The Red Storm (11 page)

“Search for what?” I asked.

“I dunno, maybe a map to where his boss is.”

“Are you playin' dense?”

“Hey, just shut up and do as you're told!”

I didn't bother arguing it out with him. I walked through the house, which had pine floors and a twelve-foot ceiling. The rooms were built behind each other in single file like a fire drill line-up. I went through all of them and found nothing. At the utility room, I came upon drippage that was seeping out of a crack that went into the attic. A single cord hung down. I tugged it and released the upper hatch. There was a tumble and the body of a man came plummeting to the floor. He was young, in his early twenties, with blond hair and an athletic build. He'd been shot in the side of the head with a small-caliber gun. It looked like the barrel had been pressed against his skin, leaving a burn impression of it behind. He was in a state of full rigor mortis, to the extent that you could probably balance him out on a chair.

Ranalli had heard the noise and he came in with Tommy.

“What the hell is this?” Ranalli asked.

I didn't say anything.

Ranalli removed his handkerchief and went through the dead man's pockets, taking out a wallet, rolling papers, tobacco, and a comb. He flipped the wallet open and whistled. “This guy been stuffin' flatfoots in his attic. His ID says he's with the PD.”

Sarcastically, I said, “That's perfect.”

The sound of far-off sirens came.

“We gotta get. Tommy, you and Jackson move the cars down behind us. Fletcher and I will tidy up and take the back out and cut through and meet you at Alix Street.”

Tommy left, and Ranalli went through the motions of wiping all the doors and everything we touched down with his handkerchief. We went out the back and onto a side path and through people's property until we got out onto Alix. The rumbling of emergency sirens got louder as we got up to the waiting automobiles.

“Tommy, you ride back with Jackson,” Ranalli said, as he got behind the wheel of the Deuce. I took the passenger seat as he revved up its flathead engine and popped it into gear.

“This bus got some power, right,” Ranalli said as he steered south on Elmira Avenue. “Had a mechanic do some cylinder boring to the engine and altered the stroke of the crankshaft. This heap can now do over a hundred easy.”

He proved that by getting the machine up to near eighty. There was a prowl car waiting at the corner of Eliza Street. Ranalli punched it and passed the cop at close to ninety. Ranalli had cleared through three blocks by the time the radio car pulled out and hit its lights.

“Them cops better start gettin' better machines than them Model A's,” Ranalli said, making a right on Homer and then a left on Verret.

“This thing can't outrun a radio,” I said. “Better hope he ain't radioing in for a roadblock and we find ourselves getting boxed in.”

“Stop sweatin' it,” Ranalli said. “I been doin' this song and dance with the law since Prohibition. I had to drive the big freights myself. Couldn't trust them drivers not to drink the stuff and then go ridin' their rigs up the side of a building. Only took losin' one shipment for me to put an end to it, see. You ain't gonna get good gamblin' when the joint is dry.”

He made two right turns, first on Kepler and then Amelia before he made a left onto First Street. We made the ferry before it cast off. Few commuters were on board, but more important, none of them were police. With the car in idle, we sat and smoked our tobacco in quiet at first.

“Wish I didn't have to drop that mug,” Ranalli said. “Was hopin' to get to the bottom of this. See what Val was plannin' by comin' here.”

“Was mighty convenient that you did drop him, since you can't go about questioning a corpse,” I said.

“What are you getting' at?”

“You tell me, looks to me you got it all figured out.”

Ranalli grimaced. “Maybe what all them people say is right, you shines ain't made for the smart work.”

“People around here say the same about wops, so what does that tell you?”

Ranalli grunted. “That's only because they're still blaming us Italians for that superintendent of police Hennessy getting killed. There ain't no shortage of wiseasses that's got to ask me ‘Who killed the chief?'”

“Well, who did?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know? I can tell you it wasn't them nineteen Italians they arrested for it. They were framed up all the way, see, but that didn't stop them White Leaguers from lynching them in their own jail cells.”

“It happens to the best of us,” I said.

