The Black Muldoon Read online

  He turned the page, and a bulldog face caught his eye. He liked it for the ugliness that fitted in with his own mood of the moment. There was a consummate viciousness and cunning about the little eyes, protected under massive, beetling brows; there was power and endurance in the blocky chin, and the habitual scowl fascinated Merchant, for it was his own expression of the moment. He raised his hand and smoothed his forehead with grinding knuckles, and still the face held his eyes.

  LEFTY GRUGER, he read beneath the picture, PARDONED!

  It was placed in large letters—an event of importance, it seemed, was the pardoning of this Gruger. With awakened interest he followed the rather long article.

  It developed that Lefty Gruger had been serving a life term on many counts. If he had lived to the age of two hundred, his term of punishment would still be unspent. But Lefty Gruger had been for eight years an ideal prisoner. Never once did the prison authorities have the slightest trouble with this formidable murderer, for such it seemed Lefty Gruger had been. The man had apparently reformed. The reporter quoted one of Lefty’s quaint sayings: “I dunno what’s in this heaven stuff, but maybe it ain’t too late for me to take a fling at it.”

  In reality, during the eight years his life had been exemplary, he had never become a trusty on account of the appalling nature of the crimes attributed to him, but he was on the verge of this elevation when the outbreak came. It was one of those mad, unreasoning outbreaks that will come now and then in prisons. An unpopular guard was suddenly hemmed against the wall, and his weapons were torn from him by a dozen furious prisoners. He was already down and nearly dead when a small, but well-directed, tornado struck the murderers in the person of Lefty Gruger. He had come out of the blacksmith shop with the iron part of a pick in his hand, and he went through the little host of assailants, smashing skulls like eggs as he went.

  In the sequel the guard’s life was saved, and seven prisoners died from the terrible effects of Lefty Gruger’s blows. But this heroism could not go unnoticed or unrewarded. The governor examined the case, determined to give Lefty a chance, and forthwith signed a pardon that was pressed upon him. The result was that the governor’s benign face appeared in a photograph beside the contorted scowl of Lefty Gruger. That was worth at least fifty thousand votes in certain parts of the state, although it was pointed out, with grim smiles in the police department, that Gruger was freed from a life sentence because he had killed more men at one sitting than he had been condemned for in the first instance.

  The major portion of the article had to do with the desperate heroism of Lefty Gruger to save the guard, then with a detail of his exemplary conduct while in prison, and finally there was a very brief résumé of Lefty’s criminal career, now happily buried under the record of his more-recent virtues. It seemed that Lefty had been a celebrated gunman for many years, that he had escaped detection so long because he always did his jobs without confederates, and that, although it had been long suspected that he was guilty of killings, it was not until he had spent ten years in criminal life that he was finally taken and convicted.

  Once he was in the hands of the law, it turned out that there were various people willing to inform against the professional murderer, men who had been held back by fear of him until he was safely lodged in the hands of the law. Now they were ready and eager to talk. Into the hands of the police came more or less convincing proof that Lefty Gruger had certainly been responsible for five murders, and perhaps many more. But even this testimony was not of the first order. The result was that, instead of hanging, Lefty received a life sentence.

  Now he was returning to his old haunts off the Bowery. The street address drifted into Charles Merchant’s mind hazily. He was thinking with dreamy eyes, building a fairy story in the future. That dream lasted so long that the train departed with no Charles Merchant on it. Then he rose and sauntered into the street and took a taxi to the Bowery. At the stand where he had his shoes polished, in the hope of hearing chance news, the word was dropped: “Lefty’s back. He’s at Connor’s.”

  Merchant, leaving his chair as the shine was completed, sauntered into a lunch counter across the street. Sitting at the end of the counter nearest the window, he kept a steady eye on the pavement and houses opposite. Still retaining that survey, he covertly counted out $100 in crisp bills and shoved them into a blank envelope.

