by B C Bell
The sun was setting in the distance by the time Mac pulled up at Navy Pier, over a mile of boardwalk situated on Lake Michigan, near the mouth of the Chicago River. While freight and passenger ship activity were down at the world-famous port, the World’s Fair had brought in a whole new crowd—a crowd Mayor Ed Kelly wanted to keep happy and free from vermin.
Mac walked to the dry end of the pier, and stepped down into the sand. The lake sat a good forty yards off, beneath the boardwalk. Between the big man and the water, resting in the shadows against one of the wooden beams, were two men. Their sweaters were frayed with holes and, given the summer heat, they didn’t seem to care. One of them wore an oily Greek sailor’s hat, while the other’s head remained bare.
A pudgy little rat terrier yapped and danced around Mac, as if happy to see him. He reached down and let the dog smell his hand before he rubbed around its ears. When he stopped the terrier began hopping at his legs again.
“Dog ain’t for sale, mister,” said one of the frayed men, looking up from his pipe.
“Oh, I don’t want the dog.”
Ten minutes later, three men who normally would have been working the docks, were unloading cages from the back seat of Mac’s car and carrying them onto the pier.
Chapter IV
To Serve and Collect
“No.” Crankshaft said. He was good at saying it, and he always meant it.
He’d been excited when Mac had slid the car to a stop outside and run to the office, banging the screen door against the side of the shack the next morning. Crankshaft loved driving The Blue Streak. That car was his baby. Half the reason he’d agreed to go along on The Bagman’s little adventures. The old vet would have taken the car out every night if he could. But, he’d already been through one war, and he knew the best way not to get killed was to be where the bullets weren’t. And, he hated the idea of going to jail. He pulled hard on the cigar he was lighting, and blew a wave of smoke at Mac as he continued:
“There’s no way, I’m going after a crooked cop out in the open. All he has to do is flash his badge and shoot whoever he wants. You trying to get us both killed?”
“C’mon, Crank,” Mac was begging. “It’ll give you something to tell all the little grand-crankies about someday. Seriously, I’ve got a plan.”
“Like, ‘someday I’m going to retire and open a cigar store?’ You are aware that I’ve seen some of your plans in action before?”
“And you’re still here to complain about it, right? As I recall, you said you had fun!”
“I was lying.”
“C’mo-o-on, Crank.” Mac held his two hands out together as if prayer might convince the mechanic. “I need a wheelman. All you gotta do is stay in the car and keep the engine running.”
Crankshaft knew the plan would change. Hell, it was insane—it would have to. But the Blue Streak was still his baby.
And, Mac might need some help, too.
“OK, you got a driver.”
***
Mac borrowed the Packard again, having never really returned it, and spun around the corner to the cigar store. When he pulled up, Richie Cobb was waiting for him. Mac stepped out of the car, handed him the key. Told him to open the door and count out the register. He did both in a timely fashion and even called on Mac to count the drawer again because Cobb thought he was a nickel short. Mac dumped the last of his roll of nickels in the drawer, and told him it was balanced, now.
Then the big man strolled around the shop. He could see where Cobb had even straightened and dusted in between the shelves.
“Good job, Richie,” Mac said. “Any trouble yesterday?”
“Well, I did have to put up the “back five minutes sign” to get something to eat. But I don’t think I was gone too long.”
“Good, because I’m going to need to take off right after the mail comes. I promise you, you’ll have Saturday off, how’s that?”
An hour and a half later, Mac dropped by the tailor’s shop on State Street, then turned around and headed for Navy Pier. The wiry pipe-smoker in the Greek sailor hat came up from the shadows under the pier to meet him. Mac handed him the four tailored coats in a pile. The old man pulled one from the bunch and held it by the collar, running his fingers across the inside lining like he’d never seen a coat before.
“You guys gonna be able to pull off your end of the deal, Cap’n?” Mac pulled out a cigarette and searched his pockets for a match.
