The Burning Day

by Timothy C. Phillips

  He’d been thirteen at the time, so he had been spared prison. After four years in juvenile detention, he’d been back on the streets, an unruly youth of seventeen, wised up, grown up, and looking for real crime to get into. His fellow inmates at juvenile reformatory had given him the name Mad Dog, a pun on his last name. It was a name he found he liked, much more than Hubert Third Battle of the Isonzo Maddox.

  When he had gotten out of the reformatory, Mad Dog had quickly found that he had no marketable skills, so he started drifting. One thing he had done successfully was kill a man. Almost inevitably, this became his line of work. He had eventually drifted down to the South, finding work in Atlanta, Miami and New Orleans. Finally a job had taken him to Birmingham, where he had come to the notice of Longshot Lonnie O’Malley.

  The fact that he was of Irish extraction had caught Long Shot Lonnie O’Malley’s attention. The fact that he was a homicidal maniac made him doubly attractive to Lonnie, who snatched Maddox up and put him to work collecting. Mad Dog proved to be very good at it. Longshot Lonnie often complimented Mad Dog on his abilities, and rewarded him for his successes. This made Mad Dog Maddox feel proud, because he’d never been much good at anything before.

  Today, Mad Dog was collecting a bill that was three months past due. Mad Dog didn’t show up unless an account was way behind. He was Longshot’s last resort guy, he liked to think. When the guy who owed money to Longshot Lonnie kept stalling, and it looked like they thought they would get away without paying, Lonnie had someone give Mad Dog a call, and he went forth to collect or punish. Lonnie had made such a call to Mad Dog today. So here he was.

  Today Mad Dog was amused. Here he was, up on Third Avenue North, visiting a hardware store, of all things. It was an old-fashioned sort of place, and looked to have been in business in the same place for ages. It had that quiet air that family-run places always seem to have. When Mad Dog walked in, little brass bells tinkled. Pretty quaint, he thought. He looked around. The place was jammed full of merchandise, but free of dust and very orderly.

  The guy behind the counter in the middle of the store was a regular-looking guy, as far as Mad Dog could tell. He was a little on the short side, with gray hair and a kindly look about him. He looked like somebody’s grandpa, Mad Dog thought. The older man looked up, saw Mad Dog standing there, and like most people, made the deadly assumption that here was just a regular Joe, just some harmless, dumb-looking-guy with an infectious smile.

  “Yessir, how can I help you?” the man behind the counter said with a smile.

  Mad Dog started to pull his gun, but just then he noticed the puppy. A little black and white beagle puppy walked around from behind the counter, wagging his tale at Mad Dog. Mad Dog smiled and bent to pick up the puppy.

  “Nice place you got here.”

  “Well, thanks. My wife and my daughter help me keep it straight.”

  “Aw, now aren’t you cute?” Mad Dog petted the puppy, who seemed quite pleased.

  “I think he likes you, friend. He’s AKC registered, a full-blooded beagle. Best dogs in the world,” Mr. Merle informed Mad Dog.

  “Is he for sale?” Mad Dog asked in his shy voice. He loved dogs, and found puppies irresistible.

  “Sure. He’s the last of the bunch, and the best one, too, if you ask me. I’ve got his AKC registration papers right back here, if you’d like to see them.”

  “Well, that’d be just great.” Mad Dog smiled, and the older man beamed back at him, because Mad Dog really did have an infectious smile. While they stood there, smiling at each other, the bells on the door tinkled again. Both men turned as one, pleasant smiles still on their faces, to see who had come through the door.

  Two men stood there, slender, hard-eyed men with slicked-back black hair. Both were wearing long coats. Mad Dog didn’t like the looks of them. It was too hot for a coat, which meant they were hiding something, guns most likely. He looked at the puppy, to see if he liked them, but the puppy just licked his hand and yawned. Mad Dog slowly set the puppy down and turned to look at the men again, smiling his infectious, vacant smile all the time.

  One of them stood by the door, like he was guarding it, while the other came over to the counter, close to where Mad Dog was standing. He looked smug and mean. He reminded Mad Dog of the people that used to make fun of him.

