The night seemed to become even more frigid as he crouched among those trees, the cold washing quickly over his sweaty skin and forming a strange layer of frosty ice on his face and hands.  The shivers brought on by that quick freeze ricochet all over his body while he kept his eyes focused keenly out toward the road.  A car passed, and several minutes later another, and then fifteen minutes later they both came back, turning this time into the cemetery.  The vehicles patrolled the grounds and twice they stopped, men stepping out with flashlights and sweeping the beams over the dark recesses between the trees.  The searchers and their lights never came closer than fifty feet from Leo though, and his location and that of the Renault remained undiscovered.  After twenty-five minutes of driving around the cemetery the men parked both cars about one hundred feet away from the copse of trees and all got out to smoke cigarettes.  Complaining loudly about the cold, it also became evident that these men were in fact looking for whomever had stolen the Renault.  One large, bushy looking man brandished a shotgun as he explained what needed to be done to the culprit while the others worried about the consequences of returning to “the big boss” with empty hands.  Finally the men climbed back into their vehicles and headed off, splitting up as they exited the cemetery.

Leo had to admit that he was  very afraid at this point, the shotgun and leisurely description of what it was to be used for disquieting him and making his stomach uneasy.  Although he was already incredibly cold and certain he was going to end up with some pretty severe frostbite, Leo resolved to stay in the cemetery until it was time to stage the car on Christmas morning.  Hurrying back to the Renault with a faint hope in his head, he was rewarded when he discovered a blanket shoved under the passenger seat.  It was dark grey and made of heavy wool, large enough to cover him completely and keep him both hidden and warm.  Although he would have preferred the protection from the wind offered by the vehicle, Leo also did not want to be caught sleeping inside of it on the off-chance that these men came back and checked the cemetery again.  Settling down again into the trees, he wrapped himself up, tucked the edges of the blanket under his body and tried to think about being warm.

After about twenty minutes things got better, his body heat and breath trapped by the thick wool and creating a nice little pocket of comfort.  Eventually Leo drifted off a little bit although he was not warm enough to really fall asleep. He was in and out after that and constantly restless; warm and cold, worried and elated, tired and alert.  Five hours of this was all he could take and so, at five thirty a.m. on Christmas morning 1925, Leo stood up, collected his packages and walked back to the Renault.

It was not light yet although the eastern sky had just those first touches of the approaching sun in it, cold yellow hints of light flashing against the clouds.  He was not sure if the men had stopped looking, or if more had joined in as the night went on.  He did not know if the police were maybe involved by now, or if his bell ringer had squealed on him to someone in the Shannon gang.  What Leo did know was that if all of his risk, suffering and fright was going to be worth anything at all to him, he needed to finish the job.  Determined, he drove toward the river.

Luck was with him again as he encountered no one, not even a pedestrian on their way to an early holiday breakfast or a late returning night worker.  He drove all the way to Ninth Street and then turned left toward the railroad tracks.  He did see a few people then, all of them walking with their heads down against the crisp morning breeze.  No one seemed to be paying attention to him though, so Leo stopping hiding his face under a turned up coat lapel and focused instead on the end of his journey which was just six blocks ahead.

original Union Depot Kansas City

The old Union Train Depot had fallen into some disrepair since it was abandoned in 1914 in favor of the new Union Station on 25th and Grand.  That place had all of the attention these days, with its ninety-five foot ceilings and huge chandeliers.  The old depot though had historical significance to Kansas City and was especially important to the Rabbits.  Some of their businesses, both legal and illegal, were still run out of the broken down building and it was recognized as the gateway to the main Rabbit controlled areas down by the stock yards and freight houses.  It was for that reason it had been chosen by Leo as the place to leave Joe Shannon’s Renault.  Pulling up diagonally across from the Depot, so that the vehicle would block traffic on Lincoln, Bluff and Ninth Street all at the same time, he hopped out and quickly set up his props.

The sign he propped up against the windshield which faced directly into the traffic on Lincoln.  He then draped one of the dead rabbits over the front grill, it’s cold, furry legs reaching toward the silver Renault logo on the hood.  The other he laid on top of the fender of the driver’s side rear wheel, splaying its hind legs open and twisting the head so it seemed to be on backwards.  The sky was getting lighter now and a glance down Ninth confirmed that a few pedestrians were headed this way although it would be awhile before they arrived to view his work.  Taking a quick glance inside the vehicle to ensure he had left nothing behind, Leo allowed himself both a  smile and small shout of triumph before he strode quickly away down Lincoln.

