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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beyond the wall, by Henry Leverage
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Beyond the wall
-
-Author: Henry Leverage
-
-Release Date: September 6, 2022 [eBook #68930]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND THE WALL ***
-
-
-
-
-Beyond the Wall
-
-by Henry Leverage
-
-
-	The first of a remarkable series of underworld stories by the
-	author of “Thirst” and “The Harvest of the Deep.” Few other
-	writers have Mr. Leverage’s keen sense of drama and ability to
-	describe swift action clearly.
-
-
-Chester Fay, a slender, keen-eyed, gray-haired young man,--clad in
-prison shoddy, serving life and fifteen years at Rockglen,--glanced
-through the rain and over the wall to where a green-cloaked hill
-loomed. “Charley,” he whispered, “we might as well try it this
-afternoon. Are you game?” Charley O’Mara, sixty-five years old, bent,
-broken, and bitter at the law, coughed a warning. He raised his pick
-and started digging around a flower-bed.
-
-A guard in a heavy raincoat, carrying a dripping rifle, came toward
-the two prisoners. He stopped a few feet away from Fay.
-
-“Quit that talkin’!” he snarled. “I’ll chalk you in if I see any more
-of it!”
-
-Fay did not answer the guard. He spaded the earth, dug deep, tossed
-the shovelfuls to one side and waited until the guard had strolled
-within the shelter of a low shed.
-
-“Charley!” he continued without moving his lips. “Listen, old pal.
-See that motortruck near the shed?”
-
-“I see it, Chester.”
-
-“See where the screw is standing?”
-
-“He’s watching us.”
-
-“And I’m watching him, Charley. We can beat this stir in an hour. Do
-you want to try it?”
-
-“How you going to do it?”
-
-“Will you follow me?”
-
-“Yes, pal.”
-
-“Wait till it gets a little darker. Then we’ll take the chance.”
-
-The prison guard stood with his rifle lowered to the moist earth
-beneath the shed. His eyes ranged from the two convicts to the wall
-upon which were other guards sheltered in tiny guardhouses. He yawned
-and drowsed, standing.
-
-Fay worked in a slow circle. He had seen the auto-truck come into the
-prison yard at noon. It was part of the road-gang’s outfit. There was
-no road-work that day, on account of the rain. The inmate driver had
-gone into the cellhouse.
-
-Old Charley O’Mara let his pick dig into the earth with feeble
-strokes. He paused at times. There was that to Fay’s actions which
-presaged much. The gray-haired young man was gradually closing in on
-the drowsing guard. He was like a lean panther getting ready for a
-spring.
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-The attack came with lightninglike suddenness. Fay dropped his
-shovel, crossed the earth, struck the guard a short-arm uppercut and
-bore him down to earth, where he smothered his cries with a flap of
-the raincoat.
-
-Charley O’Mara came limping toward the shed.
-
-“Get a rope!” snapped Fay. “I don’t want to croak him.”
-
-“Croakin’s too good for the likes of him, Chester.”
-
-“Get a rope. We’ve got about fifteen minutes to work in. We ought to
-be beyond the wall by then.”
-
-Fay worked quickly. He took the rope the old convict found, and
-trussed the guard, after taking off the raincoat. He made sure that
-the man would make no outcry. He fastened a stick in his mouth and
-tied it behind his head. He rose and glanced through the down-pouring
-rain.
-
-“I knocked him out,” he said. “Now, Charley, put on that raincoat,
-take the cap and rifle and walk slowly toward the auto-truck. Get in
-the front. Stand up like a guard.”
-
-“But they might know me!”
-
-“They wont know you. It’s raining. The screws on the wall will think
-you are taking the truck out, by order of the warden. I’ll drive. An
-inmate always drives.”
-
-The guard who sat huddled in the little house which loomed over the
-great gate at Rockglen rose, opened a small window and glanced out as
-he heard the motortruck mounting the grade from the prison yard. He
-saw what he thought was the figure of a guard standing by a convict.
-The convict crouched with partly hidden face over the steering-wheel.
