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Fiction Short Story

by Charles Langley

A Small Case of Violence

Bugsy Nealie didn't have a friend in the world, but he was always surrounded by sycophants who gave him the highest compliment available in his world: "He's a fast man with a buck."

That he was, but he was also a mean son-of-a-bitch that many would have liked to take apart and put together differently, but for the hangers-on who formed a defense squad.

He loved to show off the roll of bills in his pocket and often bought a round just to demonstrate his wealth. He had other unsocial habits, such as seeking out some quiet-spoken young man and buying him a drink. When the recipient turned to thank him, he would deck him with a round-house right. His followers kept anyone from getting even.

"Anything I hate, it's them girlie boys," he would tell you. "Was up to me I'd chop off their peckers and feed them to 'em." His constant audience would roar at his wit.

Two weeks before, Bugsy had failed to find any action in the club and was on his way down the street when he came on Curtis Pugh. Curtis was a six foot six, two hundred and twenty pound hillbilly giant. Curtis could take care of himself in a normal situation. But this wasn't such a situation. He walked on a crutch for his sprained right ankle and his broken left arm hung in a sling.

"Y'all got a light," he drawled, when the group approached him.

"Sure thing," Nealie said, tossing him a book of matches.

While the country boy lit up, Nealie swung on him, knocking him off his crutch and onto the ground. He then picked up the crutch and thrashed the recumbent figure, laughing loudly all the time. None of his followers tried to stop him, and all joined in the laughter.

"Soon as you heal, look up that son-of-a-bitch and show him what a real fight is" I later advised Curtis.

"Naw," he said, "He didn't really mean it. He was drunk. It was the likker that was to blame."

You can't argue with a Southern boy schooled in the golden rule. But I promised myself that if I ever caught Bugsy alone I'd give him some dancing lessons.

This night Bugsy held forth at one end of the bar. He hadn't found a victim yet, so he sounded off loudly, "I ain't never worked a day in my life, but I got more moola on me than any forty hour a week wage slave in the house" He held aloft a roll of bills.

"I hate that loud mouth bully," Pete told me. "If it was up to me he'd never set a foot in the place. Be willing to make up what he spends out of my own pocket, just to keep from seeing his leering face."

"You’re the boss. Why don't you let me throw him out on his ass and tell him to stay out?"

"I'm the boss here, but he has good connections in the organization. Been in it as long as I have. Brings in lots of dough, and pays his dues on time. Boss of bosses would have my ass, if I treated him like he deserves."

Pete headed upstairs to his office, and I heard him pick up the phone.

In a short time a smooth-looking young man in a grey suit came in and nudged himself in at the other end of the bar. He nursed a bottle of Heineken's like a B-girl without a mark to pay for her champagne.

Bugsy gave up on finding action and left by the front door. The young man in the grey suit followed him.

Almost immediately Nealie was back.

"Call the police," he shouted. "I've been robbed."

"You heard him," Pete told Ernie the waiter. "Call the police and be quick about it."

I thought I saw him wink when he said it.

When the fuzz eventually came, they weren't too interested. They knew Bugsy, and they knew his reputation and didn't like either.

"You got a description of the perp?" Officer Moran asked.

"He had a stocking over his head. Couldn't see his face. But his clothes looked like the kid in the grey suit, was on the other end of the bar."

"Couldn't have been him," Pete interjected. "He went out the back door just as you were coming back in the front."

"How much you lose?" Officer Monahan wanted to know.

"All I had on me. Eight hundred and seventy dollars.”

"They could rob me ten times and not get that much," Monahan complained.

The men in blue left, and we knew that was the last anyone would hear of the incident.

Next morning I sat in Pete's office going over the previous nights take when someone knocked on the open door. The young man in grey from the previous night came in. Without speaking, he tossed a roll of bills on the desk.

"How much?" Pete asked.

"Eight hundred and seventy bucks. I would have taken his pants, too, but the mark was too stupid to be embarrassed.”

The boss peeled off two C notes and gave them to the fellow. He touched the brim of his fedora with his forefingers in thanks and was on his way.

Pete tossed the roll to me.

"John Doe paid his bar tab," he said without a smile. "Ring this up and put it in the register."

