The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Smiling Smuggler, Part 5 of 5
The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Smiling Smuggler, Part 5 of 5
This week’s Mickey Malloy Monday brings us the thrilling conclusion to The Case of Smiling Smuggler, the first arc of The Billy Club Bastard Case Files. You’ll see the Billy Club Bastard bring two-fisted justice to the murderous Smiling Man, and learn the secrets behind the spy’s nefarious plot.
This story is featured in the anthology Bourbon, Bullets, Broads, and Bourbon, which is now available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, or as a DRM-free ePub.
This is finale of The Case of the Smiling Smuggler. If you’re just starting out, go back and check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 before reading further.
Content Warnings: Violence, Gun Violence, Gore, Mild Swearing, Alcohol Use, Tobacco Use, Nazis
TUESDAY MORNING, JUNE 24, 1941
WAREHOUSE EIGHT
THE COMMERCIAL PORT, TAMPA, FLORIDA
The Bastard ducked between rafters like a chimpanzee, moving yards at a time until he was above the Nazi with the matches. He lined up his steel-toed boots and released his grip.
The Bastard fell into space.
The kraut may as well have been hit by a falling piano. He crumpled beneath the Bastard, who rolled off the collapsed body and landed heavily on his feet. The kraut groaned, eliciting a blow from the Bastard's club which struck out like a scorpion's sting. A quick bash across the scalp silenced him.
The Smiling Man had yet to notice his man go down. The Bastard shoved the K.O’d Nazi aside and ripped his bullet-perforated comrade's jacket open. He grabbed up the Thompson and ripped it away with such force that its sling snapped like yarn.
The gun was heavy and unbalanced in the Bastard’s hands. The aftermarket silencer they'd bolted onto its barrel and its rattling drum magazine added another ten inches and fifteen pounds.
“Hey, buddy!” the Bastard yelled. He pulled the gun to his shoulder and aimed down its sights, zeroing in on the cabin window with the Smiling Man's face behind it. Just as he squeezed the trigger he felt a sharp pain lance through his leg. His aim dropped, and the salvo of bullets went low, punching holes into the Egret's bow and launching geysers of baywater.
The Bastard spun to find the dying Nazi had hauled himself out of the pile of bodies to sink a pen knife into his calf. The kraut ripped the tiny blade out and reeled back to plunge it in again, but the Bastard struck out with a clenched fist. The sap gloves he wore were covered in pouches filed with powdered lead that added a good pound of metal to each punch. His knuckles collided with the Nazi's face like a wrecking ball in a mist of blood and gasoline.
When he spun back around, the Smiling Man was nowhere to be found. The Egret gurgled and choked. He could see the fresh bullet holes chugging down baywater in thirsty little whirlpools. The Thompson's heavy rounds must have gone through-and-through the small boat.
“Hey!” the Bastard shouted. His voice echoed in the warehouse and carried across the water like summer thunder. There was no movement in the sinking ship.
“Must've got him,” he muttered. “Feds can scoop him off the bottom with the rest of his crap.”
He leveled the sub-machine gun and fired again, stitching the hull up. He held the trigger until the gun ran dry, nearly sawing the boat's nose off. The Thompson's suppressor steamed as splattered kraut blood cooked off it.
The Bastard tossed the empty gun aside. It clattered across the pier before it splashed into the bay. He watched the Egret break apart and roll. She slipped beneath the surface, and in less than a minute even the bubbles were gone.
“You will regret that,” someone hissed behind him.
The Bastard turned to find the Smiling Man standing between him and the warehouse, soaking wet. His suit hung limp around him, and his hair was plastered to his scalp. His face was still contorted into that grin. Baywater dripped from his open mouth.
“Dick had another magazine, you know,” he said.
“Gun seemed like overkill for a rat,” the Bastard growled. He wrapped the club's strap tight around his wrist.
“A rat? It was you who was scurrying through the sewer last night,” the Smiling Man snapped.
“And you just abandoned a sinking ship,” the Bastard shot back.
“Do you know what I do to intercessors?” the Nazi snarled. His smile didn't even twitch as he talked. His jaw and tongue moved, but the flesh of his face was static, like it was carved. He reached to the small of his back and produced a long, curved blade. A skinning knife.
“I've heard, you gut 'em,” the Bastard said, rolling his eyes. “Messy. Overdone. And melodramatic.”
“Some consider what I do an art,” the Nazi said. He tossed the blade between his hands, crouching like a third baseman. “Perhaps I can teach you some appreciation.”
