Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 32, No. 2, January 1973

Turnabout by Aubrey S. Newman

They were lost, in deadly peril. Life can be cheap, payment swift and heavy, when you’re selling a deadly commodity called Fear...

The small newspaper advertisement was only two lines of black type:

Of course that don’t need much explanation. Everybody knows how Alcoholics Anonymous works — some used-to-be drunks tell you how they kicked the bottle, and all like that.

When I see that Criminals Anonymous notice I’m looking for job opportunities, after a two-year stretch in the pen. Two years makes you think what it would be like to do five or ten, or longer if you get real unlucky.

But it’s not so good on the outside either, trying to get a job with a con record hanging around my neck.

That’s why that Criminals Anonymous idea seemed worth checking into. So I called the number, and a nice female voice tells me where and when they have the next meeting.

The place turns out to be a large room over a third rate bar, which made it easy to come and go without anybody noticing. It was clean, with rows of folding chairs facing a little raised platform.

While I’m waiting for the show to get on the road I gander around at other customers. They look like ex-cons, all right, kind of disgruntled and sullen.

Then I see Fingers Bronck in the row behind me, one seat to my left, and he don’t fit the pattern.

I got to know Fingers pretty good in the pen, but he got out eight months ahead of me. He’s a little pudgy looking, but don’t let that fool you. He could smile while he breaks your fingers. In fact that’s his muscle specialty. He started out as a pug but the pros belted him around, which gave him the idea he might do better against amateurs. So he hires out as enforcer for a protection racket — you know, where shop owners pay dues each week, so their windows don’t get broken or something. Also as protection against bodily harm, which is where Fingers comes in, if anybody gets real stubborn. And he likes the work.

Only trouble for Fingers is he gets so enthusiastic in his efforts to make people sorry they don’t cooperate better, and pay up, that he gets pegged for mayhem. Just before he got out of the pen he says to me in the exercise yard: “Jimmy, I gotta find a new angle on the outside. That judge told me if I’m convicted again for busting people up he was gonna make my next hitch a long stretch.”

“What are you going to do, Fingers?” I asks.

He kind of blows air through his nose, and swipes his left hand over his kisser like he’s wiping his beak with a boxing glove, and says, “Well, that’s what I gotta figger out.”

I wonder what he’s doing here now, especially since he don’t fit the picture. Because Fingers looks pleased with himself, and is wearing some sharp rags.

When Fingers looks my way, his chubby face splits in the toothy grin he’s got. He lifts his right hand, touching one finger to his thumb in the “A-OK” gesture he likes to use.

About then these three well dressed gents come in. Two park in the front row, the other gets on the platform and sits in the chair at the table there.

He’s a big fellow, about fifty maybe, with a thick middle and a head of white hair. And. he has-that way about him like he’s got it made.

When you look close, however, you see his nose was busted one time. Also there is a kind of dented-in scar on one cheek! I figures this was a tough cookie in his younger days. When he looked at us with his flat gray eyes, I knew he still was.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he begins. “Let me welcome those here for the first time. For newcomers, I’ll summarize how we operate. Our name, Criminals Anonymous really explains it. Because we parallel Alcoholics Anonymous. All here are or have been criminals — which includes me.

“Let me say now we keep no records. For convenience we use simple code names. I am Boston. You can pick your own. The gentlemen who came in with me will talk at future meetings. That is Flanker on the right in the gray suit, and Nevada on the left.

“We never ask questions, just answer yours. When you leave a meeting we’ll never see you again, unless you return, or ask our help to get a job and go straight. You can do that by remaining here to talk with us, or call the phone number you read in the newspaper advertisement. A secretary in my office will answer, and she will set up a job interview for you, if you ask for one, with a placement agency that works with us.”

This guy Boston paused and looked down at his hands on the table. We know he was going to talk about his past, so that’s why his face seemed to get leaner and harder, thinking back. I got the idea, just watching him, it wouldn’t be healthy to cross Boston even today.

“Now,” he says, looking up from the table, “I’ll tell you my story.”

Then as Boston begins telling how he didn’t start out to be a criminal, but gets a good job with a supermarket, this slip of folded paper is flipped into my lap from the left rear.

My name is penciled on it, “Jimmy Ahern.” That Jimmy handle is because of my favorite way of getting into places when I don’t have the key.

As Boston goes into how his interest in flashy blondes brings on a need for more cash, and he sees a way to get it from the large bundle of bucks in the supermarket safe over week ends, I open the note. Which is from Fingers Bronck.

Hiya, Jimmy, ole pen pal! he begins. When this guy gets through yakking I got a business deal for you. There’s plenty of dough, and no sweat — a real gravy train!

While trying to guess what Fingers deal can be, I’m only half hearing this Boston tell how instead of getting the cash he gets a good fat stretch behind bars.

When Boston stops talking he looked down at the table top a while, then raised his head and let those flat gray eyes rove from chair to chair; “counting the house” as actors say. There might be no record of names kept, but those hard eyes would remember us if Boston saw us again.

Then he tells how a little jewelry store burglary goes wrong, he got shot, fired back and winged the little old guy who happened to be there working late. So I’m listening to how Boston goes in hiding without medical help, like a hunted animal. As he raised one hand and ran a finger along that dented-in scar in his cheek, he said: “Only by the grace of God I escaped being a murderer, or getting killed myself. That’s when the score added up for me and I decided to go straight.”

