Monthly Archives: November 2017

A Burning Cold Morning (Part 14)

Posted on by
Reply

Now that the moment was upon him, he was more nervous than he had hoped to be and was a little angry at himself because of it.  Leo wanted to be a cold, hard criminal, part of the Pendergast machine, and getting the shakes because he had to pick a lock in the darkness was no way for such a person to act.  His was, however, trembling as he tried to get the lock open and the picks fell several times from hands which were also starting to lose feeling from the cold.  Frustration building inside of him, Leo took a deep breath and tried again, still to no avail.  Glancing at his pocket watch he realized that ten minutes had already gone by and it was very close to ten o’clock.  Fumbling the picks again, he picked them up and this time, with his eyes squinted up in frustration and foggy breath blowing out in ragged bursts, he managed to get the lock open.  He then quietly pushed the door open, threw his packages into the car and waited for the bells.

Church Tower Kansas City

Church Tower Kansas City

Ten o’clock came and went but nothing happened.  Leo sat there in the vehicle of one of the most powerful men in Kansas City, in possession of two items that were going to be hard to explain, armed bodyguards only a short distance away, and with the the cold creeping into his body and waited in silence.  Ten oh-three, ten oh-four, and still nothing but the cold air and his own breathing.  At ten oh-five something slammed from the direction of the house and Leo almost took off running, but nothing else followed that sound and the silence returned.  Finally, at ten oh-eight the bells pealed in the distance and Leo pushed the button to start the Renault.  Nothing happened, so he pushed it again to no effect.  Realizing that he was going to have to hand-crank the engine, he swore and jumped out.

As he slid the hand crank into the generator unit, Leo could still hear the bells although he knew that was not going to last much longer.   The man he had paid had stated that after a few minutes of them ringing the priest, who lived two houses away, was going to come looking for a reason.  It took two attempts but finally the vehicle fired up and Leo sped out of the storage shed, clipping the edge of the door with the back wheel,  just thirty seconds before the bells stopped ringing.  He could hear the last sounds from them fading into the night as he turned east onto Twenty-Seventh Street headed toward Union Cemetery.

Leo still did not have a solid idea about hiding the car but his immediate plan was to stick to the middle of the city.  The Rabbits firmly controlled everything down by the river and the Goats had most of the southeast portion, east of the KC Rail Line, under their power.  That left a portion of the city, roughly bordered by four schools, where one was least likely to run into an operative of either side.  Turning north off of Twenty-Seventh, Leo took Broadway and then turned into what he considered to be the safe zone on Sixteenth Street.  As he passed the Webster School a small feeling of relief came over him although the adrenaline was still pumping fairly strongly through his body.  His senses were on high alert and several times he thought he caught the sound of a vehicle approaching; however, each time this proved to be false.  Turning north on Oak Street, two blocks later Leo arrived at Central Place, a park area almost directly in the center of his safety zone.  Still without a plan as to what to do for the remainder of the night, he pulled the vehicle over into a dark, tucked away corner of the park and listened for any sounds of pursuit.

As he sat there, finally out of immediate danger, the adrenaline finally left his body and his hands and legs began to shake uncontrollably.  Scolding himself again, Leo tucked his hands under his armpits and clenched his leg muscles in a attempt to get the shaking to stop.  Eventually it did of course and his breathing, which he had not noticed was irregular and fast, also returned to normal.  The night settled in quietly around him again, and although he was getting very cold Leo felt a strong sense of accomplishment.  He was certain that this was going to get him an invite to join up with Pendergast.

It was forty minutes later, around eleven o’clock, when Leo heard the distant but approaching sound of what seemed to be several vehicles.  Knowing that it was extremely unusual for multiple vehicles to be on the road late at night, and especially on Christmas Eve, he had the sudden sinking feeling that the theft had been discovered.  Knowing that these possible searchers would eventually make their way to his location, Leo started up the Renault again and headed back out onto Oak Street.  He was making things up as he went at this point, so he headed south down Oak even though that brought him closer to Goat territory.  Going that direction had to be better than going toward the river where someone was sure to recognize Shannon’s vehicle.  Willing the car to be quiet, Leo eased it down the road, watching and listening intently as he went.  Crossing over Eighteenth he was suddenly lit up by the headlights of another vehicle and a small yelp escaped his lips before he could control it.  As the vehicle went past, two old men who hardly looked his way, Leo fought down the impulse to shout profanities at them.

