Welcome To Central City

by Adam C Mitchell

  “We did a job together, thought it’d be gravy. I’m really sorry, doll-face…’

  She was shocked to the core, and who could blame her?

  She listened as Eddy explained himself, trying to compose herself. She’d crack soon though; Eddy could tell that much. If he wasn’t in so much pain he’d have held her, just to be a shoulder to cry on, or something he didn't know.

  “He wouldn’t shut up talking about you, Kim.”

  A smile came over her face as tears rolled down Eddy’s. She was going to be strong, not for Eddy not even for herself, but it would have been what Ruddy would have wanted. Taking a deep breath she took a moment. Then wiped his grizzled face with a cotton cloth from her pocket

  “All done.” She blushed, a cherry red slowly touching her cheeks. She was tough in a girl next door way. The wounded Eddy thought seeing that. She hid her grief behind a smile. It took guts to do that. Thanks, doll, Eddy thought. He just sat there and let her play nurse, wondering if he should make a move. Eddy knew his timing could be better.

  She carried on acting okay and with the nurse routine “Your leg is clean now honey. The lead didn’t go straight through. Thankfully you passed out and I got it out eventually with a pair of rusted scissors I found in the back. You’re lucky, for all the blood, it was only a flesh wound. Anyway, Eddy, how did you cut up your legs so bad?”

  Eddy took a second before answering she’d been through enough tonight already, he decided to keep his answers as short as possible to spare her. “Car crash. I got out before it went over a cliff. Had to jump for it.”

  Kim was amazed she put a hand to her mouth to hide her shock as her eyes grew wide, not quite believing it. “Gee, you had it tough.”

  “Yeah, and thanks to Rudy, and now you, I’ve got pennies from heaven. I’m set up for good.” Without warning, Kim slapped his face with an almighty wallop. This little firecracker had a good left hand, his teeth would be feeling that one for a week. Eddy had crossed a line he knew it, Kim’s shell had finally cracked. Jerk the insensitive idiot thought.

  “Okay, doll, sorry. That came out wrong. I liked the mug, even if I only knew him for a short time. He was my kind of fathead, I’d have liked to know him more, maybe shoot the breeze with him when things had died down. Sorry doll can you forgive me?”

  Kim nodded but was crying. Rivers of tears washed down her face, taking her make-up with it. Eddy took her in her arms and held her just for comfort. She melted into his embrace she didn’t know if it was the grief or what, but right at that moment Eddy felt safe, the only constant she’d had since saying good-bye to Ruddy that morning. She knew it was wrong, but right then she didn’t care.

  They remained in each others arms for what felt like an age. Eddy didn’t know if it was the moment or something more, but when he placed a kiss on her lips, she kissed him back whispering I love you Ruddy. Eddy heard it, but choose to ignore it. As their lips touched and danced.

  Eddy forced himself to brake the moment.

  “Well, what now darling? What were your plans with your old man? You couldn’t have stayed here. The heat would have been on him.”

  She spoke with a slight stutter. “We...we had train tickets for Chicago and then who knows?, Maybe Liberty City or Frisco, we hadn’t decided we were just going to roll the dice and see, Ruddy liked to live life that way.”

  Eddy thought for a moment. The train! Yes, that might work.

  “Okay, Kim… Can I call you Kim?”

  She nodded meekly. Eddy spoke as I half baked idea formed in his mind.

  “If you like… we can catch the train to Liberty City together, you and me. You can have a cut of the money, set yourself up in a new place, a new life. What do you say?”

  The train station was a few miles away. Eddy had lost a lot of time waiting for Kim to fix him up. But he was thankful for her. She had saved his life. She was real pretty, a

  ‘Hotsy-Totsy’ too. It would look better travelling as a couple. Rudy was batting well above his average with Kim.. Eddy owed her loads and would pay in full.

  Within the hour, they were off again, taking her car and dropping via her home first so I could change, into something a little less blood soaked and torn. It was only around twenty miles ,to the station, making sure we were careful on the drive to our escape, via good old rail.

