After a run-in with a ghost and a very strange-acting security guard, Runner retrieved the Duesenberg and went to the library. Fairweather had discovered a place where Al Capone was most likely to be found, his hotel in Cicero. The crew made their way to the suburb and infiltrated the hotel with the use of a few disguises. Dressed as a bellhop, Runner is now ready to approach the legendary gangster…
And now…
Runner Ramirez & The Great Ghost War
Chapter 6
“But why would bellhops be asking someone if they want a refill?”
He had a point. I looked at our uniforms. Bellhops wouldn’t be getting a drink order. Plus these things fit us so poorly they’d know something was up as soon as we stepped into view. I patted his cheek.
“Good catch. I-“
Rosemary screamed but it was drowned out by the hail of gunfire. The attack came from the men who had just entered the lobby. I saw Capone’s goons scramble to cover as I shoved Fairweather and Rosemary back down the hall, tripping us to the floor in the process. I felt a surge of warmth inside. I hadn’t gotten a warning from my ‘friend’, maybe he had been asleep? As I’ve mentioned before, due to his, um, origins, he had the ability to detect and lead us to all sorts of supernatural threats and evil. Maybe he couldn’t detect the more traditional types of evil. I don’t know but at least I had some help now. I hopped to my feet as one of the attacking goons darted into the hall, no doubt looking for some cover of his own. I grabbed his arm and spun him into the wall. Hard. I didn’t like the idea of helping a kingpin but we needed Al Capone alive. I pointed for Rosemary and Fairweather to stay down then rushed into the lobby.
I slammed to a stop about two feet in and stared at the chaos. Capone’s men fired from behind an overturned table to my right. Their targets, presumably the northsiders, ducked behind several chairs. But that wasn’t even the crazy part. In between the shooting I saw at least a half dozen ghosts engaged in physical (sorta) hand to hand fighting. They wrestled and rolled THROUGH walls, overturned tables, and chairs. It was nuts.
I felt a shock on my left so I dove to the right, ramming into a northside goon and tackling him to the floor. A hard right knocked him out cold. I grabbed his revolver and threw it across the lobby where it slammed into the back of a head. Its owner dropped unconscious too. I next grabbed a chair and hit the closest northsider in the face. I continued with a spin to let said chair fly into another Capone goon. I was taking care of serious business. I grabbed another goon’s arm when-
“Whoa!”
-I saw Rosemary step into the lobby to stare at the wrestling ghosts. Fairweather grabbed her but she pushed him away and walked toward the fighting in a daze-like state.
“Let’s get out of here!” a northsider yelled. The still ambulatory goons increased their rate of fire and began to move for the door. That was our cue.
“Fairweather!” I hollered. I waved for him to follow and accessed a burst of supernatural speed. I rushed to Rosemary. Fairweather arrived at the same time. I grabbed them both and joined the flow of goons to the door. We exited and cut right while the gangsters went left. My super speed got us two blocks away in a short amount of time. At about the halfway mark I did notice another ghost watching the proceedings from a car. It was Dean O’Banion. The war continues from the grave I suppose.
We made it to the car and got outta there just as a trio of cop cars roared past. It would be interesting to read about THIS one in the papers. I know some of the hotel staff saw the ghost portion of the fight and I’m pretty sure I spotted some pedestrians outside who had to have seen it too. Now Capone could keep the staff from talking to any reporter but what about those outside? But then I remember these guys had judges, politicians, and policemen in their pockets, how hard would it be to get a reporter in there too? As we drove along Fairweather checked us for any wounds and thankfully found none. Since I had supernatural help I knew I wouldn’t be injured in any way though as usual I was incredibly tired. And hungry. During the entire ride Rosemary stayed silent without reading her book. She stared out the window, deep in thought, a very concerned look marring her pretty face. Made sense after what we just went through.
“You okay?” I asked.
She gave a dismissive wave without turning around. If I were to guess she had never experienced an act of violence in her life and now she had just been shot at, or at least in the vicinity of bullets, for two days in a row. That’s hard for anyone let alone a twenty-something girl.
