by John Knoerle
Ahh, war heroes. I marched up the steps. Mrs. B was about to get an earful. She didn’t flinch as I approached, just lowered her head to butt me down the steps if I got out of line. I stopped and took a breath.
“Mrs. Brennan, there’s a reason all these heroic GIs are swarming the burg right now as opposed to, say, blasting their way through fortified pillboxes outside Karlsruhe.” I tapped my chest. “Agents of the OSS risked their necks behind enemy lines to commit acts of sabotage and target bombing runs that cleared many of those fortifications and paved the way for our heroic GIs to march to victory and free beer at St. John’s Canteen. And if you…”
“You were a spy?”
“Yes ma’am.”
She closed one baleful eye and examined me with the other. “That I can believe.”
I walked up Winslow to St. Malachi’s. Kids in parkas were chasing each other around the schoolyard. Three boys stood atop a mountain of plowed snow, shouting ferocious defiance, playing King of the Hill, preparing to defend the summit to the death against a dozen eager lads arrayed below. Why not? They were eight, nine or ten. For all of their conscious life the world had been at war.
I hoofed it west to Fulton Road and rode the rattler south to mob headquarters. I had a precise plan in mind, make myself indispensable and demand the ouster of Jimmy Streets. How to do that I would figure out when the time came.
I gave the conductor two dimes and jumped off at Clark. I walked a block south to Cesco and a half block west to H&R Manufacturing. I rang the bell at the front door. No answer. I knocked, hard. I saw an eyeball behind the peephole.
I mugged, I waved, I did jumping jacks. No response. I put the barrel of my 9 millimeter Walther to the peephole and the door swung open to reveal Pencil Mustache with a .22 pistol.
“Go shoot a squirrel,” I said and pushed past. I worked my way through the cobwebbed lathes and drill presses on the shop floor, Pencil Mustache bobbing behind me like a toy balloon. I heard a guttural groan from somewhere. I followed it to a closed door.
“I wouldn’t go in there I was you,” said Pencil Mustache. “Jimmy’s hacked off, The Schooler ragged him out bad.”
“So I heard.” Another groan from inside. “Who’s he taking it out on?”
“A cop,” said Pencil Mustache.
“A cop?”
“Dave Madsen. He’s on our pad. Jimmy caught him double timing with the Bloody Corners Gang.”
I opened the door on a big storeroom with bins of scrap metal and spools of welding cable stacked along one wall. The cop wasn’t hard to spot. He was the one in the blue uniform tied to the chair. Jimmy was the beaknose slopehead standing over him.
Officer Madsen was in bad shape, head lolling, bloody mucus all down his front. Jimmy was wearing sap gloves, pouches of lead filings above the knuckles. He took a break from his exertions and looked over with his good eye.
“Get lost asshole.”
“I was lost,” I said. “I was lost but now I’m found.”
Jimmy responded by slugging the cop in the midsection. He was a real champ when it came to guys who couldn’t fight back. The cop coughed blood.
“Jimmy you’re gonna kill the guy.”
“What’s it to ya?”
“It’s a payday to me. Asshole. You kill a cop and you-know-who will definitely pull the plug on any future plans.”
Jimmy grinned. “You’re sayin’ I shun’t hit him no more?”
Officer Madsen, his eyes rolled back in his head, coughed, groaned, mewled like a kitten.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Okay then, maybe he’s had enough.” Jimmy grinned some more. We faced each other across twenty feet of dirty brown concrete. Jimmy made no move to go. A truck rumbled by on Cesco, making an empty rattling sound, hauling postholes.
I started forward. Jimmy grabbed the cop’s limp wrist and bent it back. The cop didn’t seem to notice. Jimmy increased the pressure. The cop blinked, shuddered and sat up straight. I stopped, ten feet away.
“Don’t do it Jimmy. You snap the wrist he could die of shock.”
I should have said the opposite maybe. Snap his wrist, I dare you. I should have known Jimmy Streets wasn’t going to obey a direct order from Hal Schroeder.
Officer Madsen convulsed once in the desk chair when Jimmy did what I told him not to. Madsen’s eyes went wide open as eyes can go. He died that way.
