A Pure Double Cross (12 page)

Father Sullivan took a moment to survey the congregation. They were his.

“Salvation is never sealed!” he thundered. “Salvation is
work.
Salvation is what you do when you leave these pews and get up tomorrow and tomorrow and, God willing, the day after that. Salvation,” concluded Father Sullivan hoarsely, “is many choices well made!”

He was greeted with a chorus of raucous
Amen
's.

Ushers passed the collection basket a short time later. It contained donation envelopes, a Thistledown racetrack ticket, a pearl earring and a pack of Lucky Strikes. I added a fin and passed it along.

It was time to make up my damn mind.

-----

Mrs. Brennan extended the lockup hour till 3 a.m. on Saturday nights. I cabbed it back to the Angle with minutes to spare and marched up the stairs. I fished out my room key when I reached the door.

What was this? The keyhole had been gouged and scraped.

A dim light shone through the transom window but I had left a lamp lit. Never come home to a dark room. I pressed my good ear to the door and kept it there. I made out a muffled sound. Snoring.

Huh?

Only thing I could figure was Ricky and Pencil Mustache were lying in wait after I'd been lured away for a night on the town. It would explain Jimmy's sudden buddy-buddy. Come out and play, meet your long lost love, drink too much rum and stagger home drunk and preoccupied. Brilliant so far as it went. But my church detour messed with their timeline. They'd nodded off while waiting on me.

I got my Walther in hand and keyed open the door quiet as could be. I stepped in.

The three punks from the Theatrical were splayed about my room with their feet up. Two on the bed, one in the armchair to the right.

No iron came out but the one in the chair leapt to his feet. I took two quick steps and clocked him on the side of the head with my P38. He was out before he hit the floor.

“Hold up, hold up,” yelled the oldest one from the bed, either to me or his playpal who was running headlong at me with malice aforethought. I liked it when they did that. I juked right and clotheslined him with my left arm.

He fell backward and bounced his skull off the hardwood. Two down, one to go.

I faced big brother. Not sure how I knew they were brothers exactly but they were. Big brother was perched on the edge of the bed, looking pained.

“This isn't what you think,” he said.

“What is it?”

That's the last thing I remember. Apparently one of the young men I had dumped on the hardwood elected not to stay there.

Next thing I knew I was propped up on pillows, my right temple throbbing from a sap blow. One of the younger brothers was swabbing my face with a wet towel. I let him.

“I apologize,” said big brother. “We just wanted to meet in private.”

I moved my mouth but no words came out. “Why?” said big brother. “Is that what you're trying to say?” I nodded. “We want to join up.”

It only hurt when I laughed.

“We're serious,” said big brother. “The heat's on over at Bloody Corners. Not much shakin' for ambitious young men like Sean, Patrick and meself - we're the Mooney brothers by the way. We know you're the new boss of Fulton Road and we want to sign on.”

I tried my vocal chords. They squeaked like a rusty hinge. Sean or Patrick proffered a flask. I took a yank. “Where'd you get that idea?”

“From Jimmy Streets.”

My unhinged jaw asked the question for me.

“Guy calls up, won't say his name. Says our cop killer just walked into the Theatrical. He describes a mug looks like you. So we go on over to see what's what. We follow you out - we just wanted to ask a few questions, mind - and Jimmy comes outta nowhere with his sawed-off.”

So Jimmy had stage managed the whole shebang. And big brother figured Jimmy wouldn't have bothered unless Hal Schroeder was a big cheese.

I guess. It was hard to think clearly with these apple-cheeked Irish loogans hovering over my bedded carcass, swabbing my head and administering anesthetic.

A thought occurred. These boys had been lied to and shot at by Jimmy Streets, they might come in handy somewhere down the line. But I'd seen their like by the hundreds overseas, fly blown and staring up at nothing, and I didn't feel like adding to the pile. Jimmy wouldn't kill easy.

“How about it?” said big brother. “You got a place for us?”

“G'wan home,” I said. “Your mama's worried sick.”

Big brother looked crestfallen. And here I was doing him a favor. “All right, all right. Give me a phone number. I need something, I'll call.”

