The Halfway to Hell Club

by MARK J. McCRACKEN

  I guess I should have left off that last part. It wasn’t appreciated. She did her best to compose herself. She carefully dabbed her lips with a napkin and stood up. I kept my chair.

  “We are done here, Mr. O’Farrell. Jonathan Wheeler is a decent man, a respected member of the community, and frankly, a better man than you are. You are fired. Send your final bill, you two-bit peeper. One of these days you will end up dead in the gutter or show up in my hospital with a bullet in you. You pathetic loser,” she hissed. She allowed herself the satisfaction of a superior smile. She was feeling the full effect of the martinis and starting to slur her words.

  “As you wish, Doctor. But one final piece of advice: Get a new fence in your back yard. I would recommend one that is a little higher, a tall guy like me can see over the top while you and Wheeler are doing the horizontal mambo.”

  She went to throw her drink in my face, but her glass was empty. Just like she was. She didn’t know what to do, so she stormed off. As she was scurrying out, I called to her.

  “Hey, Doc, you forgot to pick up the tab, don’t worry, I’ll put it in the final bill.” I laughed as she stormed to the lobby. She heard me all right, as she hesitated for a second. Then she just kept going. She wouldn’t give me the satisfaction.

  I paid and went to the front. The parking attendant was there. “Hey, did you almost get run over by a yellow Caddie LaSalle?” I said.

  “Gees, that twist is nuts. She almost closed the door on my hand too, plus she almost hit two people in the parking lot. And, if that isn’t enough, she stiffed me. What’s eating her?”

  I handed the kid a buck. “Probably upset that she doesn’t drive a Chevy,” I said with a twisted smile as I lit a smoke.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  In my office, I prepared the bill for Connie Morehouse. I was struggling with the idea of what not to include. Screw it; she was going to pay for my drinks with Charlie on the Delta Queen, as well as the drinks at the Cliff House. This was business, after all. Just because she wasn’t happy with the facts, that was no reason for her to skip on the bill. I folded the bill and placed it in an envelope, I licked a stamp, and we were ready to go. It was hot this afternoon; I had the fan going in the office and it was still warm.

  The phone rang. It was Marty from downstairs.

  “Hey, Sean, Vinnie Castellano is a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, Vinnie and I are buds. Why?”

  “His wife and little girl are down here in the lobby. The mom is taking the kid to see Dr. Grayson the dentist; the kid doesn’t want to go and is throwing a first-class fit. The mom is beside herself. I called Vinnie and he is on the way, but she could sure use some help down here.”

  I grabbed my envelope and headed for the elevator. I didn’t have my suit coat on because it was so warm. My guns were in the desk drawer. I left them there because I didn’t want to scare little Mimi. She may be used to seeing her dad with a gun; I don’t know how she would take seeing me with one.

  When the elevator doors opened, Gina and Mimi Castellano were sitting on a bench next to Marty’s newsstand. Mimi was pitching a fit all right: screaming, kicking, yelling, and crying, the full crop. I sat next to Mimi and didn’t say a word. After a couple of minutes she stopped and said, “Hello, Mr. O’Farrell.”

  “Hi, Mimi. It’s been a while since I saw you last. What are you, twelve years old now?” I said.

  She smiled, “No, I’m nine.”

  “No, you can’t be nine. Are you sure you aren’t ten or eleven? You look a lot older than nine?” I smiled broadly at her.

  “No, I’m nine.” She lowered her head because she was ashamed of her tantrum.

  “What are you doing today?”

  She was kicking the heels of her shoes against the leg of the bench. Gina’s eyes were moist; she was exhausted from dealing with Mimi. She gave me a warm smile.

  Mimi was trying to explain herself. She had a tissue in her hand and was tearing at it nervously. I was about to say something to her when I saw it.

  There are moments in your life when time stands still, when everything comes to a grinding halt. I looked out the front toward the large windows and the glass revolving door. There were three of them. All wearing long black coats and fedoras. It was too warm for outer coats. It came from underneath the first one in the revolving door: a Thompson submachine gun with a large barrel magazine. All three had matching Tommy guns, and now they were shoulder to shoulder.

