Mouthpiece Read online

  Alias Blackford understood. He lay like a sack of soggy straw and nodded only with an effort. Dully he watched the two Delaneys move away.

  “But how . . . how,” began the old fire-eater, “how did you ever get next to all this? You’re leaving a lot of it out. I’ve done some detecting in my time, but I never grabbed clues out of thin air that way.”

  “Thin air,” grinned the detective. “No thin air about that. I had to take some awful beatings to get that dope. Don’t I look like it?”

  “You sure do,” affirmed the elder Delaney, gruffly. “What happened to you?”

  “They caught me at the Tyler store when I came out with Blackford. Smashed me on the head with a sap, carried me off and set a fire under me. They thought I knew a lot more than I did. Blackford thought I was wise when he first laid eyes on me. He tipped off his boys to be on the alert and then when I found some bottle glass inside—”

  “Bottle glass?”

  “Sure. I was going to take it up to the laboratory for analysis just on a hunch. And Blackford knew that I’d find a trace of nitroglycerin on that fragment. And when I did, I’d be sure the fire was of incendiary origin. He was scared, and when we came out he signaled his boys to jump me.

  “They tied me up in a closet and wired a bottle of ‘soup’ to the doorbell. Then they went out and established an alibi and sent a messenger boy back to the house to ring the bell. He rang it and blowie! The place was on fire.”

  “Nitroglycerin set off by electricity,” growled the fire-eater. “What the devil will pyromaniacs think up next? You were mighty lucky to get out, Son. It looks like those fellows meant business.”

  “I’ll say they did. They weren’t going to have their game queered if they could help it. You see, Blackford made that snatch look good by having himself knocked out, supposedly. I found a cotton blackjack on one of his boys. If it hadn’t been for the blackjack and that piece of glass, we’d still be fighting fires all over the town.”

  “And thanks to you, we aren’t,” said old Delaney with more than a hint of pride. He pulled at his mustache and then looked up to see an acquaintance coming toward him. “Hello, Morley.”

  Morley of Graysons’ Insurance came up beside them.

  “So you’re the fair-haired lad that cleared up this mess.” He touched the detective’s shoulder. “Is it against your code to accept rewards?”

  “Well,” hesitated the younger Delaney, “we don’t usually— Wait a minute. You need some new carts and hose, don’t you, Dad?”

  “Gosh, yes. They got me cut to the bone.”

  “Fine,” said the detective. “Hear that? Tell your company to make out the reward as a donation to the fire department. They shouldn’t be very slow in doing that.”

  “I’ll say not,” replied the insurance agent. “You’ve saved us something like a million dollars in claims, maybe more. I don’t think Graysons’ will forget it very fast. In fact, we’d like to get you appointed in Blackford’s place. We’ve got the influence, you know.”

  “Huh,” grunted the fire-eater. “That isn’t such a bad idea. Better pay and shorter hours. What about it, Son?”

  “Not bad. Maybe I could keep you out of hot water. An hour ago, extras were on the streets saying that you were going to be kicked out. Hurts the family prestige, things like that. I guess I’d better take the job.” The detective grinned.

  “I always said I’d make a fireman out of you,” growled Blaze Delaney, and then fell to tugging fiercely at his mustache to hide the pleasure in his smoke-stung eyes.

  Calling Squad Cars!

  CALLING SQUAD CARS!

  JIM COLLINS lowered his troubled head and hunched his broad, capable shoulders against the rain. Idly he kicked at a paper which lay in his path on the sidewalk and then, as his foot opened a soggy page, he stared ruefully at the headlines which greeted his eye.

  POLICE DISCOVER NEW LEAD

  IN HUNT FOR “ONE-EYE” TASCORI MOB.

  POLICE DISCOVER NEW LEAD

  POLICE RADIO ANNOUNCER COLLINS

  DISCHARGED FROM HEADQUARTERS

  AS INSPECTOR GRIFFITH LINKS HIM

  WITH EVASIVE MARAUDERS.