Big brother scrawled a number on a slip of paper. He would be named Seamus or Finn or…

“Ask for Ambrose,” he said, handing me the note.

Ambrose?

The Mooney brothers tiptoed out, shutting the light and closing the door behind them, ever so gently.

I kicked off my shoes and tapped my foot to the thudding drumbeat in my right temple, thinking about holding Jeannie in my arms on the dance floor of Jolly Jack's Lounge and Dance Parlor. It had been some night on the town.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” said Wally when I walked into FBI HQ on St. Clair the next afternoon sporting a lurid purple wraparound shiner that contrasted nicely with my yellow facial bruises and the grimy ocher bandage on my ear. “This Mona Lisa dame, I sure hope she's worth it.”

“Oh she is, Wally, she is” I said with a painful wink. How can a wink be painful? I followed him through the labyrinth of corridors to Chester Halladay's office.

Security. That was why the office of the Special Agent in Charge was buried at the end of this Babylonian maze. Any assailant would have to run a gauntlet of junior G-men to get to Halladay.

Smart. If the assailant was dumb enough to mount a frontal attack. Not so smart if the assailant attacked from the rear. The Special Agent might find his escape route all bunged up. Safety bars aren't much help if a fire breaks out inside your house.

Wally and I arrived at our destination. I gathered myself before the great oaken door. Wally tugged at my sleeve and said, “Visiting hours are two to five.”

Huh? I checked my watch, checked my memory. “But I have a one o'clock.”

“And you're right on time,” said Wally, tapping on the door.

“But…”

“Enter and be recognized,” said a smooth and hearty voice from the other side. I opened the door to see Chester Halladay and Agent Gilliam standing to greet me.

“
After
your meeting,” said Wally, one hand ushering me inside, the other hand spinning at his temple.

“Oh, gotcha,” I said and entered the Sanctum Sanctorum.

“What the hell happened to you Schroeder?” said Chester Halladay merrily.

“Just a little misunderstanding sir. Nothing serious.”

Halladay resumed his seat. “What do you have to report?”

I told Halladay and Gilliam the truth. That the Fulton Road Mob's racketeering operations were thriving after the police raid on their rivals, that Wally and I had tailed The Schooler's Packard east on Harvard Road, hauling the weekly take, presumably to the palatial digs of the boss man. I told them we had lost contact due to my tactical mistake. And then I flat out lied.

“The Schooler is eager to get this final heist off the dime. He's agreed to bench Jimmy Streets if that's what it takes to get the green light.”

Chester Halladay deputized his subordinate with a nod. Agent Gilliam said, “So we won't have to worry about Jimmy running amok with his scattergun?”

“Heard about that, did you?” I said. “Then you know he didn't shoot to kill.”

“Yeah,” said Gilliam. “Guy's a regular Florence Nightingale. Just ask that dirty cop he killed.”

“Not that we care,” said Chester Halladay. He said his words slowly, and looked at me as he said them. “He got what a traitor deserves.”

I kept my face quiet despite the buffalo stampede thundering across my skull. Only Jimmy, The Schooler and I knew what really happened to that sad sack cop. The feds had made an educated guess based on how things played out. Bloody Corners Gang laying low, Fulton Road Mob raking it in. They were bluffing.

“Jimmy wanted to go to war when that cop's body was found. He didn't kill him!”

Halladay and Gilliam seemed to buy it. Leastwise they didn't bust out laughing.

“So Jimmy Street is out of the picture?” said Gilliam.

“Provided we get the go-ahead on the payroll job.”

Chester Halladay spliced his hands together and used them as a pillow on which to rest his fat greasy head. “Teddy Biggs was going to come to you, you recall that?”

“Yes sir. I said Teddy Biggs would come to me because I would make myself indispensable. I've done my best, won acceptance without question. But I'm not indispensable without the go-ahead.”

“I believe I can get you that go-ahead,” yawned Halladay. “If you can assure me that you will present the final phase of the operation to Mr. Big and none other.”

Gilliam stated the obvious. “We don't have a case unless you can testify that Mr. Big himself said go.”

