Runner Ramirez & The Great Ghost War
Chapter 4 (from The Story Genie)
So our crew saw their first ghost! And then all you know what broke loose as the police opened fire on Mike Genna’s gangsters. An old-fashioned shoot-out! And in the middle of all that another ghost showed up! He ‘tackled’ the first ghost into the diner and a ghostly wrestling match ensued. Yeah, craziness. Runner needed to know what was going on so Rosemary used some sort of magic to put him INTO the memories of a dying gangster. He got to witness the murder of Chicago north side gang leader Dean O’Banion along with that gangster’s re-emergence as, you guessed it, a ghost. The gangster’s memories then took Runner to Al Capone who decided he needed some more ghosts…
And now…
Runner Ramirez & The Great Ghost War
Chapter 4
I jumped again, dropping into Joe to witness several fallen gangsters being called back to our plane of existence as ghosts. Beauregard turned out to be the southside’s (I learned they called themselves the Chicago Outfit) chief spiritualist. Didn’t even know gangs had such a job but here we are. Seems Beauregard had previously believed they only needed one ghost in their service. That changed
After witnessing a female ghost appear (didn’t know gangs had female goons either) I jumped to several instances of gang battles that involved the ghosts. Those from each gang would fight each other (hand to hand as there weren’t ghost guns, not yet anyway) while the living guys like Joe used guns. It was a very dizzying and somehow tiring experience. I also saw that the ghosts would stake out routes for the gangs’ liquor shipments, both their own, to warn of police interference, or presence of rival gangs, and others for spying purposes. The ghosts could go invisible as well to help with this. And to ogle showering women as I discovered.
After numerous jumps, man this Joe was a busy guy, I/he ended up at a restaurant, standing guard a few feet from Al Capone’s table. He ate with Beauregard and several other people I did not recognize. I heard the sound of breaking glass from somewhere at the front of the restaurant and I/Joe pulled out a handgun to rush toward it. The other guards followed, angling toward the door I knew led to the front. It swung open and a rival gangster charged through. He had no gun but slammed into me/Joe with a force that shouldn’t have been possible. I/Joe flew into the nearest wall with a hard crash. I/Joe slumped to the floor and found it hard to move. Joe did anyway. I watched as the goon that hit me/Joe take on the rest of the guards. He was freakishly strong. He took out the others in seconds before he finally pulled a gun. He aimed at Capone but before he could get a shot off Beauregard said something that caused the goon to stumble back and cough. He turned and ran. Not sure what happened there.
I think Joe passed out in that moment because things went dark without me jumping. After a few moments Joe’s/my eyes opened again to see Capone in the spiritualist’s face.
“What the hell just happened?!” Capone yelled. “You said that wasn’t possible!”
“Um, it shouldn’t be,” Beauregard stuttered. “Don’t know how they did it.”
“You’ve been slipping a lot lately,” Capone spit. “What’s going on?”
Beauregard looked away and shifted from one foot to the other. He looked sweaty and worn out. He started to back away but Capone grabbed him and pulled him close.
“What is it?”
“It’s my mediums,” Beauregard stated. “They keep getting shut down by the same group. Offices cleaned out, businesses ruined…This other group has a lot of power and these defeats…dampen my own.”
Capone stared at the spiritualist for a moment then pushed him away. He began to pace.
“That means the take from your other activities will decrease as well?” he asked. Beauregard nodded in response. Capone rubbed his eyes. “Unacceptable. Who runs this other group?”
I should’ve guessed by now what the answer was going to be. It still took me aback when the spiritualist uttered the name.
“Harry Houdini.”
I jumped again, this time to a theater in Montreal. I only know this because I/Joe walked past the sign for the Princess Theater. The town name sat below. I/Joe followed two others as we climbed a flight of stairs to a short hallway that led to a dressing room. Inside we found Houdini and his wife. The other two goons started to beat him and only stopped when we heard voices down the hall.
“We gotta go,” I/Joe said.
“But the boss wanted to know about this shit’s power,” one of the others said.
“Yeah but he also didn’t want a war with Canada,” I/Joe responded.
We ran back into the hallway but before we got outside a massive wave of nausea hit. The biggest yet. The whole world spun and went black. My eyes fluttered open to see Rosemary and Fairweather staring down at me. I let out a sigh of relief; I was finally me again and back in the diner.
