The Fruitcake Murders. Ace Collins
wife’s smile when I hand her the keys to her new Packard. So, I have a lot riding on what goes down in the next couple of hours. And, so do you. The Japs might not have killed you at Iwo Jima, but I can make sure that you’re not as lucky here in Chicago. You’re not the only one who is in your line of work. You’re not the only one who thinks life is cheap. I can make one call and hire someone to finish you off. So I think you understand what happens if you don’t do the job tonight.”
Rawlings nodded, “I understand.”
“One more question,” Delono announced as he turned the knob, opened the door, and looked out into the snow. “Does killing bother you?”
“I was trained for it in the war,” Rawlings calmly explained. “I was a sniper. I don’t know how many I killed in combat, but with each kill it was easier. Soon it just became a job. I didn’t even look at the man in my sights as a person; he was just a target.”
“But that was war,” Delono noted, “and tonight the target will not be some man in an enemy uniform, but a woman. Doesn’t that make it different?”
Rawlings shrugged, “In the war I got the same pay everyone else at my rank and grade got, so I wasn’t paid for each kill but for each day of combat duty. But tonight I’m getting more than I made in three years of active duty. So, let’s just say I like the rewards much better in civilian life than those I had in the military.”
“So,” Delono soberly cracked, “there’s no emotion bubbling in your heart, this is only a paycheck.”
“Emotions have to be packed in your brain and carried around. I don’t like luggage. I travel light.”
“You’re a cold man,” the visitor observed as he turned to face the winter storm.
“Blame the war,” Rawlings quipped. “Now you need to get away from here before Elrod’s delivery boy and the target arrive.”
“I have to do a bit of shopping,” the visitor announced. “So I need to take my leave anyway.”
“Isn’t it a little late for stores to be open?” Rawlings observed.
“They stay open for me,” Delono quipped, “especially when I need an alibi.”
“Buying something for the family?” the host asked.
“Got those gifts,” the mob leader explained. “The only man left on my list is William Hammer. He goes back a long time. He worked for Big Jim Colosimo and Johnny Torrio before becoming an enforcer for Capone. He lives over in Cicero now, not far from the Hawthorne Race Track on Pershing. He’s old, alone, and dying with cancer. I’ve never bought him a Christmas present before. This will be my last chance.” He looked down at his feet and frowned, “Good help is hard to find and a man loyal to the organization is even harder to get. Ham has been both of those things.” Delono sadly shook his head before stepping out into the night.
Rawlings walked to the still-open front door and watched his guest get into the back of a large Cadillac sedan. A few seconds after the rear door closed, the two-ton vehicle rumbled off into the night, disappearing into a thickening blanket of falling snow.
Closing the home’s entry, Rawlings strolled back over to a green chair, pulled an M1911 single-action, .45 pistol from his pocket, and, for the third time in the past two hours, checked to make sure it was operational. Satisfied the weapon was ready for action, he eased it back under his sport coat and into his belt, sat down, and waited.
Chapter 6
6
Thursday, December 19, 1946
1:07 A.m.
Tiffany Clayton, wrapped in a tweed coat and holding the attaché filled with cash in her arms, watched Lane Walker ease the Chicago Police Department’s unmarked 1941 Ford sedan up to the curb. As the cop shut off the flathead V-8 engine, the woman took a moment to study the small frame house. Judging from the architecture, it had likely been built in the 1920s. With its small stoop of a front porch, painted clapboard siding, and shutterless windows, the white one-story dwelling was simple and quaint. From what she knew of similar-style homes, she guessed it to have about twelve hundred square feet of living space and possibly two bedrooms. Glancing through the snow and down the street she noted a dozen other similar houses all likely built and sold in the years just before the stock market crashed and the country plunged into a depression. The area was well-maintained and the yards well-kept. Thus, she surmised this was a safe, secure block likely populated by people with big dreams and small budgets. On most days she would have gladly traded her tiny apartment to live in this neighborhood, but, as she considered the unknowns that waited for her behind the front door of the home on 1014 Elmwood, she fought a desire to run to another block in another part of the Windy City.
“Quite a come-down from Elrod’s mansion,” Lane grimly noted.
Tiffany nodded, “Pretty much anything would be.” She glanced from the scene outside the car to the driver, “Did you notice that every home on this street has some kind of holiday decorations except this one?”
“Yeah,” he soberly replied. “I’m guessing Santa will skip this house.”
She smiled morosely, “After we give whoever is on the other side of that door the cash we have in this case, I don’t think Santa’s visit will be missed.”
“You might be right,” he agreed as he glanced down toward her feet where the attaché rested. “What’s haunting me is what did he do to earn this money?”
“About this plan . . .” Tiffany cut in.
The words had barely escaped the reporter’s lips when the cop noted, “There’s still time to walk away from this. I could tell him the blonde got cold feet and ran away at a stop sign.”
“And,” she quickly added, “That would likely mean you’d hand over the money and pay with your life.” Tiffany again glanced toward the house, “Besides, I want to know what’s going on.”
“Okay,” he quipped, “it’s your funeral.”
“I certainly hope not,” she whispered. “But, with that in mind, shouldn’t I have a gun?”
He chuckled, “There’s no way I’d let you have a gun. If I gave you the revolver that was in the glove box you’d likely shoot yourself slipping it into your purse. Just play things the way I planned and you won’t need one. I got things covered. My plan is perfect. Now, slide that attaché over here.”
“Fine,” she quipped as she tossed the briefcase his way, yanked up on the door handle, and stepped out into the frigid night air. Glancing back to Lane, she issued a strong warning. “You just do your job and I will do mine. But if anything goes wrong and the worst happens, I’ll haunt you until the day you die.”
“Couldn’t be any worse,” he shot back, “than the way you haunt me now.”
In the twenty steps between the street and the front door, the sharp wind cut into Tiffany’s cheeks like a knife. She was sure it had never been this cold. As her companion knocked on the door, a stinging, Arctic blast forced tears from her eyes and down her face. They froze on her cheeks before they could fall to the ground. She was just wiping them off with her glove when the door opened and the entry was filled with a man who appeared to be a linebacker for the Chicago Bears. She was sure the last time she’d seen shoulders like that was on a gorilla at the zoo. Was it too late to back out and run? As she looked at the man’s right hand, her silent question was answered. In spite of the heavily falling snow, the light from a street lamp clearly reflected chrome from a revolver’s muzzle, and it was pointed at Lane.
Their host, his face still hidden by the shadows, looked from the woman to the cop before stepping aside and allowing the visitors to enter the very dark living room. As Tiffany dusted the snow from her coat, the towering figure backed farther into the deep shadows. Other than his impressive size, it was now even more impossible to distinguish any of his features. He could have been white, black, or even