Miracles and Massacres (20 page)

These books made for a classy backdrop, but they had a practical use as well. Unlike most attorneys, who used these books as a guide to the narrow letter of the law, Easy Eddie used them as a vast encyclopedia of loopholes, exploits, and artful legal dodges.

While others in his profession might advise their clients from the top floors of a high-rise building downtown, Eddie's one-man firm overlooked the homestretch of the dog track at Sportsman's Park.

Eddie had been told that many doors would open for him when he became a big-city lawyer. It was true; some of these doors led to politics, some to corporate power, some to a judge's seat, and others down troubled streets and the never-ending fight for the rights of the common man.

But there's one more door, an old, dark one, way down near the end of the hallway. That's the one Eddie found, standing open just a crack, when he'd first hung out his shingle. He knew damn well he shouldn't look at it, much less swing it wide and walk right through—but he'd done it anyway.

“Hey, Eddie?”

“Yeah, sweetheart.”

“I never get out to the track and I love it here. Do you mind if I go down and make a bet?”

“Don't mind at all.” He walked over and handed her a hundred, then gave her a pat on the bottom. “I've got a box right on the finish line. Just tell the boys you're with me and they'll get you whatever you want. Go on, I'll join you in a few.”

When she was gone he sat at his desk. There were things to be done, as always, but he had no desire to do them at the moment. He poured
himself a drink from the flask in his top drawer and before long he was lost in his thoughts again.

With Eddie's growing wealth had come the free time he'd always wanted. But, by the time 1927 rolled around, it was far too late to save his status as a family man. All his business travels, along with his wandering eye, had finally run his marriage into the rocks. But, despite the rifts his choices had created, Eddie continued to provide for his kids, and held out hope that he could be a positive presence in their lives, however small that might be.

He'd bought his soon-to-be ex-wife and the kids a fine new home and tried to make up for the neglect of his fatherly duties through financial support. The girls, he was convinced, would be fine; their mother had raised them right. It was his son who'd proven to be a cause for concern.

Eddie saw a lot of himself in the boy. And that wasn't a good thing.

•   •   •

Eddie had tried to teach his son the right things; things that a normal, at-home dad would be there to pass along. He taught him to play fair, to stand up to bullies, and to protect those unable to protect themselves. He taught him how to box and wrestle, and he took him to the shooting range until the boy had become an outstanding marksman. He took him flying, often talking their way into the cockpit so his son could try his hand at the controls. He'd tried his best—at least that's what he told himself—but on one recent visit, he realized that his best hadn't been good enough.

His son was also called Eddie, in honor of his wayward dad, but around the neighborhood he'd been picking up nicknames better suited to the billiard hall or the jailhouse than the Harvard Club. The kid was becoming lazy and spoiled as well, acting as if a cushy address on Easy Street were the only place he ever dreamed of living.

These early warning signs were enough to convince the elder Eddie that it was past time for a major change. Last month he'd put his foot down: the boy would leave St. Louis immediately and enroll in the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois—far from the ne'er-do-wells he'd begun to associate with, and near enough to his father's
Chicago home that the remainder of his youth could still be well supervised.

Eddie finished his drink, stood, and gave himself an approving onceover in the mirror by the coatrack. As he walked downstairs to join his girlfriend in the stands, he quietly hoped that, for the first time in a long time, he'd made the right decision.

It may have been too late for Eddie to pick the right door in life, but his son still had a chance.

Sportsman's Park

Cicero, Illinois

Early June 1930

Whether or not Eddie's concerns for his son had been justified, a few years later it seemed that his efforts had paid off. One of those early nicknames had unfortunately stuck, but other than that, young Eddie Jr. had grown into a confident, disciplined, square-shouldered cadet, ready to graduate with honors and set out on his own path. Where his ambitions had once involved a couch and a comic book, the boy now wanted to make it to the United States Naval Academy.

At last, things seemed to be looking up.

But, as so often happens to those who boldly stray to the wrong side of the law, just when things look their brightest, the devil is coming for his due.

Eddie arrived at his office on this warm June morning to find the feds waiting. That seductive door he'd opened long ago had slammed shut behind him. The good cop sat him down and brought him a coffee, and then the bad cop laid out their ironclad case. He was to be arrested on an old bootlegging rap, and the G-men were confident that a number of serious tax irregularities would surface in the run-up to the trial. When it was over Eddie had little hope of ever seeing daylight again.

Unless
.

Naturally, it wasn't just a crooked Chicago lawyer they were after; the going price for those was a dime a dozen. No, J. Edgar Hoover
wanted Al Capone and he wanted him bad. He'd sent his men to talk to the one insider who could finally help them put him away.

In return for information, Eddie would dodge the current charges and be assured of leniency toward any minor crimes that might come to the government's attention in the future. Then they told him about the icing on the cake: despite his father's sullied reputation, it would be arranged that his son would receive the necessary congressional nod to be approved and admitted to Annapolis. Without their influence, they assured him, the son of a gangster would never have a snowball's chance in hell of getting into the U.S. Naval Academy.

In truth, even without the threat of prosecution, Eddie had been considering making such a move on his own for quite some time. From a business standpoint, Capone had become a major liability and a constant thorn in his side, leaving no room for any legitimate enterprises. The offer to get his son into Annapolis was appealing, but he wasn't even sure if these guys could actually pull it off. On the other hand, they could definitely sling enough mud to keep his son
out
of the academy if they didn't get what they wanted.

It didn't take long for him to consider his options. After only a moment or two, Easy Eddie nodded and smiled, and did what he did best.

He made a deal.

Sportsman's Park

Cicero, Illinois

November 8, 1939

By the clock on the wall, Eddie had been lost in his memories for quite a while. He blinked a time or two, and the past faded away.

