FRANK JAGGER Gang Wars part 3

Copyright (c) 2020 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

FRANK JAGGER

GANG WARS

Part 3

“Why didn’t I see you before?” I asked the girl with the long gams wiggling on my lap. The paddy wagon we were in, a converted Morris Minor van, was racing through the deserted streets of Chicago, along with five others, at 4 AM on August 10, 1929.

            “I was in the back … cooking,” she told me. She had a mouth full of gum and she blew and popped a bubble. It was Linda Farmgirl’s little-sister Beth all right. She was even more gorgeous up close.

            “I didn’t know the Horn Section served food?”  I was referring to the speakeasy we had all been in … that had just been raided. At least three male customers had been shot.

            “The books!” She shook her head and I got a whiff of Demi Jour perfume. “You’ve never heard of cooking the books?”

            ‘I’ve never been hungry enough to eat paper,” I told her, “boiling an old leather shoe with a few potatoes is as low as I go.”

            “You’re a funny egg.’ She played along. ‘I hope you have enough dough once we get to their restaurant.”

            “You don’t seem worried.”

            “My boss, Charley, works for McGooganheimer,” she boasted. “These bums ain’t real peaches. They belong to Big Joey Lenardo and he’s a pig. The lard’s up here from Cleveland, trying to cut himself a large, juicy slice of Chicago.”  She smiled and popped another bubble. “Charley has the lettuce to pay for my ride … plus he packs enough heat to make these mugs boil over.”

            “I’m sure he does.”

She looked at me and her eyebrows scrunched together. “Why all the questions? Are you some kind of snooper?”

            “Jagger Investigations,” I told her. “Your sister works for me.”

Beth gasped. “Do you know where Linda is?”

            “No, but I’m going to find out!”

            “I was just about to ask Charley … to barber you.”

            “Thanks, but I’ve already had my close-shave. Where are they taking us?”

            “The fourth precinct. It’s the only cabbage patch Joey has at the moment … but he’s out on his tractor every night, plowing fields … and looking to expand.”

            “At the moment?”

            “You’ll see.” She spat out her gum and kissed me. I was beginning to get dizzy.

-------2-------

The jail behind the fourth precinct police station was packed with people who couldn’t resist the beguiling temptations of illegal alcohol. Release until some fantasy court date was twenty bucks and was collected by a cop with a big smile on his face. Luckily, Beth and I were herded into the same cage. We were the only two left when I offered to pay our bail. Linda’s little sister shook her head. “Charley says not to give these bums any money it just encourages them.”

            A little while later, a large beefy cop with a leather-handled beat-stick pushed a heavy black material through the bars and into Beth’s hands. “You got five minutes,” he whispered.

I helped her carry it to the back of the cell. When unfolded, the material was the size of a double sheet and woven from the same metal fabric used for welder’s glove. She pointed to an empty bunk. “Let’s crawl under there and wrap ourselves up,” she suggested. Beth had me under her spell the first time she popped her bubble gum. I crawled under the bunk behind her and pulled the blanket over us.

We were barely on our second or third kiss when the explosion came. Broken-iron, cement, bits of police uniform fabric, and blood rained down on us. When I finally managed to push what remained of the bunk off from us, the cage we were in had been blasted open.

Dead cops lay everywhere. Some were still calling for their mothers in the smoke filled carnage while others pleaded-with or threatened Jesus. We had barely made it to the street when a taxi skidded to a stop next to us. “Get in … if you want to live,” the driver told us. The cab had a good heater. We drove for more than an hour and I finally fell asleep with Beth snuggled against my chest.

-------3-------

When I woke up, the sun was rising. A rooster was crowing as we pulled into a farm yard. “Wash up!” a bearded-hick carrying two pails of milk and with a stem of straw dangling from his mouth told us. “Breakfast is in ten minutes.”

The water in a large trough was clean enough to drink and after I splashed my face Beth made me leave while she took a bath. I wandered around a huge barn, corrals and behind a freshly painted yellow farmhouse to gaze at the countryside. Most mornings I wake up thankful to be alive … and this was one of them. My mother, Julia, was a laundress and a struggling poet before influenza stole her in nineteen eighteen. I couldn’t help thinking of her soft and brilliant eyes when she wrote … as I lit a cigarette and surveyed the countryside.

Endless fields of ripe-wheat paraded gold in the early light. Red apples sparkled like rubies from trees … around pale and misty farmyards. Distant meadows became shallow bowls of emeralds. A scattering of crows brought hope … like tiny ink splatters on fresh new paper … just under the horizon. Far off, a stream and a few ponds shimmered like pearls against deep thread-banks … trenching moist and blackened earth. Azure silk was the enormous lid that covered this open chest of rural Illinois … night the gentle closing. And one loud, cricket … would become the clicking lock that secured nature’s treasure… from the darkness. 

Beth kissed me. She smelled like lavender. “I’m hungry,” she said as she took my arm. “I hope you like bacon.”

The man and woman cooking breakfast in the farmhouse looked like they could have been my grandparents. The taxi driver was eating as well. “We got you out of the forth precinct jail just in time,” he said. “Joey Lenardo’s associates were planning for you to have an accident.”

“Why?” I asked as I shoveled bacon and two sunny-side-up onto my plate.

“Because you’re good at what you do and you work for McGooganheimer,” The woman said. “They thought Machine Gun would terminate you himself when he found out the ransom note for his daughter came from your typewriter.”

“They underestimated his intelligence,” the man said as he scooped hash browns next to my eggs.

“You’ve found my sister?” Beth asked.

“Yes, she’s being held along with McGooganheimer’s daughter at a heavily guarded farmhouse about two miles from here.” The taxi driver had finished eating and was changing his clothes. The red plaid shirt and faded bib-overalls he put on made him look like a country bumpkin.

“Why would they abduct my secretary?”

“We don’t know why,” the farmer said. “Maybe they had her type the ransom note.”

“Something doesn’t add up,” the farmer’s wife said.

“The men who abducted Lynette McGooganheimer are from New York City and are very dangerous but they’re unfamiliar with you people and farm life. The old couple who lived in the house before they arrived have disappeared.” The taxi driver explained.

 “The Smiths were nice people,” the old woman shook her head.

The taxi driver finished dressing. “These big city mobsters are looking for a hard working couple to manage the farm … while they secretly hide their captives there. McGooganheimer wants you two to apply for the job. Once you find out where they are hiding his daughter and your secretary you must help them to escape. You both are known to the captives … they’ll trust you.”

            “Say we do manage to extract them safely from the farm,” I asked. “How far will we get before they catch up to us?”

            “McGooganheimer has an army watching the place around the clock,’ the farmer said. ‘Once his daughter is safely out of firing range … all hell is going to break loose.”

-------4-------

            We spent the rest of the day making plans and learning how to do farm chores. In the morning, the taxi driver would drive us to the hideout-farm in an old truck.

Beth had a bed in the house and I was sleeping in the barn. I woke up when I heard the hay in the loft shift next to me. A pigeon flew past my ear.  I could smell her perfume. I leaned in to kiss her and she pushed me away. I heard a bubble pop and she spat out her gum. “Do you really think we should be doing this?” I asked.

            “I know more about McGooganheimer’s daughter than he does,” Beth said. “If he finds out … he’ll probably kill all of us.”

            “That should help me to sleep,’ I said.

            “No,” Beth whispered. “But I know something that will.”

TO BE CONTINUED …