The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of Friendless and the Six-Toed Cat, Part 4 of 8

Mickey, Marge, Gator, and Charlie are on their way to meet Friendless, but thanks to their stolen intel, the enemy is already there. Outnumbered and outgunned, with traitors on every side and mercenaries out for blood, they’ll have to pull out all the stops to survive.

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, All the Time is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 4 of The Case of Friendless and the Six-Toed Cat. If you haven’t read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3 yet, check them out first.

Content Warnings: Mild Swearing, Alcohol Use, Tobacco Use, Violence, Gun Violence, Animal Violence, Nazis

SATURDAY MORNING, JULY 27, 1942
LONG SOUND
NORTH OF KEY LARGO, FLORIDA

Mickey was soaked in sweat by the time he threw the last palm frond over the top of the fan boat. He swatted at the hawk-sized skeeters and the BB-stinging no-see-ums as he trudged through ankle-deep brackish swell and between swooping branches. Gator had set up shop with a radio that had more antennas than Mick felt was plausible, sheltered in the heart of the tiny island’s mangrove fortress.

Marge was posted up atop a crate, draped in mosquito netting while she sipped her spiked tea and read a book. She was also puffing away on a Cuban cigar as big as a rolled up brochure. The smoke was driving the bugs away, but it damn-near turned Mick's stomach. He steered clear of her and checked on the rest of their sparse set-up.

Cypress had spent the morning calibrating his hydrophone. A tight knot of alligators had encircled their position, congregating around the source of the sonic transmission. After he'd called the reptiles, he'd gone to work assembling a sixty-millimeter mortar in the middle of the grassy clearing. The shells he'd stacked up next to it were clear glass and filled with some kind of oozing brown and red sludge.

“She pretty well hid?” Gator asked. He had his ear pressed to a radio, waiting for confirmation from Friendless.

“It'd take a fine-tooth comb to find that boat,” Mick assured him, not taking his eyes off the strange ordnance.

“I hope you're right,” Gator said. “I'm already getting krauts jabber-jawing on the radio.”

“Let me hear that,” Mick said. Gator handed him the headset and Mick pressed it against his ear. After listening for a moment, he handed it back with a frown, saying: “That ain't German.”

“Nope, they’re talkin’ in red-blooded American,” Gator replied.

“Silver Legion,” Cypress called out.

“Them again?” Mick asked. He’d run into those idiots up in South Carolina a couple times recently. The Legion had sprouted in North Carolina, but the Office was getting reports of its roots spreading everywhere, even after the US had gone to war with the krauts. He snarled: “Nazi bootlickers.”

“Folks are scared and doing what they think gots to get did. Maybe getting a little scratch on the side, who knows,” Gator said with a shrug. He went back to listening to the radio transmissions, scribbling down a note now and then. Mick turned his attention back to Cypress and his weapons.

“What is all this?”

“Deterrent,” Cypress replied. He made one last adjustment to the mortar's legs and stepped back to admire his work.

“You think they'll find us?” Mick asked. They'd spent the whole night flying across the Everglades at insane speeds before settling in this carefully selected thicket. He didn't think anyone without a airplane and a set of eagle eyes could spot them.

“They have about three boats out there right now, patrolling the sounds,” Cypress replied. “Gator's tracking them. But they have the same gear we do. Once Friendless transmits, they'll have his location, and when we reply, they'll have ours.”

“So we let them ambush us?”

“If Friendless is here, they won’t be worrying about us.”

“And you’re going to, what, gas 'em to keep 'em on their heels?” Mick demanded. He did not like the look of whatever goop was slurrying around in those shells, and had seen enough gas in the last war to last him the rest of his life.

“Gas? I'm not one of them,” Cypress snapped. He picked up a shell and turned it over in his hands before offering it to Mick. Solid gray and red chunks shifted inside the amber liquid. “It is pretty nasty though.”