We arrived back at the hotel. Rosemary hopped out almost before we had stopped and disappeared inside. I was much slower, stiffness joining my pain during the ride over.
“I’m worried about her,” Fairweather said. Though this was obvious from the way he stared at her throughout the entire drive. “You think she’s okay?”
“She’ll be fine,” I answered. “Let’s get something to eat. That’ll give her some time to relax a bit, decompress.”
Fairweather nodded and we went inside. About an hour later we stood outside Rosemary’s door. The sound of heavy pacing echoed from inside. A voice was heard as well, I doubted anyone was in there which meant the girl was talking to herself. I reached up to knock when the door flew open. Rosemary stepped out and shot me a hard glare. Her look was an odd mix of disturbed and angry.
“Why didn’t you tell me?!?” she demanded. I glanced to Fairweather who shrugged in response. He didn’t know what she was talking about either.
“Tell you what?”
“When you were experiencing that gangster’s life did you see ghosts moving beyond their place of death and fighting like, like…” she pointed in the vague direction of Cicero. “That?”
“Um, yeah, I did.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me that?? It’s wildly important!!”
Now I thought I had mentioned that I saw ghosts fighting each other when I was living as Joe the gangster. Heck, we SAW two ghosts fighting in that first diner. But then I remembered that she had been knocked out for most of that ordeal. Plus she was rather flighty as you’ve no doubt noticed.
“I thought I had but I’m sorry,” I replied. “What’s the issue?”
She stepped further into the hall and looked around before she motioned for us to enter. Fairweather hesitated as a thick bead of sweat formed on his brow. Due to his initial occupational choice he had probably never been in such a room with a female before. Especially not one as un-ugly as Rosemary.
“Just go to the window and look outside,” I whispered to him. I patted his shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”
He nodded without eye contact. I’m sure he didn’t want me to see his deeply red face. We entered the room and I was rather surprised; the place was a mess. Papers, books, clothes strewn about, including what you’d call her unmentionables. Fairweather saw them too and practically ran to the window. I hid a chuckle as he placed his forehead to the glass and looked outside.
“This is not good at all,” Rosemary said as she paced between the room’s small desk and bed. She turned to me and threw up her hands. “Not good!”
“Just calm down and tell me what’s wrong. Have a seat.”
I pointed in the general direction of the bed. She let out a long breath and sat on the bed, crunching several papers in the process.
“Okay,” she began. “When most people die they cross over to, well, whatever’s out there. Now occasionally these people die in horrific ways or maybe have some sort of cosmically significant business they need to finish. Either way, those people can appear and ‘haunt’ the last place they lived. But they can’t leave, they’re stuck.”
Rosemary’s voice took on a different tenor as she talked the nuts and bolts of her line of work. Sorta sounded like a professor. Very serious and knowledgeable. And older. Enough for in Fairweather to forget where he was and turn without passing out.
“Now you can contact the dead from anywhere with the right tools but that only allows for voice conversation and maybe a brief glimpse. What we’ve seen out there…it’s just not possible.”
Fairweather and I exchanged a look. Not just at Rosemary’s proclamation but at the tone in which it was uttered. Very ominous and frankly, scary.
“What would have to happen to have made this possible?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied as she stood and started to pace once more. “Something big enough to alter the barrier between the world of the living and that of the dead. Very big.”
“Why is it a problem though?” Fairweather asked. “So some ghosts can move around, big deal.”
Rosemary surged over to him and got right in his face. She looked quite angry.
“Can you imagine a world where every death brings forth a ghost?” she scowled. “Where no one went to their final resting place? Where no souls would go down there?”
She pointed downward and I knew exactly what she meant. No souls meant others like my ‘friend’ would have to come up here more often. A scary thought. And what about other supernatural creatures? Would the weakening of this barrier give them easier access to our world? An even scarier thought. Fairweather was no doubt thinking the same as he gulped and moved back to the window.
“What can we do about it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Rosemary said with a deep sigh. She plopped back on the bed.
