The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Broken Fixers, Part 2 of 4

The Office has to make new friends, and quick. The quickest way to do that is to find common enemies. When you’re up against Nazis, that’s the easy part. Getting everyone to the table in one piece is a lot more difficult.

First, Wailey Earp must set aside more than a few scruples to get a mafia don on his team. Then, there ain’t much better to do with a bucket of snakes than kick it.

This is Part 2 of The Case the Broken Fixers. If you’d like to avoid spoilers, read Part 1 first.

This post is too long for a single email. To read the whole thing, click here.

Content warnings: Mild swearing, violence, gun violence, death, gore, alcohol use, drug use, tobacco use, creeps, gaslighting.

FRIDAY MORNING, JULY 30, 1943
S.O.W.F.I. HANGAR, CHICAGO MUNICIPAL AIRPORT
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Bullets puckered the corrugated metal wall just above Wailey Earp’s head. He dropped to his belly and looked for the new shooter. Sweat trickled through his silver hair, his suit was ruined, and he was stuck in a shooting war between two crime families.

But he had come back to Chicago for a reason.

“You hit?” he grunted.

Eustorgio Selvaggio shook his head, jiggling his jowls. ‘Uncle Gio,’ de facto head of the Selvaggio crime family, was sitting on his wide can behind a rolling toolbox. Another flurry of lead thunked into the case, making him wince.

“Air travel ain’t what it used to be,” Gio groaned.

“Come on out, fat man!” one of their attackers shouted.

“There used to be respect, too!” Gio hollered back, eliciting a fresh hail of gunfire. He tucked as tight as he could behind his cover. The mafioso had to be pushing three hundred pounds. His gray hair was in disarray and he was sweating through his suit. He wheezed at Earp: “These Montuosos are out of control.”

A Thompson opened up close by. All around, hard wood chairs, bed frames, and armoires shattered into lacquered kindling.

For everything they used their business to cover up, Selvaggio Olde World Furniture Imports actually carried some nice pieces. Well, they did. An ottoman exploded under automatic fire, spraying mahogany and velvet everywhere.

“You going to let them destroy all my inventory?” Gio demanded.

“Just keep your head down,” Earp advised.

“What are you waiting for?”

“A friend of a friend,” Earp answered. “Where are your guys?”

One of the Montuoso button men stuck his head out. Earp’s Colt 1911 barked, autonomic to the point that he almost didn’t realize he was shooting. The gangster fell, screaming. The bullet had severed a tendon in his forearm. The man’s shooting hand was about as useful as a glove full of water.

“Jaco! Freddie! Flick! Damn, nothing. My boys must’ve got got,” Gio grunted. “I let ‘em get soft. Of course, the Monties haven’t tried anything like this since twenty-two.”

Earp searched his memory between salvos. 1922: Cosimo and Enzo Selvaggio, Gio’s older brothers and the second- and third-born sons of Santino, Senior, were gunned down within hours of each other, kicking off a schism within the Selvaggio crime family that led to the formation of the Montuosos. Their war lasted years. It took Al Capone and a legion of other lowlifes to broker a truce and put the lid back on that kettle.

Up ‘til then, Gio had sworn off the family business, opting for college instead. His brothers’ deaths brought him right back into the thick of it, though he did manage to walk at graduation between shakedowns and shootouts. His oldest and last brother, Santino, Junior, took over the family business with Gio at his right hand.

From what Earp understood, Gio spent most of his time in lectures and behind books, but he did the hard work when the work needed to get done. When Santino died and his nephew, Putter, took over, he was more than happy to remain an advisor. He never wanted anything but to read.

But in his line of work, folks don’t often get what they want. The war took Putter back to the Old World, and Gio ended up under the crown anyway.

“Come on out, old man!” one of the thugs shouted. “You and your pal!”

Brakes squealed outside and headlights beamed through the open warehouse doors. Earp knew better than to get his hopes up. Those were Montuoso reinforcements, not his backup.

“Go around the back!” the hitters instructed.

“We’re about to get flanked,” Earp grunted.

“What, do you think I don’t have ears or something?” Gio snapped. “I need to get to a phone.”

“There’s no time,” Earp said, and they both knew that was true. Even if Gio had more goons raring to go right before dawn, they wouldn’t be close enough to make a difference. He could only hope that Malloy’s contact was half as reliable as Mick had described.

They needed more time.

“You got anything here that could slow them down?” Earp asked.

“I got a chaise,” Gio grunted.

“Don’t yank my chain, Selvaggio.”

The mafioso looked around, then pointed out a couch halfway across the warehouse.

“False bottom in that davenport,” he said.

The sixteen yards between Earp’s hiding spot and the lounger might as well have been a mile. If he managed the dash, he’d have no cover from the Montuosos. If he waited, the thugs would get behind him and cover wouldn’t matter anyway.

“Well, shit,” he muttered when he realized what he’d have to do.

“What now?” Gio groaned. He looked up to see Earp holding out his chrome-plated Colt 1911. “What do you expect me to do with that?”

“Shoot it,” Earp said. “You can shoot, can’t you? Keep their heads down.”

“Yeah, I can shoot alright,” Gio muttered as he took the pistol. “Can’t hit nothing, but I can shoot.”

“Then start!” Earp snapped. He got his feet under him and took off. He could hear Gio blazing away. He briefly wondered what happened in his life where giving his gun and showing his back to a violent criminal was his best choice, but the moment passed. Montuoso bullets skipped across concrete all around him.

His knees were too old for it, but Earp dropped into a baseball slide to get up behind the blue couch. He heaved upward and flipped it onto its back. The bottom was stapled over with canvas. He dug his fingers under the corner and ripped it away, revealing gleaming gun metal.

