That Toddlin’ Town
Even though it was the middle of the summer, the night was cold like ice with not a star in the sky. Rufus Padanski walked down a dimly lit street in the cold, carrying a satchel and a violin case. He wore a tan trench coat over his blue business suit and a dark gray fedora. Anyone who saw him would have thought he was a business man going to practice with the volunteer orchestra downtown. Rufus was a sturdy fellow. Every person he knew would have described him as a trustworthy guy. He never did anything people didn’t want him to do. He always did what his boss told him to, and he never made a late shipment.
But it wasn’t how he went about his job that was the problem, it was the fact that his job was as a Chicago gin-smuggler. He had been doing it ever since Prohibition started twelve years earlier in 1920.
Tonight he was going to make a shipment directly to Boss Lugosi, or “Papa” as his mob friends called him, friends like Nicky the Nose and Al Capone. Rufus simply called him Arman.
Rufus walked a few steps further down the street until he passed a dark alley. He turned into the alley a disappeared like a ghost into the darkness.
There was only a single light in the alley, and under it stood a tall man in a dark gray trench coat and fedora in front of a small red door that lead into the back of Chicago’s most popular speak-easy. The man moved his head as if to look up at Rufus, but the light never reached his face clearly. Only the man’s broad unshaven jaw and his cigarette came into view. Rufus stopped a few steps away from the man. Rufus was a tall fellow, but this man towered over him like a pelican over a goldfish. The man took a deep breath from his cigarette and blew all of the smoke past Rufus.
“If a frog lies on a lily pad…” the man said. It was the password for the speak-easy.
“It lies on the side facing the sun,” Rufus responded looking up at the man.
The man took a step aside and pulled open the small red door. “Thanks Rufus,” he said letting him pass.
“Yea, see yah next week Jimmy.” Rufus walked in and heard the soft click of the door closing behind him.
He walked into the speak-easy and the smell of cigar and cigarette smoke hit him like a sack of wood screws in a sock hanging from a spinning fan blade. He had forgotten in the month he took off from work how strong the smell was.
The room was large and draped all over with black curtains, some of them hiding booths where mob deels took place, others there for lonely men and the rest were there for show. There was a soft piano playing and a couple of people danced in the center of the room. There were tables everywhere, and booths all along the walls. All of the tables were covered in silk table spreads. The waiters rushed by wearing black tuxedo pants, red and black vests and white shirts. One man zipped past Rufus carrying a tray filled with wine glasses, but not before Rufus snagged one and took a sip. He savored the taste in his mouth for a second and then swallowed.
“Rough House,” Rufus heard someone yell from the other side of the room. “Rough House” was his mob name since Rufus sounds more like a name given to a hamster. It was the Boss. Rufus smiled and waved. “Come on over here! I haven’t seen you in ages!” Boss Lugosi was in a white tuxedo, a black bow tie and shoes, and a red handkerchief stuffed in his chest pocket. On either side of him was a gorgeous dame. The one on his right was a blonde in a black dress who was putting on lipstick. The one on his left was a brunette who Rufus thought was by far the more attractive one. Her pink dress sparkled in the soft lighting and her lips glowed red. Rufus had always had something for brunettes. The Boss was more a blonde-chaser than anybody.
Rufus and Lugosi had grown up together in a poor neighborhood in Skokie, Illinois, a small town a few miles North of Chicago. Lugosi made it out of that town, but Rufus decided to stay after he had found Helen.
Helen Archer was her full name.
Rufus walked over to Lugosi, sat down in the booth and took off his fedora.
“Rufus, my old friend how are you?” Lugosi asked with a bright smile on his face.
“Doin’ pretty well Arman, I see you’re not doing too shabby either.” He looked around at the magnificent speak-easy.
“This place? I bought it four weeks ago, just after you took that vacation. It was a wreck, no windows, no tables, filled with rats. Now, it’s like it was built yesterday. So how long can you stay in town?”
“I’ve got to be back in Skokie by midnight.” Rufus said pulling his sleeve back from his watch.
“Why the rush?” Lugosi said, now intrigued.
“I’ve got a girl back home.” Rufus looked up from his watch.
“In Skokie?” Lugosi asked and Rufus nodded. “Who is she?”
“Do you remember Helen Archer?”
Lugosi nodded, secretly jealous of Rufus. “The cute brunette from high school?”
