XX--THE CAT'S-PAW
It was black with a blackness that seemed to possess tangible substance,as though it wrapped itself around and enveloped the body with a pallwhose very texture could be felt. It was unknown ground, and the footreached out uncertainly, wary of where next it might find lodgment, andthe hands stretched out, as a blind man's hands stretch out, feeling forhidden things through space. It was dank and musty, and in the nostrilswas an earthy, cavernous smell; and there was a silence that seemedguarded by the very bowels of the earth itself. And in the silence andthe darkness peril lurked--a peril that merged courage intofoolhardiness for one who would invite it, and set the nerves on edge,and kept the muscles taut like tight-strung bow strings, and stimulatedthe senses into abnormal activity until the eyes peopled the darknesswith phantoms that were not there, and the ears created sounds that didnot exist.
Billy Kane's face, under the mask, was drawn in hard, strained lines; heraised his right hand, that gripped his automatic, and drew the back ofhis hand across his forehead. Foolhardiness! Yes, that was it! He was afool to come here, to take the risk! He knew Wong Yen's by reputation asone of the most infamous Chinese underground dives in the Bad Lands; heremembered it concretely from that incident of a few nights ago whenLaverto had had young Clancy drugged here. Was that only a few nightsago? He shook his head. Since those few nights ago he no longer measuredthe passing of time by normal standards; he had lived all his life sincethose few nights ago!
He moved forward through the blackness, cautiously, silently. Where wasthe next wall? Or was there any wall at all? His hands, reaching out asfar as they could stretch, touched nothing. This was below the ordinarycellar level; it was a sub-cellar, a chain of sub-cellars. How many menhad entered here, yes, and women too--and disappeared? A murder hole!And up above him somewhere was New York--millions of people, taxicabs,crowded sidewalks, theatres, and, yes, churches, places where peopleworshipped. Incredible!
He had heard of places like this, and so had the public; and the publicsmiled in self-sufficient tolerant amusement. Well, why not, where eventhe police were ignorant! Everybody admitted that the Chinese quarterwas full of ridiculously imitated catacombs perhaps; but what did itmatter if in a block of houses the inmates burrowed from cellar tocellar like rats, and built mysterious doors and passageways, and threwabout everything the disguise of wicked and shuddering things--when itwas only disguise! It was good for business. The gape-wagons and theslumming conductors profited and so did the Celestials; and theslummers, satiated with thrills, the women drawing their skirts closelyaround their silk-clad ankles, the men surreptitiously feeling in theirpockets to assure themselves that their watches and valuables were stillin their possession, got their money's worth. Everybody was satisfied,and the public smiled.
Billy Kane's fingers tightened on the butt of his automatic. Backsomewhere behind him in the darkness a Chinaman still guarded a doorthat neither slummer nor police had ever entered; but the guard was agagged and huddled thing on the floor now, still senseless probably fromthe blow on the head from this same pistol butt. There had been no otherway. The man was not far behind--just at the entrance so skilfullydisguised by an ordinary coal bin. Was there still another guard infront of him? More than one? If he only dared to use his flashlight fora second! A fool to come here where, if caught, he would not have achance of escape, was he? Well, perhaps--only there was a man's life atstake.
Perhaps he was already too late! Red Vallon had said, though, that therewasn't any hurry about "bumping off" the Wop, that they had him safe inhere "with his bean tapped to keep him quiet until they finished therest of the game." It was less than an hour ago that Red Vallon had saidthat, and it was only eight o'clock now, and the "rest of the game," togive it every chance of success, would not be played out for stillanother hour yet, not before old Barloff had closed up for the night. Hewasn't too late, he couldn't be too late--there was a man's life atstake: only an ex-convict's, a man out from Sing Sing but a few hoursago. Just a prison bird! But the Wop was innocent this time and----
Was that a sound there from somewhere in front of him? Billy Kane stoodstill. Nothing! No; a dozen sounds that were not really sounds at all.His ears were full of uncanny noises.