“Gio! What the Hell?” Earp grunted.

“Just some gifts from Putter!” Gio hollered back.

Earp shook his head and tugged a rifle free from its moorings. A quick once-over proved it to be a Carcano Modello 1891, an bolt-action Italian warhorse. He racked its bolt back and checked the round as he chambered it. The bullet was odd, with a nose so shiny that it looked like mirrored glass.

“What is this?” he muttered, only for a barrage to interrupt his thoughts. Montuoso bullets punched through the overturned couch, showering Earp with stuffing and springs.

He popped up, aimed down his sights at the most eager gunman and squeezed the trigger. The rifle practically exploded in his hands. The warehouse lit up brighter than a spotlight for the instant to took the recoil to send Earp flying backward.

“I forgot it was those ones!” Gio shouted over the ringing blanketing Earp’s hearing.

“Holy smokes,” Earp groaned as he struggled off the floor. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Afterimages of the muzzle flash were scorched across his vision. The rifle lay before him, its barrel bent, swollen, glowing, and smoldering.

Beyond the couch, the Montuoso gunman was gone. The door he’d been hiding behind was gone, the car that had been parked behind him was gone. The asphalt that car had been parked on was gone. Smoke rose in a line from where Earp had fired to where his target had been standing.

“Putter sent you these?” Earp wheezed. He rubbed the stars out of his eyes.

“Just some stuff his boys boosted from the fascists,” Gio stammered. “I didn’t know it did that!”

Earp slumped down. He’d read the reports, he knew what he’d just fired. Somehow the Selvaggios had stolen a load of FdD Godbolt rounds from the Italian special science division. The SIM created the lightning-launching bullets to fry tanks whole, first deploying them in Africa a couple years back. Godbolts had erased officials as assuredly as they’d done the Montuoso soldier. Sure, the Selvaggios could solve their Montuoso problems in a day, but when they were wiping out whole Chicago neighborhoods at a go they’d end up with a lot more issues on their hands.

The sounds of the firefight quickly overpowered the ringing, and Earp could hear the confused and fearful thugs outside once more. They were cursing and regrouping. Apparently the man he’d vaporized had been fairly popular among the group.

Earp kicked the ruined Carcano aside and snatched a fresh one from under the couch. He ejected the FdD bullet and pocketed it, but held onto the rifle. He wasn’t about to fire another one of those things off but the Montuosos didn’t have to know that.

“There’s a lot more where that came from!” he shouted to the men outside. They froze for an instant then answered his threat with synchronized howls from their Thompsons right through the warehouse wall. Bullets screamed overhead and Earp pancaked.

“Blast ‘em again!” Gio yelled.

“Get back!” the goons shouted. The gunfire cut off and boots scuffed tarmac when the Montuosos took cover.

Earp didn’t have the time to explain the effective range of a six-point-five-millimeter FdD round. If he missed with one, there’s a good chance he’d light up the airport fuel station or shoot a landing plane out of the sky.

“They’re out of ammo!” one of the goons out there shouted after a quiet moment.

“Crap,” Earp muttered.

“You, you, and you, around there. You and you, with me.” They weren’t even being subtle. It would be as easy as walking in and plugging the two men.

“Hey,” Earp hissed, “Are you out?”

“Oh yeah,” Gio grunted. “I got a switchblade, does that help?”

“I mean, if you can use it, use it,” Earp said, though against a Thompson a pig-sticker would be about as useful as a hole in the head. He looked around for other options. The Selvaggios hadn’t bothered to pack standard rounds in with their smuggled FdD munitions, or anything even a bit less apocalyptic.

“Where’s your guy?” Gio asked.

“He’s not my guy,” Earp grunted. He watched the gunmen pass in front of the fresh bullet holes, blacking out the dots of rising sun for a second at a time, each as red as fresh blood.

“You all ready?” one of the Montuosos yelled. A half-dozen men shouted affirmatives, each voice coming from a different direction. The voice became more menacing, directed at Earp and Gio inside: “Are you two ready?”

“Okay, they’re coming,” Earp muttered. He flipped the Carcano around and hefted it like a baseball bat. At least two men would rush the room through the back door. He soft-shoed his way over, ready to brain them as soon as they came in. He’d have to figure out what to do with the rest of them on the fly.

He wound up, ready to clobber the first mobster he saw. Tires ground to a halt nearby and Earp’s heart sunk somehow deeper.

“It’s Pretty Boy!” one thug said.

“That’s his car alright, but who’s driving it?” another asked.

“Hey, who is that?”

“What are you doing in Pretty Boy’s ride?”

Two car doors opened and shut.

“Oh my God, it’s - !” one thug tried, only to get cut off by a blinding light. The flash illuminated the inside of the perforated warehouse like a hundred pen lights, just for an instant. He screamed, solid metal cracked across a soft skull, and a gun skittered across asphalt.

“It’s him! It’s the Slugger!” A Tommy gun opened up, its rounds clanging off steel. As quick as it started, it finished. The light flashed again and again, each time punctuated by the sound of a goon getting his clock cleaned.

Earp smiled. It was Mickey’s guy, the Chicago Slugger. Whatever Earp thought about Mick’s moonlighting or his copycats, he never turned down help. If there was somebody out there willing to beat up some Nazi sympathizers and save his tail while they’re at it, they’re welcome to it.

“Oh, Mother Mary,” Gio groaned. He pushed himself off the ground and sat up. “This nutcase.”

