The Phantom Detective: Tycoon of Crime. Robert Wallace
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Tycoon of Crime originally appeared in the February, 1938 issue of The Phamtom Detective magazine,
Copyright © 1937 by Standard Magazines, Inc.
This edition copyright © 2005 by Wildside Press LLC.
All rights reserved.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
www.wildsidebooks.com
CHAPTER I
Maiden Flight
THE LONELY SHACK stood in the chill night gloom, its windows faint squares of light. Thin mist, driven by a wind which shook the dark branches of surrounding heavy trees, swirled coldly about the small, solitary building. Within it, under the glare of a single naked ceiling bulb, two men stood with their backs to the bolted oak door. They were watching a third man who crouched across the room before the gleaming dials of a small but full equipped short-wave radio apparatus.
His hands — slender, nervous hands — were turning the dials with swift, jerky motions. The back of his hat-less head was a shiny black knob, plastered-down hair glistening like patent leather in the light. His slender, crouched body swayed as he worked, graceful except for its slight jerkiness. His flashy top-coat trailed on the boarded floor.
Harsh, raucous static coughed abruptly from a loudspeaker, rising and diminishing as the man turned the dials.
“What’s the matter, Slick? Can’tcha get it?” came the coarse, deep voice of one of the two, a huge, barrel-chested hulk of a man who seemed almost to fill the cramped little shack. His fedora hat seemed pygmy-sized over his wide, swart face with its small, glinting eyes, flattened nose, and wide gash of mouth.
He took a step forward as he spoke, moving with a loping, almost simian gait, one arm swinging at his side, the other nestled with snug ease around a blue steel Thompson submachine gun.
“Me,” he snarled, “I’m gettin’ tired of waitin’ around here like this.”
“Shut up!”
The authoritative command came in a harsh, jerky staccato from the man at the radio. He turned from the set. The light fell on his face — olive skinned, its darkly handsome features marred by a livid, zigzag scar which ran across his left cheek from chin to ear.
“I’ll get it any minute now if you keep quiet.”
He turned to the third man who was standing immobile as a statue, a faint wisp of smoke from the cigarette in his lips alone giving him semblance of movement. Tall, lean, he had an angular face with pale, expressionless eyes.
“Luke!” he snapped. “You sure you tipped off the others?”
Without moving the man Luke answered: “They’ll be around on the dot, Slick.”
The patent-leather hair of the man called Slick showed again as once more he bent to the dials. The static continued, grating in the silent shack.
Then, suddenly, Slick’s crouching figure tensed as through the cloud of that static a voice began to materialize.
“Listen, guys!”
Slick turned the dials more. The static diminished, the voice grew in volume and clarity. A crisp, incisive voice speaking rapidly, with clear enunciation.
“— Plane Number One from Chicago, calling Newark Airport — Pat Bentley, pilot, speaking — Plane Number One —”
Out of the night, out of the dark ether, came that call. And as the three men in the shack listened with tense interest, there was a swift answering voice.
“Newark Airport. Go ahead, Bentley.”
“We’re still over the Pennsylvania, nearing Balesville. Visibility getting bad up here at fifteen thousand. Been keeping altitude to cross the Alleghenies and to get best speed, but clouds are too thick. Don’t worry, though. We’re smack on the radio beam. Ought to make Newark in another hour.”
Slick rose to his feet. His dark eyes glinted, and there was a crooked, evil smile on his lips as he looked at his two companions.
“Newark in another hour, eh?” he chortled. “That’s what he thinks!”
“Number One going off,” said the voice in the loudspeaker. “I’m taking the controls again. Stand by.”
Slick glanced at his wrist-watch. His slender body had gone tense again.
“We’ve got to be all set, guys! Luke — you keep your ears on that radio. Ape, you just keep that mug of yours closed.”
THE BURLY MAN with the tommy gun at once broke that command.
“Listen,” came his coarse-toned protest, and there was a baffled look in his small, wide-set eyes. “I don’t savvy this business, honest! What are we gonna do? I thought we was bein’ paid to mess around with that railroad — wreckin’ them trains an’ —”
“If you was bein’ paid to think, you’d sure be out of luck!” Slick cut in with his harsh staccato. “Stop worryin’. The guy who gives us our orders knows his stuff, an’ I don’t mean maybe. You ain’t workin’ for no mobster, punk. You’re workin’ for the Tycoon of Crime!”
Awe threaded his voice as he pronounced that title — and the awe communicated itself at once to the burly Ape, who winced and was silent. Luke remained immobile, but the dangling cigarette in his thin lips bobbed slightly, as if to express his own feeling of respect.
“Yes, an’ the Tycoon knows his stuff,” repeated Slick. “Maybe it’s the swag on that plane.” His eyes narrowed. “But I ain’t trying to figure it. Whatever it is, it’s gonna put dough in our pockets.”
He broke off as once more the loudspeaker came to life.
“Pat Bentley calling — Visibility worse — I think I’ll go down a ways —”
“He thinks he’ll go down,” Luke echoed, his words significant despite his expressionless tone.
“Yeah.” Slick’s malignant smile flickered again. “He don’t know the half of it!” He moved hurriedly across the floor. “Got to be ready now! Any minute the time’ll come.
Any minute!”
THROUGH THE HIGH-SWIRLING cloud banks piled seemingly against the very stars, the huge-winged Douglas transport sliced downward, twin motors thundering, propellers churning the mists.
At times those mists swallowed the big plane completely. Then it would reappear, a great, silvery, birdlike shape, with lights showing from its cabin, and green and red running lights on its wing tips.
Below, through gaps in the mist, mountains showed dark, jutting peaks; gaping valley. Presently, as the heavier clouds were left drifting above, the big monoplane leveled in its flight, straightened to roar ahead.
In the cozy, lighted cabin, ultramodern in its appointments, the dozen passengers gratefully unstrapped the belts they had been cautioned to fasten during the descent. They settled back comfortably, secure in the knowledge that this plane was in capable hands, and that even through mist the invisible but complicated network of radios and beacons which had made sky-travel as fully developed as any railroad on signal-marked tracks, helped guide the ship safely through the night.
“Coffee?”
A trim-uniformed stewardess, her cap set jauntily over her copper-tinted hair, emerged from her compartment to pass down the corridor with her tray. She was pretty in an efficient, capable-looking way. As if she regarded all the passengers as helpless patients as long as they were in the air, she treated them with firm solicitude.
“Now, Madame —” She was speaking to the rather stout but mink-coated wife of a big Chicago business man, who had fought for tickets on this first, new run of the airline. “— do take coffee. It will steady your nerves.”
She passed the cup over, continuing her journey. Most of the passengers were men — men of wealth and position.