Tales of the Bagman

by B C Bell

“Turn around,” Mac ordered.

  He did. The Bagman smashed his head into the bar hard enough to shake the glasses at the other end. Crankshaft checked outside the door and then walked over to Mac.

  “You want me to go up there with you or keep watch?”

  The man with the leather face shook his head no, and pointed at the door.

  The hairs on the back of Crankshaft’s neck stood up. This Bagman wasn’t the same kid he had known for a decade—hell, the one he’d half raised. No witty repartee. No joking in between innings. Mac had always been a pretty good athlete, but the fight Crankshaft had just watched from the door… It was almost like the Tong gangs fight in New York’s Chinatown. The timing. The speed. Pure brutality. As if some kind of fury had been unleashed. It wasn’t like Mac.

  A ratcheting sound came from the staircase, and Crankshaft snapped out of his thoughts. He looked up at the man with a mask on, double checking the ammo in a .45 revolver. A man who snapped the cylinder shut with a flip of his wrist, glanced upstairs and then stared across the top of the barrel, checking the sights. A man with no face who turned his head and pointed at the door with his chin. It wasn’t Mac.

  Crankshaft posted himself at the entrance, on lookout like The Bagman had told him.

  The sound of voices and thumping announced somebody coming downstairs, probably because the fighting had stopped. A woman’s head peeked around the corner. The Bagman pointed his gun up in the air and waved her on down. Two more women rounded the corner, then a waspish young man in a straw hat, obviously a client. The click of the revolver cocked, acting as a warning. The man in the straw hat, and then two more gave the masked man a wide berth. He grabbed the last one by the shoulder.

  “Anybody else up there?”

  “Two men,” the client whispered. “Standing in the office door.” He held up one finger and then made a gun out of it. One of the men was armed.

  The man with no face nodded, and directed them out the back door with a wave of his hand. He kept an eye on them till they cleared the exit.

  Mac glanced through the handrail, spotting no one above, and then sped around where the banisters met halfway to the second floor. He took the remaining steps two at a time, only to halt before he reached the top. After planting his back to the wall, The Bagman held his gun arm out straight. About to clear the corner, he thought he saw something move.

  He ducked to the side as a tall standing ashtray swung around the edge of the wall, smashing a hole where his head had just been. Lunging, The Bagman hit the second floor level, and rolled. The chromium ashtray hit the floor next to his face and the stand broke in half. Mac looked up to see Jimmy “The Jaw” Pirelli, punch drunk professional heavyweight turned punch drunk professional thug.

  Two weeks ago Mac had broken into Slots Lurie’s safe and wound up in a fight with Jimmy. Mac had barely escaped with his life by bending a chromium ashtray off the big ape’s head. Now Jimmy was brandishing the top half of the same standing ashtray like one of King Arthur’s knights would have wielded a mace. Only Jimmy wasn’t so noble.

  Mac spun into the corner as the tray slashed into the wooden floor more like an axe than a mace—hard enough to chop the top of a skull open. Mac pointed the revolver right between Jimmy’s eyes. The big goon didn’t even slow down. When Jimmy The Jaw’s hands went back—preparing for another swing—Mac shot him in the thigh. Jimmy’s expression changed, like using the gun had been cheating. Mac shot him in the other leg so he’d at least fall down. The ex-heavyweight sat on the floor watching the blood stain his slacks and looking confused. Finally, he clenched a ham-sized hand on top of each leg, realizing he must be wounded.

  The office door next to the steps stood open. The Bagman checked it from both sides, pushing the door into the wall this time to make sure nobody was hiding behind it. Then he checked behind the desk. The floor safe was open and empty. Nobody in the closet.

  Slots wouldn’t have gone up to the third floor unless it was to take one of the girls hostage. Plus, from up there it would be a one story jump to the next rooftop to escape. Slots wasn’t built for that. The only windows on the second floor faced the front, the alley and the rear. Crankshaft had the front window covered.

  Mac glanced at the alley window to his right. That one was out, too. Fat slob like Lurie’d break both legs when he hit the pavement. That left the back. The Bagman sprinted to the open rear window.

