"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 059 - The Crime Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

but typical. Members of society's upper crust might share the elation which Commissioner Weston had
felt over the episode of the armored truck; but those who dwelt close to the realm of crime could scent
the beginning of a wave of terror.

Squawky, scruffing along the sidewalk, was watchful. Like Cardona, he suspected spies everywhere.
The detective's movement had been reported from the little shop where he had stopped to phone.
Cardona could assume such a risk; but Squawky, the stool pigeon, could not.

Conditions were precarious so far as stoolies were concerned. Ordinarily, an informant might expect
trouble only from the crooks on whom he squealed. But Squawky, to-night, seemed to accept all passers
as his enemies. At times, he paused to raise a knuckle to his nostrils. A sniff - and again Squawky was on
his shambling way. Acting the part of a dope addict, Squawky felt more secure in his present venture.
Cokers were seldom banned from the Pink Rat.

With shifty strides, Squawky neared his destination. He followed a darkened alley; paused when he
reached a dilapidated doorway; then opened the barrier and took a poorly-lit passage that brought him
into the dive itself.

THERE was tension in the Pink Rat to-night. Squawky sensed it the moment that he entered the big
room that constituted the major portion of the joint. Men were seated in small groups at scattered tables.
Mumbled conversation buzzed through the smoke-filled room.

Squawky seated himself in a corner. He nodded as a sour-faced waiter approached with bottle and
glass. He pulled a crumpled dollar bill from his pocket and gave it as payment. But Squawky was slow
about drinking. He spurned the bottle while he indulged in pretended sniffs.

Coke and hooch were not a usual combination. Squawky knew that fact; hence his reluctance with the
liquor. Satisfied that he was getting by, the stool pigeon began a series of furtive glances about the dive.

Hard-faced gangsters prevailed to-night. Among the thugs and rowdies whom he observed, Squawky
saw none who looked like police agents. Stools were keeping clear; Squawky felt sure that he was the
only one who still had the nerve to pry into gangdom's secrets.

Crime was the theme. Squawky knew it, although he could not catch words of conversation. Were
mobsters talking about the episode of the armored truck? Or were they discussing the probability of
coming crime?

Squawky did not know. He was sure of but one point: namely, that a shroud of peculiar mystery had
lowered over the affairs of the underworld.

Squawky spied a trio of men seated at a table twenty feet away. He knew their faces. One - the most
imposing of the three - was "Trigger" Maddock. Square-chinned, blunt-nosed, with beady eyes that
blinked with snakelike stare, Trigger was a character highly feared where gun fights were concerned.

The swiftest shooter in the underworld, a gunner who could drill a mark while on the draw, Trigger had
surrounded himself with a band of capable sharpshooters who were equipped for rapid duty. The two
men with him were evidently members of his select squad.

There were others of Trigger's ilk in the underworld - raiding mobleaders like Louie Harger, "Pigeon"
Melgin, or "Turk" Bodell. They either worked swift jobs of their own or sold their talents to big shots