He could now see two sets of headlights trailing behind him on Oak, and seeming to gain ground.  Making a quick turn onto Twentieth Street Leo pressed the car hard and was soon going almost forty miles per hour.  The headlights turned his way, still seemingly in pursuit, so he turned hard onto Holmes Street and then west onto Twenty Third.  The lights still followed him; however, and he made another attempt to lose them by turning onto Grand Ave and really pushing the vehicle as hard as he could, eventually reaching a speed of forty-four miles per hour.  As he crossed over Twenty-Seventh Leo saw that he was back in the area of Union Cemetery and he impulsively slammed the brakes and pulled in, careening through the open gate and onto the dirt road that wandered among the graves.

Union Cemetery Kansas City

Union Cemetery Kansas City

Although he could no longer see any lights behind him he was certain that the chase was not over, so he drove deep into the cemetery and pulled the vehicle behind a large stone monument.  Shutting it down, he leapt out, taking his packages with him, and ran to a small copse of trees about twenty feet away.  Out of breath and sweating, he sat down and waited.

…to be continued

A Burning Cold Morning (Part 13)

Posted on by
Reply

Early the next morning, Christmas Eve, he stopped the church’s maintenance man as he was unlocking the side door. Seven dollars later Leo had a promise from him to ring the church’s bells at 10 p.m. that night.  He had hoped for it to cost less, initially offering three dollars, but the man had been insistent, stating that there was a decent chance he would get fired over it and that he would need the additional money to tide him over until he found new work.  Leo also knew that technically the car was supposed to be stolen on Christmas  Day but that had been impossible to convince the maintenance man to go along with as “ringing them bells on Jesus’ day is surely a sin no money can save me from.”  So, it would have to be Christmas Eve, and maybe he could hide the car someplace overnight to make good on the original instructions.

With those things settled, Leo had some time to spare until he needed to start actually acting on his plan later that night.  As he sat nervously in his room that morning he came up with one final detail that he thought would ensure his place in Pendergast’s organization.  For that he needed to take another walk, this one outside the city limits, and go kill some rabbits.

These rabbits would be the animal kind, not their human namesakes that were controlled by Shannon.   Leo had brought a small pistol with him, tucked into his pocket as he made his way past Market Square and then alongside the train depot that fronted the Missouri River near the bridge.  Forty minutes later he was well away from the main part of the developed area in Kansas City and picking his way along the riverbank.  Red Godding, who was country-born and raised before embarking on his criminal career, often talked about killing rabbits down in this area of the river, bringing them back to the Savoy to make into stew.  Leo did not know much about hunting, having avoided it as much as possible during his own youth, but he figured that it could not be that hard to kill a few small animals.  This of course proved to not be true and several other men he ran into, armed with traps and rifles, gave him looks of pity and amusement as they saw him hiding with his pistol in hand.  Leo persevered though and, after two hours of crouching in river weeds and behind trees, he had two rabbits in hand to take back with him.

Stashing his kills in a box, Leo took a nap and woke up around six-thirty in the evening.  Knowing he had a long night ahead of him, he ate a large dinner down at the Savoy’s restaurant and then went back to his room to prepare himself.  He spent a little more time practicing with the lock and then pulled out a map of the city.  Although he had his original route well-planned and memorized, he wanted to be familiar with as much of the city’s layout as possible.  This was especially important now that he was stealing the car early and was going to have to hide out with it for awhile.  He came up with a few general ideas but nothing definite, hoping that he could finalize his plan on the way to Shannon’s house later in the evening.  Setting the map aside, Leo then pulled out a piece of wood that he had picked up out of the scrap bin of a lumber mill a week before while on a walk.  He had given the message some thought, wanting it to be derogatory enough to really impress Pendergast.  Written sloppily in black paint, the message read:

Shannon is a Zozzled Four-Flusher

Who’s The Next Dead Rabbit?

