Earmarked Gold Read online

  Earmarked Gold

  George L. Eaton

  Three dirty rats, of the tommy-gun wielding variety are desperate and hatch a scheme to get their hands on some bullion.

  They have also laid hands on Red Gleason to help with this end, and Bill and the others go after them.

  Earmarked Gold

  George L. Eaton

  A golden decoy turns against its master to right a vicious wrong.

  THE predaceous, lined faces of the two men who sat in that sumptuously furnished suite on the nineteenth floor of the Throckmorton Hotel, gazing out over San Francisco Bay, were not happy ones. Rather, their state of mind added to their naturally pernicious expressions.

  It is doubtful that, even had they tried, they could have looked happy. Their faces were not built for it. That agency of Providence who designs the contours and lines of the human race must not be without a sense of humor, for in some beings he places a heart of gold and then forces them to wear the mask of an ogre to hide it from the world. On others, to complete the paradox, he bestows the soul of the devil and the face of a madonna.

  But he had not been laughing when he made the mold from which those two were cast. Their faces were evil and they were evil. He had given the world a break by stamping them with faces that advertised the black viciousness of which they were a whole. They had faces that one could long remember. That was one of the reasons those two were now hiding within the comparative security of a luxurious San Francisco hotel instead of frequenting the warmer night clubs along New York's Broadway for which they lived.

  The likenesses of “Ugly” Barillo and “Lippy” Freeman were posted in a conspicuous place in a thousand and one post offices throughout the country. The attorney general of the United States had invoked a seldom-used authority in posting them as fugitives when they jumped their bail after being sentenced to two years in jail in an anti-trust case. They were fugitives from justice under a half dozen other indictments involving industrial racketeering in New York City. The special prosecutor had charged that Barillo and Freeman enforced the demands of “Slip” Ogden, their “higher-up,” by every form of violence and intimidation known to racketeering. They were experts at their trade. They could hijack a truck, throw a bomb, slash tires, throw acid, burn factories and cut throats with the same aplomb the average man can butter a slice of toast.

  When a special prosecutor had been appointed in New York to clean up the city, they had joined the suave Slip Ogden in laughter.

  “Lemme bump this punk an' get it over with,” Lippy Freeman had said to Slip Ogden.

  “Let him alone!” Slip snapped. “He'll hang himself.”

  But after a few months they began to be apprehensive. This special prosecutor didn't work the way of all others. They planted spies and stool pigeons, but they couldn't get any information. After a while they began to notice that the little men at the bottom of their rackets were being picked up and taken to the special prosecutor's “singing school.” They sang their story to the prosecutor and were then held as witnesses and given protection from the revenge of Slip Ogden's strong-arm men. Then the next men up the ladder were picked up to sing their song to the prosecutor's men.

  Finally they swooped down on Slip Ogden and thirty of the higher-ups who ran his rackets. The special prosecutor got indictments, but Slip, Ugly and Lippy were still laughing—only Ugly wasn't laughing so loudly now.

  “Maybe this punk is goin' to get us,” he said to Lippy

  “Lissen!” Lippy said. “Slip is short for slippery. He's the slickest mouthpiece that ever chipped ice under a prosecutor's dogs. He'll put this punk on the skids with a one-way ride.”

  The next day Slip Ogden said to his two head men, “Boys, we're going west to get out of this damp, winter climate.”

  “We're goin' to jump our bail?” Ugly asked, his eyes wide.

  “Unless you want to go to Dannemora,” Slip said, evenly. “This boy has us tagged. We'll get out and stay out until he's out of office and we can adjust things. There will be an election in the fall and then this—this” —he tried to find expletives that would best fit the special prosecutor—“this punk will be out and we can slip back.”

  “Slip back with Slip Ogden,” Lippy Freeman cracked and got a vicious glance.

  By the means of wearing tortoise-shell glasses and growing hair on their faces, they managed to get by without detection. They had plenty of money and lived in an atmosphere of luxury that was disarming. They pretended to be importers and exporters of various and sundry articles to and from the Orient.

