The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

As the gorillas passed from the room, the moll helped herself to a man-sized drink from the bottle on the table. She had stern work before her and she welcomed the scorching liquor as it warmed her throat. The moll walked swiftly from the rear door of the speakie, just as Mort Mitchell’s big black car slid away from the garage door on its errand of death.

Silently through the twilight the big car swept, through the outskirts of the city and into the fashionable residence area. Hardly a word was spoken, for the route was well-mapped and the trip timed to the minute. Finally it drew up in the shadows of the small cross-road outside the Wilson estate and the gangsters took up their stations.

Ten minutes before the time they looked for the car of Blackie Rango and his apes, its dimmed lights appeared far down the smooth road leading to the Wilson country mansion. Smoothly and menacingly the armored car of Rango approached through the semi-darkness. They recognized its lines, even at a distance.

Mort gave his last order.

“When they get opposite the big pine on the right,” he whispered, “over with the tree — and then grab your Tommy-guns and open up on the car. And, remember, STAY AWAY FROM THAT CAR if you fail to penetrate his armor!”

Closer came the Rango car as Mort and Sam and Barry crouched in the protecting foliage at the roadside. Sweeping up the road, the big car approached almost before they were hidden. It seemed right upon them when the shoulders of Sam and Barry leaned against the big tree which already was cut for falling. With a muffled roar, the tree plunged across the road, hardly a dozen feet in front of the rival gangsters’ auto!

There was a screeching of brakes — but not in time. Blackie Rango’s automobile, carrying the eager Blackie and three of his gorillas, plunged into the tree’s foliage just as the Tommy-guns of Mort Mitchell’s gorillas spat flames!

The lead hail played a tattoo against the sides of the heavy armed car, and in a minute Rango and his rod men had picked themselves from the floor and were replying to the fire through slits in the body of the car.

Despite his trap, Mort Mitchell found Rango, his enemy, apparently safe in his fort-like automobile embedded in the foliage of the felled tree.

“Back!” yelled Mort, and there was a momentary silence as the Tommy-guns of Sam and Barry stopped. “Back into the woods,” yelled Mort — and he dived to a depression beneath a distant tree. As he dived, his hand stretched out and struck a plunger — a plunger such as is used in dynamiting. The pressure on the plunger completed the electric contact he had set.

There was a flash and a roar — and the road beneath Blackie Rango’s enmeshed automobile opened up in a devastating blast.

The mine which Mort Mitchell had set in the road had done the work the Tommy-guns could not do through the thick armor of the Rango car. Struck from below, its vulnerable spot, the big armored car flew apart as though the explosion came from within itself. As the echoes of the blast died away, a heavy pall of smoke hung over the spot. And as it cleared, nothing remained except a huge crater in the once smooth road, a few broken and twisted bits of metal.

The stunned Sam and Barry rushed for their car as Mort joined them.

“Out of here, quick,” Mort commanded. “That blast will bring every dick and every motorcycle cop from miles around. Back to the city, Sam — and by the back road.”