The Red Storm

by Grant Bywaters

  A day after I made my report to the Department of Justice, District Attorney Emerson came a-calling.

  It was a repeat of the last time I got called into Emerson’s office. I sat back in silence while Jim Prescott did all the talking. The difference was that this time it wasn’t just Emerson in the room. Chief of Police Golik and Mayor Maestri were there as well.

  Mayor Maestri prided himself on being a moral politician, yet his frequent visits to the city’s brothels were a secret to few. When he publicly got caught coming out of such a questionable establishment, he stated he went there for “investigation” purposes into the city’s sex trade.

  Emerson, Golik, and Maestri took turns throwing out accusations and threats, which Prescott refuted. Golik accused me of overstepping my bounds by being involved in the takedown of Mallon. Prescott’s rebuttal was that I was working directly under the supervision of Brawley, and that any complaints he had, he’d have to take up with his own officer.

  This led to the tactic they always went for, the threat of suspending my license. Prescott refuted the threat, stating it was not their decision but the State Licensing Board’s. He reminded them that they were currently on not so good terms with the board. The board had grown weary of the police frequently overreaching their authority by suspending licenses without their approval, and their perpetual bullying tactics to do so. He went on to say that the board would dismiss any case they brought against me, since they had no direct evidence that I had violated the terms of any agreement.

  When the meeting reached its closing, all allegations from them had been roadblocked. Emerson said little. He sat mostly in silence and I watched as the color drained out of his face. He did not have a favorable reputation as a competent DA as it was, and allowing me to come out of this unscathed, he almost certainly knew that by the next election he would be railroaded out of his position like so many DAs before him.

  He spoke up only after receiving ghastly looks from Maestri. “Let’s be reasonable here, Prescott,” he said. “I’m sure Mr. Fletcher means well, but it would just be best if he ceased what he is currently doing.”

  “It would be the best for whom?” Prescott asked. “If you cannot see the benefits my client provides, that is your business. Now I’m not going to bore you gentlemen with the litany of squandered opportunities over something as trivial as skin color, but suffice to say, in my briefcase I have a signed letter from Detective Brawley stating what a valuable resource my client is. I’m sure if this made its way to the papers, people would be interested to know that, especially when it was written by a party who has received a proportionate amount of recent public acclaim.”

  Emerson said nothing. His poignant face tilted down at his desk, while Golik and Maestri looked on in disgust.

  That evening Emerson did a nine-point Olympic dive out of his third-story apartment window onto Rampart Street.

  Prescott notified me of the event early the next morning. He said that the city should think about renaming Rampart after him. He thought it would only be fitting, since the street was the only sort of impact Emerson had ever made in his life.

  * * *

  I called JaRoux before he left his bait shop and told him to pass on to the women that I would be picking them up at the pier the following evening. When I arrived on Pratt Drive, the officers that had been planted there after Mallon’s men gave the place the works were gone.

  Zella’s house had been professionally searched by Mallon’s men in an endeavor to find anything that could tell them where she was.

  I used the phone to call Lily Everhard and asked her if she could do her best fixing the place up by the next day. Everhard was a middle-aged mulatto woman who on occasions scoured my own apartment.

  I made another call to a locksmith and asked him to come out and replace the entrance door lock that had been damaged in the break-in.

  At seven the next evening I waited in my car and watched as the boat carrying Zella and Aunt Betty glided up to the pier. I got out and helped them stow their things in the car. They said little on the drive, outside of Zella stating how strange it felt being back in the city again.

  I helped with their bags up to the place, and I could see they were both a bit worried at what they were going to find inside. I had informed them earlier that the house had been ransacked, and upon opening the door, they were greeted with the revelation that the house ended up being cleaner than when they had left. Everhard was very capable at what she did.

  Aunt Betty retired soon after, while Zella offered to brew me coffee. I took her up on her offer, and set out to the bathroom to wash up. The sticky humidity of the swamps always left me in an unclean state.

  I opened the wrong door. Instead of the lavatory, I got welcomed with the image of Aunt Betty standing with her back to the door in nothing but her underwear and a brassiere as she changed into her night attire. The horrific scene would be enough to make even the most fertile of men impotent.

  In the course of sealing the door on the unpleasantness, I spotted something that did interest me.

  I found Zella in the kitchen. She too had changed into her nightwear, a negligee. Pouring the coffee into two cups, she looked up and saw me.

  “You all right?” she asked. “You look like you just crawled out of a grave.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, taking a seat near the table.

  “How’s your injury?”

  “It’s fine. It hasn’t got infected, but I ripped a few stitches out not too long ago.”

  She handed me a cup too hot to drink. I set it on the table while Zella straddled my knee.

  “You have been a tremendous help to me,” she said. “I am very grateful.” She leaned into me and rested her hands on my shoulders. “So what can I do to repay you?”

  Tired of her teasing, I pushed her off me, stood up, and kicked the chair I had been sitting on back.

  “I don’t like being toyed with,” I said. “That might work with other suckers, but not me, understand? As for repaying me, I’ll send you a bill.”

