Dieselpunk: An Anthology (3 page)

Kennedy started to quip back at his partner, but suddenly thought better of it. Sal really was worried about his family. His eyes said so. Kennedy needed to figure this thing out and get Papa Salvatore back to his girls.

“Hey, Ms. Shaw. Look, we just want some answers. But more than that, we really just wanna be done with this whole business. Understand?” Kennedy asked through the window.

She ignored him.

“Open up or roll the window down so you don’t suffocate in there and we can talk without yelling. What do you say?”

She opened the door. It was more than Kennedy expected.

“Look, we have a situation. See, we both know what kinda guy your father is.”

“
So you’ve reminded me, Mr. Kennedy.”

“
Okay, so he is expecting me to—”

“
Oh, stop the charade! He hired you to spy on me, not usher me home. I know because I haven’t been ‘home’ since my mother passed away years ago. And he doesn’t really want me that close anyway, not with what I know.”

Sal cocked an eyebrow at Kennedy. “Is this true?” They were supposed to just tail her from a distance and make sure she made it to her father’s hacienda, according to the lie that Kennedy had given Sal.

Kennedy’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah.”

The punch came out of nowhere. Kennedy fell to the ground as Charlie jumped to her feet. He sat up rubbing his cheek where Sal had clocked him.

“I had that coming.”

“
You’re damned skippy! How much?”

Kennedy looked hurt. “Aw, Sal! Come on, buddy. I’d never do
that
to you. You and Marie and the girls are like family to me, Sal. It
was
for the money. For Marie!”

Sal grimaced at the truth. “Because I wouldn’t’ve taken the case on my own. That about it?”

Kennedy looked down. It was enough. Sal lumbered over to his partner and pulled him up by his good arm. He looked sidelong at him and said, “Wow. You’re a real mess, Shannon.”

“
Shannon?” Charlie asked, with no attempt to suppress her amusement.

Kennedy shot the now smug Charlie a sharp glare that said enough that she made a forced show of tightening her lips…to no avail. She burst into laughter while sputtering the name “Shannon.”

“Sorry, boss,” Sal said, his meek tone saying more than the words ever could. He knew it was Kennedy’s sore spot.

“
Can we be even now?” Kennedy growled.

“
Sure-sure, boss. We’re jake. Let’s just figure this thing out.” He lowered his head,
Cause I really just wanna go home now
. He didn’t have to say it.

An air raid siren shrilled abruptly. All three jumped.

“We have to go! Get in,” Charlie said. They looked at each other and then clambered into the cab, Kennedy in the front and Sal dead center of the backseat. She gunned it to the tunnel entrance without explanation, though Kennedy demanded one beneath the screams of the warning klaxon.

The car shot out of the tunnel and took a hard right, skidding to a halt. Charlie threw open her door and bailed out with the other two hot on her heels. She explained as she ran, “My father followed you here! I have to seal it!”

Sal caught it first and whistled: dynamite. The tunnel entrance was packed in several places with pre-set TNT charges, each wired together. Charlie shuffled backwards to the cab, unspooling a length of wire.

“
What are you trying to protect, Charlie?” Kennedy asked. The sirens continued to blare along with his temper.

“
It’s complicated—”

“
Try me!”

“
If he gets into this tunnel, we’re all finished!”

He regarded her for a moment. The earnestness in her face told Kennedy that whether she was right or not,
she
believed it. Sal huffed and pined for home.

“
So what are we supposed to do when he gets here? We have an obligation to your father, you know. He hired us to keep tabs on you.”

“
I think that point is moot, Mr. Kennedy!”

Dropping the wire, she popped the trunk and reached for a blasting machine that had been wedged in next to the big footlocker from the bus depot. He reached in to help her, not entirely sure why, but trusting his gut much to Sal’s dismay. That’s when Kennedy noticed the word BELFAST stenciled in bold letters diagonally across the top of the footlocker.