The Chicago Slugger was infamous in the Windy City. He was a bulletproof terror whose calling card was written in broken mobster bones and burnt-out hop houses. Civilians called him a hero, the local cops and papers called him a menace, and gangsters called him a overblown lunatic even as they looked over their shoulders. The masked man’s Office dossier marked him as a former Montuoso lieutenant who got on the wrong side of the May Day Massacre. When that gun smoke settled, the new leadership was in the pocket of the krauts and the Slugger was in the wind.

Whatever he was, the Chicago Slugger was saving Earp’s can.

“Stay down,” he ordered Gio as if the old man had any intention of hauling himself to his feet. Earp crept to the back door and eased it open, empty rifle ready to brain whoever the Slugger had yet to mop up.

Instead of a hulking bruiser, Earp found himself face-to-face with a slender young woman. She had a knee-length coat tied tight around her, with enough gauze wrapped around her head to qualify for an Invisible Man lookalike contest. She raised a silver device in the his face and squeezed its trigger. Earp stared into the small lightbulb that sat where the barrel would have been were she holding a pistol.

“Hey! That’s our guy!” a gruff man exclaimed. The Chicago Slugger was a dozen yards away, standing over a groaning gunman. He was huge, with a solid metal plate strapped over his head. His shield looked even thicker than his helmet and its black paint was nicked with fresh scoring from dozens of bullets. He’d scrawled ‘Keep trying, you mooks!’ in chalk across its broad face.

“You’re our guy, ain’t you?” the Slugger growled. He pointed his weapon at Earp, an ash-wood baseball bat reinforced with metal bands and a lead core. “What was it? ‘Plumb?’”

“Line,” Earp answered, finishing the code phrase.

“Sorry for the delay,” the Slugger said. “Pretty Boy wasn’t too keen on giving up his wheels.”

“You saved our cans either way,” Earp admitted. He leaned on the empty rifle like a cane, exhausted. He nodded to the bandage-wrapped woman: “Who’s she?”

“That’s my chauffeur, don’t you worry about her,” the Slugger replied. They watched as the woman wandered to the nearest downed Montuoso and squatted over him to take his photograph. The K.O.’d goon moaned but she got the shot and strolled to the next.

“We need to get moving,” Earp said after a moment.

“Is Uncle Gio good to walk?” the Slugger wondered. “‘Cause I ain’t carrying him.”

“Aw, shut up your cake hole, Tommy,” Gio groaned from inside the warehouse.

“Hey,” one of the Montuosos grunted. He’d woken up to see the woman standing over him. He started groping through his pockets. “Get off’a me, you wacky dame. You want me to cut you?”

“Cover your eyes,” the Slugger advised, but Earp was already leaping into action.

The thug found a blade in his pocket and barely had it unsheathed before the woman put her silver gadget in his face and pulled the trigger. Its bulb flashed as bright as the sun, brighter than the lightning that the FdD rifle had spat out, brighter than a spot light. Earp nearly tripped backward, half-blind.

He caught himself and rubbed his eyes. The thug howled in shock and pain. The woman shook her head, then pressed a button to eject the expended bulb. It popped right out and shattered on the asphalt with a little puff of smoke. She retrieved a fresh bulb from a pouch on her hip, clicked it into place, then snapped a photo of the grimacing goon and moved on.

“What the…” Earp tried, but the Slugger waved him silent.

“One second,” he said. He strolled over to the whimpering gunman, kicked the knife out of his reach, then thunked him right in the forehead with his heavy shield. The goon went out like a light. “Can’t have him interrupting later, you know.”

“There’s not going to be a later,” Earp said, grim as an undertaker.

“Oh yeah? Why’s that, G-man?” the Slugger asked, sizing Earp up. “You fixing to arrest me?”

“No, there’s no later because we’ve got to go, now,” Earp replied. “I need to get Uncle Gio out of town and you’re coming with.”

“That’s wasn’t part of the deal,” the Slugger snarled.

Earp sighed. He was tired of getting jerked around, he was tired of getting shot at, he was tired of scraping the bottom of the barrel just to get by. Cavorting with killers and criminals was the last thing he wanted to do, and his job had suddenly become to babysit the second-worst-of-the-worst and make them play nice.

But nothing said he had to play nice.

“Yeah, well while you and Dorthea Lange over there were messing around with Pretty Boy’s Buick, all of Uncle Gio’s bodyguards got themselves new nostrils installed in the back of their heads,” he growled. “You had a deal with Mickey Malloy, but Mickey Malloy’s deals come through me. I need Gio in Florida, in one piece, in two days. If you like touching grass and shitting without an audience, it’s in your best interest to help me get him there.”

The Chicago Slugger seemed to swell another two sizes before him. The blood coating the end of his bat soured the air. Earp could smell it clotting.

“Oh yeah?” the Slugger asked. His shuddering breath seemed to make his steel helm quiver. A silver star from a bullseye shot marked his forehead. Were it not for the mask, it would have hollowed his melon. He’d circled it and written ‘So close!’ underneath. “You think we were ‘messing around?’”

“Yeah,” Earp replied.

“Pal, I saved your sorry ass and plugged that son of a bitch’s goddamn leak while I was at it,” the Slugger grunted. “You wonder how the Monties knew you were going to be here? Stino’s got a switchboard operator on payroll. Any call you fools make out, she listens in on. Took Pretty Boy a little longer to tell me that on account of all the teeth he was spitting out. So as far as this job is concerned, I’m above, I’m beyond, I’m done.”

