A COUNTER MOVE
Shaughnessy stirred uneasily in his chair. Then, with a convulsive
shudder, he sat erect, one hand instinctively pressed against his left
side. His head reeled, his bewildered eyes strove to pierce the gloom.
With a swift intake of breath the deathly smell of the drug crept into
his nostrils. Then he remembered.
With a snarling curse he sprang to his feet, drawing a match from his
vest pocket with shaking fingers. He lighted the gas and glanced toward
the safe, expecting to find it forced open. All seemed to be in order.
The boss was perplexed. What had they wanted, those mysterious visitors?
With a sudden apprehension he thrust his hand swiftly into an inner
pocket and found it empty. Then Shaughnessy, momentarily beyond oaths,
collapsed helplessly into his chair. There was expression enough in his
white face now, and it was of fear.
The papers were gone, filched from him in open assault, in a way of
which the boss had never dreamed. He could have groaned in bitterness of
spirit as he remembered what zealous care he had taken of those damning
documents, veritable blood pacts of dark, unprincipled deeds, through
which Shaughnessy held the wretched signers in the hollow of his hand.
Though cunningly giving the impression that they were kept in his
office, Shaughnessy generally had them in safe keeping elsewhere and
disturbed them only when it was expedient that they serve some purpose
like the cruel intimidation to which Judge Boynton had been subjected.
And now they were gone. Shaughnessy cursed in his heart the fatal
weakness for melodramatic effect, in which he was prone to indulge, that
had exposed him to this fatal risk.
But who had them? Shaughnessy sprang up and paced the floor. He clenched
his fists as he thought of Judge Boynton. Was it a plot of his? He
dismissed the thought with a sneer. Such a desperate expedient was
beyond the nerveless old jurist.
He felt mechanically for his keys and started to find them gone. What
new deviltry was this? Then, for a moment, the impassive mask was
utterly discarded. The white face of the baited boss grew absolutely
diabolical, and he cursed as best he knew, and he was not an indifferent
expert. Finally, with a weary shrug, he ceased and walked to a drawer in
the bookkeeper's desk. He wrenched it open and took out two keys he kept
there for emergency's sake. One was for the office door and the other
would admit him to his lodgings.
Shaughnessy picked up his hat, which had fallen off in the recent melee,
dusted it and replaced it. He kicked the cigar, from whose enjoyment he
had been riotously debarred, into a corner and drew a fresh one from his
case. Reaching into his vest pocket for a match, his fingers encountered
something. Drawing it forth, his eyes rested upon the card which
O'Byrn, on a recent evening, had with easy insolence handed him.
The boss' eyes, indifferent at first, stared fixedly at the card. Slowly
kindling into the interest born of sudden recollection of the incident,
the sparks deepened till they glowed like the orbs of an angry cat.
Shaughnessy pondered, his face an evil thing to see.
"Damn you!" muttered Shaughnessy, at last, still staring balefully at
the card, "I believe one of 'em was you, God help you!"
* * * * *
Micky went straight from Shaughnessy's to the Courier office that night,
and, after his brief communication with Harkins, he repaired to his
lodgings. He lighted his heater, and, with a fresh cigar between his
teeth, sat down to peruse at leisure the documents he had previously
glanced over sufficiently to warrant him in making his triumphant
prediction to the city editor. A damning array of evidence was marshaled
in them, illustrating at once Shaughnessy's ruthless manner of binding a
cabal to his interests and his weakness in recording in black and white
such condemnatory proofs of the infamy of the forces of which he was the
leader, and for whose deeds he was responsible. It was a quixotic idea
of the boss', effective to bend his tools to his desires, but fatal if
the accredited proofs ever became public property. Perhaps, Micky
reflected, he had intended them for use if treachery ever compelled him
to leave in a hurry, in which case the traitors would suffer while the
arch-conspirator went scot-free. If this was the intent, events had
anticipated it.
The most important exposure, for O'Byrn's purpose, was the one, duly
fortified with proof in the papers before him, that Judge Boynton was a
hypocrite. He could only conjecture how the Judge had placed himself in
Shaughnessy's power, but that he had long since done so, through some
official act of weakness or worse, was evident. For the papers proved
that the old jurist, supposed to be a power for good, had been for years
a power for evil. It was as a secret instigator of lobbies at the State
House that he had shone, while the world remained in ignorance. Not
alone notorious Consolidated Gas, but many another nefarious movement
had owed its progress in no small degree to his secret machinations, and
he had been well aided. Micky opened his eyes at some names which
appeared in that damning record, as well he might, for they were those
of the elect. Indeed, the evidence utterly condemned one of the pillars
of the present Fusion movement. Oh, it would be a slaughter, in very
truth; one of whose extent the optimistic Micky had not dreamed.
As he read the record, O'Byrn marvelled at one salient fact. These men,
of brains and influence, of power and standing, were after all but the
tools of Shaughnessy, the liquor dealer, the local boss. Local boss!
Micky could have laughed. Why, this genius of the slums had his pallid
hand at the throat of the State, and his snaky eyes were even now fixed
on victims in higher places, even beyond its too-confined borders.
O'Byrn was lost in admiration of the man whose power was the greater
because unsuspected by the great public. He moved with much sinuous
subtlety, like a serpent wriggling through the grass. He tempted through
the cupidity of men worth while, and when they were in his coils they
were held there irrevocably. He was a Napoleon of graft, and his
ambition was as boundless as that of the Corsican.
There were in the record, too, the hints of several matters that would
bear amplifying; stupendous election frauds, fraudulent registration
lists and corrupt local deals. Micky knew where to get them, but it
would be a strenuous day. It was with a mingled thrill and a sigh that
he finally tumbled into bed for a little sleep before the deluge to
come.
