Avon Calling! Season One

by Hayley Camille

  By Donny’s men.

  Jacob grabbed the jar and raced to the telephone in the living room. It was askew, the receiver dangling on the floor. He picked it up and shuttered the cradle to reset it. His finger trembled as he dialed his own number at the station, desperately hoping he would find Officer Parker on the receiving end before his shift finished for the evening.

  The line picked up.

  “Parker!” Jacob practically yelled. “Betty Jones is in trouble! All of them are!”

  “Sir –?”

  “No time to explain. Gather as many officers on the street as you can find. Armed but no sirens. I’ll meet you there –” Jacob nearly dropped the phone in his desperation to be gone already.

  “Where, Sergeant? Where are we going?” Parker asked.

  Jacob looked grimly at the jar of heroin in his hand.

  “St. Augustine’s Home for Unwanted Boys,” he said. “The basement.”

  Episode Ten

  Lullaby to a Jitterbug

  The orphanage basement crackled with the heavy weight of anticipation. Death seemed to permeate every inch of the concrete floor and crept, festering, beneath the peeling layers of paint on the walls.

  Not fifteen feet in front of Betty, Donny held a loaded gun to her husband’s head. George himself, was sickeningly pale, his eyes wide and lips trembling as two goons held him up under the arms from behind. He was like a mouse in a den of lions. Absurdly easy prey.

  Donny’s face was red and gloating. His eyes held the malicious glint of a man who saw himself already the victor of a grueling opponent. Betty stared right back at him, every inch of her body aching beyond reason. There was nothing that Betty wanted more desperately, than to eviscerate the man where he stood and watch his life dissipate in the throes of the savagery he had nurtured for so many years. The cold muzzle of Felix’s pistol pushed harder against her neck. Betty didn’t move. It seemed she was out of options.

  “I’m not the only one, you know,” she said, quietly. “If I don’t bring you down, someone else will. It’s inevitable, Donny. There’s a price on your head.”

  “A price on my head?” He sneered. “And what am I worth to the fools that don’t like the way I run this city? Thousands?” His eyes flashed in dark humor.

  “Oh, you’re worth thousands, alright,” Betty replied. “Thousands of foolish young men kept safe from your poisoned powders. Thousands of families who won’t have to beg for mercy from your debt-collectors. A thousand tears saved from every widow whose husband is dragged from the Hudson with your name on his dead lips.

  A dark cloud drew across Donny’s face. “Is that right? And what am I worth to you, little Susie? What’s the price you’d pay to see me die?” He shot a look at the goon behind George, who jolted his captive to attention. George whimpered as the gun dug deeper into his temple. “Is this the price you’d pay? Your perfect husband? Well,” Donny looked over Betty’s shoulder to Felix, “at least we know he has life insurance.” The nine gunsels surrounding Donny, laughed.

  Betty took a deep breath, steeling her resolve. She willed her broken body to submit one last time to the fight, despite the pain it knew was coming. There would only be this one last chance to save her husband. And if death was coming for her, at least it would be swift. One more fight.

  “Oh, no,” Betty smiled, as the laughter died down. “George doesn’t need any life insurance – he has me.”

  Snap!

  Betty threw herself around, cracking Felix’s arm with her elbow as she spun. She tried to wrestle the pistol from his hands, but his grip was too tight. Felix struggled against her as Betty maneuvered him forward instead, taking control of his aim and forcing his finger down onto the trigger.

  Bang!

  Donny’s own gun flew into the air as a bullet caught his fingers, so close to George’s head that his hair ruffled.

  “Fucking bitch!” Donny screamed. He cradled his bleeding hand as the others dove for cover. Donny ran at Betty, incensed, as the others reappeared from behind broken crates and chairs, bullets flying. George had dropped to the ground and scuttled out of sight.

  Betty threw her full weight against Felix, smashing him backward onto the concrete and rolling them both across the floor as she tried to wrestle the gun from his hands. Felix forced himself on top of her, his gun securely lodged under her chin. He pulled the trigger.

  Click. No bullet discharged.

  Betty grinned maliciously. She smacked the pistol from Felix’s grip.

