Road to Perdition

by Max Allan Collins

  Obviously choosing his words with care, Papa said, “I’m like a soldier, son. And a soldier does his duty.”

  “Even…killing?”

  Papa’s face was hard. “That’s what soldiers do.”

  Michael thought about that for a while; then, shaking his head, he said, “Papa, it seems wrong…The Church teaches us thou shalt not kill…”

  “The church is right…but I have a duty to my family. That means I have to work. And bein’ a soldier, son…that’s the only work I know.”

  Michael thought some more, then he blurted, “I don’t want to be a soldier.”

  For the first time this evening, his father smiled—just a little. “Good,” he said.

  They fell into a silence—a slightly more comfortable one, though Michael remained torn within himself: this talk with his father, it was rare, it was special, a new bond had been formed between them. But that bond had been formed out of something bad. Sinful. Horrible…

  When the car had rolled into the garage, Papa shut off the engine; through a window they could see their home. Michael sensed that his father felt what he felt: that they had changed, both of them. That going in that house would mean something different, now.

  And Mama was in there—Mama who didn’t know Michael had sneaked out, who—if she had discovered his absence—might well be distraught. These concerns seemed petty, somehow, after what Michael had seen and his father had done.

  The boy asked, “Does Mama know?”

  His father replied, “Mama knows that I love Mr. Looney like a father. She knows that when we had nothing, he gave us a home. A life. She knows we owe him everything… Understand, son?”

  Michael nodded.

  “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

  “But Mama…”

  “I don’t think they’re back from the concert, yet.”

  The concert—he’d forgotten. Real life, day-to-day activity, the little things that made up a normal life…the boy had forgotten all about the wonderful ordinary life he’d been living. Could he go back to that life? Could life ever be normal? Could he be an ordinary boy again?

  Mother and Peter were not home yet. Papa put him down in the kitchen, and Michael could walk, with just a tiny limp. His father offered to carry him up the stairs, but the boy shook his head. The clock said it was surprisingly early, but all Michael O’Sullivan, Jr., wanted to do was crawl in his warm bed, between comforter and covers, where it would be toasty and safe.

  His father looked in on him, but did not tuck him in.

  “Goodnight, son,” was all he said, from the doorway.

  Michael said, “Night,” and tried to go sleep, thinking he would, right away, as tired as he was.

  But sleep did not come. Life wasn’t that easy, anymore. And he lay awake, hands balled into fists outside the covers, as he stared up at the ceiling; the weather—snow, rain—reflecting weirdly, made shapes, strange drifting shapes he couldn’t make out. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, but he couldn’t stop looking at them.

  He was still awake when Mama—leading Peter in by the hand, his brother still dressed up for the concert (Mama, too)—whispered to her youngest boy, “Get dressed for bed, honey… quiet, now. You’ll wake Michael.”

  And as the giggling Peter—Mama couldn’t know the anticipation Michael’s brother was experiencing, wanting to hear the scoop on the “mission”—got into his jammies, their mother crossed to her older boy’s bed. She leaned in, to tuck him in, and he couldn’t help himself.

  Michael sat up and threw himself at his mother, hugging her tight, very tight, wanting to crawl inside her and hide.

  Annie O’Sullivan, caught utterly off-guard, said, “Oh, dear,” and held him, patting him, kissing his cheek, allowing the boy to disappear in her arms. She could sense his distress, could feel his fear, and said, “It’s just a nightmare, dear.”

  “Oh yes, Mama,” the boy said, “it’s a nightmare…a nightmare.”

  When her younger son was in bed, she kissed Michael’s forehead, tucked him in, and said, “You’re safe, Mama’s home, Mama’s home.” Then, after tucking in the younger boy, she slipped out.

  Annie looked for her husband, but he was not around—the light in the garage was on. She did not make the leap from her son’s distress to her husband’s work-related absence, tonight. Vaguely troubled, but not overly concerned, she readied herself for bed.

