The Net Part 18

"Do you think so?"

"I know so. I've seen it tried. Some people are born cowards and can't help themselves. As for me, I was never troubled much that way. I suppose you find it the same, too."

"No. My only consolation lies in thinking it's barely possible the other fellow may be as badly frightened as I am."

Donnelly scoffed openly. "I never saw a man stand up better than you.

Why I've touted you as the gamest chap I ever saw. Do you remember that dago Misetti who jumped from here into your parish when you were sheriff?"

Blake smiled. "I'm not likely to forget him."

"You walked into a gun that day when you knew he'd use it."

"He didn't, though--at least not much. Perhaps he was as badly rattled as I was."

"Have it your own way," the Chief said. "But that reminds me, he's out again."

"Indeed! I hadn't heard."

"You knew, of course, we couldn't convict him for that killing. We had a perfect case, but the Mafia cleared him. Same old story--perjury, alibis, and jury-fixing. We put him away for resisting an officer, though; they couldn't stop us there. But they've 'sprung' him and he's back in town again. d.a.m.n such people! With over two hundred Italian outrages of various kinds in this city up to date, I can count the convictions on the fingers of one hand. The rest of the country is beginning to notice it."

"It is a serious matter," Blake acknowledged, "and it is affecting the business interests of the city. We see that every day."

"If I had a free hand I'd tin-can every dago in New Orleans."

"Nonsense! They're not all bad. The great majority of them are good, industrious, law-abiding people. It's a comparatively small criminal element that does the mischief."

"You think so, eh? Well, if you held down this job for a year you'd be ready to swear they're all blackmailers and murderers. If they're so honest and peaceable, why don't they come out and help us run down the malefactors?"

"That's not their way."

"No, you bet it isn't," Donnelly affirmed. "Things are getting worse every day. The reformers don't have to call my attention to it; I'm wise. So far, they have confined their operations to their own people, but what's to prevent them from spreading out? Some day those Italians will break over and tackle us Americans, and then there will be h.e.l.l to pay. I'll be blamed for not holding them in check. Why, you've no idea of the completeness of their organization; it has a thousand branches and it takes in some of their very best people. I dare say you think this Mafia is some dago secret society with lodge-rooms and grips and pa.s.swords and a picnic once a year. Well, I tell you--"

"You needn't tell me anything about La Mafia," Blake interrupted, gravely. "I know as much about it, perhaps, as you do. Something ought to be done to choke off this flood of European criminal immigration.

Believe me, I realize what you are up against, Dan, and I know, as you know, that La Mafia will beat you."

"I'm d.a.m.ned if it will!" exploded the officer. "The policing of this city is under my charge, and if those people want to live here among us--"

The telephone bell rang and Donnelly broke off to answer it.

"h.e.l.lo! Is that you, O'Connell? Good! Stick around the neighborhood.

We'll be right over." He hung up the receiver and explained: "O'Connell has him marked out. We'd better go."

It was not until they were well on their way that Norvin thought to mention the letter, which he had wished to see.

"Oh, yes, I meant to show it to you," said Donnelly.

"But there's nothing unusual about it, except perhaps the signature."

"I thought you said it was anonymous."

"Well, it is; it's merely signed 'One who Knows.'"

"Does it mention an a.s.sociate of Narcone--a man named Cardi?"

"No. Who's he?"

"I dare say at least a hundred thousand people have asked that same question." Briefly Norvin told what he knew of the reputed chief of the banditti, of the terrors his name inspired in Sicily, and of his supposed connection with the murder of Savigno. "Once or twice a year I hear from Colonel Neri," he added, "but he informs me that Cardi has never returned to the island, so it occurred to me that he too might be in New Orleans."

"It's very likely that he is, and if he was a Capo-Mafia there, he's probably the same here. Lord! I'd like to get inside of that outfit; I'd go through it like a sandstorm."

By this time they had threaded the narrow thoroughfares of the old quarter, and were nearing the vicinity of St. Phillip Street, the heart of what Donnelly called "Dagotown." There was little to distinguish this part of the city from that through which they had come. There were the same dingy, wrinkled houses, with their odd little balconies and ornamental iron galleries overhanging the sidewalks and peering into one another's faces as if to see what their neighbors were up to; the same queer, musty, dusty shops, dozing amid violent foreign odors; the same open doorways and tunnel-like entrances leading to paved courtyards at the rear. The steep roofs were tiled and moss-grown, the pavements were of huge stone flags, set in between seams of mud, and so unevenly placed as to make traffic impossible save by the light of day. Alongside the walks were open sewers, in which the foul and sluggish current was setting not toward, but away from, the river-front. The district was peopled by shadows and mystery; it abounded in strange sights and sounds and smells.