“Well we certainly appreciate your efforts so far, but ‘so far’ isn’t ‘all the way,’” Earp said. He leaned against the commandeered Buick and rolled his sore shoulder out. That FdD round kicked like a mule. He groaned and continued: “There’s certain interests that don’t want me or Gio anywhere near where we’re going, and they may try more funny business. We need somebody like you watching our backs. You leaving this job half done would be be doing Hitler’s cronies a mighty big favor. You aren’t trying to help the Nazis, are you?”

The Slugger grunted, then hinged his helmet open over the top of his head. The red morning light illuminated his face. He looked more exhausted than Earp felt. The lines etched into the masked man’s face looked deep as canyons. He stroked his mustache and considered his answer for a long while, watching the Bloody Dawn rise.

“Nazis, huh?” he said after the sun was fully over the horizon. His voice croaked like he’d just woke up: “That’s all you had to say. When’s our flight?”

WEDNESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 4, 1943
GATES RUBBER FACTORY
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA

Mickey Malloy took another long slug from his flask. It was all he could do to keep himself from spitting on the floor. He was waist deep in a pit of vipers.

“Calm down, you're going to blow a gasket,” Regional Inspector Wailey Earp said out of the corner of his mouth. The silver-haired shooter looked as calm as a winter field, though Mick knew the other official was ready to start blasting at a moment's notice.

Earp sat to Mick's left, at the center of a long table. A dozen other tables were arrayed in a wide circle before them, and each was attended by the sort of animals that he'd be more comfortable hunting than talking to. He hadn't been so mired in bloodthirsty corruption since his last Shadow Committee hearing. And to make it all worse, he’d only gotten a third of the scum he’d hoped to dredge up.

“What's to stop these mooks from sending this whole thing sideways?” Mick mumbled.

“Everyone's guns are locked up tight and the Chickenhawk squadron is ten minutes out,” Earp whispered.

“Sure,” Mickey grunted, as if he trusted that every goon had given up their heater on the honor system. The Lane brothers and their roto-copter-borne commandos could put a stop to about any fight if they had a few minutes to spin up.

“Cheer up, Malloy,” Uncle Gio hooted past Earp. Mick leaned forward to glare past his boss.

“This isn't a party, Eustorgio,” Mickey growled.

“Uncle Gio, please,” Gio wheezed. He grinned and chugged straight from a bottle of wine, slurping like a dehydrated dog. He wiped his purple lips with the back of his hand, then belched and thumped his chest. “Anywhere with booze is a party.”

Mick almost had a smart remark, but the flask in his hand silenced him. He fell back into his chair and grumbled under his breath.

“All Selvaggios are like that,” an equally grumpy man growled to Mick's right. Tommy Capano was watching the conglomeration of criminals down his hooked nose with the same predatory paranoia that Mickey was. Capano's hand was stuck in a claw, like it was grasping the handle of his lead-cored baseball bat in preparation to beat the tar out of everyone present. Mick found his own mitt locked in the same crooked position. They both knew that they should be fighting those goons, not canoodling; they knew it down to their bones. They were still the Chicago Slugger and the Billy Club Bastard, no matter what they were wearing.

The hundred criminals that Mick, Earp, Capano, and Uncle Gio had summoned were the nation's most eminent and patriotic killers, racketeers, organizers, and smugglers. The Office had commandeered an entire factory on the outskirts of Tallahassee for a venue to host them for one night. They'd come in under the cover of darkness. No one wanted to be seen with them, not each other and especially not Mickey.

The leaders of every remaining American-friendly, or at the very least Axis-opposed, criminal-associated organization in the States sat arrayed before him. Insults and alcohol flowed freely, but as a whole the men remained somewhat collected. No brawls had broken out, though it wouldn’t take much of a spark to light one off.

Chinese thugs from California sat next to wildcat Texan border lords, next to the loansharking grandsons of slaves, with Italian murderers from New York within stabbing distance. Gulf pirates, hailing from Jamaica and Haiti, shared drinks with Zionist commandos and Irish weapons dealers. All corners of the country were represented, every level of the vast underworld, yet still an empty place remained, even so long after midnight.

Lobo Losa was late.

In the eighteen months since Mickey had last laid down the law in Tampa, Losa's operation had expanded. The Cuban killer had his fingers in every brothel, dope house, gambling joint, distillery, and fence between the Keys and Atlanta. He got a piece off the back end of every penny of contraband that moved through Florida. Basically, if anyone on the east coast needed anything from South or Central America or the islands, Losa was paid, and he had the secret backing of the Abwehr to thank for it.

Elda Hexmacher, the Abwehr agent who'd first developed the Nazis' underworld network in America, had divulged to Mickey that Losa was the key to Eizhürst's plan, something she called 'the cascade.' When Mick had informed Losa of this, and of potential moles in his operation, he'd taken it well over the phone. In the days since, Mick hadn't read about any Sunshine State massacres. That meant that Losa had kept his temper in check. The only fishy thing was that the Cuban was missing, even when they’d arranged the meeting in Florida for him specifically.

It was troubling.

Earp had noted Losa's absence as well, but there wasn't time to wait. They were sitting in the middle of the biggest target in the country outside the White House. There were two warring governments and a Nazi-compromised underworld after every attendee.

Earp stood and addressed the rowdy assemblage:

“Gentlemen.” His calm, controlled voice was drowned out by the raucous rumble of the crowd. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Gentlemen.”

Capano leaned over to Mickey and whispered:

“I'd just let off a few rounds into the ceiling. That'd get their attention.”

“Allow me,” Uncle Gio said. He stood next to Earp and patted the steel-haired law man on the shoulder. “This is how you do it.”