  Jim Collins, police radio announcer, was released on bail tonight as net tightens in the search for the mob of “One-Eye” Tascori whose citywide robberies and depredations have amazed and shocked citizens.

  There was more to it. A great deal more. It covered part of the front and slithered over to the second page in a slimy trail of water-soaked ink. Collins kicked at it once more and then resumed his aimless wandering.

  For weeks an ugly cloud of suspicion had hovered over his brown head. For days his soft southern voice had borne a slight edge of worry, and then, tonight, the blow had fallen.

  Collins had been seated behind his mike in the control room utilizing an idle moment to drive home the last plate in the miniature microphones he was perfecting. Through his mind had run the endless chain of remarks which had drummed in upon him. Neither detectives nor policemen had spoken to him kindly for days.

  The chief had appeared beside the control board. Glaring down at Collins, he had said, “The jig’s up, sonny. You’re under arrest!”

  They had led him back to the dreaded degree rooms at the rear of the building. They had placed him in a hard chair, turned a brilliant light on his face, to begin their endless chain of questioning.

  Collins had shaken his head dazedly. “I can’t explain why calls go out which never appear on my record. I can’t explain why a voice like mine calls squad cars away from the scene of Tascori’s crimes. I don’t know, I swear I don’t know!” His usually soft voice mounted slightly in his earnestness.

  The chief had clicked his teeth together, his jaw close to Collins’ face.

  “Listen, Collins, every time ‘One-Eye’ Tascori has robbed a bank or stuck up a speakeasy, you’ve been at the mike. And every time the cars have suddenly been called away from the scene of the robbery to attend a fire which wasn’t burning, to rescue a drowning man who didn’t exist.

  “I know that you use that police radio to help Tascori, so come clean. Where does he hang out? What is the name of his gang?”

  For hours the inquisition had gone on but young Collins, worn and haggard by the unceasing fire of the chief’s snarling voice, had been adamant in his protest of his innocence.

  Finally the chief had given up with the threat that Collins would cool his heels in jail until he cared to divulge the information. But the chief had been thwarted in that for McCarty, the other announcer, had gone his bail.

  Now he was on the loose. His job was gone. His reputation was ruined. Newspaper headlines screamed at him from the racks along the sidewalk. With a meager final paycheck in his pocket he faced imminent poverty, perhaps starvation, for although he was a crack radioman, firms would hardly hire one who dwelled under a constant cloud of suspicion.

  Ahead of him, Collins could see the light of a doorway below the street. He knew the place well. It was a speakeasy of considerable size. He examined the contents of his pockets with damp fingers.

  The two miniature microphones he had taken from his desk clanked together lonesomely. Aside from that small check, he was broke. But he shrugged his shoulders and headed for the doorway. Though he rarely drank, he felt the need of a stimulant now. Perhaps it would aid his buzzing head.

  At the head of the stairs, the crash of a pistol met him from below. Rapidly it was followed by two others. A scream and a babble of voices burst through the suddenly opened door as four men jumped up the stairs. They brushed Collins aside roughly and ran for a car which waited at the curb with running motor. But Collins had seen just enough. The man in the lead had only one eye!

  The radioman’s eyes went blank for an instant as he remembered newspaper pictures of Tascori. Then, with a leap, he was to the curb, unseen by the hastily embarking men. Collins jumped into a ring of tires on the back of the car and the machine sped away through the rain.

  Collins puckered his mouth. Now that he was this far, where did he go from here? Quickly he tried to fit a plan together. The machine’s rubber tires were whining over the pavement as it sped southward through the city.

  Coming darkness and the increasing rain hid him from the eyes of the traffic police, but he dared not signal as the car passed directed intersections lest the men ahead might notice.

  It suddenly came to him that he was weaponless, save for his two fists and his wits. Where the car was going he did not know, nor did he know his course of action when it arrived. He could only crouch in the darkness and await his chance.

  There were five in the car, counting the driver. Five men who had just committed the most heinous of crimes, murder for robbery. They were the most dangerous men in the underworld, daring everything and anything. They had indirectly ruined the radioman, and so he clung to the tires and gritted his teeth against the ache which was seeping up his taut muscles.

