E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives

by E. Hoffmann Price

  Buddy Slesson, by profession a two-gun killer, shuddered in spite of himself. Darkness always set him on edge. “Kinder creepy,” he said.

  Suddenly, into the middle of the street ahead, debouched a score of dark, menacing figures. Closely they packed together, and the men in the coupe caught the tell-tale gleam of automatics and Thompson guns.

  “Hang on, punks!” Grant snapped. “We’re going through!” His foot jammed down on the accelerator and the coupe plunged forward to the attack.

  The barricade of grim gunmen did not yield. Instead, their weapon belched a fusillade of lead straight at the windshield and engine of the coupe. There were steel-jackets on some of the slugs, and the windshield sprouted rosettes where these struck. Doubtless the enemy mobsters figured Grant would not chance a wreck by smashing into them; or possibly they believed at least one slug would miraculously find its mark. Either way, they were wrong. The coupe ploughed on, straight at them.

  Its impact upon that mass of defiant flesh was terrific, and the car lurched in what was almost a spill. Then it ploughed on through, and over, the interference. Grant slammed on the brakes and rounded the turn into Murray’s private alley. The way ahead was clear.

  But, instead of going forward, Grant twisted the wheel and sent the coupe tearing back to the scene of battle. The maneuver was not expected. The enemy mobsters were scattered, many were limping and badly bruised. Only one machine gun was in evidence, and Grant headed the coupe toward the man who carried it, much like a charging bull. The man flung the heavy weapon aside and tried to leap to safety. He was not fast enough. Thud, br-r-ump! The wheels finished what the front fender started, and the man was out of the picture.

  Grant slammed on the brakes once more, flung open the door, and landed catlike on the pavement.

  “Come on!” he shouted, reaching for the pocket machine gun which had seen him through so many tight places. Then he whistled under his breath. That gun reposed in the safekeeping of the head waiter; at the House of a Thousand Dragons. He was facing a mob of enemies, with the Chinaman’s dinky seven-shot pistol as his only weapon.

  “Oh, well,” he sighed, “I asked for it. Anyhow, sharpshooting may be better than a spray, in a jam like this.”

  Handling the gun as though for a target contest such as had made him captain of the Yale pistol team, he squeezed the trigger. An enemy, taking a bead on him, never completed the operation. Instead, he flung away his weapon and flattened out on the pavement, Grant’s bullet in his heart.

  Grant fired with hasty but methodical, perfect pistol form, and more of the ambushers went down.

  Buddy and Torchy also were firing now, carefully, making their efforts count. The enemy, disordered and dazed by the sudden turn of fortune, fired wildly or not at all, as they sought to make cover. Grant refilled the Chinaman’s pistol from a spare clip of his midget machine gun, and went to work again.

  Bodies of slain gangsters sprawled awkwardly everywhere. Several had gotten away, and Grant regretted that he couldn’t take time to follow them. Instead, he ran forward and took up the count of casualties. Most of the dead and one of the wounded were Chinese. Two dead and one wounded man were whites.

  “And Joe Murray thinks a Chinaman can’t shoot!” Grant exclaimed.

  “Dey may shoot,” Buddy Slesson admitted, “but dey ain’t so hot at it or where ’ud youse be, Dude?”

  Swiftly the three friends searched the bodies for identifying papers, but found none. The wounded men seemed to be so badly hurt they could not talk, even had they been willing.

  “You fellows bring those two wounded birds to the warehouse,” Grant ordered, “and maybe we can coax them to talk. I’ll drive the coupe and cover you, see?”

  The warehouse was close at hand. Grant drove up to the doors and pressed the button on his dashboard. The radio-controlled doors rolled upward, and he drove inside. Leaving Slesson and Cullinane to close the doors and switch off the lights, Grant hurried to the elevators and pressed a finger against what looked like an ordinary rivet on one of the shaft girders, A moment later the roof-light on the elevator car flickered three times. That meant the controls were set so the car would avoid the trap, set for unwanted intruders, of being bottled up between floors, some three stories above ground. Grant entered the elevator and was carried to the roof.

  As he emerged into the hallway of the penthouse, he came face to face with Joe Murray, the chunky, gray-haired, scar-cheeked Irish leader of the former Grandi, or Grant mob. Murray’s eye was on the elevator door as Grant came out, and the door was covered by his automatic pistol.

