Scarface/Chapter 11

by Maurice R. Coons

CHAPTER XI

Captain Flanagan, chief of detectives, came striding into the new gang leader's office with the confident, arrogant air of one who is on familiar ground and who, though not expecting a warm welcome, realizes that his position demands a certain courtesy and respect.

Scarface Tony, seated behind the desk to which he had just succeeded, with his right hand resting lightly on the automatic lying on its top, watched the official enter. And a blast of rage as fierce as the heat from a suddenly opened furnace door swept through him. But the main thing he won­dered was whether or not Flanagan would recog­nize him.

Flanagan evidently did not see in this smartly dressed man with a livid scar traversing the left side of his hard face from ear to jaw the handsome boy who had knocked him down less than three years before and whom he later had practically run out of the city. For there was no hint of recogni­tion in the officer's granite gray eyes as he pushed his derby to the back of his head and with his big feet planted widely apart and his hands thrust deep into his pockets, stood staring at the new leader of the powerful Lovo gang.

"Where's Johnny?" demanded Flanagan.

"Mr. Lovo is not in." Tony's eyes were as coldly impersonal as his tone.

"I can see that," snapped Flanagan, his cruel mouth twisting angrily. "I ain't blind. Where is he?"

"Out of town. And he won't be back for some time."

Flanagan snorted.

"Quit kiddin'," he snarled. "Johnny's always in on the first of the month—for me."

"Oh! I see. Just a moment."

From one of the desk drawers Tony produced a small notebook which contained the gang's "pay­ off" list, the names of those officials, high and low, who had to be "padded," and the amount of the monthly "bit" of each. The list was carefully ar­ranged in alphabetical order and Tony soon ascer­tained that the Lovo mob's monthly contribution to the happiness and prosperity of Captain Flanagan was $500.

Tony dropped the little book back in the desk drawer. Then he pulled out a fat roll of money and peeling off five $100 bills, threw them across the desk in a manner most contemptuous.

"There you are. But remember that we want some service for all this jack we pay out."

"As if you didn't get it," snarled Flanagan, snatching up the money and stuffing it into his pocket.

"What I could do to this outfit if I wanted would be a sight."

"Yes, I suppose so," admitted Tony reflectively. "Yet we boys have our own methods for discouraging our enemies."

"What do you mean?" "Nothing," answered Tony calmly, but he could see that his veiled warning had registered. "And now, Flanagan, I think it might be a good idea for you and I to have a little talk. I'm Tony Camonte. And from now on I'm in command of this mob."

"You!"

"Me," asserted Tony solemnly. "Johnny Lovo left yesterday for a long vacation. He may be back sometime but I don't think so. He's got plenty of dough and he's tired of this racket. Of course he's still interested but he turned the active control of things over to me."

"Won't some of his other lieutenants question your authority?"

"Maybe. But they won't question it more than once." Tony patted the automatic and the glance he gave Flanagan was significant.

"Well!" exclaimed the captain. "This is news. Though I been wonderin' lately if Johnny hadn't lost his nerve or somep'm. This mob's been pretty quiet for a while."

"Too damn quiet!" agreed Tony, his eyes snap­ping with energetic resolve. "But all that's goin' to be changed now and changed damn quick."

"That'll be interesting to the other mob leaders."

"Let 'em find it out. They don't have to be told anything. I don't want this change spread around or leakin' into the papers. But I wanted you to know about it so that if I give you a ring some day and want a favor done in a hurry you'll know who I am."

Tony sneered at the captain's broad back as Flanagan departed. There, he thought, was a good example of the men who are supposed to stand between the lawless and the law-abiding citi­zenry. Trafficking for his own profit with those he had sworn to hunt down. That was the nub of the whole matter, Money. The underworld now was too wealthy to allow itself to be hunted down. But even a cop was human, thought Tony; how could people be so foolish as to expect him to do his duty for five thousand a year—and some­times less—when not doing it would make him twenty-five thousand and oftentimes more. A knock at the door roused him from his reflections on cops in general and Flanagan in particular.

"Come in," he called brusquely and had the au­tomatic trained on the portal before one could turn the knob.

But it was only Al, the little rat-faced outer door-keeper.

"Somebody just phoned on that back room wire at the cigar store downstairs," he announced, "and said that Charlie Martino, one of our truck drivers, was hi-jacked and shot a little bit ago. He's at a garage in Maywood now—here's the address—and whoever phoned said he needs a doctor bad."

"Wonder why he didn't give 'em one of our numbers up here to call," Tony said.

"Prob'ly didn't want to give 'em to strangers. Charlie's a good, reliable boy, boss," said Al plead­ingly. "I know him well."

"If it's true, I want to help him all I can," said Tony. "But most likely it's that North Side mob tryin' to put me on the spot. We got to go careful on this."

