Chapter VI: Down and Out

Patsy Garvan, while Chick was engaged as described, was working out another string of the bow by which Nick Carter was hoping not only to save the Waldmere plate from the melting pot, but also to round up the crooks who had stolen it.

Patsy’s first move was to perfect a disguise that would have caused his own wife not only to turn him down, but even to have fired him out of the house, if he had dared venture into it.

No more tough and sinister-looking a chap ever stood in leather, than was Patsy Garvan when he appeared in a lower section of the Bowery about four o’clock that afternoon.

Patsy was not looking for Bug Bannon at that time. Though he knew the notorious young gangster by sight, and many of the haunts in which he might possibly be found, Patsy was bent upon working out a scheme of his own by which to accomplish his chief’s object.

The nature of it appeared soon after he entered an inferior saloon in one of the side streets, a haunt of the disreputable, and where he finally found the person he had been seeking.

This was an infamous character by the name of John Flynn, though he was much better known to his select circle of friends, and to the police, as Pilot Flynn. He had obtained this sobriquet from the fact that his chief vocation, if not his only one, was that of a steerer for stuss games and other gambling joints, or, in other words, a pilot for such strangers as could be artfully lured to their own undoing.

Patsy had had a case against this fellow a month before, one that would have sent him to Sing Sing. He had not pressed it, nor even arrested him, however, because of the fact that Flynn associated at times with two other crooks much wanted by Patsy and the police, and through whom he hoped to discover them.

It was about half past four when Patsy entered the saloon mentioned, and he discovered Flynn eating free lunch from a table in the rear of the long room. There were many others in the dive, and the entrance of Patsy was hardly noticed. He threaded his way through the smoke-filled place and brought up at Flynn’s elbow.

“How are you, Pilot?” he said quietly.

Flynn swung round and viewed him sharply through a pair of sinister, beady black eyes.

“What’s eating you?” he snarled under his breath, suspiciously.

“Don’t know me, eh?” queried Patsy.

“Not so you’d notice it.”

“Well, don’t show any surprise when I tell you,” cautioned Patsy. “I’ve been looking for you. I’m--whisper! Patsy Garvan.”

Flynn’s hangdog face lost some of its color. He drew back, muttering an oath, then quickly added:

“Looking for me? You’re not----”

“No, I’m not going to take you in,” put in Patsy. “Nothing of that kind.”

“What d’ye want, then?” Flynn asked, with a look of relief.

“I want you to do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Come into the back room and I’ll order some booze,” said Patsy. “There’s no one in there. I’ll tell you while we fire a ball or two.”

This proposition suited Flynn to the letter, particularly since learning that he was not to be arrested, but rather was in a fair way to acquire further consideration on the part of the detective.

“I’m with you,” he nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”

Patsy led the way into a dingy rear room and rang for one of the bartenders. He appeared in a moment and took the order, presently returning with the drinks. Patsy paid him, and then closed the door, drawing a chair to the bare table, at which Flynn had seated himself.

“Now, Pilot, we’ll get down to business,” he said quietly, with an assurance the other did not quite fancy. “When did you last see Bug Bannon?”

“I dunno,” said Flynn, crafty-eyed. “It must be a week, sure, since I had me lamps on him.”

“You’re pretty good friends, aren’t you?”

“For all I know.”

“You know you are,” said Patsy, a bit sharply. “Come across with straight goods, now, or you’ll get all that’s coming to you. Are you on?”

“Sure.”

“One word from me will send you up the river.”

“I know that, Garvan,” Flynn grimly admitted. “What is it you want?”

“I want to find Bug Bannon between now and dark. Do you know where to look for him?”

“I might find him for you. What’s up?”

“I’m after a bunch that pulled off a robbery this morning.”

“How does Bannon fit in?”

“He’s in touch with them, and I want to nail them through him.”

“Rats! He wouldn’t tell you,” said Flynn. “He’s no snitch. He wouldn’t squeal if he was in the chair.”

“That may be true, perhaps, but with your help I can get the information I want, and very probably the crooks I am after,” said Patsy. “In other words, Pilot, I want you to put me in right with Bannon.”

“What’s that ‘in-right’ gag?” questioned Flynn distrustfully. “What d’ye mean by that?”

Patsy made no bones over explaining.

“I want you to go with me and find Bannon,” he said curtly. “When we have found him, you must introduce me to him as a particular pal of yours, Sandy Glynn by name, and tell him that you knew me in Chicago. Tell him that you owe me a special service, in return for something done for you, and----”

“Say! D’ye think I----”

“Never mind what I think, Pilot,” Patsy interrupted. “You’re going to do what I direct, and do it right up to snuff, or it’s you for the stone house with the barred windows. Do you get me?”

“Sure I get you,” growled Flynn, scowling darkly. “What more d’ye want?”

“You must tell Bannon that I am wanted by the Chicago police, that detectives are here after me for a burglary, and that you want him to find a safe concealment for me, where I can lie low till the dicks have gone. You must ask it as a special favor, making it plain that he is the only one to whom you can turn to help you out. Hand it to him good and strong, Pilot, for your liberty depends upon your making good. That’s what I want of you--and all I want. I’ll do the rest.”

