Action: Pulse Pounding Tales Volume 2

IT’S NOIR OR NEVER by Absolutely*Kate

She pounded a Smith-Corona like she pummeled bums in dark alleys that took her for a pretty pushover. She wrote in the shadows of the night. Just about every night. With hard booze and soft jazz. She swore she channeled Chandler best that way. And Fitzgerald. She even got snarky smirks from the Algonquin Club’s Dorothy Parker. Hail, Hail! Gang’s all here. She listened soft. She learned hard.

“In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.”

That was Chandler. Whispers wisecracked between them. She dubbed him ‘Uncle Raymond’. They were so used to each other they kept the same scrawled crime-methodology notebooks. Knew what side dice should roll in a fixed craps game, the slickest way to pickpocket a rube just off the Greyhound from Poughkeepsie, Charleroi or Kalamazoo. It was Chandler who usually led off. Took her tenacity of subconscious thought down tough trails traipsing behind hardcore hoodlum minds. The hoodlums they sent her looking for. Nelle always found her man – the one she went looking for. With some of ‘em, she lingered lovin’ – hot whispers, sultry interludes, sassy entendrés – before turning them in. Others, she shot in places where they’d still be good for something after she learned ‘em her lesson.

Cliché aside, they could run, but damn well couldn’t hide. Not too long – not with her working theory that collective thought delving into evil of an evil mind could decipher how dangerous criminals jacked up their crummy crimes in the first place.

Her name? It was her notoriety. Off the Bay where Atlantic zephyrs blew in, she was hailed as Nelle, Nelle Callahan… more precisely, DETECTIVE NELLE CALLAHAN, if you angled your eyeballs, squinted your peepers, and read backwards black-painted, gold-edged serif letters through frosted transom glass over her splintered mahogany door. She didn’t care much if her door was splintered. She just liked that it was mahogany and could take a bullet. Nelle Callahan believed in things around her staying solid. She trained her mind same way. Hard. Resilient. True. Taking no guff – no way, no how.

With the help of her author-posse-of-minds in the night, Nelle garnered insight past where mere motives went to slosh back a good Jack D. Razor senses honed crime-profiling like the trigger finger of her reliable Colt 45. On target. She taught herself to freeze-frame pulse-pounding action intuitively. Play the scene over same time it’s going on. Watch where danger heats. Site your adversary’s mistakes. Make them make their dumber move first. Then put the world out of miseries they instigated. Insight-Action. Shimmied Nelle Callahan perspicaciously over, around and safe to sidelines of maniacal madness. Propelled her past what turned connivers and creeps’ desperations to dastardly danger.

To comprehend “crime-in-the-mind”, was the go-to of Nelle’s know-how. The keen noggin under long, loose auburn waves knew when to stop them in their tracks, cut them off at their pass… or needle them to flub up asinine mistakes. All served to tighten numbskulls’ nooses.

Nelle Callahan’s sturdy mahogany door – pummeled from the corridor by the double-impact of two hefty hurling bodies bent on bad intentions – surged open. Crunch and crash collided with the olive green metal file cabinet she knew was way too close to the door – but hell, who had time to move furniture? The two surging hurlers battering Nelle’s mahogany had a gun raised level from each grubby hand. The two guys’ four guns made their one point more forcefully than her Smith-Corona. Got Nelle’s attention. She didn’t finish her paragraph.

“Wild West Show doesn’t roll into town for a month or so, boys,” Nelle deadpanned, shifting fingertips from F D S A and J K L;. She flexed ruby-tipped digits where her intruders could see ‘em. Smiled at the leering gunmen as if a light breeze had just rolled off the sea. A seabreeze she wished to face up to and linger within. If Nelle was a song, they’d call her The Breeze. She aimed serenity at the fuming armed duo. A sure shot. She pissed ‘em off to not wreaking the havoc their knuckleheads had primed them to wreak.

Nelle scrutinized. The two thunk her their passive prey. She drifted ruby manicure in serpentine motion down to a soft ladylike-looking clasp upon her skirted lap. Best way to charm snakes. Between folds of chocolate brown suede, best way to stroke her own trusty weapon. Likewise, she stroked their egos. Disgusting egos. She knew these bums. They were no sugar in anyone’s coffee, no cream rising desire. Their motive for busting open her mahogany? That Nelle didn’t know… Best to play ‘em.

