“One did this, another did that. They all committed crimes. They were never reported, but I saw it. No one would believe me. No one would do anything about it, so I had to. I had no choice.”
He smiled sadistically, unleashed a laugh that swept across the waterline.
“Justice was served. No one noticed, because I took care of the bodies. And then I realized that if I could serve justice for others, why not for my brother, too? I didn’t want to get rid of him, though. I wanted him to be found. I wanted people to know how he died.”
The Vigilante lowered his head.
“Murderer,” he said uttered accusatorily. “I was wrong about you. You’re not naive or oblivious about yourself. You know exactly what you are doing.”
“Hypocrite! You are in it for revenge, too, whether you want to admit it or not! And what is wrong with that? If taking revenge and serving justice happen to be the same path, then it is fine with me.”
“Your brand of justice is tainted. Better to let the guilty suffer in their sin than to blacken your own soul in the process.”
“As Beowulf said, ‘Better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning,’” Noble retorted. “Besides, you’re telling me that you hunted down criminals out of a sense of justice and not revenge? Don’t insult me! There was something that happened to you that inspired you to take action. It’s always the same! Someone wrongs you and you are compelled to return the injury, no matter who it is. Even if it is not the same person, you killed them because you were looking for retribution!”
“I do not,” the Vigilante stated. “My motivations are better than your rationale.”
“Then tell me, what is it? What made you put on that mask and pick up that gun? What injustice was done to you?”
The Vigilante stepped forward slowly, each foot making a creaking noise on the wooden pier as they went down.
“I had a lot of injustice done to me. But each time, I could suppress the urge to become like you. I refused to succumb.”
“Liar.”
“Do you really want to know what it was that pushed me to this, what the injustice was?”
“Yes!”
“It was me!” he said pitifully, throwing his arms out, as if he was relieving himself of a heavy burden. “Myself. I was the injustice! It was the disgust of my own selfish actions. That was the only reason.”
“Then you have your reason, I have mine,” Noble implored. “Can’t you understand? I had a wonderful family. I had a loving brother and two caring parents. When my brother died, my mother went insane and got sent to a mental institute! My father never recovered from either of their fates. That left me all alone! You don’t know how I feel, to never again see your family together, to never see your mother again smile with happiness or your father laugh with joy.”
The Vigilante nodded.
“Yes,” he let slip out, sounding as though he were on the verge of tears. “I do know how that feels.”
“I thought so.”
“If you’re looking for sympathy for what has happened to you, you can have it. If, however, you are looking for sympathy for what you are doing to alleviate your pain, you will be all alone, like you are now.”
To that, Noble raised himself up, his chest sticking out with haughtiness.
“I will continue to take vengeance against those who I have seen do wrong to others or myself. You can either help me, or get out of my way.”
He then stood motionless, waiting to see what how the Vigilante would respond. The Vigilante shook his head sadly, then pulled back his trench coat to reveal his revolver holstered on his hip. Before he spoke, the blustering of the wind that had coated their conversation seemed to finally cease, leaving only the two men standing apart in silence.
It was realized that rather than a friendship, it was the beginning of a bitter blood feud. Their existences were incompatible. Only one of them could live. The other would perish.
“You bring this on yourself,” the Vigilante said.
He reached for his gun. Noble was already anticipating it. He leaped to the side, pulling his revolver out as well. He fired wildly. He then jumped in the air, twisting to the side so that he landed back on his feet.
Using the darkness for cover, he ducked into the warehouse, hoping to lure the Vigilante in there, and then finish the job.
The gunfight was fierce and brutal in its emotion. Muzzles flashed sporadically as they attempted to kill, focusing their energy on one goal. The Vigilante leapt behind beams, hid below barrels, and crawled along the ground while he reloaded.
Noble was badly shaken as he fought, dwelling in the reality that the man he had respected so much until now was after him. He had trusted him. He had failed him.
It was slipping out of his grasp. He had had a dream, a vision that was beautiful and decent in its aspirations. They would have united, become the protectors of the city, ridding it of crime. They would have become heroes. They would have become brothers, a family.
Family. That thought brought back haunting memories into Noble’s mind as he held his gun in anticipation. There had been his brother, always helping him whenever he needed it, always getting him out of trouble. His father, the first person he would go to for answers to his unyielding questions in life, had always been there to protect him, to be that guide for him whenever he was full of uncertainty. And his mother had had a smile that turned a tragic moment into joy, no matter what. That smile had died the day she had gone to the hospital to see her son’s outline underneath a blanket. No amount of joy could overcome the experience of being told that her son had been killed for a reason she couldn’t understand, a reason nobody could understand.
Noble missed them terribly. Deep down, as hard as he tried to repress it, he believed that they would come back to him if only he got rid of those who caused him pain. He believed his acts of vengeance would cause his mother to regain her sanity, for his father to overthrow the perpetual melancholy he was in.
By avenging the injustice of the fallen, he would regain what he had lost.
Now, his father wouldn’t even answer his calls or see him, having moved out of their house to build a small cottage near the harbor, living as a recluse. His excuse was that Ross reminded him of his brother and his mother. Until the day he stopped being a remembrance, they were separated indefinitely.