After the paint dried he wrapped it in burlap, cleaned up, and then got ready to depart.  It was cold that day, around twenty-six degrees by evening with the temperature still dropping, and Leo pulled on a sweater before shrugging into a grey wool overcoat and snapping his gloves closed at the wrists.  Shoving the rabbits into a canvas bag and tucking the sign under his arm, he put on his fedora, cocking the brim up just a little over his right eye, and walked out to steal Joe Shannon’s Renault.

As he walked south toward his target’s house, Leo thought again about what to do with the vehicle after he stole it.  He was a little bit uncertain about how Pendergast was going to view the fact that he was stealing the car on the wrong day, but he was certain that displaying it to mock Shannon before Christmas morning was going to result in not getting paid.  Kansas City was a big enough place, but Leo did not have any acquaintances who owned building where something as big as the Renault could be hidden.  All of his friends lived in rooms much like his own if not smaller.  Also, with large portions of the city controlled by one of the two factions, there really were not many places he could go that someone would not report seeing the Renault either to Pendergast or Shannon.  He continued thinking about it all the way to the Orphan’s House, trying to avoid the few people out for a late Christmas Eve stroll as much as possible, but had not come up with anything by the time he arrived at eight forty-five in the evening.

He rested there, in the darkness behind the Orphan’s House for fifteen minutes, stomping his feet to keep the feeling in them and blowing warm breath inside of his gloves.  He then picked his two packages back up and walked briskly toward Shannon’s house.  As he approached he could see two lights still on in the upstairs windows although the bottom floor was entirely dark.  Ducking off the road, behind a large tree and a group of cedar bushes, Leo waited and watched, hoping that all of the lights would be extinguished.  That, however, did not happen and at nine forty-five, with only fifteen minutes to spare until the bells rang, he knew that he had to make his move.  Walking rapidly up to the secured shed door, fedora now pulled down over both eyes, Leo set down the dead rabbits and the sign, yanked off his gloves and pulled out his lock picks.

…to be continued

A Burning Cold Morning (Part 12)

Posted on by
Reply

Manny Barton was not exactly an appealing example of the human species.  At five foot four and two hundred eighty pounds, little of which was muscle, it was often difficult for people to imagine him stealthily creeping around businesses at night to break open safes.  He also wore clothes that were too big even on his large frame, had a mess of gnarled and habitually unwashed brown hair, and moved at what was described as the “breakneck pace of a lame snail,” by his brother.  Behind his back people called him slovenly although to his face they never used anything other than his name or its shortened form of Man.  He might not catch you quickly if you insulted him, but he would catch you, and then his large, fat hands would wrap around your neck and slowly crush your windpipe while he blew his garlic breath into your face.  That had happened to at least six people in the last few years, all of whom could still vouch for his manner of vengeance because Manny always stoped before he actually killed you.  He was strictly a thief and a robber after all, as his brother would tell everyone who asked about it.

Mickey Barton was a big man also, but in the impressive way, the opposite of his brother.  He weighed about two hundred and eighty also but was six foot six, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested.  He also was a murderer in addition to being a thief and robber, although Mickey did not have much patience for strangling people.  He just walked up and shot you if he thought you needed to be dead.  Both of them always dressed in black suits, Mickey’s well tailored and Manny’s oversized and hanging poorly over his various bulges.  Mickey answered the door to Leo’s knock.

“Got a few minutes to help me?” Leo asked, holding up the lock.

Mickey raised an eyebrow and replied in his usual clipped tone.  “Wh’t’s it for? Not the Shann’n job I hope?”

“It is,” Leo replied.  “I just need to understand how to get a lock like this open.”

By now Manny had walked up to the open door.  “Why?”

“Shut up Man, we don’t want to know.  We don’t want n’thing to do with that job.  It too dangerous.”

“I don’t want your help, well not directly anyway, just to show me how to open this lock.  That’s it.” Leo replied.

