“If those rioters get inside that building,” O’Sullivan said, slowly, carefully, “and see what Schriver and his bully boys have done to John Looney, they’ll burn the place down.”
“Anarchy. Anarchy. How could it come to this? How could this happen?”
“I have no idea,” O’Sullivan lied.
“Mother of mercy, what can we do?”
“Call your captain and have him let me and Emeal Davis in. We’ll fetch John.”
“Mike, if you haul a bloody and battered John Looney out of there, that crowd’ll blow a gasket!”
“Not if you have a Black Maria waiting in the police garage. We’ll haul the Old Man over to St. Anthony’s. If the rioters do storm your bastille, Tom, well, they won’t find a half-dead John Looney inside, to inflame them further.”
Another long silence followed.
Then Cox said, “No better plan comes to me. Mike, we’ll try it your way. Give me five minutes.”
O’Sullivan exited the booth and the hotel, meeting up with Emeal Davis out front, as they’d prearranged. He filled Davis in, heading across the now all-but-deserted Market Square, scattered with discarded recall brochures, toward the hullabaloo. Traffic had disappeared, as if every vehicle in downtown Rock Island had been sucked into the sky.
As the two Looney soldiers approached city hall, they found Third Avenue and Sixteenth Street clogged with humanity, the full moon conspiring with streetlamps to throw a yellowish ivory glow on a surreal urban landscape, the surrounding buildings black against the gray heavens, looming like giant tombstones. It seemed to O’Sullivan that these men had become less than themselves, and more, swallowed up in the breathing, moving organism that was a mob.
“This thing,” Emeal yelled into Mike’s ear (and yet it was like a whisper), “has got a mind of its own.”
“Nothing to be done but live with it,” O’Sullivan yelled. “And use it…for John.”
From the stormy sea of bobbing heads and upraised fists—holding weapons, bricks, and boards, and handguns and rifles—an ongoing rumble of dissatisfaction erupted every few moments into shouted accusations and yelled admonitions. Eyes were wild, gums bared over teeth; the jungle beneath the skin of civilization was showing through.
At the front of city hall, a short flight of stairs rose on either side to the double doors where Looney, O’Sullivan, and Davis had earlier entered; tucked under the porch-like landing were another set of double doors, leading into the police station. From these poured a contingent of cops in uniform, with riot guns, shotguns, and handguns, streaming out in twin ribbons of blue, fanning out either way across the face of the building.
This did not go over well with the crowd, separated from them by a narrow strip of brick street. Like Apaches, the rioters raised rifles high in clenched fists and filled the night with non-verbal, animal war cries.
Then, finally, some damn fool pulled a trigger.
The rioters began to fire their weapons—into the air, mostly, some firing at city hall itself, high over the heads of the row of cops, who were doing their best not to cower, as slugs dug holes in the brick building, spitting back chunks and slivers and flakes to rain down upon the scared-shitless guardians in blue below.
Through this volatile crowd, gunfire snapping in the air like dozens of whipcracks, O’Sullivan and Davis made their way; it took ten minutes to traverse the few yards. While a sporadic barrage of shots continued to emerge from the mob, the coppers out front aimed their weapons but did not fire—which seemed to O’Sullivan a miracle.
Then he and Davis stepped into the no-man’s land that was about half of Third Avenue, that brick strip between cops and rioters, and held up their hands as they went, turning their backs to the cops. The gunfire abated, as the rioters—many standing on their toes and jumping up, to see what was going on—reacted to the two men in civilian clothes going across that unofficial barrier toward the enemy camp.
Not completely unaware of the irony, O’Sullivan yelled, “We’re Looney men!”
Davis echoed him, and no one from the mob tried to stop them or, better yet, shoot them.
O’Sullivan approached a cop he recognized, Sergeant Bill O’Malley, who was in the midst of the row of armed coppers.
“Bill, your captain’s expecting us,” O’Sullivan yelled, over the war whoops of the crowd. “I’m here at Chief Cox’s behest.”
O’Malley accepted this with a nod, and sent them up the stairs, unaccompanied, where they paused on the landing to look out at the teeming force that O’Sullivan had unleashed.