  Collins hunched down and tried to map out some plan. What if he were spotted when the men stopped the car? What if they halted at some well-lighted filling station? What if the car blew a tire? He held himself in readiness with aching arms and waited, his eyes narrow as vivid bits of this chain of events passed through his mind.

  Well in the outskirts of the city, on an unlighted street, the car stopped in the driveway of a huge unlighted house which loomed dark and forbidding in the rain. Holding his breath lest a light suddenly betray him, Collins stepped gingerly away from the car and slid under a dripping bush. The headlights had been switched off at the moment of arrival, but through the rain-soaked blackness, the radioman caught the movement of figures mounting the steps to the building. Wet leather crunched against stone and gravel.

  An ugly voice said, “Take the bus around back, Tony, and gas her up. Look over the motor, check the tires, and see you don’t let her fall down on us! Get going!”

  The car slid back to the street and headed for an alleyway. By the light of his lamps, Collins saw four men trudge up to the high doorway. He stiffened as he glimpsed again the black patch which hid Tascori’s sightless socket.

  The door slammed, and with rain trickling down inside his light topcoat, Collins crept to the side of the house. Looking up he saw a crack of light on the first floor. A light flickered through the blinds of another window.

  Decisively, the radioman returned to the front. With wet hands he examined the pillars which supported the porch roof. With a grain of luck he saw that he could climb them noiselessly and swing himself to the top of the porch roof with the aid of a lattice.

  Carefully he mounted the railing and reached up. He swung his legs around the post and began the ascent. It was tedious, difficult work, for his arms were tired from the long strain of hanging to the back of the car.

  Cautiously he felt for the latticework, grasped the thin slats with a silent prayer that they would support his weight, and heaved his long body up and out.

  Doubling suddenly, he projected himself onto the roof. Hanging with his head down he felt along the slippery shingles for holds, found them and drew himself toward the white frame of a window which gleamed dully in the blackness.

  He felt in his pockets for a knife, disentangled the clasp from several coils of thin wire which he had absently picked up from his worktable at headquarters, and inserted the blade under the sill.

  Slowly, lest he snap the thin blade, he pulled up. With a sigh, the window opened. The dank smell of a cold, damp room greeted his nostrils and he placed his dripping legs over the sill.

  He rested his weight on one foot and tested the boards around him. Finding that none of them creaked, Collins turned and closed down the window.

  At last he was inside the house, a floor above Tascori. Unarmed, yes, but confidence swarmed in upon him as he realized that luck, so far, had been with him.

  At the door of the room, he pressed his ear to a crack and listened. Far below him he could hear the murmur of men’s voices. Silently, Collins opened the door and cast his eyes over the hall which lay before him. At his right, a stairway led down, allowing some of the light from below to flicker on the walls.

  The sound of voices had grown louder and Collins knew that Tascori was in the room at the bottom of those stairs. Tensely he waited for all of the men to take their turn at talking.

  One, two, three, and then the harsh, ugly rasp of Tascori as he derided one of the men for a clumsy piece of work.

  A chair creaked and one of the men started across the room, his voice growing louder in the radioman’s ears.

  Suddenly something told Collins that the man was about to ascend the stairs and he glanced up to see if a light lay above him. But the house was too old to have such a thing as remote light control, and Collins breathed deeply.

  The man’s feet were stomping on the boards. He had ceased to talk.

  Knowing that inky blackness lay behind him, and that the gangster’s eyes were accustomed to the bright light of the room below, Collins glanced around the corner. In his belt the other carried a heavy automatic.

  Excitement tugged at the radioman’s heart, causing it to beat out of time. All the bitterness which he had borne suddenly leaped up and became strength. His strong, dark face tensed. He felt the blood throbbing in his temples until he was almost certain that the other could hear the rapid hammering of his heart. Wages of failure here would be a quick death.

