The genial sound of soft music from their radio in the corner masked the faint noise at the front door. They jointly put their reading material down. The woman turned to the man, while the man grabbed a baseball bat in the nearest closet and moved over to the front door, patting the bat against his hand in a bout of eagerness.
“Who’s there?” he called out challengingly.
He held the bat high.
“Who’s there?!” he repeated.
No answer was given.
He made it to the front door without seeing anyone. It was shut. The lock and bolt was even on. He stood there for a brief spell, and then sighed in relaxation.
But then, the subtle sensation of another person’s breath brushed over the follicles on his neck. He turned to swing without even looking. An arm reached out, grabbing the bat out of his hand. A leg tripped him, sending him on his face.
When he rolled to see who was attacking him, his mind went blank with terror.
It was the Vigilante!
He held a revolver to the man’s head, but his face was directed towards the woman tenderly.
“You can go upstairs,” he said in a raspy, but young, reassuring voice.
Despite his apparent friendliness towards her, the woman ran away as though he were chasing her.
“She’s going to call the police!” the man protested.
The Vigilante pressed a foot down on the man’s stomach. He wheezed painfully.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re still dead.”
“Why? What’d I do to you?”
“Have you forgotten so quickly what you did to Fay Collins?”
The man gawked at him, astonished. He stammered nervously, tilting his head sideways. He then resumed his anger.
“I—I went to prison for that! I spent a decent amount of time in the slammer for it. That was a long time ago. What has that got to do with you?”
The Vigilante pulled the hammer back on the gun and smiled deviously.
“Everything.”
As his trigger finger was about to pull back, another hand reached out, this time around the Vigilante’s shoulder. He threw him backwards and down into the kitchen.
Stunned, the frightened man on the ground peered into the light to see who it was. He blinked his eyes, rubbing them in disbelief and intense bewilderment.
It was a mirror-like effect. Two Vigilantes combating amongst themselves.
“What are you doing?!” the first Vigilante cried out.
“Who are you?” the second Vigilante asked accusingly. “Why are you here?”
“I am doing my duty to uphold justice!”
He then motioned to the stunned man still lying on the floor, who stared at one of them, then the other. His eyes bulged vexingly.
“Let me finish him off and be done with it!” the imposter demanded.
“I can’t let you do that,” the Vigilante replied calmly.
“You’re protecting him? He brutally assaulted a girl, just like the man you killed earlier this year.”
“I killed him because he was about to murder her.”
By then, the man had rushed out of the room, taking advantage of the distraction.
“I thought you would join with me, not stand against me!”
He tried to pursue the man, but the Vigilante stepped in the way, his own pistol drawn at his face.
“Why are you stopping me!” the imposter screamed. “This is justice!”
“Justice has already been served,” the Vigilante answered. “What you are doing is nothing more than revenge, if it can be called that.”
Bright floodlights turned on, basking the house in a blinding luminosity.
“Vigilante, this is the Beverly Police Department!” a voice through a loudspeaker said. “We have you surrounded! The perimeter has been covered! Drop your weapon and come out with your hands up!”
The Vigilante turned. The imposter was gone. He peered out through the living room window. Police vehicles dominated the street. A perimeter had been set up. An assault team made preparations by an armored car.
As he stood there, the voice in the speaker unceasingly bellowed out its same message. The voice became desperate.
“I repeat, there is no escape! You cannot get away! Drop your weapon and come out slowly with your hands up! Just come out with your hands up and you will not be harmed!”
The Vigilante left the window, putting his revolver away. When the floodlight came back to his position in the house, it found nothing.
***
Barker held the hefty loudspeaker in front of his mouth again as he called out to the Vigilante to surrender. He then placed it against his hip anxiously. He kept a wary glance on his revolver out of the corner of his eye.
The officers who stood around him carried their guns with twitching fingers as they whispered amongst themselves. He didn’t seem to understand it. The expression on his face, however, indicated he could surmise what was on their minds.
The legend of the Vigilante had already given the task an enormous sense of magnitude. It was not going to be a simple arrest, as if he were a mere criminal or gangster. This was the same man who had single-handedly killed Mafioso underboss Leonard Costa and dozens of his cohorts.
One man. An individual. It was a silent testament to what single person could accomplish on their own, for good or evil.
Minutes passed without a response from the house. It was suicide for him to stay and defend himself.
Yet Barker refused to give the order.
Finally, the lieutenant commanding the assault team approached him, strapped in his tactical gear.
“Sir, we need to move in,” he pleaded. “He’s not going to turn himself in and the longer we wait the more time he’ll have to fortify himself in there. My men are ready to move in. We just need your approval.”
With his eyes still fixed on the darkened home, Barker waved a hand to the lieutenant, as if tossing out his hopes of meeting the Vigilante alive with it.
The lieutenant eagerly returned to his team and deployed them with silent hand motions. Forming into two squads, they approached the house from the front and back simultaneously.
As they reached the windows and doors, they tossed in smoke grenades. The interior of the house quickly filled up with white and gray clouds. The lieutenant waited for a moment. Then he signaled to his men with a fisted hand. They all reached into their packs, strapping gas masks onto their faces.
