The Red Storm

by Grant Bywaters

  “I had one of them once. A boat tail speedster, but that was when I was making real money. Besides, me being in one of them machines would bring too much unwanted attention.”

  “I could see that.”

  We got to the restaurant, which was more like a kitchen inside a wooden shack on the outskirts of the Honey Island swamp. The outside tables were full of colored folks, while on the porch a small band played Cajun music with a fiddle, a banjo, and a mandolin.

  We took a seat at one of the few empty tables and ordered sirloin steak peppered in various spices. Our food came to us fast, and Zella wasted no time cutting into it. I watched her with amusement.

  “What?” she asked, seeing me looking at her. “I suppose I ain’t being very ladylike.”

  She sat up straight in her chair, and tucked her elbows and forearms in. “That more to your liking?”

  “Hey, it ain’t bothering me. Just never seen a woman eat like that before.”

  “Well, now you have,” she said, and continued cutting into her steak. We listened to the music for the rest of the meal before I asked, “What’s the story with your aunt?”

  “They ain’t much of a story with her. I don’t know that much about her. Kinda funny, but I didn’t even know I had an aunt until she came to help take care of momma shortly before she died.”

  “Isn’t that a bit odd that your ma never told you about her?”

  “You didn’t know my mother,” she said. “The only things she talked about were the Bible and church. It was maddening when I got older. Everything I did was obscene or vulgar to her. I finally gave up trying to please her, and deliberately started wearing racy clothes and makeup just to spite her. I think that might’ve helped put her in the grave.”

  “Was that your intention?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “But I wasn’t really sad neither when she went. We were different people, my mom and me. She was of the Old World way of thinking, and me … well, I suppose you could call it more modern.”

  She was about to elaborate on that when a big hairy-chested man buzzed our table and asked Zella for a dance.

  Annoyed, Zella said, “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a conversation here?”

  “Who’re you havin’ a conversation with?”

  I got up. “She’s havin’ it with me, so get lost.”

  The hairy-chested man started throwing. I ducked and blocked everything he sent at me, then feinted, which caused him to move back, throwing him off balance. As he tried to regain his footing, I threw a straight jab to the chest. It knocked the wind out of him and he fell over.

  On the ground, he gasped for air as a couple of his buddies came to pick him up. They gave me ugly looks, so I gave them an even uglier look in return.

  “Bigger guys don’t scare you much, do they?” she asked as I sat back down.

  “Naw, I fought hulks bigger than me all the time.”

  Said Zella, “You miss fighting, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I miss it a lot. Being in the ring was the only time I ever felt free. It sounds stupid, I know, but I suppose it’s kind of like when you’re onstage singing.”

  “I see what you mean,” she said. “There ain’t nothin’ like it. I know I ain’t the best singer, but I don’t care. I love doing it.”

  “It’s not that you’re a bad singer. You’re not that bad at all, it’s just you’re not much of a performer yet. You got to do more than stand there like a statue and sing, see what I’m sayin’?”

  “I do. I’d been told that before. That I should get up there, show a lot of leg, maybe hop on a piano or something. But that just ain’t me.”

  “That ain’t what I’m talking about. That kind of stuff is sideshow gimmicks for singers that can’t sing well.”

  “I suppose. You seem to be a pretty sharp fella. Is that why you picked detective work as an alternative career?”

  “Never planned on being a detective, just things kind of happened that made it so, and it turned out I was pretty good at it, I guess. Well, that’s what I tell myself, at least.”

  “You ready to blow out of here?

  “Ready whenever you are.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Johnnie Ranalli’s last will and testament stated that his remains were to be placed in the burial spot he had purchased in St. Louis Cemetery Number Two. This caused contention among certain citizens.

  “How can that man be put in the same area as someone like Henriette DeLille, who spent her life helping the sick and dying?” one outraged woman told reporters. But the complaints fell on deaf ears, and Ranalli was laid to rest in an ornate tomb. There were rumors that the previous occupant had been put into a burial bag and pushed to the back of the vault to make room for Ranalli.

