Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

And so the arrest of Ungar marked the beginning of what promises to be the end of the Rothstein dope ring — the crowning achievement in the fictionlike and hair-raising career of the peer of all narcotic agents. Little was published about the Wolf’s exploits when he was alive. The Government was rather touchy about that. It didn’t want people to know how clever he was. But his death changed all that, so I sought out the man with whom he had worked on so many cases and who knew Kerrigan as well as anybody — Assistant United States Attorney Blake. And from Mr. Blake I obtained the inside stories on three of the Wolf’s most thrilling exploits, many of the facts being set clown here for the first time.

II

Beyond a shadow of doubt, the intrepid Kerrigan had his closest call during his encounter with “Linky” Mitchell, generally recognized as one of the most fearless and desperate of the bad men, and the scourge of New York’s halfway world. Linky and the scrappy agent met head on one night in a glorified speakeasy just off the street called gay, and only a miracle — in the form of Wolf’s dominating personality — prevented the loss of several lives. In order that the reader will thoroughly appreciate the pure grit displayed by Kerrigan on the night in question, it will be best, perhaps, to unfold some of the more important details of Linky Mitchell’s life and habits.

Mitchell, a stocky lowbrow in his early twenties — with a career of petty crimes behind him — earned the sobriquet of “The Link” with the advent of prohibition, at which time his leap to notoriety was swift and lasting. He was, perhaps, the first of the bootleggers to successfully execute on a large scale the racket of toting booze from ship to shore. He operated several small boats which, in the murky hours between midnight and daybreak, chugged their way out into the ocean, got their cargo from waiting rum ships and brought it to shore for distribution. Thus, Mitchell became known as The Link because he was the go-between who brought about a connection between ships at sea and the thirsty ashore. As time went on, the nickname The Link was abbreviated to Linky.

In a short while, Mitchell became something of a whisky czar in certain circles. He supplied many of the more disreputable of the night clubs and cabarets and a long string of speakeasies with booze. One fine day another bootlegger made the sad mistake of encroaching on Linky’s territory, and the next night the bootlegger in question was found lying in an alley, literally perforated with forty-five caliber bullets. Linky boasted of the killing, displaying an empty but recently-fired forty-five caliber revolver.

When a few months wore on, the leader of a notorious gang decided to give Linky a little opposition in the booze racket and dispatched one of his henchmen to Mitchell to tell him so.

“You go on back,” retorted Mitchell, “and tell your boss that as soon as he starts takin’ the play off of me he’s a dead one. I love to bump people like that off, I do — and I ain’t kiddin’. Linky Mitchell never goes back on his word, he don’t.”

When the gang leader was apprised of Linky’s threat he laughed long and loudly. He had a whole army behind him, he reasoned, while Mitchell was known to be a lone wolf. So the gang leader promptly took an order for some booze in Linky’s self-designated domain, and within a week he was in his grave. Again Linky boasted of a killing as he strutted lordly through the underworld.

“ ’N let that be a warnin’,” added Linky to his awe-stricken listeners, “that nobody is goin’ to step on Linky Mitchell’s toes and get away with it — they ain’t.”

In a short while, Linky no longer enjoyed the thrill of encounters with those who trespassed on his territory — for the simple reason that other bootleggers were afraid to trespass. Linky had them all scared stiff. So, flushed with victory, he went out with the express purpose of digging up trouble, deciding to cut into the rackets of others. His first move in this daring campaign was a visit to a cabaret which was the hang-out of thieves, thugs and racketeers of all types. Linky approached the proprietor of the place and asked:

“Who are you buyn’ your booze off of?”

The proprietor supplied the name of his bootlegger, whereupon Linky retorted:

“Well, beginnin’ to-morrow you’re buyin’ it off of me, see?”

“No, I ain’t!” snapped the proprietor, who happened to be a tough egg.

“Listen, guy,” warned Mitchell, “I’ll be around to-morrow, and if you ain’t changed that weak mind o’ yours then I’ll bump you off. I’m Linky Mitchell, see?”

The proprietor laughed a slightly sickly laugh as the vicious-looking Linky strutted from the place, his cap pulled down over his eyes and a cigarette drooping from his tight lips. He told some of his thug-patrons of Mitchell’s threat. They advised him to pay no attention to Linky — which turned out to be bad advice.

“We’ll take care of dat bimbo if he starts gittin’ tough,” was the reassuring comment of one gangster.