The Lash Part 14

Suddenly, however, he turned sharply at a cross-alley, and when O'Byrn, hurrying his pace, reached there, Shaughnessy was nowhere to be seen.

Micky stood perplexed, cursing softly. He hurried to the end of the alley to Lawrence Street and looked up and down it, without result. He walked aimlessly here and there about the section, but no glad sight of Shaughnessy rewarded his keen eyes.

After some little time, however, O'Byrn saw a familiar figure crossing Lawrence Street, a block from the point where the alley intersected. The Irishman was instantly alert, for the man was former Alderman Goldberg.

"Gad!" muttered Micky, "the woods seem to be full of 'retired'

politicians." Gaining the opposite side of the street, Goldberg turned west and walked about two blocks, with O'Byrn discreetly behind, across the way. Suddenly Goldberg disappeared within a doorway. Micky chuckled softly.

"Up over Hogan's, eh?" he muttered. "So that's the trysting place." He must investigate, surely, but not just now. Perhaps there were other birds of the sinister brood to arrive. O'Byrn, with the canny discretion born of long reportorial experience, lurked for the present in a shadowed doorway. In a little while his caution was justified, for there arrived simultaneously at the "trysting place" the lanky d.i.c.k Peterson and the rotund Willie Shute, known to Micky for the precious pair of political rascals they were. "That fake convention! Oh, what a bluff!"

breathed the Irishman, with a definite admiration in his subdued tones.

One could honestly admire a masterly _coup_ like that, nor could he withhold a certain tribute to the ability of the scoundrel responsible for it. Shaughnessy was a genius, burrowing in the dark places; where the searching sunlight would have been fatal.

Micky waited a little longer, but the circle was evidently complete.

They would not naturally keep the boss waiting long, for O'Byrn made no doubt that he was with them. The Irishman was fired with an intense desire to hear that conference. Already he knew that Shaughnessy was there, and matters were proceeding under the same masterly hand as of yore; only it was "the hidden hand" now, and all the more deadly for that reason. O'Byrn was convinced that he ought to be an unnoted auditor of that meeting, though he knew there were difficulties in the way. It was not probable that Hogan neglected precautions against any possible disturbance of these little conferences, for it was a natural supposition that he had his orders to that effect.

However, nothing was to be gained by standing and speculating about it.

So Micky, with sundry unspoken prayers for immunity from a broken head, crossed the street and approached the doorway. He opened the door cautiously and slipped inside. By a single gas light, turned religiously low, he saw the white ap.r.o.ned form of a waiter standing at the head of the flight of stairs. In that moment the man started down stairs.

The way to the cafe was through a long, dark pa.s.sage, at the end of which the dim gas light did not penetrate. In an instant the wily O'Byrn had retreated into this pa.s.sage, where he flattened against the wall.

The sleeve of the waiter brushed his body as that worthy pa.s.sed on into the cafe. A gust of boisterous talk and tipsy laughter sounded from the saloon as the door was opened. Then it was closed, and Micky, without a second's hesitation, made for the stairs and crept softly up, trusting to luck.

He heard a murmur of voices from the larger of the two rooms that faced a narrow hall, which in turn looked out upon a side street through its two small windows. Between the two rooms there was a narrow pa.s.sage, terminating in a flight of steep stairs which led down into Hogan's kitchen. These stairs were seldom used. The building, an architectural anomaly in the first place, had been further mangled by the odd ideas of Hogan.

Micky slipped around into this friendly little pa.s.sageway just as the waiter came up stairs with a loaded tray. Micky heard him knock, enter the room, and shortly return. To his disgust the Irishman failed to hear the waiter's descending footsteps. Evidently he was supposed to stand guard and see that the coast was kept clear.

Micky swore silently. Then he made a discovery which filled him with glee. The light streamed from the all-important room through an aperture high in the wall; evidently a disused stovepipe hole, which Hogan had carelessly forgotten to cover after he put in his furnace. More than this, Micky noted, in the dim light of other gas jets in the hall outside, that directly under this hole stood a small but substantial table, on exceptionally high legs.

To noiselessly gain the top of the table occupied but an instant for the agile Irishman. His eager, freckled face was thrust close to the observatory. He had a swift glimpse of that precious group, the charmed circle complete, and then occurred a thing that froze his blood.

