by B C Bell
“Sorry, sir, I was just following regulations. I didn’t even know the feds were in on this.” The sergeant stood stiff-backed, and pointed down the stairs to his left.
“In on it? This Bagman could be Dillinger himself! Don’t worry Sergeant—” the federal agent looked at the man’s badge “—Flaherty. I’ll see you get a commendation for this! Hold the fort, I’ll be right back!”
The burly man with the wild eyebrows ran across the basement room directly to the gun case. He didn’t have a key, but he didn’t have time to look for it either. With one powerful yank he pulled the frame of the door open without breaking the glass. Glancing around the room, he quickly spotted a duffel bag. Keeping one eye on the door, he then proceeded to pull every rifle, shotgun and explosive he could reach off the rack and into the canvass bag. He was almost out of time.
Taking a few extra seconds to grab whatever ammo looked like it might be harder to find, the burly man shoved the bag full, zipped it closed and threw the strap over his shoulder. A basement door ran directly out onto Addison. It would probably be safer than using the front again. Hopefully, the cops were still caught up in the excitement of chasing The Bagman, and not yet making their way back. Either way, they’d still be crawling around the neighborhood like cockroaches. The “G-man” man pulled his hat down low over his eyes and exited, taking the steps up to the side street as if he owned them—trying to look like he belonged there.
He made an extra effort not to turn his head around; trying not to look suspicious. He could practically feel Costanovitch’s eyes boring into his back. The detective could be just down the street and “Dan Fowler: G-Man” couldn’t afford to call attention to himself. He crossed the forty-third precinct parking lot, opened the door of a suped-up Packard and dumped the duffel in back. He was pulling his eyebrows off before he sat down. Pulling out of the parking lot, he threw his nose out the window.
Mac pulled into Crankshaft’s Car Repair about ten minutes later. He hadn’t had a problem losing Costanovitch after he’d jumped out of the police car. Pretty simple really, he’d crossed the gangway between two houses and come out over by the police station, where he’d parked the Packard. He wondered if they’d find his fake nose before somebody ran over it.
After parking the car in his secret underground garage, Mac opened the trunk and pulled out his weapons cachet, courtesy of the Chicago Police Department. A brief inventory found that he’d netted three Thompson sub-machine guns, with four extra drums for reloading, two twelve-gauge Browning pump-action shotguns, one high-powered sharp shooter’s rifle, two revolvers, a .45 automatic and about two dozen grenades—he was pretty sure the squarer looking ones were tear gas. All in all not a bad night’s work.
Mac put two of the machine guns with extra drums, a shotgun, and some grenades on the floor of the Blue Streak’s rumble seat and closed it back up. He packed the rest into the car’s trunk which, no longer a part of the car, sat on the floor under the gigantic workbench connected to the wall. He sat down in the camouflaged roadster and stared at it all.
When he’d first punched Tony in the nose and decided to leave the mob, there was no way he could’ve envisioned all this. He’d gone from villain to hero—well, mystery man at least—no need to get a big head about it. He had his own secret hideaway, an underground garage full of every possession left to him—his own personal baggage department. Maybe someday he’d build a subway. No, this was a Secret Subway. An underground express train with one destination.
He was in a war with crime now and, oddly enough, that made him a criminal, too. If the cops hadn’t been out to arrest him before, after tonight—once they figured out who had looted their armory—they’d want him in irons. Not quite as romantic as the pulps made it sound.
He trudged over to Crankshaft’s office, poured himself a shot, and drank to his newly christened Secret Subway. “Here’s to crime.” It wasn’t as funny as it used be. Especially since it looked like he was going to have to spend the night down there, sleeping in the car again. It might have eight cylinders, but it wasn’t very comfortable.
Maybe he could find a place to live in the building above where he was going to open his cigar store. He thought he’d seen some apartments up there; that way he could keep an eye on the store, and still be right around the corner from Crankshaft’s.
