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The Dalmas Affair
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PART SIX
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Getting Magoon Second Time Round Stilts and Warburg leave the office building with Lou Lid, steal a car and head to Magoon's apartment on Park Avenue. On the way they leave a message for Smith and Hales in case they should call in.  OFF WITH THE LOU Meanwhile Smith and hales, who have met up with a German courtesan named Sabine, head downstairs to try and find Magoon's secret way out via the sewers and possibly via the Casino strong room. As they proceed down a corridor behind her they notice she avoids certain parts of the floor taking unusually large strides at points. The corridor proceeds down some stairs to a large armored door. As they open the door using keys taken from other mobsters a loud click is heard and Hales is literally cut in half by just a single impossibly large bullet. Smith having spotted the mine has dug it out of the floor and together with a grenade tosses the explosives through the door. It hits some furniture and lands in the room immediately going off and engulfing the room beyond and the unfortunate Sabine in a large explosion. Straight after the blast Smith jumped into the room and saw an ante room leading off it from where the impossibly large gun had shot into the corridor killing Hales. This gun however being so big, takes an age to load and the mobster guard was still trying to do so when Smith moved on him and shot him dead. He then moved across the guardroom and headed down some more stairs at the other end. Walking down another corridor Smith passes a large heavy vault door. He may be a lock pick but he's no safecracker and can't open the door.  PLACE YOUR GUNS HERE.... Moving on he goes upstairs and ends up further along the same parallel street that Lou lid and Stilts and Warburg had ended up in. Another Cop Shows Up And Another Deep One Increasing the incidence of car crime in this street still further he too steals a car and heads off to the hotel to check in and pick up messages. Here he finds out the others are off the Park Avenue and goes to join them. Outside Park Avenue they spot a man taking an unusual interest in the top floor apartment. They confront him and find out he's detective Fred Henderson from New England Sheriff's department. under some pressure he admits that he is looking for his friend Violets M'Gee who he thinks has been captured by Magoon. Because Violets is a cop he believes even Magoon may baulk at killing him. In an alley way they see another strange man. He has the same slightly bulbous eyes and puffy lips. He gruffly warns the gangsters to get him the jade. Plans are made to enter the building.  SOMETHING SMELLS FISHY Lou Stilts Henderson and Smith follow Warburg into the building. Lou quickly shoots the concierge and then they find the phone wires and disconnect all the phones in the apartment block. They take the lift up to the 18th floor (of 20) and all get out. They go up to the 19th floor call up the lift and then wedge it open so it's stuck. Henderson is left to stand guard at the lift. Lou and smith take point on the stairwell. An errand boy comes running down the stairs and is grabbed and frisked, he explains that Magoon has sent him downstairs to get the phones fixed. The four gangsters then get ready to storm the apartment. Four Go Mad In Manhattan Having grabbed the messenger the mobsters grill him about who is upstairs. Under some persuasion the boy explains that Ricketts, Soukesian , whom he refers to as Souk the spook, and Big Willie Magoon are all in the apartment. He adds that also there is some cop chain up that Willie likes to beat up periodically. They leave Henderson to watch the lift and head upstairs to the penthouse apartment. The cage elevator opens opposite the front door to the apartment so they elect to take the stairs and approach the front door from the side. Warburg and Smith head upstairs to the roof and look for a way down from there to the penthouse. They have seen a small balcony at the front of the top floor and hope that they can gain access that way attacking on two fronts.  CAGED ANIMALS They make their way slowly up the access stairs and move slowly and quietly over the roof. Meanwhile Lou in his inimitable style makes a more direct approach. Knock Knock Bang Bang! Stilts stops him and sends the boy up and down the top flight of stairs twenty times. When he is good and out breath, simulating a trip to the ground floor, where he had been sent, and a run back up, they make him knock on the door. Lou and Stilts wait either side of the door with guns and grenades at the ready. A big door opens and there is a loud click as a huge water cooled machine gun sputters and jams. The occupants of the apartment had viewed the spy hole and seen Lou in the lobby. They angled the machine gun so that it was all set to kill him but the gun jammed!  