Tales of the Bagman

by B C Bell

  Yeah, some highwayman was going to boost that briefcase, and soon. But this time, The Bagman was going to come to the rescue.

  Mac had been watching the bank messenger off and on for a week now, a little milquetoast kind of guy with no chin, a gray suit, and a mustache just a little wider than his nose. Milquetoast would show up promptly just before nine in the morning outside the Cosmopolitan Savings and Trust down on Clark street, step inside, and come back out about fifteen minutes later with a briefcase on a little gold chain cuffed to his arm. One guard, a Chicago cop, followed him around on his route. Different days, different cops—but always just one.

  Mac sat across the street at a diner nursing a cup of coffee as the mousy messenger nodded to the cop outside the bank and headed off on his route with the policeman walking beside him. McCullough threw a dime on the counter and headed out the door.

  The messenger walked to the train station on Wells, climbed the steps up to the El track and waited, the cop still shuffling next to him. Mac shuffled a good hundred feet behind and got on the train two cars back.

  Turning sideways and apologizing to the other commuters, Mac navigated down the aisle, opened the door in front of the car, and stepped out on the open air platform. He smelled the mixture of fresh air and fuel, stockyards and the stock exchange that could only be his hometown, and then he stepped into the car behind the bank courier’s. He walked to the front of it and peered through the window at the messenger, now visible in the very next car. All somebody had to do was knock out the cop and cut the chain, and here sat their two willing victims—right next to Joe and Jane on the train—just asking for it. Mac wanted to knock them out himself.

  Messenger Milquetoast and the officer stepped off the train on Wabash, walked a block to State, and went in The Union Bank Central. Mac followed them inside and pretended to fill out a deposit slip. He wrote something on the back of it, blew on the ink to dry it, and then wiped it off with a handkerchief before he stuck it in his pocket. The cop and the bank courier stepped back onto State Street. Mac gave the teller a wave like he had forgotten something and headed out behind them.

  Then, just outside the steps to the train station at Adams and Wabash, something funny happened. Smack dab in the middle of a small crowd of commuters, the cop stopped outside the archway that led up to the train, looked around, and backed away. He glanced at his watch, leaned against the wooden exterior of the entrance and began twirling his baton—not standard operating procedure from what Mac had seen.

  The cop was in on it. The cash and carry courier was about to be hit.

  Mac came around the corner and tipped his hat to a woman in front of Marshall-Fields, using the movement to obscure his face from the lingering policeman, and feeling around in his pocket for a subway token.

  The messenger stepped through the turnstile and Mac’s hand came out of his pocket, empty. He didn’t have time to stand in line for a token. Checking to see if the clerk was looking, Mac gripped the bar of the turnstile and, placing his other hand on the counter next to it, twisted over it pommel horse style. He headed up the steps to the train, putting on a pair of gloves. Walking briskly, he stopped about five feet behind the bank messenger, and then pulled his hat down low, glancing around and leaning against the rear wall, his fists in his pockets, waiting.

  Sure enough, two men stepped out of the corner, their grim countenance engraved by the alternating light and dark of the sun shining between the wooden slats enclosing the platform. One big, one small. The big one was six-feet-four if he was a foot. He had a prominent eyebrow over his nose, and an ear so cauliflowered it would have been dangerous for him to walk by a soup kitchen. The Intimidator.

  The little guy was a barely five feet. He was dressed sharp, in seersucker, but the double-breasted suit made him look even shorter. He had Spanky’s job. He was carrying something underneath his coat that was almost as long as the coat itself—probably a bolt cutter, maybe a sawed off shotgun.

  The second he spotted the two thugs, Mac started walking toward the opposite end of the platform, as if he wanted to get into the subway car behind them. Two minutes later, the thieves were standing about the same distance from the messenger as the cop had been. A minute after that, you could almost feel the electrical energy of the generator powering the big iron wheels of the Ravenswood line, as the two thugs leaned in close to each other. Mac poked two holes in one side of a paper bag with his thumbs.