  The train from Central City thundered across the state, passing farms, herding cattle and the occasional warehouse or barn. It was hard to pick out detail as the train was hurtling passed at a rate, where if you blinked you’d missed it. Kim was sweet, like a kid staring at the ocean for the first ever time. She kept her eyes glued to the window her button nose literally pressed hard and fast against the glass. Her companion just smiled, before deciding to take a snooze before he put his feet up. Eddy got the impression she had never left the city. The green fields passing them by enchanted her, intoxicating her like a drug filling her thoughts, the greens and yellow’s lay in front of her and she lapped them up. Eddy was just happy to leave it behind him.

  Still his attempt to snooze failed, so he watched everybody who passed through the compartment they were in, suspicious of anyone and everyone who glanced there way. Its wooden confines offered little comfort. He studied them like a hawk on its prey. He couldn’t help himself. It was the crook in him. Old habits died hard. But those habits kept you alive, in these new darker times.

  He smiled as he hugged the leather bag, concealed by his designer jacket. His smile grew bigger as the train slowed into Chicago and the city’s almost clean skyline hit him.

  The morning’s dirt sheets were full of the mob styled shooting in Central City, announcing the start of a citywide hunt. The papers spun the story the police used, when they had nothing. Sources say this was a hit from a street gang out, from out near the Tanneries. But that was a good and bad thing, no leads were good, but that's when he saw it.

  Rudy’s dead face was splashed across the front page.

  They didn’t seem to have any leads on the hiest or gunfight. Other than the caption under his mug shot, they thought he was part of the suspected gang. Great!

  The paper didn’t mention the money, which was dirty, so it wasn’t all that surprising. If they looked too hard, people in high up places would come unstuck. It took the pair a while to navigate out of the station, seeming to be stuck behind a line, of love sick women, looking for their next lover, from a parade of soldier's getting off the rear train carriage. Kim’s hand was tight in mine, her fingers white holding firm in my palm. My right hand gripped the leather bag, nobody was going to prize it away from me. Eddy’s eyes still scanned the crowd just to be sure. Outside the station Eddy lit a cigarette, and called a taxi from the station and they headed to a plush hotel nearby, paying with a crisp twenty. They booked in as Mr. and Mrs. Henderson, honeymooners from out west. They were shown to a top-floor suite overlooking a small park. Eddy paid the bus boy with another dollar bill, and then checked out the bathroom and his thigh. He returned and sat down, shirt still open. Kim blushed.

  “You okay, doll face?” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Like what you see?”

  Kim’s blush deepened. She glanced around. Trying not to look directly towards him, “Oh, yes, Eddy, it's lovely,” she wanted to say, Looking away was hard as their was an attraction. But she had only just lost her man, she owed it to him to keep her heart his for a while longer. Her love for Rudy was always with her. He was her first everything, if only Eddy knew how she felt. But no he wouldn’t not from her. So as Eddy walked towards the cabinet where a small scotch bottle had found its way. She imagined in her only little way her touch on his chest her hands, stroking his skin. How their eyes would met, and for a moment, there would be something in the air, something electric. A sensual, almost erotic desire would fill the suite. Well that’s what she wanted to do, but she wouldn’t. She wasn’t like that. She was a good girl deep down. Then a loud crack and the dull thud of brass hitting the pillows took her from her naughty th
oughts and brought Eddy running. Shattered glass filled the room along with the cold from outside. The windows were gone letting in the sounds from the street, the windows were totally shot out, gone. On instinct Eddy pulled Kim to the floor. “Stay there, doll. I’m going to take a look,” he said, panicked.

  He told Kim to stay down, making sure she got behind a counter, safe then grabbed his gun from the sideboard, edging cautiously toward the window he hugged the wall as tight as he could. The glass cut his bare feet. He stole a glimpse outside, that’s when he caught it, the fleeting glance of a man on the roof of the run down building opposite, and then the flash of a gun barrel. Another volley of brass hit the back wall. Eddy managed to duck from the shot. One of the rounds barely missing him.

