The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of an Old Dead Guy, Part 5 of 6

Mickey Malloy’s investigation into the murder of Nikola Tesla has put him onto the trail of a deadly assassin: the infamous Cousin Sal. With Reed in tow, he must infiltrate an Axis militia’s stronghold to bring the killer to justice.

Until Only Roaches Remain is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 5 of The Case of an Old Dead Guy. If you’d like to avoid spoilers, read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 first.

Content warnings: Mild swearing, alcohol use, tobacco use, drug use, violence, gun violence, death, sexual references.

FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 8, 1943
SWEET PEARLS FLOPHOUSE
THE BRONX, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

“This joint looks a bit... cushy for a flophouse,” Mickey Malloy said. He parked the loaner car across the street from Cousin Sal’s hideout and eyeballed the garish building.”

“But for a cat house, it’s pretty ratty,” Reed replied.

Red velvet curtains and colored lights betrayed Sweet Pearls' actual racket. The hand-painted sign hanging out front that bore the name of the establishment was garnished with a woman's hand grasping Neptune's trident in a manner that could only be described as suggestive.

“Ah, I see it now,” Mick muttered.

“And you notice the trident's color?” Reed asked.

“Red. Tridente Cremisi, right,” Mick sighed. The pro-Mussolini group wasn’t shy about claiming the brothel. They'd always been on the Office's radar, but their ambitions had always been petty. Even the rifles the particular goons who ran the flophouse had split with the Silver Legion had already been disabled. But even if the Tridente was as small-time and incompetent as he thought they were, Mick wasn't looking forward to invading their turf.

“They came in and bought the joint a few months back,” Reed explained. “They use it to house their people that come through town. Between you and me, they probably make more money turning tricks here than they do fund-raising.”

“And now they're sheltering Cousin Sal.”

“Now I remember that name!” Reed sat up, but Mick pushed him back into his seat so his view of Sweet Pearls wasn't blocked. “That guy was a legend before I got the beat.”

“Waxed five paddies in the street,” Mick confirmed. Reed snatched his notepad out of his pocket. “That's hearsay, newshound.”

“Get independent confirmation,” Reed muttered to to himself as he scribbled notes.

“Took out the guys who tried to give him the big sleep then left town. He started hiring himself out to anyone who'd pay money to see someone dead.”

“So you’re after a reward?”

“If he was just chilling off wiseguys and highbinders, the feds would just as soon leave him to it, but now he's got exclusive contracts out with the krauts.” Mick didn't have any problem with bad guys offing each other, but when they were doing it to hurt his country, that's when the Office had to step in.

“So what's the plan?”

“You got any contacts in there?”

“I know a guy who does...” Reed trailed off in a way that could only mean something was already off the rails. Mick groaned when he realized who Reed's contact had to be.

“Eggs?” Mick asked. Reed nodded. “You think he'd drop the dime on us?”

“He's a cheap date, he’d drop a dime for a nickel,” Reed answered.

“Cheap, huh? Tell that to my billfold,” Mick grumbled.

“If we can't go in, what are we looking for out here?” Reed asked.

“Anything suspicious.”

“Other than the johns?”

“Other than the johns,” Mick confirmed. He pulled his flask and offered it to Reed. The reporter could smell the bottom-shelf hooch from across the car and wisely turned it down. Mickey shrugged and took a double slug for the both of them. “You’re going to watch the corner rooms on the top couple floors. Sal'd post up somewhere he’d have a good view.”

“What are you going to be watching?”

“The back of my eyelids, kid.” Mick pulled his hat down low and settled in for a long stake-out. He could feel each spring of the loaner car's seat in his back.

“I think I see something,” Reed said. Mick hadn't even had his eyes closed for a minute.

“Tell me when you know you see something,” He grumbled, and pulled his coat tighter to keep out the cold.

“I know!” Reed shouted, then kicked his door open and dove to the sidewalk, dragging Mick behind him as if the big man weighed nothing. Before Mickey could even object to losing his hat, a Thompson chattered from the top floor of Sweet Pearls.

“Holy hell!” Mick yelled. Hot lead fell in sheets onto the tired sedan, punching into the driver's seat where Mickey'd been sitting. The upholstery shredded under the barrage, whittled down to those uncomfortable springs.