-
-“All right!” shouted Charley O’Mara, motioning with his rifle toward
-the closed gate.
-
-The guard squinted for a second time. He caught, through the rain,
-the gleam of brass on the cap Charley wore. He saw the rifle. He
-reached and pulled at a lever. The gate slowly opened, first to a
-crack, then wide. Fay pressed forward the clutch pedal, shifted from
-neutral to first speed, stepped on the accelerator and let the clutch
-pedal up gently.
-
-The truck mounted the top of the grade, churned through the gate,
-turned in front of the warden’s house and took the incline which led
-over the hill from Rockglen.
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-All might have gone well for the convicts had it not been for the
-rain. Water had formed in deep pools along the road. Into these pools
-Fay guided the clumsy truck. He heard the engine miss an explosion. A
-sputter followed. The truck slowed. An explosion sounded in the
-muffler. The insulation wires grounded and short-circuited. The truck
-stopped.
-
-Fay sprang from the driver’s seat and opened the hood. He attempted
-to find the trouble. A dangling wire, touching the engine’s frame,
-was sodden with water.
-
-“No go!” he said to Charley. “Come on! We’ll leave the truck and take
-to the woods. That means a chase as soon as the big whistle blows.”
-
-The two convicts were crossing an open field when they heard the
-first menacing blasts from the prison siren. They ran for shelter. A
-dog barked. A farmhand came through the underbrush. He stood
-watching.
-
-“Keep your nerve!” said Fay. “You’ve got the rifle. Night is coming
-on. Follow me.”
-
-The trail led away from Rockglen. Fay sensed the general direction.
-He attempted to gain a railroad junction where a freight could be
-taken for Chicago. He was headed off by a motorcar load of prison
-guards. He saw the danger in time.
-
-“To the right,” he whispered to O’Mara. “Follow me. Don’t cave, pal.”
-
-“I’m all in,” sobbed the old convict.
-
-Fay braced his arm beneath Charlie’s elbow. He took the rifle. They
-crossed a swollen brook, broke through the hedge of a vast estate and
-came suddenly upon a trio of watchmen who had been alarmed by the
-blowing of the prison’s siren.
-
-The fight that followed was entirely onesided. Fay pumped lead in the
-general direction of the watchmen. He was answered by a salvo.
-Crimson cones splashed the night. Bullets whined. A shout sounded far
-away. Other watchmen and constables were surrounding the estate.
-
-Old Charley O’Mara, crouching in the shelter of a hawthorn clump,
-coughed, rose, spun and fell face downward. A great spot of scarlet
-ran over the raincoat. His aged face twisted in agony. Fay knelt by
-his side.
-
-“I’m croaked, pal,” said the convict. “They winged me through the
-lungs. Good-by, pal.”
-
-“Anything I can do, Charley?”
-
-“Do you think you’ll get away?”
-
-“I know I will.”
-
-“To Chi?”
-
-“Yes!”
-
-“Will you go see my little girl?”
-
-“Where is she?”
-
-“At the Dropper’s, on Harrison Street. She’s in bad, Chester. Take
-her away from them low-brows.”
-
-“How old is she?”
-
-“Sixteen.”
-
-“What is her name?”
-
-“Emily--little Emily.”
-
-“I’ll take care of her, Charley. I promise you that!”
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-Fay let the convict’s head drop to the ground. He heard the
-death-rattle. He kicked aside the empty and useless rifle.
-
-The way of escape was not an easy one. Forms moved in the mist. He
-darted for a row of bushes. He crawled beneath them. He gained the
-high fence around the estate, where, freed of the necessity of
-setting his pace to that of the old convict, he broke through the
-far-flung cordon of guards and watchmen and gained a woods which
-extended north and west for over a score of miles.
-
-He discovered, toward morning, a small house in course of erection.
-Its scaffolding stood gaunt against the velvet of the sky. A
-carpenter’s chest rested on the back porch.
-
-Fay pried this open with a hatchet, removed a suit of overalls and a
-saw, and dropped the lid. He emerged from the woods, looking for all
-the world like a carpenter going to work.