  Lefty Gruger was not long out of sight. Having become a hero overnight, he had to harvest the admiration of his fellows, and presently he was observed to stroll down the steps of his rooming house, preceded and surrounded by half a dozen as hard-faced fellows as Merchant had ever seen. But, among them all, the broad, scowling face of Lefty stood forth. Every brutal passion found adequate expression in some line or corner of his face. Suddenly it seemed to Merchant that he had known the recesses of that dark mind for years and years, and he felt himself contaminated by the very thought. He scribbled a few words on the envelope and left the lunch counter hurriedly. Crossing the street, he managed to intercept the course of Lefty’s crew at the far corner. He sidled apologetically through the midst of them, and, passing Lefty, he shoved the envelope containing the money into the latter’s coat pocket and went on.

  Although he did not pause, it seemed to him that the stubby hand of Lefty had closed over that envelope, and the square-tipped fingers had sunk into the missive, and that he sensed the contents by their softness. But Merchant hurried on, took a taxi at the nearest corner, and went straight to a hotel. He had written on the envelope:

  Inside two hours, at the corner of Forty-Seventh and Broadway, east side of the street.

  In the hotel he flung himself on the bed, but he could not rest.

  IV

  He knew very little about such matters, but he imagined that once a notorious criminal was at large, the police must keep an eagle eye upon him. If Lefty came to that meeting place, there might very well be a whole corps of observers on the watch from hidden places, and they might follow Lefty and note the interview with Merchant. But then again it was very doubtful if Lefty would make his appearance at all. He had $100 in his pocket for which he need not make an accounting. There was only one thing to which Charles Merchant trusted, and that was, having made such a little stake of easy money, the killer might continue on the trail.

  He wasted the two hours that remained before him with difficulty and then went out and took his place at the head of Times Square, in the full rush of the late-afternoon crowd. Eagerly he swept the heads of the crowd, but there was no Lefty. Presently he felt a light jerk at his coat, and then a stocky, little man hurried past him and shouldered skillfully through the mob. It was Gruger beyond a doubt. The rear view of those formidable, square shoulders was almost as easily recognizable as the face of the criminal. Merchant followed unhesitatingly.

  Gruger opened the door of a taxi waiting at the curb and stepped in, leaving the door open. Merchant accepted the silent invitation and climbed into the interior. The abrupt starting of the engine flung him back to the seat, and the driver reached out an arm of prodigious length and slammed the door. It seemed to Merchant that he was trapped and a prisoner. An edge of paper in his own pocket caught his eye as he looked down. He drew out his own envelope and saw, as it bulged open, the money. He shoved it into an inside coat pocket and then for the first time turned to Lefty. The latter wore a faint, ugly smile.

  “But I intended this …” began Merchant, oddly embarrassed.

  “I know,” said Lefty, “but I don’t take coin till after I’ve done a job, and then I want spot cash.”

  There was something so formidable about the way he jerked out these words that it made Merchant feel as though the gunman had already done a killing and now demanded payment. He moistened his lips and watched the stocky, little man.

  “But I thought you might be in need of a little stake,” he ventured again.

  “I ain’t never broke,” declared Lefty in his positive manner. “I got friends, mister. Now what you want?”


  “I want in the first place to go where we can talk.”

  “You do, eh? What’s the matter with right here?”

  “But the driver?”

  “Say, he’s all right. He’s a friend of mine.”

  “But suppose we were seen to have entered this cab and were followed?”

  “Pal, nobody ain’t going to follow him, not through this jam.”

  The driver was weaving through the press of traffic with the easiest dexterity, seeming to make the car small to slip through tight holes, and keeping in touch with his motor as though it were a horse under curb and spur.

  “In the first place,” began Merchant heavily, “I don’t know how to let you know that you can trust any promises I make in regard to …”

  “Money? Sure you can. You’re Charles Merchant. You come out of the West, you got a big ranch from your old man, and your bank account would gag a mule. All right, I know you.”