“What’s that lock got to do with it?” Manny asked, his small grey eyes peeking out of fat cheeks.

“Man, I told you,”

“It won’t hurt to hear what he’s up to brother, it don’t mean we’re gettin’ involved,” Manny interrupted.

Mickey scowled back at Manny and replied.  “It most certainly will mean that we are inv’lved.  Just knowing anything about that job is g’ing to be really bad for people’s health in a few days.”

“Come on in Lee, come on, I’ll talk to you about it.  Mickey can go hide for awhile so he isn’t privy to any of it.  Make himself feel better.”  Pulling on Leo’s hand to get him into the room, Manny waved his brother toward the bedroom door.  “Go hide Mick, go hide.”

Over the next two hours, interrupted only once by Mickey coming out to get a glass of milk, Manny taught Leo how to get the particular model of Sargent padlock open that Leo had bought with him.  The trick, as explained by Manny, was to be approach the picking of the lock very slowly and carefully, gently even.  Leo needed to “feel the delicate insides of the beast move” as Manny put it and to “understand that it is all just a matter of patience.”  The Barton’s had many different kinds of locks, all kept inside of a worn wooden chest, some of them cut open so Leo could examine exactly what he needed to do to get a lock to open up for him.  Once he had that down, Manny blindfolded him to simulate the darkness he would be working in, and eventually Leo could open the lock easily even with that handicap.  As he left, they shook hands with Manny cautioning him more loudly than necessary to “never mention that you were here to anyone,” a wry smile on his face as he closed the door.  As he walked away down the hallway he could already hear the brother’s starting to argue.

Leo sat around his place the rest of that day, going over as much of his plan as he could until he was sure that he knew every element of it and had planned for every possible contingency.  He drew a map of the route he planned to take with the car and then went out and walked that route, making sure that there was nothing going on in the streets that could cause an issue.  Once he was back at his place, Leo practiced the lock picking for another hour and then tried to figure out a way of getting the car out of its storage shed quietly.  He knew that starting it up was going to cause a problem as it would be nighttime and quiet, the men inside the Shannon house sure to hear the Renault engine firing up.  Letting it coast out of the shed in neutral was also out of the question as the roadway sloped down toward the Shannon property, meaning gravity would work against the weight of the car.  The vehicle was also much too heavy for one man to push along by himself.  So, with the certainty that he was going to have to start the car to get it out of the garage, Leo realized he would need to create some kind of a distraction.  He decided to take one more walk around the area and see what he could come up with as a plan.

Church Kansas City Missouri 1925i

Church Kansas City Missouri 1925

Joe Shannon lived on the southern edge of Kansas City, right off of Summit Street and near the Orphan’s House he had helped to build.  It was a quieter area of the town, removed from the bustle of downtown and also from the noise of the riverside docks and depots that were Shannon’s center of power.  He sometimes felt exposed out in the Summit Street area but his bodyguards made him feel safe enough and he greatly enjoyed the peace and quiet.  Leo could not come up with anything as he strolled along those tranquil streets, at least not until he walked past the Episcopal Church that was only blocks from the Shannon house.  That church had a bell tower and bell towers make noise.  And that solved Leo’s dilemma.

A Burning Cold Morning (Part 11)

Posted on by
Reply

Chaz spat on the floor and muttered, “told you so,” while Mickey & Manny, the safe-cracking Barton twins, whistled and swore.  Leo just stared back at Red, who was still rubbing his hands together, which seemed to indicate that the surprises were not over.  Leo asked it again.

“And?”

“That’s not the end of it? How can it get worse?” Chaz asked.

“Well, it must be much worse because Red here sure ain’t done spilling it.  He’s sweating like a pig,” Leo responded while still staring at Godding.

“So, so, well, the rest of it,” Red stuttered a little which was unusual for him, “it, it, well you have to take it on Christmas Day and leave it on the corner of 9th & Jefferson.”  Red still was not done and Leo did not bother asking again.  He just waited and finally the last part of the job was revealed.