  “Looks like you’re out of luck,” she spat, forcing him underneath as she rolled again, determined to keep moving to avoid the rain of bullets that ricocheted off the concrete all around them. Felix fought violently as they rolled, blood spraying the grey concrete in equal measure from them both. She whipped a paring blade from her garter and stabbed it down hard. Felix rolled again, and the blade snapped against the concrete instead of his flesh. Betty swiped with the broken handle, slicing his arm. Felix cursed and scrambled to his feet. He dodged and ran, disappearing behind the detritus of the room. Betty pushed up to follow. A hard blow knocked her back down. Donny had thrown himself at her, falling on top like a paunch, dead weight. He pushed up and away, to his feet.

  “You stupid, little –” Slam! His gut swung as he kicked Betty hard in the middle. She heaved on the floor, forcing oxygen back into her lungs and struggled to pull herself up. No air. The room swum dangerously. Again and again, Donny kicked her as she tried to rise, sending her crashing back to the floor.

  Betty rolled far enough away to find a moment’s relief and staggered to her feet. She turned to face Donny, blood running down her chin and the metallic taste of it in her mouth. With a screech of fury, she rushed headlong into him.

  Smash!

  Together they fell back over an upturned crate, landing on one of the goons shooting lead from his hidden shadow. It was Guanting Wang, one of the Chinese triad Donny had drawn in on a favor. The others stuttered their gunfire to a halt. The risk of hitting Donny was, apparently, too high.

  I’ll take that risk, Betty thought, rearing her fist high for a punch. But the Chinese had other ideas. Guanting recovered his footing. He rounded back and belted her from above. Infuriated by the interruption, Betty twisted around from her place on the ground.

  Smack! With an upper-cut to the jaw, Guanting’s head snapped back. He hit the concrete with a blow that knocked the lights, and life, from him.

  Betty turned her attention back to Donny, who was still writhing underneath her. His arms were pinned either side of his body by her knees. Betty looked down at him, every synapse of her mind crackling with memories, years of hate welling up inside her heart. She smiled, that cold, cruel smile she had worn so many times before. Donny’s eyes grew wide with sudden fear.

  “You’re a very unattractive man, you know, darling. I think it’s time for a makeover.”

  Betty pounded Donny’s face, feeling a rush of vengeance flood her veins. Her fists were relentless. Soon, his struggles became weak and his head began to loll. Betty reached inside his mind. His thoughts had begun to fade. He was barely alive. Death was at hand. She smashed him one more time and heard the back of his head resound on the concrete. A half-dozen hands grabbed and pulled at her, dragging Betty backward off his body.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” she yelled, kicking out. The three men holding her fell back as she spun to face them. A split-second assessment before she moved.

  One. Vito Negri, the chef, known for his meticulous butchery skills when disposing of Donny’s ‘leftovers’.

  Two. Raoul Serafini – a big-name jazz player whose double-bass was often rehoused to hide a Tommy that served up bullets instead of a tune. Both enforcers for the family business.

  The third. Another ring-in, Tao Li. He was unfamiliar, so Betty dug into his mind as all three launched themselves at her at once. She fought back hard. The Chinese was ambitious, barely aware of the other two alongside him, attacking Betty as new shots rang out from the
cowards left crouching behind the broken crates. Exhausted, she pushed further into his memories. This must be personal. She ducked a roundhouse kick aimed at her head.

  “You’re good darling,” Betty gasped, countering his blows, her suspicions confirmed. “Almost as good as your brother was. Nice to see you’ve taken better care of your teeth too.” Her mind flashed back to the mute with a golden smile in the basement of Kitty’s Kat House. Tao grimaced and struck again with renewed enthusiasm. “Pity you won’t need them anymore,” she added. Betty whipped the final knife from her garter and dragged it across his throat. Tao sank, gurgling, to the floor. “Your poor mother,” she sighed with chagrin, as she swung back around and tore a pistol from Vito’s hand, snapping his wrist in the process.

  Vito fell back with a cry. Leaping forward to grab him by the shirt before he scarpered, Betty hauled the chef across the room, using his body as her own shield, straight into a fresh rain of bullets pelting from the far end. Betty tossed Vito’s body over the crates, sending the trigger-happy goon crashing backwards under his comrade.