Then he gets in some good licks about how you wouldn’t make a bet at the racetrack on the odds a criminal faces, where you have to lose only once to wreck your life. Boston now leaned back in his chair, relaxed and smiling as though the hard part was over.

“We want to help you get started straight in a job suitable to your abilities,” he said. “But you must come to us. We can’t come to you. This ends our meeting. Except for those who would like to talk to me, Flanker or Nevada here. Or call the phone number later.”

As I stand up, deciding to chew the fat with this Boston, there is this touch on my arm. When I turn around here is Fingers Bronck, holding out the happy hand.

“Mitt me, Jimmy,” he says, that grin splitting his round face as usual.

Fingers looks even more prosperous close up. He is in the heavy sugar for sure. More than he can get by busting guys’ fingers as an enforcer, to persuade them cooperation is the best policy. So I wonder what the score is.

“Well, Fingers,” I say kind of guarded like, “you look in good health. Especially with those glad rags you are wearing.”

Fingers just smiles kind of satisfied. Then he says, “I’ve got the same idea they have here, to help ex-cons. Only my program is a little different.”

“What is your angle, Fingers?”

“Now you’re talking, Jimmy,” he says, taking my arm. “Let’s go around the corner to a little bar I know.”

It turns out he quit the enforcer business, like he said. Now he’s got collectors and enforcers working for him. In fact Fingers has got himself a nice little protection racket going and is in need of a new collector.

“Nothing to it, Jimmy,” he says. “We’ve demonstrated enough muscle, so my customers are a bunch of rabbits now. All you have to do is go around and pick up the dough.”

Well, if you read the newspapers, you know what happened. No sooner do I begin work than the cops spring the trap they’ve been setting. That’s how me and another collector get a quick ticket to the pen. The only thing that happens to Fingers is he needs two more collectors.

When I’ve been on the inside looking out for a couple of months, I’m getting bitter about the deal. Here I was set to talk to Boston about what he’s got to offer, and Fingers hijacks me into another hitch in the cooler.

That’s why I am not happy on visitor’s day when there is a Mr. Bronck to see me. When we are seated, looking through the screen at each other, I see right off there is a change in Fingers. He looks kind of beat down. Also he is wearing a cast over his right forearm and hand.

“Why the cast?” I asks him.

“Hell,” he says disgusted like, “I had a accident.” Then he adds, “How you doing?”

“Not so good, thanks to you,” I snap back. “If you don’t seduce me out of Criminals. Anonymous I’d probably have a nice job and a, good future.”

With that Fingers really swells up. That big smile don’t split his fat face when he spits out in a low hissing whisper, “Criminals Anonymous, my eye! Wolves in sheep clothes, that’s what they are!”

Fingers moves his cast to a more, comfortable angle, then spills it.

“After you and Sam. Goggins fell into that police, trap I need two new collectors. So I go to another meeting of Criminals Anonymous to recruit experienced talent.”

Here Fingers pauses a little, and looks like he ain’t happy over what he is remembering. Then he heaves a sigh and goes on.

“This Boston is there, but another guy puts out the pitch. When the meeting breaks up, I head over to talk to a prospect and up comes Boston. He is smiling, and holds out his hand, saying, ‘I’m glad to see you again.’

“Without giving it a thought I mitts him. When his right hand closes on mine he suddenly stops smiling, grabs my hand in both of his and the way he spreads my, fingers and bends them back in a lock, I know he can break them if I move.

“So I stand still and say, ‘Easy, Mister, or you’ll break my fingers. You can go to jail for that.’

“Boston grins real nasty and says, ‘You should know, Fingers.’ Then he says, ‘When Jimmy Ahern went to the pen and his picture got in the newspapers, I recognized him as having been at one of our meetings. This is the third time one of your collectors get nailed. From the news pictures I remembered seeing them here, and you talking to them. So you are using Criminals Anonymous as a private employment agency for your stinking racket.’ ”

Fingers eyes is bugging out and he; is sweating when he says, “Then the SOB, suddenly busts my fingers. Of course that knocks me down to my knees. He still holds my hand, and I’m about to faint but can’t move.

“ ‘Listen, punk? he snarls, ‘that will help you remember never to come back again.’ ”

Fingers looks down at his cast and scowls “Everybody there sees and hears what happens, and the word gets around my protection area. So the wise guys on the street keep askin’ me, ‘How are your fingers, Fingers?’ Big joke, and everybody laughs. But that ain’t the real problem.”

Fingers sits looking at his cast a while and then says, “That Boston sends a runner around to me with a note. There ain’t no signature, but the runner says, ‘Boston said you would know this was from him.’ ”

Fingers fishes in a pocket for the note, and holds it so I can read it through the screen:

Fingers just can’t keep his eyes off that cast, and he adds, “Imagine that guy Boston, pretending he wants to help criminals, then putting me outa business by protecting the people from me that I was protecting. What a stupid hypocrite!”

“Why come here to tell me?” I asks.

“Well,” he says, kind of sad like, “I wanted to talk to somebody that would understand. You just might be the guy.”

“I understand,” I say, and I’m grinning for the first time since landing in stir. “Muscle can cut two ways — and you are the rabbit now, Fingers.”