“Cool off, jack!” Mick called out to the shooter. He scrambled over and took cover behind the rear tire while Reed tucked up behind the engine block. More rounds roared out of the sixth-floor corner window, pounding puckered holes in the loaner's hood.

“Looks like Eggs went and dropped that dime,” Reed said.

“Keep your head down and do what I say,” Mick grunted. He pulled his snub-nose .38 and made sure it was fight-ready. Reed watched him check it. The reporter didn't have the wide eyes that civilians usually adopt when a gun gets pulled, and he had handled himself well when the shots started coming down. There was more to him than Mickey’d first thought.

The Thompson howled again, pitting the sidewalk behind Reed. The few civilians on the street had bolted, and johns and girls alike were stumbling out of Pearls' front doors, pulling their pants up and their dresses down as they ran.

The barrage broke off suddenly; Thompsons could eat through a twenty-round box magazine in seconds. Mickey stood and loosed a few rounds at the window, enough to keep the shooter's head down.

“Can you shoot?” he asked Reed. The young reporter nodded, not sure enough for Mick's preference but Reed was all he had. “Then it's time to cowboy up.”

Mickey tossed the revolver and a couple speed loaders to Reed then gingerly edged around the trunk. He grabbed the release and popped the hatch, but the Thompson went loud again, putting half-a-dozen holes through the trunk lid.

“Damn!” Mick said. He dropped down to his belly. To his right, Reed lined up a shot. He held the pistol steady like a marksman, exhaled, then fired once. Glass shattered across the street.

“Cazzo l'inferno!” the shooter cursed, his voice as rough as sand paper. Two more johns and a couple skirts skittered out the double front doors, letting them swing shut behind them. The break in shooting was long enough for Mick to retrieve his duffel from the perforated trunk. He ripped the bag open and threw his padded vest over his shoulders, buckling it as fast as his knobby fingers could manage. He grabbed the hatch-marked piano leg. Reed gave him a sideways look.

“How long's it take for the coppers to get here?” Mick yelled.

“Tomorrow?” Reed called back.

“Then keep that asshole pinned!” Mick shouted.

“I'm on it,” Reed said. He popped his last shot through the Pearls' broken window, then emptied the spent brass. He reloaded the revolver before its casings could clatter into the gutter.

Mickey dashed out from behind the car like he wasn't beat to hell by bourbon and time. He was across the street in a flash, slamming against the door frame in preparation to breach. He closed his eyes then pulled his flask to take a long hit, finishing off his horrible liquor in one swig. It was something Mickey Malloy was too tired for, too ground down to gristle for.

He tied a familiar black bandanna over his nose and mouth and gave Mick the rest of the day off. If anyone could handle the bullshit, it was the Billy Club Bastard.

The Bastard glared at the empty flask in his hand. He didn’t need liquid encouragement to to wipe the floor with traitors. He threw it aside, bouncing it off the pavement with an echoing clang that drew a furious howl of bullets from within Pearls.

A barrage exploded the cat house's double doors outward in a spray of painted splinters and colored glass, showering the street with chromatic shrapnel and lead. The Bastard rolled away, club in hand, ready to slug anyone with the guts to come through the door.

A second-floor window shattered outward, spinning the Bastard on his heel. He could see blackness down a gun barrel, and an eye behind iron sights. The shooter had the drop on him.

A shot rang out from across the street.

Reed's bullet smashed into the attacker's Thompson, breaking the machine gun into pieces that knocked into the man's stomach, doubling him over. He tumbled over the window sill, flipping once to land on his back, feet away from the Bastard.

Had Reed not been on point, the Bastard would have been toast.

“Mio dorso,” the wounded man moaned. It wasn't Sal. The Bastard rushed over and clobbered the traitor with his heavy club, knocking him into dream land. The Bastard barely had time to turn before the next attack.

The shattered front door busted out under a heavy boot and Reed's pistol rang again. His bullet collided with second traitor’s rifle, leaving the man shocked and wincing and the gun ruined.

The Bastard was on him in an instant, bringing his club around to knock the fight right out of him.

Threats neutralized, the Bastard studied the two groaning traitors. They both wore red trident and green turtle pins in their lapels and both of them had their gun shot right out of their hands, lead drilled straight through the receivers. Even if they had held onto their weapons and maintained their faculties, those guns were about as good for shooting as they were for painting.

“Good aim, kid!” the Bastard shouted.

