As they entered the house, a small stooped man went slinking down the street. He had been hiding opposite the building which Reds Mackin had entered.
An hour later, the killing of Reds Mackin was the talk of gangland. The underworld was astonished at the death of the smooth racketeer.
Few knew that he had been in the city; it was generally supposed that he had been West. It was learned that he had been seen nightly in the Black Ship.
That was a night of worry for many racketeers. Reds Mackin had been a smooth worker, who had never crossed any of the gunmen. Why had he been chosen for destruction?
No one could answer the question.
“I can’t figure it out,” said a rowdy in the Black Ship. “If they was out to get a guy like Reds Mackin, why didn’t they take him for a ride? Instead of that, they cuts loose with everything they got.”
“It’s goin’ to put us all in a jam,” observed another. “The bulls ain’t goin’ to pass this up. Blowin’ him down with machine guns, in the middle of the street.”
“They didn’t get him that way,” said the first speaker. “He slipped by ‘em, he did. They plugged him inside the house. Right by old Crippled Carrie’s room. The old dame is a wreck, they say. She’d been workin’ a phony racket, an’ now the bulls is questionin’ her.”
“Maybe they’ll get some guys for this.”
“No. They won’t know who done it, until the birds blow outa town.”