By Dawn's Early Light
Karl shrugged his shoulders, rolling his tense muscles, with his head tipped back at the sky. He let out a sharp little cough, his lungs spasaming at having to run in the cold air, but his short sprint had ended quickly enough and the air was warming with the dawn.
With the dawn, and the huge gasoline fire that he’d started. He readjusted the grip he had on the gasoline can in his hand, flexing his fingers as best he could without setting the can down. In his other hand, he held a briefcase. As he’d passed Daniel’s taxi – which reminded him of swiss cheese, he thought with a grin – he saw the case.
Forcing himself to walk again, Karl glanced down at the case. He could’ve sworn he saw Ben throw it in the car...but there was no time to look. Cops – real cops – would be at the scene any minute. A blast like that attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Not to mention the fact that getting Lombardo and McGurn’s unconscious bodies far enough away from the building to be safe before he lit the fire took more time than he would’ve liked.
Now, Karl was wondering if he should’ve just left them both to burn.
McGurn was easier to take out than he’d expected. A metal pipe to the knees and a good, solid crack to the shoulders had felled the man. A dose of tranquilizers from the hospital drug supply ensured cooperation from them both. After securing a wheel barrow, it had only been a matter of timing and logistics. And brute strength.
And then the fire.
He’d had to burn the cab, but he wouldn’t tell Daniel that. If the police found and identified his car, he’d be brought in for questioning, and that would give them all away – including Karl’s plans to disappear altogether from the law enforcement business. He could take care of the police. It was just the other side of the coin he was worried about now.
Blowing up the building had been a message to Capone. Karl knew more about the man’s crooked books and real estate fraud scams than any other living person. He planned to keep it that way. Dragging his henchmen out to the curb had been a measure of restraint – and Karl knew Capone would see it that way.
He just hoped the man would see it that way long enough to get out of town.
With the flames behind him dying from an explosive heat to a frightening roar, Karl looked quite the part of the avenging angel as Ben screeched to a halt.
Karl smiled.
“Good to see you,” he said, and hefted the can. “Need some gas?”
Lee leaned over. “We’re here to rescue you.”
Karl couldn’t hear it, but he sensed Darren’s ungentlemanly snort from the backseat. He tipped his hat anyway. “Much obliged. I’ll just fill the car up.”
Ben got out to help him with the fuselage. “How were you planning on getting home?”
Karl threw the suitcase in the back seat, sliding under Darren’s feet. “I don’t know, how were you planning on rescuing me?”
“Good point.”
Ben flinched and ducked instinctively as another gas tank blew behind the hospital, and a distant clatter of falling debris was heard. Karl simply stared at the horizon, trying to guess how much of the building had caught and how long they had until they’d have company.
“Maybe we should get out of here, hey?” Karl suggested, tipping the gasoline into the tank.
“Not a bad idea,” Ben agreed, shading his vision and watching the road. “Not a bad idea at all.”
* * *
Breaking into Callaghan’s had proved easier than Daniel expected. The alley door had four small panels of glass, the lower of which was next to the doorknob. Getting inside was simply a matter of smashing the panel, reaching inside, and unlocking the door. Under the circle of a single green-tinted pool table lamp, the five men pulled the shades against the coming day.
They all rested easily, as their wounds would allow.
“It’s over,” Karl promised, unstrapping his holster and throwing it on the table. “And tomorrow I’m turning in my badge. I’m going to be a fucking gardener if it kills me.”
“It might,” Darren said, a shaking hand running through his hair. Daniel grabbed his shoulder in a gesture of reassurance, and Darren smiled in thanks.
“By the way,” Daniel said, pulling a rectangle into the circle of light, “I got the briefcase.”
“What are you talking about?” Darren protested. “I got the briefcase. It was under my seat.” He pulled a matching case into the light, and the five studied the two boxes carefully. Identical latches, coloring, and engraving. Darren popped the latches on his, and there lay the plant, as pristine as he had left it, ready for delivery to the United States Government.
