by Warren Court
“Our boy did love the ponies,” said Reagan. “Was always taking his girls down there. It was a weakness of his. Most of our lot have it for drink. His vice was Lady Luck.”
“I want the money back. I have to have it back.”
Again, the men laughed.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, boyo,” Reagan told him. “We get our money from donations, dances like the one out there.” He nodded at the shamrock in Armour’s lapel. “Much obliged. Now that’s it. Enough of these games. I want to get some of Mrs. Dennie’s cabbage rolls before they all go.”
There was a knock on the door and it opened a crack. Armour caught sight of a bruised and battered O’Rourke being held up by two more of Reagan’s brutes before he was hustled away. Reagan closed the door and nodded at his associates, who grabbed Armour by both arms and propelled him to a back door and out onto the street. The one who had frisked him threw his wallet on the ground and the door was slammed shut.
Armour waited in his car two blocks up from the hall. He was scrunched down and had his collar up and his bowler pulled down on his head. Still, he felt as vulnerable as all hell out here. He was in enemy territory. He’d wisely re-holstered his shooter and knew that the next time he ran into Reagan and his men he would have to use it. There would be no second chances with that gang. Armour took stock of his situation: he was caught in a meat grinder with two gangs on either side of him. He should just take Melanie, by force if he had to, and get the heck out of the city. Head to Hollywood.
Finally, the lights of the hall were doused and the last of the partygoers had left. Armour perked up. When a pair of dark sedans emerged from the alleyway that he had been chucked out into, Armour started after them.
Chapter 30
Armour followed the Irishmen’s cars through the dark and deserted streets of Yorkville into an area known as the Annex. They turned off into a dark wooded area with a gravel road. Armour switched his lights off and let them get well ahead of him. He saw them come to a stop at the top of a hill in front of large brick building the size of a church. There was a wooden sign in front of it; Armour could just make it out. High Level Pumping Station. Satisfied that they were stopping there, Armour backed his car down the path and did a U-turn so he was pointing towards the pumping station’s entrance.
He walked back up the hill, sticking to the edge of the path where tall trees cast deep shadows. He made it to the top in time to see Reagan and his boys drag O’Rourke into the building. Reagan paused at the door, a key in his hand, and looked around. Confident no one had seen them, he stepped in and slammed the door closed behind him.
Armour moved to the rear of the building. The windows were smoked block glass and were covered over in a thick iron mesh. There was a back door; like the front one, it was hollow metal. Armour could hear the hum of machinery coming from inside.
Armour tried the handle. It was loose but did not turn. He tried it again, back and forth, until he got more and more movement out of it. With the butt of his revolver he managed to snap it off. It sounded like a cannon shot. Then he took the broken handle and placed it back in the hole it had left in the door. Slamming it with the butt of the revolver, he sent the lock and the inside handle into the room and the door opened. Once he was inside the noisy room, he realized could have shot the lock off without it being heard. There were large turbine-like pumps running, and the smell of oil and burnt metal and rubber was strong.
The only light in the room came from a boiler in the corner. Tongues of flame could be seen behind an iron coal port. Separating this machinery room from the front room was another metal door. Armour tried the handle. This inner door was not locked. Armour opened it a crack and saw O’Rourke tied to a metal chair. The man who had frisked Armour earlier was pummelling O’Rourke’s face in measured blows. Reagan stood off to the side, arms folded, watching dispassionately. The third man, the trigger man in the Kingston hit, was rubbing his fist. The two toughs were evidently taking turns to save their hands.
Armour, gun in hand, took a deep breath and stepped through the door.
Chapter 31
O’Rourke’s beating stopped the instant the men saw Armour with his revolver. On a table next to Reagan lay a white sheet and a variety of saws. After extracting information from the undercover cop, they were going to kill him and cut him up. Armour knew that fate awaited him as well if he didn’t pull this off.
“Get away from him,” Armour shouted over the sound of the machinery. The metal door slowly closed behind him, cutting off some of the noise.
None of the three men moved. The big man’s knuckles were covered in blood and it was splattered over his white shirt.
“Did I not make myself clear a while back there, boyo?” Reagan said.
“I said move away from him.” Armour cocked his revolver.
“This is none of your concern.”
“Yes, it is. This man is a cop.”
“We know.”
“He’s also my friend,” Armour said.
“You should choose your friends more carefully,” Reagan said.
The men moved back reluctantly as Armour approached O’Rourke. His head rolled to the side to see who his saviour was. His eyes were swollen shut and his mouth was crusted with blood. His nose was busted flat.
“Who’s that?” O’Rourke squeaked out.
“It’s the cavalry, O’Rourke,” Reagan said. “Come to rescue you.”
Armour knelt down and fumbled at the ropes holding O’Rourke arms. Why had they bothered? The man could put up no fight. Finally, he worked them loose. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Reagan’s two men, poised to strike at him if he showed one moment of weakness.
“I said get back.” The men did not move. Armour let loose a shot at the closer thug’s foot. The bullet ricocheted and came close to clipping the other one in the head. That made them back off. Surprisingly, Reagan had a huge grin on his face.
