Mouthpiece (2 page)

Patiently, as though he had nothing if not time, Mat
crawled quietly along until he could almost touch the shattered back of the
inverted sedan. The smell of leaking gas was in his dilated nostrils and
Petey's silhouette, even down to the poised gun, fully occupied his calm eyes.
For a full minute Mat lay still, looking at Petey, debating whether or not to
use his gun butt for a
sap
. But the thought was somehow jangling.

Creeping forward he came up beside Petey, almost level
with his shoulder.

Petey heard the rustling sound of cloth against cinders
and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “Did we hit him, Blake?”

“No,” whispered Mat. He grabbed Petey by the scruff of the
neck and jerked him upright, bringing a sledgehammer fist viciously into the
shoe-box face. “No,” repeated Mat, dropping the limp figure, “you didn't.”

“What's that?” called Blake from the other side of the
car. “What'd you say?”

Mat fumbled around until he found Petey's automatic. He
grasped it tightly before standing up. “You,” he bellowed, “had better toss
away that toy you're holding and holler
uncle
!”

Lead smashed through the car from the other side,
whining away across the city dump. And lead went back through, three times, to
stop abruptly, eliciting a shrill scream.

Mat carefully snapped on the pistol's safety catch and
then walked over to the embankment. By the car's light, he found a piece of
rusty iron wire looped out of the ashes. He pulled it to him amid a clatter and
crunch of rusty tin cans and then strode back to the car.

Petey received the first treatment, and soon he was
wired tightly, propped against the front bumper of the sedan, his head wearily
dropped on his chest.

As Blake was secured he moaned aloud.

“Shut up,” ordered Mat. “You aren't hurt. Those two
punctures won't do any more than let some of the grease out of you.” He gave
the wire a final twist and then stood back to appreciate his handiwork.

Petey came to with a yell and a squirm which subsided
instantly as he saw the bulk of Mat squatting on his heels before them.

“Now that the congregation is assembled, boys,” purred
Mat, “we might as well hold a confession. They tell me it's good for the soul,
though that probably lets you two out. I want the lowdown on the higher-ups.”

Green eyes and black eyes stubbornly glared at him. Two
sets of twitching lips tried to be firm and unrelenting.

“So,” remarked Mat, “you won't talk. Well, there's
plenty of time.” He took the automatic which Petey had given him earlier in the
evening and extracted a cartridge from it.

Listening intently, he shook the shell close to his ear
and then grunted. With a penknife and a hard cinder he carefully extracted the
steel-jacketed lead and poured the contents of the shell into his hand.

“Sand!” Mat jiggled his hand, looking at the white
particles. “Now, I wonder what bright boy thought that up.”

He found Blake's pistol by the car and with this in his
right hand and Petey's in his left, he backed away in the headlight's glare,
hefting the two weapons suggestively. “You're sure you don't want to talk?”

Silence came from the bumper in spite of uneasy
squirming.

“Well, I haven't had any target practice for some time.”
Mat backed away until he was well up on the embankment.

Carefully sighting on the first number of the license
plate between the two gunmen, Mat squeezed the trigger, expertly puncturing the
numeral.

“Now,” he purred, “we'll skip a number, and then
another, and then the next one catches Petey between the eyes. That leaves
Blake to talk. If he doesn't want to, I go back the way I came and take off
each of Blake's ears.” He raised his left hand and ventilated the designated
numeral.

Just as he was bringing down his right gun, Petey
wailed, “I'll talk! I'll squeal! Honest-to-God, I'll talk! Don't shoot!”

Carefully sighting on the first number of the license plate
between the two gunmen, Mat squeezed the trigger,
expertly puncturing the numeral.

Mat sat down in front of him, bending an attentive ear
to Petey's babble.

“Rat-Face found out about it!” Petey moaned. “He's got
plenty on me and he said if I didn't, he'd squawk to the
bulls
. I didn't wanna
drill
ya! Honest, I didn't! But he made me. He told me to give you that phony
gun in case you got suspicious.” Petey rambled on with details.

Mat got to his feet and bound up the two bullet holes in
Blake's arm and side. He fixed the wire so that it held the two gunmen together
and left long, trailing ends. Taking the two wires in his left hand, and a gun
in his right, Mat said, “
Giddap
!”

Although it was a long walk back to the edge of town,
Mat's stride was as strong as ever when the first lamppost was reached.

But Petey and Blake dragged woeful heels, as though
every step was the last.

A taxi came to their rescue and whirred through town
toward a residential section. Stately lawns sloped primly back toward
overbearing mansions, and huge cars were parked at the curb. When their taxi
braked before an especially imposing home, Mat herded his two wards to the
sidewalk where they drooped, paid the driver and marched down a perfectly
landscaped expanse, coming to a halt before the castle-like door.

Listening to the sound of an orchestra inside, Mat read
“C. G. Swartz” on the doorplate and then rang the bell.

The butler who answered was politely amazed at the
spectacle on the veranda. “I'm sorry, gentlemen, but Mr. Swartz is giving a
party and no visitors are to be admitted.” He bowed slightly from the hips.

“Tough,” remarked Mat, and the
butler found himself sprawled on the floor, the lights spinning above him.

S
wartz's party was the height of elegance. Men who were unmistakably
judges and politicians, and women who were undoubtedly snobbish, swirled about
to the tune of a twelve-piece orchestra. Mat lifted one eyebrow at the colorful
sight and then looked about him.