  The train pulled into the station.

  The big intimidator grabbed the messenger by the back of the neck with one vise-like hand, spinning him around and keeping him from entering the train door. Wrapping his arm around the messenger’s head, the big thug looked as if he was throwing his arm around an old friend’s shoulder, taking him out for an impromptu drink. In reality, he was clamping one hand over the smaller man’s mouth and threatening to break his neck.

  “Come with us,” the intimidator said. With his other hand, unseen by the commuters, he shoved a rag into the mousy banker’s mouth.

  As the train doors closed, the stylish, smaller man pulled a bolt cutter out of his sleeve that was almost as long as his arm. The two men angled back toward the corner of the platform with the bank messenger wedged between them. They hadn’t seen Mac step back off the train behind them. He pulled the bag over his head and wedged his hat on.

  Mac had thought about shoving the two thugs away from the courier and bashing their heads together, but with the foot-and-a-half size difference, he doubted the little guy would knock himself out on the big one’s abdomen. The train hesitated, backed up a little, and began to pull out of the station. The man with the bag over his head slid up behind the intimidator. The Bagman was a pretty big guy, too.

  The very second the intimidator noticed something in his peripheral vision he began to turn his head. Mac’s arm shot out straight, jabbing him directly behind the ear. Before the big man’s eyes focused beneath his eyebrow, Mac punched him in the kidney with a right and came around with a hard left hook, behind the ear again. It sounded like somebody thumping a melon. It felt like ham on the bone.

  The big guy went down.

  Mac pivoted to his left and the little seersucker was hitting him in the shins with the bolt cutter, swinging it like a baseball bat with shears on the end. In an effort not to scream, The Bagman emitted something between a roar and a grunt; the kind of sound a cape buffalo might make echoed down the tracks with the outgoing train.

  Spanky heard it and watched as Mac’s body seemed to swell with fury, his hands spread-fingered, pretending to squeeze the marrow out of The Little Rascal’s skull. When the little guy looked up into the eyes behind the mask, he dropped the bolt cutter and his hands flew up in front of him. Mac came around with a spinning kick that hit him in the stomach, the follow-through sweeping the little man into the side of the moving train.

  Spanky bounced, spinning off the side of a passenger car. Mac pulled a spool of masking tape out of his pocket and began reeling it around the Intimidator’s ankles as he kept an eye on the little man, who was further down the platform now, stumbling, trying to keep his balance.

  The big guy grabbed Mac by the feet, and pulled them out from under him. But it wasn’t Mac anymore.

  The Bagman turned his head sideways as he fell, so he wouldn’t flatten his face on one of the platform’s iron support beams. The bigger man laughed when the man with a bag on his head bounced off the vertical girder. But he wasn’t laughing when The Bagman used the momentum of the bounce to spin and hurl himself back at him. Standing with his feet still taped together, the Intimidator made a mistake; he reached inside his coat. The Bagman growled and punched him in the nose with one fist. The other one was clutched around a snub nose Colt .45, the back of which was steering the man’s hand away from his lapel with the rough part where the hammer had been filed down. In the same motion the revolver came up, and b
ackhanded the big man to the ground. The little seersucker, screaming for blood, charged across the platform.

  Mac hadn’t filed the gun’s hammer down so much that he couldn’t cock it.

  Staring up the revolver’s barrel, the shorter man’s rebel yell caught in his throat, seemingly drowned out by the metallic click of the revolver’s hammer locking into position. His backpedaling feet blurred in their effort to slow his momentum, but it was too late. The force of his charge carried him until his forehead popped off the end of the barrel. A red ring appeared between his eyes. They rolled up into his head as he collapsed.

  Half unconscious, his hands still flew up in an effort to protect himself. The Bagman grabbed him by one wrist and started wrapping the masking tape around both of the thrashing man’s hands, pulling them behind his back, forcing one toward the other. The bank messenger ran up from behind and hit the little gangster in the head with the briefcase. It looked like it might have hurt.