  “MARTY, GET DOWN! IT’S A CHOPPER SQUAD!” I yelled.

  I grabbed Gina and Mimi and got behind a large pillar in the lobby, and heard the bolt actions go back on three Thompsons. One of the guys said:

  “That’s O’Farrell. The guy with the red tie.”

  I squeezed Gina and Mimi as hard as I could. They all opened fire at once. Bullets were flying everywhere. Their intent was to shower the lobby in bullets and let them bounce off the marble floor and walls, and find their way to me. For the moment I was safe; a design flaw in the lobby was saving our lives. When the building received its final engineering inspection in 1915, the city engineers determined that the lobby did not have sufficient bracing to be earthquake-proof. As a result, all the marble was destroyed, and additional steel structure and framing was installed in the lobby. The owner could not afford to replace the marble a second time. So he had the columns and walls made out of plaster, painted to look like marble, and varnished to shine like marble.

  The bullets, instead of bouncing, went into the walls and columns and stopped there. The mechanics were out of bullets and stopped to reload. It was my chance. My only chance. My last chance.

  I called out to Marty.

  “Marty, I need my backup rod.” I looked over at the counter; Marty’s arm came out in a single move. The .45 skidded, skipped and danced across the floor. It stopped two feet from me. I told Gina to hold on tight to Mimi. I laid flat on my back and rolled into the open, and grabbed the .45. Two of the torpedoes lowered their Thompsons, set to finish me off; the third guy had a gun jam and was violently trying to clear it. I came out of the roll and put four slugs into the first guy. He dropped the Thompson; his arms went high in the air as he jolted backward. Then he was still.

  But I was out of position to fire on the second guy, and he knew it. He smiled as he took aim and pulled the trigger.

  Then God answered my prayers. From behind the counter, Marty stood tall with the Greener on his shoulder and let a barrel go. It lifted the guy two feet into the air. He landed against a pillar and froze there for a second before sliding down, leaving a trail of blood as wide as his shoulders. The gee had an astonished look on his face as hit the floor, deader than Kelsey’s nuts.

  Marty came from behind the counter and stuck the Greener in the third shooter’s eye.

  “What’s it going to be, bucko: six years in the can for attempted murder, or six prisoners carrying your casket to an unmarked grave?”

  The shooter tossed the Thompson and never took his eyes off Marty or the Greener.

  “Okay, okay, I give up.”

  “Good move, kid,” Marty said.

  He took the butt of the Greener and coldcocked the guy, right on the forehead. The guy dropped to the floor. Marty ran to the cash register and tossed me a pair of handcuffs.

  “Sean, put the nippers on this clown.”

  I put the cuffs on the guy, and ran over to Gina and Mimi. Gina was all right, but Mimi had been grazed on her leg by a bullet. She was white and in shock. I ran over to Marty’s closet, took out a heavy coat hanging in there, and covered Mimi up.

  I heard the sirens coming from every direction. Vinnie Castellano was the first through the door. Cops were everywhere, it was like a convention. The Chief of Police was there, along with ten to fifteen inspectors, a dozen uniformed cops, and finally an ambulance. The seas parted and the two attendants came through with a gurne
y. They carefully placed Mimi’s limp little body on the gurney and secured her, and invited Vinnie and Gina to come to the hospital. Cops were yelling clear the way as they left the building. Gina and Vinnie looked scared to death.

  The Chief Inspector, a guy named O’Malley, and Chief of Police Roger Gallatin came over to me. O’Malley did the talking.

  “Marty tells me this ambush was aimed at you, O’Farrell. Is that true?”

  “I heard them say my name and point at me before they opened fire. These guys worked the room like pros; I’ve never seen them before, though.” My voice was a little shaky.

  Gallatin looked around the lobby and shook his head.

  “We had a quick look at the two dead guys. One of them was wearing a suit from Carson Pirie Scott and Company, and the other a suit from Marshall Field. Those are both Chicago outfits. All three had no ID. The Tommys had the serial numbers filed off. These guys were mechanics, all right. You are lucky to be alive, son.” Gallatin put his hand on my shoulder.