  The gangster reached the last step below the upper landing but a few inches away from Collins. With a lunge, the radioman snatched out and grasped the butt of that gun. It came free with a wrench.

  Surprised, the other grunted and stepped back, tottering on the stairs.

  Collins smashed the pistol into his startled face with such force that the gangster plunged backwards, left the stairs and with a long crash hurtled toward the bottom.

  Collins plunged after him three steps at a time. A moment’s hesitation would cost him his victory. Almost as the other hit the first floor, Collins was beside him.

  “Freeze!” he shouted to the others. “Grab for the ceiling!” He thrust the gun out as though the very force of it would hold the others motionless.

  Tascori spat like a caged tiger. His two henchmen remained where they were and slowly raised their arms upward. Caught sitting down and with only an instant’s warning, they were helpless.

  “Stand up!” cried Collins. He motioned with the gun. “Stand up and turn your faces to that wall!”

  Tascori’s one eye kindled and darted to a door which was now behind the radioman’s back. He stiffened and then slumped wearily. For an instant a crafty light had gleamed darkly in that one orb, but flushed with excitement and the elation of victory, Collins had not noticed.

  The three, hampered by their upraised arms, climbed to their feet. Sullenness and despair marked each face. In fact, their sudden expressions of dejection were so complete and spontaneous that the radioman might have been warned. Following Tascori’s meek example, the other two turned and faced the indicated wall.

  Collins, with a glance into the automatic’s breech to make sure that it held a cartridge, strode forward. A bulge in Tascori’s hip pocket caught his eye. With intent to disarm the gangster, the radioman reached out. It had been too easy! A smile played over his face.

  He had just touched the bulge when the room seemed to split apart with a roar. The wall and men spun before his eyes. A mighty hand was dragging him to the floor, relentless, dark, awful. Suddenly he stopped fighting against the force. He had never been so terribly tired in his life. Everything gave a final spin and vanished in blackness.

  Tascori leered down at the motionless figure. “Nice work, Tony,” he said tonelessly to the newcomer who stood in the door by the stairs, holding a smoking pistol.

  The one-eyed man was tall and gaunt with a pinched face and narrow, cruel lips. The black patch over the empty socket stood out starkly against the yellow pallor of his skin. He stooped down over the body and examined the wound in Collins’ head. The man called Tony stepped to his side.

  Tascori jerked up with an explosive oath. “Bungler! You’ve just creased him!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Tony, stepping back. “I shot in such a hurry.” He shrugged his shoulders and fingered his automatic. Then an idea mirrored itself on his face. “But that’s easy to fix up.” He looked down at the sprawled body of the radioman. “That’s easy.”

  Without hesitating he kneeled beside Collins and pressed the still-smoking muzzle of the pistol against the radioman’s temple. Tascori grinned mirthlessly and said, “Go ahead.”

  Tony adjusted the muzzle carefully and squeezed the butt safety into place. His finger started to close down on the trigger. His face was expressionless. Then he drew the gun away and grasped Collins by the hair, turning his head over so that light fell on the unconscious features.

  He glanced up at Tascori. “I think I’ll do it this way this time. It’s more sure.” He laid a piece of newspaper under the brown hair. “No use messing up the rug much more.”

  Again he placed the pistol against Collins’ head, but this time, its black muzzle was held under the throat. His palm came down on the butt safety again and his finger tightened against the trigger.

  “Wait a minute!” blurted one of the men. “I know that guy!”

  Tascori turned languidly. “Friend of yours?”

  “No, I’ll say not!” snapped the gangster. “He’s the radio announcer at police headquarters! I saw him in the broadcasting room last time they dragged me into the bullpen.”

  “Are you sure?” demanded Tascori. He was staring down at Collins with new interest.

  “Sure! You can look right through the glass as you come in the door to the desk.” The gangster pointed down at the unconscious radioman with a bony finger. “I’d know him anyplace.”

  “Hm,” muttered Tascori. “So this is our little friend the radio announcer we’ve been having so much fun with. Well, well, well. And we were going to bump him off just like that!”