Макс Коллинз - Road to Purgatory

A wave of discontent rumbled across the throng. Heads shook in distressed disbelief.

Davis said to Connor, “Just listen and watch.”

“Not on any criminal charge, mind you,” the speaker went on, “but virtually kidnapped — and John Looney is as we gather here in peaceful, lawful assembly being beaten behind closed doors at city hall!”

Cries of “No! No!” went up, interspersed with, “Bastards!” “Sons of bitches!” and Connor — his opinion swaying — watched with satisfaction as the crowd began to transform itself into a mob. Really quite entertaining...

And now the speaker drove in the final nail: “Yes — just one block from here...” And he pointed. “...your candidate for mayor is being thrashed within an inch of his life by His Dishonor, Harry Schriver , and his crooked thugs who call themselves police!”

Connor thought, For a goddamn socialist, this guy takes orders well .

And now, all around, voices were raised: “Let’s go! Let’s save him!” Still others: “Save John Looney!” And (best of all, to Connor’s taste): “Hang Harry Schriver!”

That these “spontaneous” eruptions came from the Looney men sprinkled throughout the gathering revealed how effective Mike’s plan had been, how quickly he and Davis had passed the word and organized this attack. Even Connor could see that.

But he couldn’t let Davis know, so he said, feigning displeased reluctance, “Well, it’s too late now — we’ll go with it! Keep stirring up the shit. I’ll do the same.”

Davis nodded and disappeared in the crowd, which was already swarming toward the business district between them and city hall. God, it was great! Connor watched with delight as the crowd of appleknockers and dirty necks turned from shuffling discontent into full-bore hatred and malice.

The ungeneraled underclass army marched, their war cries guttural, nonverbal howls mostly, the injustices they’d suffered at various hands boiling over within them into the rage they’d forced down for so long, and were all too eager to spill. Connor watched with glee as the men found impromptu weapons — bottles, rocks, boards. Still, it didn’t seem to the son of John Looney quite enough — not enough to pay Mayor Schriver back for disrespecting the Looneys, and not enough... well... fun.

“Guns!” Connor yelled, pointing at a hardware store window. “Arm yourselves! There are cops in that building!”

A gaggle of rabble surged forward, and Connor, laughing to himself, stepped aside and watched as the window shattered under hurled rocks, and the door was battered down. He leaned against a wall half a block away while the unruly clodhoppers poured in and poured out of the hardware store, half-climbing over each other, shouting inanities, armed now with rifles and handguns they were loading on the run from boxes of ammunition they’d looted, and others — once the guns had run out — found pitchforks and wrenches and other tools easily turned toward destruction.

The example of the hardware store inspired the hurling of bricks and rocks through other retail windows, for the sheer sweet hell of it; rioters were pulling down trolley lines, too, throwing rocks at streetcar conductors. Here and there were stalled automobiles, windows rolled up tight, the terrified eyes of passengers taking in the streaming madness all around. Not all the wrath was righteous, as some rioters began to loot, figures darting into the night with their spoils, away from those swarming toward city hall.

Market Square had almost emptied out when fate did Connor a favor.

Another figure lurked on the sidelines, just down the street from him, leaning against a building by the mouth of an alley: that kid with the birthmark and the shabby clothes . The boy would not likely be a Looney booster, not with what had happened to his sister at Helen Van Dale’s. No, the lad had come around out of curiosity, for the big show, and was getting a bigger eyeful than he’d anticipated.

Connor glanced around. A few stragglers were still charging over toward city hall. A scattering of others around the hard-dirt, brochure-littered area, stood watching, rather stunned, the parade literally passing them by. For the most part, though, the square had been abandoned, as the mob moved on to city hall.

The boy with the birthmark jumped when Connor stuck the gun in his side.

The boy turned toward Connor, the light blue eyes wide, the mouth with its scummy teeth gaping. “You!”

“Yeah, me, kid. Head down the alley.”

“What?”

“Do I stutter? Head the hell down. There’s a fence at the end. See if you can make it over.”

“What... what do you mean... see if...”

Connor cocked the .38 in his grasp; it was a tiny sound and yet so very loud.

“I’m giving you a chance, kid. Run. Run down that alley and don’t come back. Don’t never threaten me again.”

The boy shook his head, his hands grasped before him, pleadingly. “I was... I was just talkin’, mister. I was mad about my sister. Wouldn’t you be?”

“Run. Hell, you might make it. Do it now.”

The boy’s face crinkled up, like he was going to cry, and then, from his dead stop, he bolted down the alley.

Connor walked after him — not even particularly fast — and the kid was almost over the fence when Connor fired. The report of the .38 echoed off the brick of walls and paving, bouncing like an ever-diminishing ball; but these were only a handful of sounds, in a night filled with violent sounds, many so much louder.

And the boy didn’t make any sound. Well, maybe a whimper. He just slid down the wooden fence, leaving a thin red trail, like a child’s crayon scrawl. He lay sprawled with his head against the fence, angled between garbage cans, and there wasn’t even a shudder of life leaving him — he’d been dead halfway down the fence.

Connor knelt over the body, just to be sure.

Dead, all right. Right through the pump...

He got to his feet, grunting a humorless laugh. Stupid damn kid. That’s what he got, screwing with Connor Looney. Or maybe it was what his sister got, for screwing with Connor Looney...

Connor grunted another laugh, this one mirthful.

Then he turned and had a start — a figure was silhouetted at the alley’s mouth.

“What the hell did you do ?” Michael O’Sullivan demanded, stepping into a shaft of moonlight.

Gun in hand but at his side, Connor walked forward, slowly. “It’s personal.”

O’Sullivan met him halfway, footsteps clipclopping off the brick. “This was business, tonight. This is about saving your father’s life. Or aren’t you interested?”

“Just keep it to yourself, Mike. What you saw. You don’t wanna know what it was about — trust me.”

“Trust you? Sure. Why wouldn’t I trust you, Connor?”

“You gonna tell my pop?”

“Tell him what? That while he lay bleeding, you used this riot to cover up some personal score?”

Connor shook his head, forcefully. “People’ll get hurt tonight. Shot. This kid may not be the only kill. Who’s to know?”

O’Sullivan said nothing.

“Swear you won’t tell my pop, Mike!” Connor shoved the gun in the other man’s chest.

O’Sullivan swatted the gun from Connor’s hand like an annoying fly. The gun hit hard on the brick alley but luckily did not discharge.

“What if your wife knew about things you done?” Connor said, backing up. He was afraid and trying not to cry. “Or your little boy, maybe!”

O’Sullivan moved so quickly Connor didn’t see it coming, latching onto young Looney’s topcoat lapels and slamming him hard into a brick wall, making his teeth rattle.