  “If Marty hadn’t been here, we all would have been killed. I didn’t have a roscoe on me. Marty keeps an extra .45 of mine down here for emergencies. Plus he has that street-legal cannon of his. He really came through.”

  “You saved the wife and daughter of one of ours, O’Farrell. We owe you.” O’Malley said, trying to control himself.

  “Vinnie Castellano is a lifelong buddy. I’d do anything for him.”

  Just as we were finishing up, Vinnie’s loudmouth partner Jerry “Swede” Amundson showed up. He never wasted an opportunity to get under my skin. We are both members of the I Hate Your Guts Association.

  Swede had a wide grin on his face.

  “O’Farrell, I heard the good news you were in a shootout, too bad they missed.”

  I wasn’t in the mood and stepped up to take a swing at the dumb ape, but Gallatin and O’Malley held me back.

  O’Malley was honked off.

  “Get back to headquarters, Swede, there’s work for you to do there.” The Swede faded.

  “We are taking that Chi-town piece of shit down to the station; we are going to squeeze him for what he knows,” the Chief said. “Why don’t you come along with us, O’Farrell? You can be a big help.”

  “Let me go get a coat, hat and roscoe. I’ll be there in a few.” I shook hands with both men. They went to work cleaning up the crime scene. Police photographers were all over the lobby. One of the inspectors called out to anyone in general. “Hey we only got two Tommy guns. Where is the third?”

  The Chief went to Marty, who was sitting on his stool, drinking coffee.

  “There’s a fresh pot, Chief. Want some?” Marty smiled.

  “Martin Durrant, you slippery-fingered turd. We were partners for four years. You think I don’t have you figured out?”

  Gallatin went to the closet and took out the missing Tommy gun. “Marty, you’ll never change.”

  “Gee, how did that thing get in there?” Marty took another drink of coffee, and everyone laughed.

  I took the elevator up to my office and slumped down in my chair for minute. I replayed everything over in my head. It lasted a few seconds, but it seemed like hours.

  I replayed it in my mind slowly. I was sitting on the bench, talking to Mimi. I saw the three men coming through the revolving door. I called to Marty. I looked at the revolving door again.

  As I was replaying the sequence, it hit me like a ton of bricks. As the men were coming into the lobby through the revolving door, something caught my eye. Across the street, a woman was watching. She had a full-length white fur coat. She was wearing a white turban-hat kind of thing, and large dark sunglasses. I couldn’t swear to it in open court, but I would have sworn it was Connie Morehouse.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  As I drove the Ford to police headquarters, the radio announcer cut off the Andrews Sisters song “Bei Mir Bistu Shein.”

  “We interrupt this this program to bring you a special bulletin. A machine gun shootout at the Russell building in Union Square, San Francisco. Two men are dead at the scene and a bystander is at the emergency room at this moment. We will have a reporter on site and will file a report within minutes. The headline again: two dead in a Union Square office building lobby shootout. More to come at the top-of-the-hour news. This is Mitchell Baumgarter reporting. Stay tuned to KGO Radio for the latest fast-breaking news bulletins. We now return you to our regular programming.”

  Great, it’s all over the news. I hit the gas pedal hard to the floor and flew to police headquarters. Once there, I ran up the stairs and asked the old gray-haired desk sergeant if I could use the phone. He didn’t look up and thumbed in the direction of the front door.

  He never looked up from his log. A young beat cop was walking by.

  “Jensen, run this private eye piece of shit out of here.” He looked at me hard. “This is a cop house, O’Farrell, for cops, not for two-bit peepers like you, regardless of the fact that Castellano calls you a friend. That means fade, gumshoe. Pay phone is down the street, pal.”

  I was scared, tired, and running on empty. I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close. “Please, I was involved in the Russell Building shooting. I have to call my girl right away. She may think I am dead. It’s all over the radio.”

  He dropped the hard-guy act and handed me the receiver, asked the number, and dialed.

  Just was my luck, Mabel answered the phone.

  “What the hell do you want, handsome,” she barked.

