“Your boss likes to do the talking, I judge,” put in Gascon, still casually. “Do you like to listen? Or,” and his voice took on a mocking note, “does he give you the creeps?”
“Never mind,” Square-Face muttered. “He’s doing okay.”
“But not his followers,” suggested Gascon. “Quite a few of them have been killed, eh? And aren’t you two the only survivors of the old Dilson crowd? How long will your luck hold out, I wonder?”
“Longer than yours,” replied the man at the wheel sharply. “If you talk any more, we’ll put the slug on you.”
The remainder of the ride was passed in silence, and the car drew up at length before a quiet suburban cottage, on the edge of town almost directly opposite the scene of the recent fight between police and the Salters.
The three entered a dingy parlor, full of respectable looking furniture. “Keep him here,” Triangle-Face bade Square-Face. “I’ll go help the boss get ready to talk to him.”
He was gone. His words suggested that there would be some moments alone with Square-Face, and Gascon meant to make use of them.
The big fellow sat down. “Take a chair,” he bade, but Gascon shook his head and lighted another cigarette. He narrowed his eyes, in his best diagnostician manner, to study his guard.
“You look as if there was something wrong with your glands,” he said crisply.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with me,” was the harsh response.
“Are you sure? How do you feel?”
“Good enough to pull a leg off of you if you don’t shut that big mouth.”
Gascon shrugged, and turned to a rear wall. A picture hung there, a very unsightly oil painting. He put his hand up, as if to straighten it on its hook. Then he glanced toward a window, letting his eyes dilate. “Ahhhh!” he said softly.
Up jumped the gangster, gun flashing into view. “What did you say?” he demanded.
“I just said ‘Ahhhh,’ ” replied Gascon, his eyes fixed on the window.
“If anybody’s followed you here—” The giant broke off and tramped toward the window to look out.
Like a flash Gascon leaped after him. With him he carried the picture, lifted from where it hung. He swept it through the air, using the edge of the frame like a hatchet and aiming at the back of the thick neck.
The blow was powerful and well placed. Knocked clean out, the gangster fell on his face. Gascon stooped, hooked his hands under the armpits, and made shift to drag the slack weight back to its chair. It took all his strength to set his victim back there. Then he drew from his side pocket the thing he had been carrying for days—a wad of cotton which he soaked in chloroform. Holding it to the broad nose, he waited until the last tenseness went out of the great limbs. Then he crossed one leg over the other knee, poised the head against the chair-back, an elbow on a cushioned arm. Clamping the nerveless right hand about the pistol-butt, he arranged it in the man’s lap. Now the attitude was one of assured relaxation. Gascon hung the picture back in place, and himself sat down. He still puffed on the cigarette that had not left his lips.
He had more than a minute to wait before the leaner mobster returned. “Ready for you now,” he said to Gascon, beckoning him through a rear door. He gave no more than a glance to his quiet, easy-seeming comrade.
They went down some stairs into a basement—plainly basements were an enthusiasm of the commander of this enterprise—and along a corridor. At the end was a door, pulled almost shut, with light showing through the crack. “Go in,” ordered Triangle-Face, and turned as if to mount the stairs again.
But it was not Gascon’s wish that he find his companion senseless. In fact, Gascon had no intention of leaving anyone in the way of the retreat he hoped to make later. With his hand on the doorknob, he spoke:
“One thing, my friend.”
Triangle-Face paused and turned. “I’m no friend of yours. What do you want?”
Gascon extended his other hand. “Wish me luck.”
“The only luck I wish you is bad. Don’t try to grab hold of me.”
The gangster’s hand slid into the front of his coat, toward that bulge that denoted an armpit holster. Gascon sprang upon him, catching him by the sleeve near the elbow so that he could not whip free with the weapon. Gascon’s other hand dived into his own pocket, again clutching the big wad of chloroform-soaked cotton.
He whipped the wad at and upon the triangular face. The man tried to writhe away but Gascon, heavier and harder-muscled than he, shoved him against the wall, where the back of his head could be clamped and held. Struggling, the fellow breathed deeply, again, again. His frantic flounderings suddenly went feeble. Gascon judged the dose sufficient, and let go his holds. The man subsided limply and Gascon, still holding to his sleeve, dragged the right hand out of the coat. Dropping his wad of cotton, he took up the big pistol.
“I’m afraid, Gaspipe,” said a shrill, wise voice he should know better than anyone in the world, “that that gun won’t really help you a nickel’s worth.”
Gascon spun around. A moment ago he had put his hand on the doorknob. When he had turned to leap at the triangle-faced man, he had pulled the door open. Now he could see inside a bare, officelike room, a big sturdy desk and a figure just beyond; a figure calm and assured, but so tiny, so grotesque.
“Come in, Gaspipe,” commanded Tom-Tom, the dummy.
Tom-Tom did not look as Gascon had remembered him. The checked jacket was filthy and frayed, and in the breast of it was a round black hole the size of a fingertip. The paint had been flaked away from the comical face, one broad ear was half broken off, the wig was tousled and
