Handsome Harry

by James Carlos Blake

  The club staff all knew John—Mr. Sullivan to them—and knew him for a big tipper. We were given a choice table at a front corner of the large dance floor. It was a swell band and the service was good, and like John said, the lighting was so low it was hard for anyone to get a good look at your face unless they were right next to you.

  In honor of the occasion, we’d loosened our drinking rules, boosting our limit to four drinks apiece—except for Billie, of course. John had finally wised up to how she’d been managing to get buzzed whenever we all had a night out together even though nobody ever bought her a drink. He gave Mary a lecture about it and Mary lectured him right back, saying she could share her drinks with anybody she wanted to without his permission, thank you very much. Since then he’d kept a closer eye on both of them. But on this special night he let Billie have three drinks on her promise to space them at least an hour apart and not to sneak sips from Mary’s glass.

  Anyhow, what happened was this. Sometime around midnight, as I was making my way toward the gents’ through the raucous mob and a haze of blue smoke so thick you could feel it on your face, I spotted John coming out of the wide entrance to the men’s room. I was about to go up and ask if he could direct me to the local temperance hall, but at that moment a pair of palookas, white guys in overcoats, closed on him from either side. The taller one in a pale fedora grabbed his arm and John tried to pull away but the short one in the brown hat got hold of his other arm and John suddenly went still and I knew Shorty was holding a gun on him through his overcoat. All I could see of their faces were their grins, like they’d just run into an old pal. Pale Hat slickly took John’s piece off him and put it in his own coat pocket. I figured them for cops trying to make an arrest without exciting all the drunks around them.

  With a hand on John’s shoulder Pale Hat spoke to him with his mouth almost at his ear. I didn’t know if John had seen me, but if he had he was being careful not to look my way. There wasn’t fifteen feet between them and me, but the milling crowd made for good camouflage. I slipped a .38 out of the holster at the small of my back and held it under my coat flap, wishing I hadn’t left the .45 in the car. It was the .38 I’d taken from the sheriff in Lima. For some reason its grip felt perfect in my hand, and it had become my favorite backup piece.

  Now Pale Hat stepped back from John and said something more. John shook his head, and the guy took a look around. I sidled over some to keep a screen of people between us. Pale Hat then put a chummy arm around John’s shoulders and was yakking into his ear again as the three of them headed for the side exit. I couldn’t see our table from where I stood, so I couldn’t signal for help before following them outside.

  The side door opened into an alley crammed with cars parked at all angles. The night was still clamoring with car horns and fireworks and random gunshots. A faint scent of burnt powder mingled with the reek of garbage. About ten yards to my left the alley abutted a street and was illuminated by a streetlight. To the right the shadows were deep and long and it was a good thirty yards to the next street.

  And there they were, maybe twenty feet away, the three of them standing next to a sedan facing in the other direction, its motor idling and its lights on. There were two vague figures in the car, at the front window and at the wheel.

  As the short one started to open a back door, the tall one said Hey, and they all turned toward me.

  Because of the streetlight, I was showing them a clear silhouette, but I knew they couldn’t see the gun I held against the front of my thigh as if I had my hand in my pants pocket. And against the cast of the headlights down the alley behind them, their shapes stood out too. I could tell John was the one in the middle.

  They didn’t know who I was or they wouldn’t have just stood there. Like skating on thin ice, speed was everything, and I was already moving toward them as I said in a buddy-buddy tone Hey guys, which way she go?

  The short one said What?

  The blonde, I said, closing in on them, hoping John was set. She come this way?

  No blonde come out here, Mack, the tall one said. Beat it.

  Shorty put his hand in his coat pocket and took a step toward me.

  There the bitch goes, I said, and pointed down the alley with my left hand.

  It put them off balance for half a second but that was enough. I was three feet from Shorty and shot him in the face, the bulldog sparking bright. John pounced on him as he fell and I shot the tall one twice and his gun clattered on the pavement and he staggered back and crashed into the garbage cans. The guy behind the wheel was halfway out of the car when I shot him in the head and he lurched against the door and slid to the ground in an awkward fold.

  I spun toward the one still in the car as he was bringing up a shotgun and bam, John let him have it in back of the head with Shorty’s pistol. The guy pitched over on the seat and John poked the gun through the window and shot him again.

  It was over just that fast. My ears rang and the gunpowder haze stung my nose.

  Brother, John said, and blew out a breath like he’d been holding it for an hour.

  Bastard cops, I said. Even through the garbage stink and the gun-smoke I could make out the smell of their blood. A dark puddle of it was spreading around Shorty’s head.

  Cops, my ass, John said. These are the Quarrys. Let’s scram.

  We ran down the alley to the far end of the block and then tried to look casual as we walked out onto the street and up around the corner and ambled down to the club’s front entrance. I can’t speak for John, but my heart was going like a jackhammer and it was hard to draw an even breath and my legs were a little feathery and I had a strong urge to piss and I’d never felt more…alive…in my life.