-
-To the man who had wolfed the world--to the third cracksman then
-living--the remainder of his get-away to Chicago was a journey wherein
-each detail fitted in with the others.
-
-He arrived--after riding in gondola-cars, hugging the tops of Pullmans
-and helping stoke an Atlantic type locomotive--at the first fringe of
-the city of many millions.
-
-With sharp eyes before him, and dodging police-haunted streets, he
-mingled with the workers--seemingly a carpenter.
-
-No one of all the throng seemed to notice him. He walked slowly at
-times. He thought of old Charley O’Mara, and of the dying convict’s
-request.
-
-A speck in the yeast, a chip on the foam, he quickened his steps and
-entered a small pawnshop where money could be borrowed for
-enterprises of a shady nature.
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-Mother Madlebaum peered over the counter at the gray-haired young man
-who held out an empty palm and asked for a loan on a mythical watch.
-She removed her spectacles, polished them with her black alpaca
-apron, and glanced shrewdly toward the door.
-
-“What a start you gave me, Chester. And me thinking all along you
-were lagged.”
-
-“Five C’s on the block,” laughed Fay pleasantly. “Remember the
-blue-white gems I brought you last time? Remember the swag, loot and
-plunder from the Hanover job? You made big on them.”
-
-“I always do with your stuff, Chester.”
-
-“Can you lend me five hundred? I’ve just beaten stir.”
-
-The old fence opened her safe and brought forth a money-drawer. Fay
-took the bills she handed to him, without counting them. He touched
-his hat and started toward the door.
-
-“Wait, Chester.”
-
-“What is it?”
-
-“Want to plant upstairs till the blow is over?”
-
-“No. I promised old Charley O’Mara I’d see his girl for him. Poor
-Charley is dead.”
-
-“He wasn’t in your class, Chester. Nobody is.”
-
-“Where’s the Dropper’s scatter?”
-
-“Five doors from the corner, on Harrison Street. Is the girl there?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“Then may God help her. You can’t!”
-
-Fay passed from the fence and lost himself in the clothing-department
-of a dry-goods store. He entered the place a carpenter--down in the
-heels and somewhat grimy from his train-ride. He emerged with a
-bamboo cane hooked over the sleeve of a shepherd-plaid suit. His hat
-was a flat-brimmed Panama, his shoes correct.
-
-A bath, shave, shampoo and haircut completed his metamorphosis. He
-left a barber-shop--the proper figure of a young man. He walked
-briskly, seeing everything.
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-There were detectives in that city--discerning ones. He avoided the
-main streets and crossings. Wolf-keen and alert for the police, he
-turned toward the dive where little Emily O’Mara lived. He distrusted
-the place and cursed himself for the venture.
-
-The Dropper’s reputation among the powers that preyed was--unsavory.
-There had been rumors in the old days that he was a pigeon. The den
-and joint he managed sheltered cheap dips, pennyweighters and
-store-histers who bragged of their miserable exploits.
-
-Fay entered the hallway that led up to the Dropper’s, like a duke
-paying a visit to a tenement.
-
-A gas-light flared the second landing. An ash-can, half filled with
-empty bottles, marked the third. Fay paused by this can, studied a
-fist-banged door, then knocked with light knuckles.
-
-As he waited for a chain to be unhooked and a slide to open, he
-sniffed the air of the hallway. Somewhere, some one was smoking
-opium.
-
-A brutish, shelving-browed, scar-crossed face appeared at the
-opening. Steely eyes drilled toward the cracksman.
-
-“What d’ye want here?”
-
-“Gee sip en quessen, hop en yen?”
-
-“Who to hell are yuh?”
-
-“A friend,” said Fay. “A man to see Charley O’Mara’s daughter.”
-
-Fay carried no revolver. He scorned such things. The police rated him
-too clever to commit murder. Only amateurs and coke-fiends did things
-like that.
-
-He wished, however, that he could thrust the blued-steel muzzle of a
-gat through the panel and order the Dropper to unlatch the door. The
-thug was so long in making up his none-too-alert mind.
