Underworld Crime #5

When two drifting con men take over a floating crap game in a new town, they recruit a desperate down-and-out named Jim Vernon to play the fall guy in their loaded-dice scheme—until the night a dangerous big-time racketeer named Blackie Waters sits down at the table and everything spirals out of their control. "Loaded Dice" is a sharp tale of greed and double-crosses from the pages of Underworld Crime, where every roll of the dice raises the stakes and trust becomes a luxury nobody can afford.

Danny shows Dee a picture from his uncle's farm and asks why the animal has no horns—but Dee's earnest explanation about cattle quickly unravels when the punchline reveals Danny's been looking at the wrong beast all along. A quick, silly gag that proves even the simplest farm photo can trip you up.

When Duke Couglan and his gang attempt to smuggle desperate laborers across the Rio Grande to harvest their illegal poppy crop, a catastrophic flash flood and subsequent cover-up set the stage for a reckoning with federal authorities. As the bodies pile up and the inspector closes in on the mobster's operation, the Rio itself becomes a monument to Couglan's ruthless greed. Will justice catch up to a criminal who seems to know every unguarded stretch of the border?

Tightwad Tad pays a visit to his Aunt Harriet with what seems like a generous gift—a box of candy—but his idea of generosity comes with a practical twist that leaves her gasping. This quick-witted humor story shows why the penny-pincher earned his nickname.

Monk Gorman, a ruthless mobster with a twisted mind, stumbles onto a profitable scheme after an expensive restaurant dinner: he'll corner the black market for wild game and fish by poaching from protected lands and selling to high-end establishments across the city. As his operation expands with brutal efficiency—using refrigerated trucks and seine nets to strip entire regions of their wildlife—game wardens and authorities begin closing in, forcing Monk to plan one last ambitious raid before the law tightens the noose.