Secret Agent X : The Complete Series Volume 3 Page 7

  It was twenty minutes before Binks came in. He shuffled through the doorway from the corridor, still with that nasty leer on his face. Out of one pocket of his voluminous coat he produced a thirty-eight automatic, which he handed to Gilly together with a half dozen extra clips of ammunition.

  “The Skull said to give you these.”

  Gilly took them, pocketed the clips, but fondled the automatic lovingly before putting it away. “X” could discern the killer’s lust in his eyes.

  “X” said to Binks, “How about me—don’t I get a gun, too?”

  Binks cackled harshly. “Not much, you don’t! The Skull never trusts a new man with a gun till he’s done at least one job. Gilly’ll do all the shootin’ you’ll need on this trip!”

  Chapter VII

  THE MING TONG

  FROM one of his other pockets Binks produced two burlap hoods. Gilly seemed to know what they were for, for he took one and slipped it over his head. There was a slip knot at the bottom around his neck, which Binks tightened and knotted. Then he motioned to “X” to do the same.

  “X” put the other hood on, felt Binks’ finger jerking the cord tight. He could see nothing. The hood was a perfect blindfold. He felt Binks’ fingers tying the knot, then heard Binks say:

  “Here, take hold of Gilly’s hand. I’ll lead Gilly. Don’t let go, ’cause if you ever get lost in these here passages you might easy get killed. The Skull’s put lots o’ traps around in here since last night.”

  Thus, hand in hand, they traversed an almost interminable series of passages, waiting while the halfwit manipulated sliding panels, opened hidden doors. The Secret Agent tried to memorize the many twists and turns they took, but after a while even his keen mind gave it up. The Skull had planned too well.

  Once they went up in an elevator, and “X” estimated that it must have been four flights before they stopped. Once more they proceeded, with the hoods still on their heads. Now “X” sensed that they were passing through a series of rooms. His sharply attuned senses told him that these must be empty rooms, probably in some deserted building. The musty odor that pervaded here registered through his olfactory nerves in spite of the burlap hood.

  They descended a creaking wooden staircase, crossed a bare wooden floor, and went down another set of stairs. Now they were in a cellar, “X” could tell. Once more they entered a series of passages. “X” judged that they must have come at least a half mile. He wondered at the thoroughness of the Skull in preparing this complicated means of egress, only to be further astonished when Binks drew back from up ahead.

  “This is exit number three. When you come back we’ll use another way.”

  “Number three!” he exclaimed. “How many are there?”

  Binks chuckled. “That’d be tellin’. All I can say is, they’s more’n six; that is, that I know of. Then maybe they’s a couple the Skull ain’t told me about.”

  At last they came to the end of the journey. They walked through a door that Binks held open for them, and “X” smelled fresh air. Binks said, “Now, let go hands. I’m gonna whirl you around.” He took hold of “X”, turned him around six or seven times, then said, “All right, you can take the hood off.”

  “X” fumbled with the string, got it off just as Binks was through doing the same for Gilly. Gilly took off his hood, blinked, and said, “Jeez! I never come out this way before!”

  They were in a narrow alley between two large apartment houses. Each house had a service entrance on the alley, and “X” saw why Binks had whirled them around. The idea was to prevent their telling from which house they had come.

  “All right, boys,” Binks told them. “Go ahead an’ do yore job. When yore through, you come to number 18 Slocum Street. That’s a apartment house. You go through to the rear, an’ you’ll find a door in the fence. I’ll be on the other side o’ that door.”

  “Okay,” said “X”. “I’ll remember the address—18 Slocum Street.”

  “What time’ll you boys be done?”

  “I don’t know. I have to go to Chinatown and get my tools first. What time is it now?”

  Gilly consulted a wrist watch. “Eleven.”

  “X” figured quickly. “I can’t see my Chinese friend till noon. It’ll take him about an hour to get the kit for me. Then the job itself shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. Make it three o’clock.”

  Binks nodded. “Three o’clock is right. The other boys with Nate Frisch’ll be back by one, an’ that’ll give me time to meet you. The Skull told me to tell you that the back door of that guy’s house that you’re goin’ to is gonna be left open. He arranged it.”