“Oh, God!” He gagged, putting a kerchief up to his nose. “What is that
smell?”
It was somewhere between swamp gas and roadkill seeping like a green mist out from around the box.

“
The last of the Ireland shipment — hurry!”

Charlie shoved past the two men to set the blasting box down with both hands. She ignored them while working with haste, stripping the two wires between her teeth and wrapping them around the charging poles of the machine.

“
Charlie, come on. At least tell me what it is you’re hiding from him,” Kennedy said.

“
Ah hell, boss. We got company,” Sal said.

A Series 90 Cadillac coasted neatly up to Charlie’s Buick and a gentleman in a blue suit and tie hopped out, flashing them all a smile full of rows of white Chiclets.

“That’s far enough, Bunny Rabbit,” Mayor Shaw said. “I think you have something that belongs to me.”

Two more men stepped out of the back of the Caddy, both wearing LAPD blue, both sporting the new M3 “Grease Gun” submachine guns popular with the War Department.

Kennedy felt a strange vibration in the earth. There was a rumble and then he saw the dust cloud a mile high. Behind the mayor came a fleet of some thirty-plus sedans, all black, all ranging from Buicks to Chrysler Royals. And in the center drove a lone Packard land yacht.

Don Dragna. Godfather of the City of Angels.

The fleet formed a closed crescent just off the side of the wadi and the packed tunnel entrance, blocking them into the standoff with Mayor Shaw and his cops.

“
Mr. Kennedy, I’m afraid I no longer require your services,” Shaw said with a smile.

Kennedy wondered how he’d found them, then he saw a man duck down in the back of Shaw’s Caddy: the cowardly hack. Figured.

“Daddy, let them go, please. They only followed me here because you told them to,” Charlie pleaded.

“
I wish it was as simple as that, Bunny Rabbit. But we both know all about loose lips, now don’t we?”

The Packard hummed to the inner circle and the argument was silenced as an older gentleman climbed out of the luxury sedan. The local godfather was a foreboding contrast to Shaw. Whereas the mayor was of average height and stature, sporting short hair to emphasize “clean,” Don Dragna was tall and brutish in a dark suit and fedora covering his well-oiled wisps. When he spoke, it was with a heavy, old country accent, his voice just a few stones above talking-gravel.

Dragna scowled. “Mayor Shaw, your guests are an unnecessary risk to this operation. I am greatly disappointed.”

“
Not to worry, Mr. Dragna. We’re taking care of them now.”

“
And how do you propose to do that? Moyder them in cold blood? Right here in front of these two fine, young police officers?” Dragna
tsk-tsked
Shaw with a shake of his head. He stopped and sized up the blasting machine and wire running to the tunnel entrance. “Now what do you suppose they were wanting to do with all this, Mr. Mayor?”

Shaw chuckled. “I think my daughter was trying to bury something. Weren’t you, Bunny?”

Charlie glared.

He turned to his police security detail. “Boys, go ahead and look away. Perhaps Mr. Dragna will be so kind as to let his assistants have a word with these two dicks.”

“No!” Kennedy yelled. He took a step towards Shaw and both cops leveled their weapons at him. He felt the weight of the .45 shift in his pocket. Only two shots left. He needed time!

“
C’mon, Mr. Shaw. Me and Sal don’t need to be a part of this.”

“
How right you are, Kennedy,” Shaw said, turning away as another one of the mafia gunboats coasted into the inner circle. “Mr. Dragna, I believe what we need is in the back of my daughter’s car,” he said, nodding to the BELFAST crate.

“
Let’s hope you’re right. We’ve made quite a  …  spectacle  …  of ourselves over this fantasy of yours  …  Mr. Mayor.”

Two more goons stepped out of the new Imperial and moved to the open trunk of Charlie’s whip. Kennedy could tell by their expressions that the smell affected all alike: thugs as well as law-abiding dicks.

“Open it,” Dragna ordered.

