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 He had the mind and soul of a master politician.

Tony suddenly realized that the stuffy, smoke-filled atmosphere of the pool-room had given him a headache, and decided to go home. Except for occasional oases like the pool-room, the neighborhood was a desert of gloom and deserted frowsiness. Street lights were infrequent and those that existed were of the old-fashioned, sputtering type that, like some people, made a lot of noise but accomplished little. It hadn't rained that night, yet there was an unhealthy dampness about. The dingy old buildings, with their ground-floor windows boarded up like blind eyes, seemed to hover malevolently over the narrow, dirty streets. One street that served as a push-cart market by day was littered with boxes and papers and heaps of reeking refuse. An occasional figure, either hunting or hunted, skulked along. Infrequently, a car raced past, awakening echoes that could be heard for blocks through the quiet streets. Over all hung a brooding stir of everpresent menace, an indefinable something that made sensitive strangers to the neighborhood suddenly look back over their shoulders for no good reason.

This was the setting of gangland, its spawning place, its lair and one of its principal hunting