Road to Purgatory

The Tri-Cities

March 1922

One

Annie O’Sullivan had a storybook life, and she knew it.

She was twenty-six years old with a heart-shaped face, reddish blonde hair bobbed Irene Castle — style, with china-blue eyes, doll-like features and the fair, faintly freckled complexion of the Red Irish. Normally petite, at the moment she was a monster — nine months pregnant in a dark blue maternity dress whose feminine white collar made the garment no less tent-like.

The morning had been notably uncomfortable, making her wonder if today would be the day. But by the afternoon, the stirrings had settled down, not even a kick from the anxious resident within her.

She sat reading The Ladies’ Home Journal in the living room of the two-story house on Twenty-second Street in Highland Park, up the hill in Rock Island. Being “up the hill” meant a lot: she and her husband, Mike, had spent almost three years in a shanty in the Greenbush neighborhood below. Now they had one of the nicest homes in town, a two-story white stucco well back from the street on a generous lawn with a detached garage.

Not that the house was ostentatious; there was nothing showy about the O’Sullivans or their home, with its nearly austere interior of pale plaster walls of green and yellow against dark woodwork, softened by curtains of lace.

How exciting it had been to buy all the furniture new (nothing much from where they’d lived before had been worth hanging on to); solid mission oak with straight, unadorned lines — Mike did not care for the fancy new veneers — and her all-white sanitary kitchen, with wood-burning stove, was efficient and modern, a homemaker’s dream.

The house and their simple yet not inexpensive furnishings reflected those within. Her handsome dark-haired husband (Black Irish, he was) was, for the most part, a serious, dignified man, whose finer qualities emerged in the bedroom, by way of his tenderness, and here in the living room, by way of his love for their son.

Their living room — where she sat in a comfortable, commodious mohair upholstered armchair, suitable to her current size, swollen feet propped up on an ottoman — was as good an indication as any of the devotion Michael O’Sullivan, Sr., felt for Michael O’Sullivan, Jr. The braided carpet on their parquet floor harbored an elaborate electric train layout, the finest Lionel had to offer, from trains and track to signal towers, tunnels, depots, and ticket offices.

With his hat literally in his hand, her husband had begged his wife’s permission to turn their formal living room into a train yard, “for just a little while.” Young Michael was a precocious three, and though she suspected “a little while” might well prove to be months or even years, Annie had no objections to an activity that would keep their little man’s energetic hands, feet, and mind happily occupied.

Not that her son had ever been a problem. Michael, Jr., had an active mind, and loved to play outside with neighborhood boys and girls; he was in general obedient to both his parents — it was as if he’d been born respectful, or perhaps the example of his stoic but not unkind father had sunk in, early on.

About the only battles that ever occurred were at the kitchen table — her boy was a fussy eater. On the other hand, when meals were served in the dining room, the formality of the surroundings encouraged angelic behavior, even in the presence of brussel sprouts.

Right now Michael was having his afternoon nap. He didn’t fuss about it — though the boy did not yet read, he loved books, and would page through picture books (Peter Rabbit a particular favorite, and L. Frank Baum’s Mother Goose) until he fell asleep, whether for his nap or at night.

As for the trains, she took no greater pleasure than to sit nearby with a book or a magazine (neither crochet nor needle work interested her), classical music playing on their new console radio, while father and son crouched and scurried and tended around the edges of their railroad yard. The eyes of both her “boys” flashed with a childish glee that she saw often in her son but rarely in her husband.

She knew her husband, Mike, adored her; he placed her on a pedestal, though he was not shy about removing her from that perch, behind closed doors. A deep passion ran beneath the surface of this stoic man.

The former Annie O’Hanlon had known her husband for several years before they married. He had come to the Tri-Cities from New York, where his late father had been a railroad man; he’d heard that John Deere was hiring, and he landed a job as a shop sweeper. She’d met him through church activities at Sacred Heart, and for a time Mike had courted her best friend, Katie O’Meara.

Before long Annie and Mike had become a couple — Katie understood, she’d sensed the attraction between them — and they were talking of marriage when he got swept away into the war by the wave of patriotism encompassing the country. In fact, they’d been together, on the porch of her parents’ shanty, when the band had come marching by.

Literally.

The band was made up of college boys — twenty-one members of the Augustana marching band, and they’d enlisted as a unit in the 6th Illinois Regiment. They played a final concert, then paraded through town performing martial marches, from Rock Island to the train station, high-stepping right through Greenbush.

Mike enlisted the next day.

He had returned a hero with a glittering array of medals and a somber, more adult presence that both thrilled and intimidated Annie; he’d been a boy when he left, but things overseas had turned him into a man — things he made clear he would never discuss with her...

Shortly after Mike’s return, Mr. Looney had invited him up to his house on the hill, in the Longview Loop area — Rock Island’s Knob Hill, rife with doctors, lawyers, and old money. Mr. Looney lived on Twentieth Street in a brooding stone mansion in Highland Park, a far cry from Greenbush.

Annie did not know what Mr. Looney had said to Michael, other than a job had been offered. At first Michael called it a chauffeur position, later referring to it as a bodyguard; occasionally, in passing, he called himself Mr. Looney’s “lieutenant,” as if he were still a soldier.

Shortly after, Annie and Mike had married at Sacred Heart. Over the next several years, her husband’s responsibilities and his position grew in the Looney organization. They were invited to events at the Looney home (Mrs. Looney had died in the flu epidemic in 1914, and he lived alone with his son, Connor; two daughters were away at convent school).

And before long the money grew, as well — first the O’Sullivans had a car; then this lovely home of theirs. And along the way, they had their son, Michael, Jr.

Of course there were those who shunned the O’Sullivans for their affiliation with John Looney. Briefly the family attended St. Joseph’s, near the courthouse, but turned-up noses and whispered remarks among these good Christians put them off, and they returned to the simple church where they had ties.

Many in the Tri-Cities, and not just the Irish, considered the lanky, mustached, handsome John Looney to be a living folk hero, an Irish American rebel and entrepreneur, battling the powers that be. A self-schooled lawyer, Mr. Looney had run for the state legislature as a Democrat but was defeated through trickery by corrupt opponents; he had looked around at the way his people were treated in the Tri-Cities, it was said, and swore he’d provide his own government outside the system for these disenfranchised souls. He would see to it that “Micks” like Annie’s husband got jobs, if not in his own enterprises, then at the area factories, where he had influence.

Some had no real opinion about John Looney — he was just a colorful character who dressed in black like a riverboat gambler and had a flair for theatrics (performing as Irish Catholic martyr Robert Emmet in a one-man play). And of course, he was the man who helped the good citizens of the Tri-Cities skirt a bad law, the Eighteenth Amendment, seeing to it a fellow could have a beer... which many decent people considered a public service.

But still others saw Looney as, simply, a gangster.

Before they’d moved to this big house, Annie had once risked speaking to Michael about his working for Mr. Looney. She did not refer directly to the bootlegging, brothels, and gambling that were as much a part of John Looney’s empire as his newspaper, the Rock Island News. Nor did she speak of the pistol (brought home with him from the Great War) that Mike carried beneath his shoulder.

All she’d said, serving him coffee in the kitchen after supper, was, “You’re respected, Mike. You did your people right proud, over there. You could work for anybody.”

“I work for Mr. Looney,” he’d said. He lifted the filled coffee cup and said, “Thank you, dear.”

She sat. “Some say Mr. Looney makes his money in sinful ways.”

Mike had given her a hard look — almost cold. Certainly his words chilled her: “We don’t question how Mr. Looney makes his money. It’s not our place.”

On very rare occasions, when she had dared refer to this subject, Michael would speak almost exactly those same words; more often, he would silence her with a look.

And now in this grand house, with a wonderful son upstairs and another baby in the oven, Annie considered herself complied in whatever her husband and their patriarch did. What was the word, in the newspapers and magazines? She was an accomplice. She prayed for forgiveness, but she never spoke of her conflicted feelings to any priest — how do you confess to things you don’t know about?

And don’t want to know about?

Yet, the notion that her reserved husband was a “gangster” seemed an absurdity. Surely the whispered stories, the awful rumors, which she heard only the edges of, were gross exaggerations if not outright falsehoods.

This was a man who did not swear. Who did not smoke. Who did not drink (in a rare candid moment, he had admitted to her... when she wondered why they couldn’t have a simple glass of wine now and again... that his father had been a good man who showed a bad side when he drank, and Mike’s mother had suffered because of it).

And Annie had a deep and abiding faith in his faithfulness, where their marital bed was concerned, despite the loose women in the world of John Looney.

The smell of corned beef and cabbage emanated from the kitchen — her recipe, but not her doing. Mike had hired help for them, a Greenbush girl. Mary Jane Murphy, a sweet, crude slip of eighteen, cooked indifferently and cleaned lackadasically, but was gentle, even loving with the child.

And in her condition, Annie could not even bend over and pick the boy up.

The girl was skinny, almost scrawny, and looked like a child playacting in maid’s cap and costume. Mike quietly suggested Annie be tougher on the lass, but Annie could not bring herself to do so: she had been a maid herself, for several of the wealthy families, the Baileys with their lumber, the Greggs with their factories.

She had suffered cruelty at the hands of these “upper class” people, overhearing vile remarks that she recalled to this day... as when one of Rock Island’s wealthiest socialites cattily commented to another that Mrs. Bailey “could surely do better than a little Shanty Irish wench” like Annie.

The socialite said she herself preferred colored help, acknowledging that their service cost more than Irish girls.

No, Annie would not be a strict mistress where Mary Jane Murphy was concerned... at least as long as the wench stayed faithful to Annie’s recipes...

Mrs. Michael O’Sullivan did particularly love to cook, but she also took pride in her housework; still, like many women, the enforced relaxation of pregnancy provided a blissful vacation. Mike was insistent that she take it easy — she’d lost a daughter, by miscarriage, last year — and assured her that this time, she’d deliver “right and proper,” having been conveyed to the hospital “in good time.”

When the labor pains for their first child had come, Annie had been carried by her husband like a bride over the threshold up the hill to St. Anthony’s on Thirtieth Street. They had no car at that time, nor phone, and no neighbors did, either. Despite the pain she’d suffered, her memory of the event was a warm one — held in the loving arms of her husband, as he stepped gingerly over the railroad tracks, and strode up the hill, to save her and their son.

John Looney had paid off their doctor’s bills. Rumor had it that Mr. Looney, shortly thereafter, contributed to the hospital’s new wing, in gratitude for the hospital’s policy of never turning away the residents of Greenbush.

Certainly John Looney had been kind to their little family; he was like a grandfather to Michael, Jr. (much of the train set had been Mr. Looney’s doing), and looked upon Annie with affection, always with a wistful remark about how she reminded him of his late wife. From time to time, they had entertained Mr. Looney in their home, and the patriarch’s praise for her cooking was effusive and apparently genuine.

Annie always made a point of inviting Mr. Looney’s son, Connor, but never had Connor accepted. She had noted a certain tension where Connor Looney was concerned, and suspected the man resented his father’s regard for her husband. Mr. Looney’s son, a little older than Michael, had a snake’s smile and awful dead eyes. That he and Michael often worked together gave her many an uneasy night.