Mick took the shell and examined it. The fluid was organic, he could tell that. And oily; the oozing mess had started to separate into translucent layers in varying colors. He turned it over again and nearly dropped it when an eyeball pushed through the other chunks and pressed itself against the glass.

“Mackerel,” Cypress explained. It was a fish eye. He took the shell back and placed it with the others. “This is my own mix of chemical attractants. Fish chum for sharks and water snakes, that's copperheads. Two parts deer urine for puma. Pheromones from the entomologists in Oak Ridge for wasps, mosquitoes, roaches, and scorpions. Everything's putrefied, which gets the vultures swooping. Oh, and this indentation here whistles when the shell's in the air, calling alligators from two miles out.”

“So you're siccing 'gators on them?”

“I'm siccing everything on them. Land, air, and sea. Florida provides, Mickey, Florida provides.”

“You know that we could just hit 'em with a regular shell. Blow their ships right out of the water. With none of these, uh, theatrics.”

“Malloy, I don't sit back and tell you how to investigate sloppy adulterers or chug rum. Let me do my thing.”

“Sure, sure. And I prefer bourbon.”

Mick knew gladesmen were a different breed, but boy had he underestimated how different they were.

“Come, sit, Michael, let these boys get some work done,” Marge said, patting a spot on the crate next to her. Mick took one look at her fuming cigar and decided he'd be put to better use on watch. He tried to be polite when he declined, then slipped into the Bastard's padded vest. The cloth was layered and reinforced and stifling under the Everglades sun, but he wasn't about to go head-to-head with Nazi-sponsored traitors naked. He hefted the bulky BAR and a set of blindered binoculars and trudged to edge of the grove to keep eyes the green waters of the sound.

After a while, Gator joined him. He offered Mick a menthol cigarette, which Mickey turned down. Instead, he slipped a pint of unbranded bourbon out of his coat.

“What are we doing here?” Mick asked him. He took a slug of bourbon and passed it off to Gator.

“Picking up a package,” Gator said. He took a sniff of the hooch, scowled, and handed it right back. Mick shrugged, took another sip and set it in the crook of a branch for quick access.

“I may work for a general, but it sure as hell ain't the Postmaster General,” Mick grunted.

“This isn't a love letter, bo.”

“So what is it?”

Gator looked around, as if anyone could be hiding in the mangroves around them.

“You see those cages Cypress brought?” he asked.

“Our cargo is alive?” Mick groaned. “This is going to get messy.”

“A Negoziatori stole a pair of specimens from the krauts, then lined up their sale to Friendless.”

“Who? And why him?”

“You didn't read a page, did you?. The Negoziatori. They're old, older than the war, a thieves' guild from Italy. My mama would tell me about them before bed. They steal the un-stealable then sell it to the highest bidder. Keaton says Friendless has got a soft spot for cats and more money than a smart man knows what to do with.”

“So we're delivering cats?”

“One of 'em is. They are calling it the 'Qutat al'Um.' The Nazis turned a village into a bloodbath to take the thing, then the Negoziatori took it from them.”

“What in the hell would Nazis want with a cat?”

“The Negoziatori say it's special.”

“They would, they're the ones that drive the price up.”

“The other one is stranger. The Negoziatori wouldn't say what kind of critter it was, only that it is called Projekt Kobold.”

“Projekt? They must be using animals into weapons again,” Mick said.

“Again?” Gator asked.

“Never mind,” Mick said. He snatched his bottle off the branch and knocked back another shot. The howls and chittering laughter echoing in the back of his skull died down as the booze warmed his belly.

“So Friendless buys the critters and just gives them to us?” Mick asked after a dulling moment.

“He is a patriot. He'll be wanting a medal.”

“The Office doesn't give out medals.”

“They'll figure out something.”

“So if Friendless is out for glory, what about you? This ain't your usual work release.”

“After the Empress, they sent me to a federal pen. Keaton disappeared the skip and a couple others, but the rest of us went right up the river. But believe it or not, this is a lot a better option than the chain gang. And it sounds like y'all got Nazis in a swamp, so Keaton found himself a Cajun.”