A secure coat-hook caught and held his attention. He
twisted his two wires together in a loop, to hoist his prisoners off the floor
and leave them obscenely dangling in midair.

Nonchalantly oblivious of his laced boots and generally
secondhand condition, Mat stepped into the ballroom. Grimly he looked about,
attempting to single out Swartz.

A sudden motion caught Mat's attention and he saw
Swartz, tipping forward as though he was about to fall.

The hairless head was quivering with surprise, and the
black eyes were two beads of terror.

Mat looked across the room at Swartz, his square face
sliding into a cold smile. “Good evening, Mr. Swartz,” he called.

And with long, effortless strides, his leather heels
crashing through the stillness of the room, not minding the unanimity of eyes
which were disdainfully upon him, Mat came close to Swartz. His eyes bored into
the spherical blob of surprised flesh.

“Sorry to trouble you, Swartz,” said Mat, “but I thought
you'd like to know that Petey squealed.” His tone was impersonal, his eyes
watchful.

The shiny face turned yellow, then dead white, and
Swartz tottered back. His hand darted to his hip, and terror shone in his
eyes—animal terror which gave no thought to anything but the impulse to kill.

Mat's hand shot out and caught the wrist, doubling the
arm back with a savage jerk. Mat's voice crashed through the room like a cannon
shot.

“You're clever,
Mouthpiece
. But not clever enough! When
you shot Dad, you thought I'd clear out, didn't you? You didn't count on my
coming back, did you?” He wrenched the arm again and beads of sweat darted out
against the lawyer's gray forehead.

Men in evening clothes were pulling at Mat's arms,
trying to pry him away from Swartz. Voices were blended in an excited,
hysterical roar.

Mat whipped about, still holding to Swartz, brushing
away the men as though they were made of paper.

“Get back! This is my party!” The sheer strength of his
voice seemed physical and the crowd swept away, staring, once more silent.

Turning to Swartz, his eyes deadly, Mat snapped, “Talk,
Mouthpiece. Go on and talk. You got plenty to tell and no doubt your friends
will want to hear about it.” With a slow smile he reached into his pocket and
brought forth a folded sheaf of papers which he crackled in front of Swartz.

“See these? Well, they're signed confessions by your
little pals Petey and Blake. They squealed, see? Turned state's evidence. I got
it here in black-and-white that it was your bullet which knocked off my dad!”

“It's a lie!” screamed Swartz, pitiful in his terror.
“It's a lie. They did it for me! They did it and I can prove it! I had a party
that night and anybody'll tell you I didn't do it! I didn't, hear me? I
didn't.”

The silence of the room deepened. Swartz stared wildly
about, suddenly realizing what he had done. His knees crumpled under him and
his head rolled forward, shining in the colored lights. But Mat grabbed the
front of his coat and held him up, shaking him.

Mat's words whipped and lashed about Swartz. “You had me
taken for a ride
tonight. Gave me a dud gun and planted your gorillas on me.
Sent me after a
right guy
! Now, what have you got to say?”

He shook the lawyer savagely, holding the dangling feet
clear off the floor. “Where's the cash you stole off my dad?”

Swartz gurgled and looked up, beaten, whipped. “All
right, Lawrence. All right.” His voice was dead and his eyes were glued to the
papers Mat still held before him. “I'll talk!”

He wailed suddenly. “I'll talk! But don't shake me! Set
me down!”

“Talk!” snapped Mat.

“The key's in my pocket!” cried Swartz. “The key to the
safe-deposit box at the First National! It's all there! Every penny of it's
there!”

“You're witnesses,” Mat said to the crowd, dropping
Swartz to the yellow hardwood floor. He ransacked the pockets of the lawyer's
dress suit and brought to light a ring of keys. “Which one?”

“That one,” moaned Swartz, pointing.

As Mat extracted the designated key from the ring, a
tall, dignified gentleman with white hair tapped him on the shoulder.

“I'm Judge Halloway,” said the man. “I can act in an
official capacity. You have reference to the Lawrence murder, is that right?”

“Yes,” affirmed Mat, getting to his feet. “I got the
goods on Swartz and those two lads outside. They tried to bump me tonight.”

With a glance at the heap of broadcloth and palsied
flesh which was Swartz, Halloway drew Mat to one side. “You'd better give me
those confessions.”

“What confessions?” Mat was puzzled for an instant and
then grinned, looking down at the sheaf in his hand. “Oh! These aren't
anything. They're just some estimates for mules to haul dirt, out at the power
project.”

“But,” faltered Halloway, “how did you know that Swartz
was guilty?”

Mat grinned and pulled out the automatic which Petey had
given him. “Swartz gave me this through a gangster named Petey. He thought I'd
try to pull some rough stuff and use it; and as long as I'd asked for it, he
gave it to me.”

He slipped a cartridge out of the clip and quickly bit
the lead out of the brass shell with his teeth, to pour white sand in his palm.
“He had to give me dud cartridges and he was afraid I'd investigate too soon.

“You see this white sand in my palm? Well, Petey claimed
that another mobster bribed him to plant this gun on me and take me for a ride.
But this white sand says differently. Have you ever noticed that old sand
blotting box on Swartz's desk?”

“Yes,” admitted Halloway.