“I don't shoot people!” Reed called back.

“I hope you're flexible,” the Bastard grunted, then stormed into the cat house. The leftover scraps of door fell aside as he rushed through.

The inside of Sweet Pearls was as gaudy as the outside. The walls were draped in crimson velvet and gold cord. Soft red lighting glowed from the center of each room, enough to keep from tripping while soaking the deep corners and their plush davenports in shadow. A gilded desk stood abandoned at the foot of the carpeted staircase. The Bastard warily approached the bottom step.

“Sigillito!” he called up. “Come on down here!”

An angry voice shouted back from the top floor.

“Leave now, grassone!”

“Not after what you did to the old guy,” the Bastard called back. “Don't make me come up there.”

“Ucciderlo, fratelli!” Sigillito yelled. He fired a salvo of rounds down the stairwell. The Bastard tucked to the side to avoid the hail of lead. A heavy door on the top floor slammed shut before the pounding of a dozen feet came stomping down the stairs. Six men, more Tridente Cremisi quislings adorned in turtles and pitchforks.

The Bastard rolled his left fist into a lead-weighted jackhammer and hefted his club with his right. He met the oncoming men at a full charge.

The fastest lunged with a switchblade from the first landing. The Bastard let his thick vest take the point. When it failed to gut him, the traitor turned pale and his eyes went wide. A punishing backhand sent him tumbling down to the first floor, catching each stair on the way.

A second man leapt from the second floor, trying to tackle the Bastard. He wasn’t as slick as he thought: an indignant swat knocked him out of the air like a shuttlecock. Two ribs cracked in mid-air, joined by a second pair when he crashed down hard on the carpeted stairs. He stuttered down to the first floor, boneless next to his groaning comrade.

The third and fourth men met the Bastard on the flight to the third floor, one swinging a ball peen hammer, the other with his fists twisted through spiked brass knuckles.

The Bastard let his padded vest take the first hammer swing while he folded the would-be pugilist's arm over his club. A dismissive headbutt staggered him.

The hammerer kept going, shoving past his dazed pal. The steel head sunk deep into shoulder meat. The Bastard shrugged off the blow and grabbed the swaying man by his broken arm, eliciting an awful shriek that flash-froze everyone in earshot down to their marrow.

The Bastard let the howl wash over and through him before throwing the screaming man into his buddy. The pair got wrapped up in each other’s arms and weapons long enough for the heavy club to skip across both their skulls. They bounced down the stairs like a turncoat tumbleweed.

The stairs to the fourth floor seemed steeper than the last. The Bastard was moving slower. Numbness was spreading down his arm. That hammer had hit him like a meteor.

He turned the corner onto the fourth floor landing, wary of the two other men he'd heard stomping around at Sigillito’s beck and call. He took a second to steady himself, leaning against some especially garish wallpaper.

“Don’t move, asshole,” someone growled behind him. The insistent shove of a gun in the middle of his back was an all-too-familiar feeling. He gauged the firearm by feel alone. Its muzzle was too wide for a pistol, but not wide enough for a shotgun. A rifle.

“Let’s not rush anything,” the Bastard growled. The walls of the brothel seemed to rattle with his voice. The Tridente man gulped audibly. The Bastard smelled gun oil, factory-fresh out of the box. He smirked, asking: “You even know how to load that thing?”

The Tridente man racked the bolt, the familiar ka-chunk of a German battle rifle. The Bastard knew exactly where a shiny, fresh out the box, factory-spec Kar98k would’ve come from. He smirked beneath his mask, asking:

“New toy, huh?”

“Shut up!” the traitor snapped. He called to his remaining pals: “I got him!”

“Then shoot him!” Sigillito shouted from two floors up.

“You aren’t going to shoot me,” the Bastard promised the trembling man behind him.

“The hell I’m not,” the Tridente man snapped. He grunted once and tried to pulled the trigger. It didn’t budge and might as well have been a solid block of metal. He worked the bolt, spitting out an unused round, tried the trigger again, then rattled the rifle as he shook it.

“Looks like you got a lemon,” the Bastard grunted. He turned around to face the confused man. The Bastard snatched the impotent rifle by its barrel then jerked it up, bouncing it off the confused traitor’s nose. Blood gushed and the man dropped. The Bastard kicked him hard enough to lay him out for the count.