He awoke unrefreshed, his sleep having been disturbed by wild dreams of
conflict with Shaughnessy in which the boss was invariably the victor.
Despite the reassuring presence of the materials for a sensation, Micky
felt depressed while dressing. There was still much to do, there were
some hard propositions to solve during the day, and there might yet be a
fatal slip somewhere. Besides, he felt physically wretched. He had
caught cold in some way and his head ached miserably. Then, too, in the
depths of his heart there was a sick, unacknowledged apprehension; for
the old enemy, after too brief a period of quiescence, was returning.
Micky finished dressing, and left the house for the restaurant, at which
he was accustomed to obtain his meals. On the way he passed an
attractive door. He hesitated, halted and turned back. "One won't hurt,"
he muttered, as he disappeared inside. "Just for an appetizer."
Breakfast finished, Micky, with a renewed sparkle in his eyes, plunged
headlong into his self-appointed task, and it was a formidable one.
There were sundry peculiar documents to scan. Obstacles in getting at
them had to be surmounted, either through subtlety or a bluff, and
O'Byrn was a past master in both departments. There were some men to
see. Some could be handled with a convenient disguising of the real
intention. Others, made to admit damaging matters through cowardly
fears, were left in the hope that they had secured immunity for
themselves. There was also the omnipresent danger, most dreaded by
newspaper men on the track of a big story, of competitors who must be
sedulously avoided. O'Byrn dodged them all, though with some narrow
escapes, and it became evident that the story, in every detail, was to
be his and his alone.
As Micky pursued his perilous though fascinating task, the story grew,
gathering black force and sinister proportions. As the busy hours swept
on, crowded with strained effort, the Irishman felt to the full the
strange, breathless zest felt only by the veteran newsgetter; hot on the
trail of a big story, warned constantly by the remorseless ticks of his
watch of fast slipping time that waits for no man. The hungry presses
must be fed at the appointed hour. Brain, hand, resource and tireless
effort must combine to furnish the monster's food. So O'Byrn rushed
through the teeming hours. He cut out luncheon, gulping down a glass of
whisky in place of it. He had been dramming at intervals since
breakfast, and he no longer approached the bar with hesitancy. The
excitement of his quest made him reckless and the stuff served as an
exhilarant, though he had not yet begun to seriously feel its effects.
He was completely engrossed in his story. He scurried here and there, as
need required, gathering force like a machine under the quickening beat
of the controlling engine. He was driven resistlessly on by that
steadiest, most unfaltering of human impulses, the quickened news
instinct. It was a task before which many a veteran would have quailed,
but O'Byrn did not know how to lie down. He had, too, a distinct
advantage in his wonderful memory. It enabled him to carry away valuable
material gained in conversations where the producing of a notebook would
have been fatal.
It was well toward evening that Slade met him unostentatiously in a
quiet place. "What luck?" he inquired eagerly.
"Got the whole business," answered Micky, in a low tone. "I'm just
finished, and I'm all in. Knees jackin' some and nerves gone up. But
anyone that's worth doin' at all is worth doin' well, and Shaughnessy's
well done. Now I'll tell you what, let's have a cocktail or two, and
then some supper. Time enough to grind this out after that."
Slade glanced at him sharply, noting the flushed cheeks and unnaturally
bright eyes. "Haven't you had enough?" he inquired.
"Enough?" echoed Micky, with a reckless laugh. "Why, I haven't begun
yet. But I'll cut it out for tonight, after supper, and tomorrow, when
the job's done, I'll celebrate." He led the way to the bar, and Slade,
with a little head-shake, followed. He recollected an episode in
Shaughnessy's place, the night before, with distinct regret.
Neither of them had noticed a man sitting at a small table, in a dark
corner, not far from where they had been talking. He slipped quietly out
as the two ordered their drinks. It was Shaughnessy's lieutenant, Dick
Peterson.
Slade succeeded in inducing Micky to content himself with a couple of
rounds and lured him away to supper. Much to his disgust, O'Byrn
insisted upon going to a place with which a saloon was connected. There
was another appetizer, and O'Byrn ate heartily, the food apparently
serving to restore him to sense. All might have been well, but on
passing out through the saloon, O'Byrn intending to go directly to the
Courier office, he met a party of friends. Despite Slade's protestations
he decided that he had time for "one or two more."
A few more draughts of the stuff produced the result that was usual with
him when indulging. Clear-headed at the first, the stimulant suddenly
fired his brain, rendering him deaf to protests or the voice of reason.
It was the way in which many a debauch of days or even weeks had been
ushered in. He sought only to quench a fiendish thirst, to indulge a
mad, grotesque merriment. He was hazily conscious of Slade's pleadings
for him to come away, of his attempts several times to do so, of dimly
hearing the imperious call of duty; of being dragged back for another
round by his boisterous companions. After a time he missed Slade, and
forgot about him for a while.
Some time afterward, while gazing blankly at the clock in some saloon or
other, he did not know where, a swift terror seized him. There was grim
accusation in the clock's face. Micky took advantage of the momentarily
diverted attention of his companions to slip quietly out. His story;
yes, he must surely get to writing it. Ought to have started it before,
he reflected confusedly.
Well, here was luck. A carriage stood near the cafe. Micky advanced
toward it, and the driver jumped down and flung open the door. O'Byrn
entered, with a drowsy order to drive to the Courier office. Then, ere
the door closed, he felt a vague curiosity as two additional passengers
followed him into the vehicle. The door was slammed shut, the driver
mounted his box and the rolling wheels lulled Micky into drowsiness that
was not disturbed by his silent companions.