Spirits of the Charles

by Paul C. K. Spears

Horns curled from the man’s head, and his arms were long and bestial, hanging at his sides. A white dinner-jacket was stretched comically around his large frame. If the glowing eyes hadn’t given it away, the hot-pepper cloud of his breath might have: the man was mutated by Rage. A Myth.

  Vance took a step back. Myths like these were dangerous, at least until the drink wore off. Unlike with the B.O.I. agent, he didn’t like the odds if the big guy went after them.

  “State yer names,” growled theapparition.

  “Carla Ponzi, darling, and this is my good pal… Mick the Nose.” Carla wriggled a bit as the bouncer patted her down for weapons. “Careful, slugger. Girl could get the wrong idea.”

  Mick sighed. “I wish you’d stop using my nickname. Only the papers call me that.” He allowed himself to be patted down, and frowned as the Derringer was plucked from his pocket. “Be careful, bud. Wouldn’t want to shoot your pretty face off by accident.”

  “Watch that mouth, or I’ll rip off your pretty face. Asshole.” The ogre found Mick’s wallet of fake badges—B.O.I., Bureau of Prohibition, and half a dozen others. “The hell is this? You a cop?” He wrapped one massive clawed hand around Mick’s throat, lifting him off the ground. “You a cop? Answer me!”

  “Easy, easy! He works for Pinkerton, cool it!” Ponzi slapped at the cords of muscle along the man’s arm, which now split the seams of his shirt as the Rage inflated his frame. Mick coughed, struggling to speak around the claws.

  “Go on, tough guy. I’ve got your number…” The grip weakened as the red fire behind the man’s eyes flickered, unstable. “Can’t hold your Draughts, so you… pick on the little people, right? I know your type.” He plucked the man’s gun, a huge Colt, from the inside of his dinner jacket and slammed the barrel against the mutant’s forehead, eliciting a grunt of surprise. “Back in the Army, we had dozens like you. None of ‘em came back alive.”

  “Vance! Cut that out!” Ponzi’s shrill voice filled the small space. “And you!” She slapped the big man’s arm. “I’m an investor in this operation, so you put my entourage down, God damn it!”

  “Little shit…” But the bouncer dropped Vance, who stumbled against a pipe and dropped the Colt. Lucky for both of them, it didn’t go off.

  The ogre leaned down to collect it, and there was a sound of shredding fabric. “Now ask us the password,” Ponzi fumed, as Mick recovered his badges. “Go on.”

  The Rage mutant looked ashamed. “What’s the password?”

  “De-natured.”

  He nodded, red eyes blinking stupidly. “Good. Uh… Right this way, miss.”

  Mick followed at a distance, pulse still pounding, as the Myth led them through a maze of pipes. They arrived at a flight of stone stairs. “Right down there.”

  “Thanks, hun. See ya later.” Ponzi bounced down the stairs; Mick paused at the top, eyeing the big man.

  “What’s your name?”

  The man glowered at him. “Hogarth.”

  “You be careful, Hogarth. If I was in a different line of work, you’d have a new breathing hole right now.”

  Hogarth grunted. “And you better be careful, or Frank Wallace might hear about you. Get me?”

  “Who’s—” But the big man was lumbering up the tunnel, away from him.

  Carla had disappeared down the downs. Mick followed, walked under a flimsy sign advertising the place as The Old-Time Feeling, and Mick was able to see for the first time why all this secrecy was necessary.

  This speakeasy was cavernous, built in a dome-like shape with thick steel beams supporting the ceiling. Their joists creaked with the rumble of nearby subway trains, and flakes of brick fell from the ceiling each time one passed. Wood shavings coated the floor, and cigarette-smoke floated over packed circular tables and lounge chairs. It was early, but the place was hopping; through the smog, Mick saw girls in rhinestone skirts with necklaces of pearls, and men halfway through cocktails of Scotch-and-Lust. He smelled the telltale trace of Noxious, the aerosol particles tickling his nose. Near the back, a group of youths took turns huffing from a leather mask. It was attached to a tank simply labelled DELIGHT.

  He nodded at the tank as he joined Carla, at the bar. “That was a weapon, in the war.”

  “What?”

  “Noxious,” he said. “We bombed trenches with that. Stuff like Fear and Misery…” His knee began to ache. “These kids are sucking it down like candy.”