“Chain gang is how I got into this mess, too. Almost thirty years back,” Mick said.

“They have a type, don't they?”

“They learned how to twist arms a long time ago, and that system wasn't broke.”

Mick sat back in the shade and did his best to ignore the voracious mosquitoes. He tried another sip of booze; someone somewhere had told him that skeeters don't like the taste of it. They must not have been talking about Florida mosquitoes, 'cause these ones didn't seem to mind it at all. He picked up the binoculars and watched the water. Their outpost gave them a commanding view of the sound, and firing arcs over several of its inlets.

“When was our guy supposed to call?” Mick asked after a while.

“Soon,” Gator said. He checked his watch again. “According to Keaton’s schedule, the negotiation'll be complete by now, and he'll be steaming our way. He's supposed to call when he's close. Marge is listening in on the big radio. Soon as he checks in, the action starts. When the krauts key in on his transmission, we've either got to race to his position or hold off the Nazis trying to ambush him.”

“Maybe both,” Mick said. “Why here?”

“Friendless has arranged meets in this area six times out of the last twenty. That's the highest instance of anywhere he's shown up. We have other teams at other probable locations, Miami to Dry Tortuga, but we're where he might probably go.”

“'Might probably.' You know, I am beginning to dislike Mister Friendless.”

“You and Hoover both. Friendless don't seem to take well to directions or rules.”

“You know, I'm no stickler for rules myself, and I have a feeling you're not either, but when I'm sticking my neck out, I'd like to think that this guy is not playing fast and loose with it.”

“Tell him that, mon ami,” Gator said.

A glint on the horizon caught Mickey's eye. It was definitely a ship.

“I see it,” Gator said. He lifted a pronged antenna and pointed it at the distant vessel. He examined the dials and scribbled down the numbers they showed on his pad.

“What are you doing?” Mick asked.

“Making sure.”

Gator took his scribbles and used them to adjust the transistor on a smaller radio pack. Once he'd dialed in the right frequency, he gave Mick a thumb's up. He pressed one of the headphones against his ear, listened for just a moment, then nodded, saying:

“It's O'Laughlin and Sparacello, all right. And the Silver Legion is with them.”

“I am getting pretty sick of those traitors,” Mick grumbled.

“They're pretty sickening,” Gator agreed. “And they're talking to their friends.”

“Let's shut 'em up,” Mick said, patting his loaded BAR. “If they get distracted enough, we could do this exchange without looking over our shoulders.”

“Distraction is what Charlie's shells are for,” Gator said. “We got to lure 'em into range, though. The M2 can hit about a mile out.”

“I can draw ‘em in a lot closer than that, trust me. You get Marge behind some cover and sight for Cypress.”

“Got it. Reel those Benedicts in.”

Gator shoved the headphones into Mick's hands then took off through the undergrowth. Mickey hooked the headphones over his ears and listened in.

“Slowly lads, slow. We're coming up on it,” a voice was saying. Unless there was another Irish mercenary steaming around the sound, that was Murphy O'Laughlin.

“I don’t see a damn thing,” another man replied, his voice thick with a New York accent. That had to be Sparacello. He shouted: “Basta, Massimo!”

There was a struggle on the line, then a monkey screeched over the airwaves. Mickey winced at the piercing sound.

“Oi! Shut that ape up!” O'Laughlin yelled.

“Quit playing around, you morons!” an American snarled. He had a deep Southern accent, and continued: “We're here to find that fat-mouthed writer for our Führer, not lolly-gag around with gosh-darn monkeys.”

He had to be a Silver Legionnaire, one of those American-born fascists dedicated to the Nazi cause. He was the fifth column, a violent traitor who deserved whatever Charlie Cypress was planning to rain down on him.

“Keep up then, you wanker,” O'Laughlin replied.

