Chapter Ten

December, 1932

 

He checked his watch. It was almost 6. 45. It would take him at least another hour to break into the safe, and the security guard was due to arrive at eight. And Eagan would have the car waiting outside in fifteen minutes time. He needed to tell him to go away and come back at 7. 45. He didn’t want him parked outside the bank for over an hour, where he might arouse the suspicions of a passing cop. But Bill had picked this bank because of its location. A small Brooklyn bank, it was on the corner of an alley, and just the other side of the alley was the Keith Theatre. If a cop did happen to ask Eagan why he was loitering outside, they had a story ready that he was waiting to pick up an electrician after having worked an all-nighter at the theatre.

He knew he’d be cutting it fine, allowing only fifteen minutes before the arrival of the security guard. But the reason he was behind was because of the ceiling bars, which he hadn’t anticipated. He realized it was dumb of him. He should have guessed that the bank would reinforce their ceiling. The bank was below a small shopping mall on the second floor, and at closing time on the previous evening, he had concealed himself in the gents’ toilet. He had then broken into a clothing store, and dug up the floor to get to the bank below. That was when he discovered the ceiling was reinforced with steel bars, and it took him an hour to saw through them. Once he had dropped into the bank below, he had disabled the alarm and sawn through the bars of the side window facing the Stage Door entrance of the Keith Theatre in the side alley. So far, so good. But now he was an hour behind and he needed to warn Eagan. .

Making certain the Stage Door opposite was shut, he raised the bank window and dropped into the alley below. He walked briskly to the main street and looked for Eagan’s car. He was driving a six year old Model T Ford because - not only had it been cheap to purchase - it was also quite commonplace. In fact there were several Model Ts parked along the street. But not Eagan’s. He should have been here by now. Bill checked his watch again. It was 6. 48. He’d risk loitering for another couple of minutes, but no longer. He needed Eagan. Without him, there was no way of escaping with the money. The helpless, impotent feeling caused him to shake inside and he became angered by Eagan’s absence. All along he had doubts about his accomplice’s reliability, and now he was being proved right. On the other hand, supposing Johnny had run into some sort of trouble. After all, his picture had been in the papers; he was a wanted man on the run. Maybe he’d been spotted and apprehended. Or perhaps it was nothing more than a simple explanation, like the car not starting. As he stood on the sidewalk, blowing hot air into his leather gloves, and shivering from the early morning cold, he felt depressed. He’d been so close to breaking into that safe. But if his partner didn’t show up. . .

Bill felt another surge of anger. A voice nagged away in his brain, telling him how unreliable Johnny was. On the other hand, Bill reminded himself, had it not been for Johnny Eagan, he wouldn’t now be a free man. Positive and negative thoughts of his accomplice bounced back and forth as he stood on the edge of the sidewalk, craning his neck hopefully, praying that Eagan was delayed due to some minor reason. But as he waited, and had to confront the disappointment which bit into him, he began to despair. He’d been so close to getting a good haul from this small bank. They could have paid off Doyle, and maybe still had plenty to tide them over for a while.

In the distance, about five hundred yards along the street, he saw a blue uniform darting in and out of the shadows. A cop. There was a lightness in his gait, and he was swinging his nightstick jauntily. Probably ending his nightshift, Bill guessed, on his way back to the station. But he was coming Bill’s way, getting closer and closer. Pretty soon he’d arouse the cop’s suspicions. He glanced at his watch once more. It was 6. 55. Eagan was a good ten minutes late and it didn’t look as if he was going to show. Bill turned and headed for the nearest subway, his anger against Johnny rising and falling as he considered all the possible reasons for his non-appearance.

When he got back to their apartment, Bill stood in the shadows for a long while watching the building, just in case his partner had been apprehended, worked over and had told the police everything. After ten minutes - a long ten minutes that had him shivering from the cold - as far as he could tell, everything seemed to be normal. There was nothing to arouse his suspicions. The street was waking up. People were setting off for work, their reluctance for the daily grind showing in their demeanors. Bill decided he’d risk entering the apartment. As he stepped out of the shadows and began crossing the street, a warning bell rang as a man on a bicycle raced towards him, a canvas lunch bag strapped across his chest. The normality of the street gave Bill the reassurance he needed and he gave the cyclist a friendly wave as he walked towards the apartment. As soon as he entered he heard a rumbling noise coming from the living room, and right away he knew what had happened. He knew he’d been right not to trust Eagan. He opened the door, just to make certain, and sure enough, there was his partner, fully clothed on the sofa, snoring loudly, an empty rum bottle held against his breast like a comfort blanket.