The old sailor pulled out a trench-lighter and offered Mac the flame, before firing up his own pipe. “Mister, for two-dollars a head, we’ll pull all the ends off and tie ‘em in a knot!”
“You guys just be waiting by the phone—and get there fast.” Mac said. “As long as you’re quick there’s no way this thing can fail.” The two men shook hands one more time before the man with the pipe trudged back into the shadows beneath the boardwalk.
Mac sped the Packard back by Lieutenant Martin’s house, to check on his schedule. His car was there, so it was reasonable to assume he would still be working the late shift. His wife had sounded like something big might be going down tonight. Mac went home and took a nap. When he woke up, he went back to the store, gave Richie a key and told him to come back tomorrow. Five minutes later, he locked the joint up.
When he pulled into the lot at Crankshaft’s Car Repair, the sun was closing in on the city’s skyline.
If Chicago had a fuse, it was about to be lit.
Crankshaft and Mac parked down the street from Lieutenant Martin’s house and sat in the shadows. Mac didn’t have his mask on yet, and Crank was in his ever-present mechanic’s coveralls, his goggles hanging over the bill of his cap. The Blue Streak’s reflective windshield shined the night back at itself, partially keeping the two men hidden. Even sitting with the windows open, they were down the street and out of view. Besides, they weren’t doing anything.
“So if this guy doesn’t go to work till midnight, why are we already here?” Crankshaft said, flicking his fingers at the car keys hanging out of the wooden dashboard.
“Because Lieutenant Martin is doing a whole different kind of work, Crank. He’s a busy guy with a tight schedule, who can’t miss a chance to make some poor slob confess to a crime he didn’t commit.”
“Or, because he’s afraid he’ll miss a payment. That Pierce Arrow in the driveway is brand new.”
“Yeah, if there’s one thing cops are lousy at, it’s hiding money.”
“Tell you what,” Crankshaft said, pulling his flat cap down over his eyes and sliding down in the seat. “You keep an eye out and I’m going to try to catch ten or twenty winks here.”
“Too late, old man. Here he comes.”
Martin stepped from the front door to the large sedan, and backed out of the driveway. Crankshaft didn’t start the engine until the crooked cop was already pulling away. The starter clicked. The engine hummed. The Blue Streak’s lights were off as it glided behind the bright new Peirce. Crankshaft didn’t bother to turn them on until Martin had already pulled around the corner.
“Hurry up, Crank. You’re losing him.”
“Not being seen is not the same as not being able to see.”
“I can see just fine, I just don’t wanna lose him!” Mac grabbed the dashboard. His head swiveled excitedly back and forth from Crank to the street ahead.
“If I lose him, it’s going to be because I’ve got a bonehead in the passenger’s seat distracting me.”
Mac didn’t say anything after that, but he kept pumping imaginary foot pedals and pulling on the dash like he could drive the car that way.
After some fifteen minutes, he said, “Hey, Crank, is it just me—or is he headed toward—”
“Niles Center. But that last left takes us away from the township.” Crankshaft said, still hanging back at the last
corner trying to avoid being seen. There wasn’t enough traffic for him to hide behind.
“Waitaminute!” Mac said. “Remember when we were trying to find a place to question Cornbluth? I know exactly where this guy’s headed. An abandoned construction site on the east side of the road, maybe a half mile down. Somebody laid out the concrete for the basement and walls, but the job had been cancelled.”
Crankshaft pulled out slowly as the Lieutenant’s headlights disappeared over the next hill. The Blue Streak came over the other side with its lights off, and pulled over behind a small thicket, a good two-hundred yards from the Pierce Arrow.
“Give him ten minutes,” Mac said. “If he doesn’t come out by then, I’m going in.”
But two shapes came out of the darkness before any words could be traded. It was evident that Lieutenant Martin was shoving a handcuffed man across the small clearing, toward the Pierce Arrow. The prisoner fell down and Martin kicked him, before giving the man a hand back up, and kicking him again to keep him moving.
