+J.M.J.+

My Funny Valentine, or St. Valentine's Day Massacre

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

Man, was it cold the day of the 74th anniversary of the Massacre! 18 degrees in the shade, same temp as that famous morning. I discovered my mother has the 45 (rpm record, that is! [Remember those?]) of Paper Lace's "The Night Chicago Died, so I didn't have to pest the radio after all…but I suppose I should anyway, just to creep the DJ out by doing my gangster voice. Now on with the fic…what befalls our strange lovebirds?

Disclaimer:

See Chapter I.

V Don't Change a Hair For Me

Maguire wasn't sure what to expect when he got back to the apartment. His hands trembled for a second as he unlocked the door. He anticipated finding Bridie's things gone, a note on the table and possibly a couple bills.

Her bags still stood behind the door. She came out of the washroom, on her way to the closet. He pushed the hall door shut behind him and blocked her path with himself.

"You don't have to go: I'd rather you stayed," he said.

"I don't want to be beholding to you," she said.

"I know you don't: that's why I want you to stay here."

"Why, after all the trouble I cost you?"

"Well…for the first time in my life…I'm falling for a girl who actually has brains in her head instead of cotton batting and who isn't trying to sponge off me." There, he'd said it.

"In that case," she said, "I'm glad you are."

"Oh?

Her gaze had dropped to the floorboards. She raised her eyes to his. "Because from the moment I laid eyes on you, I thought, there's a guy who doesn't want just an arm ornament or a permanently contracted housekeeper. It's hard to say what you are, Mr. Maguire, but I like what I've seen."

"If it weren't St. Valentine's Day, I'd take you out to dinner," he said.

"Hey, with all the stuff that's happened in the city today, no one's likely to be very romantic tonight," she said. "Let's just go out for a sandwich or something. You didn't tell me the news. All I've heard is rumors."

"Sounds good with me," he said with a shrug. "But…what about that train ticket you were buying?"

"I'll send the money back, just tell my uncle I'm all right, that I found a strapping young fella to protect me."

"Strapping?! I bet you and I weigh the same," he retorted.

He went with her to the Western Union office a few blocks over, where she wired back the money and sent a telegram to her uncle explaining the situation.

"I bet it wasn't even Uncle John anyway," she said as they walked back, the wind at their backs, their coat collars turned up. "I bet it was Connor, trying to get around me."

"Why, he got something for you?" Maguire asked.

"Yeah, he's been trying to get me to marry him, but I'd sooner marry a spider."

"That bad, hey?" He knew "Crazy Connor" Rooney by face and voice from his dealings with Nitti, but that was as far as it went and he hoped it stayed that way.

"It's worse," she said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

The streets rang with the cries of newsboys, hawking papers carrying the headlines.

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Seven gang members slain by mystery assassins!"

Cappy's was thinly patronized except for the regulars, most of who were talking about the massacre. Maxine eyed Bridie, who kept scrupulously distant from Maguire, almost as if she were his sister, but he didn't mind it. Anything else would have warranted a sniff of derision from Maxine, and he wasn't in the mood for her huffing at him. They both ignored the look the waitress gave them as they sat down at the far end of the counter.

Maxine came over, still eying Bridie suspiciously. "You want yer usual, chief?" the waitress asked. "Pork chops and mashed potatoes?"

"Might as well keep up the semi-standing order," Maguire said. he looked at Bridie. "And you?"

"Make it easy on the cook: I'll have the same," she said.

Over their meal, he told her of the day's exploits, including Cunningham's major jolt. "I bet the sight gave him heart failure; I can't help hoping he did," Maguire concluded.

"If he's as fresh to you as you say he's been, I don't fault you for thinkin' that," she said. "I've had people treat me like that."

"Oh? somehow I don't see that happening."

"It has: when I was in college, I had this one classmate twit me wanting to be just a writer, and not go on to be a doctor or a lawyer or something."

"Indian chief?"

"What? Oh," she said, as he recited the kids' chant, "Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief/Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief."

"I thought of writing a Western once, but I gave it up. Just can't get into that genre."

"Stay with what you're good at. I ran across one of your stories recently, one of those, oh what did you call it?"

"Scientifiction."

"Right. Sorry it slipped my mind."

"No harm done. It's a tough word to wrap your tongue around, but we've wrapped our tongues around telephone. But go on."

