Unremarkable

by Geoff Habiger

  “And your girlfriend saved your life,” Moran remarked. “She saved it for Capone.”

  “What?” I stood up from the couch, shocked, and a bit upset at what Moran was saying. “Moira doesn’t work for Capone! She probably knows less about Capone and gangs in Chicago than I do.”

  Moran chuckled again. “What’s so damn funny?” I yelled. I was getting tired of all this bullshit.

  “The Feds have taken their little care package to an office in the Post Office building. Capone was looking for somebody—you precisely—to get that package for him so that the Feds wouldn’t be able to build their case against Ralphie.”

  “I just started barely a week ago. Capone can’t have been looking to use me,” I protested.

  “You should look into what happened to the man you replaced.” I started to say something, but Moran waved his cigar to silence me. “I want to make sure that Ralph Capone goes down. To do that, I need you to steal these books for me. I’ll make sure that they get to a lawyer who I can trust to keep them out of Capone’s mitts.”

  I sat back down on the couch, stunned. “Wait. Capone was going to get me to steal these books for him, and now you want me to do the same thing?” What was I getting dragged into?

  “Exactly.” Moran walked over to the window. “Capone was using your girlfriend to get information about you. Knowing Capone’s style, he was probably going to kill your dad and threaten your mom in order to get you to do what he wanted.”

  “This can’t be happening,” I put my head in my hands.

  “Thankfully for you it won’t happen like that, as long as you do as I say.” Moran turned to look at me. “All I’m gonna do is tell you that if you don’t do as I ask, your parents will be killed. See how more civilized that is? No bloodshed is needed and we’ll both get what we want.”

  I raised my head to see Moran smiling at me. He put his cigar into his mouth and took a long pull. This is not happening to me. My head was spinning and I felt like I was going to throw up.

  Yesterday morning my life was great; I had a new job and a beautiful girlfriend. Then I end up in the middle of a gunfight, my girlfriend dies, and I find out that not just one, but two of the biggest gangsters in Chicago are both after me to steal the same thing for them from the Feds. What the hell is happening to me?

  “Please use that smart head of yours your mamma gave you,” Moran said. “I want those books, and if I don’t get them I will make sure that the next time that you see your parents will be at their funeral.”

  “I’ll do it,” I squeaked out. Like I have a choice. I stood up unsteadily. “But I need a couple of days to find out where in the building the Feds are holed up and see how to get my hands on the books.”

  “Just make sure you let me know if Capone comes sniffing around.”

  I turned to go. “And Mr. Imbierowicz,” Moran called after me. I stopped and looked back at him.

  “Next time, you should take better care of your girlfriend.”

  Chapter 7

  Cup met me in the entry room, neatly folding up his paper and setting it on the table, then opening the door out into the hall. We met Glass by the elevator doors and we retraced our journey down to the lobby and out to the car. I opened the back door and got in without being told or asked. Glass just laughed under his breath and Cup shrugged as they got in and started the car. Glass pulled the Packard away from the curb and we headed back down south.

  My mind was still spinning. So many things had happened to me in the past 36 hours, I didn’t know where to start. Suddenly my life was not my own to lead and that pissed me off; but I didn’t know what I could do about it.

  Going to the cops was such a laughable thought that I didn’t even consider it. First, I was sure it would be nearly impossible to find a cop that wasn’t getting some graft from either Capone or Moran, so as soon as I told them my story their bosses would know and I’d be in even more hot water. And even if I was lucky enough to find the one clean cop in all of Chicago, what could I say to make them take me seriously? “You could try the truth,” my Mom’s voice practically yelled in my head. Like that would work. Even if they did believe my story, and it was hard to think that they would—I had lived it and I was finding it hard to believe—what kind of protection could the cops give me and my family from the likes of Moran and Capone?

  Now that Moran had made his offer to me I could always go to Capone instead; but how could I protect my family if I just gave Capone what he wanted? Why should he care what happened to a couple of Jews? If I give the books to Capone, Moran would keep his promise to kill my parents and Capone would have no reason to protect them. If I give the books to Moran, I face the same dilemma as Capone would just kill my parents and Moran wouldn’t bother to protect them.