‘So long, Johnny,’ Bill muttered. He went into the bedroom, grabbed his small suitcase, shoved the few clothes he owned into it, and left the building. He had split Doyle’s $2,000 with Johnny, and he now had only $700 left; but if he acted prudently, it was enough to last until he could pull off a few small burglaries to pay Doyle what he owed. Then he would see about planning a major bank robbery. But for now, he needed to get himself a decent apartment and tell Johnny Eagan that he was dissolving their partnership. He knew that when Johnny came round and realized what had happened, he’d be full of abject apologies. He would have that alcoholic’s optimism, the unrealistic expectations of being forgiven, truly believing it was a temporary fall from grace and in future things would be different. Well to hell with that! Bill was not taking any more risks. Eagan was dangerous on two counts. Not only did the booze make him unreliable, but there was also the female company he kept. He was having an affair with Frank Costello’s mistress. Costello was one of the deadliest of New York gangsters, whose associates included Meyer Lansky, Charlie Luciano and Bugsy Siegel. Johnny was playing with fire and this made Bill even more determined to sever their relationship. After all, without his lock-picking expertise, Johnny would still be serving time. Bill didn’t owe him a thing. They were even.

 

Bill knew Johnny had a date to meet Costello’s girl at a speakeasy that evening. After he’d found himself a room in the Bronx, passing himself off as a traveling salesman, he set off for the Garment District of Manhattan, intent on finding Johnny and giving him the bad news.

It was a terrible evening. Heavy rain lashed against the sidewalks as if New York was in a monsoon season. But the stinging coldness that came with the rain scotched any thoughts of tropical rainstorms. Bill knew it was useless to use an umbrella as he passed people battling with their umbrellas turned inside out against the harsh wind, their spokes mangled beyond repair. By the time he reached the speakeasy, he was soaked through to his underwear, and rain cascaded off the brim of his hat and ran down his back. He shivered hugely as he entered.

The speakeasy was hardly swinging. It was more like a funeral parlor. The music was turned low and the atmosphere was somber. A bartender absently flicked the pages of a tabloid and barely looked up as Bill entered. The only customers present were Johnny and Frank Costello’s girl. If the rain had deterred most of this speakeasy’s customers, Bill reflected grimly, it hadn’t stopped Johnny, whose face was flushed from alcohol and his eyes were glassy. The couple were so wrapped up in each other, they didn’t notice Bill’s entrance, and the girl giggled as Johnny leaned close to her and said something suggestive. As Bill stood over their table, Johnny looked up. It seemed to take a moment for him to register who it was, then he cracked a smile.

‘Bill,’ he said elaborately. ‘How you doing?’

‘You forgotten something, Johnny?’

A momentary expression of incomprehension on Eagan’s face, then sudden realization. ‘Jesus, Bill! I forgot. It went clean out of my head. ‘

‘That’s because you were out of your head, Johnny. ‘

‘I swear to you, Bill, it’ll never happen again. ‘

‘You’re right,’ Bill replied. ‘It won’t happen again. You and I are through, Johnny. ‘

‘Hey! Now wait a minute. . . ‘ Eagan protested. ‘You can’t do that. What about Doyle? We need to do a job to pay Doyle. ‘

‘You should have thought of that last night, before you went out and got loaded. ‘

‘It was a m-mistake,’ Eagan stammered. ‘A fucking mistake. ‘

As if a wire holding up Eagan’s head had been cut, his head dropped forwards, and he stared miserably into his drink. Bill noticed Frank Costello’s girl was studying him with great interest. Maybe it was because he had the upper hand. She was the usual gold-digging good time girl, attracted to men like Costello and Eagan as if they were trophies for her bedroom shelf. She gave Bill her sexiest smile, shrugging off the loser and favoring the winner. Bill ignored her.

‘No hard feelings, Johnny,’ he said. ‘I wish you luck. ‘

Eagan slurped some liquor noisily, and it seemed to give him the impetus he needed. He rose and shook a finger at Bill.