  Slip Ogden carried the pretense off very well because outwardly, he was a gentleman. He dressed well and forced Ugly and Lippy to dress quietly. He spoke excellent English and was soft-spoken and well-mannered. No one would have suspected that he was one of the most merciless gangsters in the world. He made his two head men keep themselves under cover most of the time.

  But now their whole world had exploded in their faces. The special prosecutor who had convicted them had not disappeared with the fall elections—instead, he had been elected district attorney. They had learned that the few murderous mobs who were still operating in New York were already breaking up and slipping out of the city.

  “That's going to make it easier for us,” Ugly said deep down in his throat.

  “Every copper in the country is going to be watching for 'em so they don't get their hooks into their city.”

  “Slip'll figure a way out for us,” Lippy said, gulping the drink he held in his hand. “He'll have a racket up his sleeve. He's as bright as this new D. A. He ain't never let us down yet.”

  “Once'll be enough,” Ugly grunted. “He ain't never had the G-men after him before.”

  “They're a bunch of——” Lippy stopped as three sharp raps, followed by a pause, sounded on the door—then two more, then one.

  “That'd be Slip,” Lippy said and went toward the door. But before he opened it he slid his right hand down inside the front of his double-breasted jacket and wrapped his fingers around the butt of the automatic that nestled there.

  Slip Ogden's eyes searched the faces of Ugly and Lippy briefly-but sharply-as he stepped into the room His hard, blue eyes contracted for an instant then expanded. They were set in a face that was hard, cunning and merciless. The waxed, black mustache he affected gave a flair to his well-formed, sleek head. He was groomed to an almost painful neatness, wearing his clothes draped over his lean, hard frame with perfect ease.

  What his antecedents were no one knew, but he had the appearance of being born an aristocrat. He nodded to Lippy and Ugly as he might have acknowledged the presence of two menials in the room.

  Lippy and Ugly were tough and hard and cruel—the worst products of the underworld. But they knew that Slip Ogden, in his own way, was tougher. They looked up to him as a small boy looks up to his hero. They were afraid of him. They had seen the cold, ruthless efficiency with which he performed his tasks and they knew they had reason to be afraid.

  They exchanged glances as Slip crossed the room and laid his light fedora and gloves on a desk. They waited for him to speak. They never committed themselves until they knew what kind of humor he was in.

  Slip Ogden poured himself a drink with meticulous care, sipped it and put the glass down to light a cigarette. Then he sat down and took a black, gold-edged wallet from an inside pocket. He laid it on his knee.

  “Boys,” he said, “I came across a little item a few days ago that interested me. It interested me because it is a certainty that we must get out of the country. To do that we must have enough money to keep us going from now on. We've got to have a lot of money. I think I've found the way to get it.”

  He picked up the wallet, took a folded newspaper clipping from it an
d scanned it with his eyes.”

  “This clipping interested me,” he went on, “and I made some inquiries. I think we're going to do some business. We'll have to take some other men in with us, but there will be enough for all of us. It will be dangerous.”

  “What is it, Slip?” Lippy asked. He couldn't keep still any longer.

  “Wait a minute,” Ogden snapped. He wanted to build up his story in his own way. “I don't think I ever told you boys that I once did quite a bit of flying.”

  They both looked at him with their piglike eyes open wide.

  “What's that got to do with it?” Ugly asked.

  “I had quite a record as a pursuit pilot during the War,” Slip said.

  Suddenly, some of the hardness and cruelty faded from his face. By studying him closely, one 'could see behind H the mask he wore. One could see youth and courage and .1 clean perfection. Then it vanished and one could see I only the empty shell of what he once had been.

  He became Slip Ogden, racketeer, again. He unfolded the newspaper clipping and handed it to Lippy.

  “I assume you can read well enough to manage it,” he said.

