Earmarked Gold
George L. Eaton
THE predaceous, lined faces of the two men who sat in that sumptuously furnished suite on the nineteenth floor of the Throckmorton Hotel, gazing out over San Francisco Bay, were not happy ones. Rather, their state of mind added to their naturally pernicious expressions.
It is doubtful that, even had they tried, they could have looked happy. Their faces were not built for it. That agency of Providence who designs the contours and lines of the human race must not be without a sense of humor, for in some beings he places a heart of gold and then forces them to wear the mask of an ogre to hide it from the world. On others, to complete the paradox, he bestows the soul of the devil and the face of a madonna.
But he had not been laughing when he made the mold from which those two were cast. Their faces were evil and they were evil. He had given the world a break by stamping them with faces that advertised the black viciousness of which they were a whole. They had faces that one could long remember. That was one of the reasons those two were now hiding within the comparative security of a luxurious San Francisco hotel instead of frequenting the warmer night clubs along New York's Broadway for which they lived.
The likenesses of “Ugly” Barillo and “Lippy” Freeman were posted in a conspicuous place in a thousand and one post offices throughout the country. The attorney general of the United States had invoked a seldom-used authority in posting them as fugitives when they jumped their bail after being sentenced to two years in jail in an anti-trust case. They were fugitives from justice under a half dozen other indictments involving industrial racketeering in New York City. The special prosecutor had charged that Barillo and Freeman enforced the demands of “Slip” Ogden, their “higher-up,” by every form of violence and intimidation known to racketeering. They were experts at their trade. They could hijack a truck, throw a bomb, slash tires, throw acid, burn factories and cut throats with the same aplomb the average man can butter a slice of toast.
When a special prosecutor had been appointed in New York to clean up the city, they had joined the suave Slip Ogden in laughter.
“Lemme bump this punk an' get it over with,” Lippy Freeman had said to Slip Ogden.
“Let him alone!” Slip snapped. “He'll hang himself.”
But after a few months they began to be apprehensive. This special prosecutor didn't work the way of all others. They planted spies and stool pigeons, but they couldn't get any information. After a while they began to notice that the little men at the bottom of their rackets were being picked up and taken to the special prosecutor's “singing school.” They sang their story to the prosecutor and were then held as witnesses and given protection from the revenge of Slip Ogden's strong-arm men. Then the next men up the ladder were picked up to sing their song to the prosecutor's men.
Finally they swooped down on Slip Ogden and thirty of the higher-ups who ran his rackets. The special prosecutor got indictments, but Slip, Ugly and Lippy were still laughing—only Ugly wasn't laughing so loudly now.
“Maybe this punk is goin' to get us,” he said to Lippy
“Lissen!” Lippy said. “Slip is short for slippery. He's the slickest mouthpiece that ever chipped ice under a prosecutor's dogs. He'll put this punk on the skids with a one-way ride.”
The next day Slip Ogden said to his two head men, “Boys, we're going west to get out of this damp, winter climate.”
“We're goin' to jump our bail?” Ugly asked, his eyes wide.
“Unless you want to go to Dannemora,” Slip said, evenly. “This boy has us tagged. We'll get out and stay out until he's out of office and we can adjust things. There will be an election in the fall and then this—this” —he tried to find expletives that would best fit the special prosecutor—“this punk will be out and we can slip back.”
“Slip back with Slip Ogden,” Lippy Freeman cracked and got a vicious glance.
By the means of wearing tortoise-shell glasses and growing hair on their faces, they managed to get by without detection. They had plenty of money and lived in an atmosphere of luxury that was disarming. They pretended to be importers and exporters of various and sundry articles to and from the Orient.
Slip Ogden carried the pretense off very well because outwardly, he was a gentleman. He dressed well and forced Ugly and Lippy to dress quietly. He spoke excellent English and was soft-spoken and well-mannered. No one would have suspected that he was one of the most merciless gangsters in the world. He made his two head men keep themselves under cover most of the time.
But now their whole world had exploded in their faces. The special prosecutor who had convicted them had not disappeared with the fall elections—instead, he had been elected district attorney. They had learned that the few murderous mobs who were still operating in New York were already breaking up and slipping out of the city.
“That's going to make it easier for us,” Ugly said deep down in his throat.
“Every copper in the country is going to be watching for 'em so they don't get their hooks into their city.”
“Slip'll figure a way out for us,” Lippy said, gulping the drink he held in his hand. “He'll have a racket up his sleeve. He's as bright as this new D. A. He ain't never let us down yet.”
“Once'll be enough,” Ugly grunted. “He ain't never had the G-men after him before.”
“They're a bunch of——” Lippy stopped as three sharp raps, followed by a pause, sounded on the door—then two more, then one.
“That'd be Slip,” Lippy said and went toward the door. But before he opened it he slid his right hand down inside the front of his double-breasted jacket and wrapped his fingers around the butt of the automatic that nestled there.
Slip Ogden's eyes searched the faces of Ugly and Lippy briefly-but sharply-as he stepped into the room His hard, blue eyes contracted for an instant then expanded. They were set in a face that was hard, cunning and merciless. The waxed, black mustache he affected gave a flair to his well-formed, sleek head. He was groomed to an almost painful neatness, wearing his clothes draped over his lean, hard frame with perfect ease.
What his antecedents were no one knew, but he had the appearance of being born an aristocrat. He nodded to Lippy and Ugly as he might have acknowledged the presence of two menials in the room.
Lippy and Ugly were tough and hard and cruel—the worst products of the underworld. But they knew that Slip Ogden, in his own way, was tougher. They looked up to him as a small boy looks up to his hero. They were afraid of him. They had seen the cold, ruthless efficiency with which he performed his tasks and they knew they had reason to be afraid.
They exchanged glances as Slip crossed the room and laid his light fedora and gloves on a desk. They waited for him to speak. They never committed themselves until they knew what kind of humor he was in.
Slip Ogden poured himself a drink with meticulous care, sipped it and put the glass down to light a cigarette. Then he sat down and took a black, gold-edged wallet from an inside pocket. He laid it on his knee.
“Boys,” he said, “I came across a little item a few days ago that interested me. It interested me because it is a certainty that we must get out of the country. To do that we must have enough money to keep us going from now on. We've got to have a lot of money. I think I've found the way to get it.”
He picked up the wallet, took a folded newspaper clipping from it and scanned it with his eyes.”
“This clipping interested me,” he went on, “and I made some inquiries. I think we're going to do some business. We'll have to take some other men in with us, but there will be enough for all of us. It will be dangerous.”
“What is it, Slip?” Lippy asked. He couldn't keep still any longer.
“Wait a minute,” Ogden snapped. He wanted to build up his story in his own way. “I don't think I ever told you boys that I once did quite a bit of flying.”
They both looked at him with their piglike eyes open wide.
“What's that got to do with it?” Ugly asked.
“I had quite a record as a pursuit pilot during the War,” Slip said.