“One thing I don’t understand...” Lee drifted, setting his chin in his palm as he peered into the box.
Daniel grinned. “One thing?”
“...Capone always had a safety step. He never put all his eggs in one basket. Why would he let so much ride on these plants?”
The pause was short. Ben reached into his shirt pocket, withdrew two cigarettes, and tossed them down on the table.
“He didn’t,” Ben said. A quiet murmuring of confusion followed, and he smiled. Pulling out his pocket knife, he slit open the rolled crease on one of the cigarettes and let it unravel. With a quick blow the tobacco was gone, and there were...
“Words?” Darren said, immediately going into research mode and pulling the paper out of Ben’s hands. “Are these – they are. Instructions.”
“Well then,” Lee said, grinning at Ben.
Ben shrugged. “It was just a hunch. I mean, I couldn’t figure out why else they were so damn important.” He slit open the other and handed it to Darren, who rotated the first over to Karl. The agent shrugged, and tossed it into the open suitcase.
“The refinery instructions were what he really cared about,” Ben went on. “The plants he could’ve gotten again. But I guess it was really the cigarettes he was after. But Lombardo didn’t know that.”
Darren cleared his throat, looking up from the paper. Karl took it from him, put it with its brother, and closed the case. “Gentlemen,” the professor said, “we all just got very, very lucky.”
The silence was heavy and not easily broken, but they all still wanted to know what was in the second case.
Karl nodded to himself, as if the issue was closed, and placed the first case next to his seat. “I’ll turn this in tomorrow. What’s in the other one?”
All heads turned to the twin briefcase, and Darren and Daniel each reached out a hand to undo the identical locks on each side of the handle. With a breath of anticipation, the case sprang open and five men exhaled at the same time.
“Whoa,” Lee started. “Is that...?”
Ben simply whistled.
Daniel studied the contents carefully. “That’s got to be at least...” he thumbed through one packet, checking the markings. “At least two million. They’re all in hundreds.”
“What do we do with it?” Darren asked.
All heads turned toward Karl. The Agent shrugged. “Keep it. For all the feds know, it went up in flames in the fire. No one will ever know we had it, as long as we’re not stupid about how we spend it.”
“Money like this goes a long way, even five ways,” Ben said quietly. “I can start my newspaper.”
“I can garden.”
“It’ll be no more federal grants for me. I could build a lab of my own.”
“I could get published. Get my name out.”
Silence. They all turned toward Daniel. “What are you going to do with your money?” Darren asked. But the taxi driver simply smiled.
“Put it in the bank, of course.”
* * *
The five men parted ways amiably, Ben and Karl supporting one side of Lee each, intent on bringing him to the hospital to have his system flushed of all the drugs he’d been stuck through with, and to have his leg examined. Ben insisted he didn’t need stitches and Karl relented, but had a feeling that Lee would press the matter once they were in the able hands of law abiding doctors.
Which left one suitcase, one professor, and one out of work taxi driver standing in a graying alley.
“Well, Doc,” Daniel said, watching the three men hobble away in the light. “We did pretty good.” His hands in his pockets, he rocked back on his heels. “That’s a tidy six hundred thousand for all of us, and no one’s the wiser.” He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, and glance down out of the corner of his eye for reassurance from his partner in crime. At the silence, Daniel turned to him. “Hey, now, Doc...” he frowned around his cigarette. “You won’t go gettin’ us in trouble, now will you? I mean, what with Karl just turning in his badge, and all. Give us a three day head start, at least...”
Darren smiled up at the man, his normally neatly-parted black hair awash in a tangle of adgeda. “Actually, I was trying to figure out how to ask you up to my room for the night.”
Darren’s cigarette Mumbledy-Pegged out of his mouth and landed on the sidewalk. “Doc!” he tried to sound as shocked as possible. “We’ll try to keep your honor intact.”
“Is that a yes?” Darren reached for the suitcase between his legs that held both their shares of the money.
tbc...