The Man With the Mole/Chapter 4

OME day New York will be purged of the huddled-up buildings, the hidden alleys, the cellars, and the underground ways that make up the warren of the underworld. And many things will be revealed, perhaps, that no one has suspected. As long as drugs are peddled and liquor can be distilled, with or without the sanction of the government, so long will these things last, so long will they be populated by the dregs of humanity, twisted in mind and body alike, dominated by some master minds that defy the law.

It was by devious ways that Baldy and Sperry reached the rendezvous that evening. Sperry knew that he could never retrace the route. As it was, he did not penetrate to the actual meeting. As “outside-man,” he remained outside the council. They passed through a fence of boards, a portion of which swung horizontally on a pivot to Baldy’s touch; they traversed deep cellars, littered with debris that exuded all kinds of musty odors, lit dimly by some light to which Baldy always found a hidden switch. Once, Sperry felt certain, they passed underneath a street, slanting deep down an earthy tunnel propped by beams, traversing a level section where the smell of sewerage was abominable, then up and through another cellar to brick stairs, at the head of which a stout door showed a peephole of light in response to certain knockings of Baldy, checked by other knocks within.

On the other side squatted a man without legs, the type of cripple that infests the streets and captures from sympathetic workers more in a day than they could hard-earn in ten. He worked the opening of the door with a leather strap. Round his stumped body was a belt holstered with two automatics. He challenged the appearance of Sperry, now Manning.

“I don’t know this guy,” he said, in guttural tones.

“I’m vouching for him,” said Baldy. “He’s with me.”

The dwarf hesitated, shifting a holster to the front. Baldy boiled over with sudden ferocity.

“You cut that gun bluff out with me, Squatty,” he said. “Get me? I gave the signals an’ you answered them. That’s where you quit.”

Squatty visibly cowered, yet dared to touch a button back of him. Three faint rings sounded.

“I’ll have a talk with you later,” said Baldy. But he stayed where he was until the figure of a man appeared coming down the passage.

“What’s up?” said the newcomer, a man with beetle brows, his repellant countenance stained from cheek-bones to jaw on the left side with a port-wine mark.

“I come here with a pal,” said Baldy, his voice quietly ominous, “and this remnant holds us up after I’ve vouched for him. This sort of stuff don’t go with me, Blackberry; it don’t go!”

The newcomer spread out deprecating hands.

“Chief’s orders, Baldy,” he said. “Any new guy’s got to be passed on reg’lar.”

“I’m gettin’ tired of this ‘Chief’ stuff,” said Baldy. “If we’re good enough to pull stuff for a man, we’re good enough to see him. This game is too much under cover to suit me. My dope was straight enough to suit the gang, wasn’t it? Then, when I bring in a pal that I vouch for, the very man we’re needing, I’m not goin’ to have him held up when it’s touch and go whether we can hold him at all. What you got to say about it, Duke?” He turned to Sperry.

“I’m not over interested in this business,” said Sperry, playing up. “I don’t know what there is in it for me, and I don’t like working for any mysterious chiefs. I’d just as soon quit right now.” In which statement he spoke the truth. But he knew he had served Baldy’s purpose. “And if he quits, I quit with him,” said Baldy. “That’s where I stand, chief or no chief! And, anyway, I don’t go no further in the dark. I want to know where I get off. I’m goin’ to have a pow-wow with the chief before I run my neck into trouble any deeper. You heard me, Blackberry.”

The man with the stain whirled on the cripple.

“What Baldy says is straight, Squatty!” he exclaimed. “You got to use some discretion. Get me?”

“I will when you tell me what that word means,” said Squatty.

“It means common sense, that’s what. Don’t you touch that push button without good reason, or you’ll get the grand razzoo! Come on, gents.”

Up the passage and into a room, barren of furniture and walled with rough planks, they went at last: it showed no door, no means of egress. One dingy electric, the bulb spotted with flies, barely showed the dimensions of the place. But Blackberry, at the far end, trod on a plank, and a section of the walling rose, through which they passed on, up a flight of stairs, and so to what was evidently the back room of the basement floor of a tenement house. Sperry glimpsed a cemented furnace room through the opening door by which Blackberry disappeared.

“Let me do the talking,” said Baldy, and Sperry was content.