Or, maybe he should just call the whole thing off and leave town.
No, he couldn’t do that either. It was as if something had brought him to this place—fate or destiny, or something like it—and now he was anchored here.
But he wasn’t going to drown. Sometimes it’s the anchor that keeps a ship from sinking, and there was a lot more to this place than just a lead weight. Sure, he’d lost all his possessions, but he hadn’t lost everything. He had some money. He could always steal some more. And while it may seem mixed up, as long as he stole it from the bad guys, he’d be doing the right thing. He had this city where might made right and vice versa. Had it because he was a part of it. And because of that, he had friends. Some of the best friends in the world. He’d gotten some of them doing the right thing—even when he’d been on the wrong side of the law. All he had to do was keep on going.
Mac smiled and lit a cigar. He rubbed his eyes and without looking at his watch, guessed it was about four-thirty in the morning. His eyes felt like pinballs. His tongue felt like leather. He was tired, but he was worried and angry, too. Worried about the idea of a war with Slots. And worried about that weird blackout—he’d lost an entire day.
And angry? He couldn’t figure that part out. But ever since his battle with Spider Donlan’s gang, that blackout, he’d been carrying around this chip on his shoulder, some smoldering hate for something. He’d used humor and sarcasm to cover it up, but something in the back of his mind was eating away at him.
He poured another shot but didn’t drink it. He lit up a cigar and thought about the store. All he really wanted to do was sleep—but he couldn’t. Thumbing through his notebook, he desperately tried to understand it. But it didn’t make any sense. It was like trying to break a code.
He crossed Crankshaft’s tin and wood office and went into the tin and wood garage where he stood in front of the sturdiest fixture in the entire place, the slop sink. Staring into a mirror that hung over the sink by a string, Mac looked into his own eyes. Two red and blue steel marbles stared back at him as the mirror spun around. Every line on his face seemed magnified. The mirror spun around again. He looked and felt ten years older. Even if he didn’t sleep, he had to at least rest. He took the second drink of whiskey, grabbed his notebook and locked up the office. Then, with flashlight in hand, he headed for the underground garage. The Secret Subway, he corrected himself in thought—if he could be said to still be thinking. He fell asleep with the notebook in his lap, his feet still hanging out of the Blue Streak. He was so tired he hadn’t bothered to close the door.
Mac woke up—startled by a dream he couldn’t remember—covered in sweat and kicking his feet. He’d been beating somebody up in his dream, protecting himself, but hurting them. And enjoying it.
He sat up in the seat of the Blue Streak and raised his palm to his head, wondering if he’d been nursing a fever. He inhaled deeply and looked around, momentarily wondering how long he’d been out. Everything looked the same as when he’d gone to sleep. Hopefully, he hadn’t had another sleepwalking episode.
“It ever occur to you, that maybe if you kept regular hours your life might be a little more normal?”
Mac’s shoulders jerked, startled. He hadn’t even realized Crankshaft was in the room. That’s when he realized the lights had been on since he woke up. Crank had been watching him the whole time. Mac looked at his watch.
“Three o’clock. Please tell me that’s PM and not AM.”
“I’d lie if it would make you happier, but it’s PM, so neither of us has anything to los
e.” Crankshaft stepped over to the sink they’d installed in the corner of the room. “When I didn’t see you last night, I figured you’d be back down here. Brought you a razor and some soap, you’ll have to get your own coffee. And while you’re at it, why don’t you get a cot. You going to be living down here?”
“No, I just got hung up with some business yesterday. Didn’t have time—or strength—to get a room.”
“Well, get one. Lock yourself up in it and sleep for about three days. You look like hell, man.”
“Yeah, I’ve been putting myself through it, too. Mac trudged over to the sink, rubbing his face before he cranked the cold water and stuck his head under it. He grabbed a clean rag off the work bench, rubbed his hair with it, and splashed more cold water on his eyes.
