Adventure Magazine Cover — page 135: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Men of the Night patient and impatient, warned more by instinct than hearing of people’s coming; or at least his hearing and impressions were so sensitive that he knew people were ap- proaching before he consciously heard them. It was around the evening hour, and the elevator was busy with somebody con- tinually coming through the street door. Silkeen watched. He was fleeing, not because he had a hunch, but because like any animal he knew it was time to get out when something strange and unexplainable had happened around his den. To the wary crook, the least thing that doesn’t seem just right is a flaming danger signal; and Silkeen responded to the urges of in- stinct as readily as any other predatory creature. Luck favored his caution. He got his chance and went through the door, onto the street and away, while two plain-clothes men. from Headquarters poked about his room, wondering at the hasty getaway and how the he had been tipped off. Matty Murdock, having the cop’s out- look on life and crooks, and feeling that it were better to have a couple of mad dogs running loose than one Silkeen Harry, had watched his chance when Dolly wouldn’t know and phoned Headquarters. He wanted Silkeen locked up. There was little personal fear in the matter, though he had good judgment and a knowledge of what was likely to happen. Also he understood © Dolly’s point of view—or thought that he did. XVI TONY BATTETO paid what he thought should have been plenty =i of percentage to protect his little gambling-joint, over his dirty restaurant, from raids; but he wasn’t taking any chances that the police, in case they did double- cross him, would get in before his patrons had a chance to get away. Tony was neither generous nor loyal, but he knew a good deal about the class of people that came slipping through the alley- way to the heavy, barred door that opened onto a dark stairs leading over his eating- joint. They paid well, but they were tough customers; also unreasonably suspicious as a class; fellows that had to hide their faces for a while; and if a pinch should be made in his dump they would hold him responsible. And it gave Tony the shivers to think of 125 his fat little body being laid out on a cold, marble slap while an inquisitive underling from the county medical examiner’s office counted the holes. _ Tony furnished cards and dice, real beer and light wines, plenty to eat, a muffled music-box, and enough police protection to ° make it seem a bit like the good old days toa choice clientéle of crooks, some of whom were molls. It paid well. The drunken sailor is a piker by the side of a crook with coin; and Tony would do almost anything for coin except go out and grab it off for himself. He was the biggest coward in the world; and oddly enough he catered to and served the most. hazardous and desperate of the city’s criminals. fellows that were having trouble to “fix it” with the Powers-That-Be; some of them had lost their pulls or were without fall money, or maybe had croaked somebody whose friends had money and influence. Billy the Dude came through the alley and kicked a few times in a peculiar way on the heavy door, and when it had opened slightly stuck his face close to the crack so his features could be identified by the flash of light that fell upon them. The door, which was hooked to a heavy chain to keep it from being suddenly forced wide open after being put ajar, was then pulled back and Billy entered. He ran lightly up the stairs, went down a darkened hallway where there echoed voices and click of dice, and through the door of a large room. As he closed the door behind him he stood poised for a moment, peering rapidly, cautiously around, to see who was there, drinking, gambling, chattering. Red the Gob, a big brute of a strong-arm worker, sang out— “Lo, Dude.” “Lo,” said Billy without looking at him. Every face in the room had been turned through the tobacco mist toward Billy. Among the devil’s children everybody must recognize a newcomer for himself. Each stranger must be sized up or be vouched for. ” Eternal, unresting sensitiveness- to danger keeps their noses in the air, for be- sides the more or less ‘‘public danger”’ from flat-footed harness bulls and springy-toed fly-cops there are private feuds and grudges, snitches, quitters and stools to be watched out for. All movement and talk suspended for NOOK For the most part they were (C©