"I have to admit I'm new to this field, but you're a darn good writer."

"Thanks," she blushed. "Y' know…I started sketching out another story, and it happens to involve a photographer in the year 2000."

"Hell, no!…sorry."

"Heck, yes. Of course I've changed a lot of the details, least of all being his camera."

"Now how could you improve on that?"

"Okay, first, they're gonna be a lot smaller: smaller than a packet of cigarettes. And second, they're gonna capture the image as light energy. No film, just these tiny storage units."

"So how the heck do you develop the shots?"

"You'd need a special gadget that can burn the image directly onto the paper, but it would be lightweight, so you wouldn't have to lug around that heavy camera case and stop to go back and develop the film in a dark room. You just plug the camera into the printing machine, press a couple buttons and bing! Instant picture."

"Sounds complicated, but it might work. But not in our lifetimes."

"Nope, not till the year 2000."

"But it give you something to write about in the meantime." God, she was as smart as a whip, but she still did something to him! "Speaking of cameras, there's one other stop I have to make."

"Mind if I came along?" she asked.

"You wouldn't like it: I'm going to the city morgue. Needaker at True Crime 'll want a shot of the bodies."

"Let me come. I've been in tough places before."

"All right, but you've been warned."

They were silent a moment. From somewhere, they could hear a train whistle blow. Bridie looked at her watch. "Last night train to Rock Island and it's leaving without me."

"You regretting it?" he asked.

"No."

"Ready to go?" he asked.

"Yeah."

He called for the bill. She insisted on splitting the check, but he palmed her share into his pocket. Maxine glared at them again as they headed out.

"Gad, what's the matter with her?" Bridie asked, once they reached the sidewalk.

"She's jealous of you," he said. "She pretends she thinks otherwise of me, but I know she eyes me up when she thinks I'm not looking."

"She's old enough to be your mother."

"I'm older than I look."

"How old?"

He calculated for a second. "Thirty-five this May."

"You're better-looking than some guys younger than you."

"I am?"

"Oh yeah. This one guy who worked for Campanini, sort of a bodyguard, chauffeur, think he was Sam's half-brother or something. Guy's as fat as butter and he's only thirty. Used to give me the ol' eyeball something awful."

"Must make you glad to not be working for Campanini any more."

She looked up at him. "Oh yeah."

Murgatroyd the mortician, the gnome who ran the city morgue, let them in. "I been expectin' yah, boy," the spider thin old man said, as they descended to the basement workroom in a clanky freight elevator. "Figured you'd be down soon. Who's the little lady?"

"A friend," Maguire said. "Bridie Rooney: she's a crime-fiction writer."

The little man grinned over his shoulder and past Maguire. "Come down here for some inspiration, eh?" His bristly face crinkled with almost fiendish glee. "She's a right fresh one, son. Think this is a good place for her?"

"She insisted on coming," Maguire said.

Murgatroyd slid the cage-like door back and led them to the workroom door, unlocked it, and swung it in, letting them enter first.

The chill in the air of the room made Maguire's apartment seem cozy by contrast, and rightly so: to keep the contents of the storage drawers intact. Murgatroyd took a ring of keys from his belt and started unlocking the doors of the units, one after the other, then just as systematically, he started sliding the drawers out, revealing the contents.

Six corpses, draped in sheets from the neck down, six still forms. Cleaned up, they almost looked more ghastly than when he'd first seem them. Maguire got a chair from the desk in the corner by the door and set it up. The cold of the room made it difficult to wind the film into his Leica, but he managed somehow. Bridie watched, her eyes roving from one body to another, an oddly intent look in her eyes.

Murgatroyd got into position, pretending to be puttering around among the dead. Maguire climbed up onto the chair and took a wide-angle shot before he got down for the close-up shots.

As Maguire finished up, Murgatroyd reached under a table and drew out a shallow metal pan that rattled. "Another sight yer readers 'll want ter see," the old man added. He set the pan on the table, directly under the overhead light in the middle of the room.

A layer of bullets, machine gun and handgun rounds, covered the bottom of the pan. "Finished cuttin' the lead out about an hour b' fore yah showed up," Murgatroyd explained.

"Now there's a shot Needaker 'll want," Maguire said, focusing the camera on the pan, close up.