“You okay?” Fairweather asked. “I was wor-“
“Did you see??” Rosemary interrupted as she practically bounced with excitement. “Did you experience what that guy experienced? What was it like? Did it feel weird? Did it lkadj.”
Her voice became muffled as Fairweather clamped his hand on her mouth. She kept talking though but thankfully I couldn’t hear her.
“We gotta go Runner,” Fairweather said. “The police will be in here any second. Can you walk?”
“I think so,” I said with a nod.
“…like a dream? Maybe like being stuck somewhere?” Rosemary’s voice became audible again once Fairweather removed his hand to help me up. I felt very unsteady and rather sore, like my body actually did everything I had just experienced. A very odd feeling. I took a couple tentative steps before I felt confident I wouldn’t fall.
“Are you sore? Was it like you-“
“Rosemary,” I interrupted with a raised hand. “I’ll tell you everything once we get out of here. Those cops’ll arrest us and they won’t believe our reasons for still being here.”
“Got it boss!” she said, her chipper demeanor still intact.
We made our way into the kitchen and through to a small backroom. An exit door sat on the opposite end. Fairweather signaled for us to wait then stepped outside. I noticed that Rosemary stared at me as if she could derive my previous experience with just one look. It unnerved me a bit. I also wondered about the extent of her powers. She seemed rather flighty so could she overcome the demon inside me? Did she send me back into the actual past, as it were, despite my ‘friend's’ presence? Did he try to stop her? As if on cue a series of small shocks lit up my spine in that moment. Morse code that spelled out “this lady is very impressive”. The number of questions I had increased but there was no real way for me to talk to ponder them now.
Anyway, Fairweather returned a minute later. He explained that more police had arrived and were all over the parking lot. We thus couldn't get to our car but he did say there was a hotel about three blocks down the road on the opposite side of the alley to which the door opened. We followed him out and to the next cross street. We hooked left and headed for the sign that marked the Chicago Arms motel. Fortunately Fairweather had taken his satchel into the diner, the one with our bundle of money in it, and not left it in the car. We weren't rich or even well off by any definition but still had a decent amount left over from when we saved that rich guy's daughter from those warlocks. That doesn’t even include what Bess gave us. The money would keep us going for the next mission/case/job after this one and got us 2 rooms at the motel. Rosemary was super antsy to hear what had happened to me so after taking care of bodily functions and getting cleaned up a bit we met down in a corner booth at the small hotel restaurant.
“Before I say anything I need to know how long I was out,” I said once we ordered some coffee and sat. I had checked my watch on the walk here and it looked like almost no time had passed. I figured the watch just stopped.
“About 30 seconds,” Fairweather answered. I knew that had to be accurate no matter how unbelievable it sounded. I mean, the police hadn't even made it into the diner yet and the firefight had ended before I passed out.
“You froze!” Rosemary squealed. “You barely had a pulse and Mr. Fairweather here thought you’d died!”
“I didn’t think you died,” he said with a shake of his head. “Your pulse remained strong.”
“Oh he thought you did,” Rosemary said with a chuckle. “He was worried!”
“I wasn’t-“
“Okay, okay,” I stopped him. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now and I learned a lot during my time…wherever.”
“Yes!” Rosemary practically shouted. “What happened??? Was it like living another life? Did it feel strange?? Did-“
“Hold on Rosemary,” I said, trying to avoid getting irritated. “I’m about to tell you everything.”
I handed Fairweather my notebook. Although I doubted I would ever forget what I went through I knew there were some things learned from Joe’s life that would help with our current mission/job/case (great, Rosemary has me concerned about this now). He pulled a pen from his satchel and nodded that he was ready. Rosemary bounced up and down on her seat, full of excitement.
Over the course of the next hour or so I relayed everything I could remember concerning my experience as Joe the gangster. It was so difficult to believe that all I mentioned really only took 30 seconds of real time. In addition, the memories I had of that experience were incredibly vivid, better than if they had actually happened to me. Another in a long list of odd and strange things I've been through in my crazy life. Fairweather dutifully recorded every word with slightly widened eyes I noticed every time I looked up. As for Rosemary…she moved back and forth throughout, jumping with squeaks and squeals that coincided with all the action in the story. It looked like she was in a theater watching The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks. She even clapped excitedly on several occasions.
