Road to Purgatory

by Max Allan Collins

  “If our triggermen rush the police station,” O’Sullivan said, “then every Looney enemy on both sides of the river’ll have all they need to end our endeavor, forever.”

  Davis frowned, his breath steaming through flared nostrils like an angry bull. “Goddamnit. You’re right, Mike. Schriver’d be the kingpin of the Tri-Cities. But he’s killin’ John in there!” O’Sullivan walked down to the sidewalk, Davis following. “Emeal, if Harry kills John, it’ll only be ’cause it got out of hand. He means to take our friend to the woodshed. Take him down as many pegs as pegs there are.”

  They walked across the street and faced each other.

  Davis said, “John may not survive.”

  “That’s true. Schriver’s risking that—you know how cozy the Old Man is with Chicago. Torrio and Capone would come down on this town with biblical fire. When the smoke cleared, Schriver would be dead, and some Chicago pawn would have the local throne.”

  Davis was shaking his head. “Mike—I never heard you talk like this. You always seem like you’re just…in the background; but you been listenin’, ain’t ya?”

  “I haven’t been asleep.”

  Providing O’Sullivan with applause, the crowd a block over roared.

  O’Sullivan began to walk toward Market Square, and Davis put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “Mike, I parked down the other way.”

  “Never mind the car. We’re going over to the rally.”

  “Why?”

  O’Sullivan flashed the derby-sporting gangster a small nasty smile; put a brotherly hand on the man’s shoulder.

  “If an angry local populace rushes city hall, Emeal, seeking release of their champion, John Looney…serving that recall on His Honor a bit early…then we’d have our way, wouldn’t we? And take no blame.”

  Davis had the expression of a man who’d been slapped; but then he grinned, the gold teeth gleaming. “You ain’t been asleep, Mike. Not in the least bit.”

  Connor Looney, on the sidelines, was watching the socialist speaker, Gardner, further inflame the flock. A skinny man with a narrow face and sharp features, Gardner wore a black suit with string tie; with his Lincolnesque features, his itinerant preacher air, the orator played the crowd like a goddamn nickel kazoo.

  “It is not enough to remove Harry M. Schriver,” Gardner was saying in a spike-edged baritone, “we must look to the fearless newspaperman who has sought to bring our besmirched city back within the bounds of peace, propriety, and happiness. The next mayor of Rock Island, my friends, must be…John…P… Looney!”

  As fists were raised, shaking wildly, and whistles and squeals and yells swam a sea of applause, Connor revised his opinion of throwing in with these socialists. The speaker was at once a rabble-rouser, full of fiery idealism; and yet just the kind of pushover they could control. The previous speaker, McCaskrin, had toed the Looney line, but stopped short of endorsing the Old Man as the replacement candidate.

  This skinny clown had gone all the way, however, due to a whisper (and probably a few bucks) from Frank Kelly, who could be glimpsed hovering near one side of the platform.

  Then Connor noted a figure moving through the crowd, against the tide: it was that nigger Davis! Seeking out the Looney shills dotted around the square; Davis would pause to speak to each of them, receiving nods in return, and the shills were then moving out through the crowd themselves, animatedly talking to rally attendees as they went.

  Connor dropped his cigarette to the pavement, frowning. What was up, anyway?

  Then he saw another familiar figure—Michael O’Sullivan—moving through the bobbing heads up near the pump-station platform. Had his father made a last-minute decision to speak to this gathering, himself?

  But then he spotted that plump leprechaun Frank Kelly going up the side stairs toward the platform, followed by Mike, who stopped the lawyer, whispered to him, Kelly nodding, only to continue on up. Then Mike slipped back down the stairs and was swallowed up by the throng.

  Frowning in thought, Connor was watching the stage when he realized Emeal Davis was again moving through the crowd, coming toward him now; Davis had an intense expression, and Connor immediately knew something big was afoot.

  Quickly Davis filled Connor in on the situation at city hall, and told him that even now the Old Man was being beaten to a pulp by Schriver and his bully boys.

  “Those pricks!” Connor said, hands tightened into balls, face flushed red. “Let’s storm the fuckin’ place!”

