Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” said O’Brien. “Plenty of people has seen ’em — and others saw ’em and didn’t live to tell who they was. I said all the time it was more’n any one man which was doin’ all these crimes. I thought it was a gang—”

  “Aw, ferget it,” I said. “Come on. Johnny’s stole my wad, and old Bunger has gypped the both of us. I’m a man of action. I’m goin’ to find the old buzzard if I have to take Singapore apart.”

  “I’m with you,” said Black Jack, so we went out into the street and started hunting old Bunger, and, after about a hour of snooping into low-class dives, we got wind of him.

  “Bunger?” said a bartender, twisting his flowing black mustaches. “Yeah, he was here earlier in the evenin’. He had a drink and said he was goin’ to Kerney’s Temple of Chance. He said he felt lucky.”

  “Lucky?” gnashed Black Jack. “He’ll feel sore when I get through kickin’ his britches up around his neck. Come on, Steve. I oughta thought about that before. When he’s lit, he always thinks he can beat that roulette wheel at Kerney’s.”

  So we went into the mazes of the waterfront till we come to Kerney’s Temple, which was as little like a temple as a critter couldst imagine. It was kinda underground, and, to get to it, you went down a flight of steps from the street.

  We went in, and seen a number of tough-looking eggs playing the various games or drinking at the bar. I seen Smoky Rourke, Wolf McGernan, Red Elkins, Shifty Brelen, John Lynch, and I don’t know how many more — all shady characters. But the hardest looking one of ’em was Bad Bill hisself — one of these square-set, cold-eyed thugs which sports flashy clothes, like a gorilla in glad rags. He had a thin, sneering gash of a mouth, and his big, square, hairy hands glittered with diamonds. At the sight of his enemy, Black Jack growled deep in his throat and quivered with rage.

  Then we seen old Bunger, leaning disconsolately against the bar, watching the clicking roulette wheel. Toward him we strode with a beller of rage, and he started to run, but seen he couldn’t get away.

  “You old mud-turtle!” yelled Black Jack. “Where’s our dough?”

  “Boys,” quavered old Bunger, lifting a trembling hand, “don’t jedge me too harsh! I ain’t spent a cent of that jack.”

  “All right,” said Black Jack, with a sigh of relief. “Give it to us.”

  “I can’t,” he sniffled, beginning to cry. “I lost it all on this here roulette wheel!”

  “What!” our maddened beller made the lights flicker.

  “It was this way, boys,” he whimpered. “Whilst I was watchin’ you boys fight, I seen a dime somebody’d dropped on the floor, and I grabbed it. And I thought I’d just slip out and get me a drink and be back before the scrap was over. Well, I got me the drink, and that was a mistake. I’d already had a few, and this’n kinda tipped me over the line. When I got some licker in me, I always get the gamblin’ craze. Tonight I felt onusual lucky, and I got the idea in my head that I’d beat it down to Kerney’s, double or triple this roll, and be that much ahead. You boys would get back your dough, and I’d be in the money, too. It looked like a great idea, then. And I was lucky for a while, if I’d just knowed when to quit. Once I was a hundred and forty-five dollars ahead, but the tide turned, and, before I knowed it, I was cleaned.”

  “Dash-blank-the-blank-dash!” said Black Jack, appropriately. “This here’s a sweet lay! I oughta kick you in the pants, you white-whiskered old mutt!”

  “Aw,” I said, “I wouldn’t care, only that was all the dough I had, except my lucky half-dollar.”

  “That’s me,” snarled O’Brien. “Only I ain’t got no half-dollar.”

  About this time up barged Bad Bill.

  “What’s up, boys?” he said, with a wink at the loafers.

  “You know what’s up, you louse!” snarled Black Jack. “This old fool has just lost a hundred bucks on your crooked roulette game.”

  “Well,” sneered Bad Bill, “that ain’t no skin offa your nose, is it?”

  “That was our money,” howled Black Jack. “And you gotta give it back!”

  Kerney laughed in his face. He took out a roll of bills and fluttered the edges with his thumb.

  “Here’s the dough he lost,” said Kerney. “Mebbe it was yours, but it’s mine now. What I wins, I keeps — onless somebody’s man enough to take it away from me, and I ain’t never met anybody which was. And what you goin’ to do about it?”