Definitely, the pages of her storybook life were frayed, here and there. Just last month, her son had sat in his short pants on the couch, bouncing, kicking his feet up, looking across his trains at his mother, who was seated with a novel by Gene Stratton Porter, her feet up on the ottoman.

“Papa has a gun,” Michael said.

“Yes, he does, dear.”

“Why does Papa have a gun?”

“He protects Mr. Looney.”

“What is ‘protects’?”

“Keeps him from harm.”

“Mr. Looney’s nice.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Nice man.”

“Yes, he is, dear.”

The boy bounced. “At church? Tommy said his mama said Mr. Looney’s the boogeyman.”

She managed not to smile. “Well, he’s not, dear.”

“Boogeyman can’t be hurt.”

“I suppose not, dear.”

“So why does Papa need a gun?”

“Play with your trains, dear.”

Though amused by this exchange, Annie had also been troubled. She’d spoken about it, after supper, to Mike, who said he would talk to the boy, and make sure his son knew the gun was not a toy.

“You keep that thing under lock and key,” she said, in a rare scolding tone, “when it’s not on your person.”

“I will,” he promised.

Mike had been as good as his word, talking to their son, showing him the weapon, comparing it to a toy gun the boy had; and had been extremely discreet about the pistol, thereafter. He wore it to work, and then removed it and locked it away in a bedroom drawer, when he got home.

Occasionally Mike traveled; sometimes he was gone for as much as a week. Nothing was said about why, save for possibly, “A friend of Mr. Looney’s needs help.” But in his absence, flowers would be delivered to her, the message always the same: “To Annie from your loving husband.”

When Mike got home, Annie was still seated in the living room. Tall, broad-shouldered, somber, Mike bestowed a tiny smile upon her — but she could read something in it. A tiny sign of something, if not wrong, then... out of the ordinary.

He removed his topcoat and hat, hung them in the front closet. He motioned upstairs, meaning that he was about to proceed with the ritual of disposing of his gun and shoulder holster in their bedroom, and she nodded.

Soon, in his shirtsleeves but with his tie still on, looking like a shopkeeper in his suspenders, Mike deposited himself on the couch where not so long ago his son had been, brimming with questions about “Papa’s gun.”

Sitting forward, eyes earnest, clasped hands hanging between bowed knees, Mike said, “I’m asking Miss Murphy to stay with you, this evening.”

“Is that necessary?”

“I’m afraid I have to go out.”

“It’s not your poker night, is it?”

“Mr. Looney business.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “No need, Mike. We’ll be fine, alone. As long as you’re not gone long.”

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone. Could be late. You never know with these things.”

She knew enough not to ask for a definition of “these things.”

“Well,” Annie said, “perhaps we would be better off with Mary Jane here. Just in case.”

“With you due so soon, I hate not to be here.”

“I know, darling.”

“If I ever thought I’d let you down...”

“You never have and you never will. We’ll be fine.”

He raised one eyebrow. “Oh, in Mary Jane’s capable hands, I’m sure you will be... If you have a problem, call the hospital number. I’ve made arrangements for an ambulance to come pick you up.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Nothing silly about it. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Or to our baby, she thought. But it went unsaid.

“Shall we have a walk before dinner?” Annie asked.

“Are you up to it?”

“I have to get some fresh air or I’ll die.”

“The park is out of the question.”

“I know. Just up and down the block.”

His smile was mocking, in a nice way. “I could just sit here and bask in the bouquet of your corned beef.”

“Mary Jane cooked it.”

A week ago he’d have made a face; but Annie had been schooling the girl. “If she sticks to your recipe, we’re a cinch for a feast.”

They walked down toward the corner, slowly, Annie just trundling along, her gloved hand in his, her fur-collared coat not buttoned around her (that would have been an impossibility), him in his topcoat but without the fedora. In the spring or summer, the street was lushly lined with trees; now, in winter’s final days, their skeletal branches silhouetted themselves eerily against a dusk-tinged sky.

“Please be careful tonight,” she said.

“It’s just business.”

A car rumbled by over the brick street.

Then she commented, “We’re saving money, you know.”

He nodded.

“Nice nest egg,” she said.

They were at the corner now. Stopped and looked at each other, breath smoking. “We could go somewhere else,” she said. “Live somewhere else.”

He frowned slightly, just the faintest hint that her words had hurt him, somehow. “I make a good living.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Don’t you love your house?”

“I never dreamed we could live like this.”

He shrugged. “Then let’s go home.”

Shortly, they were enjoying Mary Jane’s corned beef and cabbage, or most of the family was. Young Michael, recently graduated from high chair to oak youth chair, just picked at his food, which his mother had cut into small pieces.

“Too salty,” the boy said.

“Just eat half of it,” his mother said.

“It’s nasty.”

Mike looked sharply at his son.

The boy lowered his gaze, which brought his eyes in closer proximity to the corned beef, and he shuddered.

“I can’t help it,” the boy said. His lower lip extended; his chin crinkled in a familiar preamble...

“If you cry in your food,” his father said matter of factly, “you’ll only make it more salty. Eat half of it. It’ll grow on you.”

The boy frowned in horror. “Grow on me?”

His mother covered her smile with a napkin.

“I mean,” his father said, “someday you’ll acquire a taste for it. You’ll like it when you’re a man.”

“I don’t wanna be a man,” the boy said, “if I have to eat this.”

And he began to cry. The child’s stop-and-start wailing agony ricocheted shrilly off the kitchen walls.

His father stood. Pointed. “Go to your room.”

Still crying, but obviously relieved, the boy climbed down out of the youth chair with the help of Mary Jane, who walked him out of the kitchen. The boy halted and the maid almost stumbled.

“Mama,” he said, pausing in the doorway, looking back at her with red eyes and a tear-streaked face, “will you read to me, anyway?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Will you still tuck me in?”

“I’ll think about it.”

The boy smiled, just a little, through his tears, realizing his victory.

Then the maid and the child were gone. Mike was reaching for his son’s plate to help himself to the extra serving when Annie began to laugh.

“What are you laughing about?”

“Cry in your food,” she said, “you’ll make it saltier.”

He grinned. “Well... it’s what my pop said to me.”

“And look at you today, the corned beef fiend.”

Mike shrugged and dug in.

Half an hour later, she managed, despite her girth, to embrace her husband at the door; she could feel the hardness of the pistol under his arm. She even managed to get up on tiptoes to kiss him on the mouth. Then she settled back on her sore feet and looked up at him, stroking his face.

“Every time I leave the house,” he said, with a funny little smile, “you look at me like... like you’re trying to memorize this puss of mine.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Baby,” he said, “I memorized your kisser a long, long time ago.”

And he gave her a quick smooch and slipped out.

She stood in the doorway and watched him cross to the garage, wondering if he’d avail himself of further weapons from the arsenal out there, kept under tight lock and key.

Annie O’Sullivan loved her life, her storybook life, and yet every time her husband left the house, she had to wonder: how could there be a happy ending, when Mike worked for John Looney?

Two

On Twentieth Street’s bluff, the formidable three-story structure rose castle-like, with its gabled red-tile roofs, ceramic lions, bay windows, sloped turrets, substantial dark-brick walls, and many-pillared porch. The mansion provided its owner a view of the Mississippi River second to none; but also on the mansions below, the homes of high society, his perch enabling the master of this domain to look down upon those who considered themselves his betters.

This had given John Looney no small pleasure, over the years.

The mansion’s interior had a warmth to the eye — walnut paneling, mahogany trim, parquet floors, oriental carpets, massive fireplaces — that did not extend to physical reality. The downstairs, with its high ceilings and various cavernous rooms, was prey to winter chill, wind whistling through, turning the place into the haunted house the local children had long ago deemed it. For all its elegance — Victorian furniture, velvet upholstery, stained glass, ornate mirrors, sparkling chandeliers — the mansion was (Looney had to admit it) good and goddamn cold.

Only when a party — holiday festivities or a wedding reception or the occasioned wake — brought the warmth of other human beings into the sprawling place did Looney’s Roost seem a home, and he’d come to relish such gatherings, accordingly. With Nora gone these eight years, and his daughters off to boarding school, that left only himself and his son Connor to knock around these endless rooms.

When Nora was alive, and the girls underfoot, Looney never conducted business in the mansion — would never think of it! He left such things for his law office or the Java House at the Sherman Hotel; or possibly out at Bel Aire, his second, less ostentatious mansion on the Rock River.

Now, of course, parties at Bel Aire weren’t the family affairs the Roost occasionally put on; they were for men only... and a certain type of woman, the kind who fit in with cockfights in the barn, shooting matches in the yard, and drunken orgies upstairs.

Bel Aire was where Looney entertained the Chicago boys, when they came to town. Looney had been aligned with Johnny Torrio for years, though Looney did not have much faith in the chunky scar-faced youth Torrio was grooming for his heir, a hot headed Sicilian named Capone.

But Looney would have to learn to deal with Capone, and vice versa; as he often said, this business was one of strange bedfellows.

Tonight he’d called a small meeting of a handful of his most trusted associates, and they had gathered at the long table in his library, all seated toward one end. Looney — gauntly handsome, white mustached, in a dark brown suit and gambler’s black string tie — sat at the head. On a chair against the wall behind him, not officially a part of the inner circle, was Michael O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan was Looney’s most trusted lieutenant. In some ways, an odd duck (you’d never find him at a Bel Aire orgy), the war hero had earned himself and his boss respect all around Midwestern mob circles. Looney had loaned Mike out to Chicago numerous times; and somewhere along the line Mike had become a living legend — the Angel of Death, they called him.

This melodramatic sobriquet supposedly derived from O’Sullivan taking no pleasure in killing — it was said he wore a somber, even regretful expression when pulling a trigger.

Though O’Sullivan’s relatively lowly duties included bodyguard and occasional driver, Looney trusted the man like no one else in his organization. Someday there would be a place for Mike at this table; someday, perhaps, at its head.

When such a thought crossed his mind, John Looney would wince, feeling he’d committed a small betrayal against his own blood. At the eventual head of the table — the seat he would one day vacate — should be his son, Connor. But Connor was... a troubled boy.

Looney did not mind that his son had done poorly in school; the reports that Connor was a bully, and a mean one at that, did not discourage him, either. The family business was a brass-knuckle affair, after all. But Connor had other unattractive traits — he was impulsive and violent; and he drank, and he got emotional over women.

Yet John Looney loved his son; he often paired Connor with Mike O’Sullivan, in hopes that Mike’s self-control and professionalism might rub off. That Connor and Mike would form a bond, so that O’Sullivan could sit at Connor’s right hand one day, and help John Looney’s son rule.

Tonight, at the conference table in the booklined room with lamps glowing yellow, Connor sat at his father’s right hand. Connor, wearing a gray suit with vest and dark blue silk tie with diamond stickpin, looked sharp indeed; a youthful version of his father, albeit with a longer nose and slightly weaker chin, and minus the mustache. He seemed to be just a little drunk.

At Looney’s left hand sat the lawyer Frank Kelly, affable and prosperous-looking in a brown suit and red bow tie, a gray-haired fleshy man of fifty with a confident manner. Kelly had been Looney’s law partner since the last century.