  Davis said, patting the air with his hands like a damn minstrel, “Take it easy, boyo—that’s exactly what we plan to do. But Mike’s got a way to do it, a special way…”

  “Mike? Who died and put him in charge? With my pop in custody, that makes me the man who makes the decisions! Haul Mike’s ass over here, and I’ll tell him what to do.”

  “Connor, it’s a good plan…”

  “I’m not ‘Connor’ to you, Sambo. It’s ‘Mr. Looney’ or you can get your black ass out of my family’s business.”

  Davis swallowed. “I know you’re upset…but this plan is a good one, and it’s already in motion.”

  And it was, too: on the stage, Gardner had interrupted his spiel momentarily while Frank Kelly whispered into his ear. Nodding, the scarecrow-esque Gardner raised his hands as if the victim of a holdup; but the crowd, milling and murmuring during the lull in the speech, hushed.

  “I am given to understand,” the sharp voice said, in crisp single words that shot verbal bullets across Market Square, “that the mayor has taken John Looney into custody!”

  A wave of discontent rumbled across the throng. Heads shook in distressed disbelief.

  Davis said to Connor, “Just listen and watch.”

  “Not on any criminal charge, mind you,” the speaker went on, “but virtually kidnapped—and John Looney is as we gather here in peaceful, lawful assembly being beaten behind closed doors at city hall!”

  Cries of “No! No!” went up, interspersed with, “Bastards!” “Sons of bitches!” and Connor—his opinion swaying—watched with satisfaction as the crowd began to transform itself into a mob. Really quite entertaining…

  And now the speaker drove in the final nail: “Yes—just one block from here…” And he pointed. “…your candidate for mayor is being thrashed within an inch of his life by His Dishonor, Harry Schriver, and his crooked thugs who call themselves police!”

  Connor thought, For a goddamn socialist, this guy takes orders well.

  And now, all around, voices were raised: “Let’s go! Let’s save him!” Still others: “Save John Looney!” And (best of all, to Connor’s taste): “Hang Harry Schriver!”

  That these “spontaneous” eruptions came from the Looney men sprinkled throughout the gathering revealed how effective Mike’s plan had been, how quickly he and Davis had passed the word and organized this attack. Even Connor could see that.

  But he couldn’t let Davis know, so he said, feigning displeased reluctance, “Well, it’s too late now—we’ll go with it! Keep stirring up the shit. I’ll do the same.”

  Davis nodded and disappeared in the crowd, which was already swarming toward the business district between them and city hall. God, it was great! Connor watched with delight as the crowd of appleknockers and dirty necks turned from shuffling discontent into full-bore hatred and malice.

  The ungeneraled underclass army marched, their war cries guttural, nonverbal howls mostly, the injustices they’d suffered at various hands boiling over within them into the rage they’d forced down for so long, and were all too eager to spill. Connor watched with glee as the men found impromptu weapons—bottles, rocks, boards. Still, it didn’t seem to the son of John Looney quite enough—not enough to pay Mayor Schriver back for disrespecting the Looneys, and not enough…well…fun.

  “Guns!” Connor yelled, pointing at a hardware store window. “Arm yourselves! There are cops in that building!”

  A gaggle of rabble surged forward, and Connor, laughing to
himself, stepped aside and watched as the window shattered under hurled rocks, and the door was battered down. He leaned against a wall half a block away while the unruly clodhoppers poured in and poured out of the hardware store, half-climbing over each other, shouting inanities, armed now with rifles and handguns they were loading on the run from boxes of ammunition they’d looted, and others—once the guns had run out—found pitchforks and wrenches and other tools easily turned toward destruction.

  The example of the hardware store inspired the hurling of bricks and rocks through other retail windows, for the sheer sweet hell of it; rioters were pulling down trolley lines, too, throwing rocks at streetcar conductors. Here and there were stalled automobiles, windows rolled up tight, the terrified eyes of passengers taking in the streaming madness all around. Not all the wrath was righteous, as some rioters began to loot, figures darting into the night with their spoils, away from those swarming toward city hall.

  Market Square had almost emptied out when fate did Connor a favor.

