Secret Agent X : The Complete Series Volume 3

by Emile C. Tepperman

  Chapter XI

  WEBS OF DEATH

  A CHECK girl took his hat and cane. A strident band was playing beyond the club’s polished dance floor, warming up for the evening’s work. Few patrons had arrived as yet. It was still too early for slummers. The food at the Montmorency wasn’t inviting. It was the hectic, sinister atmosphere of the place that brought men and women from the after-theatre crowds to get a thrill by rubbing shoulders with the underworld.

  But some of Sanzoni’s hangers-on were in evidence. Two dapper, flat-chested men, with twisted smiles, nodded instantly as Agent “X” came through the door. They were at a table, liquor glasses before them. One got up.

  “Bugs Gary himself!” he said. “We heard about you getting on the right side of the governor. Welcome to the old joint, Bugs!”

  Behind his outward calm, the mind of Agent “X” was active. His pulses hammered. He knew he was in a dangerous spot. His facts on Bugs’ past were brief. He didn’t even know the names of these two. Any moment he might say or do something that would betray him. Then their smiles would change to snarls. Their hands would reach for guns.

  He wasn’t afraid of death. He had rubbed shoulders with the Grim Reaper too often. But he knew now what the strange, sinister mystery that menaced the peaceful life of the city was—knew the horror of those NP bombs. The sights and sounds of the razing of Baldwin Island had etched unforgettable memories in his mind.

  He grinned expansively, advanced and shook hands with the gangster. “How are you, boy!” he said, using the accent of Bugs Gary that he had so carefully learned.

  “You got your glad rags on, Bugs. You look as if you’d struck it rich in the Big House.”

  Agent “X” waved a bejewelled hand. “I had a little cash salted away. I thought I’d treat myself to a blow-out now that I’m back on the town.”

  “Come and sit down, Bugs? The drinks are on us.”

  A waiter came to take his order; but before the drinks arrived, a glamorous blonde woman came through the door at the end of the big room. She made straight for the table “X” was at, and one of the men beside him spoke.

  “There’s Goldie, now. She’s spotted you right off, Bugs. You always did have a way with her!”

  The two laughed significantly, eyeing “X” sharply. And a sudden sense of danger swept over him. There was something in their manner that he didn’t quite understand. He had heard of Goldie La Mar, notorious night club hostess and underworld queen. But if she had been an especial intimate of Bugs, his files bore no record of it. His heart beat faster as the woman approached.

  Seen closer, her glamorous beauty resolved itself into skillful make-up. Her eyes were heavily mascaraed, shadowed underneath. Her face was powdered thickly, her lips rouged into a dazzling but unnatural curve. Yet she walked with the free-swinging grace of a female panther. She was still a handsome, alluring figure of a woman, sure of herself and of her charms.

  “Bugs!” she said. “Ain’t this grand! It’s like old times to see you back. Your pals thought of you—even when you went away. It seems a long time. How’s the boy?”

  “Never better. And glad to be back, Goldie,” said “X.”

  He watched the woman sharply. Her eyes held his, lingered, then seemed to find some lack. She pouted, dropped her lids a moment. The orchestra struck up just then. The woman took a step closer, smiled disconcertingly.

  “Let’s see if you can still hoof it, Bugs—the way you used to. Or did you forget how to shake your dogs while you were breaking rocks?”

  It was a command, not a suggestion. Goldie was already close, her powdered arm lifted to his shoulder. He encircled her waist at once, danced out on the polished floor. The woman’s heady perfume was in his nostrils. Her supple body was close to his; yet he felt intuitively that he was in the presence of a dangerous being, whose smiling sleekness hid sharp, cruel claws.

  Out of earshot of those at the table, Goldie La Mar spoke close to his ear in a husky drawl that held a lingering caress. “What is it, Bugs, you ain’t sore that I hitched up with Gus? You didn’t think a girl like me could wait around for a mug forever? You were a good guy, Bugs, but when they railroaded you away, it looked like you was gonna stay for good. I’m a girl who likes nice clothes and things, and Gus is a good provider.”

