I could not tell where I was shot, only that I was, as I was shook three times by rapid punches that jerked my body increasingly sideways. Then the floor began to slip away from me. I grabbed onto the mailbox and felt it sag as I fell towards the parquet floor, face first. My right arm twisted upon itself behind my back as my right hand vainly held on to the mailbox and I realized that the distance to the floor was too short for me to refrain from smashing into it just by holding on to a mailbox that was three feet of the ground. For reasons that I cannot explain to you with any semblance of rationality, instead of releasing the mailbox and using both of my hands to cushion my fall, or bending my knees to take the brunt of the damage, I instead chose to jerk out my left hand at an odd angle and promptly smashed my wrist when it became the primary point of contact of my body meeting the floor. I rolled on my side and only then released the quite useless mailbox and glanced down.
Three rapidly swelling red blooms filled my shirt. The bullets struck my body. But where I still could not tell, just that it was below my chest and above the waist. The wave of shock and pain did not ravage me as yet, so I was able to swing my bewildered gaze at the shooter. She stood there, blinking, with a still smoking toy gun, her stomach heaving like a dog's, her right hand wrapped around the handle of the miniature cheap weapon, her left palm cupping her mouth as it to prevent something escaping.
My right hand reached for my service iron, which was not there. It and the shield were confiscated from me earlier in the day and were said to be waiting for me at the Sheriff's residence to be picked up in the morning. Well, that was a pit stop I neglected to make. Neither did I get the carpetbag full of cash and guns from the Union Station. Thus I had a whole fistful of nothing, except rage.
I rolled on my belly, smearing blood on the floor, brought up my knees (belatedly) and used my right hand to push off the parquet into the world's most awkward attempt at a three point stance, my left hand trailing listlessly and aflame with pain. I then emitted a banshee yell (though I was going for a growl) and launched myself into the shooter, spearing her in her flabby belly with my left shoulder and slamming her down to the ground. I saw her eyes roll in the back of her head. I snapped my head up, slammed my right calf into her left thigh to pin her down, reared up and smashed her mouth with my right fist, pulling it back with tooth stuck in my ring finger knuckle and her blood decorating the floor and mixing not entirely inelegantly with mine. I pulled back, with my swampy rear resting on my ankles and toppled backwards and to the side, rolling off the shooter's limp body, and passed out.
The first thing I saw when I came to was a big crucifix affixed to a wall. It was a gnarled wooden thing. Ancient and full of meaning. I studied it for a moment as I felt my toes and fingers. All reacted, though my right hand and left wrist were wrapped. I sat up on an elbow and flexed the left wrist, it hurt, badly. The right hand did not hurt, but had far more gauze over it. I lifted the thin as an orphan's gruel blanket covering my chest and studied my body. Three not quite distinct swathes of bandages crisscrossed my belly. A gut shot then. Or rather a series of them. Well, that wasn't good news. But the fact that I was alive meant it wasn't that bad either. I studied my much more heavily wrapped hand. An ugly memory floated into my head of a drunk doctor at a LASD fund-raiser telling us that it was better to be bitten by a dog than a human as the bacteria in the mouth of a human creature was such that it carried much more disease. The chickadee did not bite me, but her tooth was embedded when I buried my fist in her. That reminded me, who the Hell was she and why did she take a shot at me? Luckily there were papers on the chair next to my hospital bed. I reached for them with a right hand and scanned the headlines. The latest paper was dated Thursday, December 7th. So I was out for more than a day then, considering the shooting took place Tuesday morning. That meant I missed the first night of Hannukah, and me with zero shopping and seven nephews and five nieces. To say nothing of my mother and the aunts. Oy.