  In the garage Michael O’Sullivan, Sr., cleaned and oiled the disassembled parts of his Thompson submachine gun—a weapon designed for the Great War in which he’d fought, but developed too late for the trench action it was made for. He got grease on his hands and wiped them off with a cloth—seemed to take an inordinate amount of time, tonight, to get his hands clean.

  Methodically, with ritualistic care, he packed away the parts of the machine gun into his plush-padded black carrying case. He stowed the case in the cupboard, with its ammunition drums, and locked away the tools of his trade.

  But he did not go back into the house, not immediately. He stood there, staring at the closed cupboard, deep in thought, lost in the possible ramifications of what had transpired—worried for his son and the boy’s emotional welfare, and most of all concerned about the safety of them all.

  Connor Looney was an unstable, dangerous man.

  And if Connor’s father weren’t John Looney, Michael O’Sullivan would have gone back out into the rainy, snowy night, and killed that homicidal lunatic, to protect his family and himself.

  But in a strange way, Connor Looney was family, too—a brother of sorts. And John Looney—who, despite the wicked business they were in, was a kind, generous, benevolent soul—loved Michael O’Sullivan and Annie and especially their boys. O’Sullivan knew this with as much certainty as he knew there was a God, a Heaven and a Hell.

  Yet even the most pious man, in silence, alone at night, can have doubts.

  In their room, once their mother had gone, Peter sat up in bed, and demanded, “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What was it like? Did you see anything? Was it like the picture shows? Was Papa like Tom Mix?”

  “It wasn’t anything. Papa just had a business meeting.”

  The little boy sat forward even more, making the bedsprings squeak. “A business meeting? We went through all that for—”

  “For nothing. And he caught me in the backseat, and I’m lucky he didn’t get me in trouble with Mama…Now, goodnight.”

  Peter, bitterly disappointed, said, “Ah…good night.”

  Michael had promised his father he would never tell anyone what he’d seen tonight, and that included his brother. However mixed his feelings might be, Michael O’Sullivan, Jr., was no squealer.

  At breakfast the next morning, Michael, Peter, and their mother were already at the table when their father entered, joining them. Annie smiled at her husband, but he seemed distracted, his attention—his rather somber gaze—directed at their oldest boy, who seemed to be avoiding that gaze.

  Yet she sensed no anger in either of them.

  Confused, she asked Michael, “Aren’t you going to finish your breakfast?”

  “Not hungry.”

  “All right. I’m not one to force food on anyone, even if there are t’ousands of starving people all around this great country.”

  O’Sullivan shook his head at her.

  Still confused, Annie said to Michael, “Well, then at least clear off your plate.”

  “Can I do it later?”

  “What, after school? Let that food just sit there and rot?”

  The boy worked up a shrug—it seemed to take all his energy. “I don’t have time now. You don’t want me to be late, do you?”

  Amazed, Annie looked at her husband for support; his eyes dropped to the table. What was going on? This wasn’t like Michael—the words did not have a smart-aleck tone to them, nothing really overtly disrespectful; more like he was listless, that he somehow just didn’t care…

  But before this could
turn into a confrontation—or not—the honk of a car horn outside the kitchen window drew everyone’s attention away from the breakfast table.

  “That’s Mr. Looney’s horn!” Peter said, and ran excitedly from the table, and out the front door.

  Michael followed, with far less enthusiasm.

  Annie, still seated at the table, watched with interest as her husband got up and went to the window. She rose and joined him—the sight a common one, the fancy Pierce Arrow pulling up before their house, the driver stopping, John Looney—in a rather shabby brown suit, unbefitting his wealth—stepping out of the back, just in time to catch Peter, who hurled himself into the old man’s arms, for a hug Looney cheerfully delivered.

  Annie stood close to her husband at the window, noting his oddly glazed expression as he took in what would normally be a cheery sight.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Something’s wrong.”

  O’Sullivan looked for the words.

  “Has something happened?” She touched his shoulder.

  “Michael was in the car last night when I went out.”

  “In the…oh no…”

  “Tucked himself away inside the rear seat.”