The back cellar entrance beneath a Chinese tea-shop, and after that therear of the coal bin! Billy Kane was laughing to himself, but the laughwas void of mirth. There was a grim, horrible sort of irony about itall. Believing him, Billy Kane, to be the Rat, Red Vallon had _reported_the accomplishment of the first stage in the execution of the plan withgusto. After that, deft questioning had elicited from the gangster thesecret of this entrance to Wong Yen's, and then luck, and then the guardtaken unawares. The guard could hardly be blamed. The guard naturallyenough, had little reason to suspect the approach to that coal bin ofany one who had not the "open sesame" to what was beyond, and he hadbeen lurking there where the boards of the bin ingeniously slid apart,and had shown not the slightest uneasiness at his, Billy Kane's,presence until it was too late. Then there had been a steep, narrowpassage downward, and then--_this_. Beyond, near or far, he did not knowwhich, these sub-cellars hid the real thing that the so-calledunderground Chinatown above counterfeited, hid debauchery and vice, andcradled crime, and here the poppy reigned, and the dregs of humanityskulked fearful of the sunlight.
"They had flung the Wop into a corner and left him until they got aroundto finishing the job," Red Vallon had explained callously. The Wop,therefore, must be somewhere near at hand. But he, Billy Kane, could seenothing, hear nothing, feel nothing.
His physical faculties strained and alert, subconsciously Billy Kane'smind was milling over that conversation with the gangster of an hourago, and upon him, in spite of his own present peril, there came a coldand merciless fury. It was more to-night than the ordinary moralobligation, more than the mere responsibility to render abortive thecrimes that came to his knowledge through his tenure of this role of theRat, that was actuating him now; it was the callous, damnable brutalityof the scheme that, linked with its hellish ingenuity, seemed to outrageevery instinct of manhood he possessed, and fired him with anovermastering desire, not only to frustrate the crime itself, but totake toll in a personal, physical way, if he could, from those who wereenacting it.
It was one of those plans, conceived by the Rat, that waited patientlyfor its hour of maturity to arrive, and then was executed and carriedthrough to its fulfilment by the minions of that Directorate of crime ofwhich the Rat appeared to be the most versatile and vicious member, butwithout the Rat, necessarily, taking any further active part in it. Andhe, Billy Kane, who fate had seen fit to mold with features that wereevidently a counterpart of that master rogue's, who was for the momentaccepted and obeyed as the Rat, and was supposed to be the originator ofthe plan itself, could not very well ask Red Vallon, for instance, fordetails! Therefore he did not know all the details, but he knew enough!
He had wormed quite a little out of Red Vallon without the gangstersuspecting anything more than that he, Billy Kane as the Rat, was takingparticular pains to see that the stage was properly set, and that thepossibility of failure was reduced to its absolute minimum. It was verysimple. It required simply a man's life--the murder of the Wop.
He knew something of the Wop, for the Wop's story was common property.The Wop, in the old days, five years ago, before he had gone "up theriver" for a "job" in the line which was his particular specialty, wasknown both as a tough customer and as one of the cleverest "box-workers"in the safe-cracking profession. The testimony of one Ivan Barloff hadbeen mainly responsible for the Wop's capture and conviction, and theWop had travelled to Sing Sing with a thirst for vengeance gnawing athis soul, and with the threat quivering on his twisted lips that hewould get even with the other when he got out again. Nor had the fiveyears of prison hell seemed to assuage any of the Wop's desire to squareaccounts! He had repeated his threat many times in prison, and he hadbeen indifferent as to who heard him. The feud was no secret to thepolice. That was the gist of
it.
As for Ivan Barloff, Billy Kane was somewhat more precisely informed,both because the time he, Billy Kane, had spent on the East Side incarrying out David Ellsworth's philanthropies could hardly have beenpassed without at least a hearsay acquaintanceship with so well-known acharacter in that quarter as Ivan Barloff, and because, too, Red Vallon,in that last interview, had seemed to take a malicious delight inexploiting his own vastly more intimate knowledge of the little oldRussian of many parts. On his own account he knew, naturally, only whatthe public knew and believed about the man: Barloff was a sort of fatherto the flock, a very numerous flock, of Poles and Russians of theuneducated and illiterate class. He was all things to them. He wascounselor and confidant, he was money lender, he was entrusted with whatmoney they had as savings for investment, he wrote their letters, hecollected their rents, being a kind of owners' sub-agent, and he livedamongst them, alone, in a little old frame house that was sandwiched inamong the ramshackle tenements that housed so many of his compatriots inthat section. In appearance he was a very dirty and unkempt old man, andostensibly he was as honest as he was dirty--and he was accepted as suchby public, police and compatriots alike.
