by Alan Parker
“It’s no good, Bugsy. It won’t move.”
As Leroy gave one last tug, the chair on which he was dangerously balanced tottered off the edge of the box – and he was left hanging in mid-air. Bugsy saw the chair topple, and yelled, “Look out, Leroy! Hang on, hang on.”
Leroy obeyed – but the bars didn’t and his ridiculous weight succeeded where his amazing strength had failed. In seconds, not only had the bars been pulled wholly out of the ceiling, but the entire skylight, frame and all, collapsed around Leroy’s ears.
Bugsy helped Leroy out of the mangled mess. The falling dust filled the room and was so thick Bugsy could hardly see his pal. When he did, he nearly split his long johns laughing.
“Leroy, look at your face!”
Leroy’s face was completely covered in white dust. He put his fingers to his chin to see what Bugsy was laughing at. The white smear on his hand prompted a rare Leroy joke.
“Maybe I’ll be able to get a job now.”
Bugsy laughed even more while he helped Leroy to his feet and stood the chair upright. Above them, an enormous hole gaped where the window had been.
“Come on, Leroy. Let’s get out of here.”
The skylight led on to a flat roof that had the fortunate advantage of being served by a fire escape. The metal staircase led the two boys conveniently down on to the back lawns of Dandy Dan’s mansion. Once on the ground, they ran for all they were worth into the trees.
At a stream that led away from the house they stopped. Two hoods were patrolling a small bridge which Bugsy knew led to the main road out. He grabbed hold of Leroy’s arm and pulled his friend into the water. Leroy was dumbfounded – and giggled as the water came up to his waist. Under cover of the bridge, the two escapers silently edged away into the darkness of the woods and safety. Silent, that is, apart from the occasional squeal from Leroy as the cold water seeped into his long johns.
AT DOCK 17, the sign painted on the bricks in six foot high letters read ‘SPLURGE INC.’ and told Bugsy and Leroy that this must be Splurge Imports, the house of the gnus. Outside was further evidence, for baseball guards patrolled everywhere, scouring the dock for likely intruders. Bugsy and Leroy tucked themselves down behind a row of olive oil barrels and viewed the proceedings with dismay.
Bugsy counted in a whisper. “Two guards on the door, two on the roof, two at the rear, two on the pier. What we gonna do, Leroy?”
“Go home?”
“There must be a way in.”
Leroy was a little more realistic than Bugsy. He still had a bump on his head as big as a gull’s egg from the swipe of one of the guards’ baseball bat, and wasn’t about to slug it out with them again in a hurry.
“Don’t be stupid, Bugsy. We’ll never get through that lot.”
“I guess you’re right.”
The two crawled along behind the barrels until they were safely out of sight of the guards on Dock 17. Both of them looked a little dejected as they walked along the dockside, dwarfed by the huge cargo ships which seemed to make their problem all the bigger. They turned at the end of the wharf and took a short cut down a narrow, cobbled alleyway. Bugsy was the first to speak.
“What we gonna do, Leroy?”
“We need a few more men.”
Bugsy nodded in agreement. The more he thought of the possibility of taking on the tough baseball guards, the more he thought they needed more than the few men that Leroy had suggested.
“We need an army.”
“There ain’t no armies around here, Bugsy.”
As Leroy made this remark, almost as if on cue, they heard a low rumbling sound from the dark, narrow entrance they were at that moment passing. Bugsy looked at Leroy. Inside the entrance was a narrow flight of stairs. The two boys began to climb them. The monotonous rumble became louder as they neared the door at the top. It was a constant, almost desperate sound. Unworldly. Leroy’s eyes flashed white on the dark staircase. At the top, Bugsy pushed open the door and the noise rose to its full pitch.
On the other side was a mission hall soup kitchen, with long rows of wooden tables. Dozens of desolate, ragged, down-and-outs queued for free bowls of soup and a portion of bread at a counter where three plump ladies were ladling out bowl after bowl of a steaming brown liquid. It looked horrid, but tasted like roast turkey to the wretched down-and-outs. Above them, painted across a large wooden beam, was a banner that read, ‘The Lord will provide’. And Father O’Grady, the priest who ran the mission, made sure the Lord provided the earthly soup the down-and-outs’ empty bellies appreciated so much.