-
-It swung finally. Fay stepped into the room. He narrowed his eyes and
-mentally photographed a mean den, made translucent by the
-greenish-hued smoke that swirled over a peanut-oil lamp and floated
-before the drawn faces of many poppy-dreamers who were peering from
-bunks.
-
-The Dropper stood waiting. His elbows were slightly bent. His huge,
-broken-boned hands came slowly in front. He measured Fay from the tip
-of the shoes to the prematurely gray hair that showed beneath the
-cracksman’s straw hat.
-
-“Well, when did you get out of stir?” he snarled with sudden
-recognition. “I thought they threw the key away on yuh.”
-
-“Easy, Dropper! Who are all these people?”
-
-“Aw, they’re all right! There’s Canada Mac and Glycerine Jimmy an’
-three broads over there. Then there’s Mike the Bike and Micky Gleason
-with us to-night. Know them?”
-
-Fay unhooked his cane from his arm. He swung it back and forth as he
-studied the faces in the bunks. His stare dropped to the peanut-oil
-lamp and the lay-out tray around which reclined two smokers. He saw a
-piglike dog crouching by a screen. Behind this was the entrance to
-another room.
-
-“Suppose we go in there,” he said. “There’s something I want to speak
-to you about, Dropper.”
-
-“Spit it out, here!”
-
-“No!” Fay’s voice took on a metallic incisiveness. He flashed a
-warning at the Dropper. The big man shifted his eyes uneasily, and
-followed Fay around the screen and into a room where two
-chintz-covered windows looked out into Harrison Street. There were a
-poker-table, a couch and many chairs in the room. The floor was
-covered with a cheap matting.
-
-“Listen,” said Fay, still swinging his cane: “I came here to see
-Charley O’Mara’s daughter. I want to see her quick! I can’t stay
-around here. It’s no place--”
-
-“Aw, cut that kid-glove stuff. What d’ye think we are--stools?”
-
-“I want to see Charley’s daughter--Emily!”
-
-“You can’t!”
-
-“What have you done with her?”
-
-“I aint done nothin’. She lives right here.”
-
-Fay hung his cane on a chair, removed his hat, turned, backed against
-the poker-table and fastened upon the Dropper a glance of white fire.
-
-“Tell that girl to come to me.”
-
-“Well, who the hell are you orderin’ around?”
-
-“Go! Get--that--girl!”
-
-The Dropper was in his own castle. The bunks in the den were filled
-with the reclining forms of a number of men who would commit murder
-at his bidding. He had, safely planted, the only hundred toys of
-choice Victoria hop in all of Chicago. One could buy most anything,
-from virtue to a man’s soul, with opium at the current prices.
-
-He considered the matter of Fay with a slow brain. Back in the heart
-of him there lurked a fear for a five-figure man. They did big
-things. They were supercrooks. Their weight might be felt through
-political influence.
-
-“I’m hep!” he said sullenly. “You want to cop the skirt from me. You
-want to tell her about diamonds and rubies and strings of pearls--of
-swag and kale and the easy life swillin’ wine.”
-
-“I don’t want to do anything of the kind. I’ve got a message for her
-from her old man. He’s not well,” Fay added cautiously, remembering
-that under the law the Dropper might be considered Emily’s guardian.
-
-“So he aint goin’ to get sprung? I heard he had a swell mouthpiece
-who was workin’ with the pollies.”
-
-“The appeal was denied last week. The governor turned it down--cold.
-Charley may have to serve his full term.”
-
-“Oh, well, if that’s the straight of it-- I’ll get the moll an’
-let you chin with her a bit. Remember, no fancy stuff.”
-
-Fay stared at the dive-keeper disgustedly. The Dropper weighed over
-two hundred and fifty pounds. He moved his gross form across the
-matting, paused at the screen where the piglike dog lay, and lumbered
-out of sight. His voice rasped in a shout: “Emily!”
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-Her entrance came a minute after Fay had seated himself at the
-poker-table. His hand rested on his hat. He heard the Dropper’s
-nagging oaths.