  Eddy aimed and let out three shots each one from what he could tell was wild, all missed. All he could do was watch, as the shooter ran out of sight.

  Not such a clean get away, then. They were on to him, wanting their money back. Eddy and Kim needed somewhere safe to hide out. The gun fire would have brought attention to them.

  After calming Kim down with a glass of gin, then about an hour later, once he knew she was okay, Eddy decided to head for a busy bar, a place called Crystal’s. He needed time to think. Three double whiskeys later, he realized there must have been someone else in the alley that night. Someone from the family maybe? They knew he had the money and followed him. That had to be the only answer, that’s all they needed a tail with a lose trigger finger.

  He needed to become invisible, at least until he could work something out. Just what?

  They did a little shopping in a nearby market while trying to spend as little money as possible, just in case it left a paper trail. They got fresh clothes, but nothing too flashy. Eddy bought some plain brown trousers, a khaki shirt and a brown canvas jacket. Kim bought a cream badly fitting cream blouse that cut above the knee she hated it but understood the reason to change and the rush to do it in, she hated shopping in a rush, much preferring to take her time. Yes she hated the blouse but Eddy thought she looked a million bucks even in that but then again Eddy thought she would have looked good in anything. She had the body to make even a dust sheet look stylish, even if she didn’t see it herself. With the shopping done and their old clothes chucked in the nearest alley where a pair of homeless drunks were waiting. That done they both came to the same conclusion. It wasn’t safe at the hotel they whoever they were could come back at any moment, so they waited till it was quiet packed and slipped out without paying.

  Eddy hailed a cab and they left the glamour of the city behind. A few days later they skipped out of yet another road side motel, until Kim decided it was time to move on again, she hated the motel and after all they had the money to at least live a little better. They moved down town a few days later and with a new plan to lie low and take stock, booked a few nights in an obscure, backstreet hotel, called Sullivan’s, suitable only for healing and hiding, But after a few days, it felt eyes were on them again, so they bolted eventually renting an apartment that had a distinct look of Eddy’s old apartment in Central, it sat above a shop and a dive of a boxing gym, “O’Neal’s Hard Knox.” It was quiet and had a back way out. Which could come in handy.

  With their accommodation fixed, they needed food. They hadn’t eaten in days, well not properly and they were both starting to feel the strain of it all. Eddy didn’t want to get shot at in an open restaurant so they decided to eat in. He would fetch some food while Kim hit the shower.

  “Don’t open this door for anything,” he told her. “Even if God himself comes knocking. Okay, doll-face, I won’t be long.” As Eddy walked to the restaurant he tried to think, think about there next move. But the image and idea of Kim in a shower. Pushed all reason and sense from the man’s mind. His girl was a thing of the past now. He couldn’t go back to her. Not now. Eddy needed time so b-lined to a small tavern to drink away this new found appreciation for his travelling companion, even if it as just for a while. An hour later, he stopped by an Italian deli on the corner, a red-brick called Giovanni’s, now with enough drink in him to help him think, and the image of a naked and soaped up Kim watered down in his dirty mind, he realized he’d left Kim alone to long, so hotfooted it straight back, narrowly missing being hit by a taxi cab.

  When Eddy reached to the top of the grim, greasy stairs and clambered over a homeless drunk, who had decided to make that door way his stoop for the day, his heart went to his throat. The door was busted and its lock shattered. Carefully he opened the remains of the door with is left had, drawing his back up gun with the right. Then with his eyes on a swivel, cautiously stepped inside. Splinters of broken wood littered the floor. The room was a mess too. Someone had searched the place and done it in a hurry. Everything was cut up pictures, furniture, everything, torn, smashed or upended, but that wasn’t the worst thing, no the worst thing was that they’d got Kim. She was innocent, Eddy cursed. She came along not knowing the risks, but you did Eddy, you should have known better! Eddy thought again hating himself even more than he already did, for not seeing this coming or being able to stop this. She trusted you!