“The same. She came back into town about three months ago and we met up at a coffee shop. She’s the same as she was in high school Arman.” Rufus didn’t want to brag, but both of them had had a crush on Helen all through high school, but they were never the ones who took her to dances or to moving picture shows; it was always the sports players, never the musicians.
“That’s great news Rufus, your mom always hoped you two would end up together.” Rufus’ mom had died when he was seventeen and his father had been killed in a mechanical fire when he was twelve. He had been on his own ever since.
There was a moment of silent contemplation as they both remembered the small town life, the life that Arman Lugosi had left behind and that Rufus escaped to every night.
Rufus finally brought his satchel up to the table and laid his violin case next to it. He opened it and turned it to face Lugosi. Lugosi smiled his bright, reassuring smile again.
“I never doubted you for a second Rufus. Well done.” He pulled a bottle of gin out of the satchel, opened it and poured a glass for himself and Rufus. He held up his glass to propose a toast. “To Skokie.” Rufus reluctantly raised his glass.
“And to those of us who never have to see it again,” Rufus added then threw the gin down his throat. He looked down at his watch again. It was ten o’ clock. He had to leave in the next few minutes to make back to Helen by midnight. “I believe I’ll have to call it a night Arman.”
“I hate to see you go so soon.” He stood as Rufus did and the two broads next to him looked up at them.
Rufus put his fedora back on his head, and as he did there was a loud crash from outside the back door. A gun shot sounded in the back alley. The small red door burst open and more than two dozen cops flooded into the speak-easy.
“Everybody freeze and this thing doesn’t get messy,” one of the cops yelled as they found places to evenly space themselves out. A lamp flew across the room and crashed into a cop’s head. He fired wildly and everyone bolted for an exit or cover.
Women screamed in horrible, head-splitting pitches and men dove for violin cases. Lugosi pulled a shotgun from under his table. He cocked it and blew one of the cops running toward him off of his feet. The two dames beside Lugosi screamed and ducked under the table. Rufus bent down and grabbed his violin case up and it fell as he pulled out a Thompson sub-machine gun. He loaded it and pulled the trigger. Twenty rounds went off in only a few seconds. Twelve cops hit the floor instantly. He grabbed the brunette next to him by the arm and pulled her out from the booth along with him to an exit. Lugosi tried to pull the shrieking blonde out from under the table but she only snarled and clawed at him like a cornered badger. He ran out after Rufus and the brunette.
Cops went out after everyone, shooting down men and women trying to flee the speak-easy. A glass on the table next to Rufus blew up as he ran past it. He shot at the cops on the other side of the room. One cop came right up to him and Rufus slammed him in the jaw with the butt of his Tommie Gun. Lugosi grabbed a wine bottle, ducked down and stuffed his handkerchief in its neck. He took his lighter and lit the end of the handkerchief, took off running toward the front exit and chucked the bottle grenade at the cops. Two of them went down in a blaze.
Rufus kicked open the front door and held it open for the brunette and Lugosi to run through. He shot aimlessly into the speak-easy and yelled at the top of his lungs.
Lugosi opened his car in the now pouring rain. The brunette jumped into the back seat and Rufus ran around to snatch shotgun. He slammed the door shut. He heard the engine of Lugosi’s Chrysler cough and sputter as he tried to start it. Lugosi released the key and then cranked it again. The engine bounced in place. Rufus lowered the window and tossed out his empty ammunition magazine and pulled a full one out of his trench coat pocket. The car still sputtered.
Rufus jumped out of the car and kicked the front quarter panel. The car jumped, backfired and then started in a matter of seconds.
The door to the speak-easy burst open and at least a dozen cops came running out, revolvers in hand. Rufus slapped in the magazine and cocked the gun. He fired, spraying the entire side of the building with bullets. He climbed into the car through the open window and sat on the door frame. He shot from over the roof of the car at the cops. Revolver shots zipped past him and he felt the wind of one as it rushed past his ear. He ducked into the car, dripping wet and panting.
Helen Archer paced back and forth through the living room of her small, two-bedroom house in Skokie. She wore a red silk slip, a red bath robe and high eels. She was biting her nails almost to the flesh and wearing a hole in her rug. Her high heels clicked whenever she stepped off the carpet on to the hard wood.
She was remembering what Rufus had told her that afternoon before he took off to Chicago.
“What time will you be back?” she had asked.
“Sweetheart, if I ain’t back by twelve, I ain’t comin’ back.” He had grabbed his brief case full of gin and walked out the door before she could reach him to kiss him good-bye.