“It, it, needs to have a sign on it,  you know, making fun of the Rabbits.”  Little Red shrugged his big shoulders and then continued.  “They didn’t tell me what it was supposed to say, it just needs to be, well, you know, mocking I guess.”  Red stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned away with a final, “That’s all of it.”  He then slumped into a chair and pulled a flask from the inside of his coat, taking a long pull before closing his eyes and leaning back into the soft leather.

Chaz summed up what the rest of them were thinking.  “Leo, you would be an idiot to take this job.  There ain’t nothing good that can come from taking Joe Shannon’s car and then making fun of him right in the middle of his ward.  That corner is right by the stockyards and it’s Rabbit central.”

Mickey and Manny were nodding vigorously and talking to each other about how stupid it would be to get involved.  Leo seemed to have another opinion.

“One thing it would do for sure though is get me in good with Pendergast.  He’d owe me.”

“He’s already paying you and you don’t mean nothing to him.  Your just a small-time sucker getting hired out to take the fall,” Chaz replied, “stay away from it Leo.”

“Can you get me the money up front Red?”

Godding cracked one eye open from the chair.  “You really want this job?”

“I’ll do it,” Leo replied, “just get me that money.”

Red had a smile on his face now, his mission accomplished.  “I’ll go see about it right away.”

Two days later there was a knock at Leo’s apartment.  As he opened the door, Red handed him fifty dollars, stating that there was just no way that he could get any more of it before the job was done.  He also mentioned that there better not be any backing out of the job now or Mr. Pendergast would take such an insult very personally.  Leo nodded in reply and closed the door.  He went back to the small table that was tucked under the window that faced Ninth Street where he had been working on his plan.  There were only thirteen days to go until Christmas and Leo still had a few things that needed to be done.

One of these was to make sure he was familiar with the vehicle he was supposed to steal.  Although Leo was a proficient driver, he had never driven any vehicle made by Renault.  There were enough variations and idiosyncrasies among the wide variety of cars in the 1920’s that one could never be sure exactly how to operate a particular version or model.  As far as Leo could tell from asking around, there was exactly one Renault NN in Kansas City, namely the one he was supposed to steal. He doubted that he could manage to convince Joe Shannon to let him take it out for a drive so he had to find another one somewhere close.  Eventually he did, with several of them available in Independence, and he marked that item off his planning list on the eighteenth of December.  He did find out that the vehicle was more prone than some others to not starting right away, and often needing to be hand-cranked, all of which of course worried him.  Although he had not shown it to any of the Savoy Seven, he was indeed very nervous about this particular job.  He knew it was risky but he had a strong desire to get in good with the main Kansas City crime scene and felt that this was his ticket to accomplish that goal.

The last item that he needed to complete was to scout out the locations from which he might have to steal the Renault.  After a couple  days of observing Joe Shannon around town Leo realized how difficult this job might become.  Everywhere that the Rabbit’s leader went, he always had a group of three to four bodyguards with him and one of them was always left standing by the car.  This even happened when the group would eat, with the man left on guard having to dine from a plate delivered to the vehicle by the restaurant staff.  Then Leo hit upon the idea of taking the car from wherever it was parked at night, as he doubted it was guarded at those times.

He turned out to be correct about that; however, the location of the Renault’s night storage was less than ideal, as it was in a small building directly behind Shannon’s house.  That building, from what Leo observed over two nights of nocturnal spying, also had the large, swinging access door bolted and locked shut every night.  This was going to be a very difficult caper indeed, but one that he was going to have to pull off, both for his own safety and his future.  The main problems were how to get past the locked door, and then how to get the vehicle out of the building without alerting Shannon’s bodyguards, who all slept in the same house as their leader.

Sargent padlock

Sargent padlock

It was time to get a little bit of advice and for the first part he knew exactly where to go.  Manny and Mickey Barton, members of the Savoy Seven, some of the best known and most successful safe-crackers in Missouri, were also very skilled with any kind of locking device.  Leo strolled past Shannon’s house one day, noted the kind of lock used and then went and purchased one at the hardware store.  Twenty minutes later, and with only two days to go until Christmas,  he knocked on the door of the Barton’s second floor room at the Savoy.