Once the two silhouettes were in the car, the trail led back to the city. Lieutenant Martin drove back to Chicago and parked behind the Central Division building on Twelfth Street. Crankshaft pulled past and kept the two men in his rear view mirror. After Martin led his prisoner inside the precinct building, the souped-up Graham Blue Streak parked on the street closer to the corner than the front entrance. Mac hopped out.
“Be right back, Crank.” He pointed to the drug store across the street, where he was supposed to make a phone call.
Crankshaft settled back in his seat. This thing could take all night—and if it was anything like Mac’s usual plans it would. The ace mechanic pulled his hat down over his eyes, crossed his arms and sat back awaiting Mac’s return, still checking in the rear view mirror every once in a while. Ten minutes later he heard footsteps and a familiar voice.
“Heads up, Crank. Do something with this.”
Mac slammed the passenger door. Crankshaft pushed the bill of his cap up just in time to see his friend holding up a large grocery bag, its top rolled up like a sack lunch.
“What the hell’s that, a new mask?”
“Didn’t I just tell you a little while ago, cops are lousy at hiding money?”
Crankshaft looked in top of the bag. It was full of cash, still stacked and wrapped in bands from the treasury. “Damn, Mac. This guy is filthy in more than one sense of the word.”
“Yeah, well I got an idea while I was in the drugst—” An old Model-T truck had pulled up behind them. Mac glanced out the window, and opened the door. “Gotta go, Crank. Those are my guys. Keep your eyes open.”
Crankshaft didn’t bother to mention he’d been on watch while Mac was still in knickers. Meanwhile, Mac ran back to the Model-T. Two men who looked like unemployed dockworkers stepped outside and around the wooden bed of the truck, where Mac met two other salty but frayed-looking types lounging in the back.
“You all set?”
“Finally got ‘em all stuffed in them coats, ‘bout a half-hour ago,” said the old salt with the pipe. “Barely got ‘em all in, got to be at least a hundred. Way I figure it the fabric ain’t gonna hold too long.”
Mac shoved five twenties into the man’s hand. “That’s a hundred now, and a hundred after you guys do your voodoo.”
The old salt put the cash in his pocket, and the two men stood staring at the police station, then back at the pile of clothing in the wooden bed of the truck. Their glances lingered only a moment.
One of the coats was twitching.
Chapter V
War of the Rats
Four grubby men walked into the lobby of the Second Precinct, Central Division. Two of them wandered toward the back corners, and two sat down on the long benches closer to the hallway that led to the officer’s desks in back. The sergeant at the desk was too busy with the two A.M. crowd to even notice. If he had looked up from the crowd of people he was exchanging verbal barbs with, he might have noticed something odder than even the four ragged men wearing long coats on a summer night.
For instance, he might have noticed that whatever those coats were lined with was awfully thick. Or that all the men, especially the ones sitting down, looked as if they were holding the coat’s lining away from themselves. And if he had bothered to pay even momentary attention, there was no way he could have missed the fact that the bottom of the coats were stricken with spasms.
Mac walked into the center of the room with his hat pulled down over his charcoal smeared face. He was about to give the signal when one of the raggedy men in the corners stood up and screamed. When the lady next to him saw the rat’s head pop out of the coat’s lining, she screamed, too. For a second stone silence cut through the room—then the crowd exploded.
All the men in long jackets stood, yanking at cords connected to the lining of their coats. The entire waiting room flooded with vermin. Rats, mice, even roaches, all scattered for the walls in a wave, skittering through the room and into the halls.
Teeny herds of bug-infested varmint fur washed over their feet like clouds of mangy hair. Both men and women kicked in reflex, and gray furry balls flew through the air before others got stomped into crimson mush. Hands flew to their hair and faces. The sergeant at the desk drew his service pistol like he was going to start shooting. Everybody else made for the exits.