“You said you owed me,” Armour said.
“You cashed that marker in back at the hall,” Reagan said.
“Maybe so, but now we’re sure of it. I saw your machine guns in Mrs. Holt’s basement. Not quite fifty grand’s worth. Straight from Toronto Armouries, I reckon. That was you who pulled that job I read about. Seems it’s not just banks you’re adept at robbing. The cops will be interested in those guns and who they’re for.”
Reagan’s jovial manner vanished, replaced by silent, heated fury.
“Does she really believe you intend to send them to Ireland?” Armour continued. “I think I agree with Inspector Tomkins: you want to use them to muscle in on the Italians.”
“You’re a dead man walking,” Reagan said.
“Probably, but I’ve a few more cards to play. Right now, I’m taking him out of here.” He jerked his head at O’Rourke. “Your car keys – on the floor. Do it!”
Reagan’s men pulled keys out of their pockets and tossed them on the floor at Armour’s feet. He kicked them into a dark corner under a radiator. Retrievable, but not any time soon.
“Now your guns, nice and slow.” All three men removed automatic pistols.
“Toss them in the corner.” They did as he asked. The guns clattered off machinery in the dark.
“Now, in there.” Armour waved his pistol at the door to the pump room. All three of them went in. Armour locked the door. They could get out the way he had come in, but they’d have to figure it out. It would take a minute for their eyes to adjust and find that back door.
Armour picked O’Rourke up and, with an arm over his shoulder, he led his friend out.
When they were outside, Armour shot out the front tires of each of Reagan’s cars and dragged O’Rourke as best and as quickly as he could down to his Ford.
Chapter 32
Armour rose when he saw Tomkins coming down the hospital corridor, flanked by the same two constables.
“I guess you think this makes you square with the cops,” Tomkins said.
Armour sh
rugged.
“You’re lucky he’s conscious. He corroborated your story. Otherwise you’d be in jail right now.”
“What about the members of Reagan’s gang?”
“They’ve gone underground. When they surface, we’ll get them.”
“There are six crates of machine guns at the Holt residence. From that Armouries job, I suspect.”
“Not any more. They’re gone. Mrs. Holt denies them being there, so we’ve got nothing to charge her with. O’Rourke told us about those guns just before they got wise to him. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Armour shook his head.
“Anyway, we went to the Holt house. The guns are gone. They got them out in time.”
“Foley must have stolen the money off Holt. It was payoff for the dredging contracts. Reagan’s mob, through their man Foley, used that money to buy guns.”
Tomkins looked at him skeptically. “And what happened to Holt?”
“When you were in their house, did you see the altar?”
“I know of it.”
“The concrete in front of it is brand new. Someone did a rush job. A lousy job. My guess is that’s where you’ll find Holt.”
Tomkins pulled Armour aside and pushed him into a vacant examination room.
“Listen, we already tore that floor up. The concrete is new because we were obliged to fix it after we went there looking for Holt.”
“You suspected the wife from the outset?”
“Of course. We knew he didn’t take that boat out, how terrified he was of the water. All he used it for was to entertain some floozy.”
Armour bristled at the word floozy. He knew who Tomkins was referring to.
“We went into his basement with a warrant and pickaxes and went to work. We came up with nothing. We’ve been trying to keep it out of the papers. Mrs. Holt has powerful friends.”
“The monsignor?”
“And others.”
“If he’s not buried there, then where?” Armour asked.
“Who knows? We may never find him. If they took him out in the lake and dumped his body, he’s gone. Or if they cut him up, put him through a meat grinder, he’s gone.”
“Jesus,” Armour muttered. He remembered the glint of the saw blades at the pumping station. Maybe Holt had met his end there? But why would Reagan and his thugs have killed him if Foley had got away with the money? Oh. Because he’d told the Italians what happened. That’s how they’d known Foley had their money. Armour guessed that the Italian mob would still have expected Holt to toe the line with respects to the harbour contracts, payoff or no payoff, but their honour would demand that the money be found. And that vengeance be exacted. Armour was caught in the middle of a war.
He remembered Pappanillo’s threat. The money was gone; the machine guns were gone. How was he going to get the mobster to spare Melanie?
“So, you don’t suspect Elizabeth Holt at all?” Armour said.
“We did. Now we don’t. She has an alibi. She was at a church function the afternoon her husband disappeared. He was last seen leaving the house after that function started. She’s offered a reward for his return, dead or alive. Oh, sure, she’s tied in with Reagan’s crew somehow. I just think she’s naïve and easily manipulated. Believes in their cause back home.”
“How much?”
“How much what?”
“How much is the reward?”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
It might be enough, Armour thought. Maybe he could persuade Pappanillo to back off, with the promise of the half the money. . .
“Will O’Rourke be all right?”
“The doctors say he’ll make a full recovery. Of course, he’ll be shit for undercover work now.”
“Lucky him.”