Suddenly Goldberg, Goldberg of the illimitable brow, sprang to his feet with shaking fist and crimsoned face. He extended his arm; the swollen fist resolved itself into a single accusing finger, pointed straight at O'Byrn. Goldberg's little pig eyes shot fire, he glared murderously at the stove pipe hole. "Oh, you spy! you d.a.m.ned spy!" he yelled. Micky waited to hear no more.

He gained the floor at a jump and swung around the corner. The unsuspecting waiter stood directly between him and the front stairs.

Micky lowered his head and charged like a lively little bull. The dazed waiter crashed to the floor and Micky gained the bottom of the stairs in three bounds.

In that very instant, however, the sound of a loud commotion, a volley of curses, came from above. Instead of gaining the street, O'Byrn instinctively retreated into the dark pa.s.sage between the stairs and the cafe, where he crouched and waited. The next moment, with a succession of b.u.mps, some object came thudding down the stairs and reached the bottom with a deep groan. There was a rush of feet on the landing above, eager to follow.

In a flash O'Byrn had sprung forward, turning off the single gas jet, flinging the door wide open. Then, as a second heavy body came tumbling down the stairs, evidently through a stumble in the darkness, O'Byrn stooped, and gathering a limp, senseless form in his arms, gained the street. Dragging his burden, he wheeled into the adjoining alley. He heard swift footsteps in the street. Goldberg hurried by, limping and cursing. He it was who had fallen down stairs.

Micky chuckled. "'Twasn't me they were after, at all," he muttered. Then he bent low, gazing sharply into the white face of his senseless burden.

He gave a start of surprise.

It was Slade.

CHAPTER XV

USEFUL INFORMATION

O'Byrn's eyes glistened. Here were possibilities, to be sure, but the first thing to do was to get out of that quarter, which might be too warm for comfort in a few minutes. Even as the reflection struck him, Micky backed close against the wall, in the deepest shadows, as a man rushed past him through the alley. It was d.i.c.k Peterson. The whole gang must be out looking for Slade. To add to the discomfort of the situation, the weather made good its threat of many hours' standing and it began to rain. Slade lay inert, still unconscious from the fall.

Micky scratched his head in deep perplexity. He had no intention of leaving the fellow, but what should he do with him?

Fortune was kind. At that moment a cab swung into the alley from Lawrence Street at a leisurely pace. The driver was evidently taking a short cut to more travelled thoroughfares. O'Byrn halted him and invoked his a.s.sistance in loading Slade into the vehicle. "My friend's drunk,"

he laconically explained, to which the cabby grunted a gruff a.s.sent.

Slade had recovered his jarred senses by the time the cab arrived at a point near Micky's lodging, and the Irishman prudently stopped the driver, and paying him, dismissed him. It would never do to leave a clear trail for Shaughnessy's gang, should they chance to stumble upon it at all. He asked the still dazed Slade to wait for him a few minutes in an adjacent drug store while he hurried over to the city hall, which was near at hand, and telephoned the Courier office, informing Mr.

Harkins that he had a chance for a future "beat" that would have to be improved at once, and he wouldn't be back. "All right, keep at work on it. We won't need you," Harkins telephoned, and Micky rejoined Slade.

He piloted Slade to his lodgings, took him to his room, lighted his gas heater and the two jets and installed his guest in the big easy chair which the room boasted. He took the rocker himself, drawing it confidentially close to Slade's chair. He then produced cigars, holding a match for Slade to light his weed. "Smoke up, old man," remarked Micky, cordially. "It'll be comfortably warm here in a few minutes.

Stretch out and pull yourself together. You got a nasty fall." Slade smiled slightly, without words, and arranged himself luxuriously in the big chair, puffing thoughtfully at his weed. A pleasant glow stole through the room. Micky, also puffing methodically, was silent as his companion, philosophically waiting for the spirit to move. Cautiously watching Slade, he was gratified to see a sullen, smouldering fire in the queer black eyes, ordinarily as indifferent as a Chinaman's. Slade would evidently be in a confidential mood in a few moments, and Micky could well afford to wait.

