by Jack Kline
“I’m boogering the lock and handle to make sure no one else can open it. You’ll still be able to get it open from the inside.”
“You better be right.”
“I am,” he said.
I heard the garage door open and felt Hannerty’s car door shut. The Cadillac fired up.
“Can you hear me in there?”
“Loud and clear,” I shouted.
We were on our way. I checked my watch with the flashlight—be lucky to make it on time.
It became obvious that Hannerty lead-footed it by the engine noise and way I got thrown around the trunk.
“You okay back there?”
“Is the Pope Irish? Don’t worry about me. Just drive.” And he did. Very fast. It wasn’t the accelerator or braking that hurt so much. I was able to brace myself. But the cornering sent me rolling all over the trunk.
Hannerty slowed down, then stopped. I could see a tiny ray of light from the damaged lock. Hannerty better be right about getting the damned thing open. I kept quiet and still.
“You come alone?” The voice was familiar. I tried to place it.
“I did.” Whether by design or from stress, Hannerty had reverted to his home country lilt, which turned his answer into “Oy dad.”
“Got the dough?”
“Oy do.”
“That it next to you?”
“Aye, it is”
The voice. It was Flat Face’s chubby pal. Flat Face must be near. I wanted to run a quick science experiment. How far would a .38 slug travel after punching a hole through the trunk and fender of a Cadillac? Instead, I kept quiet and still.
“Okay, mister. Hand over the bags and we’ll bring out the brat.”
“That’s not how we’ll be working this,” Hannerty said. “I’ll need to see the boy first.”
I felt better about this partnership and wanted to open the trunk, hop out and pat the Irishman on the back.
Chubby snorted. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
Hannerty said nothing.
I heard steps around to the street side and Chubby’s voice again. “Okay, no one in the back seat. What’s in the trunk?”
“Nothing.”
“Let’s open it and see.”
“Can’t.”
“I got a gun in my hand that says you can.”
“And I’ve one here pointin’ at you says the trunk been damaged when some punk lads like you tried to break into it. No one will be opening it.”
I heard footsteps circling around. The latch jiggled and the car’s rear end bobbed as he tried to heft it open. The steps moved back to the side of the car.
“Here’s the next step,” Chubby said. “Drive to 926 James Street. It’s not far. Do you know where it is?”
“Pretty much,” Hannerty said.
“When you get there, bring the money inside the main door, the one with a light above it. The exchange will be made inside.”
The sidekick banged twice on the Cadillac’s hood and said, “Off with you now, because I’m signaling my pal inside, and he’s about to make a phone call. If you’re not there in five minutes after the phone rings, the boy dies.”
“Now that would be a grave mistake on your part, lad.” Hannerty started up the car and I braced myself as we burned tires.
I knew the area. The address was nearby in the west river bottoms area where the Kansas River emptied into the Missouri. A warehouse and meat-packing district, it was a rough part of town where there’d been at least five shootings since last winter.
“You get all of that?”
“Yeah,” I answered. His voice was muffled, but I’d heard it all. I began to feel claustrophobic.
“When I go in, I’ll move as far away from the door as possible. You try and find another entrance. If you can’t, come in the same door very carefully.”
“Gotcha. Have your gun in your hand,” I said. “They want the money. Once they have it, no reason why they shouldn’t just pop you.”
“Right.”
“Keep your gun out. And when you see the boy’s captors, point your gun at the most important looking one. Let them know your finger’s itchy and you’ll zotz your target at the first sign of funny business.”
“Aye, got you. What’s your play, Phil?”
The Irish accent was still strong and I wondered if the voice he used at Holloway’s was a total butler’s affectation. “I’m strictly backup. If the exchange goes without a hitch, I stay hidden. If there’s trouble, I’m right beside you.”
“All right then. If I think I’m set up or the exchange is a load of blarney, I’ll use the word Ireland. If I say it, make yourself seen with your weapon in your hand. I’m at Ninth and James, we’re almost there.”
I took a deep breath, exhaled, and waited.
As the car slowed Hannerty quietly said, “Give me a minute or two. Listen for the door.”