  Spanky wailed. “Ooaaaauch! OKOK. I surrender. Uncle. Calf-rope, whatever the hell you people say.”

  “Calf-rope is good.” The Bagman grabbed the bandit by the tape wrapped around his wrists, and rolled him over on his stomach, where he stayed, because Mac had soon taped his hands to his feet.

  “Oouuuaaaw!” the seersuckered goon enunciated in a nasal tone. “Y-You can’t leave me like this, buddy. I-I got back trouble.”

  “You want me to lay you out flat on the train track?” Mac said, putting the .45 back in his shoulder holster. The other gangster started to stir. Mac pushed the man over on his stomach with his foot and, pulling more masking tape out of his pocket, hogtied him the same way he had the other one. He looked at the bank messenger, now cringing behind his briefcase, and said, smiling underneath the bag, “Man, isn’t this stuff incredible? I love masking tape!” Then he pulled the note he’d written at the bank out of his pocket and stuck it on the big thief’s back. In big block letters it said:

  DEPOSIT COURTESY OF THE BAGMAN

  The mousy bank courier watched, shaking, holding his briefcase in front of him like a shield.

  The Bagman stood patting the air with his palms, trying to show he meant no harm. “Ya might wanna wait for the next train, sir. The copper who’s supposed to be guarding you was the inside man.”

  The courier looked puzzled. “Inside what?”

  “Inside the job. The inside man.” Mac brought his hand up so he could talk behind the back of it, as if he were whispering. “He knew these men were going to rob you. That’s why he’s not around.”

  Then Mac noticed the commuters collecting in a row back by the entrance. More of them were coming up the stairs. Not good. All the exits were blocked. He needed a diversion.

  A middle-aged woman in a brand new hat began to approach him. By the stern manner of her walk it was obvious she had decided to take command.

  “Hey lady, can you take care of this scene?” The Bagman said, catching her off guard. He waved his finger around, indicating the criminals on the platform. The big guy was stirring again, the little guy was complaining about the shape of his back.

  “What? Young man, just what do you—”

  “Thanks, you’re a peach.” Mac looked around. He had to get out of here; more and more people were coming up the steps. He hadn’t thought about being trapped in the El station. If he ran back down the steps, not only would somebody tear his mask off, but he’d most likely get arrested by the crooked cop downstairs—hell, by now there might be an honest one around. He glanced up and down the tracks for a train, but it was no good. The tracks ran in a loop around the corner. He couldn’t see what was coming because of the buildings. People began to fill the platform, skittishly crowding toward him, as he listened for an oncoming train.

  “Hey! It’s that Bagman!” somebody in back yelled. “Get him! Get his mask!”

  It was like a dam broke. People began to shove through the crowd, pushing each other out of the way. Mac reached for his gun on reflex before he caught himself. Pulling a gun on commuters was not a good guy move. Nobody even noticed.

  “Get him!”

  He jumped off the platform and began to run down the track. He hadn’t heard the train.

  Chapter II

  Locomotive

  Mac hit the track running, or at least he tried to. The crowd had already flustered him, and running down a train track was a lot more complicated than Buster Keaton made it look. First of all, it was hard to keep his footing on the wooden cross ties that held the iron rails up in the air. He had to adjust his stride accordingly without tripping. Add to that the fact that those ties were mounted on a platform that held the Chicago El system four stories up in the air—and the electrified third rail—and it was easy to see why Mac’s only real thought was, Why hasn’t this city got a subway yet?

  He had been focused on the electrified rail to his left when he stumbled, only about a hundred feet from the station. He stopped and grabbed his shin with both hands, only just now realizing how badly he’d been hit. Mac told himself he was a tough guy—he could do this—and gazed down the track to gauge his stride. That’s when he felt the train rumble beneath his feet.