Not many newspaper men could have expected Nick Slade, accredited heeler for the Shaughnessy gang, to wax confidential, under any circ.u.mstances, to a representative of the press. His very presence at that moment, in the room of a reporter of the Courier, of all papers, was anomalous. But O'Byrn was shrewd. He had learned early that success for the reporter on a daily newspaper depends on his being all things to all men. Tact is the little key that unlocks all doors. A hundred different plans of campaign are needed for a hundred different men, yet every man must be met on a broad and common field of friendliness. Anything short of that curtails the reporter's field of usefulness. One shorter sighted than Micky would perhaps have avoided making Slade's acquaintance in the beginning, on the ground that he was not a respectable person. To be sure he was not. Slade himself would be the last to question the impeachment. Because of this very lack of respectability, Slade's good graces were valuable to Micky, for a large proportion of the news that the public revels in is garnered from the ranks of the non-respectable.

There is little in the life of your ordinary, respectable citizen to keep the typesetters busy, for there is nothing sensational in virtue unless it be possessed by a politician. Then it is inexplicable. But the record of the ordinary esteemed citizen can usually be summed up in the horns of life's trilemma: birth, marriage and death, unless, indeed, he excels at golf. The newspapers still devote considerable s.p.a.ce to it.

Slade knew the men who made much of the real news of the town, the news with fat head-lines. To be sure, many of them figured in it unwillingly, but that was a minor consideration, for their doings often made and sold extras. Chance had thrown Slade in Micky's way early in the Irishman's career in the town, and the reporter's trained journalistic sense told him that Slade's confidence would be valuable. So it had been. The episode in Goldberg's saloon, when Slade evaded wrath that fell upon the luckless head of O'Byrn, had not ended their acquaintance. Micky had found occasion to do Slade some good turns since then. And now Slade,--from ambuscade, to be sure, but none the less effectively,--was destined to reciprocate tenfold.

Slade had been a heeler for the gang. It was not an important post, affording a pose in the limelight, but that fact had its compensations.

Evidently Slade, in trying, perhaps, to fit himself surrept.i.tiously for larger responsibilities, had come to grief. And, as Micky watched him, smoking in the big chair, he noted a fire of sullen resentment kindling in Slade's eyes.

"Say, old man," inquired Slade suddenly, "where'd you pick me up tonight? How'd you happen to connect with me, anyway?"

Micky grinned. "Why, I was up to the same game you were, I guess," he explained. "Shaughnessy pa.s.sed me tonight, and, though I'd never met him, I couldn't help throwin' the con' into him a little, just for luck.

I'd seen some things, you know, and I guess he was next to what I was drivin' at, all right. But he never turned a hair and went on, with me doin' a quick sneak after him. I missed him finally, but some of his gang blew along, and after a while I was up stairs in Hogan's, perched on a table and rubberin' through a hole in the wall. All of a sudden up jumps Goldberg, yellin' something about a spy, and I thought I was copped for fair. I was down stairs in three shakes, and I went through a waiter like a halfback to do it. I was just about to breathe the open when you b.u.mped along down. You were dead to the world when I dragged you out, I guess, and I kept you out of sight of the gang,--which was looking for you, my boy,--till I got the cab. And here you are.

Goldberg's as good a bouncer as his man Mulligan, ain't he?"

"Goldberg?" echoed Slade. "Nit, young feller, he never touched me. They were all grabbin' for me at once, and I shook the whole bunch, just as I did in that session at Goldberg's. I wound around like a gimlet for a minute and I was goin' some when I went through the door. Then," in a tone of deep disgust, "I had to miss my bearin's, of course, and when I brought my hoof down for the first stair I must have hit about the last one, I guess. Anyway, the lights went out." He shook his head mournfully, while O'Byrn chuckled.

"Don't you mind," said he soothingly, "Goldberg got a worse one than you. He b.u.mped along down after you, and afterward he was hoppin' around on one leg lookin' for Nicky, who was just then safe in the arms of Micky. And then along blew the dear old cab. I told the cabby you were drunk, you know."

"Oh, you did, did you?" without enthusiasm. "No such luck this time. Oh, it's all right; it was a good bluff. Now about the rough-house. It was a funny stunt, your happenin' to be there at the same time I was. You've got your nerve with you, all right. As for yours truly, I'd been there so often before, without any trouble, that I must have got careless.

Anyway, their talk was interesting and I shoved my face out from behind the sideboard a little too far, and up jumps that bald-headed dog of a Goldberg. And now my goose is cooked."

He sat silent for a few moments, moodily puffing his cigar and scowling blackly. O'Byrn critically watched him, without words. The sullen glow returned to Slade's eyes, his sallow cheeks flushed slightly. Then, with a savage oath, he leaped to his feet, facing the waiting Irishman.