  Black Jack was so mad he just strangled, and his eyes stood out. I said, losing my temper, “I’ll tell you what we’re goin’ to do, Kerney, since you wanta be tough. I’m goin’ to knock you stiff and take that wad offa your senseless carcass.”

  “You are, hey?” he roared, blood-thirstily. “Lemme see you try it, you black-headed sea-rat! Wanta fight, eh? All right. Lemme see how much man you are. Here’s the wad. If you can lick me, you can have it back. I won it fair and square, but I’m a sport. You come around here cryin’ for your money back — all right, we’ll see if you’re men enough to fight for it!”

  I growled deep and low, and lunged, but Black Jack grabbed me.

  “Wait a minute,” he yelped. “Half that dough’s mine. I got just as much right to sock this polecat as you has, and you know it.”

  “Heh! Heh!” sneered Kerney, jerking off his coat and shirt. “Settle it between yourselves. If either one of you can lick me, the dough’s yours. Ain’t that fair, boys?”

  All the assembled thugs applauded profanely. I seen at a glance they was all his men — except old Bunger, which didn’t count either way.

  “It’s my right to fight this guy,” argued Black Jack.

  “We’ll flip a coin,” I decided, bringing out my lucky half-dollar. “I’ll take—”

  “I’ll take heads,” busted in Black Jack, impatiently.

  “I said it first,” I replied annoyedly.

  “I didn’t hear you,” he said.

  “Well, I did,” I answered pettishly. “You’ll take tails.”

  “All right, I’ll take tails,” he snorted in disgust. “Gwan and flip.”

  So I flopped, and it fell heads.

  “Didn’t I say it was my lucky piece?” I crowed jubilantly, putting the coin back in my pocket and tearing off my shirt, whilst Black Jack ground his teeth and cussed his luck something terrible.

  “Before I knock your brains out,” said Kerney, “you got to dispose of that bench-legged cannibal.”

  “If you mean Mike, you foul-mouthed skunk,” I said, “Black Jack can hold him.”

  “And let go of him so he can tear my throat out just as I got you licked,” sneered Kerney. “No, you don’t. Take this piece of rope and tie him up, or the scrap’s off.”

  So, with a few scathing remarks which apparently got under even Bad Bill’s thick hide, to judge from his profanity, I tied one end of the rope to Mike’s collar and the other’n to the leg of a heavy gambling table. Meanwhile, the onlookers had cleared away a space between the table and the back wall, which was covered by a matting of woven grass. To all appearances, the back wall was solid, but I thought they must be a lot of rats burrowing in there, because every now and then I heered a kind of noise like something moving and thumping around.

  Well, me and Kerney approached each other in the gleam of the gas-lights. He was a big, black-browed brute, with black hair matted on his barrel chest and on his wrists, and his hands was like sledge-hammers. He was about my height, but heavier.

  I started the scrap like I always do, with a rush, slugging away with both hands. He met me, nothing loath. The crowd formed a half-circle in front of the stacked-up tables and chairs, and the back wall was behind us. Above the thud and crunch of blows I couldst hear Mike growling as he strained at his rope, and Black Jack yelling for me to kill Kerney.

  Well, he was tough and he could hit like a mule kicking. But he was fighting Steve Costigan. There, under the gas-lights, with the mob yelling, and my bare fists crunching on flesh and bone, I was plumb in my element. I l
aughed at Bad Bill as I took the best he could hand out, and come plunging in for more.

  I worked for his belly, repeatedly sinking both hands to the wrists, and he began to puff and gasp and go away from me. My head was singing from his thundering socks, and the taste of blood was in my mouth, but that’s a old, old story to me. I caught him on the ear and blood spattered. Like a flash, up come his heavy boot for my groin, but I twisted aside and caught him with a terrible right-hander under the heart. He groaned and staggered, and a ripping left hook to the body sent him down, but he grabbed my belt as he fell and dragged me with him.

  On the floor he locked his gorilla arms around me, and spat in my eye, trying to pull my head down where he could sink his fangs in my ear. But my neck was like iron, and I pulled back, fighting mad, and, getting a hand free, smashed it savagely three times into his face. With a groan, he went slack. And just then a heavy boot crashed into my back, purty near paralyzing me, and knocking me clear of Kerney.