They set the footlocker on the ground. The lid popped open after one of the goons toed the latch, revealing the most unremarkable of contents.

Don Dragna cocked a bushy eyebrow at Mayor Shaw. Shaw grinned and moved to the box, the two private eyes forgotten for the moment. He put his own kerchief up to his nose to kneel down beside the booty, fitting a white glove over his hand.

When he stood, he held aloft a single potato, blackened and festering.

“This, my friend, is the future.”

Don Dragna was not impressed.

Shaw continued, “Once the first crop is planted, you’ll have the army you need and I’ll have the country’s vote. Frank L. Shaw for president!”

Kennedy muttered under his breath, “They’re all as loony as she is.”

“No, he’s right,” Charlie whispered.

Shaw caught the exchange. “Go on and tell him, Bunny Rabbit. Can’t do any harm now.”

“They’re blighted,” she said.

Sal snorted. “Gonna take the world by salmonella? Oh, you’re a maniacal genius, Shaw!”

Shaw laughed. “Not quite. In fact, just the opposite. The breakthroughs in medical science show us where certain fungi can produce cures to some of the most extensive of what-ails-you. This particular batch from Belfast has even more uncanny abilities, though.”

“
So the mobs gonna start cornering the medical market? Is that it? You’re a sick man, Shaw. You know that?” Kennedy asked.

The godfather addressed Shaw, “I think these punks heard enough, Mayor.”

“You may be right.”

“
It’s not medicine!” Charlie yelled. “When these are planted, it’ll be the Belfast Terror all over again!” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“
Bunny, don’t cry,” Shaw said, though the compassion was just a nod at true sentiment. “Mr. Dragna’s got great plans for this country of ours and he and I are going to ensure that everyone finally has a fair chance. This will pull us out of the Depression, put the U.S. back on the map as the Land of Golden Opportunity.”

Shaw turned towards the godfather. “Mr. Dragna, if you don’t mind, we’ve got work to do.”

The godfather flashed Shaw a mean look. “I have a better idea. Since they want to play with dynamite, let them. Your girl and the tall mouthy one can go in the tunnel with their blaster. The Italian has a special place in my heart.” Don Dragna turned towards one of the two goons that had loaded the trunk. “Take him.”

Sal put up a fight, Kennedy himself resisting the urge to fire his two remaining shots at the godfather and mayor. Sal took a blow to the right eye, his brow splitting like a ripe grape. Kennedy winced, Charlie stood still, tears drying and jaw set.

The godfather turned back towards Kennedy and Charlie. “You two can leave your car here. Mr. Kennedy, I believe it is? I want you to be a gentleman and carry Ms. Shaw’s blaster down into that tunnel. Go on.” Kennedy picked up the box. He moved slowly down the embankment and to the tunnel entrance. “You too, young lady. You’re gonna get to play with your fireworks, don’t worry.”

Mayor Shaw started to say something, but the look on Don Dragna’s face silenced him. He stood silently by and resolved to watch his baby girl bury herself alive at the hand of the godfather.

“Ms. Shaw, I want you to watch my young Italian investigator friend here.” He motioned with a single finger wave to his thug and
the man propelled Sal forward to kneel at the godfather’s feet. He motioned for a pistol and emptied all but one round out onto the ground. He stuck it in Sal’s hand. “Now then,
amico
, you’re gonna stick this in your mouth. Try anything stupid and I’m sure you understand what happens next to your friends. Got family? I’ll find out.

“
Vinnie here’s gonna put a bead on your friend Kennedy. Let’s try, shall we? Vinnie, go ahead and play like you intend to shoot out Mr. Kennedy’s head.”

The goon grinned and raised his Thompson, sighting down the length of the barrel at Kennedy inside the tunnel.

“Good! Now,
amico
, stick the business end of that
pistola
in your mouth like you intend to take your own life  …  there we go.” Sal clamped his lips around the cold steel of the rervolver.
Marie, I’m so sorry
, was all he could think.