Seated, Uncle Gio looked like a lump of paraffin with greasy gray hair. Standing, he towered, the hulking son of a Brahma bull and a Mack truck. The old gangster was pushing three hundred pounds and loomed half-an-inch under six-three. His puffy hands were knobby and swollen, broken and aching from years of using them instead of words. Mickey looked down at his own mitts: he owned a matching set.

Uncle Gio took one last pull from his wine bottle then smashed it on the concrete floor.

The room silenced in an instant. Mick picked out each of the men who'd reached for a hidden piece. There was at least one from each delegation, though thankfully they'd all been picked for level-headedness; none had actually drawn down. Officials had searched each person for weapons, but they were dealing with insidious characters: Mick expected everything from derringers and switchblades to bombs within twenty feet.

Uncle Gio let the last shards of green glass settle before he said anything.

“I don't know about you mooks,” he started, “But every minute I'm here, I'm not earning.”

The gathered criminals nodded in agreement.

“You all know me, you know my organization. I say we hear what the G-man has to tell us, then we talk business. We all got disputes, but we all got opportunities. I'm here to squash beefs and make money, and I know you are as well. A meet like this has never gone down before, and we don't have time to squander it,” With that, Uncle Gio flopped back into his chair and sank into his own massiveness.

“Thank you, Mister Selvaggio,” Earp said hesitantly. He certainly hadn't gotten them together to help expand their criminal empires.

Uncle Gio grinned and ripped the cork out of a fresh bottle with his teeth, spit it out, then held the Chianti up in salute to Earp. The crowd chuckled, and even Earp cracked a smile. The regional inspector looked around the room, careful to make eye contact with each of the representatives.

"Gentlemen," he started, then remembered the matrons of the Ghost Eye Triad, the harpies that guarded the Young King, and the Chadash Siqariqum commanders. "And ladies. This country, hell, the whole world, is facing unprecedented dangers. I know many of you thrive during times of chaos and unpredictability, but what we're talking about goes well beyond that. You all know what the krauts are doing over there. Some of you heard about it from family, others have seen it for themselves. And in a lot of ways, the Japanese are worse. It's not going to stay out of sight for long. They want to bring it here."

A roar rose among the gathered criminals. Some shouted objections, others pledged violent loyalty, while still more laughed at the absurd thought of the of the war crossing oceans.

“Hey!” Uncle Gio shouted, silencing the rumbling. "My own nephew, Putter, he's over there right now, fighting. The Nazis worked my people like slaves then buried them under that damned mountain. You see the red sky this morning? He was there. He's still digging bodies out. And if the Germans would do that to Mussolini’s people, what do you think they have planned for us?"

“Well said,” Earp said. The mafioso leaned back and began slurping his wine once again, and Earp continued: “The Axis is already here. That is not an opinion, it is a fact. They're starting their invasion from the shadows.”

The grumbling resumed, but they quieted when Earp cleared his throat.

“For those of you who would doubt me, know that we've run into Axis agents from Anchorage to Argentina, Havana to Honolulu. They've taken over organizations cross-country. They've infiltrated unions in Detroit and the Montuoso family in Chicago. Silver Legion and Tridente Cremisi militias have sprung up in every state, faster than we can keep track. Many of you have been approached by their operative, Mister Schmidt, and if you’re here that means you turned him away. Not everyone has. Freelancers have been bought up everywhere. Extremist groups have grown bolder and more militant. If you don't believe me, ask your colleagues. You come from every corner of this continent. You've all seen individual pieces that make up a big picture. What they are planning will be the downfall of America.”

“Why should we trust you? We read the papers,” Jimmy DiCarlo, a leering Albany gangster in pinstripes, sneered. He tossed a rolled up newsletter across the clearing to Earp.

Earp picked up the paper and unfurled it. Mickey recognized the letterhead: the Bastion Americana Freedom Journal, the rat bastard traitors who'd exposed the Office a couple weeks before in their premier issue. The billowing wreckage of Mount Vesuvius dominated the front page, along with a headline blaming the Office for the catastrophe.

“What about that?” another voice piped from the back of the circled criminals.

Earp wadded the newsletter up and tossed it over his shoulder.

“Hack journalism, started by a kraut spy, funded by appeasers only interested in gaining power by riling up hurting families,” he replied.

“It's working,” DiCarlo said. “Bundles of these things are showing up all over New York, every week. And every week they have something to say about how you's guys are running this war, and who you're running it for.”

Mickey fumed. The mobster was right. Mainstream papers had picked up the stories the Freedom Journal was running. They were sensationalist, but they had kernels of truth to them that real journalists were eager as snow day squirrels to dig up. Within days of the un-requested bundles of newsletters appearing on every American street corner all over the nation, every city's Post, Times, and Gazette had the Office plastered above the fold, questioning their motives. Printmaster Bellegarde was working double-time to stay ahead of it all.

“We don't know who is behind this disinformation campaign yet, but - !” Earp tried before he was cut off by another anonymous voice.

“People want answers!”

“Sometimes there is no easy answer. People die. The American public wants some conspiracy for why their son died in a foreign land, some deeper reason. Our kids are dying because we couldn't sit back and watch Hitler slaughter innocent people at his whim. That is the answer,” Earp told the room.

Mick cleared his throat and stood, pointed at the balled-up newsletter, then said:

“That is psychological warfare in my book,” he said. “That is Abwehr agents twisting the public into a weapon to affect pro-fascist change in our government.”

“Who's the conspiracy nut, now?” someone japed. Mickey's face went red and he dropped back into his chair. If he clenched his jaw any tighter, he was liable to grind his molars into paste.