At the corner of Royal and Dumaine they found O'Connell loitering in a doorway, and with a word he directed them to a small cafe and wine-shop in the next block.

A moment later they pushed through swinging doors and entered.

Donnelly nodded to the white-haired Italian behind the bar and led the way back to a vacant table against the wall, where he and Norvin seated themselves. There were perhaps a half-dozen similar tables in the room, at some of which men were eating. But it was late for supper, and for the most part the occupants were either drinking or playing cards.

There was a momentary pause in the babble of conversation as the two stalked boldly in, and a score of suspicious glances were leveled at them, for the Chief was well known in the Italian quarter. The proprietor came bustling toward the new-comers with an obsequious smile upon his grizzled features. Taking the end of his ap.r.o.n he wiped the surface of their table dry, at the same time informing Donnelly in broken English that he was honored by the privilege of serving him.

Donnelly ordered a bottle of wine, then drew an envelope from his pocket and began making figures upon it, leaning forward and addressing his companion confidentially, to the complete disregard of his surroundings. Norvin glued his eyes upon the paper, nodding now and then as if in agreement. Although he had taken but one hasty glance around the cafe upon entering, he had seen a certain heavy-muscled Sicilian whose face was only too familiar. It was Narcone, without a doubt. Blake had seen that brutal, l.u.s.t-coa.r.s.ened countenance too many times in his dreams to be mistaken, and while his one and only glimpse had been secured in a half-light, his mind at that instant had been so unnaturally sensitized that the photograph remained clear and unfading.

He could feel Narcone staring at him now, as he sat nodding to the senseless patter of the Chief in a sort of breathless, terrifying suspense. Would his own face recall to the fellow's mind that night in the forest of Terranova and set his fears aflame? Blake's reason told him that such a thing was beyond the faintest probability, yet the flesh upon his back was crawling as if in antic.i.p.ation of a knife-thrust.

Nevertheless, he lit a cigar and held the match between fingers which did not tremble. He was fighting his usual, senseless battle, and he was winning. When the proprietor set the bottle in front of him he filled both gla.s.ses with a firm hand and then, still listening to Donnelly's words, he settled back in his chair and let his eyes rove casually over the room.

He encountered Narcone's evil gaze when the gla.s.s was half-way to his lips and returned it boldly for an instant. It filled him with an odd satisfaction to note that not a ripple disturbed the red surface of the wine.

"Have you 'made' him?" Donnelly inquired under his breath.

Blake nodded: "The tall fellow at the third table."

"That's him, all right," agreed the Chief. "He doesn't remember you."

"I didn't expect him to; I've changed considerably, and besides he never saw me distinctly, as I told you before."

"You've got the policeman's eye," declared Donnelly with enthusiasm.

"I wanted you to pick him out by yourself. We'll go, now, as soon as we lap up this dago vinegar."

Out in the street again, Blake heaved a sigh of relief, for even this little harmless adventure had been a trial to his unruly nerves.

"We'll drift past the Red Wing Club; it's a hang-out of mine and I want to talk further with you," said Donnelly.

They turned back towards the heart of the city, stopping a moment while the Chief directed O'Connell to keep a close watch upon Narcone.

The Red Wing Club was not really a club at all, but a small restaurant which had become known for certain of its culinary specialties and had gathered to itself a somewhat select clientele of bons vivants, who dined there after the leisurely continental fashion. Thither the two men betook themselves.

"I can't see what real good those extradition papers are going to do you, even now that you're sure of your man," said Norvin as soon as they were seated. "It won't be difficult to arrest him, but to extradite him will prove quite another matter. I'm not eager myself to take the stand against him, for obvious reasons." Donnelly nodded his appreciation. "I will do so, if necessary, of course, but my evidence won't counterbalance all the testimony Sabella will be able to bring.

We know he's the man; his friends know it, but they'll unite to swear he is really Vito Sabella, a gentle, sweet soul whom they knew in Sicily, and they'll prove he was here in America at the time Martel Savigno was murdered. If we had him in New York, away from his friends, it would be different; he'd go back to Sicily, and once there he'd hang, as he deserves."

Donnelly swore under his breath. "It's the thing I run foul of every time I try to enforce the law against these people. But just the same I'm going to get this fellow, somehow, for he's one of the gang that fired into the Pallozzos and killed Tony Alto. That's another thing I know but can't prove. What made you ask if that letter was written by a woman? Has Sabella a sweetheart?"