“Understood. I'll present the plan to the boss man or die trying,” I said and, except for the dying part, meant it.

“Come back in two hours,” said Chester Halladay with a plump wave.

Wally was waiting in the corridor.

-----

The Army warehoused their shell shock casualties in a Quonset hut with chicken wire on the windows. Bunks in back, a day room with chairs, two couches, a radio and a card table in front. Crile Hospital, Parma, ten miles south of downtown.

Special Agent Richard Schram was sitting on a folding chair, his jaw working, dried egg caked at the corners of his mouth, his watery blue eyes furrowed as if trying to make out a distant figure.

“Agent Schram, it's Wallace Hirdahl again. How're you getting along?”

Something flickered across Schram's face. Momentary recognition? Distaste?

“Hal Schroeder came along too,” said Wally, nudging me forward. “To pay his respects.”

Cripes, the man wasn't
dead.
I studied Schram to see if the insult had registered. It had not. The only sign that Richard
Schram was still himself was his right hand. It was knotting itself into a fist, relaxing, knotting itself, relaxing.

I squatted down in front of Schram's folding chair and wedged my hand into his knotting fist. This got me a series of staccato blinks and a wicked left jab that landed just below my cheekbone.

I coughed and blinked water from my eyes. I felt moisture on my cheek. I checked Schram's left hand. It bore a service ring with pinprick diamonds, dripping blood.

I pressed my face close. I took both of Schram's hands in mine.

“Screw ‘em all Richard. It's not your fault. You did your job and you did it right. It's not your fault. Don't let the bastards win. It's not your fault. You did your job and you did it right. Screw ‘em all Richard,
screw ‘em all
.”

Schram reclaimed his right hand and angled his head as if considering what I'd said. I thought for a moment that I'd gotten through, thought that Richard Schram was about to stand up, shake himself and march out of this makeshift dungeon. But it wasn't Harold Schroeder that Richard Schram was listening to on that folding chair.

Wally took my place. He placed a box of cough drops in the breast pocket of Schram's flannel bathrobe. “They're Luden's,” he said softly. “Honey licorice.”

Schram continued knotting his right fist, flexing his ropy forearm. I checked my watch. It was time to go.

-----

“Good Lord, Schroeder,” said Chester Halladay when I returned from the hospital, “we're going to have to get you a cut man.”

Richard Schram's name was still on the door the of the office of the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, but Agent Gilliam's size 46 suit jacket hung from the coat rack. Gilliam stood to the right with his arms folded. Halladay sat behind the desk.

“Who'd you mix it up with this time?”

“Agent Schram.”

Halladay's smirk drained to his chin. “I've been meaning to pay him a visit. How's he doing?”

“Lousy.”

“I'll see to it that he gets the best of care,” said Chester Halladay, solemnly.

Then he dropped a thick courier's pouch on the desk with a satisfying
whump.
“We got the go-ahead. But Jimmy Streets shows up and operational orders are shoot to kill.”

“Yes sir.”

Halladay ticked his chin at Gilliam. Gilliam removed a file from the pouch, unfolded a schematic diagram and laid it out on the light board against the far wall.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the name on the precisely drafted blueprint that included room dimensions, width, length
and
height, rate of climb of the staircase, noted the total number of steps - noted, hell, each step was individually numbered - and depicted each and every desk and cabinet in the payroll department. Each and every desk and cabinet in the payroll department of Cleveland's largest employer, Republic Steel.

I listened to Agent Gilliam's recitation of the precise maneuvers that would comprise the largest armed robbery in Cleveland history. Special Agent in Charge Chester Halladay sat back and showed all thirty-two in a triumphant grin. It hurt to smile so I just nodded. That hurt too.

-----

The ancient elevator operator with the oversized Adam's apple didn't blink at my battered mug when he opened the car door on the 9
^th
floor.

“Lobby please.” He closed the outer door and the sliding gate and cranked the brass knob. “How's your day going?” I said, the thick courier pouch tucked under my arm.

The old man muttered something I couldn't make out over the brass oompah band that had taken up residence above my right temple. The elevator car slowed and settled at floor #5. The bell rang as the door opened. No one there. We descended.