“Why don’t you work on that issue?” I said. “While I try to find somewhere else to confront Capone. I’ll be at the library.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rosemary said. “Will be nice not to get shot at for a bit.”
I chuckled and headed to the door. Fairweather sprinted to get there first.
“I’ll go with,” he said as he opened the door and exited. I stole a glance back to Rosemary, she was staring up at the ceiling, face contorted with deep concentration. Poor Fairweather, I doubted that she even gave him a second thought.
It didn’t take long at the library to find what we needed. We went back through the newspapers from the past few weeks and found a location where numerous gangsters were routinely seen without accompanying violence. It was a grocery store about 6 blocks away. The author of the article suggested that the spot was considered a sort of neutral area in this part of the city. I did a quick check on Rosemary after which Fairweather and I got in the car and drove toward the store.
I pulled the car to a stop at the curb opposite the store, about a half block away. I turned off the engine and scoped out the premises. There were at least 5 obvious gangster vehicles parked at various spots along the street. A couple of them had drivers behind the wheel. I figured they were accompanying higher level goons or tailing those from other gangs. Kinda what we were doing right at that moment.
We watched a number of people go in and out of the store, most of whom appeared to be regular folks. It dawned on me then why this was a neutral site; the families of the gangs shopped here. After a few moments an older man in a nice suit emerged with a couple sacks and turned to our left. He walked along the sidewalk opposite us and I recognized him from both my time as Joe and as me in the Cicero hotel.
“That’s one of Capone’s bodyguards,” I said as I pointed his way with my chin.
“What do we do?”
“Follow him, try to get him to an alley or something so, maybe he knows where the spiritualist is.”
Fairweather nodded and we both stepped from the car. I motioned for him to walk on a parallel route while I crossed over to follow behind. We had gone maybe two blocks, this guy was oblivious to our presence – not a good thing in his role – when a ghost appeared right before him. I froze. I watched as the bodyguard yelped and darted into an alley. We raced to follow, arriving at the same time to see a couple goons push the bodyguard into a waiting car. He was being kidnapped.
“Get in the car!” I hollered as I took off down the alley. “They’re headed south!”
The gangster’s car peeled away and I prepared myself for a little supernatural power. Of course it did not come. My ‘friend’s’ a strange man, or being, or whatever he could be called. Sometimes it’s like he’s not even there. Not always sure why or how he chooses to help. Oh well.
I rounded the corner and hoofed it down the sidewalk. I was fortunate that the car drove slow, ostensibly to avoid attention. Supernatural speed would get me caught up in about two seconds but left to my own devices I was struggling not to pass out. I know, ironic given the name I’m most often called.
I reached the next intersection as Fairweather screeched to a stop in front of me. I hopped in.
“They’re not in a hurry so take it slow,” I said. Fairweather nodded and turned to fall in behind the gangsters’ car. It drove another block then turned into another alley. It must’ve stopped because I could still see its exhaust. “Park here.”
Fairweather did so and we slipped out of the car. We peered around the alley entrance to see the gangsters pull the bodyguard into a side door of the adjacent building. I motioned for Fairweather to wait and went to check what exactly was housed in said building. It appeared to be some sort of social club, no doubt owned by the northsiders. A distraction was in order so we could sneak inside. I made sure no one was watching then grabbed the nearest trash can, still metal in those days, and flung it through the club’s front window. The glass shattered. Two seconds later a receptionist and two goons rushed out.
“Some big guy threw that can!” I shouted as I pointed down the road. “He went thataway!”
The head goon waved inside the club and four more guys rushed out. They all took off in the provided direction. The receptionist turned to watch so Fairweather and I slipped past her into the club. We ran through the lobby and into the warren of rooms/hallways back behind.
“What are we doing?” Fairweather asked.
At that moment, I really had no idea.
Alrighty then! Guess it’s not just ghosts that could soon be invading Runner’s world! Will he get to the bodyguard in time? And if so, what will he learn? Find out next week in Runner Ramirez & The Great Ghost War – Chapter 7!