“Pal, I don't need some two-bit circus reject teaching me anything about killing,” the Bastard told him. “I learned all about that the hard way. Drop the knife or get dropped.”
“You, sir, are quite annoying,” the Smiling Man said. “Now I am going to kill you out of spite.”
“You know, I've heard that before,” the Bastard replied. The smirk he concealed beneath his bandana had nothing on the kraut's grin. He slowly moved his bulk to the balls of his feet, ready to explode. He kept his club up, between the long knife and his neck.
“Perhaps we can come to an understanding,” the Smiling Man offered. He took and step back and lowered his guard.
“Hey, I'm a businessman, I'll listen,” the Bastard offered, like he was talking to someone other than a fascist piece of shit.
“Well, first, I kill you, I leave you grasping your intestines on this very dock,” the Nazi said.
“Okay, this could have started better,” the Bastard pointed out.
“Then I leave,” the Nazi concluded.
“I've heard better deals,” the Bastard told him. “In the last twenty-four hours, in fact.”
“What do you propose?”
“Well, first I break both your Nazi legs, then - !”
The Smiling Man struck like a cobra. He whipped his hand around and the Bastard felt the impact of the heaved knife in his chest. He gasped and staggered back. He heard shoes pounding against the pier, then the Nazi was on top of him, fists clenched and giggling like he'd been hooked up to ether.
The Bastard changed his tune in an instant. He plucked the knife out of his chest with his free hand while swatting the Smiling Man aside with his club.
“Was?” the kraut stammered as he retreated a few steps, clutching his upper arm. It had to be numb already from the impact.
“You're going to leave a bruise, Fritz,” the Bastard grunted as he tapped his chest with his club. His jacket had slowed the blade, and the layered canvas and padding inside his vest had taken the rest of the hit. The Smiling Man's aim was true: if the Bastard hadn't've been wearing the vest, he'd've been stuck right in the heart.
The Nazi only had a second to be stunned. The Bastard came at him like a freight train, swinging his club with one hand and the knife with the other. This kraut was half-snake, slithering in and out of the Bastard's reach, a whisper away from getting chopped or absolutely creamed.
The Bastard's assault forced him to the edge of the pier. One more good swing would either leave the Nazi pulverized or in the drink, maybe both. He needed the kraut alive; Mickey Malloy's name would be all over Wally Sanders' corpse 'til this smiling goon was in 'cuffs.
That half-heartbeat of hesitation was all the Smiling Man needed. He wormed his way inside the Bastard's guard to grab and twist his knife hand. The Bastard felt his arm crank in a direction God had never designed it to go and felt his hand involuntarily go limp. The knife tumbled out of his grip and into the Smiling Man's.
“You are just a man,” the kraut hissed. He lunged at the Bastard, knife flashing. His slashes cut in around the Bastard's guard, cutting away at the vest covering his abdomen. Each swipe cut deeper, each flayed layer closer and closer to the Bastard's flesh.
The Bastard grunted and retreated, stumbling back until he was out of the Smiling Man's reach. The two squared off, the man in black staring down the grinning killer.
“Warum stirbst du nicht?” the Nazi gasped.
“How about you call it a day, pal?” the Bastard asked. He stood tall, towering over the exhausted kraut. On a good day, he had six inches on the smaller man. The Nazi drew back like a snake.
“Let's not do this again,” the Bastard said. “Look, you tried this already, why don't - !”
The Smiling Man lunged at him, knife leading the way.
The Bastard swung his club, hard, shattering the Smiling Man's arm. The blade flew off the side of the pier like he'd walloped a baseball. The Nazi grinned at his arm; from the elbow down, it hung limp. The Bastard stepped back to give him some air.
“I don't want to smash you, pal, but I will,” he warned. This kraut had to be able to give a confession when all was said and done.
“Fahr zur Hölle!” the Smiling Man snarled through clenched teeth. He reached into his mouth with his good hand.
“Stop!” the Bastard shouted. He wasn't about to like the man who'd get Malloy off the hook off himself with a pill. He lurched forward, trying to grab the Nazi's hand.
The Smiling Man lashed out, opening a slice in the Bastard's sleeve. Blood began pouring down his arm. The Nazi stood and waved with his good hand. He was holding a razor blade between his fingers. He’d pulled it out from inside his cheek.
“You do bleed,” the Smiling Man hissed. The Bastard stumbled back. He dropped his club and tried to squeeze the wound shut. His hand was already getting cold.