  Somebody had installed a permanent step ladder that ran down to the top of the garage, a second exit. From the window Mac could see a trapdoor on the garage roof. A short drop from the roof to the car and Slots would be gone.

  The leather faced vigilante fired two shots through the trapdoor, more in anger than hope of hitting anything, and began to climb outside. Even with the sash pulled all the way up he had to go feet first. He set a foot on one of the rails, gun still in hand. The top half of his body was still inside when something hit him over the back of the head.

  Fury drove both legs at the steps. The Bagman, refusing to go down, pushed himself back inside. His vision went from double to a single white dot, but his arms kept churning, driving him back inside until his head hit the floor. The white dot grew larger, his arms kept churning, and The Bagman rolled. Something kicked him in the shoulder, and he realized he’d dropped his gun. Somebody stomped on his chest and Mac was flat on his back.

  He refused to pass out.

  Looking up, all he could see was the barrel of his own revolver, aimed between his eyes. When his vision cleared a bit more he saw the cylinder behind the barrel, still pointed at him, his last bullet ready to explode out of it. When he looked past that, he saw two eyes and the face of everything wrong that had ever happened to him.

  Slots Lurie held on to Mac’s revolver confidently, almost resting his arm on his own belly. He had a smile on his face and more hair in his eyebrows than the mess he’d slicked back on his head. Heavy lids hung over cold, soulless eyes, the color of scorched earth.

  Slots Lurie was about to end Mac McCullough’s life—with The Bagman’s gun. The gangster had been hiding in the corner, under the steps that ran to the third floor. Mac hadn’t seen him. The Bagman breathed deep and cursed himself. His chest heaved as he tried to sit up and fell back on the floor. Slots Lurie laughed.

  “No,” Mac gasped.

  “You really think you can take over my business?” Slots said. “That’s what aaaallll this is about…?” The gangster waved his empty hand around.

  “No.” Mac tried to sit up and Slots stepped on his chest, forcing him back down.

  “No? Then what are you doing here, YOU MASKED FREAK!” Slots stomped on his chest and kept applying pressure.

  “The storekeeper… Stephano…” Mac glanced to his left.

  The bottom of the broken standing ashtray sat on the floor just out of his reach. If he could only get a hold of it, use it as some kind of weapon. His hand lashed out and Slots stepped on his chest again. Mac couldn’t breathe. His arms fell to the floor, the jagged edge of the broken ashtray stand jutted into the air above him like the tip of some magnified, chromium quill, or the edge of a broken metal bottle, or some kind of glass monument; a monument to his failure.

  Lurie started screaming. “Stephano? You did THIS for Stephano! YOU RUIN MY PLACE! FOR SOME GREASEBALL EYE-TALIAN SHOPKEEPER?” Slots brought the gun down, pointed at Mac’s head. Mac knew he had to keep talking.

  “No…” Mac breathed. “No, not just…”

  Slots raised his foot to stomp down one more time.

  Mac reached out and caught it.

  More a reflex than a plan. His right hand had flown up in defense, and grabbed the sole of Lurie’s shoe. He held it there—frozen, for an instant—and something inside him ignited. The Bagman’s left hand grabbed Lurie by the ankle and twisted.

  “Not just Stephano!” Mac screamed.r />
  The gun went off and the bullet ripped into the wood next to Mac’s head. Slots went down—plunging to The Bagman’s left—and onto the jagged chromium edge of the broken, upright ashtray. Neither of them knew what had happened until the hollow metal shaft was sticking out of Lurie’s back.

  “Jim McCullough,” Mac said. “Big Jim McCullough. I did it for him…

  Mac’s eyes burned with a look that was half hate, half pity, as the realization of what had happened slowly struck him.

  Slots was face down, hanging in the air, his chest still inches from the ground. Lurie looked confused for a moment, then his eyes went wide. He tried to scream, but couldn’t. His arms flailed. He looked down at the floor and back up again, back at the man behind the mask. There was a gurgling sound as his body began to spasm, shaking uncontrollably. Then his eyes went glassy. His body went limp and blood dripped out of his mouth onto the floor.