  “He sure does things thoroughly,” the Secret Agent remarked.

  “I’ll say he does,” Gilly chimed in.

  The two of them went out of the alley, leaving Binks behind. When “X” turned back at the mouth of the alley, the halfwit had already disappeared. There was no telling which of the two houses he had gone into. “X” gave up the idea of tricking Gilly, trussing him up and going back to trace his way into the Skull’s headquarters. The Skull had taken too many precautions for that. The only other course open was to perform the job he had been assigned, and try to get into the good graces of the master criminal, try to discover enough about him to break up the gang.

  THEY found themselves on a side street less than two blocks from the Bankers’ Club. As they walked past it, “X” looked into the broad windows, saw Jonathan Jewett, the dyspeptic old insurance president, talking to Laurens, the jeweler, in a pair of easy chairs overlooking the street. He played with the thought of how they would react if they suddenly learned that one of the two men slinking along outside was Elisha Pond, their fellow club member.

  Gilly said, “Where do we go from here, Fannon?”

  “Let’s get something to eat. We might as well, as long as we have the time.”

  Gilly laughed. “You got guts, Fannon. Here you are, wanted for murder, and here’s me, wanted for murder an’ plenty more, an’ you wanna go in a public restaurant an’ eat!”

  “X” shrugged. “What of it? We have to eat. Come on, I’ll show you how to get away with it.”

  He led the gunman a block west to where the subway job was under way. There were dozens of men at work here. Some of them were having their lunch in a coffee pot on the corner, and it was here that “X” led his companion.

  “This is one place nobody’ll look for us,” he told Gilly. “Anyway, we’ll take the chance.”

  Sitting next to a couple of laborers, they partook of a hearty lunch, and left.

  Gilly looked at “X” with new respect. “I like a guy with guts,” he said. “Just play square, an’ we’ll get along fine.”

  They took a cab down to Pell Street, and “X” wound his way through the tortuous streets, as if he had been born there.

  “Jeez,” Gilly wondered. “How come you remember these streets after being in the can for five years?”

  “I used to come down here pretty often,” the Agent told him. He stopped before a narrow, old brick building sandwiched in between a restaurant and a Chinese theatre. Unhesitatingly, he entered the dark hallway, started to climb the narrow, winding staircase. Gilly came close after him. “Say, Fannon,” he wheezed, “what’s this joint? What’d that sign say over the doorway?”

  “I don’t know,” the Agent told, him. He could have told him if he had wanted to. The sign read, “Ming Tong.”

  The Ming Tong was the most powerful tong in America, numbering members all over the country. This was its headquarters.

  At the head of the staircase, a tall, raw-boned Chinaman stood with his arms folded in front of him, hands in the voluminous sleeves of his jacket. He stood there impassively, blocking the stairs.

  “X” knew that he had an automatic in each of the hands that were hidden.

  He stopped when he was about three steps below the Chinaman, and Gilly brought up short behind him. Suddenly he felt Gilly’s gun poking into his back.

&n
bsp; “Look, Fannon,” the gunman muttered, “I don’t like this. If it’s a trap for me, I’m gonna hand it to you right in the liver!”

  “X” said irritably over his shoulder, “Don’t be a sap, Gilly. This guy is a guard for my friend. My friend is a big man in Chinatown.”

  Gilly muttered something, but ceased his protests. He still kept his gun out, however.

  “X” looked up at the big Chinaman and said, “Brother, I come in peace, seeking speech with Lo Mong Yung.” He said this in fluent Cantonese, the sing-song syllables falling from his lips naturally, as if it were his native tongue.

  The Chinaman started perceptibly at the sound of his native tongue spoken so fluently, stared down trying to discern the features of the caller in the uncertain light that filtered in from outside.

  Gilly exclaimed, “Jeez, Fannon, you sure can sling that lingo! Where—” He stopped as the Chinaman burst into speech, answering “X” in Cantonese.