Next to the lawyer was Emeal Davis, a brawny cueball-bald black man in a light blue suit with his dark blue derby before him on the table like a meal he was contemplating. In his mid-thirties, Davis oversaw the transporting of liquor, guns, and whores between Rock Island and Chicago.

Across from Davis, seated next to Connor, was a striking blonde in her late twenties, Helen Van Dale. She wore a tight-fitting black satin dress with a lace collar, her hands in white gloves folded primly before her; on the back of her chair was her mink coat (she had not trusted it to the Looney butler). A former whore herself, Helen was the madam who coordinated all prostitution in Looney’s realm.

“Let’s start with the recall effort,” Looney said, hands flat on the table. “Frank, what do you have for me?”

Kelly beamed, leaning back in his chair, arms folded. “We’ll have our people all through the Market Square rally tonight. Both speakers, Harry McCaskrin and Ed Gardner, will be demanding the mayor’s recall, and—”

“I want you to talk to them beforehand,” Looney said.

Frowning, Kelly removed his pocket watch and made a show of checking it. “The rally’s in less than an hour, John — what do you want me to talk to them about?”

“I’ve made a decision,” Looney said. All faces turned toward him expectantly; what trick did the Old Man have up his sleeve this time? “Several prominent, highly respectable citizens have approached me, and I’ve decided to accept their draft.”

Reactions around the table were varied, starting with Kelly, whose face fell, as he said, “You want to run for mayor, John? Why in God’s name?”

Connor was smirking, Helen Van Dale laughing quietly to herself, her full bosom jiggling, Emeal Davis wearing no more expression than a cigar-store Indian.

“We all know Mayor Schriver has to go,” Looney said.

“No argument,” Kelly said. “But this recall passes, we can put in a puppet, and—”

“Why not save myself the trouble of pulling the strings? Frank, you know that I came to this town with political ambitions, only to be viciously quashed by the ruling class. Now I’m in a position to take the reins.”

“John,” the lawyer said, shaking his head, his voice oozing with friendly familiarity, “drumming Schriver out of office is well and good — but a man with your kind of power stays in the shadows... not the spotlight.”

“Pop,” Connor said, “don’t you think bein’ mayor would be kind of a... comedown?”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Helen Van Dale said, savoring her words. “John Looney has found the ultimate way to spit in Rock Island’s eye.”

Kelly was shaking his head again, the mop of gray hair losing its shape, locks drooping onto his brow. “John, I don’t know if McCaskrin will play ball.”

“He’s our man, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but he’s after the nomination for state attorney, and he’s a Republican. You’re a Democrat.”

“Thank you for reminding me, Frank.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll say nothing against you, and he’ll praise you as a good citizen... but endorse your candidacy? I think not.”

Looney shrugged. “Gardner’s a more fiery speaker, anyway. And he’ll jump at the chance to ally himself with us.”

Connor’s eyes and nostrils flared. “Pop! Gardner? You can’t be serious — the guy’s a goddamn socialist!”

“We’ll need the votes of both the socialists and the Democrats to swing it.” Looney turned to O’Sullivan, seated by a table next to a Tiffany-shade lamp, having backed away from its light into darkness. “Mike... join us, would you?”

And Looney gestured to the table.

Slowly, O’Sullivan rose and went to the chair next to Davis. Connor was frowning — having this bodyguard invited to the table where insiders made key decisions, surely galled Looney’s son. But it couldn’t be helped.

“I realize, Mike,” Looney said, “that these socialists stick in your craw.”

O’Sullivan said, “Not up to me, Mr. Looney.”

During the patriotic fever of 1917, socialists like Davenport newspaperman Floyd Dell and his radical writer pal John Reed had led antiwar efforts, preaching peaceful draft resistance and US neutrality. They and other socialists had been treated like traitors by the government.

But along the way, the socialists had become a viable political party, and right now, across the river, Davenport’s mayor was socialist, as were five aldermen and several other elected officials. In Rock Island, the socialists hungered to gain this side of the Mississippi, greedily coveting the mayor’s seat and various city commission seats.

“This has to rub you wrong, Mike,” Looney acknowledged, with a somber shake of his head.

O’Sullivan said nothing.

Connor said, “These socialists are a bunch of blow-hard rabble-rousers! Privileged-class intellectuals who never done an honest day’s work.”

O’Sullivan shrugged. “I can’t disagree with that. But could I ask a question?”

“Of course, Mike,” Looney said. “I want your opinions and advice — that’s why I asked you to sit down with us.”

O’Sullivan leaned forward. “Mr. Looney, surely you can’t respect a bunch of pacifists, who were against the Great War — can you?”

“Mike, me boy, I have no truck with pacifists; I believe a man has to stand and fight for what he believes is right, and that he must redress the wrongs committed against him.”

“As do I, sir.”

“And I respect you and the honor you brought on the Irish Catholic community with your valor.” Looney did not add what he really felt, for fear of truly alienating his top lieutenant: that what went on over there had been England’s war, not the war of a “Free Ireland!” rebel like John Looney.

Who said, “I’m a Democrat like you, Mike. And a capitalist — if you haven’t noticed by now that I’m a capitalist, then you just ain’t been paying attention.”

And O’Sullivan actually smiled at that. So did everyone else at the table.

“All around us workers are going out on strike,” Looney said. “And the unions’re on the rise. That’s good for us — we support the working man, because we want him to relax with the diversions we can offer him, after work... Right, Helen?”

Chuckling, she said, “Right, John.”

Suddenly Emeal Davis, looking sideways at the bodyguard, spoke, in his brooding baritone: “Mike, we make alliances. That’s how we can do what we do. And a lot of working stiffs these days vote socialist. Don’t kid yourself.”

Obviously not liking the sound of any of this, Frank Kelly, pale as a ghost, rose and said, “Well, I better get over there, and make our pitch. Are you willing to run as a socialist, John?”

“No need. It’s a recall ballot. My name will be listed, and that will be enough.”

Distractedly nodding to everyone, Kelly shuffled out.

Looney gave O’Sullivan a hard look. “What do you say, Mike?”

O’Sullivan said, “Mr. Looney, politics aren’t my calling. Anyway — you know I’d follow you into hell.”

“That I do know, son.”

Connor winced at “son,” and Looney immediately regretted using the word. But he was a man who spoke from his heart.

“Tonight, at that rally,” Looney said, “we’ll build support for my candidacy, and stoke the fires that already rage in Rock Island against this mayor.”

“Fueled by the News,” Helen Van Dale said, puckishly. “I start all my fires with copies of the News.”

With a small smile, Looney cast his gaze on the madam. “Do you have more information for me, Helen?”

“If I didn’t, would that stop you? Wouldn’t you just put your most creative reporter in front of a typewriter and let him run wild?”

Helen could get away with this taunting because Looney had great affection for her; and because, next to him, she was the most powerful person in the Tri-Cities.

Much of the information that gave Looney’s scandal sheet, the Rock Island News, its unique leverage came from Helen, who was in a position (so to speak) to know the sins of various and sundry local men. Looney felt no shame for using his newspaper in a so-called “blackmailing” manner that rival publication the Argus had termed “a paper gun held at the heads of his victims.”

Looney merely used the naked truth culled from the lives of these hypocrites to sway them to do his bidding, from paying him off for not running a story to cutting him in for a piece of their action. That was how he’d built his empire: bootleggers, gamblers, and whoremongers had a choice of exposure in the News or taking on a new partner. Right now, John Looney had over one hundred and fifty such partners, who paid him on average four hundred dollars a week in tribute.

“There can be no question that the mayor is feeling the heat,” Looney said. “Which is the other piece of news I have for you — I’m meeting with Mayor Schriver in less than an hour. At his invitation.”

Connor frowned, and Emeal Davis exchanged worried glances with O’Sullivan.

Davis said, “You could be walking into something, Mr. Looney.”

O’Sullivan, sitting forward, asked, “Where is the meeting to be held?”

“Oh, we’re quite safe,” Looney said, with a dismissive wave. “City hall! Right out in the open. Above board.”

Connor said, “What are you meeting with that clown for, anyway? If you’ve decided to run for mayor, already.”

“If the mayor can convince me he is ready to change his ways,” Looney said to his son, “to cooperate with my various requests, to go back to our old arrangements... I will consider taking myself out of the recall equation.”

Davis was nodding. “That sounds reasonable.”

“Emeal, Mike,” Looney said, “I want you to accompany me. Connor, we have dozens of boyos in that Market Square crowd. You circulate. Make sure they do their jobs.”

“You can count on me, Pop.”

Looney stood, motioned with outspread hands, palms up, that the meeting was over.

Connor turned to Helen, and Looney overheard his son say to her, “After the rally, how about I stop by?”

She touched his cheek. “Not tonight, sweetie. Another time.”

And the black-satin madam and her mink coat swished by.

Looney went to his son. “What was that?”

Connor’s eyes went wide with feigned innocence. “What do you mean, Pop?”

“I told you to lay off that...” He turned to make sure Helen Van Dale was gone, but finished in a whisper. “...flesh peddler. You find yourself a nice girl.”

“I’m just havin’ fun. I’m young, yet.”

“You’ll grow old fast, hanging around with whores. You want to catch something?”

Connor frowned, and nodded toward the other side of the room, and O’Sullivan and Emeal Davis, whose proximity meant they could not have avoided hearing the exchange. The father had unintentionally embarrassed his son.

Looney smiled at Connor. “Ah, I’m just an old woman. You’re right, my boy, you’re young... Have a good time. Sow your wild oats.”

Connor grinned. “Thanks, Pop.”

The father raised a forefinger. “After you do your work at the rally.”

“Right.”

Looney patted his offspring on the cheek. “Good boy.”

Then the mob kingpin gathered his two most trusted men, neither of which was his son, and headed out for a meeting with Mayor Schriver.

Market Square, actually a triangle, was the center of rural commerce in this part of Illinois. An open area of hard-packed earth at Seventeenth Street, from Second to Third Avenues, here farmers could sell corn, potatoes, and hay, among other produce, the railroad station only a block away, making shipping a snap.

The rowdy buildings surrounding Market Square housed first-floor restaurants, saloons, and retailers, with upper-floor hotels for farmers and other transients; on the Seventeenth Street and Third Avenue corner stood John Looney’s Sherman Hotel, whose Java House was a wide-open speakeasy and whose upper floors were the bailiwick of madam Helen Van Dale.

At the opposite end of the same block, the stodgy four-story brick Argus newspaper building seemed to avert its many-windowed gaze from the indecency surrounding it; this competitor of the News had made a crusade out of bringing down publisher Looney, who regularly responded to charges with his own assertions of the rival editor’s supposed sojourns at an insane asylum.

At the center of the square squatted an ornate turn-of-the-century pump house with archways and a speaker’s platform bearing built-in electric illumination under a gingerbread roof. On this clear, not terribly cold March evening, streetlamps joined with the glow of the speaker’s platform to provide plenty of light for the several thousand people, primarily men, who had gathered to hear speakers demand the recall of Mayor Schriver.

The first speaker, Harry McCaskrin, a stocky mustached fellow in bowler and topcoat, had a mild appearance but shook his fists in the air, spouting gloriously invective oratory as he railed against the corruption of the mayor’s office, along the way praising the efforts of the editor of the News.

