Dick Tracy Read Online Free PDF Page A

to scratching his head. “What brought him to the city, Tracy? I’d think tangling with you again would’ve been the last thing he’d want to do.”
    “Tangling with somebody was the last thing he did, all right. But what brought any of them here?”
    “I don’t know.” The Chief shook his head. “Somebody imported these rods. Why? It’s not like there’s a shortage of guns in this fair city of ours.”
    “This fair city of ours,” Tracy said, “is divided up into so many little fiefdoms, among seven or eight of the most vicious gangsters in this country.” He began ticking them off on his fingers. “Pruneface, Johnny Ramm, Texie Garcia, Ribs Mocca, Spud Spaldoni, Lips Manlis . . .”
    “And Big Boy himself,” the Chief added.
    Tracy nodded gravely. “Lucky for us Big Boy’s never been able to form a coalition between those groups . . . instead, they squabble amongst themselves, and skirmishes flare up, and they do us a favor now and again, and kill each other, a little.”
    “So far we’ve been luckier than a lot of towns,” Brandon said. “No civilian casualties.”
    “That’s because there’s never been an all-out war. But with Prohibition over, the revenue is drying up. The legitimate liquor industry is geared back up and serving its public. The bootleg mobs are confined to serving the dry counties here and there, and new sources of income are sorely needed. The local mobs are ripe for weeding out and consolidation.”
    Brandon’s face was tight with thought. “You think somebody—Lips Manlis, maybe, or Big Boy, or Pruneface—is planning to be the city’s one and only crime boss?”
    “Yes, I do,” Tracy said flatly. “Moreover, I think somebody else knows about it and is planning a counterattack.”
    “How do you figure that, Tracy?”
    He shrugged, gestured around himself to the sheet-covered corpses. “Why would you stick around after a noisy, risky execution in the middle of town, taking billfolds off corpses? Why risk a shoot-out with the cops, or exposing yourself to eyewitnesses, to do that?”
    Brandon didn’t have a clue; he said as much.
    “I don’t know about takin’ the I.D.s outa wallets,” Catchem admitted, “but as for this butchery . . . maybe the shooter just likes firin’ tommy guns. Looks to me like a crazy man did this, hired gun or not.”
    “What do you think, Pat?” Tracy called out, to his loyal assistant, who was standing rubbing the small of his back, tired from all that bending over, putting shells in evidence envelopes. Tracy knew Pat had been listening; Patton was not brilliant, but he was alert, and he was not stupid.
    “Maybe whoever had this done didn’t want us to know somebody had imported these gunmen,” Patton said. “Maybe they wanted us to think these unidentified stiffs were local. Because imported talent would mean a major gang war was in the making, and then we’d really crack down.”
    “That’s part of it,” Tracy said. “But a massacre like this isn’t the move of somebody afraid of us cracking down. There’s more to it than that. Yes, the man behind this wanted to keep us, at least momentarily, from realizing these gunmen were out-of-town talent; but he also wanted to keep us from finding out who imported these boys.”
    “But, Tracy,” Catchem said, “we don’t know who imported ’em. How could we know that?”
    “Pat—Little Face Finny, back in his stickup gang days, was in whose camp?”
    “Oh,” Patton said, slowly, “I get it. Lips Manlis!”
    Tracy nodded again. “I think if we can track the ownership of this garage back through the dummy corporations and holding companies and such, we’ll find the smooth and oh-so-ugly proprietor of the Club Ritz.”
    “That’ll take time,” Patton said gloomily.
    “I know,” Tracy said. “Time is exactly what good policework takes, Pat.”
    “We ought to go over to the Club Ritz,” Patton said, “and just roust that greasy little bum!”
    “Not a bad idea at