  I walked out, nearly taking her front door with me as I left. On the drive to my flat, I knew there was no chance I’d be able to sleep, as irked as I was. I took a detour to the Saint-Pierre Boxing Gym.

  I was pleased to see that the exercise room was still open. It was not uncommon for them to stay open past working hours for a boxer that needed to do some extra training before an upcoming bout.

  I stripped off my jacket and shirt so that I was dressed only in my undershirt and trousers, and set to work on one of the heavy bags. My wound acted up, but I ignored it. I kept up hitting the bag with powerful punches until my arms went numb and I had to wrap around the suspended bag itself for support.

  The spasms in my arm were intense enough that I could barely grip the steering wheel of my machine when I left, let alone the doorknob to my place. I stripped, showered, and went to sleep as soon as my head collided with the pillow.

  CHAPTER 18

  I pulled onto Pratt Drive the next morning. I knocked on the door and Aunt Betty opened it up about three inches.

  “Zella is not here,” she said. “She left early to see about getting another singing job.”

  “That’s okay; it’s you I want to talk to.”

  She opened the door the rest of the way. “You saw, didn’t you?”

  I jerked a nod and followed her into the house. She took a seat in the living room and asked, “You got a cigarette?”

  Her old marm act vanished. She substituted it with a slight hint of a Queens accent. I shook loose a cigarette from my deck and she reached for it.

  “I wanted to get rid of that tattoo. I didn’t even want it. It was Bill that made me get it,” she said, accepting my light.

  “You are probably wondering what this is all about.”

  “I just want to know why you are passing yourself off as your daughter’s aunt, and why you went by your mother’s name when you were with Storm.”

  She puffed out a
plume of smoke from her lungs. “I left home when I was sixteen to go to New York and be a dancer. My mother did not approve, but that didn’t matter to me. I was very good. Got me an agent that helped me get work. Trouble was he didn’t like my name, Betty. I think it was because his ex-wife was named Betty. So I threw some names out and I guess the first one off the top of my head was Frieda, my mother’s name and my middle name. He liked it and so Frieda Rae was my performing name. It was also the name I went by when I met Bill.

  “Bill was everything a young gal that didn’t know any better could ever want. Ruggedly handsome, unpredictable, wild, the works. I fell hard for that boy. It was only after we were going steady that the beatings started and I got pregnant. I thought for sure I wasn’t going to have it but once Bill found out I was expecting, he just hit me everywhere else but the stomach.

  “When Zella was born, I knew I had to leave, if not for my own sake, for Zella’s. I went back to my ma’s place. She was not content with the whole situation. My ma was a very religious woman, and having a child out of wedlock was a sin as far as she saw it. That’s not including that I was a dope fiend at that point. I never took the stuff until the beatings. Bill busted me up so bad my back hurt so much, I couldn’t even get out of bed without taking something for it. I tried to clean up for Zella, but I couldn’t get off the hop. I knew I was no good for her, so about a year in I left her with my mother. She raised Zella as her own child, while I was drifting town to town looking for my next kick. It was not until I got word that my mother was sick that I cleaned up and came here to see her. She introduced me to Zella as her aunt Betty. It wasn’t much of a stretch, because I could pass as her aunt. All the stuff I was taking took a toll on my beauty.”

  She extended one of her aged hands in front of her and looked at it with despondent eyes. “I was very beautiful once. I got it from my mother, who was beautiful as well.”

  “Yes, you were a real peach,” I said.

  She sighed. “When my mother died, I moved in with Zella, and that’s how it’s been.”

  “Until you saw Storm in town,” I said.

  She showed no emotion. “Yes. I was out shopping one afternoon and saw him harassing the owner of a stand I frequented. He was asking the man about me. I thought he was going to kill the poor man, but instead he kicked over one of the man’s stands. I didn’t know what to do. I kept hidden, and then followed him in my car. He didn’t see me because he kept his head low as he was walking down the street, knocking people over that were in his way. When he got to a cabstand, I followed him to the place he was staying. I found out what room he was at, and I was going to confront him, tell him to leave, but I got afraid and left.”

  “Shortly after that,” I said, “Zella must’ve called or told you I had visited her and told her I was in contact with Storm and left it up to her if she wanted to have a meeting with him.”

  “I know Zella, she would’ve met him. I could not allow her to meet that monster,” she said.

  “So you went back to his place,” I continued, “and left a note saying you were Zella and that you wanted to meet him in the park. While he was sitting on the bench waiting for your daughter, you came from behind and shot him.”

  “I don’t regret what I did,” she said. “I was not going to let that brute corrupt her. It is enough that she inherited some of his wickedness, it did not need to be extended by his influence. He would dominate her the same way he did with all the women that made the mistake of coming across his path.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “I suppose you are going to pass this on to the police.”

  “What would be the point? They wouldn’t believe it coming from me. Even if they did, they’d put the kid gloves on you, being a frail woman and especially since Storm was a cop killer.”

  “You are not as bad as I thought you were, if that means anything,” she said.

  I shrugged. “It might. Do you still have the gun?”

  “Yes,” she said. She left the room for a moment and came back with a .38 Special snubby, and handed it to me.