  Glass turned onto West Chicago, heading toward the river. I thought about going to the Feds, but that seemed just as bad as going to the cops. What would I say? “Bugs Moran and Al Capone both want me to steal some books you guys have that used to belong to Ralph Capone and they’ve both threatened to kill my parents if I don’t do it.” Even if they took me at my word, and that would be a long shot, they couldn’t protect my parents any better than the cops could.

  I could always try to convince my parents to head up to Milwaukee to stay with Uncle Jakob. “And I should miss work to do this?” I could hear my father complain. “Besides, it’s even colder up there. Why your Uncle wants to live in that frozen wasteland is beyond me.” Yeah, I don’t see that happening.

  Cup nudged me and pointed to the open car door. It took me a moment to realize that we had stopped moving. I pulled myself across the leather seat and climbed out of the Packard, heading for the door to my tenement.

  “Hey Saul,” Cup’s voice called. I turned around. “I hope it’s alright if I use your Christian name, now that you’re working for Mr. Moran.” He paused. “Though I suppose you don’t actually have a Christian name, do ya?” He laughed and I just stood there, numb with fatigue and cold.

  Cup pulled out a matchbook and tossed it at me. It hit me in my chest and fell to the ground. I bent over and picked it up. The matches had the name of a dry cleaners over on Dearborn Avenue. “When you get done with your job for Mr. Moran, call us there. We’ll come pick you up.” He got in the front of the Packard and Glass pulled away.

  The sun was setting and I’d been awake for nearly 24 hours. I put the matchbook in my pocket and headed up the steps to my apartment. As I stopped on the landing to pull my key from my pocket, I froze; I could see light coming from under my door. My mind raced as I tried to remember if Cup had turned off the light when we left earlier, but to no avail.

  At this point, I was too damn tired to care. I unlocked the door and practically jumped out of my skin at the sight of Mrs. Rabinowitz sitting at my kitchen table reading the evening edition of the Tribune. “Geez, Mrs. R., you scared the life out of me.” I grabbed my chest, wondering if my heart would stop racing. “What are you doing in my place?”

  “Saul, this is how you treat your neighbors? Leave them sitting here for hours on end waiting for you show up?”

  “Mrs. R.,” I said in exasperation, “I didn’t invite you over. And how the… how did you get in?” I had almost said “how the hell” but I remembered my manners. Mom would be so proud.

  She either was ignoring my question or didn’t hear me. “Your mother came by earlier to see you, but you weren’t here. I let her in to wait, telling her I’d that seen you go out with a couple of friends. You know, those two well-dressed young men you were with earlier.”

  I sighed and sat down. “Why are you here?” I asked as slowly as I my dwindling patience would allow.

  “You should put another lock on your door, Saul, like I did. A two-year-old could unlock your door. I put my second lock on last summer when Mr. Wolenski came home a bit too drunk and passed out in my living room instead of his.” She f
olded her hands, the silver bracelet that Mr. Rabinowitz had given her for some anniversary or another clicking on the tabletop. “I had Mr. Hooper from the hardware store come and install it…”

  “Mrs. Rabinowitz,” I interrupted her, almost yelling. I was starting to forget my manners.

  “Yes, dear?” She looked at me with soft grey eyes.

  “Why. Are. You. In. My. Apartment?” I stressed each word, punctuating the question so she should would understand.

  “Oh that,” she waved a hand at me. “Like I said, your mother came by to see you, but when you hadn’t returned by 4 o’clock she said that she had to leave so that she could get home in time to make dinner for your father and sister. So she asked me to leave you a message.”

  I put my left hand to my face, running it from my cheek to under my hat. “Why didn’t you just write the message down for me?”

  She looked at me like I was an idiot. “And how exactly would you expect me to do that, dear? You don’t have any paper and there’s not a pencil to be found in this place. So I went downstairs and got my newspaper and came back to wait for you.”