In his dreams, he could see himself sitting at the dinner table, waiting for his brother to return home from the bank. He would come home, alive and well, and his mother and father would sit down and eat supper with them, and they would be together. And happy. That is all he ever wanted.
But now, all he had was a lonely, empty home, and his hero determined to kill him.
Noble slowly lowered his revolver, losing the will, the resolve, and the motivation to use it. What was the point, anyways? Even if he killed the Vigilante, it would be just one more thing that confined him to loneliness. He had turned his admiration of the Vigilante into an obsession, not because he wanted to be like him, but because he wanted someone to converse with, someone he could talk to, and not always be left to listen to his own haunting, reverberating scream.
Noble dropped his gun, letting it slip out of his fingers. He put his hand over his face in misery, his eyes slowly filling with tears. He began to softly sob, choking on them. He couldn’t understand it. Why was life like this? Why was it so unfair? All the pity in the world went to the men he had killed, the ones who had committed crimes! No one felt sorry for him, the suffering he had endured all by himself, the depression and gloom of watching his own mother go insane right in front of him, of having his father tell him not to call ever again until he said so.
No one pitied him. All the empathy and compassion in the world was reserved for the guilty, never the true victim.
Noble fumbled through his pockets, trying to find something to keep his mind off of the despair he felt. Feeling up his coat, he found a pineapple grenade. He looked over up ahead of him and saw a barrel, probably ful
l of old fuel.
He smiled sinisterly, resigned to his fate. What would the Vigilante do? He felt he finally had the answer.
***
The Vigilante aimed his pistol with conviction. He could see Noble huddled against the corner of the wall. He seemed weak and vulnerable. There was a strong suggestion that he had been wounded.
No mercy. No compassion. It was time to complete the task.
The Vigilante squeezed one eye shut. His trigger finger began to pull back....
Then he saw a small object get lobbed into the air. He watched it as it flew through the room and landed a few feet in front of him. It exploded near an old gas barrel, igniting the fuel left inside. Within seconds, thick flames were roaring and flickering across the floor, eating its way into the wooden infrastructure.
Revolver withdrawn, the Vigilante held his arm in front of his eyes, but not before Noble had disappeared from his sight behind the tremendous wall of conflagration. Black smoke filled the room. He coughed, dropping down to the floor. Slowly, he crawled away from the dark red flames, feeling the burning sensation on his back as he hurried toward the door.
The heat was intense, singeing the edges of his clothes. Another minute passed, and the flames and heat had spread and increased to such a degree that he was forced to sprint out through the only exit open. Diving out over the growing flames, he landed outside the warehouse.
Getting back up, the Vigilante stood upright, casting a glance back at the building as it collapsed into a heaping inferno. The fire was so bright it lit up harbor with a dark orange sheen.
The blaring clang of fire engines bellowed in the distance.
He quickly ran after without looking over his shoulder once.
***
Sean kneeled in a prayer-like posture in front of the wooden chest. His cheeks were flushed, his complexion reddened. He was crying noiselessly; the tears tricked to the edge of his chin, falling in tiny drops.
“Granda,” he saw, gazing at the picture. “What have I done? I sentenced a man to death. And God, dear God, it had to be someone like me. So much like me! It wasn’t some mugger or a thief or a thick-headed ruffian, but a boy, a mere boy like me. He was so similar to me he might as well been a simple reflection of my own life; the way fate has seen to harass me as much as it has him. He didn’t deserve it, Granda! He didn’t deserve it! He was a victim just as much as he was the criminal. How much different is he from me?”
Sean sobbed. He tucked his head inside of his arms. Then, Sean began to speak in strong, firm voice that seemed to originate from the darkness.
“Do not deceive yourself. He was twisted, perverted. He was unjustly dealt, but what did he do with his grief? He turned it into pure, uncompromising hatred of anyone who had wronged him. His grief turned into insanity. That is the difference. You didn’t hunt those who had repented for their crimes. You sought the criminals of the present, not the villains of the past. You never hated them.”
“How could I have not hated them?”
“You didn’t kill them because you hated them, or because they had done you wrong. You killed them because their sins, if left unchecked, would have left another innocent soul dead. You did it out of love for the innocent. Noble did not. He suffered from uncontainable pain, and the he choose to alleviate himself of that pain by taking lives. You forgave them. That is the difference, the separation that is so vital. You forgive those who repent. You attempt to prevent crimes. You are not the punisher, but the enforcer.”
“I kill, nevertheless, just as he does.”
“Don’t be a fool! You tried to leave that life many times. Did you provoke the confrontation yourself, or were you provoked by the violence around? Was it you who instigated it, or they? It wasn’t you who stormed into their homes and tried to kill them. It wasn’t you who made the streets flow with blood. It was them. You simply added their blood to the river current.”
“It is of little consequence. There is too much blood on my head.”
“If you did nothing, the amount of innocent blood would have been greater! Would you rather have more innocent blood on your head than that of the guilty?”
Sean shut his eyes tightly, wincing as he grabbed his heart, heaving aloud as he tried to suppress painful recollection.