  “Didn’t Oi hear shooting’ in the alley, Jimmy bye?” Murray asked, with a relieved grin, “Sure, an’ Oi was takin’ no chances that them spalpeens wor comin’ ter visit me.”

  “There was shooting, all right, Joe,” Grant explained. “It’s all over, though. Buddy Slesson and Torchy will be along pretty soon.”

  Together, Murray and Grant went to the living room, where stood a plump, bland Chinaman of indefinite age, wearing flowing black embroidered pajamas and a little round cap. The Chinaman bowed ceremoniously, and Grant bowed in return. Then he plunged into a narration of the events of the night, starting with the battle in the House of a Thousand Dragons and closing with the fight in Halsted Street.

  “And now, Sam,” he finally addressed the Chinaman, “what’s all this row between the tongs? Are your Hep Sings trying to find Foo Yong?”

  Foo Sam spread his hands apologetically. “My velly sally, Missy Glant,” he said, “but Flisco On Leon Tong killee number one boss, number two boss, number three boss. Killee plenty hatchet boys and highbindee. Shoot evlything to hellee. Chicago Hep Sings send muchee men to Flisco, no can help my blutha.”

  “That sure cuts the Murray outfit in, eh, Joe?” Grant commented quickly, “We’re with you, Sam, till they serve holy water in hell.”

  “Right you are, Jimmy!” The big Irishman was pleased with Grant’s attitude. “Foo Yong was wan of me best men.”

  “I don’t know a thing about tong fighting, Sam,” Grant turned again to the black-garbed Celestial, “but whatever it takes, well try to deliver. What do we do first?”

  Foo Sam, obeying a precept of Confucius, pondered before speaking. This was too much of a strain on the impetuous Grant.

  “Damn it, Sam,” he snapped. “Take us down to Hep Sing headquarters, so we can let ’em know the Murray mob is joining with them. That’ll more than replace your killed and absent highbinders. Right?”

  The elevator buzzer interrupted. Slesson and Cullinane came up, handling between them a badly frightened but apparently uninjured Chinaman. Grant met them at the shaft.

  “What was keeping you?” asked Grant, sheathing his gun.

  “De odder guy croaked,” Slesson explained, “an’ we had ter drag him all the way back up the street again. But dis guy ain’t hurt none.”

  Murray and Foo Sam arrived from the living room.

  “Ah-h!” hissed Foo Sam, his countenance taking on a frightful glare. The captive shrank back in terror, endeavoring to get behind Cullinane and Slesson.

  “Let us bind the luckless one,” Foo Sam advanced a pace, his long, yellow fingers thrust out at the cowering captive. “Then we shall ask him questions.”

  “If Oi’m right as ter yer methods, Sam,” Murray nodded at his two gunmen, as he chuckled at Foo Sam, “’twill be aisier on th’ rugs if ye do year askin’ in the kitchen.”

  The prisoner was dragged into the kitchen and tied, squealing, into a chair. Buddy Slesson covered him with a rod. Foo Sam, arms clasped within his flowing black and silver sleeves, stood impressively in front of the victim and began a sing-song jabber. The terrified man jabbered back, through compressed lips. Minutes passed, and still the interchange of clattering words continued.

  Grant became impatient. “What does he say?” he demanded.

  “Hi
m say no,” was Sam’s reply.

  “Takes a lot of language to say no in Chinese,” Cullinane remarked, scratching his red head. “Can’t you speed him up, Sam?”

  “Mebbeso can do,” Foo Sam smiled grimly, drawing a small, ivory-handled knife from one of his sleeves. He addressed another sing-song paragraph to the prisoner, which brought only a terrified, negative howl in answer. Then Sam reached out, caught the lobe of the captive’s ear between thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and sliced it off with the knife.

  “Please to bring a bowl,” he casually ordered, Joe Murray himself fetched the vessel and placed it on the table beside Foo Sam. Foo Sam dropped in the ear lobe, then grasped the lobe of the man’s other ear. He loosed another clattering barrage of words, and the prisoner replied. Evidently the answer was not satisfactory, for off came the second ear-lobe, to be dropped into the bowl beside its mate.