  Another figure lurked on the sidelines, just down the street from him, leaning against a building by the mouth of an alley: that kid with the birthmark and the shabby clothes. The boy would not likely be a Looney booster, not with what had happened to his sister at Helen Van Dale’s. No, the lad had come around out of curiosity, for the big show, and was getting a bigger eyeful than he’d anticipated.

  Connor glanced around. A few stragglers were still charging over toward city hall. A scattering of others around the hard-dirt, brochure-littered area, stood watching, rather stunned, the parade literally passing them by. For the most part, though, the square had been abandoned, as the mob moved on to city hall.

  The boy with the birthmark jumped when Connor stuck the gun in his side.

  The boy turned toward Connor, the light blue eyes wide, the mouth with its scummy teeth gaping. “You!”

  “Yeah, me, kid. Head down the alley.”

  “What?”

  “Do I stutter? Head the hell down. There’s a fence at the end. See if you can make it over.”

  “What…what do you mean…see if…”

  Connor cocked the .38 in his grasp; it was a tiny sound and yet so very loud.

  “I’m giving you a chance, kid. Run. Run down that alley and don’t come back. Don’t never threaten me again.”

  The boy shook his head, his hands grasped before him, pleadingly. “I was…I was just talkin’, mister. I was mad about my sister. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Run. Hell, you might make it. Do it now.”

  The boy’s face crinkled up, like he was going to cry, and then, from his dead stop, he bolted down the alley.

  Connor walked after him—not even particularly fast—and the kid was almost over the fence when Connor fired. The report of the .38 echoed off the brick of walls and paving, bouncing like an ever-diminishing ball; but these were only a handful of sounds, in a night filled with violent sounds, many so much louder.

  And the boy didn’t make any sound. Well, maybe a whimper. He just slid down the wooden fence, leaving a thin red trail, like a child’s crayon scrawl. He lay sprawled with his head against the fence, angled between garbage cans, and there wasn’t even a shudder of life leaving him—he’d been dead halfway down the fence.

  Connor knelt over the body, just to be sure.

  Dead, all right. Right through the pump…

  He got to his feet, grunting a humorless laugh. Stupid damn kid. That’s what he got, screwing with Connor Looney. Or maybe it was what his sister got, for screwing with Connor Looney…

  Connor grunted another laugh, this one mirthful.

  Then he turned and had a start—a figure was silhouetted at the alley’s mouth.

  “What the hell did you do?” Michael O’Sullivan demanded, stepping into a shaft of moonlight.

  Gun in hand but at his side, Connor walked forward, slowly. “It’s personal.”

  O’Sullivan met him halfway, footsteps clipclopping off the brick. “This was business, tonight. This is about saving your father’s life. Or aren’t you interested?”

  “Just keep it to yourself, Mike. What you saw. You don’t wanna know what it was about—trust me.”

  “Trust you? Sure. Why wouldn’t I trust you, Connor?”

  “You gonna tell my pop?”

  “Tell him what? That while he lay bleeding, you used this riot to cover up some personal score?”

  Connor shook his head, forcefully. “People’ll get hurt tonight. Shot. This kid may not be the only kill. Who’s to know?”

  O’Sullivan said nothing.

  “Swear you won’t tell my pop, Mike!” Connor shoved the gun in the other man’s chest.

  O’Sullivan swatted the gun from Connor’s hand like an annoying fly. The gun hit hard on the brick alley but luckily did not discharge.

  “What if your wife knew about things you done?” Connor said, backing up. He was afraid and trying not to cry. “Or your little boy, maybe!”

  O’Sullivan moved so quickly Connor didn’t see it coming, latching onto young Looney’s topcoat lapels and slamming him hard into a brick wall, making his teeth rattle.

  Nose to nose, O’Sullivan said to the trembling Connor, “Don’t ever bring my family into this. Ever. Or I’ll kill you. Understood?”

  “Y-yes…”

  O’Sullivan drew back a step but did not let go. “I won’t tell your father because it would break his heart to know what a vicious little coward his son is.”

  “I…I appreciate that, Mike…It’s…it’s white of you.”