I spread out the papers on my chest and leafed through them. All papers were in raging agreement - pernicious dope peddlers in our fair town who have preyed on the weak got what was coming to them, but still, it made one think the frailty of human condition and the need for tougher policing. Bummy's rag told the tale and mentioned Bolivia, as well as El Salvador, and poured vitriol in buckets upon the heads of the "alien brown menace." To be fair, Bummy probably wrote some of that under duress and with the help of an editor. But to be really fair, Leon's paper had nothing on Salvadorans and everything about the dope and the plane used to fly it. So maybe I should have broken Bummy's fingers instead of his jaw. Lesson learned. In other news, Sheriff Winstead announced his retirement, and was wished good luck in his future endeavors. Eliot Ness was strongly hinted to be his replacement. Golly, if only there was a latter day Nostradamus who put that into his quatrain just two (or was it three) days prior?
In further local news, Lt. Steinberg of the Moorpark Robbery Division was accosted by one Charity Lefebre, who shot at the valiant police officer before being subdued by him. Lefebre is believed to be the roommate of one Suzy Fontaine, a Red doper, who just a couple of days ago was slain in the course of an investigation by the brave copper on whom she tried to exact her misguided revenge. Left unanswered were questions such as how a deranged roomie of a Red bird I shot down got my address. Police officers' residences are unlisted and guarded. But the next time might have shed some light into the matter as it was announced that Deputy Shaughnessy of the LASD was killed in the line of duty while stopping an armed robbery, by himself, without any backup, on an LAPD patch. Well, that makes one think. Speaking of LAPD, they were just tickled to announce the creation of their own Aero Vertiflyer Bureau, with second-generation LAPD bull Gene Rodenberry being the first eager recruit to fly the contraptions. Your move, LASD.
In international news: the Lord President of the Privy Council of the Wood coalition war ministry (whatever that means) former Prime Minister Lord Halifax was quoted as saying that he fully supported the efforts of the current Prime Minister in waging total war against the Stalinist Reds, which just the sort of silly statement a man makes when almost everyone around him suspects him of doing quite the opposite. In Berlin, there was a minor reshuffle in Hindenburg's cabinet and the Il Duce of the True National German Workers' Party Herr Hitler was named Postmaster General as well as the Bavarian Minister of Transport. While in Pisa, Mussolini gifted something immense and lovely to the local bishop and made a speech saying that he would never, ever make a separate peace with Stalin. I'd say that spelled trouble for the Allies, but considering the fascist contributions to the war effort so far have been speeches, I didn't think Musso would be missed that much. Then again I was not in the trenches between Berlin and Warsaw, fighting the Reds, so that was easy for me to say.
Further examination of the papers was interrupted by a nurse, who congratulated me for being awake and changed the bandage over my right hand. She then proceeded to dunk it into a bowl full of purple concoction that looked like the stuff barbers use to clean combs.
"Let's hope you won't have to do that every day."
"Ma'am?"
"You got a real nasty infection there on your hand, Lieutenant. Hopefully we can clear it up before you're discharged and all will be well, but I must prepare you, you may need to dip your hand in this mixture every day for the rest of your life to ensure further infection does not spread."
"Uh, what about my other wounds?"
"Oh you're doing fine there. But I'm no doctor."
The sheer number of bullets sent my way over the last half a week by Reds, Blacks and worshippers of Mammon... and none of that could cause as much damage to as me tearing the skin off my knuckles with a tooth of some broad I punched? Life sure has a wicked sense of humor.
"If you're well enough to receive visitors, there are some folks dying to meet you."
"Oh?"
"Quite a few ladies have inquired about you as well, I might add. After all, you're the Lady-killer."
As nicknames went, it was more interesting than "Piano" but had more syllables so I wasn't sure how I felt about it yet, but I liked the nurse's smile and returned it.
"Care to give me a list, ma'am?"
"Sure. But one fella is most persistent - Leon Silverstein of the 'Examiner'."
"Next time he calls, tell him to come on in. And would you mind giving me a phone? I'd like to call my mother and let her know I'm all right. It'll be a long distance call, she's in San Diego though."
"May I ask how long do you think the call will last?"
"Two-three hours, if I'm lucky."
I wasn't. It was three and a half hours. I'll spare you the details and myself the memories. Let's just say I'm a horrible son due to being unmarried, not calling her more often and forgetting to thank one of my many, many aunts for sending me a cake at Thanksgiving (this despite me receiving no cake). With my ear wet from sweat and my heart full of dull aching pain, I hung up and took a nap.
