“And you didn’t tell him?”
They heard a sound at the front door of the
house and Killingsworth rolled on her back. From her position in
the hall she could just barely see the door as it cracked open and
a shadowy form complete with a cradled AK-47 machine pistol—a
short-barreled rifle without the stock—entered the front room.
Up to this point Killingsworth had not fired
a single shot, and this might have led to a false sense of security
for the gunman entering the house. It was a short-lived sense of
security, because Killingsworth put four bullets into the gunman’s
chest cavity and sent him reeling onto the front porch, where he
fell heavily, machine pistol clattering down the front steps.
There was a crash as someone forcibly
entered through the rear entrance of Finn’s home. In a flash,
Killingsworth was on her feet and bounded over Blackheart, who had
propped himself with his broad back to one wall. She went low as
she came around the corner into the vestibule of the rear entrance.
A dour gunman with heavy lines on his face managed to get off one
shot that parted Killingsworth’s hair, and then, at close range,
she put two bullets into the gunman’s heart. Before he had finished
falling, she was on top of him, one booted foot on his gun wrist,
as she pried the pistol from his still-spasming hand.
She heard gunshots at the front of the house
and then Blackheart came stumbling into the vestibule, bullets
chewing up the wall after him. His borrowed pistol blazed in the
darkness as he returned bullet for bullet, not hitting his
assailant, but at least keeping him at bay for a few moments. All
of a sudden Blackheart was pulling at the trigger and nothing was
happening, his magazine emptied. “Another one came through the
front door.”
Killingsworth was already fully aware of
this and she brushed past Blackheart and caught sight of a shadow
lurking behind a corner. She fired twice and one of the bullets
struck the hiding gunman at the bridge of his nose, dropping him to
the wood plankings.
Blackheart glanced at the dead gunman
beneath his feet. “This is Elvin Elwood. He used to work for
Frankie G.”
“He’s probably working for Diggs Sanderson
now.” Killingworth slipped a fresh magazine into the butt of her
pistol. “Or he was when I killed him.”
“You know, if Sanderson would have just
asked me nice I would have told him where the cash was, but instead
he sent a thug telling me one of his jailbirds was going to knife
me in the liver. Maybe I was just being stubborn, but when he put
it that way I didn’t feel like cooperating.” Blackheart looked out
the open back door and saw two more figures approaching through the
night.
Apparently, they saw him too because they
opened up, their pistols erupting flame and lead, throwing up
splinters from the decking of the back porch. Killingsworth grabbed
Blackheart by the elbow and pulled him back into the house. “Change
of plans, Big Boy. We’re going out the front door, after all.”
As she pushed Blackheart toward the hallway
she turned and sent a couple of shots winging toward the muzzle
flashes. Mostly, it was meant to discourage them, but she heard a
curse as one of the bullets connected. Then she slid past
Blackheart and led the way through the shambles of the front room,
past the bullet-shredded couches and broken glass and out the front
door. She used Finn’s brand new Porsche as cover—he wouldn’t be
needing it any more—running low toward the rear of the car where
the engine rested. A high-powered rifle could cut through the body
of the car and she preferred to keep an engine block between her
and any shooters.
Still, Killingsworth was running blind. She
didn’t have time to do any reconnaissance on the street, because of
the shooters that were closing in behind her. This worked both for
and against her. Diggs Sanderson and his right hand man, known as
Shovel McCormick, stood next to a BMW observing the assault on the
house. Apparently, they weren’t expecting anyone to burst out the
front door, and the moment that it took Diggs Sanderson to
unholster his pistol was enough for Killingsworth to reach
cover.
Blackheart, however, was a dozen paces
behind her—.45 in one hand and gym bag full of cash in the
other—and he made a larger target than Killingsworth. Sanderson
snapped off a couple of shots, which missed connecting with
Blackheart, but tore the gym bag out of his hand, so that when he
crouched behind the Porsche, he was minus what was left of Frankie
G’s drug money.
He looked ruefully at his empty left hand,
and then back to the unkempt lawn where the bag lay. “I’ll go back
for it. Keep me covered.”
“Not going to happen,” said Killingsworth.