Thirty minutes later he was sitting at the table of the Savoy’s restaurant and ordering Christmas breakfast.  As he ate that meal and then sat around reading the newspaper he did not quite comprehend the serious nature of his caper.  He saw it mostly as a prank meant to rub a little bit of dirt in the Rabbit’s eyes and embarrass their leader.  Pendergast knew in advance that it would be taken much more seriously than that by Shannon, which is exactly what happened.  As Leo relaxed and sipped coffee, an enraged Shannon, who had been forced to miss the annual Christmas breakfast he hosted for his constituents, was already well on his way to figuring out exactly who was responsible for insulting him.

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

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.

Joe Shannon

Joe Shannon was another political boss in Kansas City, although his influence was on the decline in 1925.   By that time Tom Pendergast had consolidated his power and held influence over several judges in the area and large portions of the city government.  Shannon’s faction, known as the Rabbits to Pendergast’s Goats, held little influence inside the city with the exception of several members of the police force and their original constituency along the Missouri and Kansas River.  Although at this time neither faction controlled the police completely,  there were a few members of it who owed much of their livelihood to the Rabbits and were prepared to make good on that allegiance.

Savoy Hotel Kansas City MO

Leo’s undoing in Kansas City began with a simple discussion over coffee one morning, just as so many of the days had started for the Savoy Seven, as Leo’s group of criminal buddies had taken to calling themselves.  Ben ‘Little Red’ Godding, a walking contradiction of a man at six foot three and with jet black hair, mentioned there was a car theft job he could not take due to having to head to Omaha to look after an ailing sister.  Everyone passed on picking this job up expect Leo, who took it but noticed that the others were giving him odd looks.

“What?” Leo asked, shrugging up his pointy shoulders and waving a hand at them.  “It’s a simple job and I could use the money.”

“I think Red’s playing you Lee, all of us probably,  and he oughta be ashamed on himself,” replied Bill Fallon who also cast a scornful look at Godding.

“I’m just offering it out there and he took it.  Not my fault,” Godding snapped back.

“What’s the big deal?” Leo asked.  “What’s going on?”

“You missed it last week but Red here made a step up in the world, its almost surprising that he’s even down here still talking to us polecats.”

“Shut up Bill.”

“You denying you got picked up by the Goats?”

“I, well no, I’m not, but that don’t have nothing to do with us here.”

“Sure it does, and besides, if you’re with the Goats now I’m sure it ain’t jake with them to go passing off your work to us cats.  So, that leads to the main question of why you’re down here putting it out?”

Red Godding shuffled his feet a few times, his cheeks blushing red while his brown eyes blinked much more rapidly than usual.  The group was silent, waiting, and eventually he rubbed a big, calloused hand across his face and sighed.

“Listen fellas, they just asked me to take the job and put it out for someone to do, someone from outside the Goats ya know?”

“Oh, so you sister isn’t sick then?  You sure tried to sell us that angle a second ago.  Looks like most of what you picked up from them Goats was how to lie to your friends.”

“No, she ain’t sick, and I’m sorry about all that.  I just, well, I don’t know how to do all this stuff now, stuff they want me to do.  It’s more complicated than I thought it would be.”

“So, why did you go to them Red?” Leo asked.

“I just thought it would be better, more money, more chances to make something of myself.  Instead,” and here paused to look up at the ceiling, “well, they just tell me to do stuff and get mad when I mess it up.”

“So, you came to us because we’re easy and you could get your mission done and not get smacked around by your new bosses ? Or did you think you would come down here and hand out some charity?” Bill snapped back.

“I figured that was the right thing to do after all, you know, because of our relationship.”

“We ain’t got no relationship now that you’re in the Goats, so spare us the pity.”  Bill lit up a cigar and walked away after that, muttering under his breath on the way out the door.  Red shrugged at the rest of the group.

“What’s the job?” Leo asked.

“Like I said, just stealing a car, that’s it.  And it pays really good.”

“Like how good?”

“A hundred.”

Leo and the remaining members of the Seven all blinked collectively at that answer, a large amount for a simple car theft.  Then Chaz Mayfield spoke up in his nasally, Iowa-bred voice.

“I’ll take that action.”

“I already said I would take it,” Leo replied, “so you’re out of the game.”

“Damn,” Chaz whispered back, “I bet it’s some wooden nickel job.”

Leo raised an eyebrow at Red while taking his glasses off to polish them.  Silence filled the room for several long moments and then Leo put his glasses back on and stared at Red.

“Well?”

Red finally spoke but seemed to know that what he was about to say was not going to make him any friends.

“Well, it’s a unique car, a Renault NN, that should make it interesting huh?”

1925 Renault CV NN

Everyone seemed to understand that Red was stalling.

“Hey, ain’t that, oh damn, you can’t be serious,” Chaz’s voice tailed off and Red hung his head a little bit.

“And?” Leo asked, an irritated edge to his voice.

Red massaged his hands a few times and answered to the floor.

“It’s Joe Shannon’s car.”

…to be continued