It was one of the most frightening sights of Michael O’Sullivan’s life—which was no small thing.
Just inside the door, Captain James Doherty met them, a solemn-faced, redheaded, green-eyed uniformed cop, loyal to his chief. Quickly he escorted the two Looney soldiers up to the third-floor hallway, where the two uniformed cops still stood guard.
O’Sullivan let Doherty do the talking.
“We have a full-scale riot out there,” the captain told the two sentries, gesturing toward the muffled popping gunfire. “There’s still a shotgun or two downstairs. Position yourselves on the landing, boys—guard the city hall front gates.”
The older smug cop, who’d threatened the Looney body guards with his nightstick before, frowned and said, “We have orders from the mayor to maintain this post.”
Doherty stepped forward and his face was inches from his subordinate’s. “These orders come straight from Chief Cox—this riot situation has developed subsequent to the mayor’s orders, and supersedes them. Assume your new assignment, or I’ll have you removed and put behind bars.”
In an eyeblink, the two sentries had abandoned this post for their new one.
Captain Doherty turned his seemingly placid green eyes on O’Sullivan and Davis and, very quietly, said, “I have to go down to stand with my men. We have under forty to try to hold back a mob of two thousand…I don’t know what you intend to do in the mayor’s office, and I don’t want to know. Neither does Chief Cox…Understood, gents?”
“Understood. The Black Maria is standing by?”
“Yes. I have a driver posted downstairs.” He handed a slip of paper with a phone number to O’Sullivan. “Call when you’re ready. He’ll bring up a stretcher.”
Then the captain, too, was gone.
O’Sullivan withdrew his .45 Colt automatic, like him a veteran of the Great War. Davis reached under his baby-blue suitcoat for his long-barreled .38, slung under his arm in a handtooled leather holster worthy of Wyatt Earp.
“We try not to kill anybody,” O’Sullivan said.
“You say so,” Davis said, noncommittally.
In the outer office, O’Sullivan slipped out of his topcoat and slung it over the counter, to be less encumbered. Davis wore no topcoat, just that spiffy blue suit with derby. O’Sullivan led the way through the little gate to the door that said MAYOR HAROLD M. SCHRIVER—PRIVATE.
Not knowing whether it was locked or not, O’Sullivan took no chances; the mayor had undoubtedly been informed by phone or otherwise of the impending danger outside and may well have locked himself in. So the rescuer raised his right foot and kicked it open, the door springing off its hinges and the pebbled glass shattering under the impact, chunks falling like melting sheets of ice.
His shoes crunching shards as he entered, O’Sullivan took position to the right of the doorway, leaving the left for Davis, who immediately followed, and both men fanned their guns around the startled tableau within.
John Looney, barely conscious, lay asprawl on his back on the leather couch against the left wall; his white shirt was spattered with blood, the brown suit rumpled, dark dried patches of blood on it, too. The mayor sat behind his desk, leaned back in his swivel chair, and his two bruisers, pockmarked Simmons and round-mugged Randell, sat in a pair of hardback chairs, facing the couch but not close by. All three men were in shirtsleeves, white cloth splotched with blood. The two burly cops were hunkered over, as if exhausted
.
“Tuckered out, boys?” O’Sullivan said.
“Takes it out of you,” Davis said, “whompin’ a helpless old man.”
Simmons sneered and went for his holstered gun; the weapon was half out of its hip holster and the plainclothes dick was three-quarters up out of the chair when O’Sullivan’s .45 slug took the top of his head off and splashed a covered bridge depicted in watercolor on a 1922 calendar over the file cabinets. Small spatters of blood marked various dates.
The dead Simmons tumbled back over his chair and lay in an awkward V half between the toppled chair and the files.
“Jesus!” the mayor said, on his feet; but he had sense enough to lay his hands flat on the desktop.
The other cop, Randell, remained seated; his bland moon face was largely emotionless, though his left eye was twitching. Slowly he raised his hands.
