A Pure Double Cross

by John Knoerle

  The Buick crossed the train tracks and turned west on Shoreway. The lake was a block of ice. We motored down the highway. The sky went dark in the shadow of Municipal Stadium, returned to dim winter light on the other side. Did I know for a fact that Jimmy had called the feds and peached me out?

  No I did not. But something was sure going on in that simian skull. Jimmy was observing the speed limit, using his turn signals to change lanes, driving like your Great Aunt Bertha. Was he trying to figure out why the feds didn’t roll up after his phone call and carry me off to the hoosegow? Or maybe he had puzzled that through and was worrying about what to do now. He couldn’t very well tell The Schooler he had blown the whistle on me.

  I flirted with the idea of coming clean, telling Jimmy that I had told the feds that I had told the mob I was an undercover agent because I knew Jimmy was hacked off and would rat me out. But what if he hadn’t? He had, but what if he hadn’t? Never tip your mitt till you have to, that’s my motto.

  We rolled across the big blue span known as the Main Avenue Bridge. I could see the lit-up cross atop St. Malachi’s Church, a friendly beacon to homesick sailors on the lake. Jimmy checked the rear view mirror for the tenth time and slowed to a crawl. Horns honked. The son of a bitch had definitely squealed.

  The Buick slalomed its way down the icy exit way. Jimmy turned into the skids, kept the hood ornament straight as the back end swung and swayed. We looped back around to The Flats, the bottomland of the river and the arsenal of democracy. The steel plants were to the east along the serpentine Cuyahoga, the ship docks to the west.

  Jimmy turned west. We drove down Elm Street, a block below Mrs. B’s, and crossed a two lane cantilevered bridge to Whiskey Island. The Huletts, the towering one-armed ore unloaders, sat silently along the port channel, waiting for the spring thaw. We drove past them to the tip of the island.

  Jimmy parked the Buick next to a wine red Packard big as a steam yacht. We climbed down the stairs at the head of a deserted pier and walked a few paces to the door of fishing shack. Jimmy gave out with a coded, top secret knock. Shave and a haircut, two bits. I followed him inside.

  It was some shack. A paneled room with an upholstered chair and matching chesterfield, wood burning stove and a wet bar. The Schooler was sitting in the upholstered chair. Kelly the bouncer hoisted me up by the coat collar with one hand and patted me down with the other. Jimmy lipped a butt and thumbed his lighter. It was old home week on Whiskey Island.

  Kelly dumped me on the chesterfield and crossed to the bar.

  “What’re you drinking?” said The Schooler.

  “Rye rocks.”

  Kelly handed me a cut glass tumbler containing four ounces of liquor and two ice cubes. “I’m a man who hates to drink alone.”

  “From the same bottle,” said The Schooler.

  Kelly made another. The Schooler took a bite. I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down before I followed suit, and detailed the plan.

  The armored car would be on its regular Friday run, picking up commercial deposits. The Wigman and East 7th location was selected because Wigman Place is a dead end. Armored car drivers are trained to drive off if their delivery guards are robbed at the collection point. This was why we would need a big truck, to block in the armored car.

  “They’re not gonna provide a truck?” said Kelly. “The G-men?”

  “No,” I said. “The G-men are not gonna provide a truck, a chauffeur driven getaway car or a box lunch. They’re providing the money.”

  The Schooler coughed out a laugh that Jimmy echoed a moment later. Kelly grinned as if he had made a joke.

  “We’ve got a truck,” said The Schooler and looked to me. “Where are the buttons on this?”

  I thought this a very odd thing to say. “Excuse me?”

  “The buttons, the coppers, the Cleveland Police Department. Are they on board?”

  “Oh. Yes and no. The cops will circumvent the vicinity of Wigman and East 7th but we don’t get a free pass. If shots are fired we’re on our own.”

  The Schooler wrinkled his brow ever so slightly.

  I stretched out my legs and crossed my ankles. I made two ounces of whisky go away. I was going to have to take up smoking again. This was the perfect moment to take a drag and spew a long plume toward the ceiling. “It should be at least sixty grand.”

  The Schooler didn’t exactly dance a jig but something approaching interest flickered across that impassive mug. “And what’s your dib?”