The Nazi lunged again, and this time all the Bastard could do was throw his other hand up in front of his face. He felt the razor rake across his knuckles, and then the Smiling Man began hacking up a lung and stumbling away. There was no follow-up attack.
The Bastard checked his hand. The pouch sewn across his knuckles was empty. It had been sliced open, and the powdered lead had burst out, all over the Smiling Man's face. He flung the razor blade aside and was rubbing at the gray mess all over his eyes and mouth.
“Should've taken my deal,” the Bastard grated. He flipped his club up by its strap and snatched it out of mid-air, then swung it backhand. Its angular head caught the Smiling Man across his simpering mouth and dropped him like a dead fish. He fell hard and laid still, face down against the pier. Blood pooled beneath his head.
The Bastard took two steps and fell to a knee. He shrugged out of his coat. The razor cut on his arm was deep. He could time his pulse by its spurts. It was slowing. He took a deep breath, removed his bandana, and then the Bastard was gone.
SATURDAY NIGHT, JULY 8, 1916
INCHWORM TRENCH, TRÔNES WOOD
MONTAUBAN RIDGE, THE SOMME, FRANCE
“Are they going to blow the whistle?” Harold Queen asked. Mick could hear the fear in his voice. Hell, the kid's voice nearly cracked.
“They might,” Mick grunted.
“What do I do?” Queen asked. Mick looked over at him. The kid had been on the line all of two days and he'd already latched onto Mick like a barnacle.
“Didn't you volunteer for this?” Mick grunted. He leaned against the front wall of the trench, listening for falling shells. After a moment, he realized that the kid had shut all the way up. He sighed, and said:
“This ain't what you were expecting, was it?”
“No,” Queen whispered. He had those blue kind of eyes that always looked like he was about to start crying.
“What did you want here?” Mick said. Queen was American, there wasn’t any draft. He’d volunteered to be in the Somme.
“I wanted to be tough,” the kid muttered. He couldn't have been more than sixteen. It was the kind of logic a kid would have: go to war, become tough.
“Jesus,” Mick muttered.
“Well what are you doing here?” Queen demanded.
“Nothing that smart,” Mick said. War wasn't his calling, and he had no cause beyond staying out of jail.
“What's the supposed to mean?” the kid asked. Mick wasn't feeling talkative, but he didn't have much of a choice. It was either stay quiet and terrify the kid, or keep him calm.
It was up to Mick whether the kid would keep his head or not.
“I ain't here by choice, kid,” Mick said.
“Don't call me that,” Queen droned for the three-hundredth time.
“Some judge gave me a choice: volunteer in the fight against the Hun, or get thrown on a chain gang.”
“What'd you do?” Queen asked.
“Nothing different than any other Saturday,” Mick grunted. “Beat the piss out of some U of F jokers, drank some beer, fought a state trooper, knocked over a cement mixer.”
“Holy smokes,” Queen muttered.
“Yeah,” Mick said. He heard a distant rumble. Artillery firing. He couldn't tell whether it was theirs or the krauts’. Queen hadn't noticed: he had yet to learn the sounds of the battlefield. “Turns out the judge's wife has French family, so he'd been offering everyone the same deal: war or hard labor. I was the first sucker to take him upon it.”
“I joined because of my ma,” Queen said. “My dad was, a, uh, well he was a judge himself. Folks he'd locked up had been threatening him.”
“That's part of the deal, isn't it?” Mick grunted.
“It bothered my ma more than him,” Queen told him. “He never took it serious, and he passed in May.”
“Passed?” Mick asked idly, waiting for the shells. He suddenly heard what he said. “Wait, somebody clipped him?”
“No, it was the flu,” Queen answered. “I wanted to take care of my ma after, but she wouldn't have it. She got even more scared, and she made us move in with my aunt and uncle. She hired people to guard the house. They were bleeding her dry. I told her I could do it, protect us, but she... I was captain of the rifle team, you know? I was co-captain of the wrestling team. I can handle myself, I can protect people.”
Mick heard a second rumble. Whoever hadn't fired had responded. They'd be getting a heavy rain soon enough.
“Hey, why don't you keep your head down for a minute?” Mick said. All the tommies around them had pressed themselves flat against the trench wall. They knew what was coming. They let their pet Americans gab.
“I ain't scared, Mick,” the kid warbled. The tears welling in his eyes told a different story. He traced the grain in his rifle stock with his fingernail.
“It ain't about being scared,” Mick said. “It is about being smart. You know who ain't scared here?”
“Who?” the kid asked.
