CHAPTER IV: DRAGNET
The following night the gangsters gave proof they had not forgotten the radio announcer of the police division. Dave Cates, his work finished, came through the street door, and stopped to light a cigarette. His lighter slipped through his fingers and dropped. As he bent to retrieve it, a fusillade of shots came rattling from a passing car. The bullets chipped the stone masonry above his head. Had he been standing he would have been riddled.
“Baby boy!” he gasped, drawing to shelter. “That was too darn close!”
People crowded around, staring at him with curious eyes, but he didn’t wait to be questioned. As quickly as possible, he got to headquarters.
Such news travels like lightning. Captain Henessey was raging.
“Damn their hides!” he roared. “I’ll teach ’em to take pot shots at the men of this station! So help me, I’ll put out a dragnet and bring in every crook in town. They’ll find out before I’m through with ’em just how healthy it is to get cocky.”
No doubt but that the sturdy captain would keep his word. The opening gun of the crime war had been fired and heard around the town. Use of the dragnet would result in the apprehension of a certain number of criminals, but would it be drawn tight enough to hold that super-criminal, Big Ed Margolo?
Dave Cates shook his head doubtfully. “Go to it, captain,” he said, “and may good luck go with you.”
At that moment a small boy came into the room. “I gotta note here for Mr. Cates,” he said hesitantly.
“Right here, sonny,” said the radio cop. He took the note and glanced through it.
The note consisted of just three words: “Please be careful.”
“Mash note, Dave?” inquired Patrolman Tom Jennings, who was brushing the lint from his blue trousers.
“Be yourself!” retorted the radio cop. He looked intently at the boy. “Who gave you this?” he demanded.
“Miss Talbot on North Street,” said the youngster promptly.
Cates wrinkled his pug nose in the endeavor to spur his memory. “Talbot? Talbot? Can’t seem to place the name.”
“Anabelle Talbot,” put in Patrolman Jennings. “Sure. North Street is on my beat and I see her brother about every night. He tells me she always listens in to your broadcasts. Pretty soft for you, havin’ all these classy dames⸺”
“I’ll slam you one in the nose! What does she look like?”
“Well, now,” reflected Officer Jennings, “it seems to me she’s cross-eyed, knock-kneed, and⸺”
“Aw, go jump a fence!” Dave Cates turned disgustedly away, handed the boy a quarter, and watched him scurry away.
“I guess she’s all right, Dave,” said Jennings. “Honest, I’ve never seen her. I’ve only been on the beat for two weeks.”
They were talking as though Cates’ narrow escape was a thing far in the past. So it must be, in the big stations where an officer’s life is a thing of uncertainty. Once past, a thing is forgotten, or, at most, but lightly spoken of.
Casually the small radio cop fingered his tie and ran a hand over his sandy hair.
“Better go easy, lad,” warned Captain Henessey. “This may be just a come-on note.”
“I know,” nodded Cates. Beneath his armpit he could feel the bulge of the big police gun. “I’ll watch my step, captain.”
Standing before the old brick apartment house on North Street, Dave Cates debated with himself. Should he go in, or shouldn’t he? It wasn’t the thought of a possible frame-up that deterred him; it was the possibility that the girl of the Salon Quintesse might not care to see him. But what the deuce? Might as well see it through.
He drew a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and went into the hallway. His heart leaped as a girl came to the door and stood framed there, the light from within making a silken, wavy web of her hair.
“Pard-don me, miss,” stammered the radio cop, removing his cap. “I—I just thought I’d drop around and thank you for what you did for me.”
Then she recognized him, gave him once more that flashing smile. Gee, she was a knock-out!
With a gracious little nod the girl motioned for him to come in. Highly embarrassed, he entered.
“You’re Miss Talbot, aren’t you?” Again she nodded.
Officer Cates wondered as he saw her pick up a small tablet of paper and write upon it. Then he read the words:
“I’m sorry but this is the only way I can talk to you. When I was six years old an attack of scarlet fever paralyzed my vocal chords.”
So that was it! Shades of Patrick Henry, what a situation! Miss Anabelle Talbot was unable to utter a word. Yet she was as dainty as a breath of spring, as lovely as a rose that opens its petals to the early morning sunlight. Dave Cates had a voice of gold, but it hid behind a face that only a mother could love. Each of them was conscious of their own drawbacks and wistfully aware of the other’s best assets.
Quick compassion flooded Dave Cates, but he was far too tactful to show it. He merely nodded and said very cheerfully:
“I understand you’re interested in radio broadcasting, Miss Talbot. I wonder if you’d care to go up to the studio with me, say Friday night, and watch how it’s done?”
Promptly she wrote: “I’d love to.”
“Fine,” said the radio cop. “That’s settled then.”
What a smile that girl had! What delectable curving of red lips, and provocative little crinkles at the corners of dancing eyes!
It was an effort for Cates to force his mind to other matters. “Mind telling me how you knew these gangsters were planning to take me for a ride that night?”
A look of concern replaced the smile as Miss Anabelle lowered her eyes to the tablet.
“Every night at eleven I dance out at the Salon Quintesse,” she wrote. “Out there I frequently hear snatches of gangster talk not intended for my ears. When you broadcast the threat you received, I just seemed to know they would attempt something that night. So I hurried to the broadcasting building.
“I thought if I went up to you as if I were your sister they might not shoot for fear of killing me. Fortunately it was Slim Fiske. Others might have shot regardless, but I—I think he is an admirer of mine, for he has frequently danced with me at the Salon Quintesse. I hope you don’t think I was forward.”
“Forward!” exclaimed the radio cop. “Forward! I’ll tell the world I don’t! I think you were an angel. So that explains why Fiske didn’t shoot. But how did you know me?”
Blushing prettily Miss Anabelle went and got a picture clipped from a newspaper. When Cates had first got the job the picture had appeared under the caption: “Police Radio Announcer.”
“Gee!” he said, reddening.
As if to break the spell of embarrassment that hovered over them, the girl wrote swiftly: “Won’t you tell me something of yourself and your work?”
It is said that opposites attract. Surely this must be the true explanation of the brightness in Anabelle Talbot’s hazel eyes as she sat listening to the radio cop, and of his willingness to talk. Talking was the thing he did best and he set himself to break all records.
For an hour his voice flowed on, as he told her of the police department, of the woman who had called out the homicide squad when she mistook the scratchings of a stray cat in her cellar for the supernatural activities of her long-deceased husband, of the trials and tribulations of a radio announcer, of the joys and fears and hopes of a little officer who never made an arrest.
It almost seemed that the ideal was trying to blossom into being. At any rate, friendship came swiftly, so swiftly that when Dave Cates rose to leave he asked hesitantly: “Is there any chance of us having another talk before Friday night?”
Her answer was: “I’ll be here every evening until it’s time to go out to the hall.”
Cates wanted to accompany her out to the Salon Quintesse, but she wouldn’t permit it. Margolo’s men might become curious, and that would be bad.
Naturally the word spread, started by the grinning Tom Jennings who had learned things. Busy as they were at headquarters with the operation of the dragnet, all had time for a glance at the affair of the radio cop and Anabelle Talbot.
“If that don’t beat the devil!” observed Captain Henessey. “A talking fool and a girl who can’t say a word. Still, that may have its advantages. If the girl could talk, neither one of ’em would be able to get a word in edgeways.”
Of course Dave Cates came in for a share of kidding. No class of men enjoys their jokes more than that which preserves the peace.
Cates took their kidding in good part. “Have a good time, you guys!” he retorted. “My chance will come next and when it does—zowie!”