  “O stranger, who comes here calling my brother, I know not your face. There is only one white man in the world who has earned the right to be called brother by the men of the Ming Tong, and you are not he. What is your business?”

  “X” said quietly, “Look not in my face, O Brother, search my heart and my speech. You say that there is only one white man who may be called your brother. I am that man!”

  The Chinaman was skeptical. “O stranger, your words are false. What business have you with Lo Mong Yung, the venerable father of our tong?”

  “X” was about to answer, when from an inner room further down on the floor, came the thin voice of an old man. His tone was low, just loud enough to be heard in the hall, but it carried a weight of authority that many a king might have envied. He said, “My old ears know that voice, Sung! Let him come!”

  The big Chinaman stepped aside with alacrity, said, “Pass, stranger.”

  He allowed “X” to pass, but put out an arm to bar the way for Gilly. The gunman snarled, raised his gun.

  “X” said quickly, “Let him come, Brother. He is a friend.”

  From within came the same thin voice of authority, “Let both pass, Sung!”

  The big Chinaman glowered at Gilly, called back in Cantonese, “This second one, master, waves a gun, and snarls like a wild animal of the forest.”

  “Let both pass, Sung, but come behind them.”

  Sung stood aside, still glowering. “X” went down the hall toward an open door. He stepped inside a brightly lighted room, with Gilly close behind him, and with Sung right in back of Gilly.

  Anyone who might have expected to find an orientally furnished room in these surroundings would have received a surprise. “X” knew this room, but Gilly, just behind him, whistled in amazement.

  They were now in a completely equipped office. A row of filing cases stood along one wall. Near the door a stenographer was working industriously at a noiseless typewriter. She was a young Chinese girl, and it spoke well for her training that she did not even look up as the visitors entered, but continued with her work.

  In the center of the room, at a large, glass-covered desk, sat a Chinaman who might have been ninety years old but for the keen restlessness of his eyes. His face was lined and creased with a thousand wrinkles, and the skin on the shrunken hands that rested on the glass top of the desk resembled yellow parchment. He said nothing, but watched the two visitors sharply.

  “X” said, still in the flowing Cantonese that he had used in the hall, “Greetings, Father of the Ming Tong, from a lowly son and brother of the Ming Men!”

  Lo Mong Yung remained silent for a long time, inspecting him critically, casting not a single glance at Gilly. Finally he said, “The voice I hear is one I know; yet the face of him who speaks is strange to me. I am an old man, and my eyes are prone to deceive me. But my ears are sharp, and recognize the voice of one who is a brother of the Ming Tong. You are—”

  “X” held up his hand. “Let no names be spoken here. Your ears have told you the truth. But this one who is with me knows me by the name of Fannon, and it is the face of Fannon which you behold.”

  The old man nodded. “I hear and I believe. Yet one thing more. Step close to me, brother of the Ming Tong, and whisper that word which is known only to the Ming Men. Thus shall I be sure that you are he whose voice I hear.”

  “X” came forward slowly, bent low, and whispered close to the old man’s ear. Lo Mong Yung’s eyes lighted, and he nodded his head in satisfaction. “You are a master artist, my son. If you can thus confuse your friends, surely you will succeed in confusing your enemies. Now speak your needs. The tong is yours to command, for it is long in your debt.”

  Gilly stirred restlessly. “Say,” he exclaimed suspiciously, “what the hell is all this chinky palaver about? Are you pullin’ anything? If you are—”

  “Take your time, Gilly,” the Secret Agent growled. “I’m trying to talk him in to lending me a kit.”

  “If he don’t want to, you tell me, an’ I’ll shoot the roof off this place. That’s the way to treat Chinks!”

  “It’s all right. He’s almost sold.” As “X” turned back to Lo Mong Yung, he noted a humorous light in the old man’s eyes.

  “My son,” he said, “I hear and understand what this one speaks of to you. It seems that he is an enemy. Do you want him removed? I have but to raise a hand to Sung, who is behind him, and the lowly vermin will no longer trouble your footsteps.”

