Макс Коллинз - Road to Purgatory

Stocky Harry Schriver had a disheveled look, due mostly to a pile of graying hair like a pitchfork of straw had been dropped on his head. His eyes were large and dark blue and bulged, giving him a toad-like quality, which his double chin only underscored. His nose and eyes were bloodshot. His Honor obviously did not respect the Volstead Act.

“How kind of you to accept my invitation, John,” Schriver said through a big yellow insincere smile.

Looney, hat in hand, took the visitor’s chair across from the desk; he slipped out of his topcoat — the radiator was working overtime — and draped it over the back of the chair; then he crossed his legs, resting ankle on knee.

The Irish kingpin said, “My pleasure, Harry. I assume you’d like to reopen discussions about our business affairs.”

Schriver’s smile was so tight, his skin seemed about to burst; his eyes had a maniacal gleam. “What’s this I hear about you supporting this goddamn horseshit socialist recall?”

Looney shrugged, gestured mildly. “Well, that’s how America works, Harry. If the people are dissatisfied with their government, they throw the rascals out.”

The smile disappeared, and Schriver waved a thick forefinger at his guest. “The people of Rock Island are behind me. They’re behind me because I’m striking out at lawbreakers like you, Looney!”

Looney merely smiled, folded his arms. “Save your breath, Harry — you’re not out on the campaign stump now. These raids you’ve been having the police make, these charges you’ve been bringing against my people... what can you be thinking of?”

Schriver leaned on an elbow; he withdrew the cigar from the ashtray and puffed it nervously. “I just think Rock Island would be better off without a certain element.”

Looney uncrossed his legs, unfolded his arms; leaned forward. “No, you think you can take over. You think you can run this city and all the vice on top of it. You don’t need a John Looney to oversee things.”

Schriver leaned back, rocking in the swivel chair, cigar jutting. “Maybe I don’t think a city this size needs two bosses.”

“You could be right.” Looney gestured with the homburg. “That’s why I’m throwing my hat in the ring.”

The mayor lurched forward, the cigar almost falling out of his mouth. “What?”

“Well, when you’re recalled, somebody will have to sit behind that desk. Might as well be the one boss this city needs... me own self.”

Schriver turned purple; he grabbed the folded newspaper in both hands and snapped it open for Looney to see — the News , with today’s headline: SCHRIVER’S SHAME, and slightly smaller, NIGHT AND DAY OF FILTHY DEBAUCH IN PEORIA.

“Good to know people in low places,” Looney chuckled. “I have the best sources for tips in the Middle West.”

“These lies stop now ,” the mayor said, voice trembling.

Looney drew in a deep breath. Calmly, he said, “This is still America, Mayor Schriver. There’s a little thing called the First Amendment. Freedom of the press.”

Schriver’s upper lip curled back. “There’s a little thing called I don’t give a shit. Boys! ”

The door behind him opened, and Looney glanced back to see the two plainclothes dicks enter.

“It’s time,” the mayor said. To them.

Looney frowned, getting up.

The two coppers were climbing out of their suitcoats, letting the garments drop to the floor; their guns were holstered on their hips.

Patting the air, Looney said, “You don’t want to make this mistake, fellas. The likes of the mayor here are a dime a dozen — the John Looneys last a long time.”

“Is that right?” Schriver said, but the voice was next to Looney now. “I think you’ve lasted long enough.”

Looney saw the fist swinging but couldn’t duck, and his thought, his ironic self-mocking thought was, Brass-knuckle business is right , because His Honor was wearing them. The punch shattered Looney’s nose, and he would have gone down on his knees, but the two burly coppers were holding onto him.

Blood running through his mustache into his mouth, Looney half-choked as he asked, “What do you want, Schriver?”

The mayor slammed a fist into Looney’s belly.

Looney, who had ulcers, felt pain streak through him.

“I want a retraction,” the mayor said, “and an apology... in print!”

“All... all right.”

Schriver went back around the desk, opened a drawer, and when he returned, had a length of rubber hose in his hand.

“I... I said I’d apologize... retract it...”

The mayor whacked the rubber hose alongside Looney’s right ear; cartilage snapped like twigs underfoot. “Glad to hear it, John! But that’s the last time I want to see my name in your scandalous, blackmailing rag again, understood?”

“Un... understood...”

The mayor whapped the rubber hose alongside Looney’s left ear. More snapping cartilage.

Looney shrieked, “You’re killing me! You’re fucking murdering me!”

The mayor waved the limp phallus of the rubber hose in Looney’s blood-streaked face. “No, John, I’m just warning you. Warning you that your paper will have one more edition, apologizing to me, before you disappear. Before you go out to your New Mexico ranch and hump cattle or cactus, for all I the hell care. Because, John?”

And the mayor kneed Looney in the groin.

Crying out in agony, spitting blood, Looney screamed, “Help! Mike! Emeal! For God’s sake! ”

“They’re not available, John. What was I saying? Oh yes, because if I or any of my men see you in Rock Island two days from now, you’ll be shot on sight.”

Looney, barely conscious, said nothing, held up like a rag-doll by the coppers.

The mayor tossed the bloody rubber hose on the desk and then flexed his hands. “I’m tired, fellas. You work him over for a while. I’ll just watch.”

And they did, and the mayor did.

In recent years, Michael O’Sullivan had rarely felt helpless.

He had survived the war, when many around him in the trenches had not. And he had returned to America with a new confidence and a fatalistic outlook that served him well. Along the way, he had earned the allegiance of John Looney, even as he paid Mr. Looney that same respect.

But as he stood in the city hall hallway, next to his friend and fellow Looney aide Emeal Davis, O’Sullivan felt helpless indeed, hearing the cries of his chief, the agonized calls for help, the pitiful shrieking from beyond the pebbled glass doorway guarded by the two armed police officers.

“They’re killing him in there,” O’Sullivan said to the pale young cop, over the muffled yet all too distinctive cries of pain.

“I have my orders,” the young cop said; something in the man’s voice said he did not necessarily relish these orders.

“Nothing’s keeping you here,” the other cop said. He was about thirty with a chiseled look and eyes that conveyed a cynical acceptance of his lot in life. He clutched his nightstick in his right hand, tapping it into the open palm of his left, to produce a rhythmic, suggestive thumping.

Looney cried, “Sweet Jesus!”

This was not a prayer.

Trembling with rage, Emeal Davis stepped forward and raised a pointing finger. “We’re not putting up with that — that’s our boss in there!”

The chiseled copper said, “Don’t wag your finger at me, nigger. Get the hell out while you still can.”

Davis’s eyes were wild, and O’Sullivan knew the man was seconds away from drawing down on the officers and storming the office and taking back their boss. O’Sullivan grabbed Davis by the elbow, shot him a hard look, and took several steps back, as did Davis, his eyes now hooded and ominous.