“Without the endeavors of John Looney,” McCaskrin said, nostrils wide, “Rock Island would be a Midwestern Gomorrah!”

Only half-listening to this as he threaded through the receptive crowd of mostly working-class joes in their caps and coats and heavy work shoes, Connor Looney — in a tan camel’s hair topcoat and green Stetson fedora that a month’s pay from any of these hicks wouldn’t cover — smiled, well aware that everything the mayor was being accused of, Connor’s father could match sin for sin.

Cheers and applause met McCaskrin’s attacks, and fliers demanding the mayor’s recall were circulated by Looney’s news boys, some “boys” as old as Connor. The body odor of these lowlifes got to him after a while, and he paused in his efforts — looking for the Looney shills in the crowd, to encourage them on — to have a smoke on the edges of this madness. Leaning against a feedstore window, he watched as McCaskrin bellowed — these orators could really work up a head of steam — and reflected on the brief conversation between his pop and himself, right before Connor headed over here.

Did the Old Man really think Connor could find an over-the-hill floozie like Helen Van Dale attractive? Sure, by some men’s standards, the Van Dale dame still had it; a shape, a nice face, a sassy manner that a guy might go for.

Personally, Connor found it repellent to be with a woman older than himself, and was repulsed by the idea of being with a woman who’d borne a child. To him, only the budding beauties of the early teenage years really appealed. He was no pervert: he wouldn’t be with a girl under, say, twelve.

That was about right, he thought, just as they were becoming women — flat chests, round little bottoms, innocent faces, tiny flappers in the making. Such living dolls were his passion; were, in fact, the only females he could achieve excitement over.

Helen Van Dale knew that, and she kept her eye out for him, when a new young thing came on the market. She saved such morsels for Connor, and she never charged him a dime — out of respect. Connor realized Helen knew which side of the bread the butter went on: that he would one day be the boss of the Tri-Cities, and she had best keep him happy.

And he would rule from Looney’s Roost one day, though it galled him to see his father cater to that underling, Mike O’Sullivan. No question Mike was a good guy and a real top hand with a gun. But the man was Shanty Irish trash, and Connor was blood.

Sometimes he just couldn’t figure his pop — bad enough Mike had been invited to sit at the conference table in the library; must his pop treat that nigger Davis like an equal? Connor understood the coloreds were good customers, and he knew, too, the likes of Davis had connections that were useful.

But his father let that nigger drive for him — was seen in public with him! And the one time Connor had found the nerve to complain about it to the Old Man, a slap had been his reward. That’s what he got, for showing an interest in the family business! The Old Man talked about wanting Connor to be more involved, to think, to express ideas, and then when he did? A fucking slap, like Connor was some whore!

A hat was being passed around now — to finance the recall of Mayor Schriver — and between the Looney goons in the crowd, and the strong pro-Looney, anti-Schriver sentiment in this hooping and hollering riffraff, Connor felt sure no fool would try to make off with that money.

As he studied the throng, Connor noted here and there a pocket of better-dressed, obviously educated folk — teachers, lawyers, clerics, doctors — who were likely among the instigators of this socialist flapdoodle. It bothered him that his father would go along with such traitors.

As his eyes were drifting idly over the crowd, he stopped on a familiar figure — a young man of about eighteen, in a shabby shirt and loose pants and shoes patched with tape. He recognized the boy, who had a distinctive birthmark on one cheek, though he didn’t know the lad’s name.

A week ago, the kid had cornered Connor, who’d been seated alone with a beer in a back booth at the Java House.

The boy had stood before Connor, his face dirty, his light blue eyes wide, his upper lip pulled back over blackened teeth. On his left cheek was a disgusting brown birthmark bristling with little hairs, shaped like a fat C.

“I know what you did to my sister,” he said.

“What? Go away.”

“She went to work for Mrs. Van Dale. She had to do it. We didn’t have no money. She didn’t ask my mama, she just run off... She come back last week, cryin’. With stories about what Mr. Looney’s son did to her... in her... her backside.”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

“You have a dirty mouth, mister.”

“Well, you’re just plain dirty, kid. Beat it!”

“Does your papa know what you do to young girls? Maybe the Argus would pay to know. Maybe Mayor Schriver would.”

“...You want money?”

“No! I want to get even for Colleen! You’re a bad man, mister. Maybe I’ll catch up with you again someday.”

But as the boy stood on the edge of the crowd, he merely seemed to be watching the speaker as McCaskrin riled up the rabble further. Or was this kid here to shadow Connor? To take some stupid hick hayseed revenge upon him?

And now Connor had a new mission for the night. He would keep an eye on the kid. Maybe follow him home, to whatever hovel he’d crawled out of — in Greenbush, maybe, or some shoddy farm. If the kid went to the mayor or the Argus, that would be embarrassing.

Connor might even get slapped again.

“Mayor Schriver,” the speaker was yelling, “is a disease in human form — and he must be eliminated!”

The crowd roared, fists raised, shaking at the sky.

What a buncha rubes, Connor thought, eyes on the boy.

The city hall, which included the police station, was at Third Avenue and Sixteenth Street, a block away from Market Square. The massive three-story brick building, formerly an armory built in the late 1800s, had a one-story jail annex. Because of the rally, Emeal Davis dropped John Looney and Mike O’Sullivan in front, and drove off in search of a parking place.

As they waited, Looney — dapper in a dark topcoat and black homburg — said to his trusted lieutenant, “Maybe His Honor will listen to reason.”

“Maybe,” O’Sullivan said.

It was just cold enough for their breaths to plume. They could hear, like nearby explosions, the applause and cheers at the rally.

“Maybe,” Looney said, “we won’t even have to throw in with these damn socialists.”

“Not my business, sir.”

Looney put his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “How I wish I had a thousand of you.” But he was thinking, How I wish I had one son like you.

Then Davis returned, saying he’d got ten lucky two blocks down, and John Looney took the lead with Davis and O’Sullivan right behind him. The police station was on the bottom floor, and the entryway fed a short flight of stairs on either side down to the police area, while a wide central stairway went up to the offices of the city government.

The mayor’s office was on the third floor; Looney and his two men walked up the metal-plated stairs, their feet making pinging sounds. After hours, free of most employees, the building had a disconcerting stillness, but for some police-station bustle floating up, hollowly. Their footsteps echoed like gunshots off the marble floor; down at the end of the hall, where the mayor’s corner suite of offices waited, two uniformed coppers stood guard.

Looney pretended to recognize the cops, saying “Hello, boys,” and reached past them for the knob of the pebbled-glass MAYOR OF ROCK ISLAND door. Davis and O’Sullivan fell in line behind him.

In a firm, not quite threatening manner, the cop nearest the door placed his hand on Looney’s arm. Looney looked up, eyebrows raised, making sure his expression told the man this act was an affront.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the cop said, a young pale lad who was probably Irish himself, “but we have instructions that only you are to pass.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. Your men here need to stay in the hall. His Honor said to inform you he’s requestin’ a private meeting.”

“Oh. Well, then.” Looney shrugged to his men.

Davis said, “We’ll be right here.”

O’Sullivan said, “You don’t have to take this meeting, John.”

Rarely did O’Sullivan call Looney by his first name; when he did so, it was not out of a lack of respect, rather a show of affection. This was a friend, not a bodyguard, advising him not to go in there.

Looney twitched a pixie smile. “If you hear me holler, boyos, come runnin’.”

“Yes, sir,” Davis said, smiling wide for the first time that evening, and revealing two gold eyeteeth, which even in this dim hallway found light to wink off.

Looney went into the reception area; behind the counter were several desks for the mayor’s secretary and various assistants, all empty at the moment, not surprising for midevening. But leaning against the wall, casually, both smoking cigarettes, in rumpled brown suits that mirrored each other, were two plainclothes men who Looney did recognize — Simmons and Randell. These were the mayor’s personal coppers, his bodyguards, really.

Tough birds.

“Evening, fellas,” Looney said.

“Mr. Looney,” Simmons said, tipping his fedora. He was a big man, six two easily, with a powerful physique, and an impassive homely pockmarked face.

Randell tipped his hat, too, another big man, though only six foot, but beefy; a paunch on him, though his arms were muscular. His face was round and bland with small dark eyes, watermelon seeds stuck in putty.

Looney pushed open the little gate into the private office area, where the two plainclothes men waited, and could feel their gaze on him.

“Should I go on in?” Looney asked, pausing.

“Better knock,” Simmons advised.

And Looney went forward to rap on a pebbled glass door labelled MAYOR HAROLD M. SCHRIVER — PRIVATE.

“Come in!” a deep voice called.

Looney opened the door into the mayor’s large office, its light-green plaster walls hanging with framed diplomas, civic awards, and photographs of the mayor with various dignitaries, local, state, and national. No one could say Harry Schriver had a low opinion of himself.

Along the right wall, as if proof work was done here, were wooden filing cabinets; but snugged against the left wall was a well-worn leather sofa with pillows. The mayor’s desk was central, a massive ancient oak affair, suspiciously free of paperwork — just a phone, an ink blotter, a pen-and-pencil holder, and an ashtray in which a lighted cigar resided, curling smoke. A newspaper, folded, was off to one side.

Shade drawn on the window behind him, in the swivel chair behind the desk, in shirtsleeves and suspenders, sat the would-be Boss Tweed of Rock Island, Illinois.

Stocky Harry Schriver had a disheveled look, due mostly to a pile of graying hair like a pitchfork of straw had been dropped on his head. His eyes were large and dark blue and bulged, giving him a toad-like quality, which his double chin only underscored. His nose and eyes were bloodshot. His Honor obviously did not respect the Volstead Act.

“How kind of you to accept my invitation, John,” Schriver said through a big yellow insincere smile.

Looney, hat in hand, took the visitor’s chair across from the desk; he slipped out of his topcoat — the radiator was working overtime — and draped it over the back of the chair; then he crossed his legs, resting ankle on knee.

The Irish kingpin said, “My pleasure, Harry. I assume you’d like to reopen discussions about our business affairs.”

Schriver’s smile was so tight, his skin seemed about to burst; his eyes had a maniacal gleam. “What’s this I hear about you supporting this goddamn horseshit socialist recall?”

Looney shrugged, gestured mildly. “Well, that’s how America works, Harry. If the people are dissatisfied with their government, they throw the rascals out.”

The smile disappeared, and Schriver waved a thick forefinger at his guest. “The people of Rock Island are behind me. They’re behind me because I’m striking out at lawbreakers like you, Looney!”

Looney merely smiled, folded his arms. “Save your breath, Harry — you’re not out on the campaign stump now. These raids you’ve been having the police make, these charges you’ve been bringing against my people... what can you be thinking of?”

Schriver leaned on an elbow; he withdrew the cigar from the ashtray and puffed it nervously. “I just think Rock Island would be better off without a certain element.”

Looney uncrossed his legs, unfolded his arms; leaned forward. “No, you think you can take over. You think you can run this city and all the vice on top of it. You don’t need a John Looney to oversee things.”

Schriver leaned back, rocking in the swivel chair, cigar jutting. “Maybe I don’t think a city this size needs two bosses.”