  Charles Merchant swallowed. “How in the world … ?”

  “Did I tumble to that gag? I’ll tell you. You didn’t think I let you do a fadeaway after you passed me the bunk, do you? Nope. I ditched the gang, done a sidestep, and slid after you to your hotel, grabbed your name off the book, and the rest was easy.”

  “How?”

  “How? Why I got friends. They looked you up inside half an hour, and there you are. Now what’s what?”

  There was something startling in this abrupt way of brushing through preliminaries and getting down to the heart of things. Merchant had expected long and delicate diplomatic fencing before he even broached the aim he had in mind. He found that he was brought to the heart of his subject inside the first minute.

  “In a word,” he said, breathing hard, “it is a task of the first magnitude.”

  Lefty studied him, not without contempt and just a touch of bewilderment.

  “Guess I get you. Somebody to be bumped off? When and where, and what’s the stake?”

  Merchant gasped. Then he answered tersely: “As fast as you can get to the place. That place is Martindale, and it’s a good two thousand miles from New York. The price is what you think it’s worth.”

  “I don’t like out-of-town jobs,” said Lefty calmly. “They get me off my feed a little, and two thousand miles is pretty bad. Seeing it’s you, ten thousand ain’t too much to ask.”

  He said it in such a businesslike manner that, although Merchant was staggered by the price, he did not seriously object. A moment’s thought assured him that $10,000 was cheap, infinitely cheap, if it brought him to his goal.

  “And when do you want me to start, governor?”

  “At once. About the money, what part will you want?”

  “Ain’t I told you that I’m never broke? I don’t need any.”

  “The whole thing after … after … ?”

  “After I deliver the goods? That’s it.”

  “But how do you know … ?”

  “That you’ll pay? Easy! You think it over a minute, and you’ll see why you’ll pay.”

  And Merchant knew with a shudder that this was the last debt in the world that he would try to dodge.

  “Now that we’ve settled things,” he said, “I want to tell you about the man in the case.”

  “He don’t matter,” said Lefty largely. “He don’t matter at all. All I want is his name.”

  Charles Merchant rubbed his chin in thought. It was strange that sectional pride should crop out in him in this matter of all matters. He looked coldly upon Lefty Gruger.

  “Ever have a run-in with a Western gunfighter?” he asked.

  “Me? Sure. Went as far West as Kansas City once and got mixed up with a tough mug out of the hills. They told me he was quick as a flash at getting out his cannon. Bunk! A revolver is pretty fair, but an automatic is the medicine for these Western gunfighters! They shoot one slug, standing straight up. I spray ’em by just holding down my finger. Fast draw? I don’t draw. I drop a fist in my pocket and let her go!”

  “Was that how it went with the gunman you met in Kansas City?”

  “Sure it was. The boob didn’t have a chance. He stood up straight like a guy getting ready to make a speech and grabs for his gat. I jumps behind a table and begins zigzagging. He didn’t have a chance of hitting me. While I was jumping back and forth, I turn on the spray. Seven slugs, and they all landed. He wouldn’t’ve held a pint of water, he was so full of holes when I finished with him.”

  Charles Merchant wiped his forehead. What he had looked upon as a forlorn hope changed to a feeling of far greater certainty.

  “Now,” he said, “listen to reason. You may be very good with a gun. Of course you are. But this fellow, Lanning …”

  “First name?”

  “Andrew. This Andrew Lanning is good with a gun, too. He’s beaten the best men of the mountains. With rifle or revolver it doesn’t seem that he can miss. You may be almost as good, but, if you stand up to him, you stand a fine chance of being killed, Lefty. Don’t take the chance. Make a sure thing of it.”

  “Shoot him in the back?” said Lefty coldly. “That what you mean?”

  “Why not? You’ll get ten thousand just the same.”

  The voice of Lefty changed to a snarl. “Maybe you think,” he said furiously, “that you’re talking to a butcher? Maybe you think that?”