  I pulled my hat off and sighed again. I desperately needed to get some sleep before work, and that would only happen once Mrs. R. left. “And what was the message?” I asked as slowly, and as politely, as I could.

  “She asked me to remind you that you are to stop by Mr. Sandusky’s to pick up the challah for lunch tomorrow. And you need to make sure you make it to Temple this week.” She pointed a crooked finger at me, almost the perfect imitation of how Mom did it.

  “Thank you for telling me, Mrs. R.,” I said. I needed her to leave so that I could go to sleep. I’d worry about not making my Mom madder at me later.

  “You’re welcome, dear.” She stood up and grabbed her paper then opened the door. “You really should go by Mr. Hooper’s store and get another lock for this door. It’s not safe.”

  “I’ll do that,” I lied. “Right after I get the challah tomorrow.” I lied again. I hadn’t been to Temple for nearly a month and I really had no plans to go tomorrow. Besides, I needed to find a way to get those books from the Feds to make sure that Mom and Dad would be able to continue going to Temple for the foreseeable future.

  “Good night, Saul,” Mrs. Rabinowitz said as she walked out and headed down the stairs.

  “Good day, Mrs. R.” I shut the door behind her and locked it. I turned off the light in the kitchen and made my way into the bedroom. I barely managed to set my alarm clock for 9:30 p.m. before I crashed onto the bed with my clothes still on. I was asleep almost instantly.

  Chapter 8

  I awoke with a start to an insistent clanging sound. It took me a moment to realize that it was my alarm clock going off. I turned it off and lay back on the bed until I suddenly remembered that I had to get to work. The fear of losing my job surged through me and I jumped up and headed to the kitchen. I grabbed my coat, remembered to lock the door on the way out, and ran down the stairs.

  I ran down Racine and managed to just make the L, leaping on just as the doors were closing. An older lady gave me a dirty look; I shrugged and gave her an apologetic smile. I sat down and managed to catch my breath by the time the L reached the Post Office. I joined the rest of the shift as we entered the building and clocked in.

  I walked over to my sorting station. Joe was already there, sorting a pile of envelopes. “Man, what happened to you?”

  I paused, looking at him. “What do you mean?”

  “You look like you just downed some coffin varnish.”

  I shrugged. I couldn’t deny that I looked like I had gotten hold of some bad whiskey. I had seen my reflection on the L: puffy eyes from lack of sleep, messed up clothes, and hair like I’d just slept in a gutter. I tried to stifle a yawn and failed, so instead I picked up some letters and started to sort them. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep and I almost overslept.” Which was enough of the truth that I didn’t feel compelled to fill in any of the details. I figured that the less that Joe knew, the better. I didn’t want to risk getting him involved in this whole mess.

  “You liar,” Joe chided me. He tossed a couple of letters carelessly into a box.

  “I’m not lying,” I said, a little too defensively, so that the only way it could sound was that I was lying to him.

  “Come on, man. You can tell me.” He winked at me. “You spent your day getting it on with that gal of yours. What’s her name?”

  “Moira.” I relaxed. I was afraid that somehow Joe had known about my encounter with Bugs Moran. It was funny, I thought, that I felt more comfortable telling a lie about my dead girlfriend than I did in telling the truth. “Yeah, I was with her” I said.

  “Well,” Joe prodded me as he picked up a new stack of letters. “Don’t keep the details to yourself.” I was going to have to give Joe more than that in order to keep him from digging any further.

  I managed to spin a good enough lie to both satisfy Joe and make me long to hold Moira again. It wasn’t difficult to tell a convincing story about Moira. Even though we only had our first ‘real’ kiss just yesterday, I had fantasized enough about her in the past week to fill in the blanks. I told Joe a great line about Moira and I making out at a speakeasy.

  “And what about you?” I deflected. “Did your girlfriend say yes this morning?”

  “Naw,” Joe grabbed a pile of letters and carelessly tossed them into another bin, his thoughts focused on Francine. “She said she had to go home and weed her window box. She’s quite the horta.…hurtacul.…flower person.”