  The morning following the funeral, I met up with Brawley at his house on the high grounds of the Irish Channel. The area got its name from the sizeable number of Irish workers that were brought in to help build the New Basin Canal. Upon the canal’s completion, the Irish workers had firmly planted their roots in tight-knit neighborhoods in the area. Many of them now worked as longshoremen, laborers, and cops.

  Brawley’s house, a one-and-a-half-story raised center-hall cottage, sat on Sixth Street. As I pulled up to the house, I could see him sitting on the front porch swing. He had a single-action twelve-gauge shotgun that had about a foot cut off from the barrel propped on his knee.

  “The princess said she saw a couple bad customers rolling by in a dark car. Said she’s getting pre-Revolution flashbacks, so I reckon I’d rather sit out here and make her happy. Better than being in there while she’s going batty.”

  “That’s reasonable,” I said. “But that’s a nasty piece of hardware you got there.”

  “Don’t I know it. The damn Germans had a diplomatic protest against these things. Said they were prohibited by the laws of war.” Brawley laughed. “They just got tired of their jerry men walking into a trench and having their faces being spread across the Rhineland.”

  “Is that what you’re hoping to do here?” I asked.

  “Naw, it’s all for show to please the princess, but I don’t think the neighbors are likin’ it much. It’s okay, though, we are thinking of moving out of this area anyway.”

  “Why?”

  Brawley shrugged. “I figure it’s that I’m getting on the princess’s backside, telling her she ain’t living in Russia no more, and yet here I am living in an area that’s pretending it’s Ireland. We got pubs every damn block, and some fool walking around playing the bagpipes and wearing a kilt.”

  “Ain’t that a Scottish thing?” I asked.

  “These guys here don’t know the difference.” Brawley pulled a brass double-aught buckshot shell out his pocket and jammed it into the gun. “Then there’s this Irish parade every year. They always send me invitations to participate, but you ain’t gonna see me dressing up as some leprechaun and dancing like a giddy little girl.”

  “That would be an interesting sight to see,” I said.

  “It ain’t happening,” he said. “I don’t even know what the point of the parade is. If Ireland was so great, why don’t they go back?”

  He tossed a nine-by-fourteen-inch legal folder at me.

  “That’s all I could get on our Sal Mallon,” he said. “Not a lot in there. Only interesting thing is how his folks died. Supposedly, his old man caught the missus playing musical beds with some sailor boys, so he killed her and himself.”

  “You believe that?” I asked.

  “Not a chance. I called over and talked to the dumb mick that was in charge of the investigation. They interviewed sonny, and he gave them the bill of goods that his old man told him about catching his old lady with the young sailor lad. I questioned why they didn’t check to see if there was any blowback on pop’s hands that showed he actually fired the gun, and he slammed the receiver down in my ear.”

  I went through the file and took down the address Mallon’s family was living at during the time o
f the killing.

  “You better not be thinkin’ of wastin’ your time goin’ there,” Brawley grunted.

  “Not much else to go on. Besides, it’s not like you need me to find Mallon, if he’s even still in the city.”

  “He is. His monkey squad stuck their head out last night. They hit up Bourbon looking for a dame.”

  “I bet I know what dame they were looking for.”

  “I bet I do, too,” Brawley said.

  * * *

  By evening, I drove Storm and Aunt Betty toward the Jean Lafitte swamps, which were about twenty-fives miles out of town.

  Earlier I had called in a favor from Ken JaRoux, a Cajun acquaintance that lived and worked out in the bayou. I arranged for Zella and her aunt to stay at his cabin. No one except people that lived in the swamp would be able to locate the place, and it was the safest place to be, among the gators and predators.

  We got to the pier to see JaRoux already waiting for us. He was a medium size, rough-hewn figure, standing at five foot eleven, with a coarse, leathery face that been exposed too long to the severity of the sun.