  It was John Lynch which had kicked me, and even as I snarled up at him, trying to get up, I heered Black Jack roar, and I heered the crash of his iron fist under Lynch’s jaw, and the dirty yegg dropped amongst the stacked-up tables and lay like a empty sack.

  The thugs surged forward with a menacing rumble, but Black Jack turned on ’em like a maddened tiger, his teeth gleaming in a snarl, his eyes blazing, and they hesitated. And then I climbed on my feet, the effecks of that foul lick passing. Kerney was slavering and cursing and trying to get up, and I grabbed him by his hair and dragged him up.

  “Stand on your two feet and fight like as if you was a man,” I snarled disgustedly, and he lunged at me sudden and unexpected, trying to knee me in the groin. He fell into me, and, as I pulled out of a half-clinch, I heered Black Jack yell suddenly, “Look out, Steve!That’s the way he got me!”

  And simultaneous I felt Kerney’s hand at the side of my neck. Instinctively, I jerked back, and as I did, Kerney’s thumb pressed cunning and savage into my neck just below the ear. Jiu-jitsu! Mighty few white men know that trick — the Japanese death-touch, they call it. If I hadn’t been going away from it, so he didn’t hit the exact nerve he was looking for, I’d of been temporarily paralyzed. As it was, my heavy neck muscles saved me, though for a flashing instant I staggered, as a wave of blindness and agony went all over me.

  Kerney yelled like a wild beast, and come for me, but I straightened and met him with a left hook that ripped his lip open from the corner of his mouth to his chin, and sent him reeling backward. And, clean maddened by the dirty trick he had tried on me, I throwed every ounce of my beef into a thundering right swing that tagged him square on the jaw.

  It was just a longshoreman’s haymaker with my whole frame behind it, and it lifted him clean offa his feet and catapulted him bodily against the back wall. Crash! The matting tore, the wood behind it splintered, and Kerney’s senseless form smashed right on through!

  THE FORCE OF my swing throwed me headlong after Kerney, and I landed with my head and forearms through the hole he’d made. The back wall wasn’t solid! They was a secret room beyond it. I seen Kerney lying in that room with his feet projecting through the busted partition, and beyond I seen another figger — bound and gagged and lying on the floor.

  “Johnny!” I yelled, scrambling up, and behind me rose a deep, ominous roar. Black Jack yelled, “Look out, Steve!” and a bottle whizzed past my ear and crashed against the wall. Simultaneous come the thud of a sock and the fall of a body, as Black Jack went into action, and I wheeled as Kerney’s thugs come surging in on me.

  Black Jack was slugging right and left, and men were toppling like ten- pins, but they was a whole room full of ‘em. I saw old Bunger scooting for the exit, and I heered Mike roaring, lunging against his rope. I caught the first thug with a smash that near broke his neck, and then they swarmed all over me, and I cracked Red Elkins’ ribs with my knee as we went to the floor.

  I heered Black Jack roaring and battling, and I shook off my attackers and riz, fracturing Shifty Brelen’s skull, and me and Black Jack stiffened them deluded mutts till we was treading on a carpet of senseless yeggs, but still they come, with bottles and knives and chair-legs, till we was both streaming blood.

  Black Jack hadst just been felled with a table-leg, and half a dozen of ’em was stomping on my prostrate form, whilst I was engaged in gouging and strangling three or four I had under me, when Mike’s rope broke under repeated gnawings and lunges. I heered him beller, and I heered a yegg yip as Mike’s iron fangs met in his meat. The clump on me bust apart, and I lurched up, roaring like a bull and shaking the blood in a shower from my head.

  Black Jack come up with the table-leg he’d been floored with, and he hit Smoky Rourke so hard they had to use a pulmotor to bring Smoky to. The battered mob staggered dizzily back, and scattered as Mike plunged and raged amongst them.

  Spang! Wolf McGernan had broke away from the melee and was risking killing some of his mates to bring us down. They run for cover, screeching. Black Jack throwed the table-leg, but missed, and the three of us — him and Mike and me — rushed McGernan simultaneous.

  His muzzle wavered from one to the other as he tried to decide quick which to shoot, and then crack! Wolf yelped and dropped his gun; he staggered back against the wall, grabbing his wrist, from which blood was spurting.

  The yeggs stopped short in their head-long fight for the exit, and me and Black Jack wheeled. A dozen policemen was on the stairs with drawed guns and one of them guns was smoking.