  We went in the club and rounded up the others and got out of there. As we headed for our cars parked a block away we gave the other guys a run-down of what happened. As we were driving off, a squad car with its light flashing but its siren mute turned onto the street flanking the club and stopped next to the alley entrance.

  Red and Russell walked Patty and Opal to the front door of the apartment house while Charley put Tweet in a taxi for home. Then the guys followed me and John over to our new house. When we got there, Billie and Mary excused themselves and went to the bedrooms so we could talk in private.

  John said the tall one in the pale hat was Art Quarry and the shorty was named Bud. The two in the car were their brothers. The Art one told John they’d been hunting him ever since he stole their money out of Greencastle. Then they got an anonymous telephone tip about his fondness for the Silk Hat. They’d been there every night for a week, waiting for him to drop by, posting themselves by the men’s room because sooner or later every man’s got to water the lilies. They were about to give up on the Silk Hat for good when they spotted him. If he’d waited five minutes to take his piss they would’ve missed him. The Art guy thought that was funny. He called it a quirk of fate.

  I said the Art guy didn’t know the half of it. If they’d left five minutes earlier they wouldn’t be lying in the morgue.

  They told John they were taking him where nobody would hear his screams while they discussed how he would repay their fifty grand.

  I have to tell you, boys, John said, I was never so glad to see anybody as when Pete came out that door.

  They couldn’t hear enough about the fight. After John told it, they had me tell it, and both times Russell asked the same thing: They never got off a shot? Not one shot?

  Never had a chance, John said, not against Pistol Pete.

  Or him, I said. The shotgun might’ve nailed me if John didn’t nail him first.

  Red said the whole thing sounded fucking outstanding and goddamnit why did he always miss out on the fun.

  Charley asked if all four of the miscreants were expired.

  I told him I thought so but we hadn’t bothered to make sure. We’d see what the paper said in the morning.

  Russ wondered why the Micks had been hunting for John in particular and not
for anybody else in the bunch. I asked who he’d look for if he’d read in the paper that the Dillinger Gang stole his money.

  Quite so, Charley said—he who basks in the limelight shall attract the most attention, for worse as well as better.

  John said if Mr. Makley’s crack about basking in the limelight was some kind of snide reference to the way he used to enter a bank’s cashier cage—and he hoped Mr. Makley noticed that he did not use that method in Racine—then Mr. Makley could go to hell.

  I indubitably shall, Mr. Fairbanks, Charley said, and hard upon your heels, I’m sure.

  As for the phone tip the Quarrys got about the Silk Hat, they might not’ve known who gave it to them, but we did. Ed Shouse, no question about it. He tipped the Quarrys to get back at John for the ass-kicking he gave him. John said he was putting the bastard at the top of his list.

  After we all had a nightcap beer and the others left and it was only the two of us, John told me he’d never killed a man before. He said it like he was unsure of how he felt about crossing that particular line.

  Well, I told him, he sure killed that one tonight, and as far as I was concerned he couldn’t have picked a better time to bust his cherry.

  Listen, I said, it’s them or us. Simple as that. Them or us.

  He gave me a poker-faced stare for a moment—then that crooked smile. Well now, brother, he said, that’s a true fact, isn’t it?

  The next morning he read the newspaper report to me. Three of the Quarrys were found dead at the scene and the fourth died in the hospital three hours later without naming his killers. The paper called it a gangland slaying resulting from a turf war and said it was fitting that the death of Prohibition was marked by the deaths of men who’d prospered from it. The cops had identified the four as members of a family of St. Louis bootleggers who’d probably gotten on the wrong side of the Chicago mob.

  It’s what they get, the cop in charge told reporters. Sooner or later it’s what every one of these mugs gets.

  John put the paper down and ran a finger around his collar and made a big mock gulp—and then grinned his cocky grin.

  A few days later the Chicago P.D. announced a list of its ten most-wanted fugitives. All of us were on it, including Mary and Pearl.

  Yikes, Mary said, when she saw the list, I’ve been promoted from a moll to a desperado like you boys.

  John told her she wouldn’t think it was so damn funny if she got arrested as a desperado.

  Ooooh, Mary said, I’m so scared. She was trying for a laugh from us and she got it.

  I didn’t know if Pearl was aware of the Chicago heat on her, so I phoned her at home in Kokomo. When she answered by saying Paulette Dewey residence, I knew she was aware, all right.

  She didn’t know how the cops had connected her to us but figured it could’ve been anybody who’d ever seen her in our company. The world’s crawling with rats was her simple explanation. She wasn’t worried about the cops tracking her down, not under the Dewey name. As for the Side Pocket, the building was leased to Janet Cody, who didn’t exist, and Pearl had put Darla Bird in charge of the place.

  The following day Cueball Lucas called to tell us he had finally repaired Red’s Auburn sedan and it was ready to be picked up. Red had forgotten about the car by then, he was so delighted with his fancy new Packard. When he heard the Auburn was fixed, he said he didn’t care, he didn’t want the car anymore, and he was going to tell Cueball he could have it for a hundred bucks. I said at that price I’d buy it myself. My brother Fred’s beat-up old Chevy was on its last legs and he was in bad need of a better car.