Mick adjusted his glasses and watched the distant boat. It was joined by two others. The traitors were out in force. They were still too far out for the mortar, though. He had to get them closer.

Mick splayed out on his stomach and steadied the BAR across a mangrove root. He angled the rifle up and let a burst of automatic fire rip. The tracers arced up and fell into the water, well short of the oncoming boats but close enough to get their attention.

“What's that?” Sparacello shouted. Massimo howled in the background.

“Looks like some yellow sod has jumped the gun, lads,” O'Laughlin replied.

“Move in!” the Legionnaire ordered.

“Slowly, boys, slowly,” O'Laughlin advised.

The Legionnaire did not deign to take orders from an Irishman. The third boat in the formation accelerated so hard it kicked up a brown rooster tail behind it.

“Shit,” Mick grunted. He settled deeper behind the thick root cluster and sighted in the speeding boat. The men aboard were firing guns, little pops too quiet to sound scary. Mick snuck a peek through the binoculars and saw the men aboard in the silver shirts using machine pistols and civilian-style rifles. Their little shots splashed a few hundreds yards away from shore.

Mick set down the binoculars and tracked the incoming boat. When he was satisfied they were close enough, he squeezed the trigger and emptied his magazine. He changed out the empty box, racked his bolt, and emptied another. The bullets arced onto the oncoming boat like sizzling hail.

One Legionnaire was hit, two others dove over the rail. It was a small fishing boat, not built for commercial or military use, so it wasn't designed to take much punishment. Thirty-ought-six rounds punched right through it, shredding its hull and perforating its engine. Smoke and flame boiled out of its stern.

“Help, help, mayday!” the Legionnaire was yelling into the radio.

“Bugger that,” O'Laughlin cursed. “You got yourself into that, get yourself out.”

Out past the burning boat, Mick could see the two mercenary boats turning around. He loaded his third magazine and charged the automatic rifle.

“Fifteen-hundred!” the Legionnaire pleaded.

“What's that then?” O'Laughlin asked, suddenly all ears.

“Another fifteen-hundred dollars, right now!”

“Now we're talking, lad. But what about my friend Carlo, here?”

“Fifteen-hundred each!” the Legionnaire conceded. “Now come help us!”

“All right, all right, keep bailing boys, we're on the way. Carlo, follow my lead.” O'Laughlin whipped his boat back around and churned his way toward the burning vessel. He slowed to a halt three hundred yards back. The Italian boat stayed even further away.

“Come on, you goon,” Mick grunted. O'Laughlin was just out of his range. “Come on.”

Despite his requests, O'Laughlin stayed put.

“We need a fatter worm for this fish,” Mick mumbled to himself. He could see O'Laughlin surveying the shore with his own binoculars, searching for the source of the barrage. Mick grunted, then shoved himself off the ground, presenting a nice, juicy target. “Come on, buddy, I know you can't ignore this.”

He held the BAR at his hip, angled it forty-five degrees into the air, then let out another burst. He watched his tracers raise geysers short of his target.

“What are you doing out there?” Mick wondered. He ejected the spent magazine and patted his pockets down to find a fresh one.

He could see a tiny silhouette stand on the boat's bow. The other man stood stock still. Mick saw little wink of an impossibly distant muzzle flash.

A train came out of nowhere, shattering the BAR in Mickey’s hands and driving his ass into the sand.

Mickey came to to the sound of an arcing shell whistling overhead. He was flat on his back, watching blue sky through green leaves. His feet were wet and his hair was sandy. Gun parts were scattered all around him.

“What the hell?” he muttered. He groaned and sat up. His whole body was sore, hips to collarbones. He patted his chest, where the hurt was radiating from, just to make sure he wasn't bleeding. His hand came away dry, his vest was puffy and torn. “God damn.”

A huge bullet had almost torn his padded vest inside-out. He plucked the slug from the ragged hole. It had to be almost seventy-caliber. The distance the Irishman had fired from and the intervening BAR had slowed it down enough that Mickey's vest could do its job, but damn if it didn't still pack a punch. When it had hit, the thick, folded fabric had about exploded. His chest looked like the pages of a torn-out book. It wasn't pretty, but he was alive.