“Got it.” I waited a bit to jimmy the lock mechanism in case another goon was about to check the car out.
The car door shut. Hannerty left no sound of footfall. I loosed the first latch screw. It dropped into my hand. I began on the second.
Hannerty made excessive noise with the building’s door handle, for my benefit I assumed. The second screw joined the first in my hand. Grudgingly, the lock mechanism slid off and the hood no longer latched. I opened it an inch or so and looked around. The main entrance had a light over it, and a sign I couldn’t read from the trunk. Near the left edge of the building stood a second door, with no light, no visible sign. I’d try that door first, though my lock-picking tools rested in the City’s bullet-riddled, dead-Plymouth burial grounds.
With the lid still slightly opened, I silently counted to ten using my Emporia boyhood “Hide and Seek” method. “One cowboy, two cowboys, three cowboys …” Once I gathered the requisite cowboys, with my .38 in hand, I swung the lid up and stepped out. I felt sore as hell. A fella my age shouldn’t be hanging out in trunks.
Nobody around. A stroke of good luck.
The side door was locked, but a window just around the left side of the building was neither latched nor shut all the way. Though it was open only a fraction of an inch, I figured I’d use it as my way in. The frame had recently been painted, the job sloppily done. It had been painted open with the window in its current position.
Time ticked and Hannerty might already be standing in a troublesome quandary. With my pocket knife, I scraped the paint where window met frame, then stuck the knife on the sill and heaved. The window offered another two inches.
The distant sound of voices inside, including Hannerty’s, informed me that negotiations were underway. Hannerty worked to find a way to get the kid out still breathing. I hustled to the car’s trunk and grabbed the lug wrench which I used to pop the window open with what seemed a lion’s roar. Quickly I slid in, squatted, and held my breath.
I stood in a small office, the only light came through the sliver of an opening in the door to the next room. Voices came from there.
“What was that?” someone said.
“Sounded like it was outside.” Another voice.
“No. It was inside. It came from over there.” That was Detective Harman. I was certain I recognized his voice.
Hannerty spoke next. “Fock the noises. Let’s finish this. Tell your lad to walk to me. I’ll be setting my cases down and we’ll back out the door.”
There was no place to hide in the tiny office. I crept to the door and peered through the opening—a warehouse, almost empty, rows of steel shelves, maybe a third of them loaded with boxes. From an elevated ceiling about twenty feet high, a single hanging lamp illuminated one aisle, leaving the rest of the place in shadows. Hannerty’s raised voice echoed as if he spoke from a cave.
Four men stood under the lamplight. One was Tom Junior. His hands were bound. He wore a white shirt and black slacks, both relatively clean. He hadn’t spent six days in unwashed captivity. Two men flanked him, holding pistols at aimed at Tom. The one
to Tom’s right, the nearer one, was my old pal Flat Face. Also in the street-side edge of the light, thirty feet in front of those three stood Hannerty. He’d set the bags on the floor next to him.
Behind Tom and the two gunmen, mostly in the shadows beyond the huge room’s single switched on hanging light, I could barely make out Harman and Patterson. Their weapons, pointed at Hannerty, glinted in the partial light.
Between those two, also holding a gun, was a woman. Tall, she wore a dark dress and a hat with veil, which further obscured her shadowy face. Her long blond hair gleamed in contrast to the darkness. I had finally set eyes on Beverly Cresto.
My Jim Beam high had taken a powder hours ago, but the impulsiveness it always brought still hung around. I wanted to step into the room, blast Flat Face, then see how many others I could take down before one of them plugged me. I made sure the Colt was easily accessible.
“That’s not gonna happen.” Flat Face’s voice echoed. His gun pointed at the kid, swung over to Hannerty. “Now you know the kid’s alive. This is how it works. Set the bags down, and your pistol, then back away to the door. We turn the kid loose. He comes to you, and the both of you leave. Nobody gets shot and you get the brat safe and sound.”
From the shadows, Harman nodded his head as if Flat Face ran the show. I knew better and so did Hannerty. Hannerty kept his weapon pointed at Harman. “I won’t be settin’ the gun down. It’ll stay pointed at your man there.” Hannerty nodded at Detective Harman.
