第71章 The Black Hand(4)

Taking the bag of tools, the wire, and one of the small packages, we went out on the street and then up through the dark and ill-ventilated hall of the tenement.Half-way up a woman stopped us suspiciously.

"Telephone company," said Craig curtly."Here's permission from the owner of the house to string wires across the roof."He pulled an old letter out of his pocket, but as it was too dark to read even if the woman had cared to do so, we went on up as he had expected, unmolested.At last we came to the roof, where there were some children at play a couple of houses down from us.

Kennedy began by dropping two strands of wire down to the ground in the back yard behind Vincenzo's shop.Then he proceeded to lay two wires along the edge of the roof.

We had worked only a little while when the children began to collect.However, Kennedy kept right on until we reached the tenement next to that in which Albano's shop was.

"Walter," he whispered, "just get the children away for a minute now.""Look here, you kids," I yelled, "some of you will fall off if you get so close to the edge of the roof.Keep back."It had no effect.Apparently they looked not a bit frightened at the dizzy mass of clothes-lines below us.

"Say, is there a candy-store on this block" I asked in desperation.

"Yes, sir," came the chorus.

"Who'll go down and get me a bottle of ginger ale?" I asked.

A chorus of voices and glittering eyes was the answer.They all would.I took a half-dollar from my pocket and gave it to the oldest.

"All right now, hustle along, and divide the change."With the scamper of many feet they were gone, and we were alone.

Kennedy had now reached Albano's, and as soon as the last head had disappeared below the scuttle of the roof he dropped two long strands down into the back yard, as he had done at Vincenzo's.

I started to go back, but he stopped me.

"Oh, that will never do," he said."The kids will see that the wires end here.I must carry them on several houses farther as a blind and trust to luck that they don't see the wires leading down below."We were several houses down, still putting up wires when the crowd came shouting back, sticky with cheap trust-made candy and black with East Side chocolate.We opened the ginger ale and forced ourselves to drink it so as to excite no suspicion, then a few minutes later descended the stairs of the tenement, coming out just above Albano's.

I was wondering how Kennedy was going to get into Albano's again without exciting suspicion.He solved it neatly.

"Now, Walter, do you think you could stand another dip into that red ink of Albano's !"I said I might in the interests of science and justice--not otherwise.

"Well, your face is sufficiently dirty," he commented, "so that with the overalls you don't look very much as you did the first time you went in.I don't think they will recognise you.Do Ilook pretty good?"

"You look like a coal-heaver out of a job," I said."I can scarcely restrain my admiration.""All right.Then take this little glass bottle.Go into the back room and order something cheap, in keeping with your looks.Then when you are all alone break the bottle.It is full of gas drippings.Your nose will dictate what to do neat.Just tell the proprietor you saw the gas company's wagon on the next block and come up here and tell me."I entered.There was a sinister-looking man, with a sort of unscrupulous intelligence, writing at a table.As he wrote and puffed at his cigar, I noticed a scar on his face, a deep furrow running from the lobe of his ear to his mouth.That, I knew, was a brand set upon him by the Camorra.I sat and smoked and sipped slowly for several minutes, cursing him inwardly more for his presence than for his evident look of the "mala vita." At last he went out to ask the barkeeper for a stamp.

Quickly I tiptoed over to another corner of the room and ground the little bottle under my heel.Then I resumed my seat.The odour that pervaded the room was sickening.

The sinister-looking man with the scar came in again and sniffed.

I sniffed.Then the proprietor came in and sniffed.

"Say," I said in the toughest voice I could assume, "you got a leak.Wait.I seen the gas company wagon on the next block when Icame in.I'll get the man."

I dashed out and hurried up the street to the place where Kennedy was waiting impatiently.Rattling his tools, he followed me with apparent reluctance.

As he entered the wine-shop he snorted, after the manner of gas-men, "Where's de leak?""You find-a da leak," grunted Albano."What-a you get-a you pay for? You want-a me do your work?""Well, half a dozen o' you wops get out o' here, that's all.

D'youse all wanter be blown ter pieces wid dem pipes and cigarettes? Clear out," growled Kennedy.

They retreated precipitately, and Craig hastily opened his bag of tools.

"Quick, Walter, shut the door and hold it," exclaimed Craig, working rapidly.He unwrapped a little package and took out a round, flat disc-like thing of black vulcanised rubber.Jumping up on a table, he fixed it to the top of the reflector over the gas-jet.

"Can you see that from the floor, Walter?" he asked under his breath.

"No," I replied, "not even when I know it is there."Then he attached a couple of wires to it and led them across the ceiling toward the window, concealing them carefully by sticking them in the shadow of a beam.At the window he quickly attached the wires to the two that were dangling down from the roof and shoved them around out of sight.

"We'll have to trust that no one sees them," he said."That's the best I can do at such short notice.I never saw a room so bare as this, anyway.There isn't another place I could put that thing without its being seen."We gathered up the broken glass of the gas drippings bottle, and I opened the door.

"It's all right, now," said Craig, sauntering out before the bar.

"Only de next time you has anyt'ing de matter call de company up.