Mean Streets

by Graham Marks

  “Don’t shoot!” Tony Burrell yelled, standing up, hands empty and raised. “I’m done!”

  “Me too, okay?” A second figure stood up next to Tony Burrell, his nose bloody and bruised from where he’d hit it on the steering wheel. “Me too…”

  30 AFTERMATH

  Thinking that now they’d be safe and everything was going to be just fine, Trey sped through the gap between what he hoped with all his might really were two police cars. Screeching to a halt, he was so relieved he got the pedals all mixed up and stalled the car.

  “Sorry…” Trey felt quite shaky, and his arms ached. “You know, if I scared anyone.”

  “You got nothing to apologize for, kid.” Mr. Pisbo grunted with pain. “Nothing at all.”

  “Well I for one – being as how I had a ringside seat, Pisbo – beg to differ!”

  “Cut it out, Shady…”

  Trey was about to reach for the ignition to start it again when he realized that he didn’t have to worry about flooding the carburettor or any of that stuff. Instead, he hauled up the parking brake and allowed himself to ease up a bit, slumping back in his seat. And no sooner had he done so than it seemed like the Gunfight at the OK Corral had broken out all over again behind him.

  “I am starting to take this real personal, Pisbo!”

  “I said cut it out, Shady…”

  Before this discussion could go any further, there was a man at Trey’s window, somewhat curtly making it clear that they should all stay where they were for the moment…and the next minute the same person was dashing away saying they should get the heck down and not move. Which, considering the sudden outbreak of shooting, Trey thought seemed like extremely good advice well worth taking. Even without Mr. Pisbo yelling “HIT-THE-FLOOR!” at the top of his voice from the back of the car.

  Tucked down under the steering wheel, the sound of bullets whistling by outside the car, Trey was astonished to see Shady still sitting on the seat next to him, nonchalantly tamping a cigarette on his thumbnail.

  “Shady…” Trey tugged at Shady’s trouser leg. “Mr. Jones…there’s shooting out there, you going to get down out of the way?”

  “I figure, I was cat, I’d have by rights done with at least four of my lives today.” Shady got ready to strike a match. “So, seeing as how I ain’t no cat, my time surely must be up by now. And there ain’t no point hiding from the Reaper when he come to get you, boy, no point at all.”

  “Shady…!”

  Whatever Mr. Pisbo was yelling at Shady was drowned out by the vicious tap dance of a machine gun opening up, followed by one of the Chrysler’s headlamps exploding as a stray bullet found a home. Trey, curled up tighter than a dog on a cold night, was astonished to see, out of the corner of his eye, Shady calmly light his cigarette and blow the match out.

  It occurred to him that he could’ve been relaxing like that…safely at home, sitting at his desk with a glass of malted milk and a couple of cookies, doing his homework. Then it occurred to him that this might very well be it, the Big Goodbye, as Trent Gripp often referred to dying. He kind of hoped not. Although, if it was, at least he’d seen Alex (who didn’t look the least bit kidnapped) sitting in the front seat of the car he’d so very nearly crashed into. A small comfort, as his gramps would say.

  It was as Trey was wondering if his parents would be proud of him, or just mad at him, for being killed in a shoot-out between some no-good hoodlums and the police that he realized it had gone quiet. No more shooting.

  Trey poked his head above the car seat. “Can we get up now, Mr. Pisbo?”

  “What do he know, hugging the floor carpet back there?” Shady wound down his window and stuck his head out. “My oh my, surely look like they’s been a outbreak of no little civil unrest back there!”

  “Is it safe?”

  “Heck, boy,” Shady glanced down at Trey, still huddled underneath the steering wheel, “cain’t see how you be scared a nuthin’ after the drive you all just gave us!”

  Trey got himself up onto the seat as Velma and a waxy-pale Mr. Pisbo came into view, Mr. Pisbo looking, it had to be said, a little the worse for wear and tear. Between them, Banjo the Boston terrier appeared like a jack-in-the-box to joyously lick both their faces. Here was a pooch, Trey thought, that knew it was lucky to be alive.