“Why, if it isn’t the almost handsome Jasper Brattleboro and the brawny semi-brainiac Harvey Highwinds, darkening my doorstep, damaging my mahogany. Both lookin’ pretty slick, what with oozy sweat puddling over my Aubusson.” She glanced at Highwinds, shorter, bristly brunt of the two. “That big word means ‘carpet’, Harv.” Nelle grinned wide. Wafted her left hand with a magician’s flourish toward the open window. “Not raining today, boys. What gives? Ya got something heavy on your minds letting loose all this liquid exertion? Makes an astute mind such as mine think you can’t even handle what you came here to muck up.” Using diversion, her right hand moved her Colt right where it might be most useful.

“Shut up Nelle,” snapped Brattleboro.

“Still the charmer-disarmer, I see, Jas,” continued Nelle. “You the brains of this swell break-in or just backing brawn?”

“Hold your wisecracks for pals who banter, Callahan,” Highwinds huffed. “We need a doc, and we need one now.”

“I got Johnson & Johnson Band-Aids in my desk drawer here. What part of your pride’s wounded?” Nelle leaned to her right, reaching for a lower drawer’s brass handle.

Brattleboro jostled pistol and purpose. “Just keep your hands in your lap there, Nellie. Nobody gets hurt that way.”

Reflexively, Nelle’s hands centered back on the keys of the keyboard before her. Deft fingers curved, ready to pounce. Caramel eyes flashed challenge. “Aw geeeez, Jasper. Who the heck writes your material? Lemme give it a shot, will ya? Hunh? Will ya?”

“CAN IT NELLE! Can it!”

A bloody excuse of a hunched-over man hobbling from the hallway leaned sideways into Nelle’s doorjamb for balance, support or maybe bravado… Could be all three, Nelle conjectured, studying what was going on beneath his almost-stance. The guy commanded respect, despite his pitiful plight. That she gave him. Could’ve been the uniform. Could’ve been the ragged flesh hanging off his left arm and the torn burn hole encircling where she imagined his heart did its palpitations. Could’ve been the excuse that when they lived together, a long pack of springtimes ago, he always got his way. Wasn’t the way Nelle could bide livin’ by. Why she got away.

“Woman, you gonna bloody up your manicured lily-whites to help us, or sit there smug, high and mighty?” rasped a gravelly voice from the past she’d never seen coming back at her. “We’ve got a bounty, an APB, a pissed off pack of troopers, a case of mistaken identity and what feels like Voodoo or Hoodoo cursing our lackluster heads.”

Adrenaline fluttered smack dab against something gone hot, sloppy and molten within. Definitely not lackluster. Nelle didn’t much like recounting ‘what-could’ve-beens’ with the wrong man at the right time. Yet, she was ready. Three-to-one odds, but she was ready. Nelle Callahan was borne ready – turning adversity to advantage. She shot finesse ~

“I’m not sentimental – I’m as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last – the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won’t.”

“Damn it to hell, Nelle! I’m half-dying on your doorstep, way I know you always wanted to ogle my tragic end. Yet here Miss Prissy-Literary-Ass sits! Spewing Scott Fitzgerald crap at me?” The hunched flesh now solely propped-up by how solid Nelle’s stalwart doorway was, lifted dark tousels of his hairy head. He roared as a lion past his prowl. Cost him effort. Lost him blood. The raging head leveled a gaze that scorched the narrow room across a broad, battered desktop into the only eyes that could strip his guard bare ass naked.

Ford Parker, professional hired gun hindrance aside, couldn’t live that way, and couldn’t live to let a woman that got under his skin, know about that way. That’s why he got away.

Parker raised his good right hand waist high. Pointed it toward his fierce gang. “This goes down as one of the most harebrained, dumb-ass, last-ditch, pitiful effort ideas you numbskulls ever thunk up. Bring me to Nelle’s. Yeah, right.” He spat. Directed his ugly spittle shot straight to a spot over the Aubusson they’d bought together. He knew she was still fond of it. He knew she wasn’t of him.

“Shit, come high-water, Highwinds, you’d be sunk. Bratt – take her out. She’s no help, no use, and on the wrong side of the law, anyhow. Ol’ Sport Callahan’s duty-bound to bring us in. Kill her now for all I care – or don’t care.”

