Post by dans on Dec 29, 2019 16:23:15 GMT
The Legacy of Tony Bono
What Have You Done For Me Lately?
"Dolan, we need a BIG story this month. Daring Detective Magazine sales slipped last month, and we need to make up for it!" Publisher Brock "Thunder" MacFaddon shouted at his Editor-in-Chief, once again showing where his nickname came from. "We didn't get to be the largest selling rag on the racks by sitting on our laurels! I want a blockbuster for this issue, or you're back on the streets! Get moving, now!"
| Jim Dolan was grumbling as he walked into his office. "Price went up 2¢ last month; of course sales were off a bit. If it weren't for the two best stories we ever published, we woulda lost our shirts. Goddam old fart never satisfied…." He abruptly stopped when he realized his secretary, Sally Alden was standing next to his desk. "Sorry, Sal, sometimes that old fart just makes me furious!" "Yeah, it's always 'what have you done for me lately' with him. A couple months ago, you stopped the Phantom Axe Murderer dead, and last month, you smashed the Taxi Racket and rescued the Lambert heiress from kidnappers, and every one of those stories I wrote up and you edited for his old magazine. We're the best selling rag in the nation, and our stories are the most popular features in the best selling rag. What else does he want out of us?" |  |
Jim spent half his time, at least, busting crimes and working with law enforcement, then recounting his cases to Sally, who was one of the best True Crime writers in the industry. For her stories, his Chief Editor duties mostly consisted of deciding which story deserved the cover illustration.
"You deserve a month of doin' nothing, huh?" Sally said sympathetically, than thought for a few seconds. "Maybe we could write up another one of your old FBI cases? We haven't used that one where you busted that crooked cop in 1937 yet…"
Dolan had to laugh at that. He couldn't stand doing nothing! "OK, you got me; if I ain't workin' on a case, or shaping up one of your stories for the lead, I'm bored as hell, and ol'Thunder keeps me on my toes, leastwise. But that story's old news; let's lead this month's rag with something fresh! Anything on the wire?"
"No kidnappings today, no axe murders, no prototype Army bombers sabotaged, no arsonists running loose. Anything in the paper?" Sally kept an eye on teletypes for 3 different wire services, and monitored the police radio as well.
"Tony Bono's goin' to the chair tonight for killing a cop when the Rossi mob stole the Welfare League fund last month. Funny, he's the only one they caught, and nobody's found the money."
"Say, Jim, it's a little outside your ordinary range, but it would be a swell human interest story if that money got recovered. And the Welfare League was planning to use that money to help a lot of people! I think you should give it a shot."
"I think I'll see if they'll let me in to see Bono," Dolan agreed thoughtfully. "That money won't do him any good after tonight; maybe he'll do the right thing for once in his life." He pulled on his trench coat. "Never been to the prison before; not sure they have visiting hours today. I think I'll make a stop along the way and see if I can arrange a visitor's pass." Pretty soon he was burning up the road in his 1936 Cord 810 Phaeton, for a quick stop at the police station, where he was quickly shown in to see Chief Don Sanders.
"Of course, Jim, I'll be glad to call the warden and ask him to let you in to see Bono. Your rep is great with us, and my guys are always happy to work with you!" With Chief Sanders' endorsement, the prison Warden quickly agreed to let Jim in to see the condemned man.
Interview With a Killer
Tony Bono was a man resigned to the chair to pay for his crimes. "I didn't really kill that cop, Dolan; Rizzo pulled the trigger dis time, and then set me up to take the fall. Guess I'm payin for all the other guys I kilt, though."
Jim brought he conversation around to the Welfare League loot. "The money's no good to you any more, Tony. But the Welfare League can use it to help a lot of people. Tell me where it is so I can return it."
"Honest, Jim, I ain't got no part of that dough! Rossi got away with it all." He sounded sincere.
"OK, Tony, I believe you. Guess I'll need to look up Rossi next." He had no idea what to say to a man who was condemned to die in a few hours; he got to his feet, jammed on his cap, and turned away.
