CHAPTER I
THUGS IN THE NIGHT
SIX men sat sullen and silent in the old touring car as it rumbled swiftly through the night-shrouded street. With curtains tightly drawn, the car twisted between elevated pillars, turned sharply to the right, and then, skidding, slued about, broadside to the road, before a row of sinister-looking houses.
The heavy-set man, who sat beside the driver up front, grunted. His coat collar was turned up. His hat was jammed over his eyes; his right hand, plunged deep in one pocket, closed tightly about a hard metal object.
“This is good enough,” he muttered.
Understandingly, the driver snapped off the ignition switch and turned off the lights.
One of the others cautiously opened a back door. “I’m gonna dump Louie,” came a whisper.
The big man twisted thick shoulders, leaned back, and spoke rapidly from one side of his mouth:
“Louie stays right where he is. How you had the brains to live this long, stops me. All you gotta do is to dump Louie here and every flatfoot in town’ll be on our trail. You’ll spoil the whole racket for us and for Tim.
“It don’t take more brains than these dumb cops got to figure Louie was trying to muscle into our dough. Louie stays. You can keep him warm.”