The Bastard dusted himself off, tossed the disabled rifle aside, and set back up the stairs. He found the last Tridente goon on the sixth floor, guarding a bunker-like metal door.

“You in there, Sal?” the Bastard called, ignoring the foolish-looking traitor.

“I got this one,” the guard told the closed door. His square jaw was shaved clean, and his hair was cropped short and slicked in a tight part. He was all decked out, full parade uniform. He wore the red trident and a green turtle patch on his left sleeve and the Italian flag on his left. His chest was adorned with more medals than an Olympic swim team. A Beretta pistol shined in his right hand, and the mirror-polished trench knife in his left caught the brothel lights' red glow.

He had to be the Empire State Cleaners’ cell leader. Most cells had one guy who’d been shipped off to train at the SIM’s Methodical Warfare schools in the Italian Alps. In general, most Tridente were local idiots with more muscle than sense, but they always had one trained nut at the core. The Empire State Cleaners’ nut was as close to a real deal commando as Mussolini would waste on America.

“This your place?” the Bastard asked.

“It is,” the commando replied.

“Sorry I messed it up for you.”

“Quit yakking and kill him!” Sigillito shouted.

“We aren’t called the Cleaners for nothing,” the commando replied, gloating in a frankly sad attempt to impress his guest. “It will be like you were never here.”

“You should’ve stuck to your day job, pal,” the Bastard snarled. “I like to leave an impression.”

“You are good, grassone, I’ll give you that. I am good, too,” the man said. His knife was razor sharp, and even if the Bastard's protective vest could stop it the man wielding it could get it around armor. They both knew it, too. He pointed to the Bastard's club with that knife: “We going to fight like men?”

“That’s a stupid idea,” the Bastard groaned. He was too tired for nonsense.

“Fair enough,” the commando said. His hand moved in a blur. He brought his little black Beretta and fired off two rounds, close enough to send the Bastard diving away. The man in black scrambled around the corner, tripped over a rug, and tumbled back down the stairs to the next landing.

The commando continued his firing advance, chewing up carpet and plaster with each shot. The Bastard found himself staring up the stairs at the Italian agent. The man smiled and leveled his pistol at the Bastard's head.

“Too scared to open up and get me yourself, Sal?” the Bastard shouted past his attacker. The commando smirked and tightened his finger on the trigger.

Behind him, metal scraped metal, and a Thompson barrel poked through the door’s open peephole.

“Chew on this, fed!” Sigillito yelled. His sub-machine gun roared, washing out the entire place. He emptied entire magazine into the hallway, blind and furious. The commando was shredded by the barrage. His limp corpse thunked down the stairs and wounded up crumpled net to the wheezing man in black.

The Bastard lurched back his feet, snatching up the little chromed Beretta as he did. He crawled to the top stair, ducked away from Sal’s room, taking cover behind the bannister. The fortified door stood two rooms down at the end of the hall. The Bastard aimed the pistol at the sliding peep hole and called out to Sigillito:

“Good shooting, Sal! All in your host’s ten ring.”

The peep hole slammed open again and the muzzle popped out, already blazing lead down the hall. The Bastard popped off two rounds around the corner, pinging them off the thick door. Sigillito's fusillade only hit bare walls, but it was chewing through like its bullets lead piranhas. The Bastard heard the Thompson click empty again and made his dash, leaping across the hall into the empty room next door to Sigillito's strongroom.

“Hey, Sal, missed again!”

Sigillito slammed a new magazine into the Thompson and blindly savaged the hallway once more. The Bastard reached out into the hall and plinked his last couple rounds against the bulletproof door. He knew they couldn't get through, he just wanted to egg the hitman on. Sigillito emptied his machine gun at shadows.

The Bastard's bullets hadn't done so much as scratch the door, but he figured that the Tridente weren’t half the carpenters that they were cronies and pimps. They’d installed a door worthy of a bank vault, yeah, but they’d bolted it into rotten wood and crumbling plaster. Most times that’d be enough, but hadn’t counted on coming into contact with a human wrecking ball.

The Bastard decided to ignore the door altogether. He put his shoulder down and charged through the shared wall like a drunken tornado. Two layers of rotten wood and crumbling plaster burst around him in a cascade of splinters and white powder.

