Chicago Max

by Gary Inbinder

Table of Contents

Chapter 16: Max’s Demons

part 1

When Max returned home in the early morning, he could barely keep his eyes open. He poured a shot of whiskey, downed it and passed out on the couch. The new day began with a nightmare. In his dream, he was sleeping on a straw mattress in a damp, dark cell in the county jail. A pair of rude hands shook him awake.

Max blinked his eyes and rubbed his aching temples. “Where... where did you guys come from?” he mumbled. “What do you want?”

A big man in a blue uniform laughed, “Hunh, hunh, this guy’s funny, a real comedian.”

“Yeah, he’s a card,” said a second man in uniform. Then to Max: “Listen, Mr. Hawk, it’s time to dance.”

“Time to dance. What are you talking about?”

“Why the hanging, of course,” said the first man. “You gonna two-step at the end of six feet of hemp. It’s the hottest ticket in town, and you’re the star attraction. Chicago ain’t seen a triple hanging in years, and this one’s extra special. Two goons and ‘The Hawk.’ Your pal Gus Merkel’s gonna cover it like it was the World Championship. Now that’s a special treat, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, special, ” echoed the second man.

“No, no,” Max cried. “It’s a mistake. I only killed in self-defense. Miss Wells will save me. Please Miss Wells, don’t let them hang me.”

Hearing the big, bad Hawk whining like a little kid on his way to the woodshed provoked a gale of laughter. Strong hands pinioned his arms and ankles with heavy leather straps and hauled him out into the cell block. The place stank like Bubbly Creek. The gallows loomed ahead, painted black. Three nooses dangled from the crossbeam. Max struggled, but his executioners dragged him along the floor and up the thirteen steps, bump, bump, bump.

They stood him up on the platform; he turned his head to his right and saw Bugsy and Vito with ropes around their necks. They stared back at him and grinned like jack-o-lanterns. Looking down at the witnesses, he recognized Gus in the front row with the reporters, scribbling notes. Behind them were his friends, including Otto and Dolan, guzzling booze from flasks. Oliver, the countess and Prescott Fielding stood in the next row, craning their necks to get a better view. They smiled and waved. The Earl stood next to them with a Kodak, taking snapshots.

A gaggle of cops, mobsters and politicians were there too, including Ed Mahoney, Captain Crunican, Mueller and Big Mike Sugrue.

His parents were there, standing next to Miss Wells and her father. The settlement house worker wept into her lace handkerchief while the judge held her, his eyes averted from his daughter’s shame, her failure at reform. Max’s old parish priest and members of the congregation found a bright little corner where they could lift their eyes toward the ceiling and pray. Olga hovered above them in a golden nimbus.

The jumble of voices — laughing, crying, cursing, praying — seemed to blend into a low-pitched buzz, like a swarm of bluebottles on a horse turd. Max noticed a change in the faces and bodies; eyes grew bulbous and multi-faceted, lips turned into mandibles, coarse black hairs overgrew flesh, shoulders sprouted translucent wings.

The hangman, a woman in this case, stood before him, black hood in hand. Max recognized Vi behind her bugged-out multiple eyes and twitching antennae. “Well, Max, this is going to hurt you much more than it will me,” she buzzed.

“Lord in Heaven, save me!” Max pleaded in vain.

Vi laughed, or to be precise, buzzed at her former lover. She slipped the hood over Max’s head and tightened the noose around his neck. Max screamed but there was no sound. His throat constricted; he could not breathe. The floor dropped beneath his feet and he plummeted into space. The noose snapped his neck like a dry twig; his bladder and bowels emptied.

* * *

The telephone rang. Max groaned and muttered curses. He rolled his legs off the couch where he had slept in his clothes. He sat up and groped for the phone on an end table.

“Niemand here,” he muttered.

The long distance operator put through a call from Milwaukee.

“Max, are you all right? I’ve been trying the call you at the office for more than an hour.”

“Walt, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me. What’s wrong? You sound half-dead.”

“Sorry, Walt. I feel like I just crawled out of my grave. I was on a job that kept me awake for I don’t know how long. What time is it?”

“One in the afternoon.”

“Jesus.” Max rubbed his eyes and coughed. “Have you got news about Hills?”

“Yeah, one of my operatives located him. He works as a pinsetter and he lives in a flophouse near the bowling alley. He’ll talk to you, for a price.”

“How much?”

“A C-note will do the trick. Can you manage it?”

“Sure. Can you set up a meeting?”

“No problem. There’s a train from Chicago that arrives here at ten a.m. Be on it tomorrow morning. I’ll meet you at the downtown station. Then we’ll go pay a visit on Mr. Hills.”

“Thanks, pal. I’ll see you then.”

Max set down the phone. He needed to clean up, eat breakfast — or lunch — go down to the office and get busy. First thing, he would call the Johnsons to see if Nora was back.

He would not dwell on the nightmare. He had bad dreams at times, but it was not in his nature to analyze them. In this case, he figured he felt some regret about killing Petey Mullen and that a twinge of guilty conscience caused the nightmare. If that were true, he could rationalize away the guilt.

It was a simple matter. Max knew he could come to terms with Willie and Alma; they were needy, greedy and weak. Their protection, tough Petey, was the obstacle, a problem to be solved. Knocking the big man out eliminated him from the negotiations and put a scare in Willie. But Max did not intend to knock Petey into the toxic waste dump. Things just turned out that way.

And once Petey was in the chemical soup, Max was certainly not going to risk pulling him out. That would have been the boneheaded play of all time. Only a sap would do a thing like that. Moreover, Petey was a low-life, a good for nothing jailbird. The world was better off without him.

Having consigned Petey’s ghost to the bottom of Bubbly Creek, Max looked on the bright side. He had a thousand dollars from the countess, and more good leads in his investigation. His head cleared of phantoms, Max went to the bathroom in a much better mood. His thoughts turned to Nora Iverson and the house on the West Side.

* * *

Max telephoned the Johnsons and confirmed that Nora Iverson was at home. She had returned that morning with the handsome gent in the Pope-Toledo; as usual, he stayed with her for about an hour and then left. Max thanked the Johnsons, changed his clothes and made a beeline to his favorite local restaurant. Revitalized with a good meal and plenty of strong coffee, Max hopped the “L” and headed out for Austin.

Did Nora spend the past two days at the mansion with the countess and Oliver? She might have been there when Max was out doing the countess’s dirty work. These thoughts ran through his mind as he gazed out the “L” car window at the new West Side.

Here, everything of recent memory had been swept away in the fire, then rebuilt at the end of the industrialized Victorian age, and even now the old Victorians were being torn down to make way for something bolder, cleaner, fresher and better. This was the booster’s vision of Chicago, a progressive evergreen fantasy.

Chicago was a revitalizing breath of fresh Lake Michigan air, a vigorous young giant striding across the prairie. Forget about the slums, the polluted air and water, the sweatshops, dirty slaughterhouses, unsafe factories, vice and corruption. That’s just temporary, the growing pains of the city’s awkward adolescence. Invest in the bright future.

Max knew better. In his book, the future would be different but, in many ways, no better than the past or the present. There would be “progress” all right: technologically, economically, and socially. But there would be trade-offs: for every gain, there would be a loss.

Max shrugged, turned away from the window and opened his newspaper. He skimmed through an article speculating as to whether the recent rise in the Dow Jones Average to over 100 signaled the end of a ten-year bull market.

* * *

Proceed to part 2...

Copyright © 2015 by Gary Inbinder