Good.
Flat Face looked exasperated. “Well, then, it looks like we shoot you and take the dough. Suits me.”
“Maybe you will, lad. But I’ve got a trembling finger here, and I’d be betting that you can’t kill me fast enough to save your mate behind you.”
Stalemate. I watched Harman. It was obvious he wanted Hannerty dead. He also wanted himself alive—a standoff. Next to Harman, Cresto fidgeted like she had chiggers in her corset. And the gun in her hand, though pointed down, fidgeted along with the rest of her. One trigger pulled, whether pointed at the ground or at someone, would unleash the carnage. But even standing out of the light, the girl was striking. Unbidden thoughts of another beautiful blonde bubbled up. I ignored the foolish parts of me demanding attention.
It makes good sense for a private investigator to refrain from second-guessing his actions. A fella does what he needs to do with the information he has. In hindsight it might not have been the best decision, might even have been the worst. But a guy makes his choice and lives—or dies—with the outcome.
I saw a standoff. I saw Hannerty outnumbered by more than a few. I saw the kid and Hannerty dead, maybe Harman too. I saw it was my move.
I guess I thought I would even the odds some. They’d see that the only way to make this work was a clean swap. It seemed like the best move I could make, the only move to keep everyone alive.
We all make mistakes.
I stepped through the doorway. Where I stood was mostly in the shadows, too, but there was no cover. I was a shadowy sitting duck. I leveled my .38 at Patterson. “Patterson, you and Harman are dead if you don’t do what my friend says. Send the boy over.” I stood, legs apart, ready for Flat Face to swing his weapon my way and fire, ready for anything.
But I wasn’t ready for anything. I wasn’t ready for Cresto to look squarely at me and say “Phil?” in Colleen’s voice. I wasn’t ready for her to pull the trigger and send a slug ricocheting off the floor with a deafening echo.
From the moment Hannerty and I left Holloway’s place, I was ready for the wholesale slaughter that ensued. I drilled a hole in Patterson’s chest and a second in his forehead. As I swiveled the .38 to Flat Face, Hannerty opened up on the guys around Tom Junior. In the corner of my eye, Harman grabbed the girl by her arm and jerked her in front of him. Behind her, Harman opened up on Hannerty.
The Holloway kid screamed “No! No! Stop it! Stop!” Then the guy I was here to rescue took a slug from behind and dropped.
As soon as I turned his way, Flat Face clipped me in the shoulder with a large caliber. It slammed me against the office wall. Put me on my keister. Two more slugs chipped plaster above my head. In the smoke and noise, I noticed my .38 was no longer in my hand. It ended up on the floor about four feet away. It might as well have been a thousand.
Flat Face smiled and sauntered my way. Everyone but Flat Face was one the floor. The girl didn’t move, nor did the other goon. Detective Harman lay moaning next to the girl. Blood spattered, Hannerty sat next to the suitcases, their weight holding him up.
As Flat Face approached me, Hannerty aimed at his back and squeezed the trigger. Click. Another click, and a third. Hannerty’s clip was empty. Flat face swiveled and pulled his trigger. Hannerty’s face exploded.
When Flat Face turned back to me, his smile soured. The first slug from my Colt parted his hair on the wrong side. The second, a hair lower, turned out his lights.
I slid the rest of the way to the floor, lying on my side. My head rested on cold, comforting concrete. Blood drooled from my mouth, the sweet scent of gunpowder in my nostrils. The only sound was Harman’s plaintive moan. I couldn’t see him or move his way, or I would have silenced him for good.
A car screeched to a halt outside. Two car doors slammed. In dashed Chubby from down the street and a gangster pal, their guns drawn. My Colt barked. Neither of them had a chance.
Harman quieted to a gurgle. The chorus of the Gershwin brothers’ song began playing in my head: songs of love, but not for me. I tried to hum along, but pain escorted me down, down into darkness.
I thought of Colleen.
