Alleys of Darkness, Robert E. Howard [ebook offline reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Robert E. Howard
- Performer: -
Book online «Alleys of Darkness, Robert E. Howard [ebook offline reader TXT] 📗». Author Robert E. Howard
what have you.
A native employee stopped me at the door, and asked me what was my
business, and I told him I wanted to see Ace. He showed me into the
room which opened on the alley, and went after Bissett—which could
not of suited my plan better.
Purty soon a door opened, and Bissett strode in—a tall, broad-shouldered young fellow, with steely eyes and wavy blond hair. He was
in a dress suit, and altogether looked like he’d stepped right outa
the social register. And as I looked at him, so calm and self-assured,
and thought of poor Whithers being driv to crime by him, and the Old
Man losing his ship on account of his crookedness, I seen red.
“Well, Dorgan, what can I do for you?” he asked.
I said nothing. I stepped in and hooked my right to his jaw. It
caught him flat-footed, with his hands down. He hit the floor full
length, and he didn’t twitch.
I bent over him, run my hands through his clothes, found his six-shooter and throwed it aside. Music and the sounds of revelry reached
me through the walls, but evidently nobody had seen or heard me slug
Bissett. I lifted him and histed him onto my shoulders—no easy job,
because he was as big as me, and limp as a rag.
But I done it, and started for the alley. I got through the door
all right, which I was forced to leave open, account of having both
hands full, and just as I was dumping Ace into the back part of the
car, I heered a scream. Wheeling, I seen a girl had just come into the
room I’d left, and was standing frozen, staring wildly at me. The
light from the open door shone full on me and my captive. The girl was
Glory O’Dale, Ace Bissett’s sweetheart. I hurriedly slammed the car
door shut and jumped to the wheel, and as I roared off down the alley,
I was vaguely aware that Glory had rushed out of the building after
me, screaming blue murder.
IT WAS PURTY late, and the route I took they wasn’t many people
abroad. Behind me I begun to hear Bissett stir and groan, and I pushed
Spike over in the back seat to watch him. But he hadn’t fully come to
when I drawed up in the shadows beside the place Whithers had told me
about—a ramshackle old building down by a old rotting, deserted
wharf. Nobody seemed to live anywheres close around, or if they did,
they was outa sight. As I clum outa the car, a door opened a crack,
and I seen Whithers’ white face staring at me.
“Did you get him, Sailor?” he whispered.
For answer I jerked open the back door, and Bissett tumbled out on
his ear and laid there groaning dimly. Whithers started back with a
cry.
“Is he dead?” he asked fearfully.
“Would he holler like that if he was?” I asked impatiently. “Help
me carry him in, and we’ll search him.”
“Wait’ll I tie him up,” said Whithers, producing some cords, and
to my disgust, he bound the unconscious critter hand and foot.
“It’s safer this way,” Whithers said. “He’s a devil, and we can’t
afford to take chances.”
We then picked him up and carried him through the door, into a
very dimly lighted room, across that ‘un, and into another’n which was
better lit—the winders being covered so the light couldn’t be seen
from the outside. And I got the surprise of my life. They was five men
in that room. I wheeled on Whithers. “What’s the idee?” I demanded.
“Now, now, Sailor,” said Whithers, arranging Bissett on the bench
where we’d laid him. “These are just friends of mine. They know about
Bissett and my sister.”
I heered what sounded like a snicker, and I turned to glare at the
assembled “friends”. My gaze centered on a fat, flashy-dressed bird
smoking a big black cigar; diamonds shone all over his fingers, and in
his stick-pin. The others was just muggs.
“A fine lot of friends you pick out!” I said irritably to
Whithers. “Diamond Joe Galt is been mixed up in every shady deal
that’s been pulled in the past three years. And if you’d raked the
Seven Seas you couldn’t found four dirtier thugs than Limey Teak, Bill
Reynolds, Dutch Steinmann, and Red Partland.”
“Hey, you—” Red Partland riz, clenching his fists, but Galt
grabbed his arm.
“Stop it, Red,” he advised. “Easy does it. Sailor,” he addressed
me with a broad smile which I liked less’n I’d liked a scowl, “they’s
no use in abuse. We’re here to help our pal Whithers get justice.
That’s all. You’ve done your part. You can go now, with our thanks.”
“Not so fast,” I growled, and just then Whithers hollered:
“Bissett’s come to!”
We all turned around and seen that Bissett’s eyes was open, and
blazing.
“Well, you dirty rats,” he greeted us all and sundry, “you’ve got
me at last, have you?” He fixed his gaze on me, and said: “Dorgan, I
thought you were a man. If I’d had any idea you were mixed up in this
racket, you’d have never got a chance to slug me as you did.”
“Aw, shut up,” I snarled. “A fine nerve you’ve got, talkin’ about
men, after what you’ve did!”
Galt pushed past me and stood looking down at Bissett, and I seen
his fat hands clenched, and the veins swell in his temples.
“Bissett,” he said, “we’ve got you cold and you know it. Kick in—
where’s that paper?”
“You cursed fools!” Bissett raved, struggling at his cords till
the veins stood out on his temples too. “I tell you, the paper’s
worthless.”