"Where'd you get the gunsel?"

"Works as a file-clerk in Police Headquarters. I give him odd jobs that I don't want connected to the organization. Probably would have sent you, but Bugsy would have recognized your corn-pone drawl. Maybe afraid, too, that you'd ice him because you didn't like the cut of his jib."

"Never shot a man in my life because of his jib. Might have snapped a cap cause he combed his hair the wrong way, though. What the hell is a jib, anyway?"

I was moving from kindergarten to first grade in this school of crime, and I had the best of teachers.

A week later I got a call from a diner at the end of the bus run.

"Man you said to look out for is here," he said, "Alone."

I was on my way.

"He's in the john," the lunch punk volunteered. "Disappointed there's nobody to pick on."

I ordered a cup of joe and a cruller, but didn't touch them. Instead, I slouched over the counter as if drunk or half asleep. Bugsy came in and sized up the situation.

"Freshen up his coffee," he said, tossing a jitney on the counter.

I raised my head as if to thank him and saw the punch I knew would come. I side slipped it and landed on my feet, parrying the left hook that followed and tapping him on the cheek with a light right. Surprised, he tried another all out swing that I evaded, smashing my right hand into his nose and sending a stream of blood down his white shirt. I rode out the next swing until it was harmless and brushed away another left. All the while I tapped him just hard enough to infuriate him, without finishing him off. He started to puff, and to have difficulty getting his fists to do what he wanted them to do. I sent a hard right to his solar plexis, punished his kidney with a left, and then, as he stood hands apart with an astonished look on his bloody face, I landed one hard on his jaw and laid him out.

The counterman was on the phone calling an ambulance.

"Call the cops, too, to cover your ass," I told him.

The Medics were on the way out with the stretcher when Officers Moran and Monahan arrived. They saw who it was and shook their heads.

"He didn't have bad luck, he wouldn't have any luck at all," Moran offered.

"Don't stop," Mohahan told the stretcher bearers. "We'll talk to him at the hospital."

"It's a good thing you were out back emptying the garbage when it happened," Moran told the kid. "Otherwise we'd have to hold you as a witness."

The counterman stood puzzled, then realized what was going on.

Monahan looked at me. "You here when it happened?" he asked.

"Naw, I just came in,"

He picked up my cruller and finished it in three huge bites. His partner stirred three spoonfuls of sugar into my coffee and drank it down.

"Nothing we can do here now," Moran said. "Perp's miles away by now. Thanks for the doughnut."

"Cruller," I corrected him.

"And for the coffee," Monahan added. "It was kinda cold for just being drawn. By the way, you better put ice on that hand you caught in the door on the way in. It's starting to swell up.”

Back in the club I went to the office to clue Pete in on the happenings. "Bugsy ran into someone who punched back," I told him.

"Yeah, I heard. Good thing you got there after it was all over. I'd have to burn your ass if you messed with a made man."

"M and M caught the squeal. They didn’t seem too interested in the case."

"I hear they talked to him in the emergency room. He said he fell off a stool in a diner. Wants to take care of it himself, I guess."

"Best way, he ever meets the guy again. I'd sure watch my back if it had been me."

"Funny thing about M and M. To look at them, you'd think they were a pair of thick micks. Actually, they're good cops. Got the best closed case record in the precinct. Sharp as a ghetto razor. Never miss a trick."

"How do you know so much about beat cops?”

"It's my job. Gotta make sure they're worth the payoff they get. It's all here," he tapped a black ledger on his desk. "I keep it in the back of the safe, you ever need it."

"Do me no good. I don't have the combination."

"You will have when it's time for you to use it. You better stop by the kitchen and put ice on your hand. It'll swell up real bad, you don't take care of it."

My hand had been throbbing in my coat pocket the entire time I was there. M and M weren't the only ones who never missed a trick.


About the Author
Since returning to writing four years ago after a fifty-some year hiatus, Charles Langely has published one hundred and thirty short stories, poems, or articles in five books and numerous magazines or ezines.

Two years ago, Gannett newspapers gave full-page, nationwide coverage to his time as cub reporter at the Flemington, NJ, trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the kidnap/murder of the infant son of Col. Charles Lindbergh.