-
-Emily entered, propelled by a strong arm.
-
-Fay rose. He flashed an assuring glance. He reached and offered her a
-chair.
-
-The picture she left with him, as he turned for the chair, was one he
-could never forget.
-
-Golden-glossed hair, fine-spun as flax, an oval face, big
-sherry-colored eyes, long lashes, a round breast and straight
-figure--was his summing up of little Emily O’Mara.
-
-The Dropper lunged for the girl. He lifted her chin. He leered as she
-cringed from him.
-
-“This guy wants to see you, kid!”
-
-Fay pressed the sides of his trousers with the sensitive tips of his
-fingers. He waited, with his teeth grinding. He wanted to leap the
-distance, reach, clutch and throttle the purple neck of the brute.
-
-The Dropper swung a terrible jaw and eyed Fay.
-
-“Go to it!” he rumbled. “Get done with the kid, damn quick. Tell her
-she’ll never see her old man again. That’s wot I’ve been tellin’
-her--all the time.”
-
-Fay waited until the Dropper disappeared. He moved the chair he had
-offered to the girl, so that she could see it.
-
-“Wont you sit down, Emily? I left your dad last night. He wasn’t
-well.”
-
-A flash of interest and gratitude crossed her features. She clutched
-her skirt, stared at the door, bent one knee and sank into the chair
-timidly.
-
-Fay leaned and whispered:
-
-“Your father sent me to you. He wants you to leave this bunch. He’s
-afraid you are not being well treated. He thinks you ought to go to
-some good home,” he added as he realized the girl’s underworld
-upbringing.
-
-“Is Father coming back to me?”
-
-“No, never.”
-
-“Why not?”
-
-The naivete of the question struck Fay as an indictment against
-society.
-
-“Because the laws are unjust!” he declared. “They keep a man in
-prison after he is reformed. They don’t keep a man in a hospital
-after he is cured.”
-
-“Did you escape from Rockglen?”
-
-“Would it make any difference to you if I had broken out of prison?”
-
-“No, it wouldn’t make any difference to me--but I don’t know what you
-mean.”
-
-“I mean I want you to go away with me. I want to get you out of this
-den of petty-larceny addicts and low-brows. That’s what your father
-wanted, Emily.”
-
-“But I don’t even know your name. Why should I run away with you?”
-
-“Because the Dropper is a brute. Because he will beat you--if he
-hasn’t already. Because the life here leads to the gutter--and mighty
-fast you’ll drift down to it, little Emily.”
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-The girl arranged a black velvet bandeau on her hair. Fay noticed
-that the rings on her fingers were brassy and childish. They grated
-on a man who had never handled any but first-water jewels.
-
-He leaned forward and suggested:
-
-“Come with me--say, to-morrow night. We’ll go East together. I know a
-motherly woman who has an old mansion on the Hudson.”
-
-Little Emily fluttered her lashes in an anxious glance at the open
-door, beyond which was the sound of dreamy voices.
-
-“I’m afraid I can’t.”
-
-“Why?”
-
-“He wont let me.”
-
-“What is he to you?”
-
-“Nothing, but I’m afraid of him. He’s so strong.”
-
-“He’s a big mush, little Emily--a woman-beater, a peddler of opium--a
-Fink, if you know what that means.”
-
-The girl pulled her dress down to the tops of her broken shoes. She
-twisted, glanced up, smiled faintly, and blanched as the Dropper
-thrust his head into the room.
-
-“What are you tryin’ to pull off?” he asked.
-
-Fay stared over the girl’s cringing shoulder. His steel-blue eyes
-locked with the brute’s. They burned and blazed into a sodden brain.
-The Dropper leered, said, “Oh, all right, cul,” and went back to the
-smokers around the lay-out tray.
-
-“Quick, Emily! Make up your mind. Can I come for you to-morrow night?