The waning daylight through his tall windows had grown dim and warm, and the hallway outside his office was still. In fact, it was so damned still it seemed that every last employee must have gotten a whispered word to go home early and avoid the line of fire.

Eddie knew there was no doubt that he'd done what he set out to do. In the end, however, he had to admit there wasn't a lot to be proud of. Over the years he'd lied and swindled nearly every working day. He'd
kept ruthless criminals on the streets and let innocent men be sent to rot behind bars. He'd been an accessory to felonies and even murder—though he'd never actually pulled the trigger himself—many times over. He'd lost his wife, neglected his children, and nearly watched his boy drift into a lowlife existence of sloth and ill-repute.

Eddie was too much of a realist to accept the idea of redemption, especially for the kind of man he'd become. The best he could hope for was that he'd soon be forgotten, and that, for the sake of his son, the name they shared wouldn't forever be synonymous with infamy and shame.

The newspaper lay open on his desk, and the headlines spoke of dark days to come. It was an uncertain world he'd be leaving behind. Hitler was consolidating Poland and turning his eyes toward new conquests. President Franklin Roosevelt had just declared the United States to be resolutely neutral in the war that was surely on the way, but that position couldn't last much longer. Eddie knew as well as anyone the workings of the criminal mind: some madmen will never stop unless someone stops them; sooner or later the United States would be drawn in. As a sailor, his son would no doubt be a part of whatever terrible battles were in store.

But whatever was coming, Eddie knew he wouldn't be around to see it. His partner had a special knack for dealing with his enemies. Ten years before, Capone had invited the North Siders to a Tommy-gun party down on North Clark Street. It had been a St. Valentine's Day that Bugs Moran and the rest of Chicago would never forget.

That was it, then. All his memories had been revisited and nothing was left to do but stand up and face the music.

He walked to the sideboard, poured and downed a last short scotch and water, and felt once more for the pistol under his overcoat. As he walked out through his office door he paused and smiled. The irony was not lost on him: This door, the one that he'd walked through and changed his life, was also the one he'd walk through to end it.

•   •   •

Eddie was pleasantly surprised when he opened the back exit and wasn't immediately cut down by machine-gun fire. As he started his car there was a moment of relief when the bench seat didn't instantly
explode beneath him. But then, about halfway home, he saw the dark sedan approaching from behind.

It was hopeless, he knew, but as that car slipped closer he stepped on the gas and decided to give them a good run for their money.

Traffic ahead was stop-and-go, but Eddie flashed his lights and laid on the horn and people seemed to get the message. He pumped the clutch and downshifted and heard his tires squeal as he rocketed through a space so tight he clipped off his outside mirror. Unfortunately the car behind matched every dodge he made, and more than once they got close enough to bump him good and hard from behind.

After a high-speed mile or two up Ogden Avenue the sedan managed to pull up alongside him. He was hemmed in with nowhere left to turn and no way to go any faster.

He looked to the side, straight into the barrel of a shotgun, and saw behind it a face that he recognized from his many years on the wrong side of the law. He wasn't surprised. That's the way they do it; they take care of their own. And then there was a double-barreled flash, a spray of glass and metal, and far less pain than he imagined. He was already dead when, seconds later, his car slammed into a trolley pole by the side of the road.

Aboard the USS
Lexington
with Task Force 11,

far into enemy waters

Two and a half years later: February 20, 1942

Butch lay in his bunk, still in his flight suit, flipping playing cards into the hat of his dress uniform across the small sleeping room. He had a championship run going, forty-four cards without a single miss. The unofficial all-time wardroom record was in sight.

He paused his target practice as the ship listed slightly to starboard, and he felt the rumble of the carrier's engines as they labored to turn the
Lexington
into the wind for another launch.

He sighed, flipped another card into the hat, and recalled a phrase he'd heard a thousand damned times from his instructors.

A lot of war is waiting
.

All through the Academy, and then later on in flight school in
Pensacola, Florida, that was the wet blanket some old-timer would toss out whenever a rookie was overheard fantasizing about the exciting life of a navy flyer.

No, the wise guy would say, that's not the way it is. There would be hours and days and even months of tense anticipation followed quickly by a few terrifying minutes of heart-stopping, blood-curdling, adrenaline-pumping chaos. If you were brave and prepared and skilled and exceptionally lucky, that flash of chaos could be kept just barely under your control. You might even live to tell your grandkids about it all.

Butch's father had once said that if you ever want to hear God laugh, all you've got to do is make a plan. At the time, his dad's comment concerned his own struggles to build a business and support his family through the depths of the Great Depression, but his admonition was as true in battle as anywhere else. The military brass often spent weeks on their brilliant strategies and tactics, only to see the tables turned in a last-minute frenzy when the enemy failed to behave as expected.

The day's plan, for example, was set to be supervised from the flag bridge by Vice Admiral Wilson Brown. Before it all blew up it had probably looked just swell on paper.

The USS
Lexington
and the rest of Task Force 11 had been ordered to attack the enemy base at Rabaul, a major strategic prize off the coast of New Guinea that had recently been overtaken by the Japanese. The loss of this base was a major blow to the Allies. As the enemy ramped up air and sea forces there it would become a huge threat to vital shipping lanes.

While this small task force didn't pack nearly enough muscle to actually retake the base, their job was to throw a monkey wrench into the machine and cause as much damage as they could. Butch's air division had been chosen to lead the assault—bombing runways, sinking ships in the harbor, destroying as many hangar-bound Japanese Zeroes as possible. Down the road, a larger Allied operation would follow up, conquer the base, and send the Japs packing.

The battle plan hardly had a chance to get going, before a long-range enemy scouted the American ships. Butch had just returned from his morning patrol by then and could only watch as other fighter pilots from the
Lexington
took off and went after the airborne spy.