It was eleven-forty-nine. Helen kicked off her high heels and threw away her robe. She sat down on the couch and watched the clock on the coffee table as its second hand moved choppily around the face. It stopped briefly, shook when it did, then moved to the next line on the clock, and repeated.
Eleven-fifty-three and no honk of a horn, no knock at the door. She heard the rain faintly as it poured down outside.
Eleven-fifty-seven and Helen put a hand over her gaping mouth and her eyes watered up. Her wavy brown hair flowed down, in front of her face.
Eleven-fifty-nine and her lips trembled. A tear slowly inched its way down her soft, blushing cheek.
Twelve A.M. Another tear followed and then another until a constant stream fell from her dark brown eyes. She covered her face with her hands and curled her legs up to her chest and rolled over on the couch. He was never coming back. She hadn’t even kissed him good-bye. Her hair fell into her face and caught most of her tears.
A thunder clap sounded outside and then a honk of a horn. Helen could not hear for her unrelenting sobs. Another clap of thunder and the lights went out in the house.
The door burst open and a shot of lighting lit up the room. The rain outside boomed like a cymbal constantly crashing. Helen looked up from her teary pillow and saw a dark figure in the doorway. Another flash of lightning and she could see Rufus, his trench coat flapping wildly in the wind, dripping with water, his fedora still neatly on his head, shadowing his face, and a Tommie gun held in his right hand, held up to his shoulder. He looked up under his fedora and Helen ran to him. Her lips hit his so hard it hurt. He dropped the Tommie to his side and embraced her.
Lugosi and the brunette came into the doorway also soaking wet. Rufus looked back at them, an arm still around Helen’s waist.
“Lugosi, tell me did this and I’ll hunt him down like a dog.”
Lugosi turned from him to the brunette. “It was Jimmy Cox.”
“Crooked Cox?” Rufus was shocked.
“He’s been after me for years. I never had any proof until now. He was the only guy who didn’t show tonight.” Lugosi walked over to the couch and sat down.
“Where does his gang hide out?” Rufus asked letting go of Helen but she held tight to his left arm.
“It’s an abandoned apartment building on the corner of 53rd and State Street.”
Rufus turned to Helen. “Sweetheart,” he said looking into her eyes with a look of foreboding. “I’m going into town again tomorrow.”
Helen nodded, understanding what he was going to do.
The next morning, the clouds were low and gray in the sky. No sunlight shone through anywhere, but no rain fell either. Rufus drove his polished black Cadillac 353 down State Street and headed toward the corner of 53rd. He saw the building. It was twelve stories high, gray and no lights on. He turned onto 53rd and pulled up next to the side walk. He pulled his violin case from the passenger seat and stuffed a Colt .45 in his trench coat. He took an extended breath from his cigarette and tossed it away.
He walked slowly to the front door of the apartment building. There was only a sign next to the door that said “Condemned” in large red letters. Rufus kicked down the door and entered. There was shuffling of feet from inside and a yell to someone about something. Rufus didn’t care what it was. He stepped inside the dark building and his eyes adjusted to the light. A man in all black ran out from behind a corner with a pistol, Rufus dropped the violin case from his arm and pulled out the Tommie as it fell. He fired and the man flew back against the wall. Another man ran through a doorway into the room, firing a Tommie as much as he could. Rufus dove aside and rolled to the wall. The man missed and did not let go of the trigger to find his target. The gun clicked in his hands. It was empty.
Rufus stood up in the darkness and walked toward the man slowly. The man pulled a knife from his belt and held it up toward Rufus, Rufus did not stop. The man ran toward him holding the knife high over his head and screaming at the top of his lungs. Rufus shoved the butt of him Tommie into the man’s stomach. He double over and Rufus kicked him hard in the ribs. The man dropped and then screamed. He convulsed and then lied still. Rufus bent over and rolled the man to his side. The knife handle jutted out of the man’s gut like a fork in a steak.
“Rufus,” a man yelled from behind him. Rufus froze and knew there was a .45 pointed dead at his heart. “Drop the gun Rufus.” He did.
“Why’d yah do it Cox?” Rufus turned around to face Jimmy who stepped forward.
“Have you any idea what Lugosi has been doing as Boss of the City?” Cox said.
“What are you talkin’ about Cox?”
“He has been killing innocent people and taking their money so he can buy more booze. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. He has turned into an evil man Rufus. I’m not sayin’ that what we do is good, by no means, but he has gone too far.”
Rufus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He and Lugosi had grown up hating people like that. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe it.”