"See here!" he exclaimed fiercely, "I owe you for more than one good turn, and I guess if you hadn't happened to be on deck tonight those dogs would have killed me. You're a good feller and they're a bunch of yellow curs. I've worked for 'em for all I was worth for a long while, done dirty work for 'em, and what have I got? Just promises and a run around the rim, that's all, when I've got enough in me to be helpin' to work the calliope in the inside. And they know it, too,--they know I ain't no fool. Many's the time has d.i.c.k Peterson, the rotten liar, said to me: 'Slade, my boy, you're the stuff; we're goin' to take care of you.' Promises, promises to burn! And it's all I've had.

"Well, that's the way it went, while they kept on playin' me for a sucker. Many's the job I've done for Peterson that he didn't have the sand for to do himself. I was always willin'." Micky suppressed a smile at the injured sorrow in Slade's tones. The ex-heeler shrugged his shoulders wearily and resumed his seat. The savagery had departed from his demeanor, replaced by an air of dogged malice.

"Why, that gang of lepers," he resumed impressively, "that bunch of hard-hearted slobs would have dumped me in a minute, after that little sc.r.a.pe me and you was mixed up in at Goldberg's, if it hadn't been for Peterson, and he ain't used me right to any extent since then, either.

But if it hadn't been for him I'd have got t'run down then, with never a thought for what I'd done for 'em. You're always pure wool while you can be used, then you're cheap crash; remember that, my boy. I was kin' o'

hangin' on by my teeth, though, till tonight. Now it's some other burg for mine, or likely get killed. Well, that's all right, too. They're racin' in other burgs as well as this, and I guess Slade can make a few other little pick-ups, too, just to keep the wolf away." He smiled cunningly.

"But before I take the choo-choos out," he continued, his eyes alive with malice as he bent toward Micky, "there's a score to settle with this lovely old Shaughnessy gang that I'm thinkin' will jar more than one of 'em clear behind the bars. You know this Shaughnessy. He's a deep one, though I notice you was onto him the very day of the convention.

n.o.body knows what he's drivin' at except his own little ring, the ring that everyone in this buncoed town, barrin' me and you and a mighty few others, thinks has turned him down. Turned him down!" Slade laughed dryly. "Why, he's got every mother's son of 'em by the neck; could jail every cursed one of 'em and crawl out of the muss himself. Oh, I believe he could, he's the devil himself.

"But there's one that's fooled him," exultantly, "and he won't know how much till election day. Sure, they caught me tonight, but do you think for a minute they'll find out that I've been attendin' their devilish little seances for months, unbeknown to 'em? Well, I have. I was at the meetin' that decided this whole funny programme that is givin' Fusion black eyes every minute, and Fusion would have won out in a canter if it had anyone else than this devil of a Shaughnessy to buck against. I was at that meetin', and I thought I knew a thing or two, but say, feller, the nerve of that proposition got my alley. When Shaughnessy sprung it on the bunch I came near dyin' prematoorly on the spot by wantin' to jump out from behind the sideboard and tellin' Shaughnessy he was a gilt-edged dandy; which he is, if he ain't got no soul. 'But,' says the gang, when he sprung it, 'it won't work. They won't follow us when we talk of throwin' you down. The party'll get hacked to pieces in its own convention.' 'Gentlemen,' says he, 'I never mixed with the hoi-polloi anyway, didn't have to. You have. They don't like me and they do like you. Work this thing slick, as I tell you to, and you'll have 'em all marking time to your music.' And it was so. Remember the convention? The reformers thought it meant a clean bill; the grafters thought it would be a gang more lavish than Shaughnessy had been. Oh, it was a lovely move. And he's on top yet, and they don't know it."

He gave Micky a lingering look. "I'm for gettin' even," he said. "You've been trying to get onto the trail ever since the convention; you've had your suspicions. I saw you myself the other night; walked from Shaughnessy's office back of you, after that old whitewashed graveyard of a nominee for mayor had left there. I was there, just as I'd been at others, though Mr. Shaughnessy never invited me. Of course, they're careful about windows, etc., but I can always make good somehow on a still hunt. What do I know? I know the whole rotten business. The circle always goes into particulars and there have been some beautiful give-and-takes between Shaughnessy and old Graveyard-Whiskers. Whiskers don't want to stand, not for a minute, you know, but Shaughnessy holds him to the gaff because he's _respectable_." This with a grim laugh.