by Jerry eBooks
Chief Dulac knew that only a criminal act could prevent the worst crime of all . . .
It was a golden October afternoon in the snug, prosperous, little town of Wineport, N. Y. The wine from which the comfortably sprawling village got its name was safely casked for aging, and the air was misty and lazy, with just a faint tang of burnt leaves and skunk musk to remind the citizens that winter lay not far ahead.
It was a time for easing off, as Wineport concluded its business for the day and headed for lawn or lake or links to put in an hour or two of exercise before the chill of dusk descended.
Armand Dulac, Wineport chief of police, did not share the lazy, carefree mood of the community it was his sworn duty to guard. He sat gloomily behind his desk in the Town Hall, chain-smoking and trying to face the most difficult decision with which a man in his job could be confronted.
He was a big bear of a man, his swarthiness giving evidence of his French-Canadian ancestry, a man with the massive shoulders of a college athlete and the tough, lined, prematurely old face of a professional gladiator. He stirred his 200-plus pounds in his swivel chair and thought bitterly of Stanislas Ferencz and of his presence here in Wineport.
Somehow, the lean, blonde Continental with his close-set, pale blue killer’s eyes and the duelling scars upon his bronzed cheekbones, did not seem to belong in Wineport, or in America, at all. He belonged to a different continent and to a different time, when the world was ablaze with hot war instead of merely smoldering with the cold variety.
Ferencz belonged to a time when Armand Dulac had been an O.S.S. member, playing the deadly game of cloak and dagger throughout Europe—a time of strange swift disappearances, slow, agonizing tortures and stranger, swifter deaths. Had Armand not seen the visitor, tooling his rented car down Walnut St., he would never have believed in his presence. But Ferencz’s was not a face easily forgotten, and Armand had seen him without question, a mere half-hour earlier.
Furthermore, he knew the reason for Ferencz’s presence, and did not like it a bit. The agent had arrived to kill a man, and Dulac’s bitter problem was whether, for the good of the community, it would be better to let him get away with murder or not. Even if he succeeded in stopping Ferencz, they would simply send another assassin, and then another, until Reinhardt Sorga was dead.
Furthermore, although Armand was not a policeman to let fear of personal peril prevent him from doing his duty, there was a very strong possibility that he would not be able to stop Ferencz. The man knew his business—and his business consisted of obtaining information, and murder.
If Armand talked, if he tried to warn the rest of Wineport officialdom, he knew the best he could expect was disbelief until the-deed was done. International intrigue in Wineport? They would laugh, unaware of the fact that alien agents have more than once committed murder or kidnapping on U.S. soil.
Armand reached for the phone again, hesitated, then dialled a number. He waited while the instrument rang vainly seven, eight, nine times, then hung up in frustration. Of all times for Sorga not to be at home! If he didn’t locate the man soon Ferencz might complete his assignment and be beyond official reach. Even worse the job might be in vain.
He looked out the window, to see Ferencz walking across Walnut St. toward the police station. Out of long training, Armand half-opened his top drawer and made sure that the ugly black Colt .45 automatic was resting close to his hand. Evidently, the scarred assassin had discovered his identity—or perhaps he had been aware of it long in advance.
Armand disdained revealing surprise when the killer was shown into his office. “Hello Stanislas. I caught a glimpse of you driving down the street through the window just now. How are you? And what brings you to Wineport?”
“Sorga,” the killer said bluntly, his accent more noticeable than Armand had remembered it. “Frankly, I hardly expected to find an old—colleague of Resistance days here.”
“It suits me,” said Armand. Then, “Why do you want Sorga?”
This, although he knew the answers well enough. Sorga had been an Allied double agent, actually working for Britain and the U.S. while ostensibly serving in Europe as a trusted agent of the Axis. Even now, 15 years later, there were elements in control of certain countries who could not forgive what they felt to be such a betrayal.