One of the officers approached the front door with a battering ram. With a heavy swing, he smashed it against the door. Even as the door fell, the team rushed into the house.
Over to their right, the garage door as a Chevy Cabriolet roared out, sending chunks of wood into the air.
Barker’s eyes bulged as he pointed at the car. His voice was desperate, erratic.
“Kill him!”
The gunfire erupted from the blockade as the officers unloaded their weapons. They aimed at the silhouetted head right above the wheel in the driver’s seat. Barker ran after it, emptying his service revolver.
He trembled as he yelled.
“Don’t let him get away!”
The Cabriolet swerved to avoid the roadblock that the police had created at the end of the street. Inside of the car, the Vigilante then corrected himself, turning the car around. It stopped for a moment. He then slammed on the pedal, driving in the opposite direction. Policemen ducked and dodged to avoid being hit by the car as he rammed through the wall of automobiles.
Acting boldly, one of policeman managed to shove his shotgun next to the driver’s door to the Cabriolet.
He fired.
Shards of glass shattered into the air. A rain of debris sprinkled onto the ground.
Barker slowed down from a spring to a jog. He gushed with a sense of triumph.
No one could have survived a shot that close.
To his horror, however, the car sped up instantly, driving through the lawn that divided two houses and onto th
e street on the other side. With it out of sight, the only thing that Barker could perceive was the boisterous noise it made.
“Get to the cars!” Barker ordered. “He’s not getting away!”
Barker emptied the casings from his revolver, replacing them with fresh cartridges from his pocket. He yanked the door open to his car, sliding into the driver’s seat. He then heard a thundering crash.
He turned back, seeing a dim tree in the distance slowly fall out of view and land on the nearby street. Stunned, Barker got out and waved to his men, who followed him as he ran over to the site. When they came to it, they stopped a few feet from the scene, forming a semi-circle around it.
The Cabriolet had collided into an oak tree on the sidewalk, completely crushed like an accordion. The tree was leaning on top of the automobile, its trunk smashed.
Barker smiled as he walked up to the car. His smile disappeared, however, when he leaned in and looked inside the car.
The driver’s seat was empty. No body. No blood.
His complexion white as he turned to face the crowd. Their faces shared a collective sense of apprehension.
“Spread out!” Barker screamed. “He can’t have gone far! Search every house, everything! Find him, damn it!”
They all immediately nodded, sensing the distress in his tone. The teams broke out, sweeping the neighborhood. They brought out bloodhounds, flood lights, and patrol cars to continue the hunt.
While they continue their search, Barker chain-smoked next to the destroyed vehicle, staring at the empty seat with an apprehensive look.
Meanwhile, in the distance, a lonesome figure slowly limped away in the blackness, out of view from their prying eyes.
In his hand, he held a cartridge in his hand, his fingers closing over it with satisfaction.
***
I studied the cartridge in my hand as Sean rested on my sofa. I looked over at Sean with “I told ya so” written on my face.
It was weird to see Sean in his Vigilante outfit, sans the mask. It sat lifelessly on the counter. Its two black eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
With it, he terrorized an entire underworld. Without it, the outfit lost its traumatic effect.
I kept staring at it, as if expecting it to come to life on its own.
“Here,” I said as I tossed Sean one of my many bottles of whiskey. “That’ll take away the pain.”
“I’m off the drink,” he said. “Permanently.”
I handed him a cigarette. “Then try one of these.”
“I don’t smoke, either.”
I shoved it in his mouth. “Try one. I don’t see how a fella can live in a town like ours and never smoke.”
Sean held the cigarette up to the dim lamplight as I grabbed my lighter. After I lit the cigarette, Sean took a nervous puff. He coughed quietly, his eyes watering.
“How’s the leg?” I asked.
“It should be fine in a couple of hours,” Sean replied.
I shook my head, then yawned loudly. “Ya freakin’ lucky I don’t sleep none. I was awake when ya called. First Elroy, then Hardy, and then Barker went ape shit on me. Know anybody else up at two o’ clock in the friggin’ morning?”
“What did they say?”
“Elroy wanted to know what had happened.”
“What did you say?”
“How the hell should I know what did or didn’t happen when I’m off the damn clock? I ain’t no Abercrombie. I told him to ask Barker for the low down, but Barker apparently didn’t find it convenient to get on the horn to tell him the operation wasn’t all eggs in coffee; either that or he let me get my ass chewed out first. Then Barker called and told me about the whole thing. I wanted to let the bastard have it, but then I this dark figure comin’ up to my house. A good thing I’m smart as Sherlock Holmes, ‘cause under ordinary circumstances I shoot first, then get the meat wagon afterwards.”
Sean smiled. I walked over to the window, peeked through the curtains. Sean followed behind me with a slight limp. In the darkness, dozens of red lights flashed like blood droplets. Search lights shone into the cauldron black sky.
I glanced back at him. “Didn’t I tell ya to be careful?”
“I was.”
“Then what the freak was this? Do ya look alright?”
“I’ve been in worst tangles.”
“What is that? Some kind of Irish joke? Ya micks have a weird sense of humor.”