Sal Sigillito looked at the Bastard like he’d shot straight out of Hell itself. He barely got his hands up before he was bowled over. His head whipped backward and banged against the steel door, splitting his scalp open. Sigillito slid to the floor, leaving a red streak all the way down. His breath shuddered through his viciously scarred throat.

“Should've opened up,” the Bastard said. Plaster dust slowly settled on the unconscious hitman like a dusting of snow. The Bastard took a labored breath and pulled down his mask.

All the pain flowed back into Mickey's bones. A hammer to the chest and shoulder, a spill down the stairs, a crash through a door and a wall; each bruise screamed simultaneously as his adrenaline leeched away. Mick painstakingly bent over and pulled the empty Thompson out of Sigilitto's hands and threw it out the shattered window. It clattered to the street six stories down.

“You in one piece, Malloy?” Reed shouted up. Mickey hobbled over to the window and waved out.

“More or less,” Mick called back. “Hold that position for a minute.”

“I'm coming up,” Reed answered. He left his cover behind the shredded car and headed for the front door.

“Damn kid,” Mick mumbled. He'd have to find something fast. Couldn't let everything slip.

Sigillito wasn’t moving. He had the sneer, the slicked dark hair, the scars of a brutally sliced and poorly stitched throat. There was no one else he could be. Mick left him where he lay to rifle through the strongroom.

He found the typical brothel contents: a worn bed, changes of sheets, extra towels, prophylactics, and a collection of cheaper booze than even Mickey drank. Sal's own stuff was everywhere. Mick’s unconventional entrance had included stampeding through the hitman’s suitcases, throwing their contents all over the place. Cheap suits, a full case of Thompson magazines, plus six spent ones on the floor, a discarded Kar98k thrown in the corner, and a brown leather attaché case with just its corner sticking out from under the bed.

“There she is,” he whispered. He lunrched over and dragged it out to survey its contents. Sigillito had stacks of double sawbacks, enough to get him somewhere close to five thousand bucks, a photo of Tesla with his hotel room number written on the back, a vial of liquid heroin and syringe, and a single sheet of Tesla's immaculate, handwritten notes. The first numbers in a series of equations were circled: two, five, zero, and six. Someone, most likely Sal, had written in the margin: 'Chiamare l'Tedeschi ridente, mezzanotte: 25 e 6.' Mickey was no linguist, Italian was as good as Greek to him.

“Goodness,” Reed said, stepping through the Bastard-sized hole in the wall. “Is that yours'?”

Mickey turned around. Reed was pointing to Sigillito's blood dripping down the inside of the door. The button man was gone. Sal had just gotten up and slipped out while Mickey ransacked his belongings.

“Shit,” Mick said. “Anybody leave past you?”

“Everyone I saw was down for the count,” Reed replied.

“Damn” Mickey grumbled, then got annoyed. “What are you even doing up here?”

“You promised me a story by press time.” He pulled his notepad out and began to study the room.

“You'll get a story,” Mickey said. “You read any Italian?”

“Some...” Reed saw the paper in Mick's hands and tried to read the scrawled note. “Call... the German, the ridente German, at midnight, and what I think is an address in the warehouse district, could be Twenty-fifth and Sixth.”

Mick checked the clock on Sigillito's nightstand. If there was one thing they kept track of in a cat house, it was the time. Not quite eight, and Sigillito's benefactor didn't have the address yet. With Sal wounded and on the run, there was no doubt he'd make that call as soon as he could.

“We've got to get over there,” Mick said. He picked up Sal's phone, but there was no dial tone. One of Reed's shot's had clipped the line.

“Come on,” Mick said. He didn’t bothered with the barred metal door and instead pushed through his hole to the next room. Reed followed him back to the car. The radio phone in the trunk had somehow escape's Sal's barrage. Mickey picked it up and dialed in the direct line to Office dispatch.

“This is Malloy, eight-five-nine-nine, daily color yellow. I need Earp at the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan.” The dispatch operator confirmed Mickey's identification and request and put him on hold.

“Your dad teach you to shoot?” Mick asked Reed while they waited.

“Grandfather,” Reed said. “He was one of those Wild West show marksman.”

“You'd like my boss then,” Mick replied. “Didn't lose my heater, did you?”

“Here she is,” said Reed. He handed over Mick's pistol.

The dispatcher got back on the line and connected Earp.