As they filed past the giant saucepan, each hobo let out a low miserable moan that multiplied into a chant. “Down, down, down and out. Down, down, down and out,” it seemed to say. The dissolute, shabby bunch dragged their feet and shuffled through the dust that lay thickly on the floorboards.
Bugsy and Leroy looked at one another. Neither said anything but they both knew what the other was thinking. Here was the ready-made army they needed. But these were all boys down on their luck, with broken lives and broken spirits. Without a dime in their pockets or a dream or a hope amongst the lot of them.
Bugsy and Leroy walked up and down the lines, shaking life back into the wretched, luckless bodies. One by one, the down-and-outs listened to their arguments. And one by one they were won round, until Bugsy’s army was forty strong and Father O’Grady and his three plump helpers had lost all their regular customers.
The down-and-outs’ feet made a loud scuffing sound as they edged along the narrow alleyway towards the Splurge Inc. Wharf on Dock 17. Bugsy hissed at them to be quiet and urged them to cling to the wall in case the baseball guards caught sight of them. The forty boys ducked down behind the olive oil barrels where Bugsy and Leroy had first found refuge. Bugsy shielded his eyes from the sun and reviewed the situation.
“Right. There they are. All ready for the taking. Get Babyface.”
Leroy, at Bugsy’s side, turned to the down-and-out next to him and repeated Bugsy’s command. “Get Babyface.”
The phrase was passed down the line until it finally reached a small boy with a haircut that was so short and crude it looked like he’d been run over by a lawnmower. He also passed on the request. “Get Babyface... What am I talking about? I am Babyface.”
Bugsy passed a baseball bat down the human chain until it eventually ended up in the hands of the diminutive figure. Babyface talked himself into levels of bravery he wasn’t sure he had, mumbling like a boxer before a fight. “Right. Thanks. That’s just what I need. OK, now I’ve got to get out there. I’ve got to have courage. Big courage.”
At the top of the queue, Bugsy waited impatiently.
“What’s the matter with him, Leroy?”
“I don’t know, Bugsy. Babyface, will you get out there.”
“I’m scared,” came back tiny Babyface’s reply. “There’s too many of them for me.”
Leroy’s voice was gruff and direct. “Babyface, get out there.”
Babyface did up the one remaining button on his shabby jacket and put his hat on straight, muttering, “OK, OK. Right. I’ve gotta have courage now. I’m gonna be famous.”
With that, he crawled away from the others, and, picking his way through the barrels as silently as his hobnail boots would allow him, he sneaked up to Dock 17 and the unsuspecting hoods. Very carefully, he edged closer. Four of the hoods were in the middle of a game of poker and wouldn’t have seen him if he’d ridden up on a tricycle. But two others were scouring the walls and the dockland alleyways almost as if they were expecting trouble. Babyface had crept to within ten feet of the hoods and was about to make his move – which was just as well, because the hood on the roof spotted him.
Babyface dashed out of hiding, and, with a loud shriek of “Geronimo!”, rushed straight at the card-playing guards and cracked one of them over the head. Even before the guard had slumped across the table, knocking cards and chips to the ground, Babyface was running as fast as his little legs could
take him in the direction of Bugsy, Leroy and the down-and-outs. The baseball guards gathered their wits together and raced after him. Babyface reached the olive oil warehouse scarcely ten yards in front of them. He dashed into one of the doors and yelled a loud, if not terribly subtle, invitation.
“You bunch of dummies!”
The guards rose to the bait. One after another they piled into the warehouse. This was a big mistake for the Dandy Dan watchdogs. No sooner had the last baseball hood run inside, than the hidden down-and-outs jumped out from their refuge behind the barrels and slammed the door shut, securing it with a thick metal chain and an enormous padlock that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Alcatraz prison. Babyface, meanwhile, had managed to squeeze himself out through a narrow ventilation shaft that no one wider or bigger than him could even attempt. Fortunately, most people in New York were wider and bigger than Babyface, and the baseball guards were no exception. They pummelled on the wooden doors and yelled and screamed abuse, but to no avail. The chain held firm and the down-and-outs let out a triumphant roar as they made their way across the wharf to the Splurge Inc. Warehouse – and the stairway to the guns.
