“Forget it,” he laughed. “But just for that, Norrie, I’ll keep to myself for the present the interesting bit of information that Bina gave me; for Bresci is a Camorra agent after all, and Bina, who is all eyes and ears, knows precisely the truth about Ratto’s death in so far as it pertains to the Camorra. I guess that will hold you for a while? But what a lover of music she is! Let’s call it a day. Don’t look for me to-morrow. I’m off on a little lay of my own. Keep in general reach of a telephone so I can get you in a hurry and give that slavedriver of a Sampson my distinguished compliments and tell him I will show up when it pleases me to get d—— good and ready.”
I hammered away at the routine of the story the next day—I was just a plain plodder, ordinarily dependable, but never particularly brilliant—and neither saw Lanagan nor heard from him. A lively angle was given to the story when Dinola and Alberti discovered, concealed in one of Ratto’s game refrigerators, six choice salami sausages that his death had evidently prevented him disposing of in the proper way, for neatly rolled in a half-inch wad in the dead centre of each, was a roll of ten $100 gold bills of U. S. currency.
The secret service men, apprised, raged at the information being given to the press, claiming that they had been working to round up the entire gang for months, and that the publication would serve as warning to the others. But Leslie, more concerned with solving the Ratto mystery, and hanging it on Tosci than with handling Uncle Sam’s minor details, and being also a great believer in the assistance intelligent newspaper publicity could be to the police, gave the facts out. The facts would appear to link Ratto indubitably with the Camorra ring engaged in the importation of counterfeit currency and obviously eliminated the Camorra blackmail theory with respect to his death.
With Ratto now definitely established as a leader of the slippery Camorra—it was a hard organisation to get definite proof on—the police were thrown back on a theory of a fight between Camorra leaders, possibly over some division of the profits or some breach of faith. The Camorra history shows that it was not—nor is not—slow to take vengeance even on its own people.
Lanagan was missing the next day again, and I was surprised, in view of the sensational developments. I was following the police lead and it all pointed to the Camorra to me. Nor did he appear for work the third day nor give me word of himself. And on this day the police had an admission from Tosci that he had visited Ratto on the evening of his disappearance!
It may be well to say here, too, that the secret service men, although working at cross-purposes with the regular police, had been putting the screws to Tosci and Morton had finally gotten enough information to supplement his own investigations, and in a swift swoop five members of the Tosci gang were in the federal cells at the Oakland jail charged with handling counterfeit money.
All in all, the situation was growing highly complex for a routine plodder, and still no Lanagan! I had just about made up my mind to go on a still hunt for him, confident that he must have broken his vows of abstinence, when he called me up. His message was curt:
“Suggest to Sampson to stick personally until he hears from me. Meet me at once at Hyde and Lombard.”
Sampson usually left the office at midnight. Lanagan preferred his dynamic energy on the desk when a big smash was on; and when he asked for Sampson personally I knew he had landed. And Sampson always preferred being at the city desk when Lanagan was swinging home on the bit.
“Fine work!” was all Sampson said; it was not in his cold-blooded cosmos to show disinterested enthusiasm. Possibly it was that characteristic, coupled with twenty years’ seasoning at the wheel, that made him the greatest city editor in the West.