Rum for the Money

SIX - L E S T E R

SATURDAY, MAY 9th 1925

• • nine o'clock am • •

I keep my head down. I'm good at that. As I wait for instructions I toy with the abandoned shoe from the runner the other night. Things have gone to hell in a hand basket around here, and all signs point to them only growing worse. People want answers. Especially newspaper people. There's one in the Captain's office right now trying to wring out the best story.

Where I'm sitting really isn't my desk—more like a table that is usually used for booking during a busy night, but I like to remind my colleagues that I am a real and not imagined presence in the station and taking up prime real estate is one way to do it.

The sergeant's come up behind me and the stupid desk drawer—I can't get it open. It rattles around and so he sees me holding the girl's shoe.

"Prince Charming, could you tear yourself away from that shoe for a damned minute?"

I mumble and he points and that's how I'm mopping up the floor. I'm still new enough around here to understand that this is just about all I'm good for. It's been that way for the past few months. I might as well be invisible.

One of the cells in the back smells of stagnant vomit. Could have been one of the drunk guests from the night before. I actually don't hate the poor slobs who come in here completely boozed up. Their faces run together in my mind. Smudged make-up, lost eyes, and too-loud laughs. That's useless hate that'll get nobody nowhere. Now it's true I've got a mean streak running a mile wide and I've but I've only got one object of my hate.

Joey Collins.

That joker tricked my golden boy brother into a hustle and now he's serving time for it at the state pen. He'll be done in another year but the ripple effect is still coming on strong.

They all think they're above the law, these gangsters. Skulking around in their trim suits. Making business with all the haves and promising nice things to have have-nots but getting their slimy fingers in their business, anyway.

So I could hate the gal who bowled me over to run out that damned speak and made a fool out of me. But I don't. I won't be forgetting her face.

It's some twisted version of Cinderella. Only Cinderella has really thin-plucked brows and a heck of a lot of nerve. Her shoe looks brand new. Expensive-looking. Cinderella will miss it. But finding one girl in Chicago?

The reporter finally leaves and though I know it would please the Captain to dump my bucket of dingy water on the fella's shoes I don't, instead putting away my mop. The nose-curdling bitterness of vomit is now sufficiently covered by the always lingering odor of old cigarettes and sweat; I've done my job. The Captain glares at me anyhow.

It's probably due to that bank robbery done in broad daylight. That's what the reporter was probably here about, not our raid on the speak. Raids are a dime a dozen. The cynics think they're really nothing more than a show for the benefit of the "drys," in this city, the folks who campaigned hard for Prohibition. My mother was one of them. She won't speak to my father whenever he enjoys his whiskey.

The Chicago Daily News' headline proclaimed loudly that the robbery was THE MOST DARING CRIME OF THE YEAR (it's only the beginning of May, seems a little dramatic to me) and with a coy wink at its loyal readers. Maybe they're grateful for a little more variety these days.

But that sort of speculation is above my pay-grade.

I spend the rest of my shift sorting paperwork and then my last hour I spend at the front desk. A woman demands I find her husband who has apparently fled the state with a "no good floozy." The clock is a small comfort. I doodle blotchy little circles with my pen.

The Captain leaves as more daylight finally spills into the station. He always has somewhere to be, the Captain. I suppose most important people have perfected the art of looking like they are wanted no matter where they go. I'm jealous of that, I admit it. I'm the sort of person that melts onto wallpaper like paste. I'm often forgotten, which is probably why the Big Man on Campus from the Prohibition Unit asked me to spy on the Captain and report any illicit money changing hands.

There is a lot of talk now about what cities are supposed to do about the explosion of crime. Some figures said twenty, some screamed fifty percent of the population being involved in Criminal Activities.

I'll be meeting my real boss tomorrow outside the Art Institute for an update. But now that I am on my own time, I have something better to do. I snatch the pair of shoes from the back table and shove them in cloth sack forgotten by another employee of the City of Chicago.

The sunlight is terrible. I squint.

What a terrible idea this has been.

I get to the raided speak with no trouble at all. The sign is still up, nailed there by the Fed.

I'm in luck. There's no padlock just yet. The hinges on the door are nearly ruined. I press my palm against the rough wood, and then hurriedly draw it back. Somebody has opened this door. And recently.

I grip my baton. But what am I so afraid of? Bank-robbers springing out of a shut-up speakeasy?

I use the corner of my toe to open the door. It's dark, sure, but a lone beam of light dances across the floor. There is somebody down there, after all. Despite the sign.

I inch down the steps, balancing to avoid the rotten knots.

My feet make it to the bottom of the stairs before the flashlight's beam flares directly in my eyes.