Chapter 3: The Emperor Wears a Baby’s Ass
Mr. Badwrench feels good in my hand. Cold, heavy, balanced. I got my nickname when I was nine, after I introduced a similar wrench to the skull of a creep who was getting funny with a kid in an Esther Street alley. Hero then, feared hood now. Funny how that works. I smack the fat crescent end against my palm. Clap. Clap. Clap. A nice, steady rhythm for thinking things out.
And I’ve got a lot to think about.
Downstairs, in nests of silk and satin, are two dames. One is mine, Clarity Bell, though ‘mine’ is a word you rent, not own. The other is Al’s longest-running kitten, Vivian Marconi. Another ghost from Esther Street. The stuck-up mouse who wouldn’t give me the time of day when we were twelve, and still wouldn’t if I was the last man on this timeline. I get a grim satisfaction seeing her knocked off her high horse by all this trouble. It’s, what’s the word Al’s got us using? Eminently amusing.
That’s just one slice of the Weird Al pie. The bigger slice showed up last week. The scar—the one that gave him the nickname he grokking hates, the one that looked like a railroad map from hell—was gone. Vanished. His face was smoother than a baby’s tookus on a suntan billboard.
And nobody but me noticed.
Not a word from Frankie “Digits” Gallo, our numbers guy, a man who can spot a counterfeit C-note from across a smoky room. He’s sitting three feet from the Boss and sees nothing. Not a peep from Tommy “Two-Times” Vercetti, an operations man so meticulous he double-taps his own shadow just to be sure. Tommy’s the kind of guy who, if you hit one of his men, he takes two of yours—on a good day. If he’s pissed, things get “exponential.” Yet this walking abacus of violence can’t see the Boss’s face has been wiped clean?
Gimme a break. Something’s wrong in Shytown.
My own snooping confirmed it. I’m a radio ham when I’m not fixing Kaddies or kneecaps, and my latest spy gadget has been listening to the pillow talk from the girls’ boudoirs. The verdict is in: Big Al Kapone, the Yahfather of the whole grokking USNA, is going soft. Getting nice. Showing mercy.
In our dog-eat-dog underworld, that’s how you get fitted for cement shoes.
I’m going nuts spinning my wheels. A moonlight booty call to Clarity’s suddenly feels like a chore. I need noise. I need people. I need a drink. I need Ralph’s.
Raphael’s Tavern at 21 Fleek Street Alley
The batwing doors of Ralph’s place whisper shut behind me, sealing off the high-rent world Esther Street has become. Fleek Street is a relic, a narrow alley paved with ancient Belgian blocks, a place our greasy political puppets and revenue radars somehow missed.
Ralph’s is the same speakeasy it was when we were kids, a place where the ghosts of old hemp and stale beer refuse to be exorcised. A few lushes nurse bottles in the corner booths. Me and Ralph have the long walnut bar to ourselves. I slide onto my favorite stool, the red naugahyde cushion a familiar, butt-friendly anchor in a world gone sideways.
Ralph Martin, my favorite bartender, approaches. He looks like that actor, Roy Walton, the guy who played the super-smart alien in the old “Me and My Martian” movies. He slides my usuals down the bar without a word: a double Daniel Jack bourbon, no rocks, and a cannablend cigar. He places the cigar between my lips and flicks a Zeppo lighter that’s probably been around since the Great War.
His steely green eyes lock onto mine. He already knows.
“Trouble with Miss Clarity, Mr. Malone?” he asks, his voice smooth as the bourbon. “Or perhaps your dog died?” He’s washing glasses, but he doesn’t miss a trick. Before I can answer, he stops, places his palms flat on the bar, and leans in. “Or are you worried that a certain ‘nice-guy-come-lately’ might have us all finishing last?”
The relief hits me like a shot of uncut whiskey. “So you see it too! Thank Yah, Ralph! I thought I was going crazy. Digits, Tommy Two-Times… they’re blind.”
“Perhaps a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes, young Edward,” Ralph says, already pouring another Jack, a single this time. “Mentioning Albert’s face has proven… unhealthy in the past. Remember that reporter?”
I remembered. A week in critical condition for yelling, “Welcome, Scarface!”
“Yeah, but Ralph, now Digits tells me we just bought the whole grokking town of Lewisville to start a baseball camp for kids. Lewisville Sluggers. This ain’t just a new face; it’s a new soul.”
“Dangerous indeed,” Ralph muses. “Hitting your organization right in their gator-skinned wallets. But you are not alone in this, Edward. Are you packing tonight?”
“Always.” I pat the Bolt 45 under my jacket. “Why?”
“Oh, I think it might come in handy.” He nods toward the frosty picture window. “Look outside.”
Two Kadillacs screech to a halt. One is Tommy’s ridiculous two-tone pink and black paint job. The other is Digits’s, a glossy black hearse built for business.
Ralph calmly withdraws two well-oiled Tommy guns from behind the bar and slides one to me. “Redundancy rules, Mr. Malone.”
The tavern comes alive. The “lushes” rise from the booths, no longer drunk, but armed. Gun cabinets I never knew existed swing open.
“Ok, folks,” Ralph says calmly. “Everybody down.”
We hit the floor just as the window explodes in a hailstorm of machine-gun fire. Tommy Two-Times himself is out there, a fifty-cal in each arm, screaming like a madman.
“Here’s my donation for the kids, you goodie-two-shoe bastards!” he bellows over the roar of the guns.
Glass flies. Furniture splinters. We’re crouched behind the bar, two soldiers in a foxhole. I start to rise, to return fire, but Ralph’s hand on my arm is like iron.
“Wait for it, my good ladies and gentlemen,” he says, his voice a serene whisper in the hurricane of noise. “Wait… for… it…”
The shooting stops. In the bar mirror, I see the crews retreating to their Kaddies. Doors slam. Ignitions turn.
And then Fleek Street lights up like the Fourth of July.
Two massive fireballs turn the Kaddies into molten slag. The Hinterburg disaster looked like a kid’s birthday candle by comparison.
Like I said, Ralph Martin ain’t no pussy.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he announces to the smoky room, clapping his hands. “It appears there will be joy in Lewisville tonight. Now, chop-chop. Brooms and shovels, if you please. You too, Edward.”
Dutifully dumping a shovelful of glass in an alley bin, I see two dames taking a blunt break. One is Lena “The Lark” Morozov, an espionage artist fresh off the boat. The other is Gina “Gears” Falcone, our logistics wizard, the woman who makes sure Falcone Express always delivers.
They’re laughing. Giggling hysterically as a smoking, two-tone pink and black necktie—unmistakably Tommy’s—flutters down from the sky. It lands in a puddle with a sad little sizzle.
They see me watching, and Gears gives me a wink. She’d planted the bombs, right under the loose Belgian blocks she knew they’d park on. Insurance.
And right then, I get it. This wasn’t a betrayal. This was a housecleaning. A meticulously planned, ruthlessly executed housecleaning.
Whatever team these folks are on, that’s the team me and Mr. Badwrench want to be on. And I had a nagging suspicion that not only did Big Al Kapone know all about it, he was the one who signed the checks.
Maybe the nice guys didn’t have to finish last after all. Maybe they just had to play a hell of a lot smarter.
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