  “Oh sweet Mary mother…what—”

  “I’ve spoken to the boy,” her husband said, cutting her off. “It won’t happen again.”

  “But, Mike…”

  He turned to her, his face a stony mask. “No questions, Annie. We won’t speak of this.”

  And he left her side, heading to the front closet, for his topcoat and hat.

  Outside, Mr. Looney had wandered over to where young Michael was climbing on his bike.

  “Just the feller I wanted to see!” the old man said. Then he sidled up to the boy on the bike, and said surreptitiously, “This’ll be our little secret, right?”

  Michael pulled back, alarmed. “What do you mean?”

  It was almost a shout.

  Mr. Looney frowned. “Friendly game of dice, what else could I mean?” He held out a shiny silver dollar. “Here—take it…you won it fair and square. A man of honor always pays his debts.”

  Reluctantly, the boy took the dollar.

  Mr. Looney stood so close, the grown-up smells smothered the crisp morning air—cigar smoke, liquor, coffee—and made the boy even more uncomfortable.

  “And a man of honor always keeps his word,” the old man told the boy, something hard in the ice-blue eyes, something Michael had never seen, or at least noticed, before.

  So Mr. Looney knew about last night! Uncle Connor had told him.

  “I’m…I’m gonna be late for school,” Michael said, and pedaled off, the old man watching him go—the boy could feel the eyes on his back, burning holes.

  When Looney turned, his man O’Sullivan was heading out of the house, shrugging into his topcoat. The wife, Annie, was in the window—she looked concerned. The old man threw her a friendly smile and a wave, as her husband got into the Pierce Arrow, in back. She waved back, but Looney could tell his gesture had done little to assuage her unease.

  Within ten minutes, Looney and O’Sullivan were having coffee, seated across from each other in a wooden booth at one of the several restaurants the old man owned in downtown Rock Island. A glorified diner, the place did a brisk business, and was crowded with breakfast trade—of course, a number of the patrons were Looney bodyguards. Several more burly boyos were stationed out on the sidewalk.

  Day after a dust-up like last night, the old man knew, extra precautions were called for.

  “What an unholy mess,” Looney said. “How’s the boy? He seemed out of sorts to me. Is he okay?”

  O’Sullivan seemed happy—or was it relieved?—to hear these words. He said, “I’ve spoken to him. He understands. He’ll keep his pledge to me.”

  Nodding, Looney said, “Jesus jumping Christ, it’s tough, seeing that kind of thing for the first time…such a tender age.”

  O’Sullivan paused—probably thinking about his first exposure to such like, Looney knew—and then said, “He’s my son.”

  “Well,” the old man said, and he bestowed a smile of warmth upon his loyal lieutenant, “you didn’t turn out so bad, did you, lad?”

  O’Sullivan didn’t smile, however; his eyes had a haunted quality that disturbed Looney. “I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

  “Boys will be boys—which of us didn’t play stowaway as a whelp?…Anyway, you can’t protect children forever. If it hadn’t been one thing, it would have been the other.”

  O’Sullivan said nothing.

  Looney waved at a waitress for the check, saying, “I fear it’s natural law, my boy—sons are put on this earth to trouble their fathers.”

  O’Sullivan smiled, and Looney felt relief: the boy still loved him.

  And now the waitress set the check in front of Looney, marked boldly NO CHARGE.

  “Ha,” Looney said, “I’ve been coming here forty years, and they never let me pay the check, yet.”

  O’Sullivan shrugged, sipped his coffee. “Well, you’re the boss.”

  Looney laughed in agreement; but deep down the old man knew that even the boss, eventually, would have to pay.

  SIX

  As a younger man, John Looney’s first ambition was to be an actor, and in Rock Island, in the late 1880’s—when as a telegrapher he was working for Western Union—Looney organized a dramatics club that performed at the Harper Theater on 16th Street and Second Avenue.

  When my father was working for Looney, I never knew the old man was an attorney. But in fact John Looney did study law, on his own and without formal schooling, and was admitted to the Illinois bar. Soon the amateur actor turned fledgling attorney began to make powerful associates in the world of business and politics. Nothing criminal, nothing shady, had yet emerged in the life of this ambitious young man, who ran as a Democrat for the state legislature.