“Sanderson’s shooters will be coming through the house any moment
and then you’ll be pinned between guns on both sides.”
Shovel McCormick reached into the trunk of
the BMW and grabbed an AR-15 rifle, which used a smaller, less
penetrating round than the Russian AK-47, but had both more range
and accuracy than its counterpart. Killingsworth snapped off a pair
of shots around the bumper of the Porsche and both rounds punched
through the lifted lid of the BMW’s trunk. One of these shots
glanced off the AR-15, and McCormick went scrambling for cover
behind the trunk of the Mercedes next to the BMW.
Diggs Sanderson called out. “Is that you
back there, Blackheart? You are certainly a troublemaker. I had you
marked for a shiv the moment you got to State Pen, but somehow you
managed to escape. You are famous, now. Your face is on every TV in
Kentucky and cops are looking for you in at least eight different
states.”
“Why have me killed before you could find
out where the cash was?” shouted Blackheart.
“To make a point,” drawled Sanderson, “and I
heard that Hardwick was planning to spring you. I thought it
wouldn’t happen until after you got to the pen. My mistake. I
thought you’d slipped through my fingers until I got a call from
Honest Sam, and when I heard rumors about Finn and his woman
spending cash all over town I put two and two together.”
“The cops will be here any minute,” said
Blackheart. “The money’s in the bag. Take it and split.”
Sanderson laughed. “The police are at least
seven minutes away, Blackheart. I can fire a lot of bullets in
seven minutes.”
At that moment, the engine of the Porsche
fired and it squealed away from Blackheart. In the matter of a
second or two it accelerated over the curb and slammed into
Sanderson, pinning him between the BMW and the front end of the
Porsche. Sanderson was only able to fire one bullet before the
Porsche crushed his body.
Killingsworth unhooked her seatbelt and
rolled out of the Porsche, just as Shovel McCormick was coming from
behind the trunk of the Mercedes so he could began firing into the
Porsche. She put three bullets into the chest of Shovel McCormick
before he could pull the trigger. McCormick crumpled and
Killingsworth tore the rifle from his hands. She turned and saw
that instead of heading for cover, like she had directed him,
Blackheart was making a grab for the gym bag of money. Beyond his
broad frame, she could see two shooters emerging from the front
door of the house. One of them was wounded, clutching his gun arm
as he raised it up to fire at Blackheart, but the other drew an
easy bead on the fugitive who was now caught in the open.
Killingworth stayed in a crouch, bringing
the butt of the AR-15 to her shoulder, and sighting down the
barrel. “On the ground, Big Boy!”
Blackheart heard her and hit the turf,
rolling. Then Killingworth opened up with the AR-15. The magazine
of the rifle held thirty rounds and it only took three to drop the
pair of gunmen, but she kept up the barrage until she was sure that
they were dead. Then she wiped down the gun with a handkerchief and
pressed it into McCormick’s still warm hands.
The scent of burning rubber rose from the
whining engine of the Porsche, mingling with the odor of gunpowder
and death, which Killingworth always found a heady mixture. She
climbed behind the wheel of her Corvette, while Blackheart tossed
the money behind the seat, and then leaped into the driver’s
seat.
She gunned the Corvette out of the circular
drive and onto the road, leaving the smashed automobiles and dead
bodies in the distance. “Did you get hit, Big Boy?”
Blackheart shook his head and managed a
feeble smile. “Thanks to you, Blondie, I’m still in one piece.”
“So, we’ve got a half million between the
two of us. A deal’s a deal, right?”
“I believe you promised me a drink,” said
Blackheart.
“That I did,” said Killingsworth. “Where
would you like to share that drink? I’ve got a friend, who’s a
genius with passports. We could go to Monaco, Hong Kong, or if you
prefer something quieter there’s a half dozen South American
countries that might do the trick.”
Blackheart pressed his lips together as he
considered this. “Make it somewhere local, and when we’re done dump
me off at the police station so I can finish my sentence. I’m not
cut out for this life. I thought maybe I was, but I’m done being a
two-bit drug and money courier and I’m done with all the rest.”