  The faces of Lippy and Ugly were contorted into tortured frowns as they studied the clipping—both reading with their lips moving. The item was under a New York date line and read:

  The Federal Reserve Bank of New York yesterday received word that a shipment of $6,600,000 in gold was on the way here from Japan. This will be the fourth consignment of about this amount to be reported since last Saturday. It will bring the total of gold sent here by Japan since the middle of last March to $197,400,000.

  When the gold movement from Japan began last spring, it was customary for the Japanese authorities to announce engagements of the metal as soon as, or even before, shipment from Japan was made. In the most recent series of shipments, however, the practice has been followed of notifying the Reserve Bank here of the consignment of the metal only a few days before the ship carrying it was due to dock at San Francisco. This delay in reporting is due, it is thought in financial circles, to a desire to keep the shipments secret until vessels carrying them have left the zone of hostilities in the Far East.

  The foreheads of the two gangsters were still wrinkled as they looked up from their laborious reading. Their eyes were frankly puzzled.

  “One of those little shipments,” Slip said, softly, “is earmarked for us.”

  “They're sendin' it to us?” Ugly asked, trying hard to get the thing through his dense head.

  “If we go an' take it, eh, boss?” Lippy said.

  Slip nodded.

  “Piracy!” Ugly said and rubbed his throat. “They'll sun-cure us on the end of a rope.”

  “They didn't sun-cure Sir Henry Morgan,” Ogden said.

  “Is he a pirate?” Ugly asked.

  “Not any more,” Ogden said with that upward quirk of his mouth that was half a laugh and half a sneer. “He has been dead about two hundred and fifty years. He captured a number of Spanish cities and lots of Spanish gold along the Spanish Main in his day. They took him back to England for trial, but instead of sun-curing him— as you so quaintly put it—Charles II knighted him and made him lieutenant-governor of Jamaica.”

  “Ha, ha!” Lippy Freeman said.

  Slip was looking at Ugly and Ugly, seeing the look in his eyes, began to tremble. He had seen Slip look at men like that before. He had never seen the men again— unless he had been the man Slip had designated to wipe them out.

  II—MISTAKEN IDENTITY

  MR. I. KINTER HASSFURTHER, better known .to the flying profession as “Shorty,” threw the switch on his radio panel as a tiny light gleamed scarlet, and spoke into his microphone.

  “Shorty acknowledging, Tony. Go ahead—go ahead,” he said to Tony Lamport, superintendent of communications on Barnes Field, Long Island.

  “Where are you, Shorty?” Tony asked. “Bill wants to know.”

  “Just at the moment,” Shorty said, looking down under his wing tip, “I can see the cadet corps at West Point marching out on the field for their afternoon drill. I'm thinking about going down to join them. I always did want to be a soldier. You know—'There's something about a soldier, something about a soldier that is grand, grand, grand,' ” he began to sing.

  “Shut up!” Tony snapped at him. “Bill told me to tell you to whip up your horses. He's worried about Red.”

  “What's the matter with Red?” Shorty asked quickly. All the banter was gone from his voice.

  “Bill will tell you when you get in,” Tony said. “Hurry up!”

  “I'm practically there,” Shorty said and he pushed open the throttle of his supercharged, twin Diesels and laid the nose on Barnes Field.

  A few minutes later he cut his gun, fishtailed down to reduce his speed and rolled his Snorter up on the apron.

  Young “Sandy” Sanders, the kid ace of Bill Barnes' famous little squadron of fliers, was standing on the steps of the administration building, waving his arm at him as he climbed out of the cockpit of the big amphibian and started across the concrete.

  “Hurry up, flatfeet!” Sandy shouted. “Bill wants to see you.”

  “All right, my diminutive little pal,” Shorty said. The grin was gone from his lips and the twinkle from his blue eyes as he opened the door of Bill's office. He knew that

  Bill didn't cry “Wolf!” unless there was some reason.

  Bill pushed a hand through his tousled, blond hair.

  His bronzed face took on an expression of relief as he

  saw his right arm and chief of staff come through the doorway.

