“Shit, come high-water, Highwinds, you’d be sunk. Bratt – take her out. She’s no help, no use, and on the wrong side of the law, anyhow. Ol’ Sport Callahan’s duty-bound to bring us in. Kill her now for all I care – or don’t care.”
Whether inclined to follow orders, or just bad ass manners, Jasper Brattleboro immediately triggered one of his still raised guns. Nelle noted the sleek, but dated, black Browning automatic. Pistol that won’t cycle light loads. Friction piece and bronze ring are in the right places but won’t cycle far enough to kickout. Factoring in a messy guy like Brattleboro wouldn’t be all that fastidious about thorough cleanings, she had moment enough to heave her heftier weapon into trajectory’s aim. Bratt’s bullet met Nelle’s Smith-Corona, mid-air.
The crash underscored the broken space-bar angling between them. Nelle jeered ‘em more than she feared ‘em. With a cool, cocked rat-a-tat-return she open-fired dialogue, raised her Colt, held a bead on Brattelboro, kept an eye on Highwater, and tried her darnedest to ignore Parker. “Fellas, first typewriter giving way to the Smith-Corona fine line was built by L. C. Smith & Brothers gun factory, purchased by Remington. Any weapon I use packs its purpose. Got that?”
Tipping them off-guard, she upped her rant’s ante. Skittered to her left, keeping broad, battered desk before her, between them. “Can it yourselves, crime-clowns. All three of your bedraggled posse. Didn’t say I wouldn’t help you, just indicated y’all totally disgust me. Now that’s two different factions of thought to factor. Put half-wit minds together and you’re still not part way to reckoning. G’ahead. Spit out what you came to say. I’ll hear you out. Just leave my Aubusson out of it!” Callahan studied each sweating or bleeding man. Lingered over give-aways which spoke volumes she’d not get direct from any spiel about to spill. “So what the hell d’you do? And who the heavens d’you do it to?”
Highwinds blew in first, glossing crime that made ugly lips drool as he told, “We raised a ruckus in N’awleans.” Chuckled. Dastardly chuckle. “Let’s just say we broke some figurines in a curio shop. Got uniformed southern boys and a voodoo mama madder than swamp gators gone hungry. Jasper and me hightailed North. Found Ford. The New York bomb though -
Brattleboro broke in, staged smooth as a rehearsed recitaclass="underline" “Fuck. Wasn’t us gone crazy like they said. Well sure, we’re crazy when we need to be, but we don’t go planting no bombs in no tunnels. And no matter how an act stinks, we don’t shoot up Radio City Music Hall. Too many fuckin’ witnesses,” he sneered. “Still, we took heat. Wrong places, wrong times. Our shit luck, we’d been in vicinities when shit came down – er, blew up, as the case was made. Ford there, got burnt with the brunt of coppers’ heat. They cornered us like dogs on 52nd Street – ”
“Lemme fill her in now.”
A pause. Ford’s pause necessitated dramatic relating. Nelle figured that. How he got his points across. Elocution held attention. Ford had flair. Flair like that appealed to her until – another story, another time. Best focus now. See beyond illusion what these crumbums were trying to suck her into. Despite the pain he was pushing through, Parker wanted to deliver facts. Ford’s way. No pun – he was just a bullet-point kind of guy.
He surprised her. His lightening-flash mind evidently needed crib notes.
Ford Parker eased a brass button open with one gnarled finger. Unfastened the midnight-blue uniform pocket above where Nelle thought his heart might still flex palpitations. He tugged out a rectangle of shiny paper. Shook out a magazine page. It fell across his chest past the folds.
Nelle stopped him cold.
“Hold it there, Ford. Before you dangle recitation out loud, let’s call in a doc who’ll keep his silence about his smarts. That hole piercing you is close to leaking your innards. Whatta mess that’d be. Think about my Aubusson.” She hadn’t asked for permission, so she didn’t look for it. Lifted the black receiver at her side of the desk. One eye roved over three heavy breathers. One eye glanced at the phone. Her steady hand brandished gun. Her purposeful hand dialed. TUXEDO-4514.
She listened.
“Hey Uncle Nelson, it’s me. Glad you’re in town. I was expecting Aunt Wendy Mae picking up from the front office. Need a quick favour.” She paused, taking in a sharp fired rat-a-tat-tort shooting out the other end of the line. “What’s that? You knew? Ol’ gang was holed up in town? Yep, sure as shootable, Ford an’ his stunningly handsome henchman-gents.” Slowly, she shared her grin – nice and easy between three pairs of hard-focused eyes. Swiftly, she listened – tough and hard to what Doc Nelson was warning. His patter? Jagged. Fast. He knew time played on the listening-end before suspicions raised. Nelle gave outer grin over inside cringe. Damn. Two of these fellas were downright nasty. More’n she originally thought.
With amiable tolerance, as if wondering why the cookie jar lid was on the kitchen floor, she wafted feminine ease, “Sure. Right. But I’m hearing out their side of the story.” Another pause. “OK, thanks a million. See him soon as he hustles over. And Unc – let’s keep a lid on this.”
Nelle took a deep breath. Let it out somewhere above her solar plexus. Looked across at Ford, slumped now in her straight-back client chair – “Shoot.” Whipped her head round to Brattleboro. “Y’know what I mean wise-guy. Lower your tricky trigger finger in my office. Why don’t you guys cop a seat while you’re at it? We’ll have Ford patched up in an hour and – ”
Impatiently, Parker flexed his magazine page so it crackled. Cleared his throat – so it didn’t. Took over, way he always did. Nelle caught a New Yorker byline as his voice began its beguine -
“On November 16, 1940, workers at the Consolidated Edison building on West Sixty-fourth Street in Manhattan found a homemade pipe bomb on a windowsill. Attached was a note: “Con Edison crooks, this is for you.” In September of 1941, a second bomb was found, on Nineteenth Street, just a few blocks from Con Edison’s headquarters, near Union Square. It had been left in the street, wrapped in a sock.
A few months later, the New York police received a letter promising to “bring the Con Edison to justice-they will pay for their dastardly deeds.” Sixteen other letters followed, between 1941 and 1946, all written in block letters, many repeating the phrase “dastardly deeds” and all signed with the initials “F.P.”
In March, a third bomb-larger and more powerful than the others-was found on the lower level of Grand Central Terminal. The next was left in a phone booth at the New York Public Library. It exploded, as did one placed in a phone booth in Grand Central. The Mad Bomber-as he came to be known-struck ten more times, once in Radio City Music Hall, sending shrapnel throughout the audience. The city was in an uproar. The police were getting nowhere. In desperation, Inspector Howard Finney, of the New York City Police Department’s crime laboratory, and two plainclothesmen paid a visit to a psychiatrist by the name of James Brussel – ”
“Jim!” Nelle’s voice recognized more than the ramification of false identification. Accusations more dead than alive.
“Yes indeedy Nelle. Brussel’s the only crime-profiler that has a mind sharp-as-a-whip as yours with solid successes under how he belts his buckle. Way I figgered, if he was pegging me for this New York transgression, it had a most problematic chance of sticking. Right or wrong. I roused up the boys, thinking a threesome could throw him off track. However, my gut knew only real challenge that could do any standing up to Brussel’s media indictments was – much as I hate to need anything from a woman – yours. So, Kid – Would you put together a body-of-proof testifying to proper agitated authorities I couldn’t be this Mad Bomber psycho they’re manhunting?