  “Fifty percent.”

  “Well, now we’ve got something to talk about.”

  “No we don’t,” I said, pleasantly. “This is a take it or leave it proposition.”

  Jimmy and Kelly muttered darkly. The Schooler’s head rotated like a radar antenna. They clammed.

  “I’ll carry your offer upstairs,” he said, then asked the question. “Will the armored car guards be federal agents?”

  This was where deciding where to salt the lie with truth got tricky. The Fulton Road Mob wouldn’t be tempted to misbehave if they thought the armored car guards were just dog-eared working stiffs. On the other hand they wouldn’t be inclined to buy the FBI trusting a staged sixty grand heist to dog-eared working stiffs. I couldn’t very well tell the Fulton Road Mob they’d be stealing Christmas donations to the poor. But I decided to give them this one.

  “Yeah, the armored car guards will be FBI agents.”

  The Schooler smiled at me in a knowing way. “Of course they will.”

  We drank up and headed out. Jimmy and Kelly made for the Buick. The Schooler asked me if I knew how to drive.

  “Sure.”

  He opened the door of the Packard touring sedan and handed me the keys. I climbed behind the wheel. It was more like a gentlemen’s club than a car. The Schooler slid in on the passenger’s side. I keyed the ignition and put my foot down on a clutch pedal that wasn’t there.

  “It’s an automatic transmission.”

  “Of course.”

  “The shift is on the column.”

  “Of course.”

  The Schooler leaned over and put the Packard in reverse. We lurched back about ten feet. I found neutral and hit the brake. This was a serious beast. I eased into drive and wheeled down the road. “Where are we going?”

  “For a drive,” said The Schooler.

  I crossed the two lane cantilevered Whiskey Island bridge and drove south on Riverbed, along the Cuyahoga. We passed a locomotive hauling flat cars of molten steel from the blast furnaces to the rolling mills. The plant stacks belched white clouds as the frigid air turned their smoke to steam.

  “Vending machines,” he said.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Sports betting, loan sharking and vending machines. That’s what we do now.”

  We passed an out-of-commission oil derrick on the flood plain. A reminder that this was all John D. Rockefeller territory once upon a time. “It pays money,” I said.

  “So does running a cigar store, ten hours a day, seven days a week, closed on Christmas, Easter and the Fourth of July. That’s what my old man did for a living.”

  I wheeled the great beast under the concrete pylons of the Detroit-Superior Bridge. “My old man had to work on the Fourth of July.”

  The Schooler smiled. We drove on.

  “Chester Halladay disagrees with you,” I said. “Chester Halladay said you were hurting, said you were racketeers but now you’re gangsters.”

  The Schooler told me to take a right on Franklin. I did so. He told me to take another right on West 25th. I did that too. We were headed back towards the Angle.

  “Chester Halladay’s an idiot,” said The Schooler mildly. “What do you need from me?”

  Huh? This was not a question I was accustomed to hearing from persons in authority.

  “Well, I need you to tell Mr. Big the feds need an answer in twenty-four hours,” I said. “And I need you to tell Jimmy not to get up on his hind legs and piss all over what might be the sweetest hei
st in the history of plunder.”

  The Schooler grunted his assent. We drove in silence to the corner of Winslow and West 25th.

  Chapter Nine

  Wigman and East 7th is in a downtown neighborhood they call The Haymarket, near the east end of the Detroit-Carnegie Bridge.

  We were parked in a blind alley, in a souped-up Lincoln four-door, Jimmy and me in the front seat, and two young hoodlums with slicked back hair and striped shirts with white collars in back. One of them sported a pencil thin mustache. I forget their names. Another hood was behind the wheel of a box truck, idling on Wigman a block away.

  I checked my watch and looked out the passenger’s side window. Mr. Big had, to my surprise, agreed to a fifty-fifty split. We were ten minutes from H-Hour. A gaggle of stew-bums huddled around an oil drum fire on the corner. The pomade twins in the back seat chattered nervously.

  “This used to be Blinky Morgan’s turf, down by here.”

  “Johnny Coughlin too.”

  “Yeah the coppers were crappin’ their pants back den.”

  “You know it.”