  “Hello,” he said. “Any luck in Toronto?” The words rushed out like the opening of a safety valve on a steam engine.

  “I'll tell you about that later,” Shorty said. “What's this about Red? Where is lie?”

  “I wish I knew!” Bill snapped. “The last we heard from him was three days ago from Nome.”

  “Nome!” Shorty said. “What's he doing in Alaska? The last———”

  “I forgot,” Bill said, “you left here before he did. The afternoon you hopped up to Toronto, fourteen thousand dollars' worth of automobile drove on the field. That's when the trouble started. I was thinking that you left here after he did.”

  “What about the fourteen thousand dollars' worth of automobile?” Shorty asked. “What was in it?”

  “What is usually in an automobile that starts trouble?” Bill asked, bitterly. “A woman, of course.”

  “All right,” Shorty said impatiently. “Let's have it.” He and “Red" Gleason had started flying Spads and Nieuports and S. E. 5s over the French lines when they were kids and combat work was in its infancy. They were closer than brothers.

  “You remember young Dick Reynolds, the electric washing machine heir?” Bill asked him.

  “Pockets full of doubloons and head empty,” Shorty said. “I remember him. The Douglas people built him an air yacht and he started for Russia with some of his drunken pals to get some caviar. They disappeared over the Bering Sea last summer. Right?”

  “Check,” Bill said. “It was his sister who came around in the fourteen thousand dollars' worth of gilt and brocade. She wanted me to go find him.”

  “Just like that,” Shorty said.

  “Just like that,” Bill repeated. “She wanted me to take the whole outfit and the BT-4, loaded with supplies to look for him. She had a signed check in her hand and told me to fill it in for any amount I wanted to name.”

  “Yeah,” Shorty said. “What happened after you refused?”

  “How did you know that?” Bill snapped.

  “I guessed,” Shorty said dryly. “You never did like mugs who waved dough in your face. She put on the 'grand-dame' act and you said, 'phooey!'“

  “Right again,” Bill said. “But I told her one of my men would go up to investigate if one of them wanted to. I told her I would leave the decision with them “

  “And Red volunteered,” Shorty said. “She must have had wha
t it takes. Red likes the gals like he likes arsenic. She must have been a beauty!”

  “She was,” Bill said. “Tall and statuesque, I think you'd call her, with limpid brown eyes.”

  “Come on, Bill, what happened?”

  “Red said he would go,” Bill answered. “He hopped the next morning, following the regular air routes to Vancouver, Ketchikan, Skagway and Nome. We heard from him last after lie had left Nome. He was on his way down to Unalaska, a town on the island by the same name in the Aleutian Islands. The place is an outfitting station for ships passing from the Pacific to the Arctic.”

  “Then what?”

  “He checked in with Tony when he was off the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. That was three days ago. Since then we've heard nothing. We sent out alarms to the fields at Nome and Flat, but we've had no word from him. He's disappeared completely.”

  “If he was forced down,” Shorty said, slowly, “he could still have made contact by radio and given his position.”

  “But he hasn't,” Bill said. He got up and paced the length of his office and back again. “I'm worried as hell,

  Shorty! Remember, we lost Mort Henderson and Cy Hawkins within the last year. I'm slowing up, I guess.

  I can't take these things any more. I—I feel that it's my fault. I shouldn't have let him go. It's too early in the year. Any one of a hundred things might have happened to his ship.”

  “He's way below the Arctic Circle. Have you been in touch with young Reynolds' sister since Red disappeared?”

  “No. What could she do about it? If she couldn't keep her half-witted brother from trying to fly to Russia for caviar, what could she do about this?”

  “I don't know,” Shorty said. “Probably nothing. But it's funny we had no radio message from Red. If he knew he was going to crack up, he would have made contact at the last moment to let us know. Did you check up on the Reynolds girl in any way?”

  “No. I couldn't see any necessity for it. She left a signed, blank check here to be filled in when we decided what the fee would be. The check had her name and coat of arms embossed on it.”