Whether inclined to follow orders, or just bad ass manners, Jasper Brattleboro immediately triggered one of his still raised guns. Nelle noted the sleek, but dated, black Browning automatic. Pistol that won’t cycle light loads. Friction piece and bronze ring are in the right places but won’t cycle far enough to kickout. Factoring in a messy guy like Brattleboro wouldn’t be all that fastidious about thorough cleanings, she had moment enough to heave her heftier weapon into trajectory’s aim. Bratt’s bullet met Nelle’s Smith-Corona, mid-air.

The crash underscored the broken space-bar angling between them. Nelle jeered ‘em more than she feared ‘em. With a cool, cocked rat-a-tat-return she open-fired dialogue, raised her Colt, held a bead on Brattelboro, kept an eye on Highwater, and tried her darnedest to ignore Parker. “Fellas, first typewriter giving way to the Smith-Corona fine line was built by L. C. Smith & Brothers gun factory, purchased by Remington. Any weapon I use packs its purpose. Got that?”

Tipping them off-guard, she upped her rant’s ante. Skittered to her left, keeping broad, battered desk before her, between them. “Can it yourselves, crime-clowns. All three of your bedraggled posse. Didn’t say I wouldn’t help you, just indicated y’all totally disgust me. Now that’s two different factions of thought to factor. Put half-wit minds together and you’re still not part way to reckoning. G’ahead. Spit out what you came to say. I’ll hear you out. Just leave my Aubusson out of it!” Callahan studied each sweating or bleeding man. Lingered over give-aways which spoke volumes she’d not get direct from any spiel about to spill. “So what the hell d’you do? And who the heavens d’you do it to?”

Highwinds blew in first, glossing crime that made ugly lips drool as he told, “We raised a ruckus in N’awleans.” Chuckled. Dastardly chuckle. “Let’s just say we broke some figurines in a curio shop. Got uniformed southern boys and a voodoo mama madder than swamp gators gone hungry. Jasper and me hightailed North. Found Ford. The New York bomb though -

Brattleboro broke in, staged smooth as a rehearsed recital: “Fuck. Wasn’t us gone crazy like they said. Well sure, we’re crazy when we need to be, but we don’t go planting no bombs in no tunnels. And no matter how an act stinks, we don’t shoot up Radio City Music Hall. Too many fuckin’ witnesses,” he sneered. “Still, we took heat. Wrong places, wrong times. Our shit luck, we’d been in vicinities when shit came down – er, blew up, as the case was made. Ford there, got burnt with the brunt of coppers’ heat. They cornered us like dogs on 52nd Street – ”

“Lemme fill her in now.”

A pause. Ford’s pause necessitated dramatic relating. Nelle figured that. How he got his points across. Elocution held attention. Ford had flair. Flair like that appealed to her until – another story, another time. Best focus now. See beyond illusion what these crumbums were trying to suck her into. Despite the pain he was pushing through, Parker wanted to deliver facts. Ford’s way. No pun – he was just a bullet-point kind of guy.

He surprised her. His lightening-flash mind evidently needed crib notes.

Ford Parker eased a brass button open with one gnarled finger. Unfastened the midnight-blue uniform pocket above where Nelle thought his heart might still flex palpitations. He tugged out a rectangle of shiny paper. Shook out a magazine page. It fell across his chest past the folds.

Nelle stopped him cold.

“Hold it there, Ford. Before you dangle recitation out loud, let’s call in a doc who’ll keep his silence about his smarts. That hole piercing you is close to leaking your innards. Whatta mess that’d be. Think about my Aubusson.” She hadn’t asked for permission, so she didn’t look for it. Lifted the black receiver at her side of the desk. One eye roved over three heavy breathers. One eye glanced at the phone. Her steady hand brandished gun. Her purposeful hand dialed. TUXEDO-4514.

She listened.

“Hey Uncle Nelson, it’s me. Glad you’re in town. I was expecting Aunt Wendy Mae picking up from the front office. Need a quick favour.” She paused, taking in a sharp fired rat-a-tat-tort shooting out the other end of the line. “What’s that? You knew? Ol’ gang was holed up in town? Yep, sure as shootable, Ford an’ his stunningly handsome henchman-gents.” Slowly, she shared her grin – nice and easy between three pairs of hard-focused eyes. Swiftly, she listened – tough and hard to what Doc Nelson was warning. His patter? Jagged. Fast. He knew time played on the listening-end before suspicions raised. Nelle gave outer grin over inside cringe. Damn. Two of these fellas were downright nasty. More’n she originally thought.