  THE beating of the Agent’s heart increased. For a moment he was silent, gathering his faculties. The truth came to him. He had ran full-tilt into a complication. Goldie La Mar had been Bugs Gary’s moll before he went to jail. Now she was Sanzoni’s. He must watch his step. Yet perhaps he could make use of the situation, find out the things he wanted to know.

  “A guy forgets how to treat women when he stays in stir,” he said. “You don’t see ’em there. But watch me warm up if I stick around this joint. It looks like the old days, Goldie, when the boss was running the stuff and sellin’ it to the suckers at fancy prices.”

  Goldie La Mar laughed a brittle, significant laugh. “It’s better than the old days, Bugs. You’ll like it. There ain’t no blue-nosed mugs snooping around to spoil the fun. There’s plenty of dough and the liquor’s better than it used to be. A girl can drink without growing barnacles inside.”

  “Sanzoni’s running liquor still then?”

  “Hell, no! There ain’t no money in that—when every soda joint has a liquor stamp.”

  “What is his racket?”

  Goldie La Mar laughed again, mysteriously. “Never mind about that. He’s got a lot of things in the fire. But whatever he does is O. K. at City Hall. I guess the guys in the old days didn’t know what a wire was or how to pull it.”

  Agent “X” almost betrayed himself by the tenseness that crept over his body. Then, smiling down at her, he spoke slowly, casually. “Gus always did know how to grease the going, Goldie. You mean he’s got the mayor on his side now?”

  For a bare instant a glitter crept into the limpid sheen of Goldie La Mar’s mascaraed eyes. But the Agent’s bland smile disarmed her. She nodded.

  “He’s got protection—what I mean. The mayor eats out of his hand. And he keeps the dicks in their places. Gus is gonna be the biggest shot there is. And you can’t blame a girl like me for fallin’ for a guy like that, can you, Bugs?”

  Agent “X” forced himself to smile again; forced himself to hide the tense excitement he felt. He was getting nearer the truth now. He spoke softly in the voice of Bugs Gary.

  “I can’t blame you, Goldie. That’s right. You always did know how to pick ’em. Look at me! But one of these days you’ll get tired of Gus and—”

  Goldie shook her gleaming head coyly. “You and me can be good friends as long as Gus don’t get wise,” she said. “But I ain’t getting tired fast of a mug that pulls in fifty grand a day.”

  Agent “X” swung the woman into the steps of a fast foxtrot, leaning over her a bit to hide his face from her sharp gaze. He wanted to think.

  The dance ended. Agent “X” took the woman back toward the table where Bugs’ two former pals still sat. They applauded loudly.

  “You and Bugs make a good team, Goldie! It’s too bad Gus can’t dance like that, too.”

  Goldie put her finger to her lips and rolled her eyes. “Gus can do other things,” she said mysteriously. “And you boys better watch yourselves.”

  The instant sobering of the two gangsters faces showed the respect in which they held Sanzoni. They assumed poker expressions, fingered their glasses.

  “Better go in and see him, Bugs,” said one. “He might get sore if you hang out here without letting him know.”

  “Yes,” said Goldie, “run along, Bugs, but act decent. Gus is used to bein’ treated right these days. He makes all the boys toe the mark.”

  “X” hesitated a moment, looking about him.

  “The door at the left,” said Goldie. “He’s got a new hangout now. Go through the hall and up the stairs. His place is right ahead. But knock before you go in.”

  AGENT “X” followed her directions. He was like a
man walking on glass. But the eager, questing light of battle was in his eyes. He entered the doorway at the left of the dance floor, passed through a corridor, mounted a flight of luxuriously carpeted stairs, and knocked at the door before him. A wheezing voice bade him come in.

  “X” did so, opening the door and entering a chamber that was a cross between an office and an elaborately ornate den. Great leather chairs stood about. Expensive woodwork made brownish reflections under shaded lights. A period-design of table stood in the center of the floor. And behind this a man sat.

  He was a big man, with rounded shoulders and a bull-like neck that hung in flabby rolls over his collar. His small eyes were sunk in pouches of flesh. His lips were moist, red spots in a pile of blubber.

  “X” had seen pictures of Gus Sanzoni. This was the man; but he had put on weight obviously. Prosperity had padded his massive frame with an excess of pendulous, unwholesome fat.