  “I did it for him…” Mac finished, “…and everybody else around here.”

  It took him a while to remember where he was. Then it took him a while to roll on his side and stand up. He’d heard Crankshaft’s voice and some machine gun fire outside. Sirens approaching in the background.

  When he looked out the back window he saw a brand new Hudson Essex—full of bullet holes and on fire—pulled halfway out into the alley. Some of Lurie’s men must have beaten the gangster down there and, like all good rats, tried to desert a sinking ship. Looked like Crankshaft hadn’t just been on lookout; he’d been on patrol.

  Mac heard somebody crying and turned around. Jimmy The Jaw was still sitting on the floor, bawling over his legs. Mac picked up his gun, looked at Jimmy, and holstered it. It’d be like shooting a dumb animal.

  He grabbed Jimmy under the arms and dragged him to the rear window. Jimmy looked up at him with an expression that was almost human. Mac stuck the top half of Jimmy’s body out the window and said:

  “Cover your head.”

  Jimmy wrapped both arms around it.

  “You’ll thank me in the morning.” Mac grabbed him by both legs and pushed him out the window. Jimmy landed on top of the garage, head covered.

  Mac checked his vest for the two grenades. He’d completely forgotten about them in the fight. It suddenly occurred to him that if anybody had shot him he’d have blown up. Sirens reminded him not to get weak in the knees about it.

  He walked toward the staircase, looking at where Slots had been hiding underneath. A Gladstone bag sat on the floor. Mac crouched down and opened it. It was full of money. He closed it and stood up, grasping the handle in one hand. It was going with him.

  He pulled the pin on the first grenade and tossed it into the upstairs room from the staircase. He heard it rattle across the floor as he ran downstairs. In every army movie he’d ever seen they always counted to three. He stood next to the front entrance and counted to ten, still, nothing had happened. He decided the can shaped grenades were probably tear gas. He wasn’t going to go back up and check.

  He opened the front door and almost ran into the running board of the Blue Streak. Police cars were coming down the street. Crankshaft sat inside the car, revving the engine and waving his hand. Mac tossed the Gladstone in beside him, then pulled the pin on the second grenade, the pineapple looking one, and rolled it into the middle of the barroom.

  He jumped onto the running board, and Crankshaft hit the gas. Mac held onto the roof of the car as all eight cylinders launched it off the curb and an explosion came from inside the bar.

  Half the old Lincoln Taproom shot out of its own windows. Dust shook from the exterior. The building seemed to inflate for a second, before a corner sank in and the second story leaned toward the street. Bricks bounced off the pavement in front of the oncoming cops, a pile of smoke and dust.

  When they hit the corner, Mac already had his legs in the car. Crankshaft hung a right turn so tight it almost slid Mac into the passenger seat. Two squad cars veered around their unintentional smokescreen. The chase was on.

  Crankshaft took a second right, at a speed that would’ve flipped any other car over—and one of the police cars wound up in somebody’s yard. The driver still on their tail knew his stuff, roaring through the straight-aways and fishtailing every turn in a perfect slide. Mac glanced back over his shoulder.

  “I’m not gonna shoot at cops, Crank.”

  “You won’t have to. Just let ‘em catch up.”

  “Catch up?” Mac sounded panicked. “I thought you had that little red tank of rocket fuel or somethin’ in here?”

  “Waste not, want not,” Crankshaft answered.

  The Blue Streak felt like it was crawling. Mac could’ve jumped out and run faster.

  “Wait and watch.” Crankshaft’s mouth tapered up at the edges, almost into a grin. “This is something I’ve been wanting to do my entire life.”

  Mac glanced behind them, then front and back again.

  The squad car ran right up on their tail, and the ace mechanic behind the wheel of the Blue Streak broke into a full fledged smile. Crankshaft began to speed up again. He flipped a switch on the dashboard—and a blinding light shot out of the back of the car. Rear mounted highbeams. Spotlights.

  The police car behind them slowed gradually to a stop with the lights still spinning, the driver blinded. Crankshaft hit the gas harder. Mac could see the two cops covering their eyes and yelling at each other. Crankshaft took another right and the sound of laughter from a masked vigilante and a wheelman echoed through the city.