With amiable tolerance, as if wondering why the cookie jar lid was on the kitchen floor, she wafted feminine ease, “Sure. Right. But I’m hearing out their side of the story.” Another pause. “OK, thanks a million. See him soon as he hustles over. And Unc – let’s keep a lid on this.”

Nelle took a deep breath. Let it out somewhere above her solar plexus. Looked across at Ford, slumped now in her straight-back client chair – “Shoot.” Whipped her head round to Brattleboro. “Y’know what I mean wise-guy. Lower your tricky trigger finger in my office. Why don’t you guys cop a seat while you’re at it? We’ll have Ford patched up in an hour and – ”

Impatiently, Parker flexed his magazine page so it crackled. Cleared his throat – so it didn’t. Took over, way he always did. Nelle caught a New Yorker byline as his voice began its beguine -

“On November 16, 1940, workers at the Consolidated Edison building on West Sixty-fourth Street in Manhattan found a homemade pipe bomb on a windowsill. Attached was a note: “Con Edison crooks, this is for you.” In September of 1941, a second bomb was found, on Nineteenth Street, just a few blocks from Con Edison’s headquarters, near Union Square. It had been left in the street, wrapped in a sock.

A few months later, the New York police received a letter promising to “bring the Con Edison to justice-they will pay for their dastardly deeds.” Sixteen other letters followed, between 1941 and 1946, all written in block letters, many repeating the phrase “dastardly deeds” and all signed with the initials “F.P.”

In March, a third bomb-larger and more powerful than the others-was found on the lower level of Grand Central Terminal. The next was left in a phone booth at the New York Public Library. It exploded, as did one placed in a phone booth in Grand Central. The Mad Bomber-as he came to be known-struck ten more times, once in Radio City Music Hall, sending shrapnel throughout the audience. The city was in an uproar. The police were getting nowhere. In desperation, Inspector Howard Finney, of the New York City Police Department’s crime laboratory, and two plainclothesmen paid a visit to a psychiatrist by the name of James Brussel – ”

“Jim!” Nelle’s voice recognized more than the ramification of false identification. Accusations more dead than alive.

“Yes indeedy Nelle. Brussel’s the only crime-profiler that has a mind sharp-as-a-whip as yours with solid successes under how he belts his buckle. Way I figgered, if he was pegging me for this New York transgression, it had a most problematic chance of sticking. Right or wrong. I roused up the boys, thinking a threesome could throw him off track. However, my gut knew only real challenge that could do any standing up to Brussel’s media indictments was – much as I hate to need anything from a woman – yours. So, Kid – Would you put together a body-of-proof testifying to proper agitated authorities I couldn’t be this Mad Bomber psycho they’re manhunting?

Outwardly, Nelle nodded she was hearing Parker out. Inwardly, Nelle listened. Listened to strangled screams, which came from two tortured women. Scarred women, viciously raped. Left for dead or headed-to-getting-there by Parker’s heinous henchmen.

Just as her surrogate uncle, Doc Nelson – former bootlegging partner of her deceased mother, Eastern seaboard’s daring Angel Towse – had informed her one of the New Orleans maimed ladies had lived and named names… he coolly counseled to play these three, stretch for time while he arranged to send over a keep-quiet medical man. One from the old bootlegging gang. One packed for pressure moments and how to break them in.

Indeed, Nelle kept cool. Kept undecipherable eyes pinned on Parker. Cringing inside though at vile sexual crimes against women was hot, hotter than -

Nelle put thoughts on hold to better to get hold of current situation. “There’s more to that article, right Ford? G’head. Read it out. Lemme get their facts straight ‘fore I figure how best to convey yours.” She plopped absorbed nonchalance to her chair. Pulled canary yellow pad closer to ruby red manicure. Poised her Parker fountain pen, smiling at the irony. Nodded him to read on.

Nelle Callahan wrote notes, though not pertaining to what Parker read. Should something happen to her in crossfire sure-as-shooting to ensue – (Smiled at puns popping, even at terse times) – she was going to identify two hard-core rapists who thought they’d outrun terrors they’d ravaged. She did. Signed. Dated. That would hold them up until justice caught up. Sometimes the most you can do is the least you can do.