-I owe it to your old man. We’ll go East, and this woman I know will
-take care of you. I hate the coppers, and I’m out to collect from the
-world. They sent me away to Rockglen--dead, bang wrong! They gave me
-life and fifteen years. I didn’t serve fifteen weeks!”
-
-Fay ceased pleading. He watched the girl. There was a mark behind her
-left ear which could only have come from a blow. She fingered a black
-velvet bandeau. She clenched her hands. She started to rise. Suddenly
-she dropped to the chair.
-
-“I can’t go--even if Dad wants me to. I can’t leave the Dropper. I am
-afraid he’ll kill me if I go away with you.”
-
-“He’s got you cowed!”
-
-“I can’t help it.”
-
-“And you slave for him--work for him--touch his hand when he calls for
-you?”
-
-“I do. You don’t understand my position.”
-
-“It’s an outrage. Poor Charley O’Mara’s daughter held in the clutches
-of that beast!”
-
-“He is going to kill me some day. I saw him kill a man once. He hit
-him with his fist. They carried the man to the river.”
-
-“Suppose I come here to-morrow night with a gat, stick up the joint,
-make the Dropper whine like a cur. What would you do?”
-
-“He wouldn’t whine. He’d kill you--the way he killed that man who
-didn’t pay him for a card of hop.”
-
-Fay caught the underworld note.
-
-“Do you smoke?” His voice was suspicious.
-
-“No, I don’t smoke opium. I watch other people do that.”
-
-“You’re too sensible. Does the Dropper smoke?”
-
-“He don’t smoke, either. He sells the stuff.”
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-The girl’s naïveté brought a smile to Fay’s lips.
-
-“You’re going East,” he said. “I’ll make the money for your
-education. I’ve got two big jobs located. One is in Maiden Lane.”
-
-“Diamonds?”
-
-“Yes, gems. What do you say, little Emily?”
-
-“I--I am afraid.”
-
-“But think what a beautiful world this is. There is London and Paris
-and Rome.”
-
-“London and Paris and Rome mean nothing to me. I wouldn’t know how to
-behave in those places. All I’ve known is Harrison Street, and the
-back rooms of saloons, and getting beat up.”
-
-“But your dad was a high-roller.”
-
-“He wasn’t always. Sometimes he was broke. Sometimes we didn’t know
-where we were going to get things to eat.”
-
-Fay’s voice grew tender.
-
-“Emily,” he said, “that’s all a bad dream. Yesterday afternoon I made
-a get-away. A man who was dying--a mark for the prison screws--told me
-to go and save his daughter. I don’t want you to think I forgot that
-request. I could never forget it. Charley was a pal o’ mine. I came
-right to you. I see the lay-out. You’re cowed, beaten, crushed, by
-the Dropper. I’ll croak him when you ask me to.”
-
-“You can’t! I want you to go away. Please don’t suggest anything like
-that. I like you, but I can never run away with you. I’m afraid.”
-
-“Good God, do you want me to leave you in this joint?”
-
-“It’s the only life I’ve ever known.”
-
-“Where do you sleep?”
-
-“On a cot upstairs.”
-
-“And you ought to have a palace. Did you ever look at yourself in the
-glass?”
-
-“Sometimes, after he beats me.”
-
-Fay started toward the door. He heard a chair upset. Little Emily
-dragged on his arm.
-
-“Don’t go to him! He’ll kill you.”
-
-“Then you come with me.”
-
-“I’m afraid to.”
-
-The girl spoke the truth. Her color was ashen.
-
-Fay went to the table, lifted her chair, turned it and motioned for
-her to sit down. She hesitated between the table and door.
-
-“Please,” said Fay.
-
-He might have been addressing a princess. Her color returned in
-rippling waves. She tried to smile. Her lips trembled--she took one
-step in his direction, swayed, and pressed her fists to her breast.
-
-The Dropper’s form completely filled the doorway.
-
-“Come here!” he snarled.
-
-“Hold on!” snapped Fay.
-
-“Come ’ere, yuh!”
-
-The girl between the two men, made her choice, or rather, had it made
-for her.
-
-Shrinkingly demure, and altogether tearful, she pressed by the
-Dropper and glided across the den where the poppy-smokers lay.