  ***

  The opening of Mac’s Tobacco Shop was a mostly private, small affair, which was appropriate since Mac didn’t have much family and a good deal of his friends were in jail—or in hiding, trying to stay out of it. The candy and a good deal of sundries hadn’t arrived yet, but most of the cigars had. Cubans stood stacked behind the counter and sparsely stocked pine shelves lined the walls. In a way it was also a party celebrating the birth of The Bagman, since half the people there knew who he was. They didn’t bother to mention it to the other half.

  Uncle Ray and Trudy were both there. Trudy, ever the party girl, had spiked the punch. Crankshaft and Coco Blue stood off to one side where garish Pulp magazine covers stood stacked in a rack that covered half the wall. Of the two hundred some titles released a week, Mac was carrying fifty of them—more than he could ever possibly read. Crankshaft thought it was all garbage until Coco pointed out several well-known authors to him.

  Hunts Helms had brought in a crew of newspapermen, offering them free cigars. Mac made Hunts pay. The reporters spiked the punch again, and then sent out for supplies to make a second, even more potent batch. Mac did his best to keep his seedy friends on their best behavior, though, because even Mama Stephano had come, along with some of her friends and the neighborhood kids.

  Mac had gone to Mr. Stephano’s funeral only a few days before, and while offering his condolences, had also offered Mama “S” a hand if she ever needed it. Before she even had a chance to thank him, he’d invited her to the store opening and told her to bring the kids. He’d even ordered comic books for the little ones—which ran counter to all his better business instincts—Mac couldn’t see how funnies would ever gain a big audience when you already got them with the newspaper.

  Maybe if they put pulp heroes in ‘em? he thought, watching the kids ravage Moon Mullins and Little Orphan Annie reprints. He could already hear himself telling them “Hey, kid, you gonna buy something? This ain’t no library, it’s a newsstand.” It wouldn’t take long. Never mind that it was a cigar store.

  Mac rapped the side of his punch glass with a lockpick set to get the crowd’s attention.

  “Ladies and Gentleman!” he said, “and all my other friends. A toast to the opening of Mac’s Tobacco!” He held up his glass. “NO CREDIT!”

  People laughed and glasses clinked agains
t one another as Aunt Trudy cranked up a portable Victrola and starting ‘swinging the joint.’ People even began to dance a little as smoke and conversation filled the air.

  Then, the front door flew open. It was the moment Mac had been waiting for—his first real customer. He had kind of hoped they’d be smiling. Instead, a man with stern expression stood in the doorway, scanning the room until his eyes fell on Mac. Then his mouth curled up on one side and he sighed as if observing some comedy of the absurd. It was Detective Costanovitch. He trudged up to the counter like a cop.

  “Grand opening, I see by the sign over the door. Congratulations. Don’t see a lot of that in this economy.”

  “And you, sir, are our very first customer,” Mac said, palming his lockpick set and looking at the detective as if he’d never seen him before in his life.

  “Well, in that case, give me one of those panatelas. I didn’t actually come in here for a cigar, but I feel like I’d be disappointing you if I didn’t get one.”

  “Well then here, take one with my compliments. On the house.” Hunts gave Mac a dirty look over the lieutenant’s shoulder.

  “Really? Thanks.” Costanovitch bit the end off the cigar and spat it into a cuspidor by the counter. “Anyway, like I was saying, I came in here looking for somebody. Big guy. I don’t see him, though. Then again, you look like a pretty big guy yourself.”

  “Like the man said, ‘Chicago: city of big shoulders.’”

  “Tha’s frum Carl flippin’ San’burg! Ch’cago’s favrit pote,” one of Mac’s less savory friends, obviously on his second batch of punch, interjected.

  “Yeah, Chicago’s favorite poet,” Mac said, rolling his eyes. He grabbed the man by the shoulder and attempted to introduce him to the detective. “Sir, meet Lefty Arno. Lefty, meet… I’m sorry, sir, I don’t think we’ve met ourselves. I’m Mac McCullough, proprietor of Mac’s Tobacco.” He held out his hand.