“Found out yesterday our hero cop, McCreedy, was poisoned and not drowned. And, our boy Slots has a history of poisoning people I never knew about…” Mac shut off the cold water and looked at the other handle—as if they might actually have hot water. Then he turned the cold back on and worked up the lather for a shave. “Oh, and I think I made some friends at the CPD. Take a look in the trunk.”
Crank did.
“Well aren’t you going to say something? Usually I’d rate a ‘you’re crazy’ or ‘just how stupid are you?’” Mac turned and looked at him. “What? I’ve never known you to be dumbfounded.”
Crankshaft slammed the lid of the trunk down. “That’s because usually when I say those things, I don’t mean it.”
“Look Crank, I’ve been a crook. I’ve been a con-man. I was this close to being a full fledged gangster—” he held his thumb and forefinger almost touching. “Now I’m a bagman, again. It’s just I’m collecting from the other guys. Besides, I got no choice. They’re gonna kill me anyway.”
The two men stared each other down. Neither of them got any shorter.
“You didn’t even bother to buy weapons on the black market,” Crankshaft said, in a near melodic, poking way. “No, you just had tooo—” he started laughing under his breath and smiled, “—steeal ‘em from the cops! You. Are. Crazy! But damn you got some balls!” Crankshaft stuck his hands in his pockets, turned around and paced a few steps. “You know this is stupid, right? You knooow it’s crazy!” Then, slowly, he turned back around. “You need anything, I got your back—”
“Look, Crank, if this is about robbing the poli—” Mac did a double take in the mirror. “Did you just say what I thought you said?”
Crankshaft crossed his arms in front of himself. “I will never repeat that.”
Mac wiped the rag around his face, and felt his jaw for any beard he’d missed. “That robbing-the-cops thing, the opportunity presented itself, I just got lucky…” He turned his head to the side, looking in the mirror as if something was missing… His eyes narrowed and he turned around to look at his friend. “Crank, let me see that notebook.”
Crankshaft picked it up off the floor and handed it to him. “You’re welcome.”
Mac flipped through the pages looking for something. About three quarters of the way through he pounded a finger down on the paper. “That chemistry textbook you left here. Is there anything in it about a compound called CH3OH? …or MeOH?”
Crankshaft was already ahead of him with chemistry book in hand. He placed it on the workbench next to the notebook and thumbed through the index. “OK…Hmmm…Formulas…”
“That’s it Crank. Go to formulas.” Mac was still looking over his shoulder.
“It’s a chemistry book, the whole thing is formulas. Just give me a minute here. Here it is—‘tables, CH3OH…” Crankshaft flipped to the middle of the book, gently placed a finger at the top of the page and scrolled his way down. “CH30H. It’s methanol, also known as MeOH.”
“—or wood alcohol, which is converted to formaldehyde in your liver.” Mac was still behind him, pacing and fidgeting.
Crankshaft looked up from the book, narrowed his eyebrows. “How do you know that?”
“I don’t know. I just do…” Mac shrugged, shook his head. “Hey Crank, can I borrow the—”
“—Packard,” he finished the sentence. “You’ve already got the keys.”
Mac grabbed his coat and ran for the exit. “Thanks, old man. You won’t regret it. I’m gonna finish this thing and soon!”
Crankshaft watched Mac hit the starter and take the car up the ramp. He looked up at the ground level ceiling, listening for the hum of the engine as it drowned beneath the churning sound of gravel under the tires. He pushed his cap back on his head and turned back around to lean over the notebook on the workbench. After thumbing through the pages, his eyes came to rest on the one Mac had almost poked a hole in. Underneath the letters CH3OH, there was one word: Dad. Circled and written in letters so large they took up nearly half the page.
Chapter VII
Dead Men’s Blood
The breeze blowing in the car window should have cooled him off, but the summer temperature made it feel like a heat gun. Mac sped the Packard from Crankshaft’s Car Repair five blocks over to Waveland Avenue, hung a left and parked in front of Uncle Ray’s house. Uncle Ray, part of the reason he was involved in this whole mess.