  Serafini had fallen back to become another discordant note within the nightmarish clamor of the basement. Every nerve in Betty’s body was screaming. Every thump of her heart throbbed down her spine, sending jolts of pain into her fingers and toes. Her gifts were waning. It was becoming so hard to keep fighting. But still, she struggled on, ducking and rolling against the tirade of ammunition. Only six ring-ins left to kill.

  “Let him go!” a man suddenly shouted, over the din. “Right. This. Minute!”

  It was George. He was standing unsteadily behind a mess of broken furniture, pointing a trembling pistol – Donny’s – over Betty’s shoulder to the room beyond. Betty spun around, following his aim.

  Felix was making his way across the room, shuffling slowly backward. He was only meters away. Sam was clutched in one arm, in front of his own chest. There was a knife at the boy’s throat. Felix’s eyes snapped to Betty. His lips were closed tight, but his thoughts were practically screaming.

  “I know you can hear me, you crazy broad,” Felix screeched inside his mind. His pupils drilled into her own. “I want out. You’re gonna let me leave this room, or the kid gets it.”

  He was inching his way toward the internal stairs that led back up to the orphanage. Sam’s face was white and tear-streaked, his little mind whirring with terror. He looked up at Betty helplessly.

  “I’m warning you,” George yelled, “you low-life scourge on society!” His brow furrowed in resolve, even as his nerves and hands shook.

  “Let me deal with this, George,” Betty yelled back, desperately grateful to see him alive but devastated he’d made himself a target once again by standing up. The six remaining hitmen were still dotted around the room, hidden. They fell quiet, watching as Donny’s newest right-hand man, his coldest dispatch, stood alone against the woman Donny had paid so dearly to see killed. Now, it seemed, that Felix was trying to run. The thought traitor echoed throughout the room, filthy and dripping with resentment. No one moved.

  “You kidnapped my wife,” George yelled again, “and now you’re threatening an innocent boy! You should be ashamed!” George lifted the gun higher, apparently searching for a clear shot. Felix bent closer to the nine-year-old, his knife pressing into the boy’s skin. Sam gave a whimpered cry and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “You won’t shoot, ya nancy!” Felix shouted back. “I know all about you, George Jones. You’ve never had your hands dirty in ya life! You don’t have it in you!”

  George’s face burned. “I may be out of my depth here, in – whatever the devil is going on – but I’m not a coward! I won’t let you hurt him.”

  Felix sneered and began to drag Sam backward once more, never dropping Betty’s eyes.

  “Help!” Sam squealed. His little fingers clawed at Felix’s arm, but the scarred hatchetman was immeasurably stronger. Behind Felix, Betty saw a shadow flit between the crates. She smiled.

  “Well, I think you’ve underestimated me, old boy!” George cried. “Like I –” he looked at Betty with a nervous smile, “like I think I underestimated my wife.” Betty returned his smile like a beacon. Felix looked between them. He dashed backward, dragging Sam.

  Bang! Bang!

  The pistol in George’s hand echoed through the basement and he jolted back from the unexpected kick.

  Chaos broke.

  Felix fell to the floor, clutching his leg. George rushed forward and heaved Sam from beneath the man’s sprawling body. The torrent of gunfire began once more. Bullets sped toward Betty as she ran at Felix who was scrambling to his feet, still clutching his knife. George bent down over Sam, dragging the boy away from the gunfire toward the last pile of supply crates left standing in the center of the room. The bullets suddenly changed course. A new target burst into the fray.

  Jacob leapt from behind a mass of smashed furniture. Now fully exposed in the vast room, his Colt boldly picked off the remaining gunsels.

  “Betty!” he shouted.

  Betty jumped a low lunge from Felix’s blade as she closed in on him. Jacob was yanking Betty’s carving knife from a body beside the broken chair George had been tied to. With one hand still shooting, he aimed the knife directly at Betty’s heart and flung it hard. The carving knife flew across the room toward her, spinning as it went.

  Betty stepped aside.