Davis, near the door, threw his comrade a look that said, Try not to kill anybody, huh?, which O’Sullivan ignored, saying, “Got a gun back there, Your Honor?”
The toad-like mayor, trembling with rage and fear, said, “Are you crazy? Out of your minds?”
“We’re Looney,” Davis said, gold teeth glittering.
Schriver was sputtering, words rushing out: “You don’t just waltz in the mayor’s office and start shooting the place up! There’s forty cops downstairs, you fools! You killed one of their brothers! You’ll fry for this.”
“Those forty cops,” O’Sullivan said, “have their hands full with two or three thousand voters who want your fat ass out from behind that desk…Speaking of which, go stand by the corpse and put your hands up. High.”
Swallowing, the now-speechless mayor did that very thing, revealing the front of his gray pants as glistening wet, which O’Sullivan found gratifying—the two Looney soldiers were making their point.
O’Sullivan got behind the desk and used the mayor’s phone to call the number Captain Doherty had provided.
In the meantime, Davis knelt beside Looney, whose face was battered and swollen, decorated with shades of blue, black, orange, and red, his eyes almost shut, like a heavyweight fighter in the final round.
O’Sullivan strolled from behind the desk to where the mayor stood; the stench of urine wasn’t pleasant.
“Harry,” O’Sullivan said, “it’s a damn shame a brave officer like Simmons there had to catch a stray bullet in this riot. He’ll deserve a commendation.”
The mayor’s chin was quivering. “You really think I’d cover for you, O’Sullivan?”
“Well, Harry, you best convince me such, right now—or both you and Randell can join Simmons in hell.”
The mayor whitened; then he lurched to one side and fell to his knees and vomited.
In a voice that tried to sound calm but had a warble in it, Randell said, “Harry’ll cover for you. If he doesn’t, I’ll kill him for you myself, Mike.”
“I believe you,” O’Sullivan said. Then to the mayor, he said, “Stand up, Harry.”
The smell in the enclosed space was awful.
Davis glanced over with his face balled up. “What the hell did you have for supper, Harry? Christ!”
The mayor got to his feet, looking less than dignified in his pissed pants and with puke-stubble around his mouth.
But doing his best, the mayor said, “It’s…it’s sad to lose a fine…fine man like Lieutenant Simmons to a…a…unruly mob.”
O’Sullivan nodded. “We’re in this together, Harry. You see, I’m doing you a favor.”
“A…a favor?”
“That’s right. That’s why Chief Cox paved the way for this.”
The mayor couldn’t hold back a sneer at word of this predictable betrayal.
“If those thousands rush this building,” O’Sullivan said, “and find out what you and your boyos did to John Looney… they’ll lynch you, sure.”
The mayor frowned in the realization of the truth of these words.
“Both of you,” O’Sullivan said, throwing a glance at the surviving dick. “The way Simmons went out will start to look merciful.”
The mayor nodded.
His hands still up, Randell said, “You’re right, Mike. For God’s sake, get John outa here.”
Davis was looking through the open door into the outer office. “John’s ride is here,” he said.
“Okay,” he said to Davis. “Let’s you and me drunk-walk John out to the stretcher—no need for another witness to this tragedy…Harry, I’d advise dumping your boy on the street somewhere.”
The mayor swallowed and nodded.
Randell said, “I’ll handle it personally, Mike. Nobody but us here in this room will know.”
“That’s how I want it,” O’Sullivan said.
Looney’s two men, each with a gun in one hand, got on either side of their barely conscious boss and eased him to his limp feet.
From the doorway, as he hauled Looney in tandem with Davis, O’Sullivan glanced back with a tiny smile, and said, “Gents? If you do decide to cross me, make sure you kill me. You wouldn’t like bein’ on my bad side.”
Within moments, Looney was on a stretcher that a young uniformed cop and Davis were bearing down the stairs. The gunfire outside had resumed, but it remained limited to shots in the air and high assaults on the building itself—posturing, so far, not open warfare. O’Sullivan, in his topcoat again, the .45 still in hand, followed as they carted the now unconscious Looney through the empty station to the garage and into the waiting paddy wagon.