I told them of the Chicago Outfit’s attack on Houdini and how they had to leave before killing him. I relayed just how the entire episode made me feel, to satisfy Rosemary, then sat back in the booth. I finished my coffee and closed my eyes. More than anything I was beat, even more so than the times I had been given supernatural power by my ‘friend’. I was ready for this day to be over.
“Wow!” Rosemary exclaimed. “That’s amazing! I really wish I could’ve seen and felt all that!”
“I don’t think-“
“I’ve never heard of so many ghosts being summoned at once!” she said. “It’s so wild! I just wonder how they were able to detect where people died and where they were likely to haunt! I guess you would need to have ghosts everywhere to alert those gangs to where the police were and what not! I just can’t believe you were able to relive Joe’s experiences! So amazing! I gotta take a walk!”
She got up from the booth and marched from the restaurant. She mumbled to herself in the process. I noticed that Fairweather was intensely focused on the departing Rosemary. I chuckled which drew his attention back to me.
“What?”
“Oh nothing,” I said with another chuckle. I pointed to the papers. “What do you make of all that?”
Fairweather flipped through the pages, he had written a lot. He sat back with a long exhalation.
“Had we not seen the things we’ve seen…” he began. “I wouldn’t believe a lick of this. I do wonder if more ghost sightings have been reported by regular citizens. You see any stories like that in the paper?”
“Didn’t get past the second page,” I answered. “Started to but then everything kinda went haywire.”
“We know Houdini survived to Detroit,” Fairweather said. “And then someone around here must’ve contacted him. Or maybe someone did so in Detroit then came here?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Those goons mentioned that Capone not only wanted to send a message to Houdini but maybe try to find the source of his power. They didn’t have time however.”
“So maybe Capone’s spiritualist contacted Houdini after the fact, to try and answer that question?”
I nodded and leaned to the side. I had experienced a lot since meeting my ‘friend’ but virtually nothing related to ghosts. That's why Mrs. Houdini had sent Rosemary with us. Her initiation of my so-called jump had been helpful but I wasn't sure how much more so she could be. Especially with her overly exuberant personality.
“That’s a good theory,” I finally said.
“Which would mean that we need to find Al Capone’s spiritualist,” Fairweather said. “This Beauregard. Since he would be the one to call Houdini. You know, I always wanted to go to one of his shows. Maybe I’ll have a chance to meet him.”
I couldn't help but chuckle again. Here we were dealing with ghosts in a gang war and Fairweather's thoughts went to the hope of meeting a dead celebrity. I didn't know whether to chalk up such an attitude to his youth or to being jaded to the supernatural. I guess it didn't really matter much.
We paid our bill and found Rosemary down one of the hotel hallways. She was super excited about the whole idea of hunting for Beauregard and was ready to do so immediately. That was out of the question as the hour was late and I could barely keep my eyes open. We decided to call it a night and would meet back up first thing in the morning.
I fell asleep almost as soon as I laid down. I don't think I moved a muscle the entire night but did have a series of the strangest dreams. They featured people in places I did not recognize. It seemed like I was having the dreams of Joe the gangster. Perhaps I now had some sort of connection to the man, even though he was dead. I woke up just before dawn, every one of my joints and muscles still aching. I thought about mentioning my dreams to Rosemary but I'm sure that would excite her too much and distract her from what we needed to do.
We met in the lobby around 7:00 AM and decided to split up. We figured it would be a lot easier to find Al Capone than his spiritualist, so Fairweather volunteered to hit the local library. The newspapers had plenty of articles on the man, and hopefully Fairweather could find the places where he could normally be found. Rosemary decided to stay in her hotel room and run some rituals with Houdini’s items to try and find where in the city he had been contacted. Her attempts to do so last night had been thwarted by the gang shootout. I can’t say I was disappointed by her decision, 8 hours of sleep was not a long enough break from her enthusiasm.
I really had the easiest part of the plan. I was going to retrieve the car, still at the diner, and then meet him later.
Easy that is, until I arrived…
Experiencing the memories of a dead guy as if you yourself lived them? Just another day in the life of Runner Ramirez! All Runner has to do now is go pick up their car at the diner. Sounds easy right? What did Runner find when he arrived? Find out next week in Runner Ramirez & The Great Ghost War – Chapter 5!