I was woken by a different nurse and three odd ducks in United States Army togs. Two were non-comms, but they were the oldest and wheeziest looking sergeants I'd ever seen in my life. One was a drunk. The other was drunk. The third man was a lieutenant with gray hairs, a pot belly and the look of a journalist hustling for his next story while taking his ring off before talking to a girl at the bar. All had strange insignia - a Sphinx. The lieutenant flashed his cracked leather wallet badge and identified himself as one Lt. Muldoon, Military Intelligence Division, Military Intelligence Officers Reserves Corps.
"Mind if we have a ten-fifteen minute chat, Lt. Steinberg?"
"Sure. Why not?"
Muldoon waved off the non-comms and the nurse and sat down on the chair with delight. Walking or standing were not his strong suits. He mopped his florid face with a handkerchief that size of a prayer shawl, exhaled, took a nip of whiskey from a flask and then took out a notepad.
"Bear me with me, Lieutenant, I hadn't done this since the Palmer Raids."
"Lt. Muldoon, don't take this the wrong way, but what kind of a spook are you?"
"A bad one. When the War came, I figured I was not cut out for the trench right away, and as soon as they asked for anyone with any newspaper experience, I volunteered. I didn't tell 'em it was the paper for a local community college and they didn't ask much. I spent the War working for MID, but none of that spy stuff you read about in the books or see in the movies. I wrote press releases minimizing our losses and maximizing the krauts' troubles. After the War, they kept me on to teach the young-uns how to be a good intelligence man, except I wasn't of course, and they had no young-uns to send me, since there was no budget for it in a peace time army. But I kept my clearance and from time to time they remember I exist and drag me out of my house and send me along the West Coast."
"And your two pals?"
"Corps of Intelligence Police. Most got cut after the War, but those two got good gigs watching the border for the subversive stuff. You know to stop all them Bolsheviks from getting here from Tijuana. Regs say you need two of them when investigating a case, so they gave me those two. Drunks and complainers, and bladders the size of thimbles. Constant piss breaks from there to here. I tell you, if the war comes to our shore, we'll have to start from zero since we didn't learn a thing from the last War."
"Mack, you're about as cheerful as a funeral."
"Whiskey before noon makes me melancholy. Now then, let's talk seaplanes?"
And we did. I knew next to thing about planes, and he knew less, but between the two of us, his whiskey, notepad, pencil and our hand gestures we mostly figured it out. We parted well and I took me another nap.
This time, I was woken by the first nurse and she told me Leon Silverstein was here to see me. I told her that was acceptable and in he came, gristly and unshaven as usual.
"You all right, Ladykiller?"
"Peachy, thanks for asking. How are things on your end?"
"All things considered, they could be worse. You didn't tell me you broke Bummy's jaw last we talked."
"Should have done worse."
"Yeah, well, don't judge him too harshly. It's not easy going through life with a name like 'Bummy'."
"I'd play the world's smallest violin for him, but I can't, on account my wrist is broken."
"Some guys have all the luck. Say, would you mind meeting this fella I brought with me? He's most anxious to ask you some questions about that seaplane you had me write about."
"What branch is he from?"
"He's a civilian. Now, at least. I think. It's Merian Cooper."
"The fella that made 'King Kong'?"
"One and the same."
"Why is he interested?"
"He flew planes in the last war and then fought the Reds on the side of the Pollacks in the '20 War."
"No fooling."
"No fooling. Soon as my paper hit the streets, he rang me up and then came down to meet me to pick my brain regarding that seaplane. Only he got about as much out of me as milk from a goat."
"You saying he gave you a handjob?"
"If you're done busting my chops, I'll bring him in here."
