Page 19 of Passion's Wicked Torment

Hunter sighed and dropped the stub of his cigarette into the bottom of the coffee mug. The cigarette hissed out in the half-inch of cold coffee. Hunter knew the cops wouldn’t have continued the investigation, not when orders came down from the Treasury Department to stop it. The Treasury Department wielded a lot of power. It’s Alcoholic Beverages Commission was the main agency empowered by Congress to enforce the prohibition statutes.

“So we’ve got questions and no answers,” said Hunter dismally. “That’s about par for the course. That’s the way it’s been ever since I started working for you guys. Well, the only thing to do now is to just go back and keep up my investigation. And hope my cover hasn’t been blown.”

“That’s a big risk, considering that you think they’re suspicious about you.” Rogers frowned down at his shoes. Then he looked up and said, “If you do continue, I want you to take on a secondary mission: Find out what happened to Chad Fleming. If he’s still alive, let’s affect a rescue operation. But I’ll tell you this, Dallas. My personal feeling is that you should abandon the entire operation. It’s becoming riskier than I ever thought it would, now that they may be on to you.”

“If I abandon it, Ironman will go free, and I’ll have wasted the entire year I’ve been undercover. We’ve got nothing on him strong enough to stick in court. Nothing firsthand except the small stuff, which won’t cost him more than a year or two in Sing Sing. If I stay with it a bit longer, I may turn up something that’ll put him out of commission for good.”

“Yeah,” said Rogers harshly. “Unless he puts you out of commission first. Which is beginning to look likely.”

“Look! If you’re so concerned about my health and welfare, why didn’t you just leave me alone with what I was doing, instead of recruiting me as a damn federal agent? I was perfectly happy running Canadian whiskey in from Quebec to the mainland.”

Rogers shrugged and handed Hunter the new portfolio of mug shots from his briefcase. Each time they got together, Hunter was required to go through the recent mug shots to see if he could match them up with members of Ironman’s gang, who often went under false names.

As Hunter quickly leafed through the mug book, Rogers watched him with awe and fascination—and respect. He recalled the first time he had met him. It had been during a windy night at a secret coastal rendezvous point. Hunter was delivering a shipment of bootleg whiskey he had transported from Ana Pris Island. Rogers had his men surround the rendezvous point, and when Hunter docked and unloaded, he sprang his trap.

Hunter had been an independent bootlegger then, working only for himself. He had had three hired hands working under him, and the trawler he used had been rented, not owned. After the hired hands had been handcuffed and taken away, Rogers sat Hunter down on a rock and offered him a cigarette. It had been just the two of them; Roger’s men were off cataloging the confiscated shipment of liquor, out of hearing range. Hunter’s wrists were handcuffed. He was wearing an old, leather aviator’s jacket and visored military hat. He was angry as hell too.

“Damn it,” he had cursed, dragging on the cigarette, “why didn’t you at least arrest us when we just docked? Why did you have to wait two hours while we unloaded the stuff. That was damn hard work! And for nothing.” “You should be worrying about spending the next few years in prison,” Rogers suggested. “Not about how hard you worked unloading your booze.”

“Yeah, you should talk, T-man. You worked real hard springing your trap here. I can see you’re sweating like a dog.”

Rogers smiled at the sarcasm. “Matter of fact, Mr. Hunter, I did work pretty hard at setting it up. I’ve been keeping tabs on you for several months now.” Hunter was surprised. First, that Rogers knew his name; and second, that he had been keeping track of his activities. “If you’ve been on to me for months, why haven’t you busted me before?”

“Ironman Gianelli didn’t invite you to join his organization before.”

“You know about that too, huh?” Hunter said.

Rogers looked toward the crates of liquor, which were being cataloged by his men under the blazing arc lights. The surrounding sky and coast were black under the pall of night. Mosquitoes flitted around under the glare of the arc lights, fighting the strong wind. “Mr. Hunter, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Sorry, pal, you’re not my type.”

“Here’s the proposition: You join us for a particular mission, and we won’t put you in Sing Sing for ten years of your life.”

“You couldn’t get me for ten years. No judge would buy that.”

“We’ve got connections. We could do it.”

“What mission is it that’s so important to you?”

“We want to put Ironman away.”

Hunter laughed. “Lots of luck.” Ironman Gianelli was the most notorious criminal in the country even then, and he had several layers of people between himself and any operational acts to protect himself from prosecution. He never committed crimes personally. He only gave the orders, which were passed down to others, and then still others, before the crime was actually done. It was almost impossible to get clear evidence against him.

“We want you to infiltrate his organization,” Rogers continued. “We’ve never had a better opportunity than this to get him. We can’t plant one of our own men in his organization; he’d investigate his background too closely. We tried once and ended up with a dead agent. With you, though, he knows your background. You’re a bona fide hood. A bootlegger. He’s bought from you for over a year. And he respects your talent enough to want you as part of his gang. That’s why he made you the offer.”

“You didn’t know he’d make me the offer to come work for him,” Hunter said. “So why keep track of me for two months?”

“Two reasons. First, we’ve been keeping track of several people who might be invited to join him. You just happen to be the one he asked. Second, someone very high up has been looking over your record and decided you were the ideal man for the job. This person is quite impressed with you. He said he was sure you’d take the assignment, if it were presented to you properly.”

“Well, T-man, I guess you didn’t present it properly. Because the answer is no. I’m not interested. You can’t put me away for even two years. I’ve got a clean record.” He glanced away at the crates of his liquor, which were now being destroyed by the axes of Rogers’s federal agents. He looked back at Rogers. “And besides, I don’t like working for the government. I’m a believer in the free-enterprise system. I like being an independent operator making a dishonest living smuggling in honest booze.”

Rogers nodded understandingly. “I didn’t expect you’d want to go along with it. Neither did my superior, the higher-up I mentioned to you. who liked your war record. He said I should bring you in to him and let him persuade you personally.”

“Yeah? Who is this higher-up, anyway?”

“A man who can’t stand the reputation of lawlessness this country is getting around the world, thanks to people like Ironman Gianelli. A man who i

s obsessed with putting a stop to the crime wave Ironman is such a key part of. If we can put Ironman away, it’ll be a clear sign to the world that criminals don’t have free reign in our society. And it’ll show the lower-level hoods that we mean business.”

“You still didn’t tell me this higher-up’s name.” Rogers had been sitting on a boulder, near Hunter. He stood up, went to Hunter, and unlocked his handcuffs. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to him.”

And he had done just that. Rogers remembered how astonished Hunter had been to find out exactly who it was that was so interested in having him become a Treasury Department agent, a T-man. He agreed to go along with the plan.

Instead of continuing as an independent bootlegger who transported whiskey to Ironman’s speakeasies, Hunter accepted Ironman’s offer to come work for him. His first task was to show Ironman how to arrange his own network, so he could bring bootleg booze in himself and sell it to other speakeasies at a high profit. After that, Ironman made Hunter one of his major lieutenants, in charge of the Crimson Club. That casino provided a substantial part of Ironman’s illegal revenues.

Now there was a chance they might be close to actually jailing Ironman. And it was all because of the man who had persuaded Hunter to take the assignment. ...

“None of these mugs fit Ironman’s men,” Hunter said, interrupting Rogers’s recollection. Hunter handed the book back to him.

“What do you want us to do about this Kristin girl?” Roger asked. “Detain her? The longer we keep her away from you, the less chance of her finding out anything and reporting back to Ironman.”

“I want you to let her go. But don’t make it easy for her. Give her a hard time first. The thing is, I want to see who she calls for help. Who she runs to when she gets in a jam. That’ll tell me a lot about her.”

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