Monday, October 15, 1934
(Day Seven)
I dreamed Colleen sat beside me, patted my hand, urged me to open my eyes. “Wake up, sleepy head,” she said. I blinked. Her hands were cool on mine. She was so beautiful. But her hair wasn’t right. A wig? Low clouds rolled into my room, the fog thick. I felt its mist collect on my cheeks and Colleen released my hand.
Some time later, I don’t know how long, minutes, weeks, I felt her pressure again on the same hand—the touch of cool soft skin on skin fevered and hot. It took a few moments for my eyes to puzzle how to open. She sat beside me, a look of worried joy on her face.
Jill.
Beside her in a wheelchair and hospital gown sat Rusty, his arm done up in some kind of contraption. Rusty said something about bullet dodging that didn’t fully register. I commanded my hand to squeeze Jill’s. The action hurt like hellfire and I slipped away.
I woke with a start. Jill slept in a chair beside me, her head in an awkward position. The lights were off, the room’s window dark. A ribbon of light from the hall splashed across the floor behind her. Whatever drugs they had me on made it hard to think.
I tried to move parts of my body, taking stock. Again, instructions received by muscle groups arrived garbled. With some brief experimentation, I located two centers of pain. My left shoulder—I remembered taking the slug, and thinking .45 caliber as I slid to the floor. My left thigh felt as if someone applied a branding iron. And I felt a strange pseudo-pain below the thigh. I remembered amputee veterans of the Great War saying they could still feel their missing limbs years later.
I had to look, and tried to raise my head. The pain seared. I drew in air with a hiss. My head would have to stay put. Once that pain subsided I tried to speak, but I could not. I slept.
Tuesday, October 16, 1934
(Day Eight)
Noise woke me. Someone fumbled with my bedclothes. My eyes opened and the brightness of daylight forced them to a squint. A nurse fiddled with my burning thigh. Jill sat beside Rusty’s wheelchair. They chatted, and Jill laughed the good laugh, the laugh I loved to hear. The laugh that said I wasn’t dying, or that she wouldn’t let a little thing like my dying spoil her day.
I tried to speak, but a weak squeak was all I could muster. A great weight sat on my chest. The nurse turned her head. I squeaked again. She leaned toward me.
“What, Mr. Mo
rris?” Jill and Rusty stopped talking and turned our way.
“Leg,” I whispered with all the effort of a soliloquy.
“Leg?” she asked.
I tried again. “Leg … there?”
She laughed—another good sign. Jill stood beside the nurse, and Rusty had rolled up. “Yes, Mr. Morris, both of your legs are still there. The left one is awfully chewed up, but we’ll make it work again just fine.” The weight lifted. I think I smiled.
Jill and Rusty began talking at once and the load of information became too much to process, so I closed my eyes. But I knew I was smiling.
I ate a little at lunch. Jill helped as my left arm was immobilized and the right wouldn’t pay proper attention to the task. Actually, I only ate a few bites, but I guzzled a whole glass of orange juice and would have downed another had they let me.
After lunch, I found some success whispering, short sentences. No flowery bullshit for this guy for a while. Rusty told me Chief Myers would come around that afternoon, and the Chief didn’t want me talking about the case to anyone beforehand.
“Answer one question,” I whispered with great effort.
“You need to rest now, Boss,” Jill said, and she wheeled Rusty out.
Chief Myers, accompanied by a police stenographer, showed around 3:30. A doctor and a nurse met them at the doorway. I had been awake a while and felt more alert. Also, the pain had ratcheted upward.
“Five minutes,” the doctor said. “Nurse, you stay here and make sure they don’t overstay their welcome.”
What welcome? I wanted them out and something in me, something to relieve the pain.
“Can you speak?” Myers asked.
“Little,” I answered. “Happened?”
Myers said the boy, Tom Junior, had survived and already spilled his story to the D.A. Apparently, Tommy had run a giant con on the Black Hand mob, ingratiating himself with them. The kid, with the knowledge and good graces of Mike Leary, leader of the dwindling Irish mob, had set up a phony kidnapping. My mouth must have been hanging open, for Myers added, “Yeah, that’s right. The kid really has some stones.”