it,” said Borrango, “if they know Larrigan is coming with us. He’s bigger than any of them.”
“I’ll be with you,” announced Larrigan. “But remember, I get Monk Thurman when you find him.”
“That’s right,” said Savoli, again shaking hands with the Irishman. “We’ll get Monk Thurman for you, after this goes through. Two nights from now, at the Goliath Hotel. Borrango will arrange it all.”
WHEN Larrigan was gone, Borrango grinned at his chief. They had turned the Irishman’s visit completely to their advantage.
To Nick Savoli, the one goal of gangdom was supreme rule. Through careful alliances and purposeful efforts, he had risen to control the most important factions of Chicago’s underworld. The Larrigan outfit had been the one obstacle that had prevented him from completing his mighty empire.
Other gang leaders still opposed his rule, but they did so only because Larrigan was still independent. Now Larrigan had swung into line, and the others would follow.
If any still held out, Larrigan could fight them. The big Irishman loved to wipe out lesser gangsters. He would be useful to Savoli.
Both the big shot and his enforcer had discussed all this. The only change in their program related to Monk Thurman. He must be sacrificed to appease Larrigan. This was the only term of agreement that Savoli seemed to regret.
“This Monk is a good man. It is too bad for him to go.”
“That sounds like Larrigan talking, Nick,” returned Borrango. “That’s why he never got where he should. Too much sentiment.”
“It’s not sentiment,” replied the big shot. “I am thinking of Monk in terms of usefulness. Don’t forget that he wiped out Schultz and Spirak. We could not have made this deal without that.”
“That is true,” said Borrango. “But we have to eliminate Monk to complete the deal. So let him serve you again — by putting him on the spot.”
“We will have to do it,” agreed Savoli, “but we must wait a while, if possible. I have one more job for Monk Thurman — “
“What is that?”
“This man they call The Shadow. We must find him. Monk may know who he is. Monk is the man to fix him.”
“The Shadow?” Mike Borrango’s voice was contemptuous. “Who is The Shadow? Steve Cronin spoke of him. But Steve is yellow.”
“Machine-gun McGinnis is not yellow. Neither is Brodie. The Shadow made trouble for them, as well — “
“Because he surprised them. That is all. What has become of him since then? He has done nothing. He is gone. He is one man, without a mob. What can he do?”
Savoli rose from his chair, and walked slowly from the room, with Borrango close beside him. At the door, the big shot spoke to his enforcer.
“You may be right,” he said. “The Shadow — whoever he may be — has no power against us. Now that we know of him, he is afraid.
“Yet we will play the game safe. We will give this Monk a chance to kill The Shadow. If he succeeds, we may save him from Larrigan. If he fails — let Larrigan have him.”
“Let Larrigan have him anyway,” said Borrango. “As for The Shadow — he is probably miles away from Chicago by now.”
The men left the library. The door slammed behind them. Then the bookcase moved. A tall, thin figure, clad in black, stepped into the vacant room.
Silent, sinister, and motionless, The Shadow seemed to be pondering over the words that he had heard.
After Larrigan’s departure, the other men had talked in Italian; but it was apparent that the man who had been hidden behind the bookcase had understood their words. For now he spoke in a low, uncanny whisper that seemed to fill the room with sibilant echoes.
“Larrigan is lined up,” were his words. “The others will follow. Monk Thurman will die. Nick Savoli will be supreme.”
Scarcely had the man in black finished these sentences before a soft, whispered laugh escaped his lips. Like the words, the laugh reached every corner of the room.
It was creepy, and unreal, that laugh. Its taunting tones seemed to ridicule everything that Nick Savoli and Mike Borrango had accepted as certainty.
For The Shadow had heard. The Shadow knew.
CHAPTER XVI
THE PEACE DINNER
THE time had arrived for truce in gangdom. News of the dinner in the Goliath Hotel had reached the newspapers as well as the police. Jerry Kirklyn, the Chronicle reporter, discussed it with Barney Higgins the afternoon before it occurred.
“What are you going to do about it, Barney?” he demanded. “What does Weaver say?”
“We’re going to let them alone,” replied the assistant detective commissioner.
“What! All those mobsters?” questioned Kirklyn.
“We’ve got nothing on them, Jerry,” replied Higgins. “Of course, we’ll have men outside the Goliath Hotel. If we see any gunmen that are wanted, we’ll pick them up. But those fellows will stay away.”
“How about Savoli and Borrango? How about Larrigan? Are you going to let them get away with this merger?”
“Call it a merger if you want, Jerry,” laughed Higgins. “To us, it’s just a meeting of men that might bear watching. Some of the gorillas that will be there are murderers, right enough; but they’ve all been acquitted.
“This dinner may mean a lot to us — later on; but right now, there’s no reason for us to stop it. It’s a mistake to pick up any of these big gangsters without full provocation. Sooner or later we’ll get them — “
“Sooner or later they may get each other,” interrupted Kirklyn. “That’s the old police formula. Let them shoot each other. The trouble is, they increase faster than they drop off. If this peace racket works, they’ll multiply more rapidly than ever.”
“Perhaps so, Jerry. But we can’t do anything tonight.”
“What does Morris Clarendon think about it?” demanded Kirklyn.
“This isn’t Clarendon’s business,” retorted Higgins. “He’s a prosecutor. That’s all.”
“Speaking of Clarendon,” said Kirklyn suddenly, “what’s the real dope on that story that some torpedoes tried to get him one night?”
Barney Higgins snapped his fingers nervously.
“There’s nothing in it, Jerry,” he said.
“Clarendon seemed to think there was,” persisted the reporter. “He was all set for an interview. Then he shut up like a clam. What did he do? Talk to Weaver?”
“Look here, Jerry,” said Higgins. “If you want to work with me, you’ve got to play the game. When anything actually happens, I’ll tell you all there is to know. But rumors are out.
“We have enough trouble getting these gangsters when they really pull something. We can’t make arrests on the strength of things that never happen.”
“All right, Barney,” laughed Kirklyn. “I thought you might tell me something about it, at least.”
THE detective commissioner looked about him to make sure that no one was within hearing distance. They were standing outside of headquarters. The street was deserted.
“Here’s the dope, Jerry,” said Higgins. “You can’t use a word I say. If you do, I’ll deny it.
“Clarendon had an appointment with a stool pigeon who was going to turn State’s witness. We found out later that the stool had been put on the spot before he had a chance to meet Clarendon.
“While Clarendon was waiting, a car pulled up, and he saw the muzzle of a machine gun poked out through the curtains. He thought he was going to get his. But the car moved on.