“It is not I who want Sorga. But my employers are exceedingly anxious to talk to him. I don’t have to tell you that I am equipped to pay well for your help.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“A man can always use money,” said Ferencz in disbelief. Yet he did not mention the matter again, nor did Armand bring it up.
“Dulac, I want one thing understood, I have no intention of committing any crime in your community. My function is merely to get Sorga back to my employers. It is a matter of some records that must be set straight.”
“And just who are your employers?”
“You know better than to ask such a question,” Ferencz said coldly.
Armand’s right hand moved to his gun, even as he picked up the phone with his left. He had intended to call the F.B.I. but he was not in time. Ferencz had produced a Luger with magic sleight of hand, and its muzzle pointed squarely at the chief of police’s heart.
“You wouldn’t want to start anything in here,” said Armand. “You’d never get away with it.”
“Neither,” said the agent drily, “would you. I want Sorga. My time is valuable. Please—take me to him.”
It was not a request—it was a command. Knowing Ferencz’s record, and the small-town laxness of his police force, he was all too well aware that the assassin might quite well kill him and get away with it. Furthermore, he knew that Ferencz would not be afraid to try it.
After exchanging a long, hard look with his unwelcome caller, he sighed and picked up his hat. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Now you’re showing some sense.” Ferencz’s gun had disappeared but Armand knew too well it would send a stream of bullets thudding and tearing into him before he could make a move to turn the tables.
Then the idea was born. It was evident that Ferencz had no close local knowledge of Sorga’s location. After all, the former double-agent had been living in Wineport for a dozen years under the name of Judd Smith. Furthermore, Armand knew, plastic surgery had been effectively performed upon the man before his arrival in his American home. Somehow, Ferencz’s people had picked up information that Sorga was resident in Wineport, but their information had ended there. Armand suppressed a secretive smile as the murderer ordered him behind the wheel of his rented car. Ferencz was far too smart to let Armand drive his own—since there was always the possibility of his having a concealed weapon stashed somewhere within it.”
He drove out of town through the Indian summer haze, already losing its golden hue as the light blanket of early twilight was cast over it. He drove up into the hills, toward an isolated dirt road, where he knew what was needed, in wait for just such an invasion.
“Sorga must be a rabbit to live in so secluded a place,” said Ferencz with contempt in his tone.
Armand shrugged. He steered the rented car around a rutted, bumpy corner. It was then that the shot came and a spider web of cracks radiated from the hole in the windshield between them.
An unkempt type shambled out from behind a tree, rifle at the ready.
Armand stopped the car.
In a sing-song drawl, the shaggy haired oldster said, “Better put up your hands before I drill you.”
Armand complied, as Ferencz gave him a look of burning hatred at the betrayal. Then, because it was more than he could bear, he produced the Luger again and raised it to pistol-whip the chief of police.
The hill-billy character, however, saw only the weapon, not its intended use, and fired again, this time not as a warning. Ferencz stiffened convulsively, then went limp on the seat beside Armand, dead with a bullet lodged in his brain.
“It’s okay, Folger,” Armand called to the character, who was
approaching the car cautiously. “You could see that damned-fool Revenuer had me covered.”
“Yep,” drawled Folger, and Armand felt pleasure at the proximity of these chronic law-violators for the first time since taking the chief’s job in town. Ferencz might have suspected moonshiners with ready rifles had they been in West Virginia, Kentucky or Tennessee—but hardly in New York, although much of it upstate is as rural as any locality in the country.
“What d’ya reckon we’d better do about him?” said Folger, to a couple of other clansmen who had approached and were taking in the scene. “His buddies could mean trouble.”
“Not by me,” said Armand. “I won’t spill—not after you saved my life.”
Over the years of Armand’s life in Wineport, he had developed a code with the moonshiners. He raided them once a year, around January 15th, when their holiday sales were complete. The Folgers left him a few-score gallons of poor-run whiskey to confiscate. Otherwise, he left them alone and they kept their wild ways out of town. It was a status quo neither side wanted to alter.
“Reckon he means it,” said one of the older clansmen. “What do we do with this fella?”