  I peeled off a sawbuck and handed it to Pencil Mustache. “Go wish those boys a Merry Christmas.” He jacked open the rear door. “And leave the shotgun here.”

  He put the gun down sheepishly and hurried off.

  No one had asked me the obvious question, so far. Why was an armored car picking up a deposit from a St. Vincent de Paul Center? The FBI hadn’t asked where we planned to go after the heist or what my share of the cush was. Jimmy was calm and quiet as a Hindu at the wheel of the Lincoln. Things were going far too well.

  The ragged men around the oil drum grabbed the sawbuck and made for the nearest hooch house. Pencil Mustache scurried back down the alleyway. His pal breeched his shotgun for the umpteenth time. Jimmy keyed the ignition and laid his nickel-plated on his thigh. I had my liberated, Wehrmacht-issue, four-inch-barrel Walther P38 in a belt holster under my topcoat where I hoped it would remain.

  Pencil Mustache climbed in the back seat. We all donned the black Zorro masks someone bought at a costume shop. It was time for my speech.

  “Gentlemen, this job is a lead pipe cinch. Point your shotguns all you want but keep your fingers behind the trigger, against the trigger guard. The guards won’t make any move against you so don’t shoot them. Jimmy will be running the show, follow his lead. Any questions?”

  “Yeah,” said Pencil Mustache, “ain’t that the armored car?”

  I faced forward. The back end of a gray Regency Security Transport truck was blocking the alleyway.

  Shit. The armored car was supposed to park further up the block. We were trapped in a blind alley off a one-way street. Jimmy fixed me with his evil eye.

  “Relax,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “They’re just waiting for the parking space to clear.”

  Long seconds ticked off the clock. The truck pulled forward. I resumed breathing. “Okay, we wait till we see our box truck pull....”

  “Shut up,” said Jimmy, “I’m in charge now.”

  More long seconds. Somebody coughed, somebody passed gas.

  Then the box truck rumbled past and we spun our tires on the icy asphalt and shot down the alley. Jimmy spun a donut on Wigman and backed the Lincoln up to the box truck, which was now wedged sideways across the dead end street, blockading the armored car.

  The truck driver jumped down from the cab and got behind the wheel of the Lincoln four-door as planned. A couple passersby stood and gaped. They got scarce when they saw the shotguns.

  We scrambled around the truck and converged on an armed guard carrying a canvas bag from the St. Vincent de Paul Center to the armored car, right on schedule.

  Jimmy leveled his .45 and snarled, “Grab a cloud.”

  Good one Jimmy. Bet he’d been practicing in front of the mirror all week.

  The armed guard dropped the canvas bag and raised his hands. The young hoods kept their fingers behind the triggers of their scatterguns. I grabbed up the canvas bag and backed away. So far, so good.

  Jimmy indicated the rear door of the armored car. “Open it. Now.”

  The federal agent dressed as an armored car guard gave him a droll look and slow-footed toward the door. He fumbled in his pocket for the keys, whistling a little tune.

  Jimmy switched his nickel-plated from his right hand to his left and slugged the agent in the kidney. The agent whirled, reaching for his piece. Jimmy shot him with his left hand. The agent crumpled to the street.

  Jimmy yanked on the rear door. It opened. It opened on an FBI agent holding a Thompson submachine gun.

  I had a big decision to make that I made before I even made it. I threw myself in between Jimmy and the machine gun, spread my arms and yelled, “Don’t!”

  No one fired.

  The downed agent was wearing a flak jacket. I did an eyeball to eyeball with his Tommygun-wielding partner. “He’s okay, he’s gonna be fine. Let me grab the loot and we’ll deal with these fuckheads later.”

  The agent edged forward and sneaked a peek to make sure his fallen comrade was still drawing breath. He was. The agent nodded and said, “No one else blinks!”

  I helped myself to one of the four canvas bags in the rear compartment of the armored car. “Maintain your positions, do not fire,” I said over and over as I dragged canvas bags to the curb. Sirens began to wail, many blocks off.

  I surveyed the standoff with a jaundiced eye. The pomade twins with their itchy trigger fingers, Jimmy, his .45 on hot standby, all wearing those ridiculous Zorro masks. And the buzz cut number one son of J. Edgar Hoover compulsively training the muzzle of the Thompson from one target cluster to another.