  He looked over his shoulder; nobody was following him except the train. His heart jumped about a foot, and the rest of him went with it. It wasn’t until he began barreling toward the next station, and he realized the train would have to stop at Adams, that he really began to get his stride. Still, it was lucky for him the train had to stop, because a five foot barrier next to the third rail prevented him from jumping to the other side of the tracks. Funny, though, he still sensed a vibration. He had barely begun to turn his head when he heard the whistle.

  It was an express.

  It wasn’t going to stop at Adams. It wasn’t even going to stop at the next station. The train was barreling down the track a hundred feet behind him at full throttle—and it wasn’t going to slow down until the end of the line.

  Mac McCullough didn’t even notice the pain in his leg anymore. His mind wasn’t focused on the third rail. It wasn’t focused on anything except escape. No real thought. No plan. Just a guy with a bag over his head—screaming unintelligibly and bounding down the track.

  The Madison station was still over a block away. Probably the two closest stations in the whole damned city, and it still wouldn’t be close enough. Mac’s legs pumped, his arms churned in the air in an effort to speed him along. His stride gained inches as he leapt from beam to beam, sprinting from support to support at breakneck pace.

  People on the sidewalk below pointed up above them at the madman racing the train. The normally expressionless dealers of Wabash’s jewelry district stood open mouthed, watching a man pit life and limb against the iron horse. Women screamed. Men taking an early lunch from Chicago’s Board of Trade waved their hands in the air, screaming even louder than they did on the trading floor. They would’ve placed bets if there had been time.

  There wasn’t.

  Mac was not faster than a locomotive. He could feel the train bearing down on him. He dared not look back. The engineer sounded the whistle twice, quickly—Get out of the way!—then sounded it twice more as the brakes began to screech. It felt as if the tracks were peeling up behind him, the locomotive tearing at his heels.

  Mac lowered his head and leaned forward even further. He closed his eyes. And leapt.

  Into thin air.

  The Chicago jewelry district was a collection of office buildings, small shops, and eateries. Some twenty-stories high, some barely one. When Mac opened his eyes, his hands were spinning in front of him, trying to keep his balance in the air. He stared straight into the corner of a brick wall flying right at him. He slapped hands and feet around both sides of the cornice, grappling at the brick façade—and slammed into the wall, stunned. He pitched his body to the right as he bounced off. The buildin
g behind him was three stories below. Nothing behind him but open air.

  Careening down the building’s side, his gloved fingers clawed at an outcropping as he continued to skid downward. He almost held on, then grappled at the mortar between the bricks—and kept falling. Kicking out with his right leg, as if trying to walk up the building, he forced himself near the building’s side, twisting in the air toward a window, one story below, three-feet to his right.

  With both hands he reached out, trying to grab part of the wall. Something, anything. His fingertips brushed the brick, peeling the tips of his gloves as he continued to plummet to his doom. He could feel the muscles in his back, below his arms, as he flipped himself sideways. His right hand shot out, clutching at a brick window ledge. It was like grabbing a speeding car and trying to hold on.

  Sharp pain, and then his whole arm went numb.

  His body snapped beneath the window like a bullwhip, hanging in the air momentarily. But he couldn’t hold on.

  Looking down, Mac saw the second story window below him—coming up fast. He stuck his legs out, keeping his knees bent, struggling to touch the ledge with his feet. There was just one problem: physics. He was too far away. His toes curled inside his shoes attempting to somehow grasp the ledge. His feet hit it, and he bent at the knees with the fall, trying to kick himself upward, to somehow slow his descent. He skipped off the wall and tumbled into a back flip.

  Through some fond charity of the gods he came down spinning and his heel caught on the upper, inside corner of the parapet on the building next door. Mac tried to push with his legs again, but there was simply too much momentum. His entire body seemed to fold on top of itself like an accordion—and then unfolded as he flopped onto his back, slamming onto the hot tar roof of the one-story pawn shop hard enough to shake the foundation.