  “Stop it, Mabel. I was just involved in a shooting at my office. Two guys are dead. It’s being blasted over the radio. I don’t want Kaitlin to find out and worry. I want to tell her I’m okay. Where is she?” My heart was racing.

  “Jesus, she’s in the stacks, Sean. Hold on, I’ll get her.” The phone hit the counter; Mabel screamed for Kaitlin across the library. A minute later Kaitlin, out of breath, picked up the phone.

  I told her the story. “I didn’t want you to hear this and worry,” I finished.

  “I’m off at three, where should I go?”

  “I don’t know, go on home. I’m here at police headquarters. One of the gunmen was taken into custody, I need to be here. I just didn’t want you hear about dead guys in my building and have you worry.”

  “I’m okay. You take care of yourself right now. We’ll catch up later.”

  “Okay, I’ll call.”

  “Sean.”

  “Yes, Kaitlin.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I hung up. This had been the worst day of my life. Two men were dead, and one of them at my hand. Then it hit me. I hadn’t said those words in five years. I had only known Kaitlin O’Doherty for a month, but it was true. I did love her.

  I handed the phone to the desk sergeant.

  “Are you okay, laddie?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, I’m okay. I was also very lucky today; I could be on a slab right now. It’s sort of hitting me.”

  “When you get out of here, young man, you find that young lady of yours and spend time with her. That’s what is important in this life.” His smile was genuine.

  I climbed the stairs to the Inspector Bureau and looked around for O’Malley. Vinnie Castellano came up to me and gave me a big hug. “My God, Sean, how can I ever thank you, you saved my family, my wife, my little girl. What can I say?”

  “Hold it, Vinnie, not so fast. That chopper squad was coming for me. I was the reason your family was in danger. How can I ever make that up to you?”

  Vinnie put a hand behind my neck.

  “Forgive what? Come on, the show is about to start. We need a hand.”

  “Show, what show?”

  There were cops everywhere. There must have been fifty guys in the squad room. The old gray-haired desk sergeant was standing on a chair.

 
“All right, lads, the Chief and the Chief Inspector have ordered a show. We haven’t done this thing in five years, so pay attention. Brown, you are the bookie. Select twenty officers to be bettors. Who is that young rookie from Union Square?”

  Someone yelled out, “That’s Tommy D’Amato.”

  “Where is he, then?”

  Tommy waved and spoke up.

  “Thompson, young D’Amato here is the designated puker. Show him how this works and make sure he has the timing right. Inspector Castellano, how is your daughter doing?”

  “She is fine, Sarge, it’s a minor wound. But they are going to keep her overnight because of shock. My wife is with her.”

  “All right then. Inspector Castellano, you are the hot wire. Make it look good. Friendly and Malone, you two along with Mr. O’Farrell here, will be the removers. Remember now, make sure, Inspector, you really sell it. Where is Amundson?”

  “The Swede is coming up the stairs, Sarge,” someone yelled.

  “Good, thanks for making it on time, Inspector Amundson. You are the designated bull.”

  Amundson was as big as a mountain. He was six-five and easily three hundred pounds. He gave me a dirty look and moved off.

  The sergeant ran his fingers down his clipboard. “Where the hell are those FBI guys? We need them for this. Bobby, will you run and get me a secretary from the pool on the fourth floor? We are almost ready to begin.”

  Ashwythe and Dunderbeck arrived in the squad room. They came over and Ashwythe asked, “Hey, O’Farrell, are you okay? We heard it was like the OK Corral at your office?”

  “I’m lucky to be alive, guys, real lucky.”

  “We heard you saved a cop’s wife and daughter, plus you capped one of the bastards.”

  “I’m just lucky to be alive. Damn it, I need a drink.” I tried to light a butt, but my hands were shaking. Dunderbeck lit a match and patted me on the shoulder.

  The sergeant was still getting things set up. “Bobby, get a blank warrant cover and give it to these two FBI guys. Are you two up to speed what you are doing here? Bobby, you brief these two Special Agents, and Inspector Castellano, you brief Mr. O’Farrell. Who is the designated suit?”