“I know it’s hard to accept Rufus, but Lugosi has been abusing his power like a hick does his wife. He started out helping people, giving money to those who had none, but then he realized what he could do with all of that power. He’s not the same man you grew up with anymore. He’s a no good scumbag Rufus and he has to be stopped.”
“DON’T YOU EVER SAY THAT ABOUT HIM!” Rufus ducked for his Tommie and before Jimmy could fire a shot, he had blown twenty holes in him. Jimmy’s head hit the floor with the sound of bowling ball striking pins. Rufus dropped his gun and walked away from the body, his head hung low. He knew Jimmy was right. He had just been too blinded by loyalty to his friend to see it.
He remembered when they were kids and they were playing with his German shepherd puppy out in the street and a chariot of a car came barreling down the road. Rufus and Lugosi had only had a few seconds to get out of the way, but the puppy had no chance. There was a thud and the car bounced up. It stopped and a man in the back seat wearing a black suit and tie looked out the window at them scornfully.
“Watch where let your filthy mutt run around!” the man had yelled. He sat back in the car and it drove off, but not before Rufus and Lugosi both threw large rocks into the back windshield. Ever since that day both Lugosi and Rufus had sworn to never become rich and powerful.
But now it was only Rufus who had held that promise. Lugosi had become exactly what they had hated when they were children.
Rufus sat in the driver seat of his Cadillac and held his face in his hands. He knew now that Lugosi had to be stopped, and that he was the one who had to do it. He started the car and drove to where he knew Lugosi would be: the abandoned warehouse where he did all of his mob business. It was only a few blocks away.
Helen Archer woke up in a daze, her eyes bloodshot and her face smeared with tears. She looked around in the darkness and realized her hands hurt. She looked up into a blinding light that hung directly over her and saw that her hands were bound by a white rope tied to a pipe overhead. She looked down and saw that she was still in her red silk slip from the night before. Her head was throbbing.
“Hello Helen.” It was Lugosi. He walked up to her with a pistol pointed at her stomach.
“What are you doing?” she said trying to shake herself loose from the rope, but it would not budge.
“You don’t remember me do you?”
“You’re Boss Lugosi, lead boss of the mob in Chicago, who doesn’t know you?” She said matter-of-factly.
“Not who I am now, but who I was long ago.”
Helen didn’t understand.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“In high school, my name was not Lugosi. It was Smith, Arman Smith. I asked you to every school dance and to every moving picture show I knew you’d like. Yet you would not go with me, you went with every other prick on the planet, yet you would not go with me.” He removed his fedora and his black trench coat.
“Arman?” she said, now remembering him as the slightly over-weight, glasses wearing, comic strip-reading high school student that he once was.
“Yes, things have changed quite a lot since then, wouldn’t you say? I am now the most powerful man in the city and you are now with a small town boy who has liked you since he first laid eyes on you.” His jealousy was now beyond clear.
“You did this all because you were jealous of Rufus?”
“NO! I did this because now I don’t have to be jealous of Rufus. I have everything. I have money. I have power. And now I have you, too.” He smiled, but instead of his smile being the reassuring grin he used to have, it was now a menacing scowl that would scare the death out of a ghoul. He stepped closer to Helen to where he was just inches away from her face when he spoke. “Rufus and I grew up believing that power was what made the world such an awful place to live in.” He circled Helen slowly. “Now, I have found that it is what makes the world happy. The fearful give power to the feared. The powerless are ruled by the powerful. It is how it has been and will always be. Now I expect Rufus will come in here, having learned what I have done from that weasel Cox, and attempt a daring rescue of his fair lady, but don’t fret because I already have a surprise waiting for him when he arrives.”
A round of machine gun fire went off from downstairs.
Lugosi pulled Helen’s body close to him and whispered to her, “Looks like that’s him now.”
Rufus had blown down the door with his Tommie gun and was now walking into the abandoned warehouse expecting to see a dozen or more thugs in black trench coats come in with Tommies, but there was nothing, not even the chattering of mice on the floor. He pulled the Tommie gun up and held it with both hands, knowing something was terribly wrong.
“Rufus!” he heard Helen scream. Lugosi had her.
“HELEN!”