Red Vallon, however, had thrown quite a different light on the other'scharacter. The man possessed the craft and cunning of a devil, and adevil's inhumanity. He had fed like a leech on the guileless trust ofhis ignorant clientele. He had made money--a great deal of money.Thousands were stored away in his rickety old safe, that was so ricketyit disarmed suspicion; and, preserving his secret, he patronized nobank, but covered his constantly increasing fortune with the guise ofsqualor and poverty, which he kept on a level scarcely, if any, abovethat of those he filched.
The man was a miser of the most sordid and cold-blooded sort. A nickelwas not too mean a thing to scheme for, if by any means he could lay hishands upon it. Also, the man had other remunerative relationships, verycarefully selected relationships, with others than those with whom heopenly associated. To a select few of the underworld he acted at timesas "fence," receiving such stolen goods as he could readily dispose ofamong his compatriots, who, innocent of any guilty knowledge, bought thearticles eagerly at a greatly reduced figure, imagining, if they stoppedto imagine at all, that the articles represented unredeemed pledges onmoney loaned here and there by Barloff.
Billy Kane's lips twisted in a thin smile there in the darkness. It wasa deal such as that, so he had gleaned from Red Vallon, that hadoriginated the feud between Ivan Barloff and the Wop. The Wop hadbrought some of the proceeds of one of his predatory safe-breaking raidsto Barloff, and a bargain was concluded between them; but in some waythat night Barloff became aware that the police had followed the Wop tohis, Barloff's, house. Barloff was taking no chances. He promptlycleared his own skirts at the expense of five years in Sing Sing for theWop. He scurried to the nearest police station with the stolen articles,and with unctuous righteousness explained that he was suspicious as tohow the Wop had come by them, but had bought them to pull the wool overthe Wop's eyes so as to enable him, Barloff, to communicate with thepolice, and give the police a chance to make an investigation. Barloffgot away with it, and the Wop got his ride "up the river." It wasperhaps not unnatural that the Wop had sworn revenge, and had made nosecret of it!
Billy Kane's twisted smile deepened. It was all very simple. It involvedsimply the taking of a man's life--the Wop's--which was a very smallmatter in the eyes of that Crime Trust which was running rampant nowthrough the underworld. Also, the Rat was a man of large vision. Hebuilded ahead and waited patiently. Barloff was known by the Rat to havea great deal of money in ready cash. It would not have been a verydifficult matter perhaps to have robbed the old Russian at any time, butthere was always the certainty of an investigation as an aftermath, andinvestigations sometimes had a tendency to lead in awkward directions.Much better, therefore, and much safer, that the trend of theinvestigation, and its limits, should be fixed in advance--by the Rat.And so they had waited for the Wop to regain his freedom.
They had not waited five years, however, for the scheme probably had notoccurred to the Rat until perhaps a few months ago. But now the Wopbeing free at last, the Wop's first act of freedom was to be made toappear that of putting his oft-repeated threat into execution. Barloffwas to be lured out of his house on some specious pretext, the housewould then be entered, and a forged note in the Wop's scrawl, carefullyprepared beforehand, jeering in its tone and to the effect that the Wopwould have got Barloff as well as Barloff's cash if the latter had notbeen fortunate enough to have been out of the house at the time, wouldbe left pinned, say, to the wall. There would not be much room forinvestigation! The Wop, being dead, would not make any defense. The Wopwould never be found; and as the natural thing for the Wop to do was todisappear after leaving his defiant message behind him, who was toimagine that such disappearance was not of the Wop's own free will anddesign? The Wop was the cat's-paw!
The blackness was absolute. Billy Kane was feeling out again with bothhands. He seemed to have lost in a measure even his sense of direction.He was either in a very much wider passage than that through which hehad entered, or else the excavation around him was actually itself oneof the sub-cellars. If he could but get the touch of a wall again toguide him! Yes, here it was! It swerved sharply, almost at right angles,to the left. He followed it, moving slowly, scarcely more than a fewinches at a time.