  Sold to Mr. Pierpont for a C-note, Red said.

  The title to the sedan was in its glove box, and Cueball assured me he could have it put in Fred’s name with no problem. I thanked him and said I’d send the money for the repair work, then called Fred and told him he now owned a new Auburn and all he had to do was get Dad to drive him to Terre Haute to pick it up. Fred was tickled pink but said Dad was under the weather with a bad cold and Mom would take him to Terre Haute. My mother came on the line to say hello, and I told her I wanted to pay a visit. She said no, the cops were still watching the place, to wait till she gave me the all-clear.

  Three days later Cueball telephoned to say that my mother and Fred were on their way back to Ohio with the Auburn, but not without running into a little trouble first. My mother had told Cueball not to say anything about the matter, but he didn’t want me to hear about it from somebody else and get mad at him for not having told me.

  What happened was that in addition to Ohio cops, some of Matt Leach’s men had been keeping an eye on my parents’ house too. When my mother and Fred drove off to go get the Auburn, the Leach men tailed them into Indiana and all the way to Terre Haute in the belief that they were being led to me. When everybody arrived at Cueball’s, the cops barged in and searched the place from top to bottom, then arrested Mom and Fred and Cueball and hauled them off to jail. A few hours later Leach himself showed up and released them and apologized to my mother, saying it had all been a bad misunderstanding. Cueball said my mother used some unladylike language on Leach and told him he deserved to get cancer for persecuting her son. Cueball wanted me to understand that my mom hadn’t been harmed.

  I said he’d done the right thing to let me know and asked if he knew where Leach was.

  He’d heard him say he was going back to his headquarters in Indianapolis.

  Mary was sitting in a chair across from me, and my face probably showed what I was feeling because she looked alarmed and asked what was wrong. John and Billie had gone out for a late breakfast and hadn’t come home yet. I went in the bedroom and holstered the .45 under my arm and the .38 on my right hip and put on my coat. I took the .30–06 Enfield from the closet and strapped it into a suit bag and put a full five-round clip into the bag too. I told Mary I had to go to Indianapolis, and she said she was coming with me. I said no she wasn’t and she said to try and stop her. I was in no mood to argue so I let her suit herself.

  I didn’t say anything during the three-and-a-half-hour drive. I think Mary talked every now and then but I wasn’t listening even a little bit and couldn’t have told you then or now a word of what she said. I wasn’t thinking of anything except Matt Leach having abused my mother and the pleasure it was going to give me to kill him.

  We got to Indy at midafternoon. There was a hotel directly across the street from a municipal building annex that contained the headquarters of the Indiana State Police. I parked in the lot behind the hotel and got the suit bag from the backseat and we went in and I booked us a room on the third floor, facing the annex.

  The window gave me a clear view of the three doors to the state police offices. If Leach was in there, it was ten to one he’d come out through one of those doors. And if he wasn’t there, that was okay too—I’d wait in that room until he showed up the following day or the day after that or whenever he finally did.

  I took the Enfield out of the suit bag and pulled the bolt open and set the clip in place and thumbed all five rounds into the magazine, then tossed the empty clip back into the suit bag and slid the bolt home to chamber a bullet. I positioned a chair near the window but far enough back from it so that the rifle muzzle could rest on the sill without jutting out into public view.

  And then I waited for Leach to come out.

  Maybe Mary had been talking all along, but like I said, I don’t remember. I didn’t really hear anything she said until I was watching for Leach. I kept my eyes on the office doors while she sat on the bed and spoke to me in a low voice, spoke low and with restraint and a little nervously, the way you might talk to a large growling dog, or to some guy standing on a window ledge twenty floors up.

  She talked about how shooting him wasn’t a smart thing to do, how she understood why I wanted to kill him but he wasn’t worth it, how maybe we’d be able to get away before every state cop in that building came charging into the hotel but the odds were they’d kill us both before we
made it halfway across the lobby. She talked about how everybody in the gang believed in me and even though nobody ever said it out loud the plain and simple truth was they all looked to me as the leader and trusted me never to put them in danger simply to settle some personal score and blah-blah-blah. She kept saying the same things over and over, phrasing them a little differently each time, but still the same things.

  And all the while I was watching cops going in and out of the annex, waiting for Leach to show himself.

  I don’t know how long we’d been there—twenty minutes? an hour and a half?—when one of the doors opened and out came two guys in suits and one of them was him.

  I leaned forward and snugged the rifle butt into my shoulder and placed my cheek lightly against the stock and directly behind the humpback sight. He even did me the favor of stopping on the walkway to light a cigarette, making a still target of himself.

  I laid the front sight directly over his heart and my finger tightened on the trigger.

  That’s when Mary said: He’ll never know it was you.

  Leach started walking again and I slowly swiveled the barrel on the sill to keep the sight blade on him.

  What satisfaction could there be in killing somebody, Mary said, if he never knew what hit him or why.