Just a few weeks ago, Mac had been working collections with his mob acquaintance Tony, when he’d been asked to beat some sense into an old man who wouldn’t pay up. Problem was the old man had been Mac’s Uncle Ray. Mac hadn’t broken his uncle’s legs, but instead cleaned Tony’s clock. With the mob out to kill him, Mac had been forced to invent the character of The Bagman. He’d saved Ray from a crippling fate, but started a mob war in the process. One in which he didn’t know who the gangsters wanted to kill worse, The Bagman or Mac McCullough.
Mac jumped out of the car and trotted to the door. He rapped on it, hard. Mac or Bagman, the two of them wanted answers—now.
The grimace disappeared from Mac’s face when a salt-and-pepper haired woman with a smile on her face opened the door. “Why, Frankie Mac, you certainly are a sight for sore eyes. And all grown up, too.”
“Aunt Trudy!”
When the mob had still been searching for Uncle Ray, Mac had forced him to hide out at his old girlfriend Trudy’s house. Conspicuously younger than Ray back in the twenties, Trudy had been quite a firecracker little flapper. Standing in the doorway, she still radiated the same warmth and energy that made her bob hairstyle more a fashion statement than the budgetary last resort of so many other women of the Depression. Trudy flung the door wide open and waved Mac in.
“C’mon in, handsome. I have to tell you, if I were twenty years younger…” She grinned with one side of her mouth, tilting her head. “Mm, mm, mm…”
“Um, thanks, Aunt Trudy. I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but is Uncle Ray around? It’s kind of important.”
“Kid, you should know by now there aren’t too many things that could be too rude for your Aunt Trudy. He’s upstairs in the office. I don’t know what he does up there—but he does a lot of it. Prob’ly reading girly magazines or something.”
Mac smiled, hat in hand, nodded and made for the stairs. “Thanks, Trudy. Ya still look like a million bucks.”
“Yeah, now if only somebody would give it to me,” Trudy muttered in the background as Mac climbed the steps. He didn’t stop in front of the Kit-Kat clock in the hall, but the repetition of its tick-tock tail followed him with the tension-building precision of a metronome. He marched into Ray’s office without knocking and slammed the door behind him. Ray jumped up from behind the desk.
“Uncle Ray, we got to talk.”
“If this is about Trudy—yeah, we’re getting back together, but we’re not living in sin. I’ve given her some space downstairs, and she’s got her own bedroom. It’s not like it looks, it’s just—”
“It’s not about that,” Mac said, and tossed his hat into the ot
her chair as he sat down. “By the way, though, congratulations. She’s quite a catch for an old buzzard like you.”
Ray sat back down and offered Mac a cigar. “You want a drink? It’s almost cocktail hour.”
“No thanks, Ray. This is strictly business. It’s about Dad. I’ve got some questions and I need you to tell me the truth.”
Ray shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable.
“Was Dad working with the mob?”
“Of course not—”
“I don’t mean was he part of the mob, I mean was he working with them? Financially, like you were? Did he get himself into some trouble he couldn’t get out of.” It was a statement, not a question.
Uncle Ray sighed, shifted his weight some more, looked around the room and picked up his cigar.
“Look at me, Ray. You owe me that much. Is there even the slightest chance that Dad’s death could have been a murder? Had he ever done business with The Outfit? Unions, materials, financial, anything.”
“Well, Frank—Mac, unions weren’t a problem. If they had been, I’m willing to bet your dad, he would’ve just gone around them. Supplies—he didn’t cut any corners. And he was too young to be doing any business during the war, so as far as black market I don’t think he ever—” Ray began to raise his cigar to his mouth.
Mac put his hand on top of his uncle’s in a deceptively gentle fashion and pressed down. Uncle Ray resisted. Mac slowly forced Ray’s hand down on top of the desk and splintered the cigar.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Ray.”