Ford Parker’s articulate voice orated his pre-condemning article. Nelle had no idea how he got fingered for this, but it didn’t look good:

“Brussel was a Freudian. He lived on Twelfth Street, in the West Village, and smoked a pipe. In Mexico, early in his career, he had done counter-espionage work for the F.B.I. He wrote many books, including “Instant Shrink: How to Become an Expert Psychiatrist in Ten Easy Lessons.”

Finney put a stack of documents on Brussel’s desk: photographs of unexploded bombs, pictures of devastation, photostats of F.P.’s neatly lettered missives.

“I didn’t miss the look in the two plainclothesmen’s eyes,” Brussel wrote in memoir-notes, “Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist.” “I’d seen that look before, most often in the Army, on the faces of hard, old-line, field-grade officers who were sure this newfangled psychiatry business was all nonsense.”

He began to leaf through the case materials. For years, F.P. had been fixated on the notion that Con Ed had done him some terrible injustice. Clearly, he was clinically paranoid. But paranoia takes some time to develop. F.P. had been bombing since 1940, which suggested that he was now middle-aged. Brussel looked closely at the precise lettering of F.P.’s notes to the police. This was an orderly man. He would be cautious. His work record would be exemplary. Further, the language suggested some degree of education. But there was a stilted quality to the word choice and the phrasing. Con Edison was often referred to as “the Con Edison.” And who still used the expression “dastardly deeds”? F.P. seemed to be foreign-born.

Brussel looked closer at the letters, and noticed that all the letters were perfect block capitals, except the “W”s. They were misshapen, like two “U”s. To Brussel’s eye, those “W”s looked like a pair of breasts. He flipped to the crime-scene descriptions. When F.P. planted his bombs in movie theatres, he would slit the underside of the seat with a knife and stuff his explosives into the upholstery. Didn’t that seem like a symbolic act of penetrating a woman, or castrating a man-or perhaps both? F.P. had probably never progressed beyond the Oedipal stage. He was unmarried, a loner. Living with a mother figure. Brussel made another leap. F.P. was a Slav. Just as the use of a garrote would have suggested someone of Mediterranean extraction, the bomb-knife combination struck him as Eastern European. Some of the letters had been posted from Westchester County, but F.P. wouldn’t have mailed the letters from his home town. Still, a number of cities in southwestern Connecticut had a large Slavic population. And didn’t you have to pass through Westchester to get to the city from Connecticut?

Brussel waited a moment, and then, in a scene to become legendary among criminal profilers, he made a prediction:

“One more thing.” I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to see their reaction. I saw the Bomber: impeccably neat, absolutely proper. A man who would avoid the newer styles of clothing until long custom had made them conservative. I saw him clearly-much more clearly than the facts really warranted. I knew I was letting my imagination get the better of me, but I couldn’t help it.

“One more thing,” I said, my eyes closed tight. “When you catch him-and I have no doubt you will-he’ll be wearing a double-breasted suit.”

“Jesus!” one of the detectives whispered.

“And it will be buttoned,” I said. I opened my eyes. Finney and his men were looking at each other.

“A double-breasted suit,” said the Inspector.

“Yes.”

“Buttoned.”

“Yes.”

“Fordham Paarcházková,” Nelle interrupted, “you always dress to-the-nines. Like a dandy, you preen attention. You express literary flair. Why, you still keep your address as mama’s boy – ”

“Like I said when I stumbled into your tacky office with the classy Aubusson – Can it, Nelle! What you know and what flatfoots swarming New York and New England have dug up is precisely that. My history’s my history and when delved through time, precedes me. But these event dates – particularly West 64th, Grand Central, Radio City – You’re my alibi, Babe. Got no grumbles with payin’ electric bills either, both my mother’s and when holed up in a bonafide apartment, kinda like when we – ”

“Can it yourself, comrade,” Nelle cut in. “Much as I hate to be the damsel coming to de-distress your distress, I’ll vouch what you need vouching for.” She paused, considering her former mentor. “Jim’s good though. He’s on to someone, somewhere. I think the boys-in-blue just read his call wrong.” She up-and-down eyeballed Ford’s chest, took note of dark splotches splotching splotchier than when he’d first struggled in. “So this explains the flashy vintage uniform look you’re sporting now, Ol’ Sport? How’re you strutting official stuff now? Major? Lieutenant?”