-
-“Go to bed!”
-
-Fay saw the brute’s chin move in a slow circle over his shelving
-shoulder. He swung back his jaw.
-
-“You’re next,” he said. “Better beat it, bo. I’ll tame yuh like I’ve
-tamed her.”
-
-“Tamed is good.” Fay picked up his hat. He hooked the cane over his
-left sleeve. “Rather pleasant evening, Dropper.... I see you
-understand women.”
-
-“I guess I do. Yuh want to let ’em know you’re the biggest guy alive.
-I’m that guy. Nobody ever took a broad away from me.”
-
-“But she’s only a kid, Dropper.”
-
-“Another year--”
-
-“Yes, you’re right. Well, so long. There’ll be another night, too.
-I’m coming back.”
-
-“I’ll be ready for yuh!”
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-Fay had no set plan as he left the scatter of Mike Cregan--alias the
-Dropper. He wanted to thrash out the matter of Emily O’Mara in his
-mind. Her behavior, and the fear she held of her unsavory guardian,
-puzzled the cracksman.
-
-He had accomplished much in a brief time. There were not many men
-living who could have broken out of Rockglen on one afternoon and
-strolled down Michigan Avenue the next. It was an exploit in keeping
-with his reputation.
-
-Midnight found him working over the problem of the girl. He recalled
-old Charley’s last instructions:
-
-“Get her away from the low-brows.”
-
-A promise, Fay had never intentionally broken. There was the
-girl--naive, doll-like, docile. There was the Dropper--demanding,
-brutish, a fink.
-
-Fay slept that night at a stag hotel.
-
-He woke early, bathed beneath a shower, dressed and went down to
-breakfast.
-
-On Harrison Street he gulped the air. He avoided being seen by the
-detectives of the city. Once he took a cab for a distance of five
-squares. He dismissed the driver at the side entrance of a cheap
-hotel--sauntered through the lobby and emerged with a sharp glance to
-left and right.
-
-The game gripped him as he dodged into the tenement and started
-climbing the gas-flared stairways to the hop-joint. He knew, in the
-soul of him, that Chicago was a danger-spot.
-
-He knocked on the door and was admitted by the Dropper--who seemed
-alone.
-
-“Back again,” said Fay. “I said I’d be back. Where is Emily?”
-
-“Wot t’hell!”
-
-“Where is the girl?”
-
-A gliding sounded over the matting of the room beyond the screen.
-Emily thrust her head through the doorway. Her sherry-colored eyes
-were red-rimmed, glazed with tears, sullen. The Dropper had just
-finished his morning hate by upbraiding her.
-
-“Wot t’hell’s comin’ off?” rumbled the dive-keeper. “Beat it, cul,
-before I wake up. I’m going to wham yuh one.”
-
-Fay swiftly hooked his cane over the edge of an empty bunk, removed
-his hat, took off his coat, and rolled up his sleeves.
-
-“I didn’t bring a gat!” he snapped. “I don’t need one. Get into that
-room, set the card-table back and pile up the chairs. Get ready, you
-fink, for what’s coming to you.”
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-The Dropper found himself in the grip of a situation not exactly to
-his liking. He backed from Fay. He crashed over the screen. He
-turned, thrust Emily aside, and shelved forward his shoulders in an
-aggressive posture. His brows worked up and down. The scar on his
-cheek grew livid.
-
-“Hol’ on,” he started to protest.
-
-Fay stepped swiftly forward, whipped over a lightning uppercut, and
-jabbed with his left fist toward the brute’s stomach. Both blows had
-force enough to land the Dropper against the card-table.
-
-He went down like a pole-axed bullock. He rose in his might and rage.
-His bellowing could have been heard a block away. He came at Fay
-unskillfully--thrown off balance by the sudden attack.
-
-The clean life of a supercrook stood Fay in good stead. His weight
-was less than half that of the Dropper’s. But he more than made up
-for this by the swiftness of his blows. He tormented the brute by
-jabs, hooks and side-stepping.