Within five minutes—so thoroughly systema­tized was the Lovo organization and its operations—Tony was in possession of Charlie Martino's scheduled movements for the evening and also of his part record with the gang. The latter was un­blemished, both as to loyalty and ability, over a period of two years. This evening Charlie was supposed to be bringing a load of raw grain alcohol from Melrose Park, a suburb where almost every house had a big still and the Italian inhabitants were making comfortable little fortunes by "cooking" "alky" for the big syndicates, into a warehouse near the gang's headquarters in Cicero. A call to Melrose Park revealed that he had picked up his load and departed according to schedule. But another call revealed that he had not arrived at the warehouse. It looked as though the plea for assistance was genuine.

"Tell six or seven of the boys downstairs to bring around a coupla cars and plenty of gats," snapped Tony, his black eyes glittering with excitement, though his voice was as cool and calm as if he were giving a telephone number. "I'm going out and have a look at this."

Al hurried away, to relay orders to the cigar store downstairs which was a sort of "squad room" for the gang. Tony called a "safe" doctor—one of those rare physicians who, for enormous fees, will attend the underworld's gunshot wounds with­out going through the prescribed formality of re­porting them to the police—and, giving him the address in Maywood, ordered him to proceed there immediately. Then he grabbed his automatic and hurried downstairs.

In the dark alley back of the hotel—which was the gang's headquarters because Lovo owned it—he found a group of shadowy figures moving about two large dark touring cars with drawn side curtains. The clank of metal against metal came to his ears as he advanced. They were loading in the machine guns, of course.

"Ready, boys?" he inquired. "Good! Let's go!"

He leaped into the tonneau of one car. Men piled in around him and in front and he saw the other men climbing into the car ahead. Motors roared into pulsing life and with a whine of racing engines the two carloads of expert gunmen sped away on their errand of either mercy or murder. Tony hoped it would prove to be both.

To his left he could discern in the gloom the ugly snouts of two machine-guns. He reached over and pulled one of them into his lap.

"I'm with these babies like some people with a car," he said with a laugh. "I feel safer when I'm at the wheel."

A block away from the garage which was their objective, they cut out the engines and coasted the rest of the way. But their practiced eyes found nothing suspicious on any side. Abruptly the en­gines roared again and the two big cars, bristling with the most modern death-dealing machinery, ready for anything, swept into the garage and ground to a halt.

A man in greasy mechanic's coveralls came forward, wiping his hands on a bit of waste. Tony opened the door next to him and looked out.

"We had a call that there was a man here—hurt," he said brusquely.

"Yes. He's back there in my little office. A doctor just came to see him."

The man jerked a dirty thumb toward a small coupe which Tony recognized as belonging to the doctor he had summoned. The gang leader lifted his machine-gun to the floor of the car and stepped out. But as he followed the other man across the grease-spotted concrete floor, his right hand was plunged deep into his side coat pocket and his keen glance was searching the shadows on all sides. Behind him, he knew that other keen glances were doing the same thing and that he was covered by an amazing amount of artillery.

As the two men entered the cluttered little space partitioned off from the rest of the building, the doctor looked up. He was a thin, nervous little man with a pallid complexion and shifty black eyes. But he knew his business, as many a live gangster could testify.

"Pretty serious," he said with a gesture toward his patient, who lay stretched out on a canvas cot, his eyes closed, his breathing slow and hoarse, "Shot twice through the chest. He's lost a lot of blood. We ought to get him somewhere where I can work on him."

"Can he be moved?" asked Tony.

"Yes. I'll give him a stimulant."

The doctor quickly filled a hypodermic needle from some of the bottles in his grip and injected the contents into the patient's wrist. In a few mo­ments the boy—he was little more than that—opened his eyes. Tony walked over to him.

"He's too weak to talk," cautioned the doctor.

Tony grasped his henchman's hand. Their glances met, held, and the boy's vacant stare changed to happy recognition.

Was it the North Side outfit?" demanded Tony harshly. "Schemer Bruno's mob?"

The boy tried to speak but so much effort was beyond him. He nodded.

"All right, we'll see them, kid," promised Tony gruffly and gripped that limp hand hard.

The garage man's eyes widened when he heard that ominous threat of gangland vengeance. When Tony turned on him, he told his story quickly. Returning from towing a car out of a ditch, he had come upon the wounded boy lying at the side of a lonely road, and had brought him on to the garage. The boy had pleaded with him to call only a certain number, a request to which he had acceded.

"You see, I thought it was prob'ly a case that it was best not to make too much fuss about," he concluded.

"You've done well," Tony commended, and slipped him a $100 bill. "How's your memory?"

"Terrible, boss," grinned the man with a know­ing wink. "Why, I have to look up the number every time I want to phone my own house."

Tony grinned himself and slapped the man on the back. Money and power on one hand and lack of them on the other has a way of making people understand each other quickly and thoroughly.

They took the wounded boy back to a room in the hotel which was the gang's headquarters and the doctor went to work on him in an effort to save his life. Tony retired to his private office and sent for Steve Libati, the man whom Lovo had appointed as second in command of the gang dur­ing his absence and who, Tony realized, was very jealous of his position as chief. He felt that now was as good a time as any to give the man an im­portant assignment, to test his ability and his loyalty.