“Nobody,” Mick replied. The whistle of falling shells stabbed at his eardrums. He pushed Queen flat against the trench wall and pressed in next to him. He cocked his tin pot helmet over so it covered his neck and pulled his collar up over his face.
The ground shook, like Satan had tossed it up over a line and was beating the dirt out of it. Soil and mud because part of the gray sky. The roar was deafening, it surpassed Mickey's ability to perceive it. He thought he could see it through his eyelids, flashes of bruised purples and greens, red rumbles undulating through shattered yellow.
The shells fell over and over, until they were the only thing Mickey knew. Well, not the only thing. He had his hand on the kid's back, keeping him upright, keeping him whole. He could feel Queen's heart hammering through his palm. He never realized how small he was. In his baggy uniform, with his helmet and coat, draped in a cloak and carrying a weapon, Queen almost looked like a real soldier. With his little bird ribs quaking beneath Mickey's hand, he was still just a child.
“Shit,” Mick muttered to himself. Sound was just a memory now. The whole concept of it had been stolen for the sole use of the shells. He didn't know whether he'd said it aloud or not, but the realization of what he had to do was the same either way. He was going to keep this kid alive. He was going to get him home to protect his ma.
The shelling ended after a while, there was no way to say how long. Mick didn't move, he didn't let Queen move, not until he heard the Brits start milling about. Mick tipped his helmet back and shook himself out like a dog, dislodging what must have been fifteen pounds of dirt from his coat. All around him, men were groaning, stretching, cleaning out their ears.
Mick touched each of his fingers to his thumbs, and wiggled his toes. Everything was there, everything was working. He ran his fingertips over his face, tracing his chin, nose, cheeks, eyelids, and eyebrows, feeling around his ears to the nape of his neck. He was still whole. He hadn't been shredded, peeled, perforated, or melted. He was unscarred, solid.
Queen staggered away from the trench wall. His face was covered in mud except for two little lines of freckled cheek cleaned by streaming tears.
“Clean yourself up,” Mick grunted. He didn't want the tommies to see the kid crying. They were already suspicious of the pair of Americans in their ranks, it wouldn't take much to alienate them further. Sure, plenty of these Brits wept all night, but when there was work to be done, they kept their upper lips stiff.
Queen turned away and wiped his face off, suddenly ashamed. Mick felt bad about that, but the kid had to understand.
The stars were out, he hadn't remembered them being so bright before. Red Cross folks were already running southward down the trench. The distant screams he heard sounded like a section had taken a direct hit. Mickey had seen it once before. He'd had to dig out the survivors, and bag up the pieces of the rest. His stomach turned at the thought, but he held it together. The kid couldn't take that.
Queen was leaning agains the wall, staring at the finally still ground.
“Hey, kid,” Mick tried.
“Don't call me that,” Queen mumbled.
“Unless jerry is just funning with us, something is about to happen,” Mick said. The kid didn't seem to register any of it. Mick smacked his hands, startling Queen but getting his attention. “They don't just drop a hundred tons of bombs for kicks. Either they're going over the top, or we are.”
“What?” Queen stammered. He had arrived during a lull in the fighting. He had yet to see a charge, or to be part of one.
“See all these stretchers?” Mick said. Another gang of them rushed past as he said it, joining a long train of medics worming their way south. “That means we took a direct hit. Part of the line is down. Either jerry is going to rush it, or we're going to rush them before they can exploit it.”
“Rush them?” Queen repeated.
“The sergeant is going to form us up, we're going to fix our bayonets, and when the lieutenant whistles, we're climbing up there. Then we run.”
“We run,” Queen said to himself.
“It is muddy as hell up there, place your feet carefully. Take cover where you can. Rocks and stone walls are best, trees if you have to,” Mick began listing off anything he could to keep this kid free of German lead. “Do not go into craters, there could be gas and there is definitely mud, deep mud. Watch out for barbed wire. It is worth taking the time to cut it. Do you have cutters?”
Queen shook his head. His eyes went wide as saucers and Mick spun around to see what had spooked him. Sergeant Hayes was coming down the line.
“Chin up, boys. On the ledge, on the ledge,” he was saying as he strutted down the trench. Those men that could stand hopped up on the step and peered over into no man's land.
Mick hauled himself up, then grabbed Queen's jacket and pulled him up alongside him. They studied the churned gray earth before them through their rifle sights.
“Are they going to blow the whistle?” Queen whispered.
“I don't know,” Mick snapped. He struggled to let out a breath that wasn't chased by a shudder or a whimper. “Just follow my lead, got it?”