  But when he lost that election, an embittered Looney began to establish his own form of government. With his law partner, Frank Kelly, he defrauded the city over the construction of storm drains at the century’s turn; and he began his scurrilous newspaper, the News, in 1905, proclaiming the publication would stand for “Truth, Good Government, and the Protection of the People.”

  And, over the next decades, he assembled a criminal organization that gathered (in the words of one scholar) “enormous tribute from any and all activities that were in conflict with the laws of the time.”

  With or without politics, sanctioned by society or not, John Looney would rule from his roost on the bluff.

  Michael O’Sullivan, Sr., stood in the shadows. John Looney, seated at the head of a long table, had his back to O’Sullivan, who had a good view of most everyone else at this meeting of the Looney version of a board of directors. The confab was taking place in the Grand Parlor of the mansion, a room filled not long ago with partying mourners, only a few of whom were included in this esteemed company, the chief of police a prime example. Another was a snappily dressed Connor Looney, seated at his father’s left hand.

  The gathering included delegates of the various arms of the Looney empire—eight men representing distilleries, casinos, brothels, loan-sharking, extortion. This had been a working supper—coffee, drinks, the remainder of meals on plates, were in as much evidence as papers and file folders—and was now winding down, as night worked its way in the windows.

  Jimmy and Sean, two of Looney’s prime bruiser bodyguards, were on the door; but the great man’s back could only be trusted to Mike O’Sullivan. The Looney family’s chief enforcer did not like to think of himself as a glorified bodyguard, but in some respects, on some occasions, he was that very thing. Most of the men at this table had taken individual meetings, throughout the day, with John Looney; and, after last night’s warehouse debacle, O’Sullivan had been primed and ready for retaliation.

  Nothing, so far, from the McGovern forces; and many of the meetings, today, had been designed to unruffle feathers and smooth the way for a nonviolent t
ransition. But the empty chair at the table—Fin McGovern’s seat, which no one had dare take—provided an eloquent wordless reminder of the damage that had been done.

  Speaking at the moment was Frank Kelly—in his fifties, the fleshily prosperous-looking partner in Looney’s law firm. “I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our friend Alexander Rance for interrupting a busy travel schedule to make room for us on his dance card.”

  Kelly gestured across the table to Rance, a fussy little man in his forties, his clothes well tailored, his grooming immaculate; the man had already made a to-do about having to have a whole slice of lemon in his tea. Rance, in the company of Kelly, had met with Looney this afternoon, a meeting surprisingly short for such an important man to have rearranged his schedule to accommodate it.

  Rance was, after all, the financial advisor to, and one of the top accountants of, the Capone organization, second only to Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik himself. And Guzik represented the old breed—Rance was the future.

  Though he’d been sitting there throughout the meeting, Rance exchanged nods and polite introductions with everyone at the table, thanking Kelly for his “graciousness,” but otherwise allowing the lawyer to carry the ball.

  Adjusting his wirerims, his eyes on Looney, Kelly said to the assemblage, “Mr. Rance and I met with John earlier today, to make another bid for our involvement with this up-and-coming surge of unionism. Speaking on the authority of his position with our associates in Chicago, Mr. Rance’s opinion is that Prohibition, unfortunately, won’t last forever.”

  Nods and frowns and chuckles greeted this observation, which was hardly stop-the-presses news.

  “Mr. Rance feels that we should be looking ahead,” Kelly continued, “for new sources of income.”

  O’Sullivan wondered why Mr. Rance wasn’t speaking for himself.

  Perhaps the reason was John Looney, whose voice boomed from the head of the table: “And I gave our friend Mr. Rance the same answer I have given him before—no unions for us. Too much trouble, too much grief.”

  Connor, who’d been lying back but listening intently, sat forward now, leaning in toward his father. “Pa, much as I respect your view, I thought—since we have everyone here—it might be worth our time discussing the matter. After all—”