AT THE GRAY MILL
MARMOSA, Harry Vincent, and Joe le Blanc, were having lunch in a corner of the balcony the following noon. Monk Thurman’s action of the day before was on the minds of all of them.
Marmosa and Le Blanc were familiar with the havoc wrought by Chicago gunmen, and were forced to admit that this newcomer from New York had shown more finesse than any one they knew.
“Where can he be found?” questioned Marmosa. “Did he tell you where he was staying?”
Le Blanc shook his head.
“He didn’t talk much,” he said. “I never met him before. Heeny brought him in.”
“Heeny’s dead,” Marmosa replied. “We can’t learn from him — but I want to know.”
“We might learn by tracing Heeny. Some one introduced him to Heeny. We’ll learn who it was.”
“That’s right. See what you can find out, Joe.”
“Well, I won’t have much time,” Joe said. “I’m going out to the Gray Mill this afternoon.”
“That’s the name of his new road house,” said Marmosa to Vincent. “You remember? The one I was telling you about, eh?”
Harry nodded.
“I’ve got to be out there by eight o’clock,” said Le Blanc. “I won’t be able to be here tonight, Marmosa.”
“That’s all right,” said me big man. “Vincent can do the work this trip. I’m not going to open until late, and I’m going to be careful for a few days.”
“Maybe Thurman will show up at the Gray Mill,” said Le Blanc thoughtfully. “I was telling him about the place last night.”
“I wouldn’t talk too much about it, Joe,” observed Marmosa.
“Yeah, you’re right there,” replied Le Blanc. “But Thurman is O.K. You ought to know that. He proved it by the way he helped you out.”
“Maybe so, Joe. But you didn’t know that when you were talking to him. That was before he brought out his gat.”
“Well, Heeny brought him in. Any one that came with Heeny was O.K.”
“All right. Let’s forget it. That reminds me that I need another gorilla to take Heeny’s place.”
“I’ll get you one this afternoon.”
BIG Frank Marmosa leaned back in his chair, and gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling. He was evidently pondering upon something, and neither Vincent nor Le Blanc interrupted his meditation.
Finally the restaurant owner spoke the words that were in his mind.
“I’ll tell you how it is, boys,” he said. “I talked with Mike Borrango last night. I’d rather have talked to him than to the big boy, Savoli.
“Borrango has a tough job — enforcing. They don’t all pay, like I do. He has to use a lot of pineapples.”
“Bombs,” explained Le Blanc, noticing the questioning expression on Vincent’s face. “If a place doesn’t come across with the dough, they toss pineapples in through the window. That’s the time to duck.”
“But pineapples don’t work like they used to,” said Marmosa. “Plenty of people are ready for them. What Borrango needs is a few more gorillas like Genara and Anelmo.”
“Yeah?” questioned Le Blanc. “They weren’t gorillas last night. They looked like a couple of monkeys. Running out the way they did, while Schultz and Spirak were still inside.”
“That’s just it,” said Marmosa. “While they were bums on the job, Monk Thurman stepped in and did their trick alone. That’s why Borrango is interested. He wants Monk Thurman to work for him.”
“So that’s why you want to see him?”
“You guessed it, Joe. I’m going to introduce him to Mike Borrango. He can use him.”
“Maybe Thurman don’t want to mix in things here.”
“He can’t get out of it now, Joe. There’s two fellows now that are itching to put him on the spot.”
“That’s right. I guess Schultz and Spirak will be out to get him.”
“I owe a lot to Monk Thurman,” admitted Marmosa. “If he’d bumped off those two birds right in the gambling joint, it would have given me a lot to explain to the police. It was bad enough to have them get Heeny out in the restaurant.”
“So you think the boys will be after Schultz and Spirak?” questioned Le Blanc. “Heeny’s friends, I mean?”
“No, I don’t. If they can find out who actually plugged Heeny, they’ll get that bird. But Borrango told me not to expect anything regarding Schultz and Spirak.
“A place like mine is supposed to be fair game for any one that can stick it up. Any one that bumps off Schultz or Spirak will be in wrong with Larrigan.
“Right now, Al Vacchi is trying to smooth things with Larrigan. There’s bad feeling between Larrigan and Varona, and the big boy doesn’t like it. So Schultz and Spirak are safe.
“But there’s nothing to stop them from putting Monk Thurman on the spot, if they can find him.”