  Winding his own window down, Trey leaned out and looked back the way they’d come. There was a sharp, acrid smell in the air, coming no doubt from the overturned car that was on fire on the other side of the roadblock. And he could also see the red auto that had been chasing them, oddly enough, facing the wrong way up the road, its front fender all buckled. Which was not to mention the fact that it was peppered with bullet holes. Two men stood quite near the crashed red car, their hands in the air; one had a bloody nose, and the other looked unhurt and somehow quite familiar, though Trey couldn’t imagine how that might be.

  “Trey, quick! I think my dad needs help…”

  “Help? Right!” Pressing the handle down, Trey elbowed the door open; Mr. Pisbo was in trouble, and whichever way you looked at it, he was kind of responsible. “I’ll be right back!”

  The private detective character – with a bullet wound in his leg he was being less than forthcoming about – had really begun to annoy Captain Maynard. So far the shamus was not saying very much, stating client privilege – the client being the kid – which was now very high on Captain Maynard’s personal list of lame excuses. He’d been about to get the man’s daughter out of the room, so he could lay some of his own personal law down on him, when the Bureau Chief, Mr. Bonner, had called.

  Always right there, always up to speed, Chief Bonner had been informed about the message to the emergency line, and the request for a roadblock, and he wanted to know what the outcome of the operation was; Fox Lake, he’d reminded Captain Maynard, was not a place used to police activities such as these.

  Captain Maynard, who prided himself on doing everything by the book, had told his boss exactly what had occurred, giving him a bullet-by-bullet account of events. He’d made a special mention of the fact that a kid had been driving one of the cars – after all, that kind of thing did not happen every day of the week – and then he’d listed everyone who’d been involved. Chief Bonner had stopped him when he’d read out the kid’s name, demanding that he repeat what he’d just said, and then that he “go and check for dang sure” he had the name right. Because, if he had, the boy was the grandson of one of Mr. Bonner’s oldest and closest associates.

  The Captain, who did not believe in coincidences, wondered what the chances were that there was something going on he didn’t know about. Because it made you think, when the grandson of a close associate of the Bureau Chief turned up being chased by one of Mario Andrusa’s fixers. It really did.

  Leaving the Country Inn, to “go and check for dang sure” what the boy’s name was, Captain Maynard stopped and surveyed the scene down the road. Devastation was probably too extreme a word to use, but only just. And the fact that only one person had died was as close to miraculous as he’d ever got in his professional career with the Chicago police force, given the amount of lead there’d been flung. Destruction of property was another thing altogether. They were not going to be happy about the state of the Ford back at the office…

  Trey sat on the Chrysler’s running board, next to Shady Jones, where they’d both been told to stay; Banjo was lying, disconsolate, at his feet. Mr. Pisbo was in the nearby Country Inn, along with Velma, where a local doctor was looking after him, as well as a wounded cop and one of the gangsters who’d gotten himself all busted up in the shoot-out.

  And on the other side of the cars, which had been used as a roadblock, there was a dead man, covered in a piece of tarpaulin. Trey had seen the body before they’d put the tarp over it.

  “They’re not going to arrest us, are they, Shady?”

  “Us? Only one person driving that car, boy, and it weren’t me. Or even the darn dog.”

  Coming towards them, Trey
could see the man he’d worked out was in charge; he’d heard the other cops call him “Cap” and had gathered his name was Maynard. The man had a real serious expression on his face, and all thoughts of his own imminent arrest evaporated as Trey thought maybe he was coming with bad news about Mr. Pisbo. Banjo obviously must’ve had similar notions as he retreated between Trey’s legs, growling.

  “Okay, son.” Captain Maynard stopped a few feet in front of Trey and Shady, taking out a notebook and the chewed stub of a pencil. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Me?” Trey pointed to himself.

  “You.”

  “Why, what’d I do, sir?”

  “Nothing, I just need to check your name.”

  “Hope you gots a good lawyer, boy…”

  Trey shot Shady a heartfelt glower. “MacIntyre,” he said, stroking Banjo’s head, tickling him behind his ear. It calmed them both down.