  “I … I …” Merchant choked in his distress. “The fact is, in a business like this, I like to feel that my money is invested as safely as possible, and I think …”

  “I want you to think this,” said Lefty, and he shook a swiftly vibrating forefinger under the nose of his companion. “You’re talking to a white man. I never shot a gent while he had his back turned. I never shot him when he was took by surprise. I never shot him when he was drunk. I never shot him when he was sick. I’ve fought every man face to face. They flopped, because they didn’t have the nerve or the dope on gunfighting. That’s my way. If a bird is good enough to flop me, then he collects, and I don’t. That’s all. If I didn’t work for my coin, d’you think I could enjoy making it? No! I ain’t a man killer, I’m a sportsman, mister, and you want to write it down in red. Gimme a good, sporting chance, and I take it. Give me a sure thing, and I tell you to go hang. I’ve never took up a sure thing, and I never will. But I’m after game, big game! Some gents like to go out into the jungle and hunt for tigers. I have more fun than that, because I hunt things a thousand times worse’n tigers. I hunt men. It ain’t the money alone that I work for. I got enough salted away to do for me. But I like the fun, bo. It’s in my nature.”

  He sat back again, contented, flushed after having expounded his creed, defying Merchant to argue further in the matter. It bewildered Charles, this singular profession of faith.

  “This Lanning guy … ?” went on Lefty more gently. “You stop worrying. I’ll plant him. I’ll salt him away with lead so’s you never have to worry about him none no more. That what you want?”

  When Charles Merchant nodded, the gunman continued easily. “You just jot down the directions to the place. That’s all I want.”

  V

  From the roof to the bellows, there had been hardly a thing about the old blacksmith shop that did not need repairing. The anvil alone was intact. Even the sledgehammers were sadly rusted. He spent the first few days putting things in order and making repairs. But this was about the only work that came his way. To be sure, now and then, someone of the more curious dropped into his shop and had a horse shod in order to see the celebrated desperado at work. It would be something to ride home and point to the iron on the feet of a horse and say: “Andrew Lanning put those shoes on. I seen him do it.”

  But this made up a mere dribble of work, although Hal Dozier had sent in a few small commissions from his ranch. He had even offered to set up a shop for Andy on his ranch and said that he had ample ironwork to remunerate both himself and Andrew, but the ex-outlaw had other plans. He was determined to fight out the battle in Martindale itself.

  There was something
dreamlike about the whole thing. It had not been so many years ago since the men of Martindale looked down on the Lanning kid as being “yaller clear through.” In those days they had greeted any mention of his name with a smile and a shrug. Then came the unlucky day when he knocked down a man and fled in fear of his life, leaving an unconscious victim who appeared to be dead. Feeling that he was outlawed by his crime, Andy had become an outlaw in fact. That was the small, the accidental, beginning that, it seemed, was to determine the whole course of his life. He had plenty of chances to think about himself, past and future, as he sat idly in the little shop, day after day, waiting for work.

  His funds were dwindling meanwhile. An angle of the affair, at which he had not looked before, now presented itself. He might be actually starved out of the town. He might be starved into submission.

  All day, every day, he could hear the cheery clangor of hammer on anvil in the new and rival blacksmith shop down the street. There was plenty of business there, plenty of it. His competitor had tried to placate this terrible rival soon after his arrival. He came to visit the latter in his shop at the beginning of the working day.

  “I’m Sloan,” he said, “Bill Sloan. Maybe you don’t know me?”

  “Sure,” said Andy. “I know you.”

  “You and me being sort of business rivals, as you might say,” said Sloan, “I got this to say for a start. I ain’t going to use no crooked ways of getting customers away from you, Lanning.”

  “I guess you won’t,” said Andrew gently.

  “Matter of fact, now and then, I get an overflow of trade. I might send some of it down to your shop, Lanning.”