  “World changes, honey. Pull up a seat.” She waved at the bartender, a sweaty-faced man in a white button-down and vest. “Earl! Buddy! Get this guy a drink—maybe two, he’s a real sourpuss!”

  Mick shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  “I insist.” Carla took a Joy martini from Earl and slid it over to him. “Just one sip, it won’t kill ya.”

  “Company rules. I don’t drink on the job.” Mick pushed it away.

  “Lightweight.” The pink liquid slopped over the side of the glass, leaving a patch of spilled Draughts. The patch crawled down the bar, leaving a trail of rudimentary heart-shapes in its wake before Earl smacked it with a napkin. As the vapor rose and vanished, Mick struggled to be patient… again.

  “Ponzi. You never answered my question. What are we doing here?”

  “Cool your heels, Mac. I’m just stretching my legs a bit. We’ll get to your case, don’t worry.” She waved at Earl, who approached without a word; if nothing else, he was a quiet fella, and Mick respected that. “You guys still got my stuff in the back?” Carla asked. Earl nodded. “Good. Fetch it up, I need to get primped.” She punched Mick’s shoulder, and his patience snapped.

  “Ponzi! We have less than thirty-six hours to recover the Company’s assets. I hope you have a plan, or I’ll be happy to put you back in jail. Permanently.”

  She tittered at him. “Oh, bambino. Like you could clip these wings. I’m out now, and I ain’t going back in. You’d have to kill me.” And despite the laughter that followed, he knew she meant it. There was fire in those eyes, and it had nothing to do with Draughts. “Here’s the plan, beanstalk. Part one: We find the guys who hit your Company. Smoke ‘em out, take your shit back.”

  He frowned. “But we have no idea who did it.”

  “You have no idea. I’ve got some good ones.” She took a drink. “That dame with the braids—she’s a Red. I heard her called Queen of the Bolshies, down at Suffolk. Ukrainian, or Latvian or something. She’s been in and out of a dozen prisons, but someone always bails her.” Ponzi took the martini, sipping at it; her cheeks grew rosy, and her eyes flickered with glee. “The others are harder. You said you found tobacco juice, at the scene?”

  “Yeah. So? Hundreds of guys chew that it.”

  “Yeah, but guys with the stones for mass murder? That’s a smaller crowd.” She counted them off on her fingers. “I know three. There’s Dodo Walsh, from the Gustin Gang. He loves tobacco more than his wife. But he’s a paddy and a Catholic, and Jesus wouldn’t love him for slaughtering a bank full of people, so it ain’t him. Then there’s Gus Henderson. He’ll get hooked on anything—but he’s a small-fry.”

  “I know Gus. We were in the same squad, in the Army.”

  “Don’t care. Moving on. That leaves us with just one: Big Joe Lombardini.”

  “Lombardini?” Mick racked his brains for the details, recalling rumors from his days on the beat. “But he’s dead. His smuggling boat hit the rocks and sank, off New Hampshire. The guy’s six fathoms down.”

  “Yeah? Funny. Because his girls says he swam all the way to shore, breathing from a tank of Noxious.”

  Mick shook his head. “That would kill him. Noxious isn’t like Draughts—you can’t just keep topping up. You’ll suffocate.”

  “Yeah. So he’s dead. Unless whatever came out of that water ain’t Lombardini.” She let that sink in, as Mick frowned. “Your other suspect’s a no-go—some guy in a gas mask? I got nothing on that. Could be anybody, maybe a war vet.”

  “Maybe.” It was a reasonable assumption. Plenty of soldiers
had come home transformed by shrapnel and Draughts into shattered shells. He knew many men who’d commissioned porcelain jaws or cheeks just to look semi-normal, after the war. Hiding one’s face had become a commonplace thing. “Okay. So it might be Lombardini. But how do we hit him, when we have no idea where his operation is?”

  “I’m getting to that,” she said. “Big Joe was a name around here. He had weight—that guy could shut down a whole supply line, with just his name. Nobody messed with him, not the Family, not the Wallace boys. If he’s back, other mood-leggers will avoid him like the plague.”

  Mick was impressed. She might be shallow, flighty, and irritating, but Ponzi was smart. Long-term planning might not be her strength, but she improvised like a vaudeville performer, spinning tales with incredible speed and confidence. “So we look for the gap in everyone else’s supply chains. That’s where Big Joe will be.”