  “I didn’t even know how to use one until Storm taught me. Said was for my own protection. He said I should stick to the snub-nosed revolver so it wouldn’t get stuck in my clothes if I had to pull it out in an emergency. Funny, if he never taught me that kind of stuff, he’d probably still be alive.”

  I snapped the barrel open and saw that one of the six cylinders had been spent.

  “You better let me keep this,” I said.

  About to say something in protest, she changed her mind and simply nodded.

  I stuffed the gun into my pocket and asked, “Why haven’t you told Zella yet who you really are?”

  “Who am I? Her mother? Just because I may have given birth to her does not make me her mother. It was my own mother that raised her when I could not. She has turned out to be for the most part a very lovely young lady and that was my mother’s doing. I was just a bad egg. I do not have the right to call myself Zella’s mother. I won’t take that away from the real woman that mothered her. The only thing I can say I’m proud of is keeping her away from Bill.”

  I had gained a new respect for Aunt Betty. I left the house and tossed the gun she used to end Bill Storm’s life of terror into the canal. She had her predicaments, but her maternal instincts for what was best for her child had to be respected.

  * * *

  I emptied the remainder of the afternoon attempting to unwind in my flat. I played an assortment of records and sat out on the gallery, smoking heavily. The phone had rung at numerous times, but I ignored it, until its metallic drumming grew tiresome. Irritated, I was about to pull the line out of the jack when I chose to just answer it instead.

  “Someone wants to see you this evening,” an unemotional voice said over the line.

  “I’m not in the mood to meet with anyone this evening. Tomorrow would be better.”

  “He will be dead by tomorrow.”

  “Tonight will be fine then,” I said.

  I took the directions of where to meet the person down and at seven that evening I stood at the Toulouse Street wharf. An escort waited for me and I followed him up the gangplank onto a three-deck stern-wheeler. The escort made me wait above deck until the rotating paddle blades tore into the sepia-colored Mississippi and propelled the floating boat away from shore. I then was taken below deck, where my escort knocked on one of the cabin doors.

  The door opened and an aged man with wire-brush whiskers and carrying a brown leather doctor’s bag stepped out.

  “I’m pleased you could make it,” he said. “I am Dr. Langley. I spoke to you on the phone. You may speak to the patient for a short while. I have not given him any sedatives for some time so he may speak to you of sound mind. The patient has suffered a grave injury and now infection has set in, and it is my prognosis that he will not make it past this evening. When the pain gets to be too great, I will come in and the meeting will be adjourned so that I may sedate him. Do we have an understanding?”

  I said we did. The doctor pulled a cigar wrapped in cellophane out of his pocket and followed my escort above deck while I went into the cabin.

  The tainted smell that occurs when death is imminent inundated the room. The cabin was vacant except for a bed where only the head of a man, propped up on pillows, was exposed.

  The man’s flaxen hair was cropped short. His features were sharp, as if chiseled from stone. I had never seen the face before, but in some way I had. The comic section of the day’s paper was resting below his chest.

  “You look a little uneasy there,” he said in a hoarse voice. “What’s the matter with you? Never seen a dead man before?”

  “You’re not dead yet, Ranalli. Though I had been told otherwise,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t be too disappointed. I’m finished. That cop was a damn good shot. Doc is a bit stumped on how I’ve managed to last this long.”

  “Maybe such things as death don’t apply to you,” I
said. “Like Rasputin. He too had a knack for not dying.”

  “I ain’t like him,” he said. “All them theatrics was Mallon’s doin’. That kid should’ve been in show business or a circus. He’d fit right in with the bearded lady and the elephant man.”

  “Seems like you two made a good team, and I’m interested in knowing how it all transpired,” I said.

  Ranalli tried to force a grin. “I thought you would be. Why I had you come.”

  Through the course of an hour Ranalli told me his tale, in sporadic pieces, resting when the pain was too significant. I had to put the rest together myself when on the brink of the end, the doctor came in and doped Ranalli up.

  It went something like this:

  After the racketeering indictment and being pressured into going stoolie, Ranalli was left in bad shape. He could not even fence goods without the hammer and saws breathing down him. Mallon had been trying to persuade him to bring the numbers game to the city, but in his predicament, it was impossible. That’s when they came up with the scheme.

  Mallon was having his own troubles at the time. A rival syndicate run by Jack Stein was moving in on his territory. Mallon had a meeting with Stein, and convinced him that if they combined forces and took Ranalli on, New Orleans would be the prime area for running numbers. Since there was no competition at the time, it was up for the taking, and they would split the take.

  Stein was more than eager to go along with Mallon’s proposal, and sent his best men out to aid Mallon. When Mallon bombed the New Orleans Hotel, Ranalli and his mugs were not even in the building. They had been tipped off by Mallon, and the bodies the police recovered were men that had been already killed by Ranalli a few hours before.

  Ranalli’s counterattack on Mallon was staged. Mallon and his men left the building long before the truck full of explosives arrived. Mallon had left six of Stein’s men to watch the place, and when the truck exploded, it was the end of them.