Except Mac.
The big man marched swiftly down the hall where the detectives were stationed. He’d tried to find the blueprints for this place, but simply hadn’t had the time. He was running on hunches. The hunches led him past the holding cells and the prisoners.
The guard running up front to see what all the commotion was about didn’t feel Mac grabbing the large key ring off his uniform belt. Mac skipped any of the criminals who might’ve been a real danger, but when he reached the drunk tank he couldn’t help himself. He unlocked the gate and some twenty, very odd customers exploded into the hallway. Mac stood behind the cell door, then headed in the other direction. Downstairs.
The entire hallway was concrete. Lit by bare bulbs in cages on the ceiling, the mint-colored walls were powerless against the dank air and hopelessness of the place. The doorways that led to interrogation rooms seemed even scarier. Mac headed for the door that felt the worst.
The wire-reinforced window in the wall had the blinds closed. Mac couldn’t help the feeling that there was something back there nobody was supposed to see. Security only a cop would fall for, he thought. The Bagman pulled the mask on over his head and wedged it into place with his hat. Then he kicked the door open.
He had been expecting something bad, but actually seeing it made him stop.
Two men in suits, Lieutenant Martin and another detective, stood over their victim. Seated in the room was a man tied a wooden chair with his feet in a bucket. There were cigarette burns, and straight black burn marks on his chest. His hand quivered and the wires he held slid out of his hand. The two wires led to a small wooden box about a foot square with a brass crank handle on the side. For a second Mac thought the man was dead.
Lieutenant Martin went for his gun. The Bagman took a step to the detective’s right and kicked him in the stomach. Martin pulled the trigger. But The Bagman grabbed the gun by the top, wedging the chamois-cloth skin between the thumb and forefinger of his glove between the hammer and the firing pin.
Mac didn’t want to draw any attention now that he was here, but when he jerked his hand back and the gun came clamped to it, he wailed. It echoed off the concrete walls and down the hall. He pulled the hammer back, and yanked the gun off like a mousetrap had been clamped on his hand. The inside of his glove turned warm and wet with blood. When The Bagman looked back up again, his eyes were glowing like molten steel.
The detective next to the lieutenant had his gun out and Mac was in his sights. Mac threw Martin’s pistol at
the man’s head, to foul his aim. The detective ducked.
In time too fast to measure Mac took a step closer.
“Freeze, killer. You’re under arrest,” the cop said. “Drop your gun.”
The Bagman’s feet stopped moving, but he didn’t quite freeze. He didn’t reach for his shoulder holster and drop his gun, either. Instead he stood, unmoving with his feet apart. He twisted his head as if his neck hurt.
“Don’t even think about it,” the detective said.
One of The Bagman’s shoulders rolled forward. He flicked his wrist and eighteen inches of iron rebar slid into his hand from where it had been taped to his arm. There was a blur and the cop’s wrist was broken. Before he could scream, it glanced off his head and he crumpled to the floor.
He’d been lucky. Mac was aiming at his teeth.
The Bagman scanned the room, cursing under his breath. He hadn’t planned on the torture victim being quite so…tortured. He pulled his mask off, and threw Lieutenant Martin over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Then he picked up the wooden box by the crank with one hand, wrapped that arm around the lieutenant’s legs, and grabbed the torture victim by the wrist with his other arm. He dragged the wounded man out into the hall in hopes that one of the good cops would find him.
There had to be one.
With the wooden box under one arm, Mac pulled his hat down over his face, and made for the stairs to the rear exit—all this while still carrying Lieutenant Martin over his other shoulder so nobody could see who he was. The original plan had been to use the side exit next to the lobby, but there was no way The Bagman was going to walk through the mayhem upstairs unseen. He kicked the rear exit open, expecting to have to run around the building. Damned if the Blue Streak wasn’t idling right there in front of him.