“Then why do you object to givin’ it to us?” demanded Whithers.
“Because I haven’t got it!” raged Bissett. “I destroyed it, just
as I’ve told you before.”
“He’s lyin’,” snarled Red Partland. “He wouldn’t never destroy
such a thing as that. It means millions. Here, I’ll make him talk—”
He shouldered forward and grabbed Bissett by the throat. I grabbed
Red in turn, and tore him away.
“Belay!” I gritted. “He’s a rat, but just the same I ain’t goin’
to stand by and watch no helpless man be tortured.”
“Why, you—” Red bellered, and swung for my jaw.
I ducked and sunk my left to the wrist in his belly and he dropped
like his legs had been cut out from under him. The others started
forward, rumbling, and I wheeled towards ‘em, seething with fight. But
Galt got between us and shoved his gorillas back.
“Here,” he snapped. “No fightin’ amongst ourselves! Get up, Red.
Now, Sailor,” he begun to pat my sleeves in his soothing way, which I
always despises beyond words, “there ain’t no need for hard feelin’s.
I know just how you feel. But we got to have that paper. You know
that, Sailor—”
Suddenly a faint sound made itself evident. “What’s that?” gasped
Limey, going pale.
“It’s Spike,” I said. “I left him in the car, and he’s got tired
of settin’ out there, and is scratchin’ at the front door. I’m goin’
to go get him, but I’ll be right back, and if anybody lays a hand on
Bissett whilst I’m gone, I’ll bust him into pieces. We’ll get that
paper, but they ain’t goin’ to be no torturin’.”
I strode out, scornful of the black looks cast my way. As I shut
the door behind me, a clamor of conversation bust out, so many talking
at wunst I couldn’t understand much, but every now and then Ace
Bissett’s voice riz above the din in accents of anger and not pain, so
I knowed they wasn’t doing nothing to him. I crossed the dim outer
room, opened the door and let Spike in, and then, forgetting to bolt
it—I ain’t used to secrecy and such—I started back for the inner
room.
BEFORE I REACHED the other door, I heered a quick patter of feet
outside. I wheeled—the outer door bust violently open, and into the
room rushed Glory O’Dale. She was panting hard, her dress was tore,
her black locks damp, and her dark eyes was wet and bright as black
jewels after a rain. And she had Ace’s six-shooter in her hand.
“You filthy dog!” she cried, throwing down on me.
I looked right into the muzzle of that .45 as she jerked the
trigger. The hammer snapped on a faulty cartridge, and before she
could try again, Spike launched hisself from the floor at her. I’d
taught him never to bite a woman. He didn’t bite Glory. He throwed
hisself bodily against her so hard he knocked her down and the gun
flew outa her hand.
I picked it up and stuck it into my hip pocket. Then I started to
help her up, but she hit my hand aside and jumped up, tears of fury
running down her cheeks. Golly, she was a beauty!
“You beast!” she raged. “What have you done with Ace? I’ll kill
you if you’ve harmed him! Is he in that room?”
“Yeah, and he ain’t harmed,” I said, “but he oughta be hung—”
She screamed like a siren. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you touch a hair
of his head! Oh, Ace!”
She then slapped my face, jerked out a handful of hair, and kicked
both my shins.
“What I can’t understand is,” I said, escaping her clutches, “is
why a fine girl like you ties up with a low-down rat like Bissett.
With your looks, Glory—”
“To the devil with my looks!” she wept, stamping on the door. “Let
me past; I know Ace is in that room—I heard his voice as I came in.”
They wasn’t no noise in the inner room now. Evidently all of them
was listening to what was going on out here, Ace included.
“You can’t go in there,” I said. “We got to search Ace for the
incriminatin’ evidence he’s holdin’ against Jed Whithers’ sister—”
“You’re mad as a March hare,” she said. “Let me by!”
And without no warning she back-heeled me and pushed me with both
hands. It was so unexpected I ignominiously crashed to the floor, and
she darted past me and throwed open the inner door. Spike drove for
her, and this time he was red-eyed, but I grabbed him as he went by.
Glory halted an instant on the threshold with a cry of mingled
triumph, fear and rage. I riz, cussing beneath my breath and dusting
off my britches. Glory ran across the room, eluding the grasping paws
of Joe Galt, and throwed herself with passionate abandon on the
prostrate form of Ace Bissett. I noticed that Ace, which hadn’t till
then showed the slightest sign of fear, was suddenly pale and his jaw
was grim set.
“It was madness for you to come, Glory,” he muttered.
“I saw Dorgan throw you into the car,” she whimpered, throwing her
arms around him, and tugging vainly at his cords. “I jumped in another
and followed—blew out a tire a short distance from here—lost sight
of the car I was following and wandered around in the dark alleys on
foot for awhile, till I saw the car standing outside. I came on in—”
“Alone? My God!” groaned Ace.
“Alone?” echoed Galt, with a sigh of relief. He flicked some dust
from his lapel, stuck his cigar back in his mouth at a cocky angle,
and said: “Well, now, we’ll have a little talk. Come here, Glory.”
Comments (0)