It was strange how his brain worked on ceaselessly, seemingly obliviousto his immediate surroundings, seemingly concerned with thingsextraneous to his present danger! And yet that was not altogether true.One thing had a bearing on another; and one thing led to another. It waslike the cogs of wheels fitting into each other as they turned aroundand around. This tenure of the Rat's role, that was no less dangerous,was apposite. Where was the Rat? While he, Billy Kane, fought to freehimself from the stigma of David Ellsworth's murder, while he fought forhis own good name and his own life on that score, this role of the Rat,while it afforded temporary sanctuary from the police, forced him intoperils that----
His lips compressed tightly. He had stumbled over something soft andyielding. His outstretched hand, though it saved him, slipped along thewall and came up against another wall, again at right angles, but thistime where, obviously, the walls made a corner. He stooped down, andfelt over the obstruction that his foot had encountered. It was a man'sbody. It moved now, and writhed a little at his touch. It was the Wopalmost certainly, the Wop "flung into a corner" out of the way like asack of meal. But the man was still alive. Thank God for that! He hadbeen afraid that the initiatory stage of the work might have been onlytoo well accomplished.
His hands felt upward along the bound body, and touched the other'sface, and felt the cloth gag twisted and knotted around the man's mouth.His hands felt still a little higher up--to the close-cropped prisonhair. It was the Wop beyond question. He took a knife from his pocket.
"Don't make a sound!" he breathed, as he removed the gag, and cut awaythe cords from around the other's feet and hands. "You're the Wop,aren't you?"
The man's affirmation was almost inarticulate. Billy Kane slipped hisarm around the other's shoulders and lifted the man into a sittingposture. He had a flask of brandy in his pocket, brought purposely forthe Wop's benefit, and he held the flask now to the other's lips. Thestimulant seemed to inject new life and strength into the man.
"Who--who are you?" the Wop asked weakly.
"Don't talk!" Billy Kane cautioned. "The one thing to do is to get outof here now. Do you think you can walk at all?"
"Yes," the man answered. "I--I'm not as bad as all that."
"Try, then," said Billy Kane.
The progress was slow, pitifully slow. The Wop, despite his ownassertion, was both weak and cramped, and at first he was almost a deadweight, as he clung with an arm flung around Billy Kane's shoulders; butgradually he appeared to get back his strength. They stopped every twoor three yards both to rest and listen. Again Billy Kane held the flaskto the other's lips. Again they went
on.
"My Gawd, it's--it's black in here!" the Wop mumbled, and shivered alittle.
Billy Kane made no answer. He was taking care now not to lose touch withthe walls. The ground under foot was beginning to rise steeply. Hecaught his foot and almost fell over a huddled thing on the earth--theChinese guard. A certain murk seemed to be penetrating the blackness. Hestopped again, felt out in front of him, and listened intently for amoment, and then he placed his lips to the Wop's ear.
"There's an opening here into a coal bin," he whispered. "Get down onyour hands and knees and crawl through. Straight across from the coalbin there's a short flight of steps up to a door that opens on thealley. We'll make a break for it now. Keep close to me. And don't make anoise. There's a cellar stairway to the room above, and the room aboveisn't likely to be empty! Understand?"
"Yes," said the Wop.
"Come on, then," said Billy Kane.
He crawled through the opening with the Wop at his heels, and rose tohis feet, then gripping at the Wop's arm, he stole across the cellar,gained the steps and, an instant later, stepped out into a dark andnarrow alleyway. He did not pause here; he hurried the Wop down thealleyway, and halted only when within a few yards of the firstintersecting street: just far enough back in the alleyway to keep wellbeyond the radius of light from the adjoining thoroughfare.
Neither man spoke for a moment. After the silence of that death trapbehind them, the roar of an elevated train from Chatham Square near byseemed to Billy Kane a din infernal, and greater only by a little thanthe rattle of wheels, the clatter of horses' hoofs, and themultitudinous noises of ordinary traffic. He could just make out theWop's features. One side of the man's face was streaked with clottedblood stains; but apart from that the Wop now showed little outwardevidence of the attack that had been made upon him. He stood there now,quite steady on his feet, his eyes studying Billy Kane's mask in apuzzled way.
"Say," said the Wop, a sudden huskiness in his voice. "I owe yousomething. What's your name?"
Billy Kane shook his head.
"Never mind about that," he said quietly. "There's something else that'sof vastly greater importance so far as you are concerned. Do you knowwhy they got after you to-night, or who it was that got you in thattrap?"
"No," said the Wop.
"I'll tell you, then," said Billy Kane. "It was because you threatenedto get even with Ivan Barloff."