Cypress' mortar thumped against the ground, and another shell squealed as it flew. Mick sat up, brushed the gun pieces off of himself, and picked up his binoculars.

Out on the water, the enemy boats were in chaos. A fine brown mist hung in the air above them, and the water was churning below. The Legion boat that Mickey had Swiss-cheesed was floundering, the men aboard bailing water and swinging weapons a fast as they could. He adjusted his focus in time to see Cypress' next round go off.

The shell air burst fifty feet up, sending a deluge of organs, urine, and chemicals raining down on the ships. The Legionnaires and mercenaries tried to cover themselves, but the splatter was pervasive and was driving every living thing wild. Three dozen vultures were dive-bombing the boats from the air, while a contingent of alligators surged at the panicking crews from below. Mick could even see a gray haze in the air around them: swarms of mosquitoes, hornets, and horseflies were choking the air out there.

Something brushed past Mickey's ankle. He jumped so high he almost lost the binoculars and both boots. A copperhead snake had emerged from the underbrush and was slithering into the sound, making a beeline for the afflicted ships.

The mortar thumped again.

Mick watched in horror as the underbrush came alive. Dozens of snakes were wriggling out of the ground, from under leaves, squeezing between roots and rocks and rolling like a living, venomous carpet. They squirmed around Mickey's feet, ignoring him to swim toward the distant boats.

The chemical-sprayed scene on the water was like a circle of hell. Mick found the radio headset and listened in. Men were shouting at each other, screaming. Now was as good a chance as they were going to get.

Mick charged through the trees to find Gator and Cypress with the same idea he had: they were already packing up. Marge was standing to the side, radio to her ear. Her eyes went wide when she saw his shredded chest.

“Michael, what happened?” she asked between puffs from his cigar.

“The vest worked is what happened,” he told her. “Any calls from Friendless?”

“Yes, Michael. But are you sure you're okay?” she demanded.

“Barely a bruise. What's the plan?”

“Rendezvous is five miles south of here,” Gator said. He hefted a huge pack onto his shoulder and explained the plan while he walked, “Those boats are disabled, but they made a distress call. Others will be here soon. You cover us when we...”

Gator stopped in place.

“Where's my machine gun?” he demanded.

“Nazis broke it,” Mick told him.

“Then we really have to move,” Gator said.

Mick helped them drag the essentials back to the airboat. They threw all the branches aside and started loading. He set the case of mortar shells into the hull, then ran back and collected Marge, holding her hand to help her navigate over all the roots and rocks. Gator had the motor cranked by the time they were settled on the bench seats.

“This is fixing to be bumpy! Hold tight and put on your ears!” he shouted. They all clamped their earmuffs on and the engine roared to speed. He backed the fan boat out into the water, then whirled it around in a way that pushed Mick's stomach up his throat. He barely held it together as they skiff jetted out onto the open water.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 27, 1942
STAKE KEY
WEST OF KEY LARGO, FLORIDA

“You got to gun it!” Mick shouted at Gator. The howling engine was louder than his voice could ever get. Tracers whizzed past his head. He wrapped his arms around Marge and hunkered down, covering her with his body.

Charlie Cypress stood and emptied the magazine of a Colt automatic. A half-dozen Legion fast boats returned fire, dinging rounds off the thundering fan's cage and rudders. Cypress dropped to the deck to reload.

“We can't keep this up!” Gator roared. He was right: out in the open water between the islands, the fanboat was in trouble. It wasn't built to handle waves. Each time its bow went over one, its flat bottom was exposed, and that was a chance for the whole damn thing to flip over. Gator had to take it easy on the throttle, otherwise they'd all be wet and the quislings would be on them even faster.

“Where are we going?” Mickey yelled.