Chapter Thirteen
Jimmy was in big trouble. The Schooler had arrived with Kelly the bouncer and another goon I recognized from somewhere. He was fat and bald and big as a house. The Schooler called him Manny though mostly The Schooler didn’t speak. He let his silence and his twin monsters do the talking for him. Jimmy was sweating bullets, standing over the dead cop’s body, making excuses.
“I just gave him a goin’ over, I din’t mean to croak him.”
I didn’t volunteer the information about the wrist snap. I had superior knowledge on Jimmy Streets for the moment. And I intended to keep that shiv in my sock till the time was right.
“You dug this hole,” said The Schooler to Jimmy. “You fill it in.”
Kelly and Manny lumbered closer, Manny rotating his neck and shoulders as if about to climb into the ring. Shit a brick. He was Manny the Mauler, famed wrestler of yesteryear! Jimmy was in big trouble.
“Any ideas Jimmy?” said The Schooler calmly, menacingly.
“I’ll take care of it,” said Jimmy. “Dump the body in the lake.”
“The lake’s frozen.”
“I got other places,” said Jimmy, backing away as Kelly and Manny closed in, two flanks of a pincer movement.
“Madsen was a copper Jimmy, who worked for us. We need to dispose of more than the body.” The Schooler’s voice slid down to a whisper. “Any ideas?”
Jimmy didn’t answer the question. The approaching six hundred pounds of beef distracted him maybe. If Kelly and Manny twisted Jimmy into a pretzel and dropped him in the river the way would be cleared for the final heist.
But Kelly and Manny wouldn’t. This was theater, complete with a sweaty old wrestler who took two breaths for every step. They were going to toss Jimmy back and forth like a beach ball for a few minutes then go out for steaks. The performance was for my benefit, I suppose. Or for Pencil Mustache and the group of young felons in training clustered by the open door.
Jimmy wasn’t in on the joke. When the twin monsters had him backed up against the far wall he reached for his nickel-plated.
“Hold on gentlemen,” I said. “I have an idea!”
Jimmy turned to look. Kelly ripped the nickel-plated from his grip as Manny pinned Jimmy to the wall with a big paw.
“Okay, the papers are screaming for a crackdown on racketeers and the cops are primed to take action. I see a way we can make chicken salad out of chicken shit.”
Manny the Mauler thought this a very funny comment. He laughed himself into a coughing fit, his every spasm compressing Jimmy against the back wall.
“Madsen was playing three sides against the middle, the PD versus the Fulton Road Mob versus the Bloody Corners Gang. When you do that, and you get yourself bumped off, there are any number of crummy reasons why. We need to get ahead of the story.”
I paused for dramatic effect. The Schooler’s look said get on with it.
“We put a marker, one of our gambling chips, on the body and dump it behind the Green Light Tavern.”
Manny grumbled and shook his great head. He didn’t like me anymore.
“Why would you want to put our marker on the corpse?” asked The Schooler.
“Because the Cleveland Police Department wouldn’t expect us to. Because the Cleveland Police Department, assuming they know that Madsen worked for us, will conclude that the Bloody Corners Gang is trying to set us up.”
The Schooler pondered. “They might conclude that.”
“They will.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The cops will assume our rivals set us up b
ecause they don’t believe we have the brains, or the balls, to play the double cross.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jimmy turned into the alley behind the Green Light Tavern at 4:14 a.m. The bar was closed, the alley was deserted. I sat in the passenger’s seat, hoping to hell I hadn’t outfoxed myself with this clever gambit.
Jimmy put the Buick in park and left it running. We climbed out and popped the trunk. Officer Madsen was wrapped in a blanket. I took the shoulders, Jimmy the feet. He weighed a ton. The arctic chill had returned, our grunts of exertion became fat clouds of steam. We laid him out by the back door, the one Kelly had tossed me out of. I took the ten dollar chip from my pocket and stuck it in Officer Madsen’s maw. Rigor had set in, it took a while.
“Hurry up,” grumbled Jimmy from behind the wheel. I took a moment to mumble the Lord’s Prayer and got back in the Buick. We drove down the alley and turned right on Lorain.
Jimmy was enormously silent at the wheel. Stay that way, I thought. Do not speak a single syllable if you value your miserable life.