“You could be right.” Looney gestured with the homburg. “That’s why I’m throwing my hat in the ring.”

The mayor lurched forward, the cigar almost falling out of his mouth. “What?”

“Well, when you’re recalled, somebody will have to sit behind that desk. Might as well be the one boss this city needs... me own self.”

Schriver turned purple; he grabbed the folded newspaper in both hands and snapped it open for Looney to see — the News, with today’s headline: SCHRIVER’S SHAME, and slightly smaller, NIGHT AND DAY OF FILTHY DEBAUCH IN PEORIA.

“Good to know people in low places,” Looney chuckled. “I have the best sources for tips in the Middle West.”

“These lies stop now,” the mayor said, voice trembling.

Looney drew in a deep breath. Calmly, he said, “This is still America, Mayor Schriver. There’s a little thing called the First Amendment. Freedom of the press.”

Schriver’s upper lip curled back. “There’s a little thing called I don’t give a shit. Boys!”

The door behind him opened, and Looney glanced back to see the two plainclothes dicks enter.

“It’s time,” the mayor said. To them.

Looney frowned, getting up.

The two coppers were climbing out of their suitcoats, letting the garments drop to the floor; their guns were holstered on their hips.

Patting the air, Looney said, “You don’t want to make this mistake, fellas. The likes of the mayor here are a dime a dozen — the John Looneys last a long time.”

“Is that right?” Schriver said, but the voice was next to Looney now. “I think you’ve lasted long enough.”

Looney saw the fist swinging but couldn’t duck, and his thought, his ironic self-mocking thought was, Brass-knuckle business is right, because His Honor was wearing them. The punch shattered Looney’s nose, and he would have gone down on his knees, but the two burly coppers were holding onto him.

Blood running through his mustache into his mouth, Looney half-choked as he asked, “What do you want, Schriver?”

The mayor slammed a fist into Looney’s belly.

Looney, who had ulcers, felt pain streak through him.

“I want a retraction,” the mayor said, “and an apology... in print!”

“All... all right.”

Schriver went back around the desk, opened a drawer, and when he returned, had a length of rubber hose in his hand.

“I... I said I’d apologize... retract it...”

The mayor whacked the rubber hose alongside Looney’s right ear; cartilage snapped like twigs underfoot. “Glad to hear it, John! But that’s the last time I want to see my name in your scandalous, blackmailing rag again, understood?”

“Un... understood...”

The mayor whapped the rubber hose alongside Looney’s left ear. More snapping cartilage.

Looney shrieked, “You’re killing me! You’re fucking murdering me!”

The mayor waved the limp phallus of the rubber hose in Looney’s blood-streaked face. “No, John, I’m just warning you. Warning you that your paper will have one more edition, apologizing to me, before you disappear. Before you go out to your New Mexico ranch and hump cattle or cactus, for all I the hell care. Because, John?”

And the mayor kneed Looney in the groin.

Crying out in agony, spitting blood, Looney screamed, “Help! Mike! Emeal! For God’s sake!”

“They’re not available, John. What was I saying? Oh yes, because if I or any of my men see you in Rock Island two days from now, you’ll be shot on sight.”

Looney, barely conscious, said nothing, held up like a rag-doll by the coppers.

The mayor tossed the bloody rubber hose on the desk and then flexed his hands. “I’m tired, fellas. You work him over for a while. I’ll just watch.”

And they did, and the mayor did.

Three

In recent years, Michael O’Sullivan had rarely felt helpless.

He had survived the war, when many around him in the trenches had not. And he had returned to America with a new confidence and a fatalistic outlook that served him well. Along the way, he had earned the allegiance of John Looney, even as he paid Mr. Looney that same respect.

But as he stood in the city hall hallway, next to his friend and fellow Looney aide Emeal Davis, O’Sullivan felt helpless indeed, hearing the cries of his chief, the agonized calls for help, the pitiful shrieking from beyond the pebbled glass doorway guarded by the two armed police officers.

“They’re killing him in there,” O’Sullivan said to the pale young cop, over the muffled yet all too distinctive cries of pain.

“I have my orders,” the young cop said; something in the man’s voice said he did not necessarily relish these orders.

“Nothing’s keeping you here,” the other cop said. He was about thirty with a chiseled look and eyes that conveyed a cynical acceptance of his lot in life. He clutched his nightstick in his right hand, tapping it into the open palm of his left, to produce a rhythmic, suggestive thumping.

Looney cried, “Sweet Jesus!”

This was not a prayer.

Trembling with rage, Emeal Davis stepped forward and raised a pointing finger. “We’re not putting up with that — that’s our boss in there!”

The chiseled copper said, “Don’t wag your finger at me, nigger. Get the hell out while you still can.”

Davis’s eyes were wild, and O’Sullivan knew the man was seconds away from drawing down on the officers and storming the office and taking back their boss. O’Sullivan grabbed Davis by the elbow, shot him a hard look, and took several steps back, as did Davis, his eyes now hooded and ominous.

Looney’s cries continued.

“We can go,” O’Sullivan whispered. The two men were huddled against the opposite wall while the coppers eyed them. “And we should.”

Davis whispered back harshly: “And leave Mr. Looney in there, to be beaten to death?”

“I don’t think the mayor brought him here to kill him. Just to teach John Looney a lesson.”

“But the Old Man’s health is frail...”

“Emeal, he’s strong at heart. He’s got spine.”

Undercutting O’Sullivan’s argument, a shrill cry of pain from Looney emanated from the closed office door. The pale young cop swallowed; the older one swung that nightstick into his palm again, harder now.

“You could always go get reinforcements,” the smug older cop said, thump, thump, thump. “We only have thirty-five, forty fellas on hand, downstairs.”

O’Sullivan stepped forward, holding an arm out to keep Davis back. “I know you’re just doin’ your job, gents.”

With a curt nod, O’Sullivan took Davis by the arm, and on the first-floor landing Davis glared at his companion. The dark blue derby was at a jaunty angle, and the effect, with the intense clenched anger, was almost comic.

Almost.

Whispering, Davis said, “You and me can take those two lads out, easy. Schriver’s probably got his bully boys, Randell and Simmons, in there, working John over, tenderizin’ him like a bad cut of beef. We can take them out, one two, and His Honor’ll be shakin’ in the corner.”

“Can we do that without firing a shot?” O’Sullivan asked. “Without attracting the boys in blue down below?”

Davis’s eyes tightened in doubt. “Well... I say we take the risk.”

“I say we take Mr. Billy Club’s advice.”

“What advice?”

“Seek reinforcements.”

O’Sullivan took Davis by the arm again, and they went quickly down the stairs and out into the night. At the top of the steps, city hall at their back, the two men could hear the cheers, the applause, the shouts, the intensity of which had grown considerably since they’d gone inside.

“If our triggermen rush the police station,” O’Sullivan said, “then every Looney enemy on both sides of the river’ll have all they need to end our endeavor, forever.”

Davis frowned, his breath steaming through flared nostrils like an angry bull. “Goddamnit. You’re right, Mike. Schriver’d be the kingpin of the Tri-Cities. But he’s killin’ John in there!” O’Sullivan walked down to the sidewalk, Davis following. “Emeal, if Harry kills John, it’ll only be ’cause it got out of hand. He means to take our friend to the woodshed. Take him down as many pegs as pegs there are.”

They walked across the street and faced each other.

Davis said, “John may not survive.”

“That’s true. Schriver’s risking that — you know how cozy the Old Man is with Chicago. Torrio and Capone would come down on this town with biblical fire. When the smoke cleared, Schriver would be dead, and some Chicago pawn would have the local throne.”

Davis was shaking his head. “Mike — I never heard you talk like this. You always seem like you’re just... in the background; but you been listenin’, ain’t ya?”

“I haven’t been asleep.”

Providing O’Sullivan with applause, the crowd a block over roared.

O’Sullivan began to walk toward Market Square, and Davis put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Mike, I parked down the other way.”

“Never mind the car. We’re going over to the rally.”

“Why?”

O’Sullivan flashed the derby-sporting gangster a small nasty smile; put a brotherly hand on the man’s shoulder.

“If an angry local populace rushes city hall, Emeal, seeking release of their champion, John Looney... serving that recall on His Honor a bit early... then we’d have our way, wouldn’t we? And take no blame.”

Davis had the expression of a man who’d been slapped; but then he grinned, the gold teeth gleaming. “You ain’t been asleep, Mike. Not in the least bit.”

Connor Looney, on the sidelines, was watching the socialist speaker, Gardner, further inflame the flock. A skinny man with a narrow face and sharp features, Gardner wore a black suit with string tie; with his Lincolnesque features, his itinerant preacher air, the orator played the crowd like a goddamn nickel kazoo.

“It is not enough to remove Harry M. Schriver,” Gardner was saying in a spike-edged baritone, “we must look to the fearless newspaperman who has sought to bring our besmirched city back within the bounds of peace, propriety, and happiness. The next mayor of Rock Island, my friends, must be... John... P... Looney!”

As fists were raised, shaking wildly, and whistles and squeals and yells swam a sea of applause, Connor revised his opinion of throwing in with these socialists. The speaker was at once a rabble-rouser, full of fiery idealism; and yet just the kind of pushover they could control. The previous speaker, McCaskrin, had toed the Looney line, but stopped short of endorsing the Old Man as the replacement candidate.

This skinny clown had gone all the way, however, due to a whisper (and probably a few bucks) from Frank Kelly, who could be glimpsed hovering near one side of the platform.

Then Connor noted a figure moving through the crowd, against the tide: it was that nigger Davis! Seeking out the Looney shills dotted around the square; Davis would pause to speak to each of them, receiving nods in return, and the shills were then moving out through the crowd themselves, animatedly talking to rally attendees as they went.

Connor dropped his cigarette to the pavement, frowning. What was up, anyway?

Then he saw another familiar figure — Michael O’Sullivan — moving through the bobbing heads up near the pump-station platform. Had his father made a last-minute decision to speak to this gathering, himself?

But then he spotted that plump leprechaun Frank Kelly going up the side stairs toward the platform, followed by Mike, who stopped the lawyer, whispered to him, Kelly nodding, only to continue on up. Then Mike slipped back down the stairs and was swallowed up by the throng.

Frowning in thought, Connor was watching the stage when he realized Emeal Davis was again moving through the crowd, coming toward him now; Davis had an intense expression, and Connor immediately knew something big was afoot.

Quickly Davis filled Connor in on the situation at city hall, and told him that even now the Old Man was being beaten to a pulp by Schriver and his bully boys.

“Those pricks!” Connor said, hands tightened into balls, face flushed red. “Let’s storm the fuckin’ place!”

Davis said, patting the air with his hands like a damn minstrel, “Take it easy, boyo — that’s exactly what we plan to do. But Mike’s got a way to do it, a special way...”

“Mike? Who died and put him in charge? With my pop in custody, that makes me the man who makes the decisions! Haul Mike’s ass over here, and I’ll tell him what to do.”

“Connor, it’s a good plan...”

“I’m not ‘Connor’ to you, Sambo. It’s ‘Mr. Looney’ or you can get your black ass out of my family’s business.”

Davis swallowed. “I know you’re upset... but this plan is a good one, and it’s already in motion.”