“Maybe the government coming down wouldn't be so bad for our business,” DiCarlo speculated. That earned him a tap on the shoulder from his balding consigliere, one of Hoover's inside men, who whispered something in his ear. DiCarlo's sneer disappeared. The gangster nodded and sat back suddenly, with nothing else to add.

“Uncle Sam never did anything for me or mine,” Arthur Bell, the gray-bearded president of Agrarian Mutual Bank, grumbled. His brethren nodded in agreement, including his lanky bodyguard who was chewing on the end of a matchstick, decked out in an ebony silk suit and flashy gold jewelry. Around the Carolinas and Appalachia, Agrarian Mutual was better known as the Black Bank. They’d started as an alliance of ex-slave loansharks, but in three-quarters of a century it had grown into an underground economic force, literally moving mountains. They owed nothing but trouble to the government. Mick had seen them in action when he’d worked a case in Charleston; the Bank was more reliable and trusted than public servants in a lot of areas, especially to Black folks.

“Might be that a few less rules is what we's looking for,” a six-toothed hill country moonshine king chuckled, the first time he'd ever agreed with any member of the Bank.

“Besides, G-man, some of us relish the thought of running things ourselves,” Governor Ingalls drawled. The rotund Texan's chair creaked as he leaned back in it, and he rested an empty crystal tumbler atop his steak-fattened belly while staring Earp down. A phalanx of cowboy-booted, bolo-tied men sat around him, but it was the woman that stood out.

Ingalls' companion was thin but curvy, classically beautiful in a way that defied age. She could have been nineteen or fifty. Her impressive bust was threatening to overflow the ruffly dress she'd crammed it into, a silk get-up sewn from a hundred different hues of blue. She gave Ingalls a hypnotic smile and poured him a fresh couple fingers of bourbon from a sparkling decanter and whispered something in his ear that made him grin.

“Mister Ingalls,” Earp started. The Texan didn't hear Earp, his attention was wholly focused on the siren beside him. Earp tried again, louder: “Mister Ingalls.”

“Governor,” Ingalls corrected absently. His kissed the tips of his fat fingers and brushed them softly across the woman's smooth cheek before shifting around to look at Earp.

“Governor,” Earp gritted through his teeth. A few men smirked at that. Everyone knew that Ingalls wasn't the governor of anything, just a cattle baron rich enough to cut his distant lands off from everyone around him and form his own private fiefdom, complete with a cowboy army who came running whenever he clanged the dinner bell. Earp continued:

“If you think this country falling to the Axis would be any kind of good for you, your people, or your family, you are dead wrong. Hitler would sooner put a bullet through your head, your daughter's head, your grand-daughters', than leave you out in your blasted desert. Ask the Italians, the Roma, the Soviets.”

“My people know too well what they do,” Sigal Bat snarled. The Zionist commando stared down the men who spoke in favor of the Axis. She was young but aged, a harsh battle-ax of a woman. Her hair was wrapped in gray cloth, dark against her pale skin, tied back tight to keep it out of the open bolts of the unique machine guns her Chadash Siqariqim militia manufactured and stockpiled. “The Germans are monsters.”

“I ain't advocating for them, miss, but I've been hearing about the way things might go if we stirred up the chili a bit, and for my people, it don't sound half bad,” Ingalls snorted. He pulled his ten-gallon hat down a little lower over his eyes, then slammed his bourbon back, spilling a trickle down his chins. His companion wiped the drips away with a silk square the same blue as her dress. He continued as Bat fumed:

“I'm just advocating what is in me and mine's best interests, little lady, but if they ain't similar to what the rest of y'all are gunning for, tough cookies. That's how democracy works.”

“And who has been making these claims, Governor?” Earp wondered.

“Why, that downright cheerful fella' by the name of Schmidt,” the Texan replied, never taking his eyes off his companion. “Walked right up to my front door and started making deals that I could not describe as anything other than interesting.”

The room boiled over with furious whispers. They all knew the name, as Mickey had feared. The kraut agents had been all over the country spreading his special brand of fascist bullshit. Still, something the Texan had said bugged Mickey. 'Cheerful.'

“Boys, boys, boys,” Ingalls groaned, attempting to sooth the murmuring assembly. “I take all sorts of house guests. Hell, I even had coffee with a Mexican last month. And speaking of disreputable company, I'm here with y'all, ain't I? Yes, I did have Schmidt over for a few drinks, but that was all. You know a man like me don't make the first move 'til he knows where every piece on the board sits. It ain't like I took krauts into my crew.”

“I would not make that claim so lightly,” a man called from the door. Mick knew that raspy croak anywhere: Lobo Losa had arrived.

A trio of officials moved to flank the approaching Cuban and his entourage, but a whistle from Earp pulled them back. Lobo Losa put one foot in front of the other and entered the factory floor. He was dressed in a two-piece white linen suit with a black silk shirt and tie. His blanched fedora sat right above his thin black eyebrows, and his coat was thrown over one shoulder. The hair at his temples was trimmed tight but had begun silvering, and the lines around his eyes were deeper than Mick remembered.

“Traitors are eels,” Losa continued, “Squeeze too hard and you cannot hold them.”

Six Cuban bruisers followed him, including his suave lieutenant, Suero, and they dragged a seventh man behind them, gagged and bound hand-and-foot. The prisoner moaned in pain, but Losa strolled along, not noticing. The factory's steel accordion door slammed down. The trio of officials locked it shut and took positions nearby.

“It is good to see the whole industry in one spot,” Losa said, taking in the other attendees. “I have never seen so many organizations together for so long without a dead body to show for it. But it is still early.”

“Mister Losa,” Earp said.