Killingsworth bit her lower lip. “We could
have been good together, Big Boy.”
Blackheart leaned back in his seat. “I know,
Blondie, but I’m not a cold-blooded killer. You’ve got more nerve
than I do, and even though he had it coming, my conscience is
eating me up about that driver I shot back in the field.”
“You didn’t kill him,” said
Killingsworth.
“I didn’t?”
“Nah, I saw him climbing out of the car in
the rear view mirror. Doesn’t look like you even hit ’em. Probably
just scared him half to death—and that made him run off the
road.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Killingworth’s ice blue eyes rested upon
Blackheart’s handsome visage. “I wanted to see if you had what it
takes.”
“What it takes to do what?” asked
Blackheart, wind blowing in his hair.
“To be a killer… like me.”
“I guess I just can’t hack it.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Big Boy. Not
everyone has what it takes.”
“You keep the money,” said Blackheart. “It
would look like I engineered my own escape if I showed up at the
police station with a quarter million dollars.”
“No way,” said Killingsworth. “We have a
deal. I’ve got contacts with a casino in Jersey. When you finish
your sentence you go there and they’ll arrange for you to win that
quarter million dollars gambling. Well, you’ll have to pay them a
thirty percent fee for laundering the money—so you’ll win 175,000
dollars. Of course, Uncle Sam will nick you for another thirty
percent in taxes, so you’ll be looking at about 120 grand when all
is said and done. Not much, but it will give you some seed
money.”
The sound of sirens split the night and
Killingworth slowed the Corvette to a respectable speed. Flashing
blue and red lights splashed the streets and surrounding trees as a
pair of police cars sped past.
“Just dump me at the nearest police
station,” said Blackheart.
“I’m not letting you off the hook so easy,
Big Boy. First things first. You still owe me that drink.”
—
1
Some of these events are related in “The Hard Luck Killers,” in the
story collection
The Gantlet Brothers Greatest Hits
THE DAMSEL OF
DISASTER
by
Christofer Nigro
— :: —
The newly constructed infrastructure of Buffalo, New
York gleamed in the unobstructed sunlight of a deceptively bright
summer afternoon circa 1933. Like all thriving big apples caught in
the heyday of the Great Depression, its streets were filled with
desperate, unemployed people who were every bit as depressed as the
economy. But despite the atmosphere of despair, such an environment
was nevertheless ripe with opportunities to exploit the situation
of the common man by those few with the correct combination of
enterprising spirit and sheer ruthlessness. Moreover, not all of
these rare but feared individuals were actually men.
Cruising through downtown Buffalo past the
beige spire of City Hall was a sleek, black expensively modified
1932 Ford V-8 Cabriolet. The driver was a chauffeur who doubled as
a body guard, nicknamed “Fido” by his employer. Sitting next to him
in the passenger side was a shorter but equally heavily-built man
dressed in the same immaculate double-breasted suit with matching
fedora known as “Killer” Frank Pinaro. Squeezed into the back seat
were three individuals, two of whom were of immense importance in
this city; one of which was spoken of in nothing more than nervous
whispers, if at all. In fact, if any activity he was known or even
rumored to be involved in was mentioned aloud amongst the Italian
immigrants inhabiting Buffalo’s West Side, that foolishly outspoken
person was quickly silenced via everyone else present making a
horribly boisterous throat-clearing sound.
This man in question was no less a personage
than Don Gino “The World’s Greatest” Provenzo. Beside him to the
left in the specially enlarged back seat was his daughter, a plump
but attractive dark-haired dame named Gia. To his left was another
body guard of partially Irish descent with a thick shock of sandy
blonde hair to show it; he was Ira O’Hara, but often called simply
“Ira O” by his boss and colleagues in the family to de-emphasize
his lack of full-blooded Italian pedigree. Don Provenzo was the
head of one of the two major Buffalo Mafia families making a
killing—in more ways than one—during the opportunities presented by
the Prohibition. A tough gentleman who was large in size with a
smallish head, bald pate surrounded by graying frocks of hair,
punctuated with show business good looks, he was being sequestered
to a neutral location outside the city limits to discuss matters of
business with the don of the rival Gambino clan.