“There!” Gator yelled back. Mick risked a peek and saw a low island half-a-mile ahead of them. It didn't look too different from the one they'd just run from. “That's where Friendless is!”

“We're leading them right to him?” Mick asked, dumbfounded.

“Shut up and try not to catch a bullet for a couple more minutes,” Gator snapped. He leaned into the control stick and the boat leaned with him, veering hard to the left. He lined up on some breakers straight ahead.

“What are you...” Mick tried to ask.

“Hold on!” Gator shouted. He revved the engine and kicked up spray, opening up the fanboat all the way. The small craft skipped across the water. The whitecaps Mick saw were breaking on a sandbar. He clenched his jaw and held on tight.

Gator hit the breakers at full throttle, ramping off them and over the sandbar. They landed hard, but Mick braced himself and kept Marge from bouncing off the deck or out of the boat. The wet sand scraped against the flat hull, but Gator kept her roaring, and the little boat slid across easy as pie. They rocked when they hit more breakers, but once they were across the washout everything leveled off. The motor's roar went from a deep thrumming to a horrible screech before the whole thing ground to a halt. Metal snapped somewhere inside it and the fan slowed, then stopped. Black smoke tumbled out of its guts.

The Nazis had stayed tight on them, but the fastest boat was too eager for an easy kill. It plowed right into the sandbar, sending its crew sprawling or flying overboard. The boats that followed peeled off, managing to keep from beaching themselves. The rest pulled back, attempting to circle the sandbar to get at their quarry. Rifle fire rattled, plinking off the bobbing fanboat's hull and putting holes through the fan blades. Gator ducked behind his seat.

“What now?” Mick demanded.

“The mortar?” Cypress asked.

“Firing that thing in this hull will sink us faster than they will,” Gator pointed out.

“We got to do something,” Mick said. He shifted around so that he was in between the Nazi boats and Marge.

“What was the name of Friendless' ship?” she asked him.

“Marge, we are dead in the water,” Mick said. “That doesn't matter.”

“Well, Michael, if it is something other than the Pilar, it might matter a great deal.”

Machine gun fire erupted from behind the fanboat, forcing Mick to squish Marge as he ducked even lower. Rockets screamed overhead, and the barrage annihilated the beached Legion boat. Wood and metal shattered under the assault.

Mick poked his head up to see a heavily-armed fishing boat wheeling around from the southern end of the island, lighting off a half-dozen heavy guns. A shirtless man with a broad chest and a gut to rival Mickey's, a sun-bleached captain's hat, and a thick black and gray beard stood on the bow, puffing on a cigar and sipping on a cocktail.

“Give 'em hell, boys!” he shouted around the stoagie, loud enough that his bellows could be heard across the water. A younger man, Cuban maybe, with dark hair and iron-wrought muscles, slid a fresh shell into a bazooka and traded the rocket launcher to the big man for his drink.

“Who is the hell is that?” Mick wondered aloud, just slow enough to realize that he recognized the brazen buccaneer.

“Take one on the chin, you fascist bastards!” the man shouted. He aimed down the bazooka and fired. The shell lanced across the blue water and connected with another Legion boat. Its hull flipped inside-out in a ball of flame, sending men tumbling ass-over-elbows into the sea.

The remaining Legion forces turned tail. They weren't equipped to deal with a madman armed with military-grade weaponry. The crew aboard the Pilar whooped and cheered, sending a few wayward bullets after the retreating fascists.

Mick let out a breath that had frozen in his chest. His whole body felt a hundred pounds lighter. He slumped back and looked up at the man who'd saved them, a man whose words Mick had read many times before, whose photo he'd seen in a hundred newspapers.

Ernest Hemingway put a boot on the guardrail and leaned his elbow on his knee. He handed off his empty bazooka and took back his drink, holding it up in a salute to the dead fan boat. His grin was wide.

“Let’s get these patriots aboard, shall we?” Hemingway shouted to his men.

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Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Story by Bonnie Baldwin. Art by Bruce Conners.