"Hey, Dolan!" Jim turned back. "We got no beefs, right?" Jim nodded. "You seem like a square guy. Could you do a dead man a favor?" When Dolan didn't say 'No', Bono continued. "Ain't nobody but my wife gonna miss a mug like me, but I'd like somebody to pray for me. Could ya ask my wife to read a psalm for me? The one on page 555 of the bible I gave her has always been my favorite."
"I'll drop in on her before I start looking for Rossi," Jim promised, then signaled the waiting guard to let him out of Bono's cell. He was thoughtful as he climbed into the Cord. 'Never a word about being innocent, knows he's a killer and deserves the chair - and he wants his wife to pray for him? Seems strange. But a dying man's last wish and all…'
Encounter With Rossi
He had to park on the street a block from the office. As he passed an alley, four big guys jumped him and dragged him into the alley and then started to pummel him. Jim got an open shot at one of them, and a right cross to the thug's jaw dropped him instantly. He turned his attention to the next two, and for a couple of seconds, he was holding his own, but the fourth guy got behind him and knocked him out with a lead-weighted cosh. The three conscious thugs dragged Jim and their woozy partner back through the alley to their own car.
Waking up wasn't pleasant - but at least he did wake up. He was seated in a chair at a dinner table, surrounded by seven men - the four who had clobbered him, along with Rossi and two more men. Several of them were pressed close to him, one was near a fireplace with a roaring fire, and Rossi was across the table.
"We know why you went to the prison, today, punk. That rat Bono ran out on us with the Welfare Fund loot, and he stashed it somewhere. We know he wants his wife to have it, and I figger he told you something. So, what'd he tell you?"
"Not a damn thing, Rossi. He told me you rats set him up and cut him out of his share and left him to take the rap - and I believe him!" Jim snarled.
"Soften him up, boys!" Rossi ordered. Two thugs grabbed his arms, and another slammed him in the head a couple of times. "Anything else to say, Dolan?"
"Still not a thing, Rossi. You know, you're a pretty tough talker - when you got 6 guys backin' you up. Why don't we have a little one-on-one talk, huh?"
"Always a smart-ass dick, huh, Dolan? We got ways a makin' you talk, tough guy." The guy near the fireplace pulled out two heavy andirons, handed them to the boss. They were glowing red. He waved them in Dolan's direction; the prisoner could feel the heat from a foot away. "Smitty, Jonesy, grab 'im and hold his hands out!"
He waved the irons in Dolan's face again, and the two thugs flinched away for just a second - and that was all the break Dolan needed!
He surged to his feet and kicked the table over, knocking Rossi down. The mob boss dropped both andirons as he fell and just barely avoided landing on one of them. Jim jumped forward and slugged the guy who'd handed Rossi the irons, then turned and grabbed the chair, swept it around, knocked another thug off his feet, and threw it in the face of yet another thug, the only one who'd so far recovered enough to pull his pistol. 'Seven to one odds, too much even for me!' raced through his mind as he lowered his shoulder, crashed through the locked front door without slowing down and staggered into the street. He was almost run down by a passing cab, and as it squealed to a halt, he yanked open the back door, leaped inside, and barked his office address to the driver.
Back in the house, the thugs were frantically busy, putting out the carpet fire started by the red hot and irons Rossi had dropped. "We're clearing out, boys, before Dolan can send the cops to pick us up. Grab whatcha wanna take!" Rossi ordered his crew, then started going through his papers, dropping most of them on the rug.
During their frenzied activity, the phone rang. It was the prison guard who'd kept an eye on Dolan during his visit to Tony Bono. Smitty took the call as Rossi finished stuffing some papers into a big satchel. "Yeah, tell the boss that Bono said page 555 in his old lady's bible… yeah, dats all he said. Dolan promised he'd deliver the message, then he left. That's all I know."
"Jonesy, Ratso, dump a couple'a gallons of kerosene in this dump - we're gonna burn it on our way out!" Rossi ordered, as he placed a couple of other calls. "We got a stop to make, and then the yacht." The gang cleared out, with Smitty and Ralphie firing the place behind them.