  The thugs backed against the wall, their hands up, and I run into the secret room and untied Johnny Kyelan.

  All he could say was, “Glug ug glug!” for a minute, being nearly choked with fear and excitement and the gag. But I hammered him on the back, and he said, “They got me, Steve. They sneaked into the hall and knocked on the door. When I stooped to look through the key-hole, as they figgered I’d do — its a natural move — they blew some stuff in my face that knocked me clean out for a few minutes. While I was lying helpless, they unlocked the door with a skeleton key and came in. I was coming to myself, then, but they had guns on me and I didn’t dare yell for help.

  “They searched me, and I begged them to leave your fifty dollars on the table because I knew it was all the money you had, but they took it, and wrote a note to make it look like I’d skipped out with the money. Then they blew some more powder in my face, and the next thing I knew I was in a car, being carried here.

  “They were going to finish me before daylight. I heard the Chief Mandarin say so.”

  “And who’s he?” we demanded.

  “I don’t mind telling you now,” said Johnny, looking at the yeggs which was being watched by the cops, and at Bad Bill, who was just beginning to come to on the floor. “The Chief of the Mandarins is Bad Bill Kerney! He was a racketeer in the States, and he’s been working the same here.”

  An officer broke in: “You mean this man is the infamous Black Mandarin?”

  “You’re darn tootin’,” said Johnny, “and I can prove it in the courts.”

  Well, them cops pounced on the dizzy Kerney like gulls on a fish, and in no time him and his gang, such as was conscious, was decorated with steel bracelets. Kerney didn’t say nothing, but he looked black murder at all of us.

  “Hey, wait!” said Black Jack, as the cops started leading them out. “Kerney’s got some dough which belongs to us.”

  So the cop took a wad offa him big enough to choke a shark, and Black Jack counted off a hundred and fifty bucks and give the rest back. The cops led the yeggs out, and I felt somebody tugging at my arm. It was old Bunger.

  “Well, boys,” he quavered, “don’t you think I’ve squared things? As soon as the roughhouse started, I run up into the street screamin’ and yellin’ till all the cops within hearin’ come on the run!”

  “You’ve done yourself proud, Bunger,” I said. “Here’s a ten spot for you.”

  “And here’s another’n,” said Black Jack, and old Bung
er grinned all over.

  “Thank you, boys,” he said, ruffling the bills in his eagerness. “I gotta go now — they’s a roulette wheel down at Spike’s I got a hunch I can beat.”

  “Let’s all get outa here,” I grunted, and we emerged into the street and gazed at the street-lamps, yellow and smoky in the growing daylight.

  “Boy, oh, boy!” said Johnny. “I’ve had enough of this life. It’s me for the old U.S.A. just as soon as I can get there.”

  “And a good thing,” I said gruffly, because I was so glad to know the boy wasn’t a thief and a cheat that I felt kinda foolish. “Snappy kids like you got no business away from home.”

  “Well,” said Black Jack, “let’s go get that drink.”

  “Aw, heck,” I said, disgustedly, as I shoved my money back in my pants, “I lost my good-luck half-dollar in the melee.”

  “Maybe this is it,” said Johnny, holding it out. “I picked it up off the floor as we were coming out.”

  “Gimme it,” I said, hurriedly, but Black Jack grabbed it with a startled oath.

  “Good luck piece?” he yelled. “Now I see why you was so insistent on takin’ heads. This here blame half-dollar is a trick coin, and it’s got heads on both sides! Why, I hadn’t a chance. Steve Costigan, you did me out of a fight, and I resents it! You got to fight me.”

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll fight again tonight at Ace’s Arena. And now let’s go get that drink.”

  “Good heavens,” said Johnny, “It’s nearly sun-up. If you fellows are going to fight again tonight, hadn’t you better get some rest? And some of those cuts you both got need bandaging.”

  “He’s right, Steve,” said Black Jack. “We’ll have a drink and then we’ll get sewed up, and then we’ll eat breakfast, and after that we’ll shoot some pool.”

  “Sure,” I said, “that’s a easy, restful game, and we oughta take things easy so we can be in shape for the fight tonight. After we shoot some pool, we’ll go to Yota Lao’s and lick some bouncers you was talkin’ about.”