Nelle’s laugh spiraled to cover sounds climbing the back staircase. “Forgive me if I don’t deliver a snappy salute.”

Doc Matty Heltone didn’t knock. No need to. Door was open. He came in with a raised shotgun and a battered black leather bag. Threw off Jasper Brattleboro and Harvey Highwater for just a split. Fast enough though, those boys were up. Rugged. Action-ready. Chairs toppled, but guns steady.

Ford Parker signaled his men to chill. “S’all right. Nelle did good. I’m real acquainted with Doc. Heltone’s seen plenty rough action himself. He’ll fix me up.” He peered at the grizzled force leaning in before him. Nodded recognition to knowing eyes that likewise roused places best not spoke of… “Doc.”

“Ford.” Matty Heltone was all business, it seemed. Gripped Parker’s shoulder. Ripped open splotched uniform fabric above his heart. Thought fast. Worked faster from what came out of his battered black leather bag. Stitches in time. Then a small brown bottle. “Going to apply astringent now, Parker. Gonna sting. But hell, you’ve felt worse.”

Parker grabbed at the bottle. “Whatcha got there, Doc?”

Heltone pulled it from the pained man’s reach, twisted off a small black cap. Poured liberally into Parker’s open wounds. “Settle down, tough guy. Styptic tonic of stinging nettle here. Coagulates blood. Iron absorption guards against anemia against all you’ve lost. From stains on Nelle’s Aubusson, I’d call that no short supply. You got prostrate problems, hell, we just fixed that up too.”

Harvey Highwater guffawed. “Imagine that. Ford Parker with manly malfunctions.” He hunkered down, curious at Doc’s side. “This bubble up like when Ma put peroxide on cuts? All white and foamy and – “

Parker gasped at overwhelming burning sensation. Clamped hand over heart. Doubled over. Doc Heltone spun sideways. Flung deep green sulphuric phosphorus to Harvey Highwater’s eyes. Highwater’s vision faltered. His hands clutched his face. Frantically. His revolvers dropped. Losing balance, so did Harv.

Jasper Brattleboro fired two guns at once. To Doc Heltone’s chest.

The battered black bag, doctored with metal-plate linings, raised in place in time. Diverted bullet one. Highwater’s fall took the next.

Nelle’s Colt shot low. Rage has no lowdown fury like a woman knowing how a man has raped: Titillation – Sexual advance – Violent disregard for passion of the moment having its way – Forcefully taking its way. Integrity ravaged in rape is worse than torture. There’s a shadow-side to crimes… but vile complacency to victimizing women by blaming allure. Brattleboro would do such no more. Nelle’s shot was sure. The detective shot the dick.

“There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart… Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other.”

That was Chandler too. Enlightened reflection. Lesson learned. Nelle pummeled her Smith-Corona, comprehending noir-candescent nights, where one mind takes another. How it packs for the journey.

Both short-sighted Harvey Highwater and emasculated Jasper Brattleboro took a journey. To the state of Louisiana. Extradited by none other than Detective Callahan’s proud pop on the Narragansett police force. Officer Patrick Callahan waiting in back wings on back stairs to give Matty Heltone time to not heal wounds. Guy was a pro.

Callahan shot in when guns did. “Justice, Kid?” he’d quipped to his daughter. Professional pride ranged as far as parental.

Naturally Ford Parker healed up. Doc Heltone’s a pro, y’know. No charges incurred from two New Orleans vicious rapes to a dapper man strolling streets of New York at time of the crime. No indictments either, once Detective Nelle Callahan provided testimony to Inspector Howard Finney’s NYC crime-laboratory.

Professional curiosity sparked Nelle to consult on the Mad Bomber case. Absolutely. Likewise, she wanted to see Jim Brussel taken seriously. Successful psychological crime-profiling leads insights past the shadows which rough up innocent folks on evil nights. Nelle knew illusions were never all they’re cracked up to be, but Insights? They fathom further gleanings.

She was gratified to read the following follow-up:

“George Metesky was arrested by police in connection with the New York City bombings. His name had been changed from Milauskas. He lived in Waterbury, Connecticut, with two older sisters. He was unmarried. He was unfailingly neat. He attended Mass regularly. He had been employed by Con Edison from 1929 to 1931, and claimed to have been injured on the job. When he opened the door to the police officers, he said, “I know why you fellows are here. You think I’m the Mad Bomber.” It was midnight, and he was in his pajamas. The police asked that he get dressed. When he returned, his hair was combed into a pompadour and his shoes were newly shined. He was also wearing a double-breasted suit-buttoned.”