  “Full name, son.” Captain Maynard licked his pencil, waiting.

  “T. Drummond MacIntyre…the third.”

  “And the T…?”

  “Theodore, the T. stands for Theodore.”

  “They’s two more of you Theodores?” Shady looked Trey up and down in mock amazement.

  “You wouldn’t, by any chance, be related to Ace MacIntyre, would you?”

  “Yeah.” Trey nodded. “He’s my gramps…my grandfather, why?”

  “Just checking I’d been given the correct information…” Captain Maynard finished making a note, turned on his heel and began walking away. “Stay put, both of you.”

  “Hey, but what about Mr. Pisbo?” Trey stood up. “How is he?”

  “He’ll live.”

  Trey sat down with a thump, the Chrysler’s suspension squeaking; he watched the Captain go back into the Country Inn, which they now seemed to be using as a temporary HQ as it had a phone. “Why didn’t he ask you for your name, Shady?”

  “Either he know all about me, or he don’t care a jot who I am.” Shady took a little sip from his hip flask. “Not sure which I like least.”

  “Right.” Captain Maynard, now in his shirtsleeves, put down his coffee cup and looked round the barroom at his men. McKelldry was there, a plaster on his forehead, his face pretty much cleaned up, as was the officer he’d dropped off to make the phone call to the Chicago office. “We have one more job to do to wrap this whole thing up and get on our way. Because Tony Burrell has given us the excuse we needed to make a visit to Twelve Oaks, right on a plate.”

  One of the men shifted in his chair, leaning it back on two legs. “We have a warrant, boss?”

  Captain Maynard nodded. “Chief Bonner has a local judge issuing one as we speak. Be here any time now.”

  “And when we get there?” the man inquired.

  “We turn the place over, good and proper.”

  “Mr. Andrusa’s not gonna like that, boss. And we are no doubt gonna catch some mud for busting in there, warrant or no warrant, the people he has in his pocket.”

  “The whole point of this squad,” Captain Maynard looked at each of his men in turn, “is that we’re above the backhanders and back room deals…we are in no one’s pocket.”

  “What’s gonna happen to the prisoners, and the, ah, not prisoners, Cap?” A man standing by the bar poured some sugar into his coffee mug.

  “They will all stay here, until reinforcements arrive from Chicago; then they get to go home or go to jail. Or the morgue.” Captain Maynard nodded at McKelldry. “And you get to stay here, finish off taking statements and make sure the right people go to the right places, Officer.”

  “But boss!”

  “No buts…you did real good today, but the doc said to make sure you took it easy for a bit…sorry. Orders.” Captain Maynard took his automatic out of his shoulder holster, released its magazine and checked the load. “And the rest of you, we move out in five minutes!”

  31 TIME TO GO

  Davis cornered fast off the road and accelerated up the driveway, pebbles and small stones shooting up from the rear wheels like grapeshot. The drive back to the house had been something of a test of endurance, what with Mrs. Vittrano and her daughter wailing like banshees, and Mrs. Klein, trying to make herself heard above the racket, insisting he go faster. All that after the near collision. It made him wonder if it wasn’t time to look for a new job.

  Slowing down as he approached the house, Davis had hardly brought the Packard to a halt than the women were out the back of the car and running up the front steps like someone had opened a box of spiders. Beside him he could see the boy, Alex, shaking his head as he opened his door.

  “You okay, Alex?” Davis switched the engine off.

  “Me? I’m fine, Davis.” Alex stopped halfway through getting out of the car. “Don’t you sometimes wish my dad had bought a model with one of those glass panels behind the driver that you can slide closed? Something to keep the noise out? I know I do.”

  “They got scared.”

  Alex stopped closing the door. “Imagine what they’d have been like if there really had been an accident – you think we should get in there and explain what happened?”

  “I suppose we better had…” Davis looked at Alex. “By the way, did you see who was driving the other car – the one that didn’t quite hit us?”

  “The boy?”

  Davis let out a sigh of relief. “Am I glad you said that.”

  “Why?”

