Automatic gunfire rang out across the empty, dark streets of Chicago. No one dared come to the window to see what was happening because no one wanted to get sucked into the underbelly of the city. When bullets whizzed and slashed through the air, the lights that shone out of the apartment building windows turned off one by one, as if to say no one’s home, there’s no one here to witness your war, and crouch down behind the rim of the window’s sill.
It was raining that summer night, and through the damp darkness and fog a silhouette came running. With bullets chasing after him, and gaining at the rate of 3000 feet per second, one would almost find this gentleman’s running escape leisurely, comically slow, when it should have been frantic. Rounding a corner on his right slowly, his face cloaked in shadow, he pulled his fedora down over his eyebrows a touch. In this hectic scene, a smile traced one corner of his mouth, teasing at a dimple on that side. Although the surrounding residents pretended like nothing was happening, like they were sleeping, in order to avoid this blustery scene of impending death, he thrived on it. He sought it out. He had made this his career. But he did it successfully because he kept himself invisible, and those that he investigated never saw his face, only a wisp of his echoing presence dashing away, taunting his pursuers. You’ll never catch me his receding blur teased. There’s a reason I call myself a spy.
Hearing the big, bumbling, riotous men stumbling and crashing down the sidewalk, tracing his steps, he knew there was no way they’d catch him. He had ducked down damp and dripping alley; before the three arguing and bickering galoots could even come near where he currently was, he’d be long gone. They were disorganized, flustered, and not one of them could decide who the leader should be in this man hunt. Shouting, bullets flying with no intended targets, Jay smiled coyly to himself.
Of course he had slipped away, unnoticed. His entire life he’d spent going along unnoticed, and as he grew older, he transformed this quirky skill into a business: thievery. Jay was so good, he could pickpocket a man he was speaking to directly. As he’d shake a man’s hand, his other hand would reach into his jacket pocket and pluck out his watch.
Letting his simper become larger now, as the gunfire and shouting became more faint, he took a left and quickened his pace. Noticing some pedestrians approaching from the opposite direction, he glanced at his wristwatch, projecting the illusion that he was late to something important. Which, in a way, he was. Now that he had successfully procured evidence of Big Bernie’s chain of speakeasies all across the south side of town by way of a hearty, and lengthy, receipt book, for the police chief, he now had another order of business, for an entirely different client.
Swinging the door of his beloved Superior Touring Coach, waxed a brilliant aquamarine that glowed like a star until the street lights, he fell into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. Opening one side of his double-breasted, grey jacket, he took out the receipt book, neatly held shut with a leather strap, and threw it into the seat next to him. Shaking his head because he could still hear, barely audible now, the three burley men coming after him, he laughed silently as his automobile roared to life and stiffly flew down the cobblestone road, cutting through the thick droplets of fog.
Jay was in his element. Dark, dreary, dangerous. He loved it and deep down, he wished the suspense, adrenaline, and adventure would never end. Gripping the steering wheel, he set his inner compass to bring him to the front door of the The Rose, the cover business for an underground bar.
Copyright © 2013 by Erin M. Truesdale
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