Connor glanced around. A few stragglers were still charging over toward city hall. A scattering of others around the hard-dirt, brochure-littered area, stood watching, rather stunned, the parade literally passing them by. For the most part, though, the square had been abandoned, as the mob moved on to city hall.
The boy with the birthmark jumped when Connor stuck the gun in his side.
The boy turned toward Connor, the light blue eyes wide, the mouth with its scummy teeth gaping. “You!”
“Yeah, me, kid. Head down the alley.”
“What?”
“Do I stutter? Head the hell down. There’s a fence at the end. See if you can make it over.”
“What... what do you mean... see if...”
Connor cocked the .38 in his grasp; it was a tiny sound and yet so very loud.
“I’m giving you a chance, kid. Run. Run down that alley and don’t come back. Don’t never threaten me again.”
The boy shook his head, his hands grasped before him, pleadingly. “I was... I was just talkin’, mister. I was mad about my sister. Wouldn’t you be?”
“Run. Hell, you might make it. Do it now.”
The boy’s face crinkled up, like he was going to cry, and then, from his dead stop, he bolted down the alley.
Connor walked after him — not even particularly fast — and the kid was almost over the fence when Connor fired. The report of the .38 echoed off the brick of walls and paving, bouncing like an ever-diminishing ball; but these were only a handful of sounds, in a night filled with violent sounds, many so much louder.
And the boy didn’t make any sound. Well, maybe a whimper. He just slid down the wooden fence, leaving a thin red trail, like a child’s crayon scrawl. He lay sprawled with his head against the fence, angled between garbage cans, and there wasn’t even a shudder of life leaving him — he’d been dead halfway down the fence.
Connor knelt over the body, just to be sure.
Dead, all right. Right through the pump...
He got to his feet, grunting a humorless laugh. Stupid damn kid. That’s what he got, screwing with Connor Looney. Or maybe it was what his sister got, for screwing with Connor Looney...
Connor grunted another laugh, this one mirthful.
Then he turned and had a start — a figure was silhouetted at the alley’s mouth.
“What the hell did you do?” Michael O’Sullivan demanded, stepping into a shaft of moonlight.
Gun in hand but at his side, Connor walked forward, slowly. “It’s personal.”
O’Sullivan met him halfway, footsteps clipclopping off the brick. “This was business, tonight. This is about saving your father’s life. Or aren’t you interested?”
“Just keep it to yourself, Mike. What you saw. You don’t wanna know what it was about — trust me.”
“Trust you? Sure. Why wouldn’t I trust you, Connor?”
“You gonna tell my pop?”
“Tell him what? That while he lay bleeding, you used this riot to cover up some personal score?”
Connor shook his head, forcefully. “People’ll get hurt tonight. Shot. This kid may not be the only kill. Who’s to know?”
O’Sullivan said nothing.
“Swear you won’t tell my pop, Mike!” Connor shoved the gun in the other man’s chest.
O’Sullivan swatted the gun from Connor’s hand like an annoying fly. The gun hit hard on the brick alley but luckily did not discharge.
“What if your wife knew about things you done?” Connor said, backing up. He was afraid and trying not to cry. “Or your little boy, maybe!”
O’Sullivan moved so quickly Connor didn’t see it coming, latching onto young Looney’s topcoat lapels and slamming him hard into a brick wall, making his teeth rattle.
Nose to nose, O’Sullivan said to the trembling Connor, “Don’t ever bring my family into this. Ever. Or I’ll kill you. Understood?”
“Y-yes...”
O’Sullivan drew back a step but did not let go. “I won’t tell your father because it would break his heart to know what a vicious little coward his son is.”
“I... I appreciate that, Mike... It’s... it’s white of you.”
“I don’t know who that boy is or why you cut him down. But you will send ten thousand dollars of your money to his family, anonymous.”
“What?”
“That’s the price of my silence.”
“...All right. All right — god-damnit!”
“I want to see the cash, Connor. I want to see it go into the envelope. I want to see it mailed.”
“Okay, okay!”
O’Sullivan took another step back, his hands still on Connor’s lapels. “Now... if you don’t mind, I have to get over to city hall. Your old man’s ass needs saving.”
And O’Sullivan again shoved Connor against the wall, and headed briskly out of the alley.
But, as Connor was stooping to pick up the .38, O’Sullivan paused at the alley’s mouth to look back and say, “You might want to get over to city hall yourself and help keep the crowd stirred. Hanging around a murder scene is stupid, Connor... even for you.”
And O’Sullivan was gone.
Connor picked up the .38, shoved it in the holster under his arm, then bent over and put his hands on his knees and breathed deep, breathed deep again, and again.
Fucker, Connor thought, and smiled. Got the best of you, you self-righteous fucker...
Straightening, he glanced back at the crumpled birthmarked boy. “And you, punk. And you.”
And Connor, walking with renewed confidence, strolled out across the square, heading over toward city hall, where it was getting pretty damn noisy.
A disgusted O’Sullivan entered the Sherman Hotel and crossed quickly to the bank of telephone booths along the left-hand wall. Tumbleweed might have rolled between the overstuffed furniture and potted plants, so empty was the lobby.
Behind the check-in desk, the skeletal clerk in bow tie and suspenders looked fidgety, fearing no doubt that the riot would spill inside; the clerk recognized O’Sullivan but said nothing, though his eyes followed the lobby’s only other inhabitant. The hotel’s coffee shop, the Java House — which served gin in its coffee cups — had shuttered, as had other speaks in the downtown district, afraid of the contagious chaos that had emerged from Market Square.
Inside a booth, O’Sullivan dropped a nickel in and dialed a number that required referring to neither city phone directory nor his little black book (with the names and numbers of politicians and fixers, not skirts).
John Looney’s top lieutenant knew the unlisted home phone number of Police Chief Tom Cox by heart.
O’Sullivan listened as the phone rang, going unanswered; he wouldn’t have been surprised if the thing had been off the hook, since Cox no doubt knew by now that rioters were at the gates of his castle, and wanted to stay well away.
Tom Cox was a stocky sandy-haired copper who’d come up through the ranks. His reputation as a tough bull and an advocate of the third degree was epitomized by his favorite catchphrase: “Throw the bum in the slammer.”
But shortly after achieving the position of chief, Cox became a John Looney associate, receiving a cut from all brothels, gambling, and bootlegging. Whores were the man’s weakness, and Helen Van Dale had enough on the chief to keep him in Looney’s control a few days past forever.
A police chief in Rock Island could serve under any number of mayors; so a long-term relationship with Tom Cox had benefits beyond those of any mere office holder.
Just when O’Sullivan was about to give up, a raspy voice answered: “Yeah, what? I’m busy!”