THE TWO SWING doors nearly broke from their hinges as the enthusiastic crowd of boys burst through. They were no longer wearing masks of misery. They were brighter, happier, and their eyes sparkled. There were smiles on their faces that had long forgotten how nice it was to smile.
Bugsy directed his newly found army towards the piles of long wooden boxes, along the sides of which were stencilled in black letters the words, ‘The Splurge Imports Company Inc. Dock 17. East River’. Leroy took a large metal crowbar and began levering off the lids of the boxes. Grubby hands clawed at the protective packing straw to reveal the splurge guns.
Bugsy and Babyface handed out sacks, the guns were quickly loaded into them, and soon the floor was a mess of straw and empty boxes. Absentmindedly, Leroy picked up some straw from the floor and put it on his head. The other down-and-outs laughed as he wriggled and giggled in his makeshift blonde wig. Bugsy, however, was not amused.
“Leroy, what do you think you’re doing? Knock it off, will you? This is serious.”
Leroy stepped off the box on which he was performing.
“Sorry, Bugsy.”
“Right. Hurry it along now. There’s no time to fool around.”
Bugsy was right. There was no time to fool around. Even less time than he’d thought, in fact, because at that moment Captain Smolsky and Lieutenant O’Dreary arrived, with two carloads of uniformed police.
The policemen’s driving was about as good as their detective work, and the rear car smashed into the front sedan with a loud crunch. However, as it was by no means the first time this had happened, Smolsky jumped out of the front vehicle without even commenting on the collision. The rest of his men huddled around him for protection. O’Dreary handed him a loudhailer and the confident police captain put it to his mouth to speak. What, in fact, came out of the other end of the funnel was a cross between an aggressive Bronx shout and a dubious Polish squeak.
“OK, you guys. We know you’re in there.”
Smolsky had never been the most original of policemen, and he had seen too many movies to fluff his lines now. “I’ll give you ten seconds to give yourselves up. It’s no use. You’re surrounded. Come out with your hands up.”
There was complete silence from the warehouse. O’Dreary checked his notebook to see if they’d come to the right place. Smolsky continued his impersonation of a tough cop. “Smart guys, huh? OK I’ll count to ten and then we’re coming in to get you.”
The rest of the cops took out their truncheons and held them ceremoniously at the ready. Each one darted a quick look at Smolsky. They wanted to say they were ready to follow him to the ends of the earth if necessary. It was a confident offer, as Smolsky would be bound to get lost long before then.
Inside the warehouse, the original enthusiastic hubbub had turned to complete silence. Anxiety was written on the faces of all the down-and-outs as they looked at the blank end wall. If someone had dropped a pin at that moment it would have sounded like a Ford T starting handle.
Babyface gulped loudly. He was frightened, and his cruel haircut, fashioned by some maniacal barber, made his little face look terrified.
“What we gonna do, Bugsy?”
“I don’t know, Babyface. I don’t know.”
Bugsy rubbed his chin and thought. There seemed no way out. The cops had the staircase covered and there was no convenient secret hatch – or even a skylight for Leroy to try out his party trick on.
Back in the alley, Smolsky raised the metal funnel to his mouth once more. He wasn’t fooling around.
“Right. I’m warning you. I’m going to start counting now. One, two, three, four, five... er... five ...”
As the captain hesitated on the numbers, faithful Lieutenant O’Dreary looked at him, a little concerned. He knew his boss’s shortcomings. (The alphabet was another problem.) Smolsky hesitated once more.
“... er... five... er, five...”
O’Dreary jumped in. “Six, Captain. The next number’s six.”
Smolsky was a little annoyed at this friendly advice. He shrugged off O’Dreary’s remark in the same way as a six-year-old struggling through his first reading book. “I know, I know... Six, seven, eight...”