“I don't know if I can,” Queen told him. “I can't die here, Mick. My mom, someone's got to be there for her.”
“You don't have to die here,” Mick said. The kid looked at him with wide eyes. Mick continued: “You think I can do this? Any of these Liverpool jokers? You think any of us is supposed to survive? We weren't soldiers before this, we drank and delivered newspapers and gambled and sold shoes.”
“So we die?”
Flares launched from behind the kraut lines, illuminating the pitted battlefield in flicking red and white. Shells burst two hundred yards out from the trench, forcing Queen to duck. Mick pulled him back out. It was smoke, a wall of it, enough to cover the German advance. That direct hit must have been a big one, enough to give jerry some balls. Shouts came up and down the line. They were fixing bayonets, readying ammo belts, shoring up sand bags.
The krauts were coming. Mick turned to Queen and looked him in his baby blue eyes.
“You want to know how I've gotten this far, kid?”
Mick put up a finger to shush before he could object to 'kid.'
“When things are tough, like when there's somebody bigger than me about to clean my clock, or there's a line of krauts ready to charge down my throat, I know that's something I can't handle. There's things Mickey Malloy can't do, just like there's things Harold Queen can't do. Being smart is knowing your limits. So I pretend I'm someone that wouldn't die, someone that wouldn't be scared because he knows what to do. David, King Arthur, Billy the Kid, Blackbeard, Uncle Sam, it don't matter who.”
“Then what?” Queen asked.
“Then I do whatever they'd do.”
TUESDAY MORNING, JUNE 24, 1941
WAREHOUSE EIGHT
THE COMMERCIAL PORT, TAMPA, FLORIDA
“There he is, he's still with us,” a voice said above Mickey. Water dripped onto him, cold against his hot skin. The old detective groaned and tried to squeeze his eyes shut, but there was a light so bright that he could count the veins in his eyelids.
He groaned again. He was flat on his back and his whole body hurt. He peered down at his arm. He didn't remember tying his bandana over the wound, but there is was, black and glistening with crimson.
He looked at the men standing over him. He recognized them instantly: the feds from Saint Bart's. The slim one with the silver hair was standing, smoking a cigarette and holding a flashlight so its beam settled on Mick's face.
“Stop that,” Mick groaned.
“Sorry, friend,” the G-man replied. He clicked off the light. One of his bruisers was crouching above Mick in a soaked wet suit. Brackish water dripped down on him.
“Get off of me,” Mick grunted. He rolled onto his side and tried to push himself up, then saw the dried blood where the Nazi had been. There was no sign of the body.
Pain shot through Mick’s perforated leg. Everything hurt. His joints were swollen big as rutabagas, his gut felt like it had been run over by a car, his arm was cold and tingling, and his leg was on fire. The stink of mud and blood washed over him. He hurled then and there, right in front of the feds.
“This is a crime scene, Malloy,” the silver-haired G-man said.
He stayed there on his hands and knees a minute, retching like a dog that'd been eaten grass. Nearby, a whole crew of men had stopped working to watch. The feds'd docked a large boat right where the Egret had gone down. It lit the entire pier with banks of searing spotlights. Its winches whined, and the pair of short crane arms sticking over its side lowered something into the water above the sunken wreck. Mick wiped his mouth with the back of his good hand, then spit the remaining bitter flavor out.
“How do you know my name?” Mick finally sputtered through the bile.
“Help him up, the man’s a hero,” the G-man ordered. His grunt hooked Mick under the arms and lifted him to his feet like he was a kid with a skinned knee. Mick thrashed his way out of the younger man's grip and got right in the fed's face.
“How do you know my name?” Mickey demanded again.
“Hey, Malloy, friend, that's some powerful stuff,” the fed said, waving his hand in front of his nose to dispel Mickey's puke breath. He stoop a step back and said: “I know you because we keep track of all of our alumni.”
He pulled a badge out of his pocket and held it up so Mick could read it. Mick didn't have his readers so he squinted and leaned in the read the embossed script.
The Office for the Cataloging of Unusual Occurrences.
Mick's stomach sank. He'd left those fools and their crusade back in France twenty-five years ago.
“Hell no,” he grunted. “I want nothing to do with this.”
“Funny how you ended up in the middle of it all again,” the G-man said. “The name's Wayland Earp, call me Wailey. Regional Inspector for the Office's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.”
A spy buster.
“Good for you, didn't know that 'rat catcher' needed such a fancy title,” Mick grunted.
“This is Investigator Alexander Lane,” Earp continued. “His brother, Christopher, is under presently.”