-
-The Dropper was no novice at boxing. Once, years before, he had been
-Honest Abe’s chief bouncer. He had broken men’s heads and hurled
-derelicts from barrooms. He knew the rudiments of wrestling.
-
-Slowly his thick brain came into action. He covered his jaw with a
-shelving shoulder. He put down his bulletlike head and started to
-bore through the rain of blows. With wild swings he forced Fay
-against the poker-table. It went over and rolled to the wall near
-where Emily crouched.
-
-The cracksman glided around the Dropper and shadow-tormented him. He
-struck straight from the shoulder. He was two-fisted and agile. Each
-flash of his eye was marked by a stinging blow. A crescendo of
-effort, all to the brute’s purple face, had its effect. The Dropper
-started gasping. He lowered his fists. He breathed, waiting. He
-grunted as he followed Fay--blindly, grossly. A red gleam showed where
-his lids were puffing.
-
-                *       *       *       *       *
-
-Fay felt his own strength waning. He called on all his latent
-nerve-force. He became a tiger. He leaped, drove a smashing fist
-between the Dropper’s gorilla-like brows, stepped back, dodged a
-swing, then repeated the blow. He played for this mark. The fury of
-his assault was like an air-hammer on a rivet. It deadened the
-brute’s brain. It made him all animal.
-
-A bull’s roar filled the room. Goaded to an open defense, the Dropper
-abandoned science. He tried to grasp his tormentor. His huge hands
-groped through the air. He stumbled and searched. He fell over a
-chair. He rose to his knees. Fay waited, hooked a short, elbow-jab
-between the eyes. He followed with his left. His arm snapped in its
-sting. He backed, side-stepped, and started around the Dropper,
-delivering blows like a cooper finishing a barrel.
-
-A red rage came to the cracksman that was terrible in its ferocity.
-He forgot Emily. He saw only the swollen thing before him. He wanted
-to kill. He sought for the opening.
-
-Abandoning his straight jabs, he danced in and out with short-arm
-swings to the face and neck and eyes. He pounded the ears until they
-resembled cauliflowers. He made a pulp of the Dropper’s face.
-
-The end came in less than a second. Beaten into near-insensibility,
-tottering and bloated--the Dropper attempted to reach the door that
-led to the opium-joint. He remembered a gat he had planted there. He
-lowered his shielding left shoulder. His jaw was exposed.
-
-Fay poised on tiptoes, drew back his right fist and sent it home with
-the tendons of his legs strained in the effort. His weight, his rage,
-his science and clean living were in that blow. It milled the brute,
-staggered and brought him crashing, first to his knees, then over on
-his back, where he lay with his swollen face turned toward the
-ceiling.
-
-Little Emily glided to the door. She waited with her eyes fixed and
-shimmering.
-
-Fay breathed deeply. He turned, unrolled his silk sleeves and said:
-
-“Will--you--get my hat and coat and cane, please?”
-
-Little Emily helped him on with his coat. Her hands trembled.
-
-“Now get _your_ things. You’re going away from here.”
-
-She returned within three minutes.
-
-“I’m ready,” she said.
-
-“You saw me knock him out?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“Go look at him.”
-
-Emily hurried into the room. She knelt by the Dropper’s head. She
-came back to Fay and whispered:
-
-“I’m not afraid of him any more.”
-
-“Why, little Emily?”
-
-“Because you are stronger than he is.”
-
-Fay opened the door that led to the hallway where the gas-flare
-showed in the gloom.
-
-“Have you everything?” he asked.
-
-Emily pointed to a pasteboard hatbox. Fay lifted it gallantly.
-
-“Come on,” he said.
-
-“Where are you going to take me?” she asked, humbly.
-
-“I’m going to take you to the house of the good woman on the Hudson.”
-
-“And what are _you_ going to do?”
-
-“I? I’m going to get word to Charley O’Mara that I kept my
-promise--and his kid’s all right.”
-
-
-THE END
-
-
-[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the February 1920 issue
-of Blue Book magazine.]
-
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