Men Who Walk Alone

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Men Who Walk Alone Page 17

by T. J. Martinell


  Relieved, I instantly brought the ball out of the water, a smile of relief apparent. Yet, we weren’t done yet.

  “Give me a name,” I said. “Or else it goes back in five seconds, four seconds ago. One...”

  The name came out.

  “Walter Shoupe! Walter Shoupe! Walter Shoupe!”

  My eyes narrowed skeptically. Walter Shoupe. No. It couldn’t be. Forsyth lied through the teeth.

  I slapped him in the face.

  “I want the truth!”

  “Who is this Walter Shoupe?” the Vigilante asked.

  “A cop,” I said.

  The boat suddenly became still. I went to hit Forsyth again; something inside stopped me. It had to be have been my intuition; it told me the massacre had been a set-up. Now it told me to shut the hell up, listen for once.

  I obeyed reluctantly.

  “He bought Thompsons from me,” Forsyth added. “A lot of them. And ammunition, too.”

  “But why?” the Vigilante demanded. “Why kill innocent people and frame Marzio for it?”

  There was a lengthy pause.

  “I think you know the answer to that better than anyone,” Forsyth replied.

  I plugged a cigarette into my mouth, a terrible, unsettled sensation in my gut. I then sat back in my seat. I felt sick enough to puke as I looked at the Vigilante.

  “He had to have help,” I said. “The log books will say who was with him at the time.”

  The Vigilante was perfectly still, a finely shaped silhouette in the back of the boat. Eventually, he grabbed the oars, rowed them back towards the shore. I leaned against the back of the boat as I covered my eyes with my hand. It hadn’t ever gone this far before. There were cops who supported the mob, enabled the mob, turned a blind eye to the mob. But never had one of our own gone this far, killing civilians. And they had also done it to frame the mob.

  As we drew closer to the shore, I mulled over whether to tell anyone else. Shouldn’t Elroy or Hardy know about this?

  No. They wouldn’t believe me. Even then, I could imagine the scandal if word got leaked to the press. They would crucify the lot of us. Elroy would do whatever it took to protect the integrity of the department, what little of a reputation it had left in the eyes of the public.

  There was no other way to do it. Justice had to be served. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. Not against men who wore the same uniform.

  The Vigilante would not have the same reservations.

  ***

  The telephone line was scratchy.

  “Carl?”

  “Yes?”

  “You in a secure place?”

  “Yes. We can talk.”

  “Where are you at now?”

  “Can’t say. You know the drill. Walter doesn’t want us disclosing our hideouts.”

  “I just got word from Jimmy. He said that Walt wants us all to meet up with him.”

  “What? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he do that? He told us to stay put, not cause a fuss. We spent nearly a week in that shithole, all fifteen of us. Why would he want us all to get together all of a sudden?”

  “Don’t know. Jimmy didn’t say. He just told me that Walt wants the word passed around.”

  “Where are we meeting?”

  “This wop joint called Lou’s, over on Front Street.”

  “Why there?”

  “Won’t make us look suspicious, I guess. Can’t tell you much. Jimmy was short on the details. Apparently, Walt didn’t give too many to him.”

  “Why are we hearing this from Jimmy and not Walter?”

  “He doesn’t know where any of us are, so he’s contacting us indirectly. I don’t know. Walter knows what he’s doing, though. We’ve got the guineas packing their bags in three neighborhoods. They’re practically hitchhiking their way back across Rantoul Street.”

  “Has he told his superiors about any of this?”

  “I think so.”

  The voice was apprehensive.

  “He should have told them.”

  “I don’t think so. They’re in charge of the station, but they deal with too many people to keep secrets. Word would’ve gotten out.”

  “Alright. When are we meeting at this wop place?”

  “Tomorrow. At one o’ clock. Don’t be late.”

  “Should we be armed?”

  “Nah. The locals are friendly enough. Besides, Jimmy said the security is taken care of. All we have to do wear our uniforms and the owner will probably give us a free meal.”

  “Very well. Who should I contact?”

  “Let Kendrick know, but don’t talk to too many. And don’t use any private telephone line. Stick to the payphones. Keep the conversation short and sweet, got it?”

  “Got it.”

  ***

  Carl sat on the left side of the long table, surrounded by six of his fellow police officers. Their crisp blue uniform shined brightly underneath the light fixtures. There was a sense of pride and honor in their demeanors. He had arrived at Lou’s Diner on Front Street first, greeting each of them as they had come in one by one.

  An Italian opera poured out of a phonograph by the wall that gave their conversations a strange sophisticated quality.

  A waiter stood by the doors to the kitchen, rigid and tall in stature. He held a napkin over his bent arm in a professional manner. He had served them all glasses of water, but had said nothing. They suspected he was a mute, or maybe intimidated by them.

  Carl wasn’t displeased by that thought. Fear was good. Fear brought power with it. The weak always feared the strong.

  One of them tapped the table, discreetly gesturing with his head at the waiter.

  “I don’t like him,” he said.

  “Why not?” Carl asked.

  “Does he look like a wop to you?”