  “I come here for Don Ganato,” the man announced to the shopkeeper, like Mad Dog wasn’t standing there, like he didn’t even exist. That struck Mad Dog as quite rude. He stood there quietly, still smiling his strange smile. His fingertips were an inch from the handle of the .357 that rode in a shoulder holster beneath his left armpit. If the guy had looked at him closer, maybe he would even have noticed it.

  “It’s time for you to cough up the money you owe us,” the guy said to Mr. Merle. Without waiting for a response, the man reached over the counter and opened the cash register. He pulled a canvas bag from beneath his long coat, and started stuffing money into it—the money Mad Dog had been sent to collect.

  Mad Dog cleared his throat. Loudly. The man at the counter turned and glanced at Mad Dog, then did a double-take. He seemed amazed that someone he was ignoring was actually trying to get his attention.

  “You got something to say, buddy?”

  “Well,” Mad dog began shyly, “I was in line here first.”

  The other man started laughing. He turned and looked toward the guy at the door. “Did you hear that?” he asked the other man. “He says he was here first. You think maybe we should wait in line?” He threw back his head and laughed some more.

  The man at the door started laughing, too, but suddenly there was a loud explosion, and a bullet hole appeared between his eyes. He stopped laughing and slumped to the floor.

  The man at the cash register dropped the canvas bag, spilling money all over the floor. He frantically tried to reach into his fancy trench coat for a gun, but it was too late. Mad Dog methodically shot the man in one elbow, and then the other one, just to be on the safe side.

  “You’re very rude,” Mad Dog said quietly. Then he bent over and picked up the frightened, whimpering puppy.

  “There, there, boy, don’t worry,” he said in a gentle voice. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Mad Dog laid his .357 on the counter. On the floor, the wounded man dragged himself miserably away on his forearms, trying to reach the door. He left two red trails behind him, swooping red commas that curved first one way, then the next. It was hard going, Mad Dog could tell, because the man’s arms were pretty useless with both elbows blown away. Must hurt like hell.

  Mad Dog scooped up the money with his empty hand and refilled the bag. He transferred the bag to the crook of his left arm, so that he held both puppy and money in the crook of that arm. With his right hand he casually picked up his gun like he was in no hurry, like he had nothing but time.

  The man who had been rude to him had crawled half-way to the door. He was dragging himself, stopping every few feet, gasping loudly. He was all out of wise remarks now. Mad Dog walked over to him, put his gun up against the fallen man’s head, and finished him off.

  As Mad Dog stuffed the pistol back into his shoulder holster, he snapped his fingers in sudden realization. “Shoot. I almost forgot.” He walked back to the counter, where the old man cringed in horror and fear.

  “The papers. You know, for the puppy?” The old man looked amazed and confused for a minute, then he reached into a little slot under the cash register and produced a document, which he offered, in a trembling hand, to Mad Dog. Still smiling his strange smile, Mad Dog nodded pleasantly and stuffed the paper into a pocket. He pointed at the sack that held the shop owner’s money.

  “I understand why you’ve been late on your payments, now, with those guys always stealing from you. I’ll let Longshot Lonnie know. We’ll let it slide, this time. You can’t be late again, though.”

  “Okay, okay, thanks . . . thank you!” the old man behind the counter managed nervously.

  “Well, bye then, and
thanks yourself. For the puppy, I mean.”

  With that, Mad Dog stepped over the two dead gunmen and opened the door to leave. With a little smile, he moved the door back and forth a bit in order to create a little extra tinkle from those brass bells, because he thought the puppy might like that.

  “You know what?” he said to the puppy. “I’m gonna name you Oscar.”

  Chapter 5

  Detective Lieutenant Lester Broom had a problem, a big problem, not that he wasn’t used to them. He was senior detective on Birmingham’s Homicide Unit, and one of the most senior in the whole Detectives Bureau. He’d been a cop a long time, and seen a lot of things, but he’d never had the problem that confronted him today. Two dead Italian males in a hardware store. He’d seen worse, of course. The major problem was what they represented to him and his partner, Detective Cassandra Taylor. The two dead men were mob guys, and a hit like this demanded payback, whatever its causes.