Flynn’s face wore a look as black as midnight. He sat silent for a moment, scowling daggers at the detective, and then he snarled bitterly between his teeth:

“Say! I’ll not do this.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” Patsy quietly insisted.

“You’re making a snitch of me, a dirty cur, a traitor to----”

“Enough of that, Pilot,” Patsy interrupted. “You’re going to do it, and do it up right--or you’re going with me! You know what that means.”

“But Bug Bannon will knife me for it.”

“No, he won’t. When I get through with him, he’ll be where he cannot do any knifing.”

“But----”

“Besides,” Patsy again cut in, “he need never know but what you thought you were acting on the level.”

“How can that be?”

“You can claim that you did know a crook named Sandy Glynn, and with whom you were friendly in Chicago. You can insist that I was made up as a marker for him, and that you did not dream that I was a detective. You can get by all right with that story, even if you and Bannon do come together again. He would swallow it, hands down, coming from you.”

“That’s the worst of it, blast you!” Flynn snarled fiercely. “That’s why I can’t do it.”

“You’ve got to do it, Pilot. You’ll do it, or do time.”

“That goes, does it?” questioned Flynn, hesitating.

“You bet it goes!”

“Suppose I make good, all right. Will you promise never to give me away?”

“Certainly.”

“On the dead?”

“You know me,” said Patsy. “My word is as good as a government bond.”

“Mebbe ’tis, but I wish you were at the bottom of the East River,” Flynn growled harshly. “But I’ll do it, hang you! I’ll do it to save my own skin.”

“With no monkey business, mind you,” cautioned Patsy. “That will be all your life is worth.”

“I’ll hand it to him right.”

“Do you know where to find him?”

“I can round him up between now and dark. That’s what you said.”

“Come on, then,” said Patsy, rising. “Let’s lose no time about it.”

Despite Flynn’s assurance, however, nearly three hours were spent in a vain search before he finally found the gangster.

Eight o’clock that evening saw all three seated around a small table in a saloon in Second Avenue, on which several rounds of drinks already had been served.

Flynn had told his story and had put it fully as strong as Patsy Garvan had directed.

It appeared to have made a favorable impression upon Bannon, as also had the disguised detective, who had played his part to the letter.

“I know a place, all right, and a gang you’d fit in well with,” Bannon finally said, in response to a suggestion from Patsy that he ought to get under cover without delay. “There’s a guy among ’em you’d like to meet. He’s the big finger of the bunch.”

Patsy felt sure that he referred to Stuart Floyd.

“That will suit me, Bug, and then some,” he assured the grinning rascal. “You will always find me ready to hold my end up.”

“That sounds good to me, Glynn, and the Pilot’s not likely to put me in wrong in any way.”

“I’ll be off, then, if you two ginks are going,” said Flynn, when Bannon appeared willing to depart and take Patsy along with him. “I’ll see you again to-morrow.”

“Out the front way, Pilot,” Bannon replied, glancing toward the swinging doors. “It’s the back way and the alley for us.”

“So long, then!”

Flynn arose with the last and hurried out of the place. He was glad to get away. Though himself a crook and a steerer, the despicable part that he had played was far from his liking.

“We’ll be off, too, Sandy, if you’re ready,” Bannon then said quietly.

“The sooner the better,” Patsy nodded.

“Half a minute while I make sure the coast is clear.”

Patsy waited, well pleased with the result of his subterfuge, and the outlook that now appeared to insure his complete success. He was not deterred for a moment by the thought that he was carrying his life in his hand.

Bannon sauntered into a back room, evidently being perfectly familiar with the place and its surroundings. He returned to the door a moment later and beckoned Patsy to follow him.

“I’ve got him down pat, all right,” flashed through Patsy’s mind while he complied. “He don’t so much as even scent a rat in the meal. If I can only get next to Floyd and the rest of the gang--well, I can see their finish.”

Bannon conducted him out of a back door and around two old buildings in the rear, which brought them into one of the crosstown streets. He then headed for another section of the East Side--that to which Chick Carter shadowed Vera Vantoon only a short time later.

All the while Patsy kept up a quiet stream of talk, describing the supposed burglary for which he was wanted, and in a way to further impress Bannon, but never an inquisitive word to awaken a feeling of distrust.

Nevertheless, the unexpected happened, in so far as Patsy was concerned.

Ten minutes brought them to the street in which Chick lost sight of his quarry.

“Keep your trap closed, now,” cautioned Bannon, as they were nearing the alley previously mentioned. “I’ve got to give a signal in half a minute.”

“I’m dumb,” nodded Patsy, detecting no sign of treachery in the other’s eyes.

Bannon halted upon arriving at the entrance to the alley. He glanced up and down the street, noting that it was deserted, and then he said softly:

“Wait here and watch out in that direction. We’ll sneak through the alley in half a minute and----”

Patsy heard no more.

Involuntarily, as it were, he had turned his head to look in the direction indicated by his companion.

Bannon’s hand then leaped from his side pocket. It was gripping the barrel of a revolver. It rose and fell like a flash, the butt of the weapon landing with a sickening thud squarely on Patsy’s head.

He went down and out and into dreamland as quickly and completely as if felled with an ax.