  Carl looked at the waiter. He found it hard to believe one of his comrades was uneasy about him. His appearance gave no suggestion he was a threat in any way. He was lanky, thin, and had a submissive slant to his posture. He had a servant’s ambiance in how he held the napkin over his forearm with a natural ease. His boyish face was even less threatening. The only thing Carl found unusual about him were his eyes. Although he held a timorous expression, it couldn’t hide the distinct glow in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Carl said to his comrade.

  “We should worry,” spoke whispered. “I don’t like us sitting in one place like this. This wasn’t according to the plan.”

  “I agree,” added a third man. “Walt had better have a good explanation for why he has us here.”

  “Don’t any of you trust him?” Carl asked, his hands raised in disbelief. He lowered his voice. “He planned this out perfectly. Nobody suspects a thing. Captain is none the wiser about it.”

  “It isn’t Captain Hardy I’m afraid of.”

  “Who, then?”

  “The Vigilante.”

  The men became staid, save for Carl. He subtly gestured at them to relieve their qualms.

  “The Vigilante is too busying killing scum in the mob,” he said. “Haven’t you been reading the papers? Even he can’t resist.”

  “He is angry,” someone said.

  “How did you miss that?” another sneered.

  “You don’t seem to get it, do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I heard some things.”

  “What?” another inquired fearfully.

  “I heard he...I heard that someone talked.”

  The eleven men glanced to their left and right, silently asking the men seated next to them the same question Christ’s disciples had asked each other during the Last Supper.

  Carl made a gesture with his hand, a knife-like cut across his throat.

  “Enough of this nonsense,” he said. “You are letting fear control you. You know better than that.”

  “But—”

  “You got to have trust.”

  The door to the diner swung open. They all turned to
see Walter Shoupe enter in a flamboyant fashion. He couldn’t help but conduct himself like a leader should; he had a charismatic manner of walking, his voice strong and convincing. His back was like a piece of steel, straight and solid. Beneath his soothed face was a mind of indescribable determination and cunning. He terrified criminals merely by wearing his police uniform, stare suspects into confessing whatever crime they had committed.

  His men, including Carl, rose from the table. They were about to address him, but they remembered their orders and held back their compliments.

  “Welcome, Walter,” Carl said.

  There was to be no “sirs” or “leaders.” Their associations were to be undisclosed.

  Taking a long stride across the floor, Walter slipped of his black leather gloves, unbuttoning his black pea coat. Though the windowpane revealed a harsh storm outside, they would have never guessed it by looking at Walter’s cheeks. He seemed inured to the cold, and to all emotions

  Walter sat at the head of the table, where two men had taken the chair and helped him into it. Holding himself like a king in front of his royal advisors, he gazed at them, then at the waiter.

  “We’re ready,” he said.

  The waiter hurried over, standing to the side of Walter. He touched the tip of his tongue with a pencil.

  “What can I get for ye, fellas?” he asked.

  “What do you recommend?” Walt asked the waiter.

  “Ya like pasta?”

  “We prefer American food.”

  “How about steak and potatoes?”

  “Sounds fine.?”

  None of them would question his decisions in front of him. Another part of their training. Orders were to be obeyed.

  “Can you get us some lager?” Carl asked.

  “Of course,” the waiter said. “Everyone want one?”

  “Yes,” Walt said. “Bring some for all of us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The waiter left. Walt turned to Carl, who was sitting on his right, and leaned forward.

  “Where is Jimmy?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I thought he was going to come with you.”

  Walter returned to his upright position. He put his hand on his chin.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “The day we left isolation. You saw him then, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Possibly. I don’t see why he would be so late.”

  A minute later, the waiter came out of the kitchen with two pitchers of lager in his hand. The restaurant’s ostensible owner, Lou, joined him, pushing a wheeled cart of mugs on it. He was short, slender. His oily black, thin hair combed back over his head. He had a thick moustache and transparent green eyes.

  He also had that pretentious flair as he moved across the floor, that patronizing flattery foreigners poured on Americans to swindle them out of their hard-earned money.

  The waiter placed the pitchers on the table and waited patiently for Lou to come.

  Walt whispered again into Carl’s ear.

  “Did Jimmy happen to tell you why it was so urgent for us to meet?”

  Carl stared at him blankly. “What are you talking about? He told me you called this meeting.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Lou stopped the cart by the table and began placing the mugs beside their plates.

  Walter grabbed Carl’s arm.

  “Jimmy told you that I called this meeting?”

  Carl nodded. “Didn’t you?”

  Walter looked past Carl, as if he was peering at a ghost that no one else could see. They both experienced the same moment of enlightenment as they turned to look at the waiter as he helped set the mugs on the table.

  The waiter looked down at them out of the corner of his eye. He smiled. The two men gawked in a helpless state of dread as they heard the waiter speak. His accent was gone.

  “Jimmy won’t be joining you; you will be joining him for dinner, with the devil. In Hell.”

  Calmly slipping his hand under the cart, Lou pulled out a Tommy gun. Shoving it against his shoulder, he fired at point-blank range, spraying bullets with a slow twist of his hips and a vindictive expression on his face.