“No! I will not allow it to torment me anymore! You’ve convinced me twice to resume this madness under that premise. What good has it done me? I’ve legitimized killing based on emotion.”
“No. That is what you’ve been told. They are lies. You did not act on emotion. You acted on morality. If you see evil happening, you are bound to stop it. Pacifism is a fool’s game. An evil man’s greatest henchman is not his accomplice, but the indifferent bystander who permits him to carry out his whims.”
Sean lifted up the Webley-Fosbery revolver, emptying the shells onto the ground. He then picked up the Vigilante mask, staring into the vacant eyes ruefully. It seemed to speak to him.
“What you saw today was a mirror. Noble did not reflect your soul back for you to see. He imitated your appearance. That’s all you saw. If you look through the mirror, you will see a very different kind of man, a man who held no reservations, no scruples, and no doubt of his own righteousness.”
“Perhaps,” Sean answered chokingly. “But I have seen myself behave as he does. They are fleeting moments, but they are there, nonetheless. I cannot tolerate them. Why should I be bound to this awful identify, anyways? It’s not what I want to be, who I want to be.”
“No, but it is who you are.”
Sean threw the mask across the room, glaring at its lifeless facade.
“No. Never again.”
***
Back inside the warehouse, volunteer firefighters scrambled to put out the last remains of the fire that had reduced the entire building into a heap of coal-like mounds. Police officers guarded the outer perimeter, fending off reporters who swarmed around the scene like flies on dead meat.
Amid the ruins, Elroy and Barker looked around as if to search for something. Barker crouched down to pick up a charred piece of crate, while Elroy held his hands behind his back in a thoughtful pose.
“You think any one of those sons of bitches managed to survive?” Barker asked.
“It appears so. One of the dock workers said he saw someone fleeing from here as the building caught fire.”
“To cover his tracks, no doubt…any word from our men?”
“They searched his house. He’s not there.”
Barker cursed under his breath. “I knew that fool would screw this whole thing up! All we’re going to find is his ashes to put in an urn.”
Below Barker’s feet, a trap door opened up from the blackened floor. He nearly fell over as he stumbled back, staring down with flummoxed eyes as he reached for his revolver. Elroy, however, grabbed his hand, restraining him as he peered curiously.
Slowly, a trembling hand rose from the ashes like a phoenix reborn.
Beverly Tribune, October 8, 1934
VIGILANTE’S FINAL ACT RESULTS IN DEATH!
FIRE RAVAGES DOWNTOWN HARBOR DOCKS, REMAINS OF VIGILANTE REVOLVER FOUND
Mackeral Cove Investigator, October 12, 1934
THE END OF THE VIGILANTE?
Part III
An End To A Means
Sean Blood rubbed his hands together firmly. The heat caused by the friction was nearly visible in the air.
Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, he was a statue in a sea of moving bodies. People coughed, sneezed, and rubbed their noses, but Sean showed no sign of physical illness. His face was partially hidden beneath his flat cap, which also covered his shortened hair.
Clad in a light green coat, he started walking south. Inside of his coat was a package which was to be delivered to the O’Connell’s, a family who lived near him. The two sons, Conan and Murphy, were frequent habitués of the local pub and intense, but friendly disputants.
Mrs. O’Connell, their mother, had been overcome with an illness. According
to Murphy, the doctor had concluded it was influenza. Murphy had tried to purchase medicine for her, but supplies were low at the nearest pharmacy, and there was no space available for her at the nearest hospital. Known and hated among the Italians, Murphy did not dare across Rantoul Street, even at Stone Street in the southern part of town, which was normally regarded as neutral ground. This meant he could not reach the other drug store in town.
Distressed, he had contacted Sean, aware of his good relations with the Italians.
Sean felt the package slip in his coat. He grabbed it tightly, pressing it against his chest. Underneath the brown wrapping was the medicine, a two-week supply which would be sufficient to keep her stable.
Sean headed down to Rantoul Street. Dotting the street façade were small eateries and shabby residential housing that seemed to overflow with people. White, green and red flags flew out of windows, hung from flagpoles as olive oil skinned women flapped their dry laundry in the air and hung up the wet clothes on clotheslines. The children sat at the top steps of their apartment buildings with circumspect glares as they eyed Sean.
Looking at them with a good-natured smile, Sean waved. Their reserved demeanors softened as they waved back to him in a friendly manner.
One didn’t walk the same way they did on Cabot Street as they did Rantoul Street, nor did they carry themselves with the same posture. Like a suit, it was tailored to fit the measurements which allowed one to move about without drawing attention to one’s self.
The O’Connell’s small grocery store lay on the other end of Rantoul Street, on Federal, another neutral intersection where residents could pass without problems. It tacitly served as the borderline dividing the Irish and the Italians; Marino’s barbershop on one side of the street was called Gallagher’s on the other; the Italian men wore striped clothes and had their oil black hair slicked back neatly, while the Irishman opposite of them wore brown wool coats, flat caps, and unpolished brogue dress shoes; while one side flew the green, white and red, the other flew the green, white, and orange.
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