The place was furnished with a pallet bed covered with greasy blankets, a table, and three broken-down chairs. Soon they heard footsteps returning. Blackberry came back again with a black-mustached, stout, prosperous-looking man. The latter went to the point.

“Who’s the new guy, Baldy?” he asked; “and what’s this kick about the chief?”

“The last can wait," said Baldy. “You know my kick, and I ain’t the only one kicking. I’ll take that up inside. This is The Duke, Gentleman Manning of Chi. He’s a chauffeur, and a good one. I’m vouching for him. Chi ain’t healthy for him just now, on account of the wind off the lake front and him having weak lungs.”

The other grinned and surveyed Sperry.

“You’ll find New York a healthy coop for a lively bird,” he said. “Ever live here?”

“He ran a car for a family up in Lenox,” said Baldy. “They missed some ice and accused him of hiding it in the gasoline tank. He didn't. Point is, he knows the Berkshires. Savvy? Blake’s got pinched, as you told me. Well, this lad can take his place.” “I guess it’s all right I’ll take your word for it. You’ll get a five per cent divvy, Duke, of what stacks up from tonight. Does that go?”

Sperry, borne on the tide of events, nodded.

“Then come on, Baldy,” said the man. “We’re waiting to hear your spiel. Did you pull it off? You wait here, Duke.”

They left him, and Sperry lit a cigarette and then another, wondering to what he was committed. He didn’t much care. His own case seemed helpless, and he was conscious of a growing exhilaration in the dark enterprise on hand. And, holding his promise to the girl, he tried to believe in Baldy as she would have him believe. Only, not quite certain of what she did wish him to subscribe to, he made hard work of it.

He had no watch with him, and it seemed hours before Baldy came back, alone. What happened beyond the furnace room remained a mystery to Sperry.

“Come on,” said Baldy. They retraced their tortuous way, by the watchful Squatty, who still sulked from his calling-down, and presently they were seated in another padded niche in a café, not the same one they had been in before.

“It’s for to-morrow night,” said Baldy. “The car’s Speedwell. Know it?”

“Yes,” answered Sperry truthfully.

“We’ll see,” said Baldy. “Taking no chances. Come along.”

This time they took the subway far uptown, and walked to a garage where Baldy seemed to be well known. The Speedwell was in, and, at Baldy’s suggestion, they took it out and Sperry drove into the Park. He demonstrated that he knew its mechanism as well as a Swiss watchmaker might understand the interior economy of a dollar pocket timepiece. Baldy stated himself satisfied.

“Put on those two new rear tires, Tom,” he said to the attendant. “My friend will be here to take the car out to-morrow night, about nine.”

“The tires seem perfectly good,” said Sperry as they left the garage.

“Taking no chances,” reiterated Baldy. “Come on, we’ll get a snack somewhere. Bess will have gone to bed.”

Not till they were back in Greenwich Village did Baldy give him further instructions.

“Get the car there at nine to-morrow,” he said, “pick me up in Washington Square, where the buses stop, at ten sharp. Be driving slowly along. I’ll be there. I’ll not be home to-morrow. You take Bess out to Bronx Park. She wants to see the animals. Crazy about them. I’ve promised to take her, and haven’t had time, though I’m fond of poking round there myself.” To-morrow would be a day well spent, decided Sperry—up till nine o’clock in the evening, at all events. After that, he committed himself to the unknown, and to Baldy. He felt pretty confident of Baldy’s being able to protect himself and any protégé.

“By the way,” said Baldy, yawning, “what does this Remington look like?”

Sperry described him as best he could. “Why?” he asked when he concluded.

“Thought I saw him to-day,” said Baldy. “I was in the jeweler’s.”

With that he went to bed and left Sperry to follow his example. Sleep did not come easily. Why did Baldy want to change two perfectly good tires for new ones? What kind of man was he who loved animals, who trusted his daughter to a new acquaintance, who consorted with the worst types of criminals, and who, Sperry was assured, was going to join in some big robbery the next night, in which affair he, Sperry, was bound by many ties of recklessness and obligation? And what about Remington? Baldy, he had found out by this time, asked no questions idly. And who was “the chief?”

He went to sleep to dream that he and Baldy were cracking a giant safe, with Elizabeth holding a hair-clipper that, somehow, served as a brilliant electric torch. And, when the safe was opened, Cairns stepped out of the shadows and arrested all three of them.