And it was, too: on the stage, Gardner had interrupted his spiel momentarily while Frank Kelly whispered into his ear. Nodding, the scarecrow-esque Gardner raised his hands as if the victim of a holdup; but the crowd, milling and murmuring during the lull in the speech, hushed.

“I am given to understand,” the sharp voice said, in crisp single words that shot verbal bullets across Market Square, “that the mayor has taken John Looney into custody!”

A wave of discontent rumbled across the throng. Heads shook in distressed disbelief.

Davis said to Connor, “Just listen and watch.”

“Not on any criminal charge, mind you,” the speaker went on, “but virtually kidnapped — and John Looney is as we gather here in peaceful, lawful assembly being beaten behind closed doors at city hall!”

Cries of “No! No!” went up, interspersed with, “Bastards!” “Sons of bitches!” and Connor — his opinion swaying — watched with satisfaction as the crowd began to transform itself into a mob. Really quite entertaining...

And now the speaker drove in the final nail: “Yes — just one block from here...” And he pointed. “...your candidate for mayor is being thrashed within an inch of his life by His Dishonor, Harry Schriver, and his crooked thugs who call themselves police!”

Connor thought, For a goddamn socialist, this guy takes orders well.

And now, all around, voices were raised: “Let’s go! Let’s save him!” Still others: “Save John Looney!” And (best of all, to Connor’s taste): “Hang Harry Schriver!”

That these “spontaneous” eruptions came from the Looney men sprinkled throughout the gathering revealed how effective Mike’s plan had been, how quickly he and Davis had passed the word and organized this attack. Even Connor could see that.

But he couldn’t let Davis know, so he said, feigning displeased reluctance, “Well, it’s too late now — we’ll go with it! Keep stirring up the shit. I’ll do the same.”

Davis nodded and disappeared in the crowd, which was already swarming toward the business district between them and city hall. God, it was great! Connor watched with delight as the crowd of appleknockers and dirty necks turned from shuffling discontent into full-bore hatred and malice.

The ungeneraled underclass army marched, their war cries guttural, nonverbal howls mostly, the injustices they’d suffered at various hands boiling over within them into the rage they’d forced down for so long, and were all too eager to spill. Connor watched with glee as the men found impromptu weapons — bottles, rocks, boards. Still, it didn’t seem to the son of John Looney quite enough — not enough to pay Mayor Schriver back for disrespecting the Looneys, and not enough... well... fun.

“Guns!” Connor yelled, pointing at a hardware store window. “Arm yourselves! There are cops in that building!”

A gaggle of rabble surged forward, and Connor, laughing to himself, stepped aside and watched as the window shattered under hurled rocks, and the door was battered down. He leaned against a wall half a block away while the unruly clodhoppers poured in and poured out of the hardware store, half-climbing over each other, shouting inanities, armed now with rifles and handguns they were loading on the run from boxes of ammunition they’d looted, and others — once the guns had run out — found pitchforks and wrenches and other tools easily turned toward destruction.

The example of the hardware store inspired the hurling of bricks and rocks through other retail windows, for the sheer sweet hell of it; rioters were pulling down trolley lines, too, throwing rocks at streetcar conductors. Here and there were stalled automobiles, windows rolled up tight, the terrified eyes of passengers taking in the streaming madness all around. Not all the wrath was righteous, as some rioters began to loot, figures darting into the night with their spoils, away from those swarming toward city hall.

Market Square had almost emptied out when fate did Connor a favor.

Another figure lurked on the sidelines, just down the street from him, leaning against a building by the mouth of an alley: that kid with the birthmark and the shabby clothes. The boy would not likely be a Looney booster, not with what had happened to his sister at Helen Van Dale’s. No, the lad had come around out of curiosity, for the big show, and was getting a bigger eyeful than he’d anticipated.

Connor glanced around. A few stragglers were still charging over toward city hall. A scattering of others around the hard-dirt, brochure-littered area, stood watching, rather stunned, the parade literally passing them by. For the most part, though, the square had been abandoned, as the mob moved on to city hall.

The boy with the birthmark jumped when Connor stuck the gun in his side.

The boy turned toward Connor, the light blue eyes wide, the mouth with its scummy teeth gaping. “You!”

“Yeah, me, kid. Head down the alley.”

“What?”

“Do I stutter? Head the hell down. There’s a fence at the end. See if you can make it over.”

“What... what do you mean... see if...”

Connor cocked the .38 in his grasp; it was a tiny sound and yet so very loud.

“I’m giving you a chance, kid. Run. Run down that alley and don’t come back. Don’t never threaten me again.”

The boy shook his head, his hands grasped before him, pleadingly. “I was... I was just talkin’, mister. I was mad about my sister. Wouldn’t you be?”

“Run. Hell, you might make it. Do it now.”

The boy’s face crinkled up, like he was going to cry, and then, from his dead stop, he bolted down the alley.

Connor walked after him — not even particularly fast — and the kid was almost over the fence when Connor fired. The report of the .38 echoed off the brick of walls and paving, bouncing like an ever-diminishing ball; but these were only a handful of sounds, in a night filled with violent sounds, many so much louder.

And the boy didn’t make any sound. Well, maybe a whimper. He just slid down the wooden fence, leaving a thin red trail, like a child’s crayon scrawl. He lay sprawled with his head against the fence, angled between garbage cans, and there wasn’t even a shudder of life leaving him — he’d been dead halfway down the fence.

Connor knelt over the body, just to be sure.

Dead, all right. Right through the pump...

He got to his feet, grunting a humorless laugh. Stupid damn kid. That’s what he got, screwing with Connor Looney. Or maybe it was what his sister got, for screwing with Connor Looney...

Connor grunted another laugh, this one mirthful.

Then he turned and had a start — a figure was silhouetted at the alley’s mouth.

“What the hell did you do?” Michael O’Sullivan demanded, stepping into a shaft of moonlight.

Gun in hand but at his side, Connor walked forward, slowly. “It’s personal.”

O’Sullivan met him halfway, footsteps clipclopping off the brick. “This was business, tonight. This is about saving your father’s life. Or aren’t you interested?”

“Just keep it to yourself, Mike. What you saw. You don’t wanna know what it was about — trust me.”

“Trust you? Sure. Why wouldn’t I trust you, Connor?”

“You gonna tell my pop?”

“Tell him what? That while he lay bleeding, you used this riot to cover up some personal score?”

Connor shook his head, forcefully. “People’ll get hurt tonight. Shot. This kid may not be the only kill. Who’s to know?”

O’Sullivan said nothing.

“Swear you won’t tell my pop, Mike!” Connor shoved the gun in the other man’s chest.

O’Sullivan swatted the gun from Connor’s hand like an annoying fly. The gun hit hard on the brick alley but luckily did not discharge.

“What if your wife knew about things you done?” Connor said, backing up. He was afraid and trying not to cry. “Or your little boy, maybe!”

O’Sullivan moved so quickly Connor didn’t see it coming, latching onto young Looney’s topcoat lapels and slamming him hard into a brick wall, making his teeth rattle.

Nose to nose, O’Sullivan said to the trembling Connor, “Don’t ever bring my family into this. Ever. Or I’ll kill you. Understood?”

“Y-yes...”

O’Sullivan drew back a step but did not let go. “I won’t tell your father because it would break his heart to know what a vicious little coward his son is.”

“I... I appreciate that, Mike... It’s... it’s white of you.”

“I don’t know who that boy is or why you cut him down. But you will send ten thousand dollars of your money to his family, anonymous.”

“What?”

“That’s the price of my silence.”

“...All right. All right — god-damnit!”

“I want to see the cash, Connor. I want to see it go into the envelope. I want to see it mailed.”

“Okay, okay!”

O’Sullivan took another step back, his hands still on Connor’s lapels. “Now... if you don’t mind, I have to get over to city hall. Your old man’s ass needs saving.”

And O’Sullivan again shoved Connor against the wall, and headed briskly out of the alley.

But, as Connor was stooping to pick up the .38, O’Sullivan paused at the alley’s mouth to look back and say, “You might want to get over to city hall yourself and help keep the crowd stirred. Hanging around a murder scene is stupid, Connor... even for you.”

And O’Sullivan was gone.

Connor picked up the .38, shoved it in the holster under his arm, then bent over and put his hands on his knees and breathed deep, breathed deep again, and again.

Fucker, Connor thought, and smiled. Got the best of you, you self-righteous fucker...

Straightening, he glanced back at the crumpled birthmarked boy. “And you, punk. And you.”

And Connor, walking with renewed confidence, strolled out across the square, heading over toward city hall, where it was getting pretty damn noisy.

A disgusted O’Sullivan entered the Sherman Hotel and crossed quickly to the bank of telephone booths along the left-hand wall. Tumbleweed might have rolled between the overstuffed furniture and potted plants, so empty was the lobby.

Behind the check-in desk, the skeletal clerk in bow tie and suspenders looked fidgety, fearing no doubt that the riot would spill inside; the clerk recognized O’Sullivan but said nothing, though his eyes followed the lobby’s only other inhabitant. The hotel’s coffee shop, the Java House — which served gin in its coffee cups — had shuttered, as had other speaks in the downtown district, afraid of the contagious chaos that had emerged from Market Square.

Inside a booth, O’Sullivan dropped a nickel in and dialed a number that required referring to neither city phone directory nor his little black book (with the names and numbers of politicians and fixers, not skirts).

John Looney’s top lieutenant knew the unlisted home phone number of Police Chief Tom Cox by heart.

O’Sullivan listened as the phone rang, going unanswered; he wouldn’t have been surprised if the thing had been off the hook, since Cox no doubt knew by now that rioters were at the gates of his castle, and wanted to stay well away.

Tom Cox was a stocky sandy-haired copper who’d come up through the ranks. His reputation as a tough bull and an advocate of the third degree was epitomized by his favorite catchphrase: “Throw the bum in the slammer.”

But shortly after achieving the position of chief, Cox became a John Looney associate, receiving a cut from all brothels, gambling, and bootlegging. Whores were the man’s weakness, and Helen Van Dale had enough on the chief to keep him in Looney’s control a few days past forever.

A police chief in Rock Island could serve under any number of mayors; so a long-term relationship with Tom Cox had benefits beyond those of any mere office holder.

Just when O’Sullivan was about to give up, a raspy voice answered: “Yeah, what? I’m busy!”

“Tom, it’s Mike O’Sullivan. You know what’s going on down at city hall?”

The response was weary and wry: “Recall rally’s gettin’ a little out of hand, I hear.”

“Laugh it off if you like, Tom. But they broke into a couple hardware stores and helped themselves to guns and bullets. You’re minutes away from a shooting war.”

“Christ... Well, if you think I’m drivin’ over there to have a little of it, Mike, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”

O’Sullivan’s voice took on an edge. “Tom — did you know what Schriver had in mind for John?”

“Of course not,” the chief growled.

But it wasn’t convincing.

“Tom, if you tell me the truth, I’ll understand. You’re between a rock and a hard place, with your allegiance to John, same time working under Schriver. So just tell me.”

“Mike, I didn’t know.”

Still not sold, O’Sullivan said, “If you lie to me, Tom... I’ll be unhappy.”

A long silence followed.