  In one swift move, she forced Felix’s arm down and spun him around. Betty caught the flying blade by the handle and redirected it, slamming it between Felix’s shoulder blades.

  He fell, dead.

  “Move!” Jacob yelled, as he took down a gunsel triggering for her head. Betty ran for cover. A great yawn of buckling timber shuddered through the room. Betty spun to follow the noise.

  “George!”

  An avalanche of crates was crumbling above the spot George was crouched, shielding Sam from the gunfire. The crates lurched precariously. George caught Betty’s eyes and realized, too late, the danger they were in. He grabbed the boy and threw him forward, clear of the crates, as they came crashing down. A heavy wooden corner caught George’s head and he disappeared underneath it. Betty was already running.

  “George!” Betty cried again, heaving crates out of the way to make a path. With a desperate effort, she dragged her husband free. “My poor, poor darling,” Betty hushed, cradling his unconscious body and stroking his bloody forehead. She leant over him, tears running down her cheeks as Sam watched silently from beyond the rubble. She looked up. The child was terrified. Betty held out her arm, and Sam scuttled over to her.

  “You have to help me, Sam.” Carefully, she moved George’s head from her own lap to the boy’s.

  “It’s nearly over, I promise,” Betty said, wiping Sam’s face with the back of her hand. “Will you stay with him for me? Just a little longer? I’ll make sure nobody hurts you.”

  Sam nodded, his face as white as a sheet.

  “Just stay quiet,” Betty whispered.

  Somewhere, Jacob was fighting hard. A man’s body crashed into the space where the packing table had once been. Above the staccato of gun shots, fewer now, there was a deafening bang, as if someone was battering the chained garage doors at the end of the basement from outside. With each thunderous crash, the walls rang out and plaster dusted from the ceiling like snow.

  “Jacob!” Betty yelled, running back to the center of the room. She dropped to the floor as a bullet whizzed over her head. Anticipating another, Betty ran straight for the shooter instead. Serafini, the musician. Betty leapt over the refuse he was hiding behind and landed in a crouch behind him.

  “Play this!” she grunted and snapped his neck with both hands. He rolled to the floor. Close by, a man yelled in pain. Betty jumped to her feet.

  “Jacob!” Betty dodged debris, searching for him. He was on the ground, clutching his arm.

  “Over there,” Jacob winced, nodding to his left. “There’s only one left and I’m out of bullets.”

  B
etty nodded grimly and stood up. A single bullet ricocheted off the concrete by Jacob’s leg. The crashing sound from outside was getting louder. Beyond the carnage, the garage doors were straining inward with each thud.

  “Time to come out, little mouse,” Betty sang. She heard a shuffle. “Is that you Keenan Carey?” she said softly, tapping into the fugitive’s mind. “Are you scared, dear? Are you regretting your life choices? Perhaps if you pop out here we can talk about it – see if we can come to some kind of understanding?”

  There was a scraping sound and the man suddenly stood up, his hands above his head.

  “I wanna talk about it,” he said with an Irish lilt, against the pounding background din. He stumbled forward, over the debris at his feet. “I’m out. I don’t wanna do it no more.”

  “Mmm,” Betty said, lightly, stepping toward him. She knew she looked utterly atrocious. Her clothes were torn, her hair disheveled and her body bruised, swollen and splattered with blood. “You know, I’ve been told I’m a very understanding person.”

  A flicker of cautious relief crossed the man’s face. Betty drew closer, until she was only a foot away. She lay a reassuring hand on Keenan’s bicep. He was at least a foot taller than she, and well built.

  “I’m quite understanding, in fact,” Betty said, gently. “You know, I see things a little differently to most people. I understand their motivations – why they do what they do. Take you, for instance. I understand you needed a job. I understand Donny thought highly of your connections with the IRA. I understand you wanted to use your hard-won skills – make a name for yourself here. After all, there’s no harm in a little pride in one’s accomplishments, is there?”

  Keenan furrowed his brow and offered a nervous smile. “That’s right. It’s my job, innit?”

  “Of course, just a job,” Betty purred. “And I understand you killed six men in your first year working with Marco. Impressive. Then another five, out on your own. Six if you include the collateral. Just doing your job, though, of course.”