“I’ll return the car,” said Armand. “You can do what you like with the body. If there’s any money on him, you can have that, too. Fair enough?”
“I reckon,” said the older Folger. “In that case you’d better be gettin’ back to town.”
When he reached home, the phone was ringing. It was Rheinhardt Sorga, alias Judd Smith. He said, without a trace of accent, “Operator tells me you tried to get me this afternoon. Something up?”
Armand thought it over. Why scare the poor devil to death with the danger removed? He said, “Not much—just wanted to know if you’re playing poker at my house come Friday.”
ENTER SCARFACE
Armitage Trail
Tony Guarino, destined to be the greatest of all America’s notorious gang leaders, was eighteen when he committed his first serious crime. And the cause, as is so often the case, was a woman.
But what a woman! Standing there in the dark alley that gave access to the street from the sheet-iron stage door of the cheap burlesque house, Tony could visualize her easily. A tall, stately blonde with golden hair, and a pink and white complexion and long, graceful white legs. From the audience he had watched those legs many times while she danced her way through the performance and they never failed to give him a tingly thrill that left him rather breathless.
The stage door opened suddenly, letting a square of yellow light out on the throng of dark, overdressed men and older boys waiting, like so many wolves, for their night’s prey. Then the door slammed shut with a dull clang, plunging the alley into darkness again, and a girl swished rapidly through the crowd, seemingly oblivious of the hands that reached out to detain her and of the raucous voices that brazenly offered invitations.
It was she! Nobody but Vyvyan Lovejoy used that particular heavy, sensuous perfume. Tony plunged after her, toward the lights and noise that indicated the street.
She paused at the sidewalk, a lithe, slender figure, overdressed in a vivid green ensemble suit with a skirt that was both too short and too tight, and glittering with much imitation jewelry. People with a proper perspective would have recognized her for the false and dangerous beacon of allure that she was, but to Tony she was marvelous, something to worship and possess.
He moved up beside her and took off his cap. That was one of the things he had learned from the movies, the only social tutor he had ever had.
“Good evening, Miss Love joy.”
She turned on him the face he thought so lovely. He couldn’t see that its complexion was as false as her jewelry; couldn’t see the ravages of dissipation that lay beneath the paint and powder; didn’t notice the hard cruel lines about the garish mouth, nor the ruthless greed in the painted, rather large nose. As she surveyed him, contempt came into her hardened bold face and her greenish eyes took on a strange glitter.
“You!” she said. “Again.”
“No—yet.” Tony laughed at what he thought a brilliant witticism. “And I’m goin’ to keep on bein’ here every night till you gimme a date.”
The girl laughed, a short, sharp, mirthless sound that was more like a grunt.
“Can y’imagine the nerve o’ th’ punk?” she demanded, as though addressing an audience, but her cold green eyes bored straight into Tony’s defiant black ones. “Just a mere child without even a car and tryin’ to date me up. Say, kid, do you know who my boy friend is?”
“No, and I don’t care,” retorted Tony with the passion-inspired recklessness of the Latin. “But I’m goin’ to be.”
“Well, it’s Al Spingola.”
Something inside of Tony suddenly went cold. Al Spingola was one of the city’s important gang leaders, a ruthless man with a big income, a lot of hoodlums who were loyal to him because they feared him and he paid them well, and a quick trigger finger himself. A dangerous man!
“Aw, I bet he ain’t so hot,” answered Tony stubbornly.
“Well, maybe not,” conceded Vyvyan, “but at least he can give a girl somp’m more substantial than kisses . . . Whenever you get a flock o’ dough, kid, an’ a big car, why come around and then maybe I’ll talk to you.”