‘You can’t do this. Not after what I’ve done for you. I got you out of Sing Sing, remember. ‘

‘Keep your voice down,’ Bill hissed.

‘If it wasn’t for me,’ Eagan ranted, ‘you’d still be sitting in a fucking five-by-nine. ‘

Bill glanced nervously at the bartender, who was now paying them particular attention. He knew there was only one way to get Eagan to shut up.

‘Okay, Johnny,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk about this later. In private. When you haven’t had a drink. ‘

Bill turned abruptly and walked towards the door. He could feel the bartender’s eyes boring into him as he left the speakeasy. He heard Eagan calling after him:

‘Okay! We’ll talk later, Bill. We’ll sort something out. ‘

Bill had no intention of talking to Johnny Eagan ever again. He would work on his own for a while; do some burglaries like he and Doc used to do back in the early twenties, which would provide him with enough money to pay off Doyle. Technically speaking, he realized Eagan owed Doyle half. But he didn’t think his ex-partner would ever conquer his addiction. And rather than work with a liability like Eagan, he would sooner pay Doyle the full amount himself.

Outside the speakeasy, rain was falling as if a tap had been turned full on. Although he was soaked through, Bill couldn’t stand the way the rain filled the brim of his hat then trickled over and poured down his face and neck. In the vain hope that it might ease off in a little while, he took shelter in the doorway of a barber’s shop. There was a closed sign on the door and the shop was in darkness. He stood there shivering, wondering what his next move should be. Run to the nearest subway and head back to his room? He was trying to avoid the subway as much as possible. His picture had been blasted on the front pages of all the tabloids, and he didn’t want to sit opposite anyone who could stare at him for any length of time, wondering where they might have seen that face before.

As he stared at the driving rain, the bleakness of the night emphasized his feelings of loneliness. There was an aching emptiness inside him. He longed to see Louise and his baby daughter. He thought about how close they were. He was in the same city as them, less than twenty minutes on the subway, yet they might as well have been on the other side of the world. He couldn’t hope to see them. He knew the cops would keep them under surveillance, just in case he decided to show up.

A car pulled up outside the speakeasy. From the shadows of the barber shop Bill watched while a man wearing a trench coat stepped out of the back of the car, while the driver stayed put, keeping the motor running. The man in the trench coat was carrying a tommy-gun, held down by his side. As he stepped inside the speakeasy, he raised the gun to waist level.

Bill felt helpless. He was unarmed, and there was no way he could warn anyone without endangering his own life. He felt numb with the shock of what he knew was about to happen. A brief moment passed, while he tried to think if there was anything he could do to help. Then the sound he was expecting came suddenly, a distant but deadly staccato, as the stuttering of the sub machine gun spit out its lethal spray of bullets. Bill’s body trembled and shook, and he knew this had nothing to do with the cold.

The man in the trench coat ran out, leaped into the car, and barely had the door shut when the driver gunned the engine and the car took off like a thunderbolt. Oblivious now to the rain, Bill stepped out into the street, and made his way to the speakeasy next door. As he swung open the door, the first thing to hit him was the music on the radio playing low and distant, like an eerie requiem, which accentuated the dreadful silence of the bar. And as he came close to Eagan’s table, he was filled with horror at what he saw. Blood formed great puddles on the floor like bright paint seeping slowly from a can. Bill looked away. There was nothing he could do. There was no sense in dwelling on the horror of the murder scene. But as he started to walk away, he glanced quickly over the other side of the bar and saw the bartender lying face down in a pool of blood. An innocent bystander had been senselessly gunned down simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Bill got outside quickly. He wanted to put as much distance as he could between himself and the speakeasy. As he splashed through the heavy rain, he had to stop several times to collect himself, bending over like he had cramps in his stomach. He realized it was an instinct to vomit that he was trying to suppress. He induced saliva into his mouth and swallowed, eventually overcoming the need to be sick, and struggled on through the rain.

He thought about his ex-partner. Eagan had been stupid having an affair with a mobster’s girl. But had he deserved to die over it? And what of the girl? She was just a kid. Murdered simply because of a damaged ego.

As his clothes clung to his body, and the rain lashed against his face, he began to enjoy the cleansing sensation and didn’t care how wet he was. And he thought grimly about Eagan, whose partnerships had been terminated twice in several minutes.