“What do you got for me, Mick?” Earp asked. He sounded tired, like he'd been reading scientific papers all day.

“Found Salvatore Sigillito holed up with the Tridente Cremisi down here in the Bronx. Cousin Sal gave me the slip, but I got eight live traitors and one stiff for you.”

“Cousin Sal was our hitter and you let him slide?” Earp asked. He was flabbergasted, even over the phone.

“I got his orders, his pay, and the murder weapon, plus I put a hurt on him. Looks like he knew enough in advance to find an address encrypted in Tesla's notes. We get moving, we can beat him and his contact there to whatever Tesla has hidden at this address,” Mickey said.

“Let's do it,” Earp said. Reed tapped Mick on his tenderized shoulder.

“Malloy, I remembered ridente,” Reed said. Mick covered the receiver. Earp wouldn't be too happy to know there was a civilian around, and a reporter, no less.

“What?”

“Ridente means laughing, or smiling, if that makes any sense,” he explained. Mick almost dropped the phone. “The Smiling German?”

“Holy hell, boss,” he stammered into the receiver. “We got to get there now.”

“Is it Sigillito?” Earp asked.

“Worse,” Mick said. “I think we got Eizhürst.”

SUNDAY NIGHT, FEBRUARY 8, 1942
FELLOWSHIP HALL, SAINT VERENA’S CHURCH
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

“After you, sir,” George Keaton said, holding the door for the scowling man with the heavy case.

“Least you could do,” Deputy Regional Inspector Caleb Union muttered. Keaton was tired of Union, his brash, know-it-all attitude, and his insatiable need for Inspector General Klavin’s attention. Half the damn reports he read had Union’s name printed above the investigator who’d actually worked the case. Plus, he hated that Union pronounced his name ‘onion.’

Union waddled as he struggled into the small church’s meeting hall. Sweat beaded on his bald head. Keaton tucked a film canister under his arm and waited for the surly official to lurch past. Union hissed as he squeezed by:

“Your disguise looks awful.”

“It looks great,” Keaton hissed back, resisting the urge to press his false mustache down or realign his wig. He shook his head and locked the door behind them.

Chairs scraped against hardwood as the two dozen men seated inside turned to see who was walking in on their secret club meeting.

“Who in the hell do you think you are?” the dog-faced man at the podium said. His left eye was about swollen shut. Most of the the seated men were in about the same condition: bruised, bandaged, and done up in plaster casts.

“Concerned citizens,” Union answered before Keaton could speak. He’d grown up richer and been educated even richer, and every case Keaton had worked with him on, Union had elbowed his way to the front of the line. He hated fascists, but was incredibly obnoxious to work with.

Union grunted and set the case down in the middle of the floor. He brushed his hands off like he’d just finished an honest day’s work.

“We’re concerned citizens worried about the direction this country’s headed.”

“I can appreciate that, but this is a closed function,” the man at the front said. His hand had disappeared behind his podium, no doubt drifting toward a pistol. The silver ‘L’ on his lapel matched those worn by every other man present.

Silver Legion. The jokers had been popping back up everywhere, despite getting officially disbanded after Pearl Harbor. After the attack the fairweather isolationists had melted out of their ranks, leaving only the hardheads, the zealots, and those who’d invested too deep to back out.

“Closed, huh?” Union wondered. “You closed for Mister Schmidt?”

Keaton held his breath. He also hated the way Union operated, without finesse. As a fuming, red-faced, gray-bearded bald man, broad as he was tall, the last thing he should have been doing was to come stomping into a room and name-drop the conspirators’ secret kraut patron.

The Legionnaires stood. Keaton clocked at least ten of them going for pieces. It took all he had to stay collected. He made sure the camera installed in his breast pocket had a good view of every man’s face and he furiously pressed its button that was wired down to his palm.

“How do you know that name?” the head honcho demanded.

“Same way you do, I suspect,” Union said. He smirked, an insufferable expression on his red face.

“Schmidt wouldn’t send you two.”

Keaton stayed behind Union and kept his eyes down. He recognized many of the battered men around him from the jail. These were the cops that he and Ortíz had fought their way through. The rubber ball shells and drum grenades had done a number on them, but they’d bounced back and were pissed. Union returned the sentiment:

“You sure you understand what Schmidt would do? Would he get his whole crew swept by a fed and a Mexican?” he snapped. “Would Schmidt keep all his literature in the back of a bar?”