Then, a sniveling Cox returned to the wire: “I figured they’d just work him over a little, throw a scare into the Old Man. Only, from what my captain down there says, they’ve half-killed the poor sod.”

“If those rioters get inside that building,” O’Sullivan said, slowly, carefully, “and see what Schriver and his bully boys have done to John Looney, they’ll burn the place down.”

“Anarchy. Anarchy. How could it come to this? How could this happen?”

“I have no idea,” O’Sullivan lied.

“Mother of mercy, what can we do?”

“Call your captain and have him let me and Emeal Davis in. We’ll fetch John.”

“Mike, if you haul a bloody and battered John Looney out of there, that crowd’ll blow a gasket!”

“Not if you have a Black Maria waiting in the police garage. We’ll haul the Old Man over to St. Anthony’s. If the rioters do storm your bastille, Tom, well, they won’t find a half-dead John Looney inside, to inflame them further.”

Another long silence followed.

Then Cox said, “No better plan comes to me. Mike, we’ll try it your way. Give me five minutes.”

O’Sullivan exited the booth and the hotel, meeting up with Emeal Davis out front, as they’d prearranged. He filled Davis in, heading across the now all-but-deserted Market Square, scattered with discarded recall brochures, toward the hullabaloo. Traffic had disappeared, as if every vehicle in downtown Rock Island had been sucked into the sky.

As the two Looney soldiers approached city hall, they found Third Avenue and Sixteenth Street clogged with humanity, the full moon conspiring with streetlamps to throw a yellowish ivory glow on a surreal urban landscape, the surrounding buildings black against the gray heavens, looming like giant tombstones. It seemed to O’Sullivan that these men had become less than themselves, and more, swallowed up in the breathing, moving organism that was a mob.

“This thing,” Emeal yelled into Mike’s ear (and yet it was like a whisper), “has got a mind of its own.”

“Nothing to be done but live with it,” O’Sullivan yelled. “And use it... for John.”

From the stormy sea of bobbing heads and upraised fists — holding weapons, bricks, and boards, and handguns and rifles — an ongoing rumble of dissatisfaction erupted every few moments into shouted accusations and yelled admonitions. Eyes were wild, gums bared over teeth; the jungle beneath the skin of civilization was showing through.

At the front of city hall, a short flight of stairs rose on either side to the double doors where Looney, O’Sullivan, and Davis had earlier entered; tucked under the porch-like landing were another set of double doors, leading into the police station. From these poured a contingent of cops in uniform, with riot guns, shotguns, and handguns, streaming out in twin ribbons of blue, fanning out either way across the face of the building.

This did not go over well with the crowd, separated from them by a narrow strip of brick street. Like Apaches, the rioters raised rifles high in clenched fists and filled the night with non-verbal, animal war cries.

Then, finally, some damn fool pulled a trigger.

The rioters began to fire their weapons — into the air, mostly, some firing at city hall itself, high over the heads of the row of cops, who were doing their best not to cower, as slugs dug holes in the brick building, spitting back chunks and slivers and flakes to rain down upon the scared-shitless guardians in blue below.

Through this volatile crowd, gunfire snapping in the air like dozens of whipcracks, O’Sullivan and Davis made their way; it took ten minutes to traverse the few yards. While a sporadic barrage of shots continued to emerge from the mob, the coppers out front aimed their weapons but did not fire — which seemed to O’Sullivan a miracle.

Then he and Davis stepped into the no-man’s land that was about half of Third Avenue, that brick strip between cops and rioters, and held up their hands as they went, turning their backs to the cops. The gunfire abated, as the rioters — many standing on their toes and jumping up, to see what was going on — reacted to the two men in civilian clothes going across that unofficial barrier toward the enemy camp.

Not completely unaware of the irony, O’Sullivan yelled, “We’re Looney men!”

Davis echoed him, and no one from the mob tried to stop them or, better yet, shoot them.

O’Sullivan approached a cop he recognized, Sergeant Bill O’Malley, who was in the midst of the row of armed coppers.

“Bill, your captain’s expecting us,” O’Sullivan yelled, over the war whoops of the crowd. “I’m here at Chief Cox’s behest.”

O’Malley accepted this with a nod, and sent them up the stairs, unaccompanied, where they paused on the landing to look out at the teeming force that O’Sullivan had unleashed.

It was one of the most frightening sights of Michael O’Sullivan’s life — which was no small thing.

Just inside the door, Captain James Doherty met them, a solemn-faced, redheaded, green-eyed uniformed cop, loyal to his chief. Quickly he escorted the two Looney soldiers up to the third-floor hallway, where the two uniformed cops still stood guard.

O’Sullivan let Doherty do the talking.

“We have a full-scale riot out there,” the captain told the two sentries, gesturing toward the muffled popping gunfire. “There’s still a shotgun or two downstairs. Position yourselves on the landing, boys — guard the city hall front gates.”

The older smug cop, who’d threatened the Looney body guards with his nightstick before, frowned and said, “We have orders from the mayor to maintain this post.”

Doherty stepped forward and his face was inches from his subordinate’s. “These orders come straight from Chief Cox — this riot situation has developed subsequent to the mayor’s orders, and supersedes them. Assume your new assignment, or I’ll have you removed and put behind bars.”

In an eyeblink, the two sentries had abandoned this post for their new one.

Captain Doherty turned his seemingly placid green eyes on O’Sullivan and Davis and, very quietly, said, “I have to go down to stand with my men. We have under forty to try to hold back a mob of two thousand... I don’t know what you intend to do in the mayor’s office, and I don’t want to know. Neither does Chief Cox... Understood, gents?”

“Understood. The Black Maria is standing by?”

“Yes. I have a driver posted downstairs.” He handed a slip of paper with a phone number to O’Sullivan. “Call when you’re ready. He’ll bring up a stretcher.”

Then the captain, too, was gone.

O’Sullivan withdrew his .45 Colt automatic, like him a veteran of the Great War. Davis reached under his baby-blue suitcoat for his long-barreled .38, slung under his arm in a handtooled leather holster worthy of Wyatt Earp.

“We try not to kill anybody,” O’Sullivan said.

“You say so,” Davis said, noncommittally.

In the outer office, O’Sullivan slipped out of his topcoat and slung it over the counter, to be less encumbered. Davis wore no topcoat, just that spiffy blue suit with derby. O’Sullivan led the way through the little gate to the door that said MAYOR HAROLD M. SCHRIVER — PRIVATE.

Not knowing whether it was locked or not, O’Sullivan took no chances; the mayor had undoubtedly been informed by phone or otherwise of the impending danger outside and may well have locked himself in. So the rescuer raised his right foot and kicked it open, the door springing off its hinges and the pebbled glass shattering under the impact, chunks falling like melting sheets of ice.

His shoes crunching shards as he entered, O’Sullivan took position to the right of the doorway, leaving the left for Davis, who immediately followed, and both men fanned their guns around the startled tableau within.

John Looney, barely conscious, lay asprawl on his back on the leather couch against the left wall; his white shirt was spattered with blood, the brown suit rumpled, dark dried patches of blood on it, too. The mayor sat behind his desk, leaned back in his swivel chair, and his two bruisers, pockmarked Simmons and round-mugged Randell, sat in a pair of hardback chairs, facing the couch but not close by. All three men were in shirtsleeves, white cloth splotched with blood. The two burly cops were hunkered over, as if exhausted.

“Tuckered out, boys?” O’Sullivan said.

“Takes it out of you,” Davis said, “whompin’ a helpless old man.”

Simmons sneered and went for his holstered gun; the weapon was half out of its hip holster and the plainclothes dick was three-quarters up out of the chair when O’Sullivan’s .45 slug took the top of his head off and splashed a covered bridge depicted in watercolor on a 1922 calendar over the file cabinets. Small spatters of blood marked various dates.

The dead Simmons tumbled back over his chair and lay in an awkward V half between the toppled chair and the files.

“Jesus!” the mayor said, on his feet; but he had sense enough to lay his hands flat on the desktop.

The other cop, Randell, remained seated; his bland moon face was largely emotionless, though his left eye was twitching. Slowly he raised his hands.

Davis, near the door, threw his comrade a look that said, Try not to kill anybody, huh? which O’Sullivan ignored, saying, “Got a gun back there, Your Honor?”

The toad-like mayor, trembling with rage and fear, said, “Are you crazy? Out of your minds?”

“We’re Looney,” Davis said, gold teeth glittering.

Schriver was sputtering, words rushing out: “You don’t just waltz in the mayor’s office and start shooting the place up! There’s forty cops downstairs, you fools! You killed one of their brothers! You’ll fry for this.”

“Those forty cops,” O’Sullivan said, “have their hands full with two or three thousand voters who want your fat ass out from behind that desk... Speaking of which, go stand by the corpse and put your hands up. High.”

Swallowing, the now-speechless mayor did that very thing, revealing the front of his gray pants as glistening wet, which O’Sullivan found gratifying — the two Looney soldiers were making their point.

O’Sullivan got behind the desk and used the mayor’s phone to call the number Captain Doherty had provided.

In the meantime, Davis knelt beside Looney, whose face was battered and swollen, decorated with shades of blue, black, orange, and red, his eyes almost shut, like a heavyweight fighter in the final round.

O’Sullivan strolled from behind the desk to where the mayor stood; the stench of urine wasn’t pleasant.

“Harry,” O’Sullivan said, “it’s a damn shame a brave officer like Simmons there had to catch a stray bullet in this riot. He’ll deserve a commendation.”

The mayor’s chin was quivering. “You really think I’d cover for you, O’Sullivan?”

“Well, Harry, you best convince me such, right now — or both you and Randell can join Simmons in hell.”

The mayor whitened; then he lurched to one side and fell to his knees and vomited.

In a voice that tried to sound calm but had a warble in it, Randell said, “Harry’ll cover for you. If he doesn’t, I’ll kill him for you myself, Mike.”

“I believe you,” O’Sullivan said. Then to the mayor, he said, “Stand up, Harry.”

The smell in the enclosed space was awful.

Davis glanced over with his face balled up. “What the hell did you have for supper, Harry? Christ!”

The mayor got to his feet, looking less than dignified in his pissed pants and with puke-stubble around his mouth.

But doing his best, the mayor said, “It’s... it’s sad to lose a fine... fine man like Lieutenant Simmons to a... a... unruly mob.”

O’Sullivan nodded. “We’re in this together, Harry. You see, I’m doing you a favor.”

“A... a favor?”

“That’s right. That’s why Chief Cox paved the way for this.”

The mayor couldn’t hold back a sneer at word of this predictable betrayal.

“If those thousands rush this building,” O’Sullivan said, “and find out what you and your boyos did to John Looney... they’ll lynch you, sure.”

The mayor frowned in the realization of the truth of these words.

“Both of you,” O’Sullivan said, throwing a glance at the surviving dick. “The way Simmons went out will start to look merciful.”

The mayor nodded.

His hands still up, Randell said, “You’re right, Mike. For God’s sake, get John outa here.”

Davis was looking through the open door into the outer office. “John’s ride is here,” he said.

“Okay,” he said to Davis. “Let’s you and me drunk-walk John out to the stretcher — no need for another witness to this tragedy... Harry, I’d advise dumping your boy on the street somewhere.”