  I laughed to myself. Poor Joe. He was so in love with that doll that he couldn’t see that she wanted nothing to do with him. Weed her window box? In February? Apparently she was running out of good excuses too. “Maybe you should find out what her favorite flower is and bring it for her one night,” I suggested before I realized what I had done. Great, now he’s gonna be bugging me for the rest of the night to help him find out what her favorite flower is.

  By the time our lunch break came, I was pissed off at myself. I had created a monster. Joe had spent the last several hours speculating on what Francine’s favorite flower might be, and how he’d find out, and how she’d finally agree to go out with him once he delivered a dozen of those flowers to her. At least his continuous monologue kept me awake.

  I headed down with Joe to the coffee shop. We grabbed two seats at the counter and ordered coffee. I lit up a cigarette and took a long drag. The tobacco gave me a jolt and cleared my head. I blew out a thin cloud of smoke. Man, these things are great for staying awake. I wonder why we can’t smoke while we work?

  “Should I ask George if he knows what kind of flowers she likes?” Joe asked. George was the short order cook who worked the night shift.

  “Sure. He might have the inside scoop,” I said. I wanted to spend my break seeing if I could find the Feds office and I couldn’t do that with Joe tagging along—and he’d insist on it. But if I could get him to pester George with a ton of questions, maybe I could get away.

  George set our coffees down. I pointed to a slice of rhubarb pie which he obligingly set down as well. I dropped twenty cents on the counter which George scooped up.

  “Hey, George,” Joe started. “You know Francine, right?”

  George looked at Joe as if he had a screw loose. “Are you nuts? ‘Course I know Francine, seeing as she works here every morning.”

  Joe reddened a bit but trudged on. “So, you know what sorts of things she likes, you know, like her favorite color or drink. Or what her favorite flower is?”

  I chuckled as I finished off my pie. I was so hungry that I’d practically inhaled the whole thing. I tuned their conversation out. I knew that George enjoyed seeing Joe squirm under Francine’s persistent refusal to go out with him as much as I did, and I knew that Joe was as stubborn as a bulldog once he got an idea in his skull. I downed my coffee and stubbe
d out my cigarette.

  I slid off the stool as Joe turned away to continue his discussion with George as he tried to handle the ‘lunch’ crowd. Unseen by either of them, I headed out the door and back into the Post Office. I had about twenty minutes before I needed to get back to my shift.

  I was pondering how I should go about searching for where the Feds were located when I walked by the information booth in the main hall. The hall was a large, grand space decked out all in grey and white marble. It was a hive of activity during the day, but it was as quiet as a tomb right now. At one end of the hall were the doors that led to the main post office. At the other end was a wide set of stairs leading up to different offices. In the center was a circular booth made of wood and brass, with INFORMATION written in black letters on a frosted glass pane. I had passed through this hall many times; either as a customer getting mail, or when I had come for my job interview. I had never really paid any attention to the information booth before, but now an idea struck me.

  I lifted the counter and stepped into the booth. During the day, it was staffed by a guy who was an army veteran and had lost his left arm in the war. He seemed like a nice guy, though I didn’t know his name. I searched around his desk, lifting up some papers and looking under a ledger book. I was about to give up when I saw a small, hand-printed note card pinned to a cork board just under the counter. ‘Revenue Agents – Room 613 ‘

  I couldn’t believe my luck. I left the information booth and headed to the elevators. The sorting room was on the third floor, but when the elevator arrived I punched the button for the sixth. Maybe I’ll get lucky again and I’ll be able to grab the books tonight, give them to Moran’s goons in the morning, and be done with all of this business in time to piss off Mom by missing Temple.

  The doors opened onto the sixth floor. The hallway was in deep shadow, only lit by a couple of lights. I looked at the numbers painted on the walls and turned to the right. 605, 607, 609… I turned the corner and saw two doors, one on the left and one at the end of the hall. The door on the left was marked 611 and was stenciled with ‘Office of Postal Inspector’. The door at the end of the hall was simply marked ‘Janitor’ with no number. “What the hell?” I mumbled. I tried the Janitor’s door, but it was locked. I then tried the Postal Inspector’s door, but it was also locked.