  “I don’t know who that boy is or why you cut him down. But you will send ten thousand dollars of your money to his family, anonymous.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the price of my silence.”

  “…All right. All right—god-damnit!”

  “I want to see the cash, Connor. I want to see it go into the envelope. I want to see it mailed.”

  “Okay, okay!”

  O’Sullivan took another step back, his hands still on Connor’s lapels. “Now…if you don’t mind, I have to get over to city hall. Your old man’s ass needs saving.”

  And O’Sullivan again shoved Connor against the wall, and headed briskly out of the alley.

  But, as Connor was stooping to pick up the .38, O’Sullivan paused at the alley’s mouth to look back and say, “You might want to get over to city hall yourself and help keep the crowd stirred. Hanging around a murder scene is stupid, Connor…even for you.”

  And O’Sullivan was gone.

  Connor picked up the .38, shoved it in the holster under his arm, then bent over and put his hands on his knees and breathed deep, breathed deep again, and again.

  Fucker, Connor thought, and smiled. Got the best of you, you self-righteous fucker…

  Straightening, he glanced back at the crumpled birthmarked boy. “And you, punk. And you.”

  And Connor, walking with renewed confidence, strolled out across the square, heading over toward city hall, where it was getting pretty damn noisy.

  A disgusted O’Sullivan entered the Sherman Hotel and crossed quickly to the bank of telephone booths along the left-hand wall. Tumbleweed might have rolled between the overstuffed furniture and potted plants, so empty was the lobby.

  Behind the check-in desk, the skeletal clerk in bow tie and suspenders looked fidgety, fearing no doubt that the riot would spill inside; the clerk recognized O’Sullivan but said nothing, though his eyes followed the lobby’s only other inhabitant. The hotel’s coffee shop, the Java House—which served gin in its coffee cups—had shuttered, as had other speaks in the downtown district, afraid of the contagious chaos that had emerged from Market Square.

  Inside a booth, O’Sullivan dropped a nickel in and dialed a number that required referring to neither city phone directory nor his little black book (with the names and numbers of politicians and fixers, not skirts).

  John Looney’s top lieutenant knew the unlisted home phone number of Police Chief Tom C
ox by heart.

  O’Sullivan listened as the phone rang, going unanswered; he wouldn’t have been surprised if the thing had been off the hook, since Cox no doubt knew by now that rioters were at the gates of his castle, and wanted to stay well away.

  Tom Cox was a stocky sandy-haired copper who’d come up through the ranks. His reputation as a tough bull and an advocate of the third degree was epitomized by his favorite catchphrase: “Throw the bum in the slammer.”

  But shortly after achieving the position of chief, Cox became a John Looney associate, receiving a cut from all brothels, gambling, and bootlegging. Whores were the man’s weakness, and Helen Van Dale had enough on the chief to keep him in Looney’s control a few days past forever.

  A police chief in Rock Island could serve under any number of mayors; so a long-term relationship with Tom Cox had benefits beyond those of any mere office holder.

  Just when O’Sullivan was about to give up, a raspy voice answered: “Yeah, what? I’m busy!”

  “Tom, it’s Mike O’Sullivan. You know what’s going on down at city hall?”

  The response was weary and wry: “Recall rally’s gettin’ a little out of hand, I hear.”

  “Laugh it off if you like, Tom. But they broke into a couple hardware stores and helped themselves to guns and bullets. You’re minutes away from a shooting war.”

  “Christ…Well, if you think I’m drivin’ over there to have a little of it, Mike, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”

  O’Sullivan’s voice took on an edge. “Tom—did you know what Schriver had in mind for John?”

  “Of course not,” the chief growled.

  But it wasn’t convincing.

  “Tom, if you tell me the truth, I’ll understand. You’re between a rock and a hard place, with your allegiance to John, same time working under Schriver. So just tell me.”

  “Mike, I didn’t know.”

  Still not sold, O’Sullivan said, “If you lie to me, Tom…I’ll be unhappy.”

  A long silence followed.

  Then, a sniveling Cox returned to the wire: “I figured they’d just work him over a little, throw a scare into the Old Man. Only, from what my captain down there says, they’ve half-killed the poor sod.”