  The waiter dropped the napkin over his forearm, exposing an automatic revolver underneath it. He gave Carl no time to make peace with his maker blowing his face out the back of his head. The waiter then turned and began shooting the rest of the men with the same merciless demeanor.

  Seven seconds later, the shooting ceased. The table was ripped apart from the .45 ACP slugs. The men lay everywhere; some still sat in their chairs, their heads lifelessly fallen back, while others were sprawled on the floor, a pool of blood forming by their sides.

  There were a few moans from the mortally wounded. Lou finished them off with final burst from his Tommy gun.

  The only one left alive was Walter, who remained glued to his chair, untouched by the barrage. Like a wax figure, he maintained his pose, his eyes swerving as he surveyed the carnage. He then looked at the waiter, who held his revolver close to Walter’s lower jaw.

  “I thought we’d let you live,” the waiter stated. “It would be a nice present to send back to your superior.”

  The waiter held out a small note. Walter took it feebly.

  “What’s this?” he whispered.

  “A message for your boss. Tell him he had better show up on time.”

  Walter was silent.

  “Now get out,” the waiter said.

  Walter Shoupe’s eyes bulged with terror as he rushed out the door.

  Lou returned to the kitchen. A short time later, he came back out, holding a bottle of Sagiovese, the year 1914 imprinted on it, and two red wine glasses. The waiter put the revolver on the cart and walked over to Lou.

  “I’ve saved dis since beginning of Great War for great occasion,” he said. “I never thought it woulda be for somesing lika dis.”

  Lou offered the waiter a glass of wine, but he politely refused. Shrugging, Lou poured him some cider, toasting with a somber expression.

  “Salude,” he said.

  The waiter nodded. They then both tipped their heads back. The waiter furrowed his brows, pulling the glass away from his mouth as he licked his lips thoughtfully. He stared down at the wine

  “What is it?” Lou asked. “You not like it?”

  He looked away. “No, I like it. I want to hate it, but I can’t stop liking it. When you’ve tried it once, you can’t help liking it. It’s when you stop that you realize how good it tastes.”

  ***

  Walter looked at his watch. It read eight thirty. With a sigh, he put it away, gazing up toward dimly visible clock tower hiding in the foggy night’s sky.

  Every time the bell rang it was like an audible compass; anyone who found themselves lost simply had to wait until the vociferous clamor across the entire breadth of the small city. As long as they heard it, they could pinpoint their location in Beverly.

  He stood next to two police officers on the long steps outside of the once opulent Cabot Street Cinema Theatre. Designed and built during the age of prosperity in Beverly, it loomed above them like a vestige to the city’s former glory. Its vertical sign, which had once blazed with a glorious pale red luster, was scarcely discernible. Its massive lights dead, it was like the heart of the theater, the internal reflecting the external.

  The two men, clad in unranked uniforms, wore masks over their heads. They were both short, while one of them was stout, the other thin.

  Smoking imported cigarettes, Walter offered one to each of them. They both declined.

  If it was meant to tell him something about their personalities, it didn’t. Their identities were completely unknown. He couldn’t even pinpoint their precise station. All he knew was that they held power. Not the kind of a power their titles or positions bestowed them. It was the only kind of power people understood in Beverly; fear of the unknown.

  Fear by
itself wasn’t much. Everybody held some sort of fear. But when that fear covered a multitude of possibilities, even going as far as to be limitless, it became more than simply fear. It could do more than influence a man’s decisions. It transformed him into a mindless animal obedient to whoever wielded that fear.

  The two masked officers who led them could have been mere beat cops. But what they knew, and what they could do with that knowledge, commanded the loyalty of every single man in the vicinity.

  Walter consumed his cigarette quickly, smoked another one. Ever since his brush with death at the Italian restaurant, he hadn’t stopped smoking. He couldn’t stop. All he thought of was that pair of blue eyes that had burned through his face as though penetrating his soul. It was the only way to explain how the waiter had realized this scheme went further than merely Walter.

  A detachment of police officers were scattered around the perimeter. Some were on the steps with them. Others acted as snipers on the lower rooftop of the theater’s main lobby. And then there were those hidden in the bushes and trees. Another handful were posted at the alleyways to intercept the Vigilante when he came, if he came.

  “What if he doesn’t come?” one of the masked men asked.

  “He will come,” Walter said. “He wouldn’t have left me alive if he didn’t want to speak with you.”

  “I do not trust superstitions.”

  The fog thickened. To give them greater protection, the officers kept the three of them close to the theater entrance, underneath the overhang. The sight of submachine guns seemed to comfort the two masked officers.

  The other masked officer tapped his compatriot reassuringly.

  “We are safe with them,” he said. “No one can harm us.”

  Out of the fog, a voice whispered faintly.

  “No one is safe from me.”

  They strained their eyes as they looked at what appeared to be the pale form of a man standing in front of them. The fog, which swirled around them like vortex, obscured the rest of him.

  Walter snatched his revolver and aimed at the vaporous figure, closing his left eye as he took aim. His finger began to squeeze the trigger when a hand stopped him.

  They turned to see the Vigilante holding his hand.

 

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