Daring Rescue
As soon as the cab dropped him off near his office, Jim hopped into the Cord and raced toward the neighborhood where Bono and his wife lived. It appeared that he was too late - he was stopped by the police a block from the apartment building, which was surrounded by fire trucks. They appeared to have given up on saving the building, and were attempting to keep the fire from spreading.
"Is everyone out?" Jim frantically raced up to the Fire Chief. "I need to find Mrs. Bono, Apartment 3B!"
"We think the fire started in that apartment, and we haven't been able to get in there yet - and the other third floor residents say Bono must still be up there," the Chief told him. "We got a ladder truck set up, but the building's about to come down - it's too dangerous to go in now!"
"Bullcrap!" Jim shouted as he sprinted toward the ladder truck. He knocked down a cop who tried to stop them, and raced up the ladder in record time, burst through the plate glass window of the third floor into the inferno that had once been an apartment. Mrs. Bono was squirming weakly on the floor. Her face was bloody and she was tied in strips ripped from her own clothing. There was a book lying on the floor beside her. Jim scooped up the book as he grabbed the semi-conscious woman in a fireman's carry and stepped back out on the ledge of the shattered window. The firemen below saw him and raced to the sidewalk below. Jim jumped just as the room behind him collapsed with a roar and a blast of heat, trusting the courageous team below to catch him.
As he and Mrs. Bono were pulled from the net, she tried desperately to tell Jim something. He bent close, and she mumbled in his ear. "They tore a page from my bible…" and then she passed out.
An ambulance had just pulled up at the scene; Mrs. Bono was placed on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital. During the confusion, Dolan slipped the bible in his pocket, and when he was cornered by the cops and the firemen, he left the bible and the missing page out of his story.
What's on Page 555?
Dolan finally got back to his office, where he could examine the torn and singed bible in private. Luckily for him, the psalms are presented in sequence, and he was quickly able to determine that Psalm 23 had been on page 555 of this particular edition. He had his own bible in his shelf of reference books, and he found the clue he needed in the second sentence:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
"I've got it! Green Pastures Cemetery - I think I'll pay it a surprise visit tonight," Dolan almost shouted in satisfaction as he read the psalm out loud. Green Pastures was the biggest cemetery in the city. 'Still waters could mean the loot is stashed somewhere near the big pond - maybe in one of those big old walk-in tombs!' He started to rush out again, the changed direction and headed to Sally's office. 'If she's still in, I ought to let her in on the secret. I wouldn't be this close to getting the loot back if she hadn't suggested I look for it!'
Sally wasn't in - and her office was a mess. 'Been a fight here!' Dolan deduced instantly. He quickly found a barely legible, handwritten note on her desk:
"We're goin after the money - if you ever want to see the girl again, keep out of the Bono case.
Spike Rossi"
"Why, the dirty rat!" He was out of the office and into his car in a flash, pausing only long enough to pull his electric torch from the boot. It only took a few minutes to reach the parking lot at the cemetery's front entrance - and there was another car there already. 'Gotta be Rossi's boys - I better be cautious from here on in!' he thought as he drew his pistol and stuffed the torch into a pants pocket.
The thugs weren't being overly cautious, though. Just as Dolan approached a big old mausoleum near the small lake in the middle of the cemetery, he heard men whispering and dropped behind a large tombstone. Three men exited the old tomb into the dusk. With a shout, Dolan charged! One thug managed a wild shot at Jim, who snapped his own shot back, dropping the man instantly. He clouted a second guy hard, and they got into a brief slugging match, but a roundhouse right dazed the thug, and a rap with the pistol on the side of his head dropped him to the ground, stunned.
The third man had already scrammed, and as the fight ended, Jim heard the roar of an engine and the sounds of gravel being thrown from under frantically spinning tires. 'No use chasing that bum,' he thought. 'I'll just have to make this guy talk!' He grabbed the dazed thug and pressed the barrel of his pistol roughly into the man's Adam's Apple.
"Bet that'll leave a big bruise tomorrow, eh, mug? I could make it a hole instead, and then you wouldn't never have to worry about bruises again. Talk! Where's Rossi? Or I'll…"
The panicked thug interrupted him. "DON'T SHOOT! I'll talk!"
Dolan pulled the pistol back where the thug could see it, aimed it right at his forehead.