  It was almost funny. Christ, it was funny. I filled my lungs. “Put up your weapons you comical dipshits and do your god-damn jobs!”

  Pencil Mustache and his pal snapped to it. They scooped up the canvas bags, tossed them into the trunk of the Lincoln and piled into the back seat. Jimmy and Mr. Tommygun continued their face off.

  “Hey Zorro,” I said, indicating our getaway car. “Care to join us?”

  Jimmy didn’t budge. I jumped into the back seat with the pomade twins and told the driver to get going. Jimmy, his .45 still trained on the FBI agent, backpedaled fast enough to jump on the Lincoln’s running board as we took off. Mr. Tommygun co-operated by not cutting us to ribbons.

  Our driver careened down the icy street, swung a wide slippery right on East 7th and headed south. The pomade twins dragged Jimmy in through the back window. Wailing squad cars flew by on Carnegie, headed east. We stopped and waited for them to pass. Either through incompetence or complicity the Cleveland PD was doing their bit.

  “Well now,” I said, leaning back with a sigh of relief, “that went okay.”

  It was the leaning back that saved me.

  The right rear window exploded in a burst of machine gun fire. Our driver floored it, got clipped by an oncoming bus, shook it off, got the nose of the Lincoln pointed west down Carnegie and sped off, Jimmy’s nickel-plated spitting lead out the window as high caliber Tommygun rounds stitched our rear end.

  The machine gun fire came from an unmarked car carrying two men in gray suits. The FBI was in hot pursuit!

  I felt warmth on my cheek, scratched and saw blood on my fingers. A good amount. In fact I was bleeding like a stuck pig. Superficial cuts from busted glass I figured as I performed a five-finger inventory of the right side of my face.

  Then again maybe not. Something was missing. I patted the seat cushion, felt around on the floor mat with my hands and found it. The top half of my right ear.

  We barreled across the Detroit-Carnegie Bridge and down Lorain. The unmarked car peeled off. I clamped my handkerchief against my head. It soaked through. Pencil Mustache handed me his. The bleeding slowed.

  We hooked a left on Fulton Road, then a quick right on a narrow street, Cesco. Half a block down we slowed at H&R Manufacturing, a squat brick building with tarred windows that looked like any othe
r Cleveland foundry or machine shop save for the coils of barbed wire atop the chain link fence.

  The front gate rolled open by remote control. A big dog barked from somewhere close. We parked the Lincoln in a detached two-car garage. The big dog ran circles around us as we hurried to the back door. His name was Hector.

  The Schooler, looking natty in a gray homburg and polka dot bowtie, was waiting for us in H&R Manufacturing’s front office. A card table stood against a wall. A card table that held an ice bucket, bottles of tonic, soda, Coca Cola, bonded Scotch, rye, bourbon, vodka and gin. We went there. We stayed a long time.

  I only remember two things for certain. Holding up my severed upper ear to great acclaim, and Jimmy leading the assembled in a stirring rendition of his favorite song.

  “When I grow up I wanna be a G-man, and go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. A rough and tough and rugged G-man, and go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.”

  I had done it. Despite the snafus I had done it. No one was dead, I had won the tribute of the Fulton Road Mob, kept faith with the FBI and hauled off several canvas bags filled with negotiable currency.

  Things were going far too well.

  Chapter Ten

  I reported to FBI headquarters the following day, feeling a little the worse for wear, looking it too. A mob doctor had showed up at some point during our bacchanal and dressed and bandaged my ear. I asked him if he could reattach the missing piece. I must have.

  And he said no such luck. He must have. In any event the top half of my right ear was currently residing in my top dresser drawer in Mrs. Brennan’s rooming house, wrapped in gauze. A precious keepsake of my first armored car job.

  A moon-faced guy stood behind the counter, rummaging through the receptionist’s drawers. So to speak. He filched two pencils and looked up.

  “Who are you supposed to be? Leonardo da Vinci?”

  “Huh?”

  “Leonardo da Vinci, you know.”

  I said that I didn’t.

  The moon-faced guy rolled his eyes. “The guy who cut off his ear for the love of the Mona Lisa!”