  “Right.” On a cocktail napkin, she used Earl’s pencil to sketch out a map of the Harbor. It was pretty good—she could’ve made good money as an artist, he thought, if she hadn’t been obsessed with taking it away from other people.

  “Here’s the docks, right? This is where the Draughts come in, here and here. There’s a whole system for it—smugglers pay cops, cops pay Prohibition guys, everyone wins.”

  “Except the jake-legs,” said Mick.

  “Who cares? There’s money in Draughts, enough for a lifetime.” Ponzi slugged back her drink, the Joy in her eyes growing brighter. “Golly, that’s good! Not a lot of Joy in the clink. So if Big Joe is back, everyone’s gonna be out of his way. The supply lines will divert—maybe to Lynn, or southwards.” She scribbled crude arrows. “Leaving the harbor as Big Joe’s territory. The Family and King Solomon own Boston, but Joe owns the docks. He always did. Meaning all you have to do is camp out here—sooner or later you’ll bump into his operation. Maybe even these Reds, if they’re working together.”

  Mick sat back. He saw the weakness in Carla at last: she was far too confident, leaving her vulnerable to holes in her logic. She was much too cocky, and wasn’t going to hang his life on her words. “If you’re wrong...”

  “There’s risk in every investment.” She swirled her Draught, the mysterious essence within fizzing with small blue sparks. “You gotta have faith, Mick.”

  “Fuck faith.” He pulled the drink away from her. “I’ll check the docks. But you’re coming with me.”

  She blinked. “You’re a kidder.”

  “I’m serious. I’m not staking my career on this, not without collateral.”

  She smirked. “Yeah, and what you gonna do if I say no? Manhandle me? You ain’t that sorta guy. Not without a few drinks.”

  He smirked. “Maybe not. Hey, isn’t that your husband?” When she turned, he pulled a set of handcuffs and clapped one to her wrist, looping the other half around his own.

  “The hell?” She hauled at the chains. “Are you nuts? Get this offa me!”

  “Sorry. I’m not getting blown away because you made a bad bet. You’re coming along.”

  “Fuck off.” She laughed, weakly. “I’m not Pinkerton. You can’t drag me into this!”

  “Why not?” He shrugged. “If you’re right, everything goes fine. It’s just a stakeout—you, me, some binoculars and a camera. But if you’re lying, or blowing me off… we both find out together. What do you say?”

  She threw her drink in his face. Mick sputtered as Joy clogged his eyes and nostrils, its giddy influence wriggling into his thoughts. He felt Carla trying to squirm out of the cuffs, and pulled on them. When his vision cleared, Carla was inches away, her face flushed and teeth gritted.

  “You worthless, dog-shit, gumshoe sonofabitch!”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Fuck your mother!”

  “Your bag, ma’am.” Earl arrived, uninterested in their squabble, and dumped a large handbag on the bar. Inside, Mick could hear glass clinking, and knew from the odor these must be Ponzi’s perfumes—Noxious brews. Ponzi grabbed the bag, staring daggers at him.

  “All right, asshole. You got me. But after this…” Her small features were tight with fury. “You’d better let me go, or I’ll put your eyes out with a hairpin. Swear to God.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I just need to get the stones—after that, you’re free to go.”

  “Dirtbag.” She pulled a crystal bottle out of the bag and squeezed the nozzle. The scent of liquid Lust clouded the air.

  Well, it’s no date with Helen Gardner, but it’ll do. With Ponzi’s help, he might actually find these monsters—find them, and save his country from a new war.

  CHAPTER 7

  NIGHT DRAPED over Boston. Streetlights clacked on; couples slipped into barred-up taverns. Winos and Myths quarreled on street corners. Crooked cops took payoffs in alleyways, while the few straight ones walked beat. Across town, the quiet shell-game of Prohibition was played. The stakes, as usual, were high.

  Yet the risks were worse than usual, tonight. After Springfield Savings, every precinct was on alert. Even the rumor of Draughts being involved was enough to bring out viciousness. From Lawrence to Quincy, trigger-fingers twitched, and state troopers pulled over anyone who even looked like a Myth. With the exception of the Boston Brahmins in their brick mansions, everyone in town was getting a dose of the club tonight. It was the worst possible time to pull a job, with the city jumping and frantic, wired to blow. Unfortunately, Gus and Rose didn’t have the luxury of choice.