  “From what the owner is telling us, looks like these guys showed up at the wrong time. They showed up to put the squeeze on the place for protection, and one of Lonnie’s boys was already here to collect,” Broom mused aloud, considering silently that this was what the papers and news had been bracing for. This was the trigger event that would bring the shooting out in the open.

  “This means open mob war.” Cassandra said what Broom was thinking, what he couldn’t help but think.

  Broom nodded in agreement. “The Ganato crew will have to hit Lonnie back now, to show they’re still in control. They just buried Little Tony a week ago, and we haven’t seen their reaction for that, and now this. Longshot Lonnie must have finally gone over the edge. Ganato’s got him outclassed and outgunned. Now they’ll come after him with both barrels, and we’ll be lucky if no innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire.”

  Broom looked over Cassandra’s shoulder, not hard for someone around seven feet tall, since she was only five-five or so. “How’s the owner?”

  “Shaken up. Detective Moss is taking his statement, but the old guy’s pretty rattled. Couldn’t give us much in the way of a description of the shooter.”

  “Understandable. Most people come a little unglued if they see people shot down right in front of them. But he may not want to. Lonnie’s boy might have saved his hide.”

  “If we’re lucky, maybe both crews will just kill each other off,” Cassandra said.

  “That’s just what we have to stop.”

  “Why? I say we’ll be better off if they make themselves extinct.”

  Broom shook his head. “No, Cassie. Not really.”

  Cassie’s green eyes flashed. “What does that mean, Les? Are you telling me that you have some kind of sympathy for these crooks? After all that we’ve seen them do over the years?”

  “Cassie, If I could put all of these guys in one big sack and throw it in the Cahaba River, I would, and that would be fine and dandy with me, as a man. But I can’t do that. Sometimes I just want to forget I’m a cop and let them take care of each other. Half the crime in Birmingham and the Metropolitan area goes back to these two and their outfits. We can’t, though. We took an oath, and I’m going to keep that oath, because it’s what makes me who I am. That doesn’t mean I won’t put these guys out of business. So help me God, I will. The first chance I get, they’ll go down, one by one, or in a bunch. But I’m going to take them down by the book. Because once a cop gets out of the book, sister, they’ve broken the oath, and they’ve become part of the thing I’m fighting against, the way I see it. That means I have to take them down, too.”

  “Whoa. Easy, big guy. I didn’t say I was going vigilante, or anything.”

  “I know that. But that’s what worries me. Some cops do. I’ve seen it. We see a lot of bad stuff out here, and that’s the temptation. We can’t win ’em all, some cops start thinking, so let’s just pick the ones we want to fight. You can get so angry that you lose sight of the line. And some just go bad. The line is always there. When a cop forgets that, he or she invariably crosses that line, sometimes before they even realize it. And many cross it without ever knowing they did. That’s why crooks don’t have to be careful, and we do, Cassie. They don’t have to give a damn, and we always do.”

  Cassandra smiled. She had a very bright and lovely smile when she decided to show it to someone. “Because we’re the good guys.”

  “You said it. Now let’s go help Detective Moss out, see if we can jog this old fellow’s memory.”

  To Broom’s surprise, Cassie threaded her arm through his, and looked up at him with a broad smile. “You know what I like about you, Broom?” she asked him, her perfect little face upturned towards his.

  “No, what?”

  “Everything. Let’s go.” And together they walked down the hall.

  Chapter 6

  It was raining on the north side of Birmingham. Light summer rain, the kind you don’t mind walking in. A group of people gathered around an outside barbecue place on Fourth Avenue North. They were mostly black, and old. I pulled over and got out and walked over to them. There was no lobby, just an outside order window. The menu was on a blackboard on the wall behind the woman in the window. The woman, the window, and the barbecue joint had all seen their better days. I ordered a barbecued chicken sandwich and waited around in the cluster of people outside.