Cooper bounded inside shortly after that, good clothes and all energy and fast eyes. He pulled up a chair and got to the nut of it right away:
"The way I figured it, to get from Bolivia to here without a pit-stop, you'd need to fly 5,000 miles - on a good day - to deliver 500 pounds of cocaine and unless they had military grade engines, we're talking a 34 hour trip at 150 miles-per-hour cruising speed with a two-men crew. That's what I drew on a napkin when I read the column. Now, that can be done without breaking much of a sweat. So that begs the question what is so special about the seaplane Handsome Johnny and co. had at their disposal? What's the newfangled idea? If he figured out how to go faster using vanilla engines, I'd love to know."
"The plane has swept back wings."
"Say what?"
"On most planes, the wings are fixed at a..."
"Lieutenant, I know what swept back wings are. I read the academic papers. But what does that have to do with making a seaplane go faster?"
"I thought those wings made planes go faster?"
"That mumbo jumbo. Where did you hear that?"
"Professor George Wyman was of that opinion."
"Oh. Him. Yes, Howard and he are the only men in this town that think that."
"Howard...?"
"... Hughes. He just wrote a book as thick as my cousin and just as likely to work on the subject."
"You don't say."
"There's no mathematics to support it though. It's all mumbo jumbo."
"What is the theory, if you don't me asking?"
That was a mistake, and I knew it as soon as I said it. He spent thirty minutes using four-dollar words. But as nearest as I could make it out that when you fly really, really, really fast - at least 600 miles-per-hour per Cooper - then you'd get drag, an aerodynamic drag, and on a plain Jane wing plane such a drag would slow you down and make it difficult to control. But, the theory went, on a swept back wings, such a drag would be lessened and it'd be easier to fly your crate and faster as well.
"Did anyone test the theory?"
"To test it, you'd need to get a crate going that fast. Right now, the fastest crate in the air is a Red fighter that goes 400 MPH on a good day, thought the Commie bastards say it can do 430 flat. Though I hear some are trying to run tests with wind tunnel, but so far nobody had any luck showing anything."
Until an eye-tie gangster, a fascist aviatrix and a Red professor did it in Van Nuys.
Cooper spent fifteen more minutes trying to get me to answer questions I couldn't. At the half hour mark, he gave in and left me in peace and Leon stepped in.
"Well, did you have a talk?"
"Oh yeah. I can fly a vertiflyer now and he now knows what to put in the mezuzah. Say, Bruno and Howard Hughes... did they have anything in common?"
"Besides Big Willy, planes and movies?"
"I meant more recent and more direct."
"What are you asking?"
"I don't rightly know to be honest."
"You saying you were not honest with me before?"
"I meant..."
"I know what you meant. Just larking. How about you rest up and try not to get me involved in anything that could result in both of us having music in our houses and us not being able to hear it?"
"I can try. Say, how bad is it out there for the Salvadorans?"
"Bad. They've deputized everyone who is white, male and not a known Red and wants to help and are sending them to the outskirts of town with shotguns to stop the immigrants and migrants if they're brown."
"And for those already in town?"
"If you close your eyes hard enough and sing to yourself it won't remind you of a pogrom too much."
"And how does that make you feel?"
"Low, but not as low as I would have felt had I let them talk me into printing that which Bummy and half dozen others put into their columns."
"You're a good egg, Leon."
"That and a nickel will get you a cold root-beer at..."
An explosion of cheers interrupted us, before I could open my mouth and ask what was going on Leon ducked out of the room. He came back, but just to pick up his hat and run off again, but I caught him with my newly re-bandaged appendage.
"What's going on?"
"Still trying to figure it, but the limey Air Minister just announced Generals, uh, Browning and Student led a combined British-German landing off the coast of Estonia involving 15,000 British and 15,000 German paratroopers and seized the island of, uh, Saaremaa and all its ports and held it long enough for the British Navy, backed by the Germans and allegedly supplied by the Italians to blast their way to it."
"I don't have me a map handy, but Estonia is closer to Moscow than Poland, so for the Allies..."
"It's the first offensive the Reds lost! I have to run and learn the details. You take care now."
"You as well, Leon. See you in the funny papers."
And then came blessed sleep and dreams of those new butter bars on my collar tabs.
The End