  More jabbering. Blood and sweat glistened on the victim’s yellow skin. Foo Sam ripped open the latter’s blouse and carved a one-inch square of flesh from his chest. The victim clamped his teeth against the groans that shook him, but Foo Sam eyed his misery without relenting. With knife upraised again, Sam made one more jabbering address. The captive replied, this time in a low, hopeless tone.

  Foo Sam turned blandly toward the four white men. “Him say him talk now,” he reported. “Talk American, luckless one, so my flien’s may hear.”

  The captive talked. He was an On Leon, he admitted. And the gang in the street were On Leons. They had come out to earn the reward of twenty thousand dollars which his tong had instantly offered for Jim Grant, dead or alive, following the battle in, the House of a Thousand Dragons. He had the reward notice in his pocket.

  “An’ I thought it was his laundry ticket!” gloomed Buddy Slesson, who had searched him.

  Foo Sam read the notice, then announced: “Yes, On Leon Tong offer leward for you, Missy Glant. You killum On Leon man in my les’lant.”

  Grant felt queer in the face of this announcement. In the past, white mobs had put a price on him, dead or alive, but it had never been collected. A yellow mob was after him now, and it gave him a qualm in his belly.

  Foo Sam went on with his questioning. The captive said the white men in the gang on Halsted Street were Detroit gunmen, imported for special duty by a Chicago big shot. Murray, Grant, Slesson and Cullinane pricked up their ears again at this information.

  “Who is that big shot?” growled Murray, his eyes blazing down at the captive Chinaman.

  “Me no sabby,” was the answer.

  “Did you ever see him?” demanded Murray, lifting a huge fist.

  “Yes—no—me no sabby,” quavered the Chinese, shrinking in his bonds.

  “You lie,” Foo Sam made a circular motion with his knife, around the prisoner’s nose. “A noseless man must travel without companions,” he added, in the singsong of a quotation. He waved the knife again as he laid hold of the captive’s nose.

  And then a shot rang out. The captive slumped against the ropes, dragging the chair over. Then his body lay grotesquely on the floor, while a streamlet of blood spread out on the left side of his shirt.

  CHAPTER II

  The Mazes of Chinatown

  “Oh hell!” Buddy Slesson ejaculated foolishly, flinging his gat onto the linoleum floor. “That damn nose business gave me the jitters, an’ I squeezed my gun!”

  “An’ played hob wid our chance to get a line on this mess!” growled Joe Murray. “Ye’re one hell of a rodman, Slesson!”

  “Cripes, Joe, I’ll admit that—but I couldn’t help it. Jeez, what a mutt I’m gettin’ to be!”

  “Skip it!” Grant cut in, “That nose business had me going, too. Sam, I’d rather be in the hands of the devil himself than in yours. But belly-aching won’t do any good. Let’s get down to tong headquarters right away.”

  “Can do,” Foo Sam smiled blandly, with perfect calmness.

  “Are you heeled?” Grant asked, as an afterthought.

  “Me plenty heeled,” the Chinaman affirmed, lifting the blouse of his black and silver pajamas. He was a walking arsenal of cutlery and pistols.

  “He couldn’t hit a flock of barns wid a sawed-off shotgun,” Murray remarked, “but wid a knife, he sure can shave de whiskers off a fly at twenty feet, usin’ ayther hand. The spalpeen gives me the creeps.”

  “Me givem creeps to On Leon boys,” beamed Foo Sam, as with a series of courtly bows he gestured toward the elevator door.

  Grant issued commands. “Buddy, you come with Foo Sam and me. Joe, you hold the fort right here. Torchy, you get rid of this dead Chinaman. And, Joe, you’d better give me another seventeen-shooter.”

  In one of Murray’s armored cars, Grant at the wheel, the trio drove the short distance from the mob’s warehouse into the heart of Chinatown. Day was just breaking.

  “Turn allee same left,” directed Sam, as Grant throttled down. “Hep Sing, him boss shop—”

  “Hep Sing, hell!” Grant chuckled shortly. “We’re calling on the On Leon number one boss, if you know where to find him!”

  Foo Sam’s slant eyes widened. Then he smiled blandly and replied: “Much obligee, Missy Glant. But mebbeso On Leon number one boss cut ’em off your nose, takem my fingers allee same.”

  “Who says so?” demanded Buddy Slesson, who had been silently cursing himself ever since his gun hand slipped, back there in the penthouse kitchen. “Sam, you just show us de way, dads all.”