She laughed again and stepped out to the curb as a big shiny limousine drew up with a rush and stopped. Tony started after her. Then he paused as he recognized the man at the wheel of that car. It was Al Spingola! A heavy-set, swarthy man with hard, reckless dark eyes and a cruel mouth with thick, brutal lips, handsomely dressed in gray and with an enormous diamond glittering in his tie. As everyone knew, the most important part of his dress lay snugly against his hip, a snub-nosed blue steel revolver seldom seen, but when it was, sure to be heard and felt by somebody. Tony realized that for him to say another word to Vyvyan then would be certain death. Not at the moment, of course, because that place was too public. But within a few days his body would be found in an alley somewhere.
Spingola glanced at Tony as the girl climbed into the car. And the boy, felt cold and nervous until the expensive machine purred away at high speed. Spingola, like others of his ilk, always drove at high speed, thereby lessening his availability as a target.
Tony watched the car race away, then he put on his cap and lighted a cigarette. Walking around the comer to a poolroom which was his main hang-out, he sat down in one of the high chairs to think out this thing that was his first adult problem. Usually his mind, even though uneducated, was alert and precise, its processes rapid and sound. But now it was dulled by the gnawing, overpowering hunger of his first great passion. Of course he had had any number of affairs with the neighborhood girls; no boy as good-looking as he could help that. But somehow they hadn’t satisfied him. He wanted something bigger, more mature than the shallow, entirely physical emotion that these girls offered. He was shockingly old for his age, as is almost every boy from such an environment. He looked twenty-five with his wise eyes, cynical mouth and well-developed beard that left a heavy pattern on his swarthy cheeks. And he possessed more actual knowledge of mankind and its vagaries than most men acquire in a lifetime. You could have set him down flat broke in any city in the world and he wouldn’t have missed a meal. Nor would he have needed to steal; stealing was the way of people without brains. He held a contempt for thieves; particularly those of the petty larceny variety.
“Say!” whispered a surly voice in his ear.
Tony looked up into a rat face topped by a dirty, rumpled checked cap.
“Well?” he said coldly.
“Some of us are goin’ out and knock over some gas stations,” answered the other boy hoarsely. “Want to come along?”
“No.”
“It’ll be an even split all round.”
“No, I said. I ain’t riskin’ a pinch for a coupla bucks.”
“Aw, there’ll be more’n that, Tony. All them places got fifty, sixty bucks layin’ around. An’ there’ll only be about four of us.�
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“Screw!” snarled Tony. “Before I paste you one.”
The other boy hurried away, muttering to himself. To the other boys who loafed around this poolroom, Tony was a puzzle. They never became intimate with him the way they did with each other. Somehow it just never occurred to them to do so. They realized the difference; so did he. But neither of them knew the reason. A psychologist would have explained it by saying that Tony had a “mental percentage” on the others, that it was the difference between a man destined for leadership and men destined to run in the pack.
Most of the boys in the neighborhood made illegal forays nightly. Never in their own ward, of course, because that would have alienated the alderman. Whereas when they made raids only in outside wards, their own alderman—in case they were arrested—would come down to the station, tell what fine reputations they had in their neighborhood, and help get them out. Then on election day, each hoodlum not only voted fifteen or twenty times, but hordes of them swept through the ward and threatened everybody with dire reprisals if the alderman were not re-elected by a handsome majority. And the people, realizing the truth of these threats, re-elected the alderman, even though they knew he was a grand old thug.
Tony always refused to join these nightly expeditions for ill-gotten gains. “Petty larceny stuff,” as he contemptuously referred to their depredations, did not interest him. He wanted to be a “big shot,” a leader, perhaps a politician. He had a hunger for command, for power, for wealth. And he meant to have it all. In the meantime, though he had no job that anybody knew of and although he refused to fall in with the criminal ways of his neighbors, he dressed better than they and seemed to have all the money he needed. Many of the boys wondered about that, but inasmuch as he chose to volunteer nothing, it was likely to remain a mystery for, in that neighborhood, one did not inquire into the source of income of even an intimate friend. And Tony had no intimate friends.
There was a sudden commotion at the front door of the poolroom and several burly men came in. Some of the people already present tried to escape by the back door, only to be confronted and driven back in by other burly men coming in there. Detectives, of course, going to look over the crowd.
