The taxi drew to a halt before the tower of steel and masonry. The driver was not courteous enough to take the trouble of opening the door for his fare.
This driver was a surly individual. His neck was a thin stem. And his head perched atop it like a puckered fruit.
“5 dollars,” he said, naming the fare.
The charge was too much, but Bandy did not argue. He dug out a roll of notes which made the taxi driver’s eyes glitter greedily and peeled off a bill. Bandy was peering about in search of danger and failed to notice he was handing over a 10-spot. The driver pocketed the bill quickly and made no move to give change.
The vender of newspapers — seated on the walk — kept his head down. He had one hand on the neck of his dog. There was nothing suspicious in his manner. He might have been asleep.
Bandy started for the skyscraper entrance.
The newspaper seller gave his dog a shove in Bandy’s direction and released the animal.
The canine sped for the bow-legged man! Its jaws were distended, its fangs showing. There was something hideous, deadly in its charge!
Bandy strode ahead. It seemed certain that he would be bitten before he dreamed of danger.
For the second time that night, Bandy’s sharpness of eye saved him.
In the highly-polished metal of the modernistic door ahead, he discovered the reflection of the canine.
With a quick wrench, Bandy got the door open. He sprang into the air!
The snapping teeth of the animal missed him. The smooth tiling underfoot afforded poor purchase for the beast’s claws. It skidded through the door into the lobby, striving desperately to turn for a second attack. Bandy slammed the door, shutting the animal in the lobby.
He flung a look at the newspaper vender. The man was on his feet, fumbling inside his clothing as if after a gun.
It was Buttons Zortell!
Across the street, 2 of Buttons Zortell’s henchmen popped out of a shadowy doorway.
Bandy was still unarmed. He thought quickly.
2 routes of flight were open. Through the lobby meant facing the canine. And there was something strange and deadly about the creature.
Bandy chose the second — the taxi. He hurled into the cab!
“Drag it away from here, fella!” he yelled.
The driver cursed. He had been on the point of going on and had the gears in mesh. He let out the clutch. The machine sprang ahead.
The 2 men on the opposite side of the street lifted guns.
“Don’t shoot!” bellowed Buttons Zortell.
He wanted no gunplay downtown. As strangers in the city, he and his men would hardly be able to evade the police.
The taxi lunged past the first street intersection. Looking back, Bandy saw a car careen out of the side thoroughfare. Buttons Zortell and his men ran for this machine and piled in. Buttons had recovered his bulldog and was carrying the beast under an arm.
“Step on it!” Bandy rasped at his driver. “They’re gonna ride our tail!”
Over his shoulder, the driver snarled, “If yer runnin’ from de Law, don’t t’ink I’m gonna…”
“They ain’t the Law! Twist the tail of this gasoline steer! Let ‘er rip!”
The cab took a corner at the head of an arc of smoking tire tread and volleyed across town. It turned again, passing a policeman who promptly sprinted for the nearest call-box.
Buttons Zortell’s machine was hot on the trail, Bandy discovered.
“We’ll have half de radio-patrol cars in town after us if we keep dis up!” wailed Bandy’s driver.
Bandy considered. He would have welcomed the police.
But there was a good chance they would not overhaul him in time. The car behind was gaining. It was a more powerful machine.
“What’s the busiest corner in town?” Bandy demanded.
“I dunno… 42nd an’ Broadway, maybe.”
“That one will do! There’s a hundred bucks in it for you if you’ll meet me there in an hour! Will you?”
The driver negotiated another corner.
“A hundred berries? Yeah, I’ll meet you! For dat much jack, I’d meet Old Harry himself!”
Bandy hastily stripped off his money-belt. He jammed it down back of the seat cushion out-of-sight.
“Lemme out at the next corner,” he commanded. “I can come nearer losin’ ‘em if I’m afoot.”
The cab promptly squawled to a stop. Bandy whipped out!
“Don’t forget to meet me in an hour, partner!”
He made a mental note of the cab license, then sprinted around the corner.
A dimly lighted hole yawned before him. Steps led down into this. It was a subway entrance — the first Bandy had ever seen.
He descended the steps with bow-legged jumps. A string of cars stood at the platform. The doors were all closed; the cars were beginning to move. Bandy vaulted the turnstiles, not bothering to find how one paid fare.
Most of the subway car windows were open. He dived at one and got inside. The train plunged into the tunnel like a bellowing monster.
Bandy grinned and wiped perspiration off his leathery features.
“Huh! If I’d knowed it was gonna be this easy, I’d have kept that belt!”
He imagined he heard angry yells through the train noise. Probably his pursuers cursing him from the station platform.
He grinned more widely, imagining their discomfiture.
Back in the subway station, Buttons Zortell had sent one loud, angry expletive after the receding train. He and his men had arrived possibly 20 seconds too late.
“He’s gone, the homely little pill!” Buttons groaned. “Damn! I thought sure I had ‘im when I sicked the bowser on ‘im!”
Perceiving the man in the change booth eyeing them suspiciously, Buttons and his men hastily returned to the street. There, they held a disgusted council.
The bulldog leaped out of their car which Whitey had been driving and scampered up. The men recoiled from the beast as from a rattlesnake!
“Blazes! Supposin’ the pooch should bite one of us?” croaked a man.
Buttons carefully captured the animal and from its front teeth removed a plate of sharp-pointed metal spikes. This was ingeniously made.
Each spike held a small hypodermic needle. Had the dog bitten Bandy, the pressure of its jaws would have forced the contents of the needles into the wound.
“There’s enough poison in here to drop a longhorn quicker’n you could snap a finger!” Buttons grunted, gingerly stowing the grisly contrivance in a metal case and pocketing it. “The dog belongs to the Boss. He’s been trained to bite anybody he’s set on.”
“Nifty,” admitted one of the group. “Only it didn’t work this time.”
The taxi in which Bandy had arrived still stood at the curb. The stringy-necked driver now leaned out to calclass="underline" “Hey, youse guys!”
“Don’t pay any attention to ‘im!” snarled Buttons.
They started toward their own machine.
“Let’s me an’ youse boids have a talk,” suggested the taxi driver. “I t’ink maybe we can do each odder some good.”
Buttons Zortell hesitated.
“The tramp probably wants us to slip ‘im a few shekels to keep ‘is mouth shut. I’ll throw a scare into ‘im!”
Approaching the hack, Buttons snapped: “What d’you want, ranny?”
The cab driver studied the burly Westerner.
“Was youse guys after somethin’ de little punk was carryin’?”
“What if we was?” Buttons demanded belligerently.
“Aw-w, don’t get hard about it! I just thought I might be able to help yer.”
“You interest me strangely, pard,” said Buttons in a tone that was suddenly soft and purring. He recognized a kindred soul in this taxi pirate.
“What’s it worth to youse to get de money de guy was wearin’?”