  An old man next to me patted me on the shoulder. “Are you Roland Longville?”

  “Yeah, I am,” I said absently, figuring he’d seen me on TV or in the papers.

  The old man turned to another old man, standing beside him, and announced proudly, “See, I told you he was Roland Longville.”

  The other old guy looked at me and spat on the sidewalk.

  “Roland Longville that played for the University of Alabama, back in the ’90s? No, you ain’t him. He probably plays pro now,” the other old man decided, and they both nodded in agreement and turned away.

  I got my sandwich and left the two old men there, arguing. At least someone still remembered me from my football days.

  ~

  Across town, my old partner, Detective Les Broom, was trying to piece together a puzzle of his own. He was standing in front of a white board, drawing a diagram. Detectives Cassandra Taylor and Lance Moss were seated in two straight-back chairs, watching his progress.

  “Two weeks ago, we had the hit on Little Tony. Today we have the two guys hit on Third Avenue North.”

  “We can’t place any of Lonnie’s known associates at either scene,” Moss put in.

  “Because we can’t put anybody on either scene, Moss,” Cassandra said with a sidelong look.”

  Moss frowned. “I’m just saying . . . .”

  Broom cleared his throat. “True, we have nothing on Lonnie’s boys. Forensics is still picking Merle’s Hardware over, although I’m not holding out any hopes. This thing’s going to get really ugly before we nail anybody. We’ve got surveillance on the Ganato house. The Don’s old-fashioned, likes his underlings to come pay homage. I figure we have a much better chance keeping an eye on his crew. After all, the ball’s in his court, now.”

  “And, they are Lonnie’s target if he decides to go with a pre-emptive strike,” Cassandra said.

  “We have to find out what Lonnie’s planning,” Moss said.

  “If only he’d tell us that, I’d give him a lap dance at the Double Nickels,” Cassandra said sardonically.

  “Cassie, Moss has a point.”

  “And my point is, we might as well wish for snow. Lonnie knows that we’ve been wire-tapping his phones for years. He’s taken effective countermeasures against everything we’ve put in place. So there’s no way we’re going to get him or any of his boys to squawk.”

  “Are we done here?” Moss asked. It was obvious Cassandra was getting on his nerves.

  “For now.”

  The two younger detectives stood and stretched, then walked slowly out of the room in search of coffee, or maybe the restroom. Broom watched them go. They were both right, and
they were both wrong, he thought.

  Detective Lester Broom smiled to himself. He knew a lot of secrets, and he was the sole keeper of many of them. Neither Cassandra Taylor or young Lancelot Moss knew that he had a spy in Lonnie’s camp, a spy who had been there for many months. He went over and pulled the door to the room shut and took out his cell phone. Then he punched in a number that he kept only in his head.

  Chapter 7

  Mad Dog Maddox went back to his boss’s place to deliver the news. His boss made him nervous. You never knew where you stood with the guy. Longshot Lonnie O’Malley had a blue eye and a green eye, and a thick shock of yellow-gold blond hair. He was also astigmatic. The eyes looked off into different worlds unless he was concentrating on something. Then they would both focus in like two serpents that have both noticed a prey’s movement.

  Lonnie also had two sides to him, a cold logical side and a demonic, volatile, explosively mean side. The sides of his character sort of matched his eyes. You never knew which one you were going to get, the cool blue eye or the poisonous green one. Mad Dog had discovered that the best thing to do was stand expressionlessly until Lonnie decided whether he was angry with you or you had done something good.

  Today, Lonnie wasn’t mad. In fact, he seemed positively upbeat. “Forget about the hardware store. It’s small change, anyway. You did a good job icing those two Ganato thugs. The more of them taking the dirt nap, the better. The nerve of that wop, tryin’ to muscle in on my territory.” The green eye glittered and the blue eye beamed. “Say, that’s one cute puppy,” Lonnie said. He reached over and petted Oscar. Mad Dog still held the puppy in the crook of his left arm. The canvas bag of money was on Lonnie’s desk.