  “I am not going into that—that jungle,” Aunt Betty protested.

  “Aw—for God’s sake, Auntie, get in the boat,” Zella said.

  JaRoux helped them with the belongings they had packed and then gently eased them into the craft.

  “I’ll see you in a few days,” I said, and turned to JaRoux, who had walked over to me. “If the old lady gives you more lip then you can take, just feed her to the gators.”

  JaRoux gave a big grin. “Sure thing, boss. Been running low on bait.”

  I watched as he pushed the boat off, started the engine, and pointed the front of the tub into the murky waters and overgrowth that soon consumed them.

  * * *

  My train reservation for New York had been set for early the next morning. I drove to the Southern Railroad Terminal, a big brick building with a glass archway as the main entrance, situated at 1125 Canal Street. It had been built in 1908 by Daniel Burnham, in his trademark Renaissance Revival style.

  The 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive huffed and puffed like a large beast fighting to break free of its restraints.

  The crowd on the loading platform had started to board. A young man came for my luggage. He had it checked and gave it to a worker. He and his coworkers seemed proud in the way they could throw people’s belongings into the luggage car.

  I did not need to be told I had to go to the colored-only coach. I knew not to expect something as outrageous as equal accommodation. The coach I got segregated to was full. The five seats across that went the width of the car now held about double that number. I found my seat, or at least part of it. The other part got eaten up by a large man that needed three seats to fit him. He had a round head with sunken eyes, and so many chins that I stopped counting at three. Two meaty legs about the circumference of small oak trees supported a gut that made the Laughing Buddha look svelte.

  His annoyance was poorly hidden when I told him that I’d like to have the remainder of my seat. With grunts and groans, he shifted his mass to where I was able to wedge myself in as the train started to pull off.

  The conductor, an old, solidly built man that looked like the kind of gent you’d expect working at Scotland Yard came around to check tickets. I deduced that he had thrown his fair share of people off a train for not having one. It might even have been me a lifetime ago. I made sure mine was out.

  The coach emptied out as the train rolled through Georgia, where many of the passengers departed, the large man next to me included. The little sleep I got was interrupted by the constant shaking and clanking of the tracks as the train passed through crossings. Yet it was the most comfortable train ride I’d ever been on. I only had to think back to days of riding the rails and fighting it out with railroad bulls—aka the cops—to realize that.

  At the stop in Charlotte, I stepped out to call Brawley. I got his wife.

  “Vee is not home,” she said. “Zinks being good policeman better than being good husband.”

  “We all don’t come from royalty,” I said.

  “Zis is vyery true.”

  “He may seem like a big dumb brute to you, but he tries. That’s got to mean something, eh?”

  There was a short pause before she said, “I vill tell him you call,” and hung up.

  * * *

  The train pulled into the New York station around nine in the evening. I set out to the fare stand the station provided. The driver of a waiting cab obscenely prided himself in telling me he didn’t take fares from colored folks. A brawny mug, he had acne scars punctured into his face, sandy whiskers, and a Yellow Cab hat pulled down to a pair of bushy eyebrows.

  I was midway through yanking the man three-fourths out the window of his own cab when a young cabbie in a tweed baker’s boy cap drew near.

  “I’ll take your fare, mister.”

  He led me to his Series K Checker and drove me out to the nearest lot that would rent automobiles to coloreds.

  “Jeez, mister,” he said from behind the wheel. “You were about to flatten that guy back there, weren’t you?”

  “He just picked a bad time to start in on me.”

  “You must get that a lot.”

  “You learn to pick your battles,” I said. “I doubt anyone would’ve cared much if he ended up getting a shiner.”

  “He’s not part of the company. Works freelance, but the other cabbies don’t like him much.”

  “Why’s he wearing the Yellow Cab hat?”

  He shrugged. “He must’ve stolen it from someone. I’m sure the boss wouldn’t like it much if he knew he was wearing it. Our company is real decent to colored folks, we even got them as drivers.”