Dozens of machine guns went off at the same time. Rufus dropped to the floor and crawled on his elbows and toes along the lines of machinery. The guns stopped after a few seconds. He heard clips drop from the guns and new ones slapped into them. He stopped dead in his tracks. He peered out from behind a printing press and saw twenty men standing on the grated floor of the second level of the complex. He tightened his grip on his Tommie and made as little noise as he could as he crawled from one printing press to another. His foot hit an empty paint can and the sound echoed through the warehouse. The guns went off again and he sprinted to the next printing press. Sparks and bullets flew all around him. He dove behind the machine and held his gun even tighter. He looked down at himself and saw dozens of bullet holes in his trench coat. He laughed under his breath and sighed heavily.
The guns stopped again. Dozens of clicks sounded. Here was his chance. He stepped from behind the machine and emptied his clip at the men standing above him. Their clips fell to the ground and a few made it out of pockets, but none of them made it to the guns. Rufus ran under the grated level and to the stairs. None of the men on the floor moved. He picked up a new clip from beside one of their bodies and stuffed it into his Tommie.
Another shot went off and his Tommie flew from his hand with a spark. He ducked and looked over to see a man with a .45 shooting at him. Rufus dug his .45 out of his coat and pulled the slide back. The man fired again and again as Rufus crawled backwards over all of the bodies. Rufus grabbed a clip and threw it at the man. The man fired again, but instead of hitting Rufus, the bullet stuck into the fresh magazine and every shell inside exploded, literally pumping the man full of lead.
Rufus stood up, not knowing how he had just survived that.
“HELEN,” Rufus yelled again holding out his .45 in front of him. He walked along the grated flooring toward where the man had come from.
“Rough House,” a man yelled. It was Lugosi. “Looks like this is the end of the road for us my friend.”
“It doesn’t have to end this way Arman,” Rufus said walking steadily toward his voice.
“Oh, but it does. It absolutely has to end this way, with my bullet in your heart, and me taking everything you have.”
“What have you done with Helen?” Rufus stepped into a dark room with a door on the other side.
“That doesn’t matter now. What matters is what you do. You can open that door and die, or you can walk out of this warehouse, leave Chicago for good and forget this ever happened. Which will it be Rufus?”
Rufus did not answer he walked to the door and opened it. There was no sound, no gunshot, no yelling or screaming, only a light in the room and under it Helen was suspended by a rope, her feet dangling several inches above the floor. Rufus ran to her.
“Helen?” he looked up at her but she did not move and her hands were like ice. He kissed her lips and stepped back. There were footsteps from behind him. He spun around and pointed his gun at Lugosi, who had a .45 pointed at him as well.
“So this is what it comes down to?” Lugosi said circling. Rufus matched his motions. “The two of us, standing here, each just as capable of killing as the other. Who will shoot first? The man with nothing to lose if he does? Or the man with everything to lose if he doesn’t?”
“Neither of us has to shoot, Arman.” Rufus looked back at Helen for a brief second and then directly back at Lugosi.
“Ah, but one of us does have to shoot. I have to shoot to get everything that I have wanted out of this world: money, power, and the dame who I never had a chance with all my life. You have to shoot to save yourself and the dame from your terrible fate. But, I know that you could never shoot me, Rufus. We grew up together. We were like brothers you and I. I on the other hand have been so corrupted by everything bad in this world that it makes no difference whether you live or die.”
“I’ll do it if I have to Arman,” Rufus said aiming the gun now at Lugosi’s forehead.
Lugosi now backed away from Rufus and toward Helen. He put a hand on her chin and lifted her head up. She was unconscious with a large bruise on her cheek. “You won’t do it Rufus. Not even if I do this,” Lugosi struck Helen’s jaw with his pistol. Rufus winced and his hands shook.
Lugosi struck Helen in the stomach with the butt of his pistol.
“STOP IT!” Rufus screamed. His eyes watered.
“Not even if I do this!” Lugosi struck her face again. Rufus cried out.
Lugosi’s voice grew calm. “Not even if I do this.” He held his gun up to Helen’s chest. A shot sounded and echoed through the warehouse. Lugosi stepped back. Rufus cried and dropped the gun.
Lugosi looked down at his stomach. Blood was flowing from a hole in his suit. He dropped to his knees and gave a soft chuckle. He slumped to the floor, smiling his reassuring smile. Rufus pulled a pocket knife from his trench coat and cut the ropes suspending Helen. She fell into his arms and he held her close. He knelt down, holding her in his lap. Her eyes opened weakly.
“Rufus,” she said softly. Rufus put two fingers over her lips and shook his head slightly. He wiped his eyes and looked over at Lugosi, who was smiling at them blankly. Helen sat up and hugged Rufus’ neck. He rested his head on her shoulder, held her closer and forgot the rest of the world.
The End