In the warehouse, Bugsy and the down-and-outs looked more desperate than ever. Bugsy walked back and forth, scouring the room for possibilities. Suddenly he noticed, behind a pile of old packing cases, the tell-tale expanding door of a lift cage. That was it.
“The elevator! Quick, everybody inside.”
Leroy pulled the rusty door open and the boys piled into the old freight elevator. Bugsy tugged at the chain, conveniently and clearly marked ‘Go’, and the stiff machinery clanked and hummed into action as the elevator started its descent. Leroy and the down-and-outs were more than a little anxious as it shook and rattled. To say it was an old design would be an understatement. If anybody ever found out about it they’d probably want it for a museum of ancient mechanical objects. But gradually, if a little hesitantly, the elevator lowered Bugsy’s gang to freedom.
Outside, Captain Smolsky carried on his impersonation of a tough New York cop. He bellowed into the loudhailer, “Nine... ten... right. OK. This is it. Ready, steady, charge...!”
The entire force, huddled behind him, suddenly sprang into action and dashed for the warehouse door. They bumped into one another in their enthusiastic attempts to make an arrest and the front page of Police Gazette Monthly. Up the wooden staircase they charged, into the expected army of hoodlums. Except they were disappointed. Smolsky led his men into the warehouse to find nothing but empty boxes and straw. The only candidate for an arrest was the black and white tom cat that scooted out of a disused packing case. Smolsky whipped off his hat and dashed it across his knee with frustration.
“Rats! We missed them. Right. Where have they gone, O’Dreary?”
O’Dreary looked sharply back at Smolsky. His brow furrowed and he was momentarily stunned by having such a difficult question thrown at him.
“Well, where have they gone?” Smolsky repeated.
“Somewhere else, Captain?”
As O’Dreary squeaked out his ludicrous answer, the frustrated Smolsky belted him across the head.
“You stupid, Bronx, flat-footed...” Smolsky’s words were drowned in the mad gurgling sounds of a desperate man. The rest of the cops made sure they kept well out of it, and cowered in the corner for safety, whilst, down below in the alley, Bugsy, Leroy, and the down-and-outs got clean away.
DANDY DAN’S GANG lined up against their bike sedans. Bronx Charlie stroked his splurge gun, and hugged it close to him for protection. Chinese Benny Lee chewed his toothpick until it shredded at the end. His oriental grin looked even more evil than his oriental scowl. The rest of the gang looked pretty pleased with themselves as Dandy Dan walked back and forth, giving them his final address. He was dress
ed in a snazzy grey overcoat with an astrakhan fur collar. His tie was fastened, as ever, in an immaculate knot. He stroked his moustache with his forefinger as he spoke. He was feeling even more superior than usual.
“Gang, this is the caper that’s gonna take the lid off City Hall. This is the big one.”
The faithful gang mindlessly repeated everything their dapper boss said.
“The big one.”
“The shakedown,” said Dan.
“The shakedown.”
“In fact, this is the pay off.”
“The pay off.”
“It’s got to be good, it’s got to be neat, and it’s got to be quick.”
The gang responded with monotonous loyalty. “It’s got to be good, it’s got to be neat, it’s got to...”
However good Dandy Dan felt about the situation, the last line was enough. He bit off the end of the sentence.
“Stop repeating everything I say, will you!”
The gang’s self-satisfied faces dropped a notch or two. Jackson coughed loudly to fill the embarrassed silence. Dan stroked his moustache once more and continued to be superior.
“You shouldn’t have any trouble – just Fat Sam and a few dance hall girls.”
The gang laughed at Dandy Dan’s joke. They always did.
“OK off we go, then. And good luck.”
As Dan turned to his tan sedan, his loyal hoods broke into a round of applause. Bronx Charlie stood on the running board and held his gun in the air.
“Three cheers for Dandy Dan. Hip Hip Hooray!”
Dan was overwhelmed. Not very convincingly, he waved aside their praise, and murmured, “Too kind, boys. Too kind.”
Dan climbed into his car and Jackson slammed the door. Shoulders and Yonkers climbed into the front seat beside him, balancing their splurge guns on their knees.