We were headed east, toward the Angle, only I couldn’t go there. Mrs. Brennan had a two o’clock curfew, doors barred and locked. The Warehouse District was just across the bridge. Had to be an all night joint there somewhere.
We stopped at a light. I winged open the door and got out. Jimmy tore through the intersection. The Buick’s forward motion slammed the open door.
I walked across the Detroit-Superior Bridge, the lake wind slicing me clean in two. I told myself that the stupid cop deserved what he got, that you can’t play three sides against the middle, that I, on the other hand, had both sides balanced like a see saw. I was golden no matter what happened. Why then did I find myself leaning against the railing of the Detroit-Superior Bridge wondering if I should pitch myself into the drink?
I shambled on. By the time I got to the other side of the bridge my shoes were frozen.
I shuffled around the Warehouse District on blistered feet, looking for a greasy spoon. Found one on Frankfort, Lulu’s Place. Beef wasn’t on the ration sheet anymore but no one had told Lulu. I ate an overcooked horseburger and drank three cups of joe. That killed an hour. A piece of vulcanized pie and three more cups got me to daybreak.
I lied about spending two years behind German lines. I was recalled to Switzerland every once in a while. Not even my CO thought I could survive two years in the world’s most tightly controlled police state. So I came and went.
I hit the silk for the last time in January of ’45, near Heilbronn. A downwind kicked up and I landed hard, broke an ankle. I hopped and crawled a mile to the farmhouse, knocked on the door, service revolver in one hand, L pill in the other. It looked like my designated safe house but you never know. Kindly old Alfred and Frieda took me in and nursed me back to health.
I was getting around okay on a cane two weeks later when a Panzer company rumbled up and commandeered the place. I could have hidden in the root cellar till they moved on. But I was young and dumb and full of patriotic fervor. I told Alfred and Frieda what I planned to do before I stumped out the back door and huddled in the orchard with my wireless set.
Alfred and Frieda remained inside for hours, deep into the night. I heard music, I heard laughter. I watched a lone B-24 returning from a run over Augsburg drop four incendiaries on the proper co-ordinates, just as I had instructed. I watched the farmhouse erupt in flames.
I spat a mouthful of bitter coffee back in my cup.
Chapter Fifteen
I wore my vicuna topcoat for my visit to mob headquarters the following evening, also my .25 caliber belly gun in case Jimmy got fresh. I left my boutonnière and matching wrist corsage at home.
The Schooler’s office was paneled in knotty pine. Flintlock muskets were cross mounted on the wall, flanked by lots of framed photos of men holding up dead fish. I unfolded a late edition of the Cleveland Press and slapped it on his glass-topped desk.
A Clean Sweep! Screamed the headline above photos of portly mobsters being led away in handcuffs. Portly mobsters from the Bloody Corners Gang. The cops had been just smart enough to get themselves fooled.
“Well done,” said The Schooler from his desk chair. “What do you want?”
Well. I hadn’t expected a tickertape parade exactly but a hearty attaboy wouldn’t have killed him. I closed the door to the office.
“Jimmy killed that cop deliberately,” I said. “He snapped his wrist just because I told him not to. He’s a half-wit and a hothead and I want him gone.”
The Schooler nodded. “Yes, Jimmy’s a hothead. But he’s our hothead, loyal as a butcher’s dog.”
“And about as smart.”
The Schooler smiled, thinly. “Smart is overrated.”
“Then it’s time to take this upstairs. I want to see the boss man.”
“That’s a possibility. When you have the final heist plans in hand.”
“But I can’t get the final heist plans with Jimmy still in the picture!”
“The FBI will come around eventually.”
“Even if they do come around Jimmy will find a way to screw it up.”
The Schooler didn’t have a snappy comeback for that one. He’d spanked Jimmy for shooting the armored car guard. Jimmy responded by killing a cop.
“As I’ve said before I’ve got a group of itchy young men here. They respect Jimmy, he’s their squad sergeant.”
“Yeah, I imagine they were plenty impressed with Jimmy cowering against that wall.”
The Schooler parked his chin on his fist. I shut my yap and waited for the great pearl of wisdom to come.
“You don’t understand loyalty.”
“Explain it to me.”