  “Thought I’d imagined it, is why…”

  “Want to know something weird, Davis?”

  “What could be weirder than some kid driving a car that was being chased by Mr. Burrell?”

  “We know him, you and me…”

  “I’m not kidding, Dad, honest!”

  Alex was back in the room where Uncle Mario had quizzed him the night before. He was with Davis, and this time it was just his father asking the questions. Someone had opened the windows to air the place out, but the stale aroma of cigars, whiskey and aftershave still hung around; Alex reckoned, no matter what you did, it would always be there, soaked into everything.

  Nate Klein chewed his lip as his glance flicked between his son and his chauffeur. “You both saw this, right?” Davis and Alex nodded. “You’re telling me the getaway car Tony was chasing was being driven by your friend, Alex?”

  “What I said, Dad.” Alex shrugged and readjusted his glasses. “If I was going to make something up, it would be a whole lot better story than that, believe me.”

  “Sure, sure…” Nate Klein paced up and down, rubbing his chin, lost in thought. If the boy they thought might’ve been kidnapped by Dunne’s man, Joe Cullen, was driving the car, then surely it couldn’t be Cullen who’d been watching the house; but, if it wasn’t him, who was it? Then he came to an abrupt halt. “This is not good, this is not good. Davis, I want you to get the motor ready; Alex, go pack your things now! We are leaving!”

  After a visit to the housekeeper, telling her to shift up a gear and get the staff to start packing everyone’s bags, Nate Klein dashed back to the room where Mario was still harassing Bowyer Dunne. He didn’t bother to knock.

  “Mario, I think something’s up!”

  “Oh yeah?” Mario, who had been bending over a cowed Bowyer Dunne, stood up. “I heard a hullabaloo fit to wake the dead when the ladies came back. What weren’t they happy about…champagne not cold enough for them?”

  “Something’s screwy…I need to talk to you, outside.” Nate walked past Mario and opened the French windows onto the patio; Mario came out after him, a dubious expression on his face.

  “What’s this about, Nate?”

  “I got a bad feeling and it’s giving me stomach gyp. Whoever it was back up there,” he pointed at where the intruder had first been spotted, “for sure he wasn’t Dunne’s man, Cullen, come to help him.”

  “He wasn’t? Then…”

  “This isn’t going to make any kind of sense, but whoever he is, he was with the kid, MacIntyre’s grandson. The one we thought Cullen
was after. Alex saw him, in the car they must’ve come here in, being chased by Tony.” Nate made a whatever-next face. “Alex swears blind the kid was driving, but be that as it may, I do not like unexplained things happening around us, it makes me nervous. I think we should go, and we should go now. In fact, forgive me if you disagree, Mario, but I have already put things in motion to do such.”

  “You mean run?” Mario’s eyes saucered. “Mario Andrusa doesn’t run from anybody, Nate, you should know that!”

  “Mario, Mario…” Nate made calm-down motions with his hands. “This isn’t about running, this is about not being here, in this house, if – more likely when – we get visitors. Let’s get back to Chicago, where we know what’s what and who’s who…any case, it’s too open out here, far too many people we don’t know and who don’t owe us for my liking.”

  “What about Dunne?” Mario nodded back at the house.

  “I was thinking about that, and I had an idea: we leave him here.”

  “Leave him? I haven’t finished with the bozo yet!”

  “Let whoever turns up here, be it the cops or whoever, let them deal with him, Mario. Let Dunne explain what he’s doing here all on his ownsome. I’m sure he’ll be very convincing, as the last thing he wants is to talk about how well he knows us.”

  “What’s to stop him from high-tailing it the moment we’re gone?”

  “Fear, Mario. Fear that you’ll find out he did and come after him…”

  Bowyer Dunne was getting drunk. And feeling increasingly sorry for himself. Becoming Republican party treasurer, Mid-West, had been the pinnacle, the very acme and zenith of his political career so far. And now it looked like he was in a defective elevator, headed south and directly for rock-bottom. He poured himself another couple or more fingers of Mario Andrusa’s outstanding Scotch. I mean, why not? The man had left him in charge of the house.