  He did not seem surprised to see Bugs Gary. He held out a flabby hand, smiled, and waved to a chair. But his fingers were fishily cold, and there was no friendliness in his smile or in the brittle glitter of his small eyes.

  “Sit down, Bugs. The boys told me about you getting out. I figured maybe you’d turn up.”

  Looking at the man before him, Agent “X” felt that he was in for a battle of wits; that he was already on the mat before a relentless, masterful personality who would be difficult to trick or bulldoze.

  Agent “X” smiled, met the glittering eyes of the other, all but out of sight in the flesh around them.

  “Couldn’t stay away,” he said lightly. “A guy gets lonely for his old pals in stir.”

  A laugh that began as a wheeze sounded in Gus Sanzoni’s throat. It rose until it was a bubbling peal of humorless mirth that filled the room.

  “You like your old pals, Bugs!” he panted. “You got all dolled up just to meet ’em, eh, Bugs? You came back as quick as you could when they let you out!”

  Agent “X” nodded, still smiling, but with the knowledge that the man before him was making sport of him for some reason of his own. Then suddenly Gus Sanzoni seemed to rise in his chair, tower like an unwholesome, menacing hulk; his dark eyes aglitter. He leaned forward across the table.

  “Don’t pull that stuff on me, Bugs,” he wheezed. “Don’t think you can soft-soap Gus Sanzoni. You didn’t get out of the Big House for nothing. You didn’t come here because you loved us.”

  There was silence in the room; tense silence while Agent “X” stared at the other waiting. Gus Sanzoni’s fat, almost shapeless hands spread out on the table like a bloated spider’s claws. The movement of his small red mouth was venomous.

  “I’m onto you, Bugs. They let you out of the Big House for a purpose. You heard I’d taken Goldie. You’d heard I was playing a new racket, and you saw a chance to make some dough for yourself, and maybe square things up. Who’s payin’ you to be a stoolie—an’ spy on me?”

  Agent “X” was for a moment speechless. This was a twist he hadn’t anticipated. Gus Sanzoni, far from the truth, was yet near enough to upset all of “X’s” plans. His disguise had worked; but it had gotten him in as deep as though he had come as an agent of the law.

  “You musta gone off your nut, Gus,” he said. “I ain’t no stoolie. I—”

  “None of your dirty lies! I ain’t got time to listen to ’em. There’s only one thing I want to know. Who’s the guy that got the warden to pardon you?”

  “Why the governor, Gus. You know the governor has to—”

  “Yeah. And who asked the governor to do it? Who’s got you on his payroll as a stoolie? Answer me that!”

  “You’re talking crazy, Gus. You know Bugs Gary wouldn’t never doublecross—”

  “O. K.,” said Sanzoni evilly. “You’re a tight-lipped guy! They got you fixed nice! But I got ways to make mugs loosen up when I ask ’em things—and I’ll make you beg for a chance to talk!”

  “X” didn’t see the gangster move. But a buzzer sounded faintly somewhere. It testified to the fact that there was a button under Sanzoni’s foot on the floor. Instantly a door at the end of the room opened. Two flint-eyed men with sawed-off shot guns entered. Then, from the sound behind him and the faint draft of air on his neck, “X” knew that others had come in from the rear. He was surrounded, threatened with instant death if he made a move, in the stronghold of as cunning a criminal as he had ever come across.

  Chapter XII

  NIGHT PROWLERS

  SLOWLY he turned so that he could see both pairs who menaced him. Those at his back were the same two he had set at table with a moment before—Bugs Gary’s pals. But their faces were dead pans now. Their hands gripped black automatics. They would shoot at the merest nod from Sanzoni, send a withering stream of slugs at his body. For that was the law of the underworld—obey the big shot—murder a pal in the interests of one’s own career. Like the gray rats that Thaddeus Penny had mentioned, each was out for himself alone. And because Sanzoni had money, influence, they would murder callously at his behest. The gangster’s harsh, wheezing chuckle sounded again. “Here are your pals, Bugs. You came to see ’em! Look ’em over! They got a welcome for you—a dose of lead. You’ll be glad to talk when they start working on you. Maybe you’d rather unbutton your lip now—and tell me what I asked.”