Davis rode with Looney, and O’Sullivan sat in front while the young copper drove the bulky black vehicle. The garage was around back, and away from the crowd, so getting out to open and close the door—a chore O’Sullivan handled—was no problem. Pushing through the crowd itself was slow, and rioters banged on the metal sides, making dull clangs; but nobody took a shot, and in five minutes they were clear of the riot scene.
Just before they slipped away, however, O’Sullivan spotted a familiar face at the rear of the crowd: Connor Looney, watching the Maria depart. The Old Man’s son was not one of those yelling or waving a gun…In fact, Connor looked eerily calm, a terrible smile glazed on his face.
No man on earth, Michael O’Sullivan decided, had a worse smile than Connor Looney…nor was there likely any man who wore a smile more often, at such inappropriate times.
“Where to?” the wide-eyed young cop behind the wheel asked.
“St. Anthony’s Hospital,” O’Sullivan said.
Unaware that his wife was already a patient there.
FOUR
The riot outside city hall ended only when the police began to fire volley after volley into the mob.
How the coppers had held up so long was anybody’s guess—shots fired over their heads, bricks breaking windows, stones tossed their way. Such dangerous indignities could not forever be withstood.
But they did not fire spontaneously—they waited for Captain Doherty’s orders, which were to shoot to wound, and thanks to the captain’s caution, not one of the rioters was killed, although around twenty did go down bleeding. One malcontent climbed a pole and tried to cut an electric line, presumably to plunge the building into darkness, but a police shot picked him off, an arc light coming down with him, sputtering to the crowd in a shower of sparks.
Finally the mob dispersed, hauling away their casualties into the downtown. There they lingered, however, roaming and occasionally looting. But by dawn Market Square and the block between it and city hall were deserted, albeit resembling a battle field—spent shells, bricks, rocks, shards of glass, chunks of wood, strewn like ominous refuse.
The next morning, the governor—receiving a call not from Chief Cox but from the sheriff—declared martial law and six hundred militia from Galesburg, Monmouth, Sterling, and Geneseo poured in, mobilizing at the Rock Island Armory. Public speeches and meetings were forbidden—groups on the street could be no larger than two. For several days, these uniformed soldiers patrolled the streets with rifle in hand.
&n
bsp; But this cavalry arrived after the fact, the rioters long gone. Schriver’s police raided speakeasies and bawdy houses, and thirty-four arrests were made. The opening gun of this “clean-up campaign” was closing down the Rock Island News on charges of “indecency,” with eighteen employees, mostly newsboys, arrested.
Mayor Schriver’s efforts to quell John Looney’s power of the press were, ironically, seriously undercut by the other Tri-Cities papers—even the archenemy Argus.
His face bruised and decorated with bandages, including one around his head that brought to mind the Spirit of ’76, John Looney—midmorning of the day after—held court in his hospital gown from his bed in a private room at St. Anthony’s, in the modern wing his money had largely made possible. His eyes almost swollen shut, the publisher of the Rock Island News clearly wasn’t faking.
An armed bodyguard, Emeal Davis, was posted outside the door; and at Looney’s bedside sat the patient’s son, Connor, solemn and dressed in black, as if his father had passed away (despite the man’s presence next to him). Already the place was filled with flowers; to Connor Looney, it was more like sitting in the winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby than the sick room of a guy who just got the shit kicked out of him.
But Connor was impressed by the crowd his old man had drawn. In addition to the Argus, Moline Dispatch, and Davenport Democrat, reporters had come from as far away as the Register in Des Moines and the Trib in Chicago, driving through the night to get to the scene of a riot that would be reported ’round the world.
“I realize, gentlemen,” Looney said through bruised lips, his battered condition well-suited to his melodramatic tone, “that some of us have had our little differences.”
Differences like calling the editor of the Argus insane, in print, Connor thought, managing not to smile.
“The beating I received at the hands of the mayor,” Looney was saying, “shows the disregard this evil mountebank has for freedom of speech, freedom of the press. The bedrock of our nation.”
Road to Purgatory Page 18