He was gasping in fear so much he could barely talk, but he finally managed to stammer out: "Rossi's got the girl, they're in a yacht anchored in the bay. He's waiting for the money." He almost retched; Dolan gently tapped his forehead with his pistol, reminding the thug that he wanted to hear more. "He plans to head out as soon as he gets the dough, plug the skirt, and drop her overboard for da sharks. Wit dat loot he can set up in some other city - we'z already burned the old place."
For an instant, Dolan considered shooting and saving the state on the electric bill, but the thug was whimpering and blubbering in terror - only a coward would kill a man in that condition. Instead, he again rapped the thug with his pistol, this time a lot harder, and then lugged the man back to the parking lot and dumped him in the trunk of the Cord. He raced his way to the bay, skidded to a squealing top in front of the Harbor Patrol building. He'd worked with the Harbor Patrol before several times, and in only a few minutes, the thug was in a cell and Jim was making plans with 'Rocky' Fiegel, the Chief of the Harbor Patrol.
"They've got Sally. I've got to get out to that boat immediately!" Dolan urgently laid out his case to Chief Fiegel.
"Don't worry, Jim, we'll make sure we get her back safe," his big, muscly friend reassured him. "I know where Rossi normally moors that big yacht of his. I've got a boat ready. Let's go!" The boat was an electric launch, with a pretty short range, but virtually silent - a wise precaution when trying to sneak up on another boat. On board, they made plans.
"If they see us coming, they'll shoot Sally and take off! As soon as we spot them, I'll slip overboard, swim to their yacht, and sneak aboard," Jim insisted.
"If they take off, we won't be able to catch them - Rossi's yacht would outrun our boat in a mile. So that sounds like a great plan," Fiegel agreed. "Signal us with a gunshot, and we'll storm the yacht!"
A quarter mile out, the electric launch ghosted to a stop and Dolan slipped silently overboard. "Remember, we hear a gunshot and we'll be there in seconds, guns blazing!" the Chief assured Dolan as he began silently paddling away.
The thugs on Rossi's yacht didn't seem too worried about noise - there was some kind of mild celebration underway at recovering the Welfare League loot, and the crew was making preparations to get under weigh. Dolan was undetected as he reached the anchor chain, pausing with only a foot in the water to let water drain quietly from his body rather than splash. Then, in a flash of silent effort, he pulled himself on board, flattened against the wall of the cabin in the darkest shadows he could find, and began prowling the deck. He pulled open the first hatch he came to…
The thug standing guard on the other side of the hatch never had a chance to react. Dolan slammed a dirty blow to his head that instantly knocked the man unconscious. But the noise alerted the rest of the crew, and they rushed the hatch, Rossi in the lead, waving a pistol. A short jab got the charging gangster on the chin, and he stumbled backwards, spasmodically firing his pistol as he fell.
True to Chief Fiegel's word, the Harbor Patrol launch had been idling nearby; the helmsman drove the electric engine to full power, and the boat leaped through the water. The Harbor Patrol stormed the yacht like ancient pirates, shooting or punching almost indiscriminately, and within minutes, Rossi and his gang were subdued. Several would wake up in the prison hospital; a couple would never awaken.
Dolan pushed into a locked cabin, and was almost brained by the drawer of a dresser - Sally Alden was not planning on going quietly, and she'd managed to work free of her bonds and grabbed the only thing in the tiny cabin that she could use as a weapon. She pulled her swing at the last instant and succeeded in knocking him down without causing any major damage…
One of Fiegel's men discovered the satchel with the Welfare League funds, and Dolan himself piloted Rossi's yacht back to the dock, where the entire gang was turned over to the police.
Epilogue
As usual, Dolan's case was even more exciting when Sally finished writing it up than it had been in person. Tony Bono got the chair, followed a few months later by Spike Rossi and a couple members of his gang. The Welfare League got their funds back, which helped them deliver an extra-merry Christmas to hundreds of the less fortunate city residents that year. And that month's circulation was the largest ever for Daring Detective Magazine, shutting "Thunder" MacFaddon up for a few days, until it was time to start pasting up the next month's issue!