Ford Parker met up with Nelle Callahan once more. In Newport, on a fine day in June, at the best little café between Bar Harbor and Key West – Zelda’s on Thames Street. Well yes, of course, he tried to kindle spark or spark kindle, pitch woo. My Nelle? She gave him the ol’ 23-Skidoo. Sent him packin’. Recited a Dorothy Parker verse, is what I heard:

“By the time you swear you're his,

Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

Infinite, undying.

Lady make note of this -

One of you is lying.”

Zelda’s Café has entertaining history. Certainly entertained me. Nothin’ like a day in June, eh? And isn’t my Nelle swell? Her moxie’s the cat’s meow.

Regaled one of the finest brick and brownstones ever built in Newport, Zelda’s was constructed in 1895 to be bustling brewery and liquor store. Function-designed, the roof slanted to collect water to cistern in the basement. Boosted brewery business, bountifully.

Did double-duty as a private function hall. Big shindigs there. I’ve been. My partner, Doc Aloysius Nelson – we called him ‘Doc’ cause he could ‘fix things’ – gambling-odds, horse races, rum-runnings, leaky faucets, even broken hearts. He never broke mine. What I did to his - Another story, another time. Anyhow, Doc told me his daddy drove Clydesdales loaned from the stables of mansions on Bellevue Ave. Delivered beer direct to the good folks of Newport. Now that’s caring for clientele! You see, proprietor Ernst Voight invented the tradition “Treating Customers Right”, even believed in giving good customers complimentary meals. Great business builds on the hallmark of gratifying worthies. I admit putting a thought into the present day pubkeeper’s mind. Our Nelle finished up her Oysters Rockefeller in style, gratis. Rockefeller? That too – another story another time.

Doc and I ran our operation there as the local speakeasy. Joint was hailed McGee’s Pub. Bootlegging grew and we set up our own place ‘cross the Bay ~ The Narragansett Social Club. Heard of it? Lordy, those were the days!

When McGee retired, the establishment got dubbed Café Zelda, after F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, darling of our roaring 20’s lifestyle. By Gatsby, doesn’t this story serve up its own on-the-house round of poetic justice?

My name? My notoriety too. They still hail me, I hear ~ “Charm & Courage Bootlegger”. I like that, absolutely I do. I’m Angel Towse Callahan and by Gatsby and gumption, that’s another story too.

END

(Acknowledgements) Giving Credit Where Credit’s Surely Due:

Quotations from Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker inspired the professional crime-mind gleanings of ~ Nelle Callahan.

Excerpts from the NewYorker magazine article on The Mad Bomber by Malcolm Gladwell inspired this author to cite a crime and site a criminal… elsewhere.

“Charm and Courage Bootlegger” Angel Towse, whose name means ‘Tough’, made her first appearance in Matt Hilton’s ~ ACTION: Pulse Pounding Tales, volume 1. You should read it – “Angel Tough”, and all the other crime-sensations Hilton put together like a posse on a mad mission.

BIO:

Absolutely*Kate? Prolific noir-thriller author/promoter who listens to shadows, believes in believers. She has moxie. World needs more moxie.

She thinks Matt Hilton pretty swell too, for her author-promotion-publishing quest in Life… salutes the Good Guys, the Worthies. Absolutely*Kate’s, thus Nelle Callahan’s debut novel, “HOLY MOXIE!” is intriguingly underway with a worthy NY agent. Meanwhile, back by the sea, she stirs mighty minds as administrator/promoter of Noir Nation, Developmental-Editor for Vega Wire Media and publisher-promoter *AT THE BIJOU*. She’s producing “THE SHADOWS OF OUR NOIR” from that stage and sailing (in Lucky’13) ~ HARBINGER*33 (manifesting destinies of 33 stellar authors). Absolutely*Kate’s words dance through distinctive decades of the 1920’s, ‘30’s and ‘40’s when men were tough, and dames were tougher. Enjoy those words, in action-packed anthologies and leading crime-time e’zines.

She thanks you for reading her ~ But you knew that.