The mayor swallowed and nodded.

Randell said, “I’ll handle it personally, Mike. Nobody but us here in this room will know.”

“That’s how I want it,” O’Sullivan said.

Looney’s two men, each with a gun in one hand, got on either side of their barely conscious boss and eased him to his limp feet.

From the doorway, as he hauled Looney in tandem with Davis, O’Sullivan glanced back with a tiny smile, and said, “Gents? If you do decide to cross me, make sure you kill me. You wouldn’t like bein’ on my bad side.”

Within moments, Looney was on a stretcher that a young uniformed cop and Davis were bearing down the stairs. The gunfire outside had resumed, but it remained limited to shots in the air and high assaults on the building itself — posturing, so far, not open warfare. O’Sullivan, in his topcoat again, the .45 still in hand, followed as they carted the now unconscious Looney through the empty station to the garage and into the waiting paddy wagon.

Davis rode with Looney, and O’Sullivan sat in front while the young copper drove the bulky black vehicle. The garage was around back, and away from the crowd, so getting out to open and close the door — a chore O’Sullivan handled — was no problem. Pushing through the crowd itself was slow, and rioters banged on the metal sides, making dull clangs; but nobody took a shot, and in five minutes they were clear of the riot scene.

Just before they slipped away, however, O’Sullivan spotted a familiar face at the rear of the crowd: Connor Looney, watching the Maria depart. The Old Man’s son was not one of those yelling or waving a gun... In fact, Connor looked eerily calm, a terrible smile glazed on his face.

No man on earth, Michael O’Sullivan decided, had a worse smile than Connor Looney... nor was there likely any man who wore a smile more often, at such inappropriate times.

“Where to?” the wide-eyed young cop behind the wheel asked.

“St. Anthony’s Hospital,” O’Sullivan said.

Unaware that his wife was already a patient there.

Four

The riot outside city hall ended only when the police began to fire volley after volley into the mob.

How the coppers had held up so long was anybody’s guess — shots fired over their heads, bricks breaking windows, stones tossed their way. Such dangerous indignities could not forever be withstood.

But they did not fire spontaneously — they waited for Captain Doherty’s orders, which were to shoot to wound, and thanks to the captain’s caution, not one of the rioters was killed, although around twenty did go down bleeding. One malcontent climbed a pole and tried to cut an electric line, presumably to plunge the building into darkness, but a police shot picked him off, an arc light coming down with him, sputtering to the crowd in a shower of sparks.

Finally the mob dispersed, hauling away their casualties into the downtown. There they lingered, however, roaming and occasionally looting. But by dawn Market Square and the block between it and city hall were deserted, albeit resembling a battle field — spent shells, bricks, rocks, shards of glass, chunks of wood, strewn like ominous refuse.

The next morning, the governor — receiving a call not from Chief Cox but from the sheriff — declared martial law and six hundred militia from Galesburg, Monmouth, Sterling, and Geneseo poured in, mobilizing at the Rock Island Armory. Public speeches and meetings were forbidden — groups on the street could be no larger than two. For several days, these uniformed soldiers patrolled the streets with rifle in hand.

But this cavalry arrived after the fact, the rioters long gone. Schriver’s police raided speakeasies and bawdy houses, and thirty-four arrests were made. The opening gun of this “clean-up campaign” was closing down the Rock Island News on charges of “indecency,” with eighteen employees, mostly newsboys, arrested.

Mayor Schriver’s efforts to quell John Looney’s power of the press were, ironically, seriously undercut by the other Tri-Cities papers — even the archenemy Argus.

His face bruised and decorated with bandages, including one around his head that brought to mind the Spirit of ’76, John Looney — midmorning of the day after — held court in his hospital gown from his bed in a private room at St. Anthony’s, in the modern wing his money had largely made possible. His eyes almost swollen shut, the publisher of the Rock Island News clearly wasn’t faking.

An armed bodyguard, Emeal Davis, was posted outside the door; and at Looney’s bedside sat the patient’s son, Connor, solemn and dressed in black, as if his father had passed away (despite the man’s presence next to him). Already the place was filled with flowers; to Connor Looney, it was more like sitting in the winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby than the sick room of a guy who just got the shit kicked out of him.

But Connor was impressed by the crowd his old man had drawn. In addition to the Argus, Moline Dispatch, and Davenport Democrat, reporters had come from as far away as the Register in Des Moines and the Trib in Chicago, driving through the night to get to the scene of a riot that would be reported ’round the world.

“I realize, gentlemen,” Looney said through bruised lips, his battered condition well-suited to his melodramatic tone, “that some of us have had our little differences.”

Differences like calling the editor of the Argus insane, in print, Connor thought, managing not to smile.

“The beating I received at the hands of the mayor,” Looney was saying, “shows the disregard this evil mountebank has for freedom of speech, freedom of the press. The bedrock of our nation.”

“Three people died, Mr. Looney,” a young Democrat scribe said. “Including a police officer, killed by a stray bullet through a window. Surely you don’t condone the actions of these rioters.”

Looney shifted in the cranked-up bed. “Two citizens also died, when the police recklessly fired their guns into a crowd that had assembled because news had spread of my kidnapping and assault. These brave, foolhardy souls ran to my rescue, and I love them for it, even when their judgment failed them. Remember, some two dozen suffered gunshot wounds from police volleys, or so I am told.”

An Argus reporter asked, “Will you continue to lobby for the mayor’s recall? Do you still intend to run yourself?”

“My newspaper has been unlawfully shut down,” Looney said. “And until I have my constitutional freedom of speech restored, I can lobby for nothing. That said, I understand the sheriff’s office is opening an investigation into graft and corruption in the Schriver administration.”

A Davenport Daily Times man pressed, “Do you or don’t you intend to run for mayor?”

“No. And I never did. I appreciate the enthusiasm of my many friends and supporters in Rock Island... but I frankly don’t know how that rumor ever got started... In fact, I will be leaving Rock Island very soon, to recuperate from these injuries at my ranch in New Mexico.”

The Argus reporter dared to ask, “You don’t mean to say that the mayor is driving you out of town, Mr. Looney?”

Looney pointed a trembling finger. “Young man, he has threatened to kill me on sight. Ask him about that. And see if Harry Schriver dares deny that, while his men pinned back my arms, he brutally bestowed this beating upon me.”

A reporter from the Tri-Cities Worker asked, “Is the talk true that one of your associates, Michael O’Sullivan, rescued you from an almost certain death?”

Looney managed a smile. “If you remove the word ‘almost,’ my friend, your statement will be more accurate. And you all know that as publisher of the News I insist upon accuracy to the finest detail.”

Connor, watching smiles blossom across the little press conference, wasn’t sure whether his father was kidding.

“We’d like to talk to Mike O’Sullivan,” the reporter persisted.

Raising a hand like the pope passing a benediction, Looney said, “I’m sorry, no. Mr. O’Sullivan has other more important matters on his mind and hands, at the moment.”

The Dispatch reporter asked, “More important than the welfare of his employer?”

“Much more, gentlemen. While we have been having our little fun, over these long hours, Mrs. Michael O’Sullivan has been doing God’s work — delivering into this cruel city a sweet young citizen.”

Connor did his best not to betray the nausea he felt, when his father coughed up such sentimental phlegm. As if the world needed another Shanty Irish brat. As if the existence of another O’Sullivan mattered a whit, in the great scheme of things.

Getting to his feet, Connor said, “That’s all, gents — my father needs his rest. You have your story. We appreciate you stopping by.”

And Connor rounded them up and guided them out.

At his father’s bedside, Connor stood and said, “We need to get you out of here, toot sweet, Pop. Before Schriver has a warrant sworn out, on one trumped-up charge or another.”

Looney touched his son’s hand; the battered face beamed. “You do care about your old man, don’t you, my boy?”

“I do, Pop. You know I do.”

And as his father gazed up at him through loving if slitted, puffy eyes, Connor Looney felt a rush of emotion. He did love his father, and his father loved him. Neither one of them was perfect, Connor thought. But then neither was this fucking world.

Wards were the rule at St. Anthony’s, but exceptions were made for the family and inner circle of a hospital benefactor like John Looney.

So it was that in another private room at the modern facility, Annie O’Sullivan held her new son in her arms, the tiny thing slumbering peacefully.

Last night around eight, she’d known the time was nigh; following her husband’s instructions, she called the hospital and an ambulance came quickly around. Mary Jane stayed with Michael, Jr., and Annie went off to St. Anthony’s, into the loving hands of nuns in white who hovered like friendly ghosts, and where hours later, she was joined by a red wee squalling thing whose beautiful ugliness stunned her.

Now she could hardly believe that, barely fourteen hours later, she felt fine. Exhausted, but fine.

Sitting beside her, wearing a silly grin, was the baby’s father; dark circles under his eyes, skin a grayish pallor, tie loose around his collar, suitcoat rumpled, he looked like a corpse. But a happy one.

Whispering, not wanting to wake the child, she said, “We haven’t spoken of a name, yet.”

“Your father was Peter,” he said. “Mine David. I vote for Peter David O’Sullivan.”

“Lovely. How lovely. It’s unanimous, then.”

The baby woke and cried just a little — sort of a halfhearted wail, as if only doing what was expected of him.

Annie began to nurse the child, saying, “Welcome, Peter. Welcome to the family.”

And Mike sat watching, with the goofiest expression.

After a while one of the sisters came and took the child back to the nursery, so Annie could get her rest.

Mike sat on the edge of her bed and held her hand.

“I hear there was a terrible riot last night,” she said.

“There was.”

“Something to do with Mr. Looney, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t worry yourself about that.”

“So sad.”

“Sad?”

Annie sighed. Shook her head. “I overheard two of the sisters talking, this morning. Three died, they say.”

“Yes.”

“One a policeman.”

“So I understand. Annie—”

“One was just a boy of eighteen, running an errand for his mother, taken down by a bullet. In the back. Isn’t that terrible?”

How mournful Mike’s eyes seemed as he said, “Please don’t think of such things, dear.”

“Can you imagine? Sending your boy off for an errand, only to have him struck senselessly down like that?”

And then she began to weep.

He climbed up on the bed and slipped an arm around her and lay beside her, comforting her.

“I’m sorry... sorry,” she said, sniffling. He gave her his hand-kerchief, and she said, “It’s just... I’m so emotional right now. Please forgive me.”

“You should be happy.”

“Oh, I am! I am! But when I think of that poor mother... Never to see...”

And she began to cry again.

Arm still around her, Mike patted her gently, soothingly, as if she were a child herself.

Dabbing her eyes with her husband’s hanky, she said, “You have to promise me, Mike...”

“What?”

“I don’t want Peter, or Michael, involved in such things.”

“Such things?”

“The kind of work you do. You had no choice. I mean no disrespect, no lack of gratitude. But they must have... a better life. Promise me!”

“I promise, darling.”

And she could tell by the look in his eyes that he meant it. That he wanted nothing more in life than a different path for his boys.

She fell asleep in the crook of his arm, just as Peter had slept in hers; warmth flooded through her, happiness spreading its glow, with the promise of a shining future for her family, for her children, the likes of which only a great land like America could provide.