“It is not enough to remove Harry M. Schriver,” Gardner was saying in a spike-edged baritone, “we must look to the fearless newspaperman who has sought to bring our besmirched city back within the bounds of peace, propriety, and happiness. The next mayor of Rock Island, my friends, must be... John... P... Looney!”
As fists were raised, shaking wildly, and whistles and squeals and yells swam a sea of applause, Connor revised his opinion of throwing in with these socialists. The speaker was at once a rabble-rouser, full of fiery idealism; and yet just the kind of pushover they could control. The previous speaker, McCaskrin, had toed the Looney line, but stopped short of endorsing the Old Man as the replacement candidate.
This skinny clown had gone all the way, however, due to a whisper (and probably a few bucks) from Frank Kelly, who could be glimpsed hovering near one side of the platform.
Then Connor noted a figure moving through the crowd, against the tide: it was that nigger Davis! Seeking out the Looney shills dotted around the square; Davis would pause to speak to each of them, receiving nods in return, and the shills were then moving out through the crowd themselves, animatedly talking to rally attendees as they went.
Connor dropped his cigarette to the pavement, frowning. What was up, anyway?
Then he saw another familiar figure — Michael O’Sullivan — moving through the bobbing heads up near the pump-station platform. Had his father made a last-minute decision to speak to this gathering, himself?
But then he spotted that plump leprechaun Frank Kelly going up the side stairs toward the platform, followed by Mike, who stopped the lawyer, whispered to him, Kelly nodding, only to continue on up. Then Mike slipped back down the stairs and was swallowed up by the throng.
Frowning in thought, Connor was watching the stage when he realized Emeal Davis was again moving through the crowd, coming toward him now; Davis had an intense expression, and Connor immediately knew something big was afoot.
Quickly Davis filled Connor in on the situation at city hall, and told him that even now the Old Man was being beaten to a pulp by Schriver and his bully boys.
“Those pricks!” Connor said, hands tightened into balls, face flushed red. “Let’s storm the fuckin’ place!”
Davis said, patting the air with his hands like a damn minstrel, “Take it easy, boyo — that’s exactly what we plan to do. But Mike’s got a way to do it, a special way...”
“Mike? Who died and put him in charge? With my pop in custody, that makes me the man who makes the decisions! Haul Mike’s ass over here, and I’ll tell him what to do.”
“Connor, it’s a good plan...”
“I’m not ‘Connor’ to you, Sambo. It’s ‘Mr. Looney’ or you can get your black ass out of my family’s business.”
Davis swallowed. “I know you’re upset... but this plan is a good one, and it’s already in motion.”
And it was, too: on the stage, Gardner had interrupted his spiel momentarily while Frank Kelly whispered into his ear. Nodding, the scarecrow-esque Gardner raised his hands as if the victim of a holdup; but the crowd, milling and murmuring during the lull in the speech, hushed.
“I am given to understand,” the sharp voice said, in crisp single words that shot verbal bullets across Market Square, “that the mayor has taken John Looney into custody!”
A wave of discontent rumbled across the throng. Heads shook in distressed disbelief.
Davis said to Connor, “Just listen and watch.”
“Not on any criminal charge, mind you,” the speaker went on, “but virtually kidnapped — and John Looney is as we gather here in peaceful, lawful assembly being beaten behind closed doors at city hall!”
Cries of “No! No!” went up, interspersed with, “Bastards!” “Sons of bitches!” and Connor — his opinion swaying — watched with satisfaction as the crowd began to transform itself into a mob. Really quite entertaining...
And now the speaker drove in the final naiclass="underline" “Yes — just one block from here...” And he pointed. “...your candidate for mayor is being thrashed within an inch of his life by His Dishonor, Harry Schriver, and his crooked thugs who call themselves police!”
Connor thought, For a goddamn socialist, this guy takes orders well.
And now, all around, voices were raised: “Let’s go! Let’s save him!” Still others: “Save John Looney!” And (best of all, to Connor’s taste): “Hang Harry Schriver!”
That these “spontaneous” eruptions came from the Looney men sprinkled throughout the gathering revealed how effective Mike’s plan had been, how quickly he and Davis had passed the word and organized this attack. Even Connor could see that.
But he couldn’t let Davis know, so he said, feigning displeased reluctance, “Well, it’s too late now — we’ll go with it! Keep stirring up the shit. I’ll do the same.”
Davis nodded and disappeared in the crowd, which was already swarming toward the business district between them and city hall. God, it was great! Connor watched with delight as the crowd of appleknockers and dirty necks turned from shuffling discontent into full-bore hatred and malice.
The ungeneraled underclass army marched, their war cries guttural, nonverbal howls mostly, the injustices they’d suffered at various hands boiling over within them into the rage they’d forced down for so long, and were all too eager to spill. Connor watched with glee as the men found impromptu weapons — bottles, rocks, boards. Still, it didn’t seem to the son of John Looney quite enough — not enough to pay Mayor Schriver back for disrespecting the Looneys, and not enough... well... fun.
“Guns!” Connor yelled, pointing at a hardware store window. “Arm yourselves! There are cops in that building!”
A gaggle of rabble surged forward, and Connor, laughing to himself, stepped aside and watched as the window shattered under hurled rocks, and the door was battered down. He leaned against a wall half a block away while the unruly clodhoppers poured in and poured out of the hardware store, half-climbing over each other, shouting inanities, armed now with rifles and handguns they were loading on the run from boxes of ammunition they’d looted, and others — once the guns had run out — found pitchforks and wrenches and other tools easily turned toward destruction.
The example of the hardware store inspired the hurling of bricks and rocks through other retail windows, for the sheer sweet hell of it; rioters were pulling down trolley lines, too, throwing rocks at streetcar conductors. Here and there were stalled automobiles, windows rolled up tight, the terrified eyes of passengers taking in the streaming madness all around. Not all the wrath was righteous, as some rioters began to loot, figures darting into the night with their spoils, away from those swarming toward city hall.
Market Square had almost emptied out when fate did Connor a favor.
Another figure lurked on the sidelines, just down the street from him, leaning against a building by the mouth of an alley: that kid with the birthmark and the shabby clothes. The boy would not likely be a Looney booster, not with what had happened to his sister at Helen Van Dale’s. No, the lad had come around out of curiosity, for the big show, and was getting a bigger eyeful than he’d anticipated.