The Schooler stroked his cheek with a knuckle. “Our itchy young men felt bad when they saw Jimmy backed up against the wall like that. They put themselves in his place.”
I looked around the four corners. What was I missing here?
The Schooler answered before I could ask. “Then why did I call in the muscle?”
“Something like that.”
“Because that’s how it’s done,” said The Schooler, concludeing the conversation.
I made my way through H&R Manufacturing and out onto Cesco Road. The night was starry black, no moon, too cold for clouds. Perfect bombing weather. I one-two’d my way down to Fulton Road on blistered feet.
Loyalty again. You’d think a sharp guy like The Schooler would know better. And what the hell did ‘that’s how it’s done’ mean? It sounded like a perpetual motion machine. So long as you don’t betray the tribe you can screw up all you like.
I had made myself indispensable and still Jimmy stayed.
It was time to get serious, past time. I would have to kill Jimmy by remote control. I was good at that. Get the word out to the Bloody Corners Gang, tell them who iced their dirty cop. Let them settle the account.
I hailed a cab on Fulton Road and said, “Short Vincent.”
“Where else?” said the hackie. The cab drove there by itself.
Chapter Sixteen
Short Vincent was a five hundred foot block between E. 6th and E. 9th downtown. Five hundred feet of earthy pleasures, neon come-ons and bad memories poorly recalled.
I paid the hackie and climbed out. I pushed my way through the throng, past the French Quarter, featuring the Bare-ly Burlesque Revue, past Mickey’s Show Bar, where dentists from Dayton shared bottles of bubbly with young women of negotiable affection. I pushed on till I reached it, the city’s premier watering hole, Morris ‘Mushy’ Wexler’s Theatrical Grill.
I was glad of my vicuna topcoat when the doorman opened the portals and permitted me entry. It was a rug joint. Waiters in tuxedos serving drinks, Oysters Rockefeller and more drinks to plushy upholstered booths crammed with movers and shakers. I goggled the first booth, the famed barrister’s table. They were all buttoned down and Brooks Brother’ed save for two men in sharkskin suits, dark shirts and loud ties. Mob attorneys.
I looked dee
per into the room. My plan was a hallucination sketched on tissue paper. All I knew for sure was it required the presence of Mushy Wexler. I’d read up on him. He’d retired from the rackets to become a snooty restaurateur but he’d made his pile running a horseracing syndicate and the head mucks of the Bloody Corners Gang weren’t strangers to his table.
They wouldn’t be dining with Mushy tonight of course. They were eating bologna sandwiches down at central lockup. Tee hee.
I spotted him, had to be. A dapper old gent alone in the elevated back booth, the one with the unobstructed view and the telephone on the table. He was inspecting a waiter’s tray. The waiter did an about face and returned to the kitchen.
I checked my topcoat and parked myself at the enormous horseshoe-shaped bar. The barkeep plunked down a napkin-wrapped basket of salt sticks. “Fresh from our own bakery! What’ll it be?”
Growing up in Youngstown gave me very limited experience with rug joints. I’d seen plenty of nightclub swells in the movies though. “Make it a Rob Roy.”
“Yes sir, what’s your flavor?”
“Excuse me?”
“What brand of Scotch do you prefer?”
Scotch, ugh. Old man hooch that smelled of peat bogs. “Whatever you recommend.”
“And sweet vermouth, dry vermouth or 50-50?”
“Whatever you recommend.”
The barkeep went to work, I tried not to look. Mushy Wexler hurried to greet an elderly man and a mink-draped matron who had shuffled in from the cold. “Your Honor” said Mushy above the din, or “Senator” or “Governor.” One of those important or words.
My tissue paper plan curled up and blew away. I wasn’t going to be able to drop a stray comment about the murdered cop to the barkeep, sit back and see who sidled up for a chat. The Theatrical wasn’t a well-lubricated mob hangout. The Theatrical was formal as a church.
Or was it?
An otherworldly apparition appeared. A platform rose and locked into place several feet behind and above the horseshoe-shaped bar. On it sat a sloe-eyed bottle blonde in a sparkly dress and a slight Negro at a baby grand. The blonde sang, “This town is full of guys, who think they’re mighty wise, just because they know a thing or two...”