“I get you now,” said Le Blanc. “You figure it will be for Thurman’s benefit if he gets in with the big shot.”
“Right!”
Joe le Blanc arose from the table.
“Well, I’ll see what I can do about it,” he said. “But I can’t promise anything until to-morrow.”
HE left the restaurant, while Marmosa was giving new instructions to Harry Vincent. Outside, Joe le Blanc crossed the street and walked leisurely to a garage, where he kept his car, a new coupe that was capable of great speed. He drove northward, beyond the city limits, and reached the Gray Mill.
The building was an old house that had been renovated. The work had just been completed; the furnishings were not yet entirely installed. Le Blanc drove his car into the garage, and went in through the back of the house.
He entered the front room of the road house, which was arranged for a dance floor. He crossed the spacious apartment and unlocked a door. Then he stepped into a fair-sized room which was furnished with a large table and several chairs.
The room had iron shutters. Le Blanc did not open them. He turned on a light, and sat in the corner.
“Monk Thurman,” he said musingly. “What did I tell that guy last night? I can’t seem to remember much what I was saying. I told him about this place. I remember that.”
As a matter of fact, Joe le Blanc had given Monk Thurman a great deal of information. Encouraged by a few drinks, he had done his best to impress the New York mobster with his importance.
Joe le Blanc was not an important figure in gangdom; in fact, his influence was almost nil. But the new road house in which he was now seated carried a real attraction to those who wanted a meeting place outside the city limits.
In fact, Joe le Blanc had been assured that his place would be a rendezvous for certain mobsters, and he was expecting to hold his first party that night.
“Must have told Monk Thurman more than just that,” said Le Blanc meditatively. “Guess I told him about some of the boys I knew. What they do, and how they do it. Well, I know a lot. I hope Monk was listening to everything I said.”
There was a knock at the door. Le Blanc opened the portal.
“Everything is in, Mr. le Blanc,” said a sour-looking, middle-aged man.
“Good work, Harper. Have you made all the arrangements for tonight?”
“Everything is ready, sir.”
“All right. Wake me up when the gang comes.”
LE BLANC sat in a large armchair and began to doze. Within a few minutes the sound of his snores could be heard throughout the room. In fact, they might have been audible through the slight crack beneath the iron shutters.
Darkness fell, and Joe le Blanc slept on. The iron shutters moved very slightly, and noiselessly. They opened a few inches, and a hand appeared through the window. It held a small instrument, and as the hand groped about, it discovered a radiator beside the window.
The hand deposited the instrument behind the radiator. A wire ran through the window, but the hand covered it by moving a few magazines that were on the window sill.
One of the magazines slipped as though by accident, and laid against the top of the radiator.
There was a light burning in the room, but all this was unseen by Joe le Blanc, because he was asleep. Then the shutters were pressed close together noiselessly.
Half an hour later, Joe le Blanc was awakened by a knock at the door. It was Harper, announcing that the expected guests had arrived; Le Blanc stretched himself, turned on another light, and went to the door.
A group of gangsters entered, and shook hands with Le Blanc. They gathered about the table, and Harper brought in food and dishes. While they ate, the middle-aged attendant supplied them with liquor.
It was an auspicious preliminary party to the opening of the Gray Mill, so far as Joe le Blanc was concerned.
During the next two hours, he considered himself to be a big shot, at last. For the mobsmen who had honored him with their presence were notorious members of Nick Savoli’s staff of gunmen, and they promised Le Blanc that they would make his road house a regular rendezvous.
The conversation drifted occasionally to affairs of gangdom, but for the most part it concerned horse racing, and other subjects of a sporting nature.
The only fault found with Le Blanc’s party was that it was a stag affair. One of the visiting gunmen insisted that it would have been improved by the presence of some girls.
“Come around after the place is opened,” said Le Blanc. “I’ll have plenty of molls here. Bring some along with you, if you want, but you’ll meet a lot of classy ones here at the Gray Mill.”
About ten o’clock, the gangsters began to leave. Most of them had some special reason for being back in Chicago before midnight. Hence the party dwindled away until only one man remained with Joe le Blanc.
This one man was dark-faced, and wore a black mustache. He had a smooth appearance, and one might have mistaken him for a professional gambler rather than a gunman.
No one apparently suspected that this man had been waiting for the others to leave; nevertheless that was his purpose in staying. For as soon as the crowd was gone, the one remaining man drew a chair to the side of the table, and looked questioningly at Joe le Blanc.