Sean pointed at the cartridge. “What can you tell me about that?”
“Go to Vinny’s Guns and Ammo,” I said without a second’s hesitation. “That’s down on Park Street, right across the railroad tracks. The dago owner and I are on good terms, for the moment. He’s provided me with some good information before. If ya need it, I can give him a note to have him help ya out.”
“I know the place,” Sean replied. “The owner is on good terms with me, too.”
I looked at Sean somberly. “Seriously, kid. I don’t want ya to get killed over this. It ain’t ya problem. It’s the department’s problem. They’re gonna find the perp sometime.”
“You don’t understand,” Sean replied. “He thinks he’s me.”
“So? It’s got to be one of Marzio’s thugs havin’ a bit of fun.”
“No. He’s like me.”
“I can bring him in,” I said as I reached for the cartridge in his hand. “I’ll have a whole squad show up at his home, take him out in handcuffs. And I’ll have the press there to take some pictures. Then everyone will know he’s a grifter and a fake, and then the heat will be off.”
He wouldn’t give it to me. Instead, he placed it in his pocket.
“I want to see if I can talk him out of it,” he said. “I don’t want this to end badly.”
“It’s gonna end badly either way, kid. He killed Craft in cold blood.”
“Maybe he had a reason to.”
“Not like ya did. Ain’t the same.”
“We’ll see what happens when I find him,” he said.
“Alright, kid,” I sighed. “But just remember one thing. If my guess is right, this guy ain’t gonna see things ya way. If it comes down to it, if ya find that ya have to kill him, then do it, and don’t hesitate about it none. If ya hesitate, he’ll kill ya. I don’t want to fish ya body out of the sound, ya hear?”
Sean left without another word. He knew I was right. He could hate it all he wanted. But he knew I was right.
***
The small brass bell at the top of the door rang as Sean pushed it open.
The owner leaned behind the cash register, which was placed on top a small glass shelf case. The case showed off the store’s finest rifles, pistols, and rare weapons. He wore a white shirt with black vertical stripes, his trousers held up by suspenders, which he constantly snapped back with his fingers in a habitual manner.
Seeing a familiar face enter, he waved amiably.
“Sean! How’s my favorite Irishman goin’?”
“I’m dandy, Vinny,” Sean replied. “I need a small favor.”
“Anythin’. Just name it.”
Sean took a bullet from his pocket and placed them on the counter. Vinny cackled, gesturing at it.
“What? You suddenly interested in ‘evil’ things like this? I thought you were one of those pacifists?”
“I am.”
“Then what’s with this?”
“It isn’t mine. Someone bought it from you. Can you tell me who?”
Vinny examined the cartridge closely with an observant eye.
“Well,” he said with an erudite tone, “they’re .38 ACP. Old Browning made it for the 1900 Model of the Colt pistol and also for several revolvers. I can go on, but I can tell you’re not interested in them tidbits.”
“Can you find out who bought it, then?” Sean asked.
Vinny turned to a file cabinet that was sitting on a desk behind him and opened it, running through the folders with his fingers.
“Lucky for you, I keep track of all guns and ammo sol
d, and who’s buying ‘em,” he said. “In this town, ya got to know who ya do business with, know what I’m sayin’?”
“So, who is buying this type of ammunition?” Sean asked again.
Vinny kept searching for a few seconds until he finally clapped his hands together with realization.
“I remember,” he whispered. “There was this guy who came in about a month ago, right before I was closing shop. He told me he wanted to buy up a lot of .38 ACP, but didn’t want anyone to know about it.”
His voice lowered. “I told him that I’d do it, but it’d cost him extra. I was worried, still am. He didn’t look like a Mafioso. Not an Italian or Sicilian. Pure Anglo. But he didn’t look like he had street smarts, if you know what I mean. He seemed pretty squeaky clean.”
“You get a name?”
“Yeah, he said his name’s Ross Noble. He lives a little bit outside of town, over by Beaver Pond,” Vinny replied. “I remember asking him ‘cause he had that farm boy look about him; wasn’t official, but like I said, I wanna know who I do business with.”
He laughed heartily. “When I first saw him, I couldn’t imagine him firing a weapon.”
Sean frowned. “Why not?”
“Because he’s practically a kid, like you! If I was a cop on the beat and I saw him drivin’, I’d pull him over and tell him to go back to his kindergarten class!”
Sean made a tight, suppressed smile. “Can you give me his address?”
“Why, are you gonna lecture him on pacifism?” Vinny joked. “I still can’t believe that you even visit my place. It’s the last place you’d ever need to go.”
“Not nearly. And no, I just need to return something that he dropped and lecture him on gun safety.”
Vinny started to laugh hard, doubling over on the counter. “You? Lecturing someone on gun safety? Stop it! I can’t stand it!”
When he finally calmed down, he gave Sean the address and then shook his hand again.
“You take care now, ‘Fighting Irish.’ I don’t want nothin’ happenin’ to ya.”
“Same here.”
Sean gave him one last nod with a gracious smile, and then walked out of the store, reading the address that Vinny had written down. He studied it casually.
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