  “That’s swell,” I said.

  “It is,” he continued. “A lot of folks at first wouldn’t take the car if a colored was driving, but they came around. I guess they got tired of walking. But there are still bad customers. Just the other day some unpleasant old dame left her jewels in the cab. I tracked her down, and gave them back, and guess what she gives me in return? Two lousy bits!”

  “That sounds rough. A lot of folks would’ve kept the rocks and hocked them,” I said.

  “I thought about it. But I ain’t no crook. My cousin robbed some woman of her marbles and ended up killing her. Was going to get the chair, but they made the slipup of giving him life and sent him to the Walls. Year in, him and a few inmates beat up a couple of the guards, stole their keys, and broke into the gunnery. Three days they shot it out with over a hundred of them cops that were outside the prison. It was like the damn Alamo. He got himself killed in the end. Served him right, the lousy bum.”

  He dropped me off, and handed me his card, which said his name was Steve Crew.

  “Any time you get hassled over a fare, give me a call. I’ll take you where you need to go.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I paid, tipped him, and went and spoke with the owner of a lot full of Detroit disasters. He rented them out mostly to traveling salesmen, charging ten cents a mile. With me, he almost asked for my left arm as collateral to rent out some busted-up Model B Ford. I drove the jalopy out to Harlem and chartered a room at one of the various flophouses, wedged between a five-cent whiskey saloon, billiard hall, and a soup kitchen.

  In my room, I shadowboxed for a while to get the last remaining jitters of traveling out, and went to bed. In the midst of trying to sleep, the blinking neon sign outside annoyed me. I got up and looked out the window, going through a few cigarettes. I sat peeping out at my surroundings. There was heavy traffic on the street. Automobiles with powerful motors weaved past slower cars like utility cones. A fancy Cadillac pulled up to a bar across the way and a white man stepped out and hurried inside a bar. A few moments later, a mob of young delinquents stumbled upon the machine and wasted no time stripping the automobile of its fancy wheel covers.

  The little hooligans left and the man came out with a blonde in tow. He
stopped dead upon seeing what had happened to his car. Unsympathetic, the woman laughed, and kept on laughing as he chucked her into the car and tore off down the roadway.

  I shut the window, lowered the drapes to block out the flashing sign, and went to bed.

  * * *

  I roused a few hours later and had my accustomed breakfast of grapefruit and coffee. I wanted to probe into Mallon’s numbers racket, and I knew the best way to do that was to parley with the people that did the numbers.

  When I lived in New York, Harlem was the epicenter of the numbers racket. It was nothing but a chump change game, and you only needed to hand over pennies to make a bet. There were profits in numbers, and it made the operators of the numbers rich men.

  Things were different now. No sooner had I left, “Dutch” Schultz and the rest of his Murder Incorporated buddies muscled in on the racket. It didn’t take much for Murder Inc. to cripple the colored numbers runners and take over the entire operation. Since that time, the racket broke off into factions with different syndicates running different kinds of numbers. It also cost more than pennies to place bets.

  I set out and canvassed Harlem and its adjacent districts, and had chin music with every gambler, high roller, bookie, and thrill seeker I came across. My line of questioning was simple. Where could I find Sal Mallon, aka Valentino, and who were his runners. I didn’t get much. The frequent retort I got was to talk to Devland, although no one could tell me how to go about locating him.

  Late afternoon, I ended a pointless conversation with a snowbird that kept quivering the entire time to a tap on my shoulder.

  Behind me stood a man, near six foot three, with a protracted head and broad gasoline-blue eyes. He wore a steel-colored Windsor double-breasted suit and a black derby hat. A groomed brown mustache enveloped his upper lip.

  He carried a walking stick with a gold-plated brass dog head for a handle. I had seen a stick like his before, and knew it to be equipped with a .32-caliber rimfire.

  “You the one that’s been going around looking for Devland?” he asked.