  As he made his way to the bedroom, one thing was clear, couldn’t see any blood. That wasn’t a huge comfort she was alive or so he kept hoping, but for how long? He felt angry, but that wouldn’t help either of them now, he had to think, keep calm. After searching the room for any more signs of Kim, he turned his attention back to the chaos. Hunting amid the tornado of thug based destruction that had hit the apartment. Something, anything, a clue, or that one lead that might tell him who he was dealing with and where they had taken Kim. After a few more minutes of searching, his search paid off. He found a note on the beds headboard, pinned fast with a switch-blade. Ripping the note free, it read:

  WE HAVE THE WOMAN. WE WANT THE MONEY.

  SIT TIGHT AND WAIT. WE WILL CALL YOU ON THE PAYPHONE

  AT THE END OF THE STREET

  NO TRICKS OR ELSE!

  Eddy felt his anger boil up in him, the note mentioned a payphone. They could be close by. He had to look. He had to do something. The place was in total shambles, but they had missed his colt thank god. He’d hid it in the cistern, wrapped in a rubber sheet, a handy trick learned when he was drafted. The colt was bone dry and still usable. Eddy took the gun and aimed it in the cracked bathroom mirror, imagining the bastards who took Kim in his sights, he felt his finger move to the trigger poised in the guns well greased trigger. He didn’t care who they were, they were going to pay for going after Kim. He was going to put them down some how. It took him a few minutes for that thought to seep away, enough for him to think clearly anyway. There was very little to do but wait, he tried to put the room back together. It didn’t help the feeling of unease and tension brewing in his stomach. His hunger didn’t matter any more, and he threw the food in a trash can. Grabbing his coat he decided to act. Eddy decided to go have a look around the block fully prepared to cross a few lines to get information, maybe the wino saw something, maybe during a break in his whiskey induced state. Someone must have seen them take her. Or heard the noise. This was a rundown neighbourhood granted, people around here seemed to keep themselves to themselves. But he had to do something, had to hope someone could help. What else could he do...

  Two hours later Eddy returned empty, know-body had seen anything, and if they did they weren't talking. He almost went to the police but after getting to the front desk, decided better of it. They’d ask to many questions and besides his face was in the headlines. What good would he be to her in a cell. So as the night drew on, his mind was on Kim not the money, not the plan, just the woman he’d begun to fall for. He wanted to sleep but his thoughts were full of her in pain or worse Eddy knew first hand, the things Vic Renneti’s goons if it was them, would do to get what they wanted none of them were pretty. It wouldn't even matter that she was a dame. To gorilla’s like them, it was all the same. She was just a means to an end. Those nightmares alone kept him awake, even if he could shak
e the nightmares he wouldn’t have settled, not when she was somewhere out there? The next day dragged on and along with an ever growing row of empty malt bottles, until it was 7:30 in the evening. When the phone rang, he picked it up. Eddy’s anger finding its feet again.

  Where’s the girl?”

  A husky, muffled voice on the other end replied, Eddy thought possible Irish or Cuban but couldn’t be sure. Really, it didn't matter. The only difference between the two was the Cubans had a bit more patience before they did there killing.

  “She safe—for now. We want the money or she’s dead!”

  Eddy clenched his fist. He had no choice but to play along.

  “I’m not doing a damn thing until I know she’s okay! You hear me?”

  Cold terror hit him as Kim screamed out. He didn’t know what they had done to her, but he had to calm down. Before the muffled voice had a chance to speak, Eddy cut in. “Okay, pal, listen up! Where do you want the exchange to happen, and when?”

  The muffled voice paused as if talking to someone. “Midnight tonight. Go to the corner of Mason and 117th Street. There’s an old police call box there.” apart from the voice Eddy could swear he heard water and birds, he carried on listening, hoping for more “We’ll tell you more later. Remember Mr Kovakx, you hear.” then that’s when the final piece of the puzzle fell into place, a horn, no a boats horn. Could it be the docks, it had to be Eddy told himself “No cops or tricks if we even sniff something bogus the broads dead.”