  Sam complied. Grant swung right, ran slowly ahead for a block, then pulled in to the curb. Sam indicated a narrow doorway on the opposite side of the narrow thoroughfare. The brick wall alongside was plastered with posters and gambling slips inscribed in Chinese. Over the door was a gilt sign, but Grant wasted no time trying to decipher the chicken-track hieroglyphics. Instead, he started to slide out from under the wheel. Foo Sam’s lean yellow hand reached out and caught his arm. Grant looked up and saw that Sam’s eyes were beady, blazing with wrath as he studied a huge red-and-black poster.

  “On Leon Tong say twenty thousand dolla’ fetchem back Foo Yong,” he translated. “Say too On Leon pay twenty thousand dolla’ for killee Missy Glant. Mebbeso we go home now.”

  “Mebbeso you go damn quick to hell!” Grant mimicked Sam’s sing-song; “I’m going in.”

  He was out of the armored car with the lithe leap of a panther. The On Leon Tong meant business, beyond a doubt. But so did Jim Grant.

  The very air of the alley—the street was no more than an alley—dripped murder and things even more terrible. Grant snatched the red-and-black poster from its pasted corners, shoved open the narrow door, and raced up the stairs. He was the last person the On Leon Tong would ever expect to come calling.

  Buddy Slesson, slipping his shoulder automatic into a coat pocket, was at Grant’s heels, but Foo Sam had faded like a ghost down the narrow alley.

  At the head of the stairs, Grant caught the pungent reek that identifies a Chinese den even more certainly than their chicken-track posters and streamers. He jabbed the push-button beside the door. A peep-hole opened, and Grant stared into a pair of snaky, glittering eyes.

  “Wassa malla—what you want?”

  “Where’s your number one boss?” demanded Grant. “I want twenty thousand dollars, pretty damn soon!”

  The yellow face and snaky eyes turned away. The sound of swift jabbering followed. Then another face showed at the peephole. “What fo’ you want twenty-thousand dolla’?” the newcomer asked. “You not a policee-man.”

  Grant held up the death sentence before the peep-hole. “Hand over the money,” he said, “and you can have Jim Grant.” He grinned. “But no tickee, you sabby, no washee.”

  “Glant—you catch—im? You got im now?”

  “Damn right we got him!” Slesson declared, “Open up, and we’ll bring him in.”

  “Plitty soon. Y
ou wait allee same.”

  The peephole closed. Grant and Slesson eyed each other.

  “Dey don’t know your mug,” whispered Slesson thoughtfully. “So maybe you’ll get in. Only, it may look screwy to them fer a white man to sell out another white man. It’ll look cockeyed to them Chinks—we’re headin’ into—”

  The soft, steely sound of a sliding bolt halted him. Poised, tense, they waited, but the door did not open at once. Slesson looked worried, then he saw that Grant was grinning half contemptuously at him, and took a new hitch on himself. Whatever the play might be, he decided, Jim Grant must know what he was doing. Then the door swung suddenly, silently open, almost catching them off guard. They were looking into a small, murky room occupied by half a dozen Chinese, seated about a circular table, intent on a game of cards. Several other yellow men lounged on a bench along one wall. In the doorway at the further end of the room stood a moon-faced Oriental. As Grant and Slesson stepped within, he advanced a pace.

  “You gentlemen asked for me,” he bowed blandly. “I’m Yut Lee, financial secretary of our society.”

  “If you want Jim Grant,” Grant stared straight-eyed into Yut Lee’s face, “show me the twenty grand, and I’ll bring him in—side door or front.”

  Yut Lee smiled, but with evident doubt. “Where is Mister Grant?” he asked softly.

  “Where is the twenty thousand dollars?” countered Grant.

  Yut Lee bowed in defeat. “This way, please,” he motioned toward the passage that led to the rear.

  Grant could have declined the invitation. At any moment he might be recognized, of course, and in that case his chances of getting a glimpse of Foo Yong would be absolutely zero. But there was a certain relish in bargaining for the sale of himself—dead or alive—and he ignored the thought of retreat Buddy Slesson followed him across the room and into the narrow passageway.

  “Jim,” Buddy breathed into Grant’s ear, “dis is de damnedest fool trick I ever—”

  The door behind them closed with a slight bang. Slesson closed his mouth.