  Agent “X” was silent. Whatever he said would be held against him. He couldn’t tell Sanzoni what the man wanted to know. Better keep still, and wait for a possible break. But none seemed coming. Sanzoni was experienced in handling desperate, murderous men. He was taking no chances.

  “If he goes for his rod, boys, give it to him where he stands. Frisk him, Regio.”

  A fifth man started toward “X” to disarm him. The Agent’s eyes burned somberly at this. There were things on his person that must not be discovered—his strange devices that he carried, his gas gun which would give him away, make Sanzoni suspect that he was not Bugs Gary at all. Sanzoni spoke as the man Regio came forward.

  “The boys will take you downstairs, Bugs! They’ll work on you there. Shoot your fingers off—like they did Mike Barney’s. Maybe you remember Mike! And by the time you’ve lost a couple of thumbs you’ll be willing to talk!

  A picture flashed through “X’s” mind. A picture of a criminal he had once seen, Mike Barney, trying to light a cigarette with shapeless, crippled hands, a silent, bitter man, reluctant to say what sort of accident he had met with. Now “X” knew.

  There was no limit to the unholy cruelty of the fat fiend before him. Sanzoni was laughing, taunting him.

  “You won’t be such a headliner with the janes, Bugs, when your hands look like chewed-off tree stumps. Mike Barney’s gal left him when the boys got through with him. Janes is funny that way. They like pretty things—and a guy with no fingers ain’t pretty.”

  An involuntary tensing of the Agent’s muscles made the men with the guns step closer. With a curious, speculative expression in his eyes, “X” estimated the angle that the black guns were pointing. They were aiming low in true gangster fashion. A thin smile curved his lips.

  At that moment he heard the brittle laugh of a woman close by, blending with Gus Sanzoni’s. He looked up. Goldie La Mar stood in the doorway. Her hands were on her hips. A mocking light was in her eyes:

  “You’d better have stayed in the Big House, Bugs. You came asking for trouble—and you’ve found it!” She turned to Gus Sanzoni “He wanted to know too much when I danced with him a while back. You’ve got his number O. K. He’s just a dirty stoolie.”

  The gangster, Regio, was close to “X’s” side now, reaching out to search him—and find the things that would betray “X” as a far more dangerous enemy to Sanzoni than Bugs Gary could ever be. The muzzles of the mobster killers’ guns were held steady, ready to send lead at “X” if he did not submit to Regio’s frisking.

  An attempt to escape now seemed suicidal; yet, in the fraction of a second before Regio’s hands entered his pockets, Agent “X” went into swi
ft, death-defying action.

  He lunged forward, sweeping Regio out of his path with one flailing arm. A surprised wheeze came from the lips of Sanzoni. The gunmen killers, obeying the orders their chief had given them, pressed triggers. In that brief instant when he flashed through space, bullets thudded against the Agent’s body.

  BUT he didn’t cry out, or collapse. He hurtled straight on. His movement hadn’t been a wild plunge of sheer terror, the panicky, maneuver of a fear-crazed man, as it seemed. It had been a calculated, timed action, based on the confidence of a defensive device which Agent “X” had carried when he came here. This was his special bulletproof vest—a shell of case-hardened manganese steel, with a raw silk stuffing and an outer shell of light-weight duralumin. It was worn like a vest. Once before it had saved Agent “X” from annihilation, at the hands of gangsters.

  It worked now. The lead from the sub-calibre machine guns missed him except for a few glancing blows. The .45 slugs from the automatics penetrated the outer duralumin shell, but flattened their noses against the inner steel.

  Quick as a flash Agent “X” was on hands and knees before an empty electric wall socket near the floor.

  The gangsters, thinking their salvo had mortally wounded him, and hoping to get a dying confession from his lips, held their fire now. This was what “X” had counted on. With a lightning movement, he drew something from his pocket. It was a small, curved bit of wire; a simple, but effective device that had served him well before. He thrust this into the socket terminals under the very nose of Sanzoni’s mob.

  There was a sputter, a flash of violet light, and every bulb in the Montmorency Club was extinguished as the fuses blew; short circuited by “X’s” wire.

  In the ensuing darkness Goldie La Mar screamed shrilly. Sanzoni broke into wheezing curses. The gangsters who had been posted to torture or kill Agent “X” bumped against one another and grappled fiercely.