“They ambushed us - !”

“In your own house? Two men?” Union snarled.

“They had weapons - !” one legionnaire, his head wrapped in gauze, tried, but Union cut him off, too.

“Schmidt gave you weapons,” he snapped. “You even know what he wants you to use them for?”

“To protect this country!” the guy behind the podium shouted. “You better tell me what the hell is going on, right now!”

“What’s going on is that we’re supplementing the material you idiots burned,” Union said. He knelt and flipped the latches on his case open, revealing a film projector. Keaton grabbed an empty chair and Union set the projector on it, facing a bare wall. He took the cord and found a socket.

Union held up one hand, silencing the legionnaires before they could ask anything else.

“Watch this, it’ll show you what Mister Schmidt wants to see happen here,” Union said. He took the film reel Keaton had brought in, fed it into the projector, and turned the whole contraption on. Keaton flicked the light switch. The wall was immediately illuminated with the images of an open trench grave, stacked high with corpses.

“What is this?” a man with his arm in a cast asked.

“You want this country run like the krauts do theirs?” Union asked. “See how they do it.”

On the wall, a German squad marched a small family to the lip of the trench. Keaton turned away. He knew when the shots came by the gasps among the legionnaires.

“Jesus,” one whispered.

When Keaton looked back, the four bodies were still on top of the rest.

“Watch this, every frame,” Union told them. “Then decide if you’re willing to do what Schmidt wants.”

He left the dumbfounded legionnaires where they stood. Their eyes were locked onto the wall, watching Nazi troopers walk house to house in a small village, spraying each home down with flamethrowers. The images were silent, but the groans and horrified utterances of the viewers said more than enough.

Clips of starving people, enslaved children, burned and hung bodies, savaged women shaved bald, and destroyed cities played before them. Then came the smuggled footage of the trains, the cells, the camps, the experiments, the furnaces.

One man whimpered, another cursed. Rhetoric was a blunt instrument. Reality cuts.

“What is this?” the man behind the podium demanded.

“A weapon,” Union answered.

“Turn it off, now!” the leader demanded. “Get them out of here!”

The other legionnaires shouted him down. Tears were welling in their eyes, sparkling like stars in the darkness.

“Is this how...”

“I had no idea…”

Union and Keaton left them watching horrors. They closed the door behind them and walked to their car.

“I’m glad you got a few licks in on them,” Union said. “But this way’s better.”

“They earned those bruises, believe me,” Keaton said. He winced and peeled the mustache off his lip then threw it in the gutter.

“A bullet’s not the only way to reduce enemy numbers,” Union said, lecturing Keaton like it was some kind of original insight. He was just reciting the Printmaster General’s latest memo as if the words were his own. Keaton bit his tongue. “What we showed them, that’s what’s going to cut down on Abwehr recruiting. The truth.”

“I never said I wanted them dead,” Keaton replied.

“You shot them and blew them up,” Union said.

“‘Blew up’ is a little strong,” Keaton muttered. “But I didn’t kill any of them. I gave them something to think about, yeah, but dead? That’s what their bosses do, not us.”

“What about, what was it, Gomez? The milkman?” Union asked. He popped the sedan’s door open and slid in behind the wheel. Keaton walked around the other side, keeping his eye on the little church. The lights were still off, but he could see the projector flickering behind the curtains. They were still watching, at least. He got in the passenger seat.

“His name is Hernandez,” he replied. “We moved him, his family, and Missus Ortíz to Baltimore this afternoon. Doctor Sharma will be by on Tuesday to look at his injuries.”

“The Physician General herself, sure that’s the best use of her time?” Union said.

“Helping out someone who got hurt on our watch?” Keaton asked.

Union started up the engine and shifted into gear.

“Plenty of people get hurt, all the damn time,” he huffed.

“Helping people out is what we’re here for, right?” Keaton asked.

“What, one milkman at a time?” Union said. Streetlights lit him intermittently. He looked over at Keaton and snorted. “Take that stupid thing off.”

Keaton had forgotten he was wearing the hairpiece. He pulled it off his head and balled it up.

“How can we help anyone, if we can’t help one person?” he asked, but Union wasn’t listening.

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Copyright © 2024 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Bruce Connors.

The Case of an Old Dead Guy is complete.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.