Chapter 11

Taking out 14 men in a large room at one time was not going to be easy! The only way around the problem was not to do it that way. The Ghost needed some way to separate the men into small groups and keep them separated long enough to eliminate each small group before moving on to the next group. Maybe he could entice some of the men below to come up on the roof. One sure way to do that would be to throw a body through a skylight.

There was only one ladder from the ground to the roof, so that was a good spot to ambush a man as he climbed to the roof to investigate the trouble up there. The first man The Ghost killed had a broken neck and no cuts on his body, so he was the perfect candidate to pitch down through the skylight. All they would have was a dead body with no obvious reason for his death, except possibly for the fall.

Only one man at a time could climb the ladder, so there was no way for The Ghost to be overwhelmed by numbers if he didn't get careless. The Ghost picked his station by the ladder and went back to toss down the corpse. The Ghost threw the body very forcefully through the closed skylight to make sure that the maximum clatter was raised. He was lucky that the body landed on its head, so that was the ready explanation for the broken neck.

The result was a reaction like a stirred up ant hill. Some men ran to the body, and some men ran outside to try to see what might be happening on the roof. The Ghost had plenty of time to run to his place beside the ladder and await a visitor. The first man who poked his head over the coping was allowed to climb all the way onto the roof before he was attacked. The Ghost slugged him behind the ear with his cosh hard enough to kill him before he could utter a sound. His body was pulled to one side and hidden in the shadows.

A minute or so later, an impatient soul called out, "HEY, ALFIE! WHAT DO YOU SEE?" There was no answer from the roof, so the question was repeated. Still no answer, so the impatient soul started climbing to see for himself. He met the same fate as Alfie.

Soon there were more calls of "WHAT'S GOIN' ON UP THERE?" and similar questions from several of the men on the ground. After a while, another man was delegated to investigate the roof. He was less impetuous when he looked over the coping, but, not seeing anything suspicious, climbed all the way up and met the same fate as the first two men.

Now the questions and cries from below were becoming more frantic as real worry crept into those left on the ground. The Ghost was amused by the actions down there as the men became more and more upset at not hearing from their scouts. The number of men on the ground was already reduced to 11 and becoming more manageable by the minute.

The next man to climb was much more cautious when he topped the coping. He paused long enough to draw a pistol and cock it before climbing the rest of the way to the roof. His climb was very awkward since he had only one hand available for holding on to the ladder. He struggled over the coping and took two steps away from the ladder before he was attacked by The Ghost. His body was dragged to the growing pile of dead men which was becoming harder to hide as it grew larger.

There was quite a discussion now going on at ground level. The consensus was that O'Malley would not settle for half measures. They were now convinced that some thing or some person on the roof was attacking their fellows, and that person or thing had to be The Ghost. Their lives were now worth nothing if they did not capture or kill whatever was up there causing all of the trouble. If they ran away, O'Malley would see that they were killed in a very painful and unpleasant manner, so they had no choice but to attack. The question was, how to do it?

So far, sending only one man at a time up the ladder had been futile, so they needed to try something else. There was no way to put two men onto the roof at the same time, but they could try the next best thing of sending two men up the ladder, one right behind the other. The plan was for the first man to hurry onto the roof and clear the way for the second man before the first man could be attacked. This sounded reasonable, so that was what they tried.

The two men climbed up the ladder practically overlapping each other. This made the climbing awkward, but it helped the feelings of both men, so it was worth the sacrifice of speed at the lower end of the ladder. They got to the top and the first man scrambled over the coping as fast as he could, but he kicked his helper in the face as he did it. This caused the second man to fall from the ladder and break his leg when he hit the ground. He wasn't dead, but he was certainly out of the fight.

The first man was still on hands and knees when The Ghost attacked. A blow from the cosh finished him off, too, so he was dragged to the growing pile of bodies. There were now five corpses in the stack and The Ghost felt that more than one more was going to force him to start a second pile. Shit, more details to worry about! At least, there were now only eight able bodied enemies left below.

There was considerable discussion this time before it was decided to send up two more men, but spaced far enough apart so that they would not interfere with each other. These two men went up the ladder all right, but they were both convinced that neither one was coming back down. There was so little enthusiasm in their climb that the leader on the ground poked the second man in the ass with his knife to encourage him to get with the program.

This time, The Ghost changed his plans. He was confident that he could handle the six men still on the ground, because they would have some way to escape if the fight got too much for them. Therefore, all he needed to do was take care of these two now climbing the ladder before launching his attack on those left below.

The Ghost switched to his staff and extended one of the blades. He let the first man get almost over the coping before cutting off his head. His blood was still spurting as he fell back and dislodged the man climbing behind him. The second man broke several bones as he landed, but everybody assumed that he was dead because of all of the blood from the first man that was covering him.

The Ghost did not wait for the men below to decide their next move. He ran to the broken skylight and dropped his climbing rope through. It was looped around an anchoring post so that it could be removed without requiring a return to the roof. The Ghost went down his rope as fast as he could safely move and waved at the children to keep silent as he ran to the front door.

He had his staff ready with both blades extended as he waded into the unsuspecting men standing near the ladder. He killed the first two he came to with quick chops that removed heads. The others were downed with stabs to the torso, except for one who took off at a dead run. The Ghost allowed him to escape, knowing that it would take more than a hour for a counterattack to be organized.

Jason removed his hood so that he would not be so frightening to the children and released them from the cage. It took more than an hour to manage it, but the children were led to Betty's bordello where they were cared for by the staff.

O'Malley was so enraged that he personally cut the throat of Berty Gregg, the lieutenant who had planned the fiasco. The messenger was bludgeoned to death for his part in the failed scheme, but this was done by O'Malley's guards.