Ranalli said nothing. When the ferry reached the landing, he took Jackson to St. Charles and let me off.

“Be sure to reintroduce me to that harp pal of yours workin' down at the station,” Ranalli said.

I slammed the door on him, and watched as he peeled up the street. I took the St. Charles streetcar to where it dropped me off at Canal on the outskirts of the Quarter. By foot, I went the rest of the way. Ducking down a secluded side street, I emptied Jackson's .32 of its bullets. I wiped it clean with my handkerchief and stuffed it into a trash can before continuing on.

An unsettling breeze passed through the night as I made my way to my flat, the kind of breeze locals say happens just before the hurricane hits.

The courtyard to my apartment was empty except for a few tenants smoking on their front balconies. They paid no attention to me. I paid no attention to them. It took longer than normal to make it up the long white rickety steps to my flat. Opening the door was no easier, but I managed. Soon as I got in, I called Zella.

“Where you been?” she demanded. “I'm paying good money for you to watch over me, and you ain't even around.”

“I haven't even seen any of this good money you speak of, outside the little you gave for expenses,” I said.

“Is that what this is all about?”

“No. I got caught up in something.”

“Better not be a dame.”

“It isn't.”

“Good. I'd thrown you out on your ear if that was the reason.”

“It's not.”

“What was it then?”

“I'd rather not talk about it.”

“Men!”

She hung up.

*   *   *

I awoke early and headed to the Saint-Pierre Boxing Gym on Rampart Street.

The gym was notorious for being owned by Travis Richmond, an aged veteran of the bare-knuckles days of fighting, who always took it upon himself to lecture up-and-comers on how they got it easy.

“You kids fighting with your twelve-ounce gloves. All I see in the ring now is a couple of girls having themselves a pillow fight.”

Richmond was too set in his way for it to occur to him that the use of gloves made the sport more dangerous because boxers now aimed at opponents' heads, an area bare-knuckle fighters avoided to preserve their hands, opting more for cushioned body shots.

I changed and headed straight for the leather speed bag hanging off a wooden platform that looked like a wagon wheel. I always found bag work the best way to clear my head and gather my thoughts.

The speed bag was all about rhythm and listening to the sound it made. Not too hard but a nice relaxed speed. I alternated hands in a right-right-right-left-left-left rhythm and then used both hands.

My thoughts flashed through my head at the speed of my hands. The whole works Ranalli had me involved in last night was as staged as vaudeville. He wanted me to find that dead bull up in the attic.

Ranalli's men probably were watching the place and seen that flatfoot go in the house and never come out. He brought me along because he figured I'd spill it to the cops. He probably thought it'd be mighty easy to get the cops to play along with runnin' Valentino, or whatever the hell his real name was, out of town if he killed a cop.

I smiled and speeded up my rhythm. Ranalli was playing chess while Valentino and the rest of us were playing checkers.

*   *   *

I got back to my flat to a ringing phone. It was Brawley in a mood.

“We got a call last night about a gun being fired on Peter Street, and found a stiff and one of our own dead,” he said.

I played dumb. “Any idea who did it?” I asked.

“One of our radio cars said he saw a make boring down a street near the scene that fit Ranalli's bucket. We already talked with him, and he was out at some whorehouse with a roomful of witnesses.”

“Those aren't real legit witnesses,” I said.

“Yeah, well, it's good enough for the brass. Ranalli said it must've been the number that blew up his joint. It seems to check out, since the stiff was just ID'd as some ape from Brooklyn.”

“Who was the flatfoot you found dead?” I asked.

“Monroe Flori. He was some kid that was workin' a simple patrol beat until he stepped up and volunteered for the unit that was handlin' this whole mess with Ranalli.”

“That's a bad way to go out,” I said.

“Yeah,” Brawley said. There was an underlying tension in his voice. “Guess what else the patrol said when he radioed in seeing Ranalli's car? Said he thought he saw a big Negro riding shotgun.”

“There are a lot of big black men in this city,” I said.

“You are really startin' to piss me off, Fletcher!” he growled. “Were you there last night?”