Chapter 33
There was a chain across Mason’s parking lot, so Armour would just have to park his car in the street and take his chances. He got his door halfway open when his car was suddenly boxed in by three large, shiny, black Lincolns. Men in trench coats and fedoras swarmed out. Armour’s door was wrenched fully open and he was hauled out. Hands went through his clothes and came up with his gun. It disappeared. He was dragged across the cobblestones and stuffed into the rear of one of the Lincolns. Mr. Pappanillo was in the back; Jimmy Roscoe, too.
“Good evening, Mr. Black. Just wanted an update on the case,” Pappanillo said.
Armour tried to catch his breath. Roscoe had a knuckleduster on and hit Armour across the chin, sending his head thudding into the side of the car.
“Answer the man,” Roscoe said.
Armour rubbed his chin. “I haven’t got the money. It’s gone,” he said.
“That’s not what I want to hear, Mr. Black. Very disappointed in you.”
“The IRA took it. They spent it on machine guns. Those are gone too. Cops tried to nab them, but they’re probably halfway to Ireland by now.”
Pappanillo grinned. “IRA. You believe that? They’re a bunch of punks. Trying to muscle in on my thing. What time does the second show at the Pegasus end, Jimmy?”
“Oh, in about ten minutes.”
“Wait a second,” Armour said.” Just wait.”
“For what, Mr. Black? You going to conjure fifty thousand dollars out of thin air? We had an understanding.”
“I know, but I need a bit of time, just a couple of days more. I can come up with half the money.”
“Half?”
“Yes. Twenty-five thousand dollars is better than nothing. Your fifty grand is gone. I didn’t take it and neither did Miss Fabes. But I can get you back half of it. Guaranteed.”
“What do you think, Jimmy?”
Both men spoke in Italian for a moment. Armour rubbed his chin.
“It better not be one penny less than twenty-five thousand, Black,” Roscoe said. “Or you and the girl are going to fry.”
As if the men outside could read their boss’s thoughts, the door to the limousine was opened and Armour was ushered out. It wasn’t until the convoy of black sedans had roared around the corner that he remembered they had his gun.
Chapter 34
The next morning, Armour was back in Cabbagetown. He knocked at Shirley’s door. No answer.
“She’s gone out,” a woman carrying a basket of clothes in from the backyard said in a Polish accent.
“Where?”
“Her usual. Down the street.”
“The drugstore,” Armour said, and he yawned. Another night on that lousy couch. He’d spent it with a sharp letter opener in his hand, the only weapon in his office.
“Yes, that girl is sick too much.”
“Where does she get the money?”
“Her man leave it for her.”
“Did he? Did he indeed?” Armour said. He thanked the lady and headed up the street.
He waited across the street from the drugstore until two elderly ladies, who were purchasing something at the counter, left. The man behind the counter had been smiling broadly a second before when he had bid the ladies adieu. Now his face fell into a flat and ruthless scowl when he saw Armour come through his door.
Armour saw his hand move to his belt. Armour wondered what he had there – knife? Blackjack? Pistol? He felt naked without the weight of his revolver under his arm. He still carried the holster. Maybe he would come upon a replacement for the gun the Italians had taken off him. He put on his bravest and toughest face.
“I’m going back there. I don’t want any trouble.”
“You already got it,” the man said. “We don’t take kindly to police informers.”
“I’m no informer. Is she back there?”
The druggist said nothing.
It took almost all his will to turn his back on the man behind the counter and walk down the hall. It took what was left to knock on the door to the speakeasy.
A peep hole was uncovered and, to his surprise, the door opened. Armour heard the click of a gun as he stepped through. Hands felt aroun
d him and there was a chuckle as they found the empty holster.
“You got some nerve,” the bartender said. Armour’s eyes became adjusted to the darkness.
“I just want to talk to her.”
“You come here unarmed?”
“I’m not an informant. Didn’t you catch the informer?”
“Yeah, and someone spirited him away.”
“He’s a policeman. You can’t go around killing cops and getting away with it. I did your friends a favour.”
Armour felt the cold muzzle of the pistol behind his ear.
“Oh, leave him alone,” Shirley said. Armour could see her now. She was at the far end of the bar, shielded by view from some large men in coveralls. She slid off her barstool.
“You’re all talk, the lot of you,” she said, and pushed through the big men who had gathered around to watch this interloper get his ticket punched.
“I don’t want him in here,” the bartender said.
“Fine.” She grabbed her purse and came up to Armour. “Let’s make this quick.”
“Where we going?” Shirley asked when they were out of the drugstore. She was wearing high heels and stumbled into Armour. Maybe it was her disability; maybe it was the drink. Then she burped and he smelled the answer. She was drunk, at ten in the morning.
“You should go home.”
“Nah, I was just getting started. Say, you’re a strong fella, aren’t you?”
“No,” Armour said.
“Sure, you are. You went in there without any gun to pull me out.”
“People don’t usually get murdered at ten AM. It’s something that happens only after afternoon tea. Usually, that is.”
She laughed and took his arm.
“Where are you getting the money to pay for all this? New dress, drinks at the bar,” Armour asked.
“What are you, some sort of cop?”
“I was a cop. Answer the question.”