  Rose was sitting on a milk crate, under a swaying ceiling light. They were hiding out in a tenement, in the South End. The smell of rusty pipes and old laundry permeated the place, and the electricity was doing its best to make their evening entertaining by cutting off every few minutes.

  There were five other people in the small room. Gus, and four Scottish factory workers, their accents so thick she could hardly understand them. A radio crackled and burbled, and the scent of summer leaves wafted through the open window. In the middle of the room was a table, and on the table were guns, laid out in a spread.

  Rose had gotten lucky, pulling a favor in Roxbury to reach an arms dealer selling mil-surp supplies. They’d scored a smorgasbord of weapons: Brownings, Enfields, stubby Savage M1907s, and three fat Thompson submachine-guns.

  She got a twist of unease every time she looked at those, but she felt pride all the same. These were no rusty old peashooters—she had insisted on clean, well-oiled merchandise. If there must be killing, if there absolutely had to be… she wanted it done right. Get the bloodshed finished with no screw-ups.

  Her guts turned to knots as she inspected her own gun, the same Mauser she’d failed to fire in the car that morning. Not since passing through Atlanta had she even hurt someone; a drunk man had put his hand on her, and she’d put a switchblade in his leg. That night she’d learned despite her faith, despite efforts to avoid violence, she was perfectly suited to cruelty when it was necessary.

  But there was no time for moralizing—they had money to make.

  “Rose. You okay?”

  She looked up. Gus was offering her a clip, eyes suspicious. She took it, conscious of the other men watching. When they’d arrived, there’d been laughter and handshakes—these were old friends of Gus, men he’d drank and fought with in his younger days. She heard no laughter now. They watched her with curious eyes—not amorously, though they’d made their share of crude jokes. No, they were waiting, watching her like gamblers watched a horse, and she knew why. There was vicious work to be done: the boys wanted to know if she was up to it.

  Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint.

  She stood, slotted the clip into the Mauser. She shoved it in her pocket and moved to the table. “We can’t bring the Thompsons.”

  “What?” Gus raised a scaly eyebrow. “You bought them. With the last of my cash.”

  “We’d be crazy not to bring ‘em,” said Spades, a sturdy man with bristling red hair. “If ye cannae take the heat, y’know what they say.”

&nbs
p; Rose glared him down, and his smile faded. She couldn’t dance, or sew, or do the things most women seemed so proud of. But she also didn’t take any bullshit, not on a job. Not with lives on the line.

  “It’s the recoil,” she said. “If this turns into a mess—and it could—we’ll blow through ammo. With semi-autos, ricochet isn’t a problem. But with these…” She hefted one of the rifles, nearly half as long as she was, and shouldered it. “It’s too much temptation. Too easy to run the mags dry.” The boys didn’t look happy, but they were paying attention now.

  “On top of that,” she said, “I bought these for scare factor. But there’s too much heat, tonight—a cop sees one of these, and he’s going to shoot first, no questions.” She’d had a hard time getting the guns here; getting them all the way to the waterfront without being seen was nearly impossible. “And one more thing. When a Tommy kicks, the muzzle jumps. Firing from a moving car, you’re just as likely to kill sleeping kids down the block, as you are the enemy. That’s why Chicago’s such a mess right now.” She lowered the gun. “Unless we want to make a real mess, we gotta leave the Tommies behind.”

  The crew grumbled, but after a murmured conversation in their thick accents, they conceded. “Aye. We leave ‘em,” said the biggest of the bunch, Charlie Sampson. “But we take as many small arms as we can.”

  Rose shrugged. “Whatever helps. Just remember not to shoot, until you know what the stakes are. If we start blasting before we find the goods, we’ll need to split—and then it’s all for nothing. Understood?”

  “We understand you’re a bossy bitch,” said Spades, spitting on the floor. “This weren’t in the arrangement. Argus asked us to help, so we’ll help. But you en’t our boss. Let us work, if you ken, without stickin’ your tits innit.”

  Everyone laughed except Gus, who leaned against the wall. Thanks for the backup, she thought, but she knew why he wasn’t saying anything. He didn’t want to lose face with these guys, and that was fine. She didn’t need his help.

  “I’ll try. But don’t come crying to me, when the mood-leggers shoot your dicks off because you didn’t take my advice.” The big Scot reddened. “If we aren’t shoulder-to-shoulder tonight, we’re all dead—and I’m pretty sure the Devil won’t care who you died working with.”