“If I give you the up and up, and you get the idea of bringing me in on it, I'll play the part everyone expects me to play, the dumb colored man that don't know nothing about nothing.”

“You'll also be the dumb colored man rotting in a ten-by-ten cell, too,” he said.

“Okay, then I wasn't there, and I don't know nothin',” I said.

“Goddamnit, just give me the dope! I ain't gonna bring you in unless you played a major part in it, see!”

“Fair enough,” I said.

I gave him the whole yarn. When I finished, Brawley said, “And you think Ranalli set it all up?”

“Search me. He wanted me to go through the house, like he was expecting me to find something.”

“It don't matter. He didn't kill Flori, the mug gettin' shoved into a drawer did.”

“What do you know about a guy named Valentino?” I asked.

“Some beauty actor that all the ladies would get their undergarments wet over.”

“Not that Valentino.”

“Only other Valentino I've heard of is some ugly mug that runs numbers in New York.”

“How'd you hear about him?” I asked.

“He tried to get Ranalli in on doing the numbers racket here, but at the time Ranalli was being brought up on racketeering charges.”

“Apparently, he went after Ranalli at his joint, and the goons that killed Flori were likely workin' for him,” I said.

“Then he's a dumb Dora,” Brawley said. “Whoever this Valentino is, him and his mugs came waltzing into town two days ago. We found his stronghold at some run-down dive on Chartres and Poland Avenue, near the wharf. A lot of them are holed up in the building, but there are over a dozen of them spread throughout the city, taking up rooms in hotels and the likes. We're keepin' an eye on them until the chief gives the green light to run the carpetbaggers out.”

“Was Flori watchin' the goon on Peter Street?” I asked.

“Yup. Now that he's dead, I doubt the chief is goin' to have us sit around and wait anymore.”

“That's what Ranalli wanted,” I said.

“The hell with what Ranalli wanted! We were going to toss them out anyway. The only thing that's changed is they may not all be alive to get back to where they belong.”

 

CHAPTER 9

It was easy to spot the building on Chartres. It was the one with two New York apes standing outside of it in heavy wool herringbone overcoats and expensive suits. The building was an old four-story Philadelphia pressed-brick apartment, now abandoned. Its cylindrical cast-iron galleries were red with rust and currently being used as a premier perching spot for the city's overpopulation of pigeons.

The two men didn't pay much attention to me until I got out of the car and stepped closer to the building.

“No vacancies, so you might as well beat it,” one of them said.

“Is your boss up there?” I asked, ignoring his remark.

He didn't answer, but something caught my eye up in one of the windows. A figure looked down but quickly moved out of sight.

“I guess he is,” I said. “Tell him William Fletcher wants to see him.”

“What about?” the other goon said.

“Until I speak to him myself, it's about me wanting to sell some municipal bonds, get what I'm saying?”

“I get it. A wiseass,” he said. “This city is full of 'em. They don't show that kind of lip where I'm from.”

“Where you from?” I asked.

“Little Italy, Manhattan,” he said.

“I didn't know Little Italy was still there. I thought the Chinese sent all you dagos running to Brooklyn.”

The other one said, “Hey, I know who this coon is now. He used to be the number one black heavyweight contender until he dropped off the face of the earth.”

“I don't care who he is. He better shove off before I find the nearest branch and lynch him off it!”

I was about to leave when another man came out the door. “Boss wants to see him,” he said.

The two guards stood with dumb looks on their faces as I followed the other man into a freight elevator with an iron roll-down cage. The makeshift shimmied and clanked all the way to the top as if it was hoisting up a full-grown elephant. It dumped us out on the top level and the man led me to one of the main rooms on the floor.

There, a group of tough guys stood around a man in a deep chair. The man's grill had been burned. Long blond strands of coarse hair crept down his damaged face. In his lap was the kind of blonde you expect to be with such a crowd. She was very little, wearing a ridiculous red and black saloon girl dress with a lace-up bodice and fringe trim. It was the kind of dress worn by a woman starved for attention.