“Inspectors Earp, Malloy, I apologize for the delay. Our friend was to blame, but he will not be doing it again.” Losa's men dumped their captive into the middle of the circle and melted into the shadows, leaving their boss standing over the shuddering man.

Lobo Losa was not a large man or a strong man. He was smart, vicious, and willful. He made friends and garnered trust like commodities, and he spent them as such.

“You say you do not have spies in your midst?” Losa asked the criminals around him. “This man worked for me for two years. He called himself Cartula, though that was not his name. He fought for me, lied for me, risked himself for me. He did everything he could to earn my trust. When I gave him the resources, he used them to grow my business with connections in places we had never had access to before: Chicago, Saint Louis, Louisiana. He made me money and I assumed I knew where it was coming from.”

“Ain't hearing nothing bad, there,” a moonshiner hooted. Several mobsters chuckled and nodded in agreement.

“Shut up and listen,” Uncle Gio burped.

“Gracias, Tío Selvaggio,” Losa purred. “It was not long before I ran across recruits I had not vetted, corpses I had not blessed, and cargoes I had seen no share of.”

The various organizations rumbled around him. Malloy knew Losa had ordered his list in increasing importance. To him, murders and loyalty came a distant second and third to lost profits.

“I was not worried about a coup. Any man is capable of ambition, but very few are able to see it through. For all who have tried, I am still here, and the alligators are always hungry. I fear no coup. I let him build up what business he could. Once he got too big for it, I would make it my own, and he would disappear.” Losa ground his heel into Cartula's back, eliciting a muffled yelp from the gagged man. “Two years I considered this worm simply a creature dreaming above his place. Two years before the Office calls me.”

“You're welcome for that,” Mickey said.

“You see?” Losa asked the room. “In such times, friends are enemies, and enemies become allies. Inspector Malloy, the big one right in the middle, hounded my operations for half a decade before the Germans marched, and even longer before that when he was a cop. He even owed me money once, and he worked for me.”

“You owed him money?” Earp hissed.

“We got square,” Mick whispered.

Losa continued before Earp could respond:

“When Malloy told me about Cartula’s European patrons, I was not worried for my safety. No, I was embarrassed that an outsider knew what was happening under my roof before I did. So I asked Cartula, I plucked him out and put him under the light, like a worm. He crinkled on the sidewalk.” Losa flipped Cartula over with his foot. The man's head had been forcibly shaved and pounded full of goose eggs. The rag in his mouth was soaked with blood from his split lips. Cartula had a snarling wolf inked in black across his throat. A zig-zag of heavy black thread had been worked across the tattoo into the flesh of his neck.

“When I went to see the worm's men, they attacked me. When I checked his accounts, they were overflowing with gold stamped with a crooked cross. When I checked his store rooms, they were filled with German weapons: bombs, guns, chemicals, animals I shot on sight. The Nazis were using my roads, my runners, and my safe houses to move enough inventory to supply an army. Under my nose.”

The whispers among the listeners grew to a rumble.

“I had to start over. You know how it is. One in five of my men are dead in the last thirty days,” Losa said. “And many more to come.”

The Cuban gangster shrugged his white coat off his shoulder and tossed it to the empty table that had been waiting for him. The linen garment fluttered down, unfolding in the air to reveal scarlet blood staining both sleeves past the elbow. Losa squatted over Cartula and pinched the loose end of the thick stitching across his throat.

“Wait!” Mick shouted, but it was too late. The thread unraveled with a quick pull, its loops coming apart and releasing a red torrent from Cartula's already-slit throat. His black ink wolf howled crimson.

Cartula kicked against his bonds, once, twice, then ceased. Losa shook his head and wiped red from his fingertips onto the dead man's shirt. He stood, groaning as he did so, then stepped wide over the puddling blood to take his seat.

“We had questions for him,” Mickey said.

“He was done answering,” Losa replied. The men and women around him ignored the warm corpse before them. Bodies were the cost of business. “Suero will tell you anything relevant the worm said.”

Losa’s right hand man smirked behind him, a leather briefcase in hand. The room was silent for a moment.

“So you want us to clean house?” Jimmy DiCarlo finally asked. “Take out our own?”

“We aren’t asking for a massacre,” Earp insisted.

“Not yet, anyway,” Mick said. Uncle Gio cut in:

“The folks they’re worried about are either Nazis or they’re helping them. A old-fashioned massacring might do ‘em some good.”

The crowd chuckled.

“For now, keep your eyes and ears open,” Mickey continued. He wasn’t trying to kick off a purge of the underworld. He wanted less blood, not more.

“That's right,” Earp agreed. “Our enemies are attacking from all sides. We need you to watch and listen, and sometimes to speak and act. And we will do the same for you.”

“Watch for what?” Sigal Bat asked.

“New players, strange patterns, missing persons,” Mickey answered. “Unusual occurrences. Schmidt and his men are pervasive, and if you do not give in to him, your next coffee will be with Eizhürst, and that animal stacks stiffs like cord wood. If you come into contact with any of them, play along, then call us.”

Earp explained further:

“Each of you will have an official delegated to be your contact. Inspector Malloy, for example. Report what you have to your liaison, large or small, and they'll return the favor if we hear anything that affects your operations, whether it be Nazis, rivals, or local authorities.”

“Regardless of what he makes it sound like, this is not a free pass,” Mick growled. “You start hurting civilians, be it with money, fire, dope, or bullets, you'll go down as quick as the krauts.”

“Keep your crews under control,” Uncle Gio said solemnly. “There is a lot of money to be made, but there's a bigger picture.”