"Barloff!" The Wop's fists clenched, and he stepped closer to BillyKane. "So it was Barloff, was it? He must have had the fear of God inhim, then, to make him spend any money--even to hire thugs! Barloff, eh?Well, I'm going to see Barloff pretty soon!"
"No, you're not!" said Billy Kane crisply. "That's exactly why I amtelling you this. It isn't Barloff. It's a crowd that knew of yourthreat, and _they're_ getting after Barloff, and framing you up for thejob. They're planting a little evidence against you in Barloff's placein exchange for Barloff's cash, and with you finished off via the murderroute, they expect the police to throw up their hands after a while andadmit you've made a clean get-away--with the swag."
The Wop's face was close to Billy Kane's, and the Wop's face wassuddenly pinched and white. He touched his lips with his tongue. Andthen, as suddenly, the blood flushed back, and he thrust out his underjaw truculently.
"They would, eh--the dirty swabs!" he snarled. "Who are they? I'll make'em crawl for this!"
Billy Kane smiled grimly.
"No, I guess not!" he said softly. "You're very much better out of it.But I promise you they'll not get away with it if you'll do what you aretold now."
The Wop knuckled his forehead in a perplexed way.
"What do you want me to do?" There was a lingering sullen note in theWop's voice.
"Just this," said Billy Kane quietly. "I want you to get out from under.You're not looking for another five years in Sing Sing, are you?"
The Wop flinched. He drew his knuckles again across his eyes.
"No," he said hoarsely.
Billy Kane nodded.
"Quite so!" he said calmly. "Well, then, it is simply a question ofestablishing an alibi for you that will be absolutely hole-proof fromnow until, say, midnight. Where can you go?"
"I know Gus Moray, that runs the Silver King saloon," said the Wop."He'd swear to it, all right."
"Yes; whether you were there or not!" said Billy Kane dryly. "That's notgood enough! If anything breaks wrong to-night you've got to havesomething better than an alibi in a dive like that to stack up againstwhat will look like open-and-shut evidence against you. You've got toget on a higher plane than that."
The Wop shook his head.
"I ain't been a very regular church attendant," he said, with a sicklygrin, "and----" He stopped short, and suddenly leaned toward Billy Kane."Say, would a minister do?"
"It would be an improvement," admitted Billy Kane, with a smile.
"Well, I got it, then!" announced the Wop. His hesitancy had vanished.He seemed eager, almost anxious now. The iron of five years of prisonwas evidently far too poignant a memory to risk it being turned intoreality again. "I got it! There's a guy named Mister Claflin that ranone of them mission joints down around where I uster hang out before Iwent up. He's all right! He's the only soul on God's earth came near mewhen I was doing my spaces. Twice he came up to Sing Sing to see me. Hedidn't hold no prayer meeting with me neither, but he's got a grip inhis hand that makes a fellow feel he ain't all dirt. He's white, he is!"
"Do you know where he lives?" inquired Billy Kane crisply.
"No," said the Wop, and was suddenly downcast. "And he ain't at themission any more, 'cause he told me he'd got a regular layout uptownsomewhere."
"No matter!" said Billy Kane cheerfully. "Any drug store has adirectory. You can find the address there. Got any money?"
The Wop felt through his pockets, and the red flared into his faceagain.
"Frisked!" he flung out savagely.
Billy Kane handed the other a banknote.
"Spend this on the first taxi you can grab," he said. "You've got to getthere as soon as you can, and you've got to keep under cover gettingthere. If Mr. Claflin is not at home, wait in his house for him. Don'tlet them sidetrack you. And make it a point of establishing the hour youget there, either with the minister himself, or whoever happens to be athome. And stay there until midnight anyhow. Understand?"
"Yes," said the Wop.
"Well, then," said Billy Kane, "beat it!"
The Wop hesitated.
"Say, ain't I going to know who you are?" he blurted out. "Say, I ain'tanything but a crook, just a damned crook with a prison record, but--butI'd like to pay what I owe. Ain't you going to give me the chance?"
"You've got it now." Billy Kane's hand went to the other's shoulder."It's a rotten road to Sing Sing. You're out of it now--stay out of it."He gave the Wop a friendly push toward the street. "We've no more timeto lose. Beat it!" he said, and without giving the Wop time to reply, heturned abruptly, and ran back along the alleyway.