  “NO, no,” the Agent said hastily. “It is important to me that he shall remain alive. He is but a minor tool of the fiend whom I must overcome. But there is something that I would ask of you.”

  “It is granted, my son.”

  “At the Belleville Apartments on Twenty-third Street, resides a young lady who is known by the name of—” he paused, then spelled out, slowly and laboriously in Cantonese, an English name. The name he spelled was—B-e-t-t-y D-a-l-e.

  “I would ask you, Father,” he continued, “to send there one of the tong brothers. Let him say to her that a certain friend of hers is sending for the bag of tools that is in the secret compartment of the closet in her bedroom. To prove to her that he is truly my messenger, let him tell her how that compartment is opened—by pressing upward on the shelf in the closet as one stands with his feet on the threshold. And then let him bring the bag of tools back here as quickly as he can, lest this one who is with me should become suspicious.”

  Lo Mong Yung nodded, raised his hand and spoke to the big Chinaman at the door. “You have heard, Sung. Go and tell one of the brothers to do this at once. Be sure to remember the name and address of the white lady on Twenty-third Street.”

  Sung bowed in a dignified manner, glowered at Gilly, and left the room.

  “Now, my son, while you are waiting, you will have refreshments. My niece, Anna, will attend to your wants.”

  As if it had been a command, the girl who had been typewriting stopped her work, and arose from the desk. “If you will please to step this way, honorable sirs,” she said in English, with a dainty hint of a lisp, “I shall be happy to serve you.”

  She led them into an alcove behind a screen at one end of the room. Here was a table beautifully inlaid, with richly lacquered chairs bearing upon their back, a coat-of-arms representing a dragon’s head holding a man in its teeth. This was the insignia of the Ming Tong.

  Gilly seated opposite “X,” saying surlily, “What’s the play now? What we waitin’ for?” His suspicions had been lulled to the extent that he had put his gun away, but he was not thoroughly at ease.

  The Secret Agent explained to him that it was necessary for his Chinese friend to send for the tools, as he did not keep them on the premises.

  “How long’ll it take?” Gilly demanded, munching one of the soft, buttery almond cakes that Anna had placed on the table.

  “About a half hour. We might as well make ourselves comfortable.” “X” lit a cigarette, drew a deep lungful and allowed the smoke to exhale slowly from his nostrils. Then he took a sip of tea
from a transparent, blue, paper-thin china cup that Anna had placed before him. He was at home here, among friends. Under the name they knew him by, he was a welcome guest in any of the tong’s headquarters throughout the country.

  Gilly allowed himself to be beguiled by the tea and cakes, and shortly he was in a better humor. After the tea, the Chinese girl served them tiny glasses of a thick amber liquid, sweet and strong and heady. Gilly’s eyes began to sparkle. “Boy!” he exclaimed. “This is the real McCoy. Talk about cordials! It’s got ’em all beat!”

  “X,” too, relished the flavor of the drink. It was a cordial distilled in small quantities in China, from macerated poppy-seeds, coriander, and a mixture of rare herbs and perfumes. Nothing like it was available in the Western world because of the limited quantities in which it was produced.

  As they were finishing a second glass of the cordial, “X” heard the door open. Lo Mong Yung’s voice called to him, “Come in, my son. Our messenger has returned.”

  He arose from the table, and went around the screen with Gilly. Sung was just placing a black bag on the desk.

  “X” asked in Cantonese, “Was the lady home, Sung?”

  THE big Chinaman shook his head. “No, O Brother. But there is something strange that I must tell you—the lady’s apartment was broken into and searched before I came!”

  “X” took a quick step forward, forgetful of the presence of Gilly, seized Sung by the sleeve. “Tell me what you found, quick.”

  “It was this way, O Brother. I rang the bell of the lady’s apartment, but no one answered. The door, however, was open to my touch, and when I entered the apartment I saw that trouble had been there. Every room was upset, seemed to have been thoroughly searched. Pictures were removed from the walls, the couch and chairs were ripped open, the rugs were torn up. There had been a struggle there, I could see, for the telephone lay on the floor where it had been thrown over. Some one must have carried off this lady who is a friend of yours.