“I was sleeping pretty sound, sir,” Custer said with a half-grin.
“Now, what was it you were telling me to write for you, Mister Purple Face?” Korpuli drawled with biting disdain.
The Scar did not reply in words. Like the swift claw of a cat, his left hand jumped up. Out of the fountain pen he was holding shot a stream of black fluid, blinding the man with the gun. With the same continuous motion, the Scar whipped out his right fist. It landed with devastating force on the point of Custer’s abbreviated chin. Custer dropped the gun and staggered.
It was his last stand for the Scar lifted him up off the floor, held him a moment above his head, then tossed the “butler” half-across the room onto the leather divan. The divan gave way under his bulk.
Custer went crashing onto the floor and did not move.
Chapter XII
The Tables Keep Turning
Everything had happened in the wink of an eye, but not too swiftly for Chris Korpuli to reach the phone and try to flash the switchboard. The Scar dived over the desk, grabbed the phone from Korpuli’s hands and yanked the wires out of the wall.
“Don’t you touch me!” Korpuli cried out, retreating around the desk. “You’ll never make me talk. I won’t tell you anything!”
With that the lawyer made a mad dash for the door. The Purple Scar’s hand shot out, clutched the flowing skirt of Korpuli’s robe and dragged him to the window.
“Change your mind about talking?”
“No!” Korpuli spat out venomously. “Never. I’ll never talk!”
A ghost of a smile crossed the Purple Scar’s face at Korpuli’s defiance, but the lawyer could not see that smile. The Scar had swept him off his feet. Without bothering to open the window, he shoved Korpuli through. There was a crash of glass and the lawyer was dangling twenty stories above the ground, held only by the Scar’s strong right hand, which clutched the throat of Korpuli’s robe.
“Change your mind yet?” the Purple Scar asked calmly.
“Yes, yes!” the frantic lawyer screamed out, with one glance down at the antlike traffic crawling so far below. “Yes, I’ll talk — I’ll talk! Pull me in!”
He clung to the Scar’s wrist with grim terror. The Purple Scar could well appreciate his feelings. That walk along the ledge had given birth to this idea.
“Who hired you to defend Martin?”
“Condor — Luke Condor hired me,” Chris Korpuli choked out. “Pull me in!”
Luke Condor! Ever since the gangster first made his appearance over at Red Point, Doc Murdock had been trying to figure out why Condor should have wanted John killed. Their worlds were poles apart. John’s territory covered the slums exclusively and he didn’t often get into Condor’s exclusive section of town.
Unless Luke Condor was mixed up in the crooked insurance policy racket that Arnold Wisply was running! Condor certainly wasn’t above such a dirty business. He’d rub out a six month-old baby, if he could be sold on the idea that it had gold in its teeth.
“Did Condor order John Murdock’s murder?” the Scar asked.
“I don’t know!” Korpuli shrilled, his bony fingers digging into the Scar’s wrist like iron claws. “Condor just told me to get Martin out of the jam he was in.” The lawyer was on the verge of collapse. “Bring me in! Please bring me in. I’m — I’m falling—”
The Scar believed the lawyer had told all he knew, or at least all that danger would make him reveal. He pulled Korpuli back over the sill and dumped him onto the floor, alongside the window. Korpuli lay there, a limp bundle of flesh and bone, looking for all the world as if he had been pulled through a wringer.
There was a sudden banging of fists against the door. Miles’ heart beat fast. Korpuli revived, began to yell. Before the Scar could get to him to stifle his words, they were out:
“Help! Break down the door. He’s in here — the Purple Scar!”
At once, in response to Korpuli’s quick outcry, hard heavy shoulders smashed fiercely against the door. The Scar, revolver drawn, swept the room for an escape. There was none. He was trapped, twenty stories up!
There was a loud splintering of wood as one of the thugs struck the door with a terrific impact. The hinges wrenched loose and the door crashed down, disgorging three hoods into the room, revolvers in hand.
The Scar had not been caught napping. In that moment he had swept the lawyer in front of him as a shield and jabbed the deadly, black muzzle of his revolver into the cringing mouthpiece’s right ear.
The three thugs stopped short when they spied the precarious spot the attorney was in.
“One wrong move, my friends,” the Scar said with quiet menace, “and you’ll see Mister Korpuli’s brilliant brain splashed all over these clean walls. If you want him to go on using that brain to help you out of jams, throw down your guns.”
The three yeggs knew it would be the finish for them if anything did happen to Chris Korpuli. If it hadn’t been for him, Condor and the entire gang would have been imprisoned long ago. They looked from one to the other, shrugged and let their guns slip to the floor.
Miles worked his way toward the door, keeping the shivering, sweating lawyer between himself and the three gangsters. The Scar’s gaze suddenly centered on one of the men before him, a broad-shouldered thug, six feet tall, with black eyes and blondish hair. Studying the contours of the triangular-shaped head, the square chin and large, angular jaw, a thought sprang into his brain.
Dealing with Luke Condor wasn’t going to be simple. The racketeer was under the watchful eye of his heavily armed torpedoes twenty-four hours a day. Miles’ one chance would be to get Condor away from the bodyguards. If he could accomplish this, he was certain he could make the racketeer talk. A threat to spoil Condor’s handsome features would shake him more than a ten-year sentence to prison. A session on Doc’s operation table would terrorize the conceited crime boss. He was sure of it.
With a few ingenious alterations, Doc thought he would be able to pass for Triangular Head. They were the same build, height and weight. The thug’s mouth was wider and thinner, his brow heavier, his nose broader, his hair of a different hue. Those, however, were trifles which Doc’s skill could easily overcome.
On the other hand, if he took Triangular Head, it would mean sacrificing Chris Korpuli. He couldn’t hope to get out of the building with both of them. But for the immediate present, Triangular Head was the more important of the two. Besides, Korpuli was keen enough not to escape at a time like this and condemn himself. The Scar was sure he would be able to reach the wily mouthpiece whenever he wanted him.
“You!” he barked at the thug with the triangular head. “Come over here!”
The man hesitated.
“Come over!” Korpuli seconded, perspiring. “If he shoots me, you’re through anyhow.”
Triangular Head obeyed. In a flash the Scar pushed Korpuli halfway across the room. His left arm snaked up and coiled around the neck of Triangular Head. The nose of the gun jammed into the second ear it had explored that night. A master psychologist, Doc knew the sensation of cold death pressed into the most sensitive spot on the head would break down even the most defiant criminal. He was right. Triangular Head stood passively, his eyes not daring to glance aside.
The other two gangsters made a move to retrieve their guns.
“I wouldn’t,” the Scar cautioned, “unless you’d like your friend to leave your gang permanently.”