“When you find anything, call your liaison,” Earp continued. “Rapid response teams are no further than three hours away from any major city, six hours will get us anywhere stateside. The Office will take custody of any traitors or infiltrators you find. They could have more information to yield than is readily apparent.”

“Like we'd hand over anybody who knows our crew to the feds,” an Irish militiaman said. Mick racked his brain for the man’s name. Barry ‘the Hatchet’ Flanagan, out of Boston. “We take care of our own, either way.”

“This is bigger than your gang,” Malloy said.

“I'm not some lackwit criminal, Inspector. I represent a movement,” the Hatchet snapped, pounding on the table. His anger set off the rest of the criminals, either agreeing with the freedom fighter or threatening his life. Uncle Gio surged back to his feet, throwing the table halfway across the room and Mickey's flask with it.

“Can it!” he roared. “Can't you idiots see the sky? It is on fire. The Nazis did that, and they are hurting to do more. They tried to starve us out with locusts, to flood New Orleans off the map. And it's not just the krauts. The things the Japanese are doing, like Nanking and Macau, they are worse.”

“Our families deserve safety, and justice. You have our support,” a thin Chinese man in a blue suit spoke up. The three wrinkled old women he represented nodded their assent to Earp.

“The Ghost Eye Triad has always been a friend to the Bank,” Arthur Bell said. He hauled himself to his feet with assistance from his stylish bodyguard.

“And to the Young King. My ships sail for you,” the notorious Jamaican pirate added. He stood as well, his dapper golden-velvet suit clashing with the feathers, silk, and jewels woven into his waist-length dreadlocks. The python scales on his belt and pointed shoes gleamed in the low light, as did the gold teeth in his wide smile. The man was no true king, but a murderous corsair leading a criminal cult stretched across the seven seas, all held together by his own messianic personality. He grinned, waiting while one of his bodyguards scribbled down his divine words, then said: “The twenty Lords of the Waves and the twenty Lords of the Winds bless all those that fight against slave drivers.”

“The Chadash Siqariqim stand with you,” Sigal Bat said, ignoring the pagan invocations of the Young King to ally with him. Her brothers- and sisters-in-arms got up as well, each named Bat or Bar, Hebrew for 'daughter' or 'son.' These commandos had forsaken their former identities and joined to together to forge their own independent Jewish state.

“And you know we Selvaggios are already fighting out there,” Uncle Gio said. “The krauts attacked us first, by allying with the Montuosos. Tried to bump me off just a couple days ago. My old friends, the Five Families and the DiCarlos, they would be delighted to help, too.”

The other Italians didn't seem as enthusiastic as the old man, but they stood with Uncle Gio.

“There isn't much use in fighting for a homeland if it's like to get wiped off the map,” the Hatchet said. His comrades got out of their chairs as well.

Within minutes, the whole room was standing, hill country moonshiners to back room financiers, brown, yellow, red, black, and white. Some stared in dark silence, other clapped each other on the back and grinned in anticipation. Deals were already being struck up, temporary alliances forged with one word and tested with the next.

“Might be these G-men are trying to pull a fast one on us, might be there's another way,” Governor Ingalls said loudly. The room quieted around the big Texan, still seated. “Maybe we sell our allegiances. Might be Adolf and Tojo have a better compromise in mind than your look-the-other-way-for-now deal. After their foreign enemies are dealt with, who're the feds going to hit next? Us. Might be this wasn't our fight to begin with, and the krauts are only delivering it to our doorsteps because you federals dragged us into this war.”

“You think the Führer will negotiate with you?” Capano asked incredulously. This was the first time the Chicago Slugger had opened his mouth since the meeting had started.

“The Norwegians came out on top, and the Vichies are running their own show. Who says we couldn't leverage some position?”

“You are talking about treason,” Earp said coldly.

“They line up firing squads for that,” Mick rumbled.

“Call me the devil's advocate, boys, merely voicing possibilities,” Ingalls said, smiling. “Free speech applies here, don't it?”

“Enjoy it while you can,” Mick mumbled.

“All I'm saying is, what's the percentage under the status quo? Might be that some of us here would profit if things got shook up a bit.” Ingalls' chair creaked as he shifted in it. The wide grin on his sun-reddened face was self-serving and malicious. The blonde stroked his shoulder seductively. An impossibly large diamond glittered on her finger.

“What comes with the Axis? Prisons, camps, executions, mass graves, relocation, rape, kidnapping, oppression, slavery,” Earp snapped, popping the vein in his forehead as he listed enemy atrocities. “Any man who can put a price on that can leave this room.”

Ingalls' Texan friends edged away from him. They were desperately torn on whether they feared the governor or the Nazis more. Sigal Bat shoved her table aside and marched across the floor, right up to the seated rancher.

“Inspector Earp is wrong,” she snarled. “Any man who would kneel before the Axis will never leave this room.”

Ingalls chuckled and stood, towering over the short militia leader. Her covered head barely reached the lowest-hanging of his chins. The governor pulled his hat off and smiled cruelly, sweat running off his balding head, down his nose, and dripping onto Sigal's face.

“And how does one little Jewess think that's going to happen?” he asked. Sigal's green eyes burned into Ingalls' pudgy sockets. Her commandos were bracing for her order while Ingalls' comrades were edging even further away from him. The air was thick with anticipation.

Glass shattered again, startling the deadlocked pair. Mick looked to his right to find Uncle Gio still holding his bottle. A single shard fell from a window pane near the front doors and tinked against the polished concrete floor. Three bullet holes puckered the large pane.

The three officials guarding the door fell to the ground, bleeding onto the concrete floor.

“Everyone down!” Earp shouted.

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Copyright © 2024 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Tyrelle Smith.