“Congratulations,” Mick said. “Where is the kraut?”
“In custody,” Earp replied.
“Keaton should have him to the airport by now,” Lane added.
“Which leaves you,” Earp mused.
“Pal, I am here to clear my name and that is all,” Mick said. “I am long done with you kooks and your spooky bullshit.”
“Don't be so sure,” Lane said. He was pointing down at Mick's club where it dangled from his wrist. There was something plastered to its head.
“What the hell?” Mick muttered. He was so weak that it took concentrated effort to raise his club to examine it. The was a full set of human lips caked to the hardwood, with a chin and nose splattered up and down the shaft.
“You ever seen anything like that?” Lane asked.
“Not since the last time I saw anyone from the Office,” Mick said. He slammed his club against the pier had enough to dislodge the carnage. Earp's flashlight beam passed across them, revealing that they weren't anything more than molded wax. Mick sighed. “I am done. I did everything I needed to do for y'all.”
“We haven't asked you to do anything more,” Earp said. A splash interrupted his thoughts. He said: “Just a moment.”
Earp and Lane walked to the edge of the pier and watched the boat with the crane work. After a moment, the entire Wandering Egret emerged from the water with a frogman standing on its deck. The man peeled off his diving mask and waved.
“That's him, huh?” he called out, squinting at Mick. He looked exactly like the other wetsuited man on the pier, square jaw and blonde hair. Christopher Lane.
“Yeah, that's him,” Alexander called back.
“He as good as they say?” Chris asked. Alex gave Mick a quick once-over.
“No, he's old and shitty now,” Alex called back.
“I'm standing right here,” Mick grunted.
“You've been something of a legend among younger officials,” Earp explained.
“Yeah, sounds like it,” Mick muttered.
“The Falkenstein assault is taught to all new recruits,” Earp told him. “That part you played - !”
“That was a whole war ago,” Mick snapped. “My part is done.”
“Is it?” Earp asked. “If there wasn't more to be done, we wouldn't be pulling stolen uranium out of Tampa Bay.”
“My stolen what?”
“Uranium, Malloy, uranium. It's an element.”
“Never heard of it,” Mick said.
“And thanks to you, no one else has to either. Though the Lanes captured Eizhürst's getaway sub last night, he still could've gotten away with the cargo if it weren't for you. It would be very dangerous in the wrong hands.”
“Captured a sub? A submarine?” Mick said. He looked at the identical men, who both nodded, grinning genuine grins. Two men capturing a U-boat. He moved past it. With these Office folks, things would only get stranger if he let them. “And Eizhürst?”
“Eizhürst is the German agent you... defaced,” Earp replied. “You've done a lot of good here today, Malloy.”
“I wasn't helping y'all on purpose,” Mick said.
“Imagine how much you could do if you meant to,” Earp said. “This war is bigger than any one of us. We're not fighting for land or money or treaties. This is something bigger. Eizhürst and the folks like him mean to exterminate the world, and they've already started. Everyone has something they can give to help stop this. Especially someone who has done it before and was able to come out the other side whole.”
“Whole,” Mick huffed. God, he needed a drink. His body ached in every way.
“What's that?” Earp asked.
“This thing ain't mine,” Mick said. “I fixed it once, and whoever was in charge let it go to pot all over again. It ain't mine.”
“Think about it, Malloy. When you read the papers, think about it. Call me if you want to talk,” Earp said. He held out a business card. Mick took it. He left a scarlet thumbprint pressed across its face.
He limped away from Earp, from the Lanes, from the hanging Egret blasted full of holes. His fight was long over. He passed the smugglers’ bodies. They were blue collar guys, civilians. People who just wanted to sell the booze their friends and families made. They'd been trying to get by, just like him.
Everyone that got mixed up with the Office and their crusade ended up the same.
Mick kept walking, ignoring his leg. He walked out of the back of the warehouse. He took off his shredded vest and wrapped it around his helmet and club and limped down the road to his car. He never looked back.
If he fought this war, he'd be stripped down to the bone. Whatever hell he drank and gambled and fought his way past was nothing compared to what would happen to him if he went back again. Mick kept walking. He read the papers, he knew what was happening. He knew about Hitler, and the camps, the executions. He knew what they needed him to do.
Of course he wanted to help, but Mick Malloy was old, he was broken, he was shitty and bitter and hollowed. He couldn't take in any more dead kids' mothers.
Mickey Malloy could not do it.
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Copyright © 2022 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.
Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Tyrelle Smith.