I WILL HUFF AND PUFF...BULLETS Instead of 150 high caliber armour piercing flying his way there was just a stunned pause. Lou took this opportunity to toss in his grenade. A satisfyingly loud explosion followed engulfing the once swanky entrance hall in dust and debris. The boy watching aghast took this opportunity to flee downstairs. The dust subsided and revealed three dead gangsters and a sadly damaged water cooled heavy machine gun and a box of ammo. The squirt had lied, none of these three were Magoon Soukesian or Ricketts. This explosion was a useful signal to Warburg and Smith who had traversed the roof and advanced to the edge just above the small balcony in front the apartments main sitting room. They spotted a very large man with a nickel plated .45 standing by a glass door on the balcony. He was staring out into the city skyline and seemed not to react to the explosion. Warburg opted to seize this moment and emptied his tommy gun at the hapless target. He fell down in a light red mist.  ONE GANGESTER LESS Standing above the glass door Smith threw in a grenade for good measure. Saving his own he had used a German stick grenade he picked up at the speakeasy. Definitely Not Silent Running Perhaps if he had understood a bit of German he may have realised, however he didn't. He never wondered why the stick grenade was slightly larger and had a lot of writing on it. A blinding white flash erupted from the room together with a blinding white flash. It was a thermite grenade. The carpet was now specked with bits of flame as the white hot chemical drops from the smouldering ceiling on the floor. Warburg and Smith then dropped down into the living room. On either side of the room a door led into the rest of the apartment.  ROOM AND GANGSTER BURNING BRIGHT In front of them another door led to a similarly blown up entrance hall and Lou Lid and Stilts. Lou and Stilts had ventured inside the hall but had heard movement from two more doors either side of the entrance hall. From their left a hoarse voice called out "help me I'm in here; I'm a cop". Now to good honest Joe citizen, this may have been a cue to go and help out. However the cop was talking to completely the wrong audience. The Chicago mob hated the police just as Lou did and they were as likely to toss in a grenade as rescue him. Calling In The Big Guns Before they could do so from the opposite door of the hall Lou and stilts heard a large gun being cocked. Firing blind the occupants shot straight through the door in the direction of the mobsters. A hole almost 3 inches across appeared in the door as an impossibly large bullet bisected both men and made a similarly large hole in the far wall. This gun had left a nice hole in the door and Lou made good use it firing his Tommy Gun through it. Screams were heard and bodies crashed to the floor.  GREAT PLAN STILTS Stilts followed up with a now obligatory grenade as yet another explosion tore through the apartment. Good job it was an expensive place and not a cheap tenement or it may have collapsed. That put paid to the attackers, Stilts and Lou then entered the room. They were in an office or library area lined with books and once nicely upholstered chairs and desks at which to sit and read them. This was now decorated with shrapnel, flecks of debris from the ceiling and many books had been blown off their shelves. Grenades always make such a nice mess. Finding The Bookie And Teaching Him To Fly Meanwhile Warburg and Smith were searching the rest of the apartment. Walking across the now blown-up and slightly burning living room they went through a door into a bedroom. Inside an oily looking man wearing a loud suit cowered from them. A gruff questioning and a few slaps kept him in his place and he revealed that the apartment's safe was in the library behind a false bookshelf. As the gangsters turned to look in the direction he indicated, the oily man chose to point and shoots a small gun at them. However Warburg spotted his move and shot him. The oily man fell to the ground badly wounded. However Warburg wasn't the type to let this sort of thing go without considerable retribution. So he carried the oily man back into the smouldering living room and out onto the balcony. He then disdainfully threw the hapless fellow over the balcony towards the street some twenty storeys below.  CAN GANGSTERS FLY? He landed with a satisfying if somewhat messy squelch. They then headed off to the library. |
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