Between shots, Maguire overheard a low murmur coming from near the door. He glanced over and saw Bridie standing there, head bent, crossing herself slowly.

"Y' prayin', Missy? They won't want for it now," Murgatroyd asked her.

"Let her alone," Maguire said. "You all right, Bridie?"

"Yeah, just praying for the souls of these poor guys," she said.

Maguire said nothing to this till they got outside and they were heading back to the car. "You Catholic?" he asked.

"Yes, I am," she said, with a trace of pride. "What about you?"

"I gave that up for Lent a long time ago," he admitted.

She took this quietly as they hurried back to the car. He wasn't sure what to make of that response, or lack thereof.

Back at the apartment, he quickly developed the shots and got them ready to deliver to Needaker. The Bohunk would go daffy over them for sure.

"I hate to be a bore, but y' mind my tagging along again?" she asked.

"Ishkable," he said, shrugging. "C'mon, I'll point out the garage where it all happened."

At the storefront over which Needaker had his office, Bridie waited for him in the car. Maguire knew Needaker or one of the goons in the office would start leering at her and he didn't want to subject her to that.

The photos got the effect he'd anticipated: Needaker's eyes bulged as he pored over them and he started gushing a blue streak in Hungarian or whatever it was. He handed Maguire a cash advance right then and there, out of his own pocket.

Bridie was shivering when he got back. He carefully cranked the heater up a notch: too high and you'd swelter.

"Hey, get yer leg away from mine," she snipped. He realized his thigh was up against hers.

"Did I touch you?" he asked, deadpan innocent.

She didn't reply and she didn't move either.

A moment later, his hand brushed her knee as he reached for the gearshift.

"If you weren't driving, I'd bop you," she said, but he detected something else in her voice.

Just inside the apartment door, after Maguire closed it, Bridie slipped her hands under his topcoat as he drew her to him, her back against the door.

"Hey, watch that," he warned, mockingly. "Didn't your mother ever warn you about being alone with a bachelor in his apartment?"

"My stepmother did, but it had no effect on her daughter, my stepsister."

He kissed her, hard. Now it was his turn to start probing under her topcoat. "Don't you know what it can lead to?"

"I think we already had that little chat."

"Care to have another…deeper conversation?" he asked, his mouth against her ear.

"Do me one small favor first," she said.

"What's that?" he asked.

"If we're gonna make a night of this, you'd better fix that bed so it doesn't fold up on us in the middle of things," she said. "I'd like my first time to be memorable for other reasons."

"This your first time?" he asked. She'd given him such a lip-scorcher the night of the full-frontal assault, he'd figured she was an expert.

"You're not the first guy I ever liked, but you're the first one who liked me back and the first I've gone this far with. You lead, fella."

"And how," he said, husky-voiced. He kissed her again so she wouldn't change her mind, keeping his lust in check long enough to oblige her.

When he woke up the next morning, he felt something jostling him in bed. He poked his head out from under the covers, looking around. Yes, this was his place: the familiar walls with the peeling paper and the stained ceiling above…and the chill in the air that made him pull his head back in. But who…?

His bed companion stirred and nuzzled up to him. He turned over on his back and found Bridie beside him, looking him full in the face.

"Good morning," she said.

"G' mornin'," he mumbled, not sure whether to get up or pull her close for more. The way she looked at him, he was tempted to stay put. "You still here?" he ventured.

"Of course, you asked me to stay," she said. "As long as you still want me around." She nestled against him and closed her eyes, her head on his shoulder. He slid his arm under her, just holding her.

He decided then and there she was pretty, with or without the glasses. Without them, as now, her face looked oddly naked, but that only added to the novelty.

She stirred, sliding her arm across his chest, and opening her eyes, looked him in the face.

"What are you looking at?" he asked, curious but trying to sound cross.

She tilted her head at different angles, looking him in the eye. "I'm trying to figure out what color your eyes are," she said. "I started puzzling over that as soon as I found out you sleep with your eyes open."

"I do?" No one had ever before accused him of doing that.

"Yeah, it's weird, but I like it," she said, still looking him in the eye. "Okay, I give up, are they gray? Blue? Green? Hazel?"

"I put green on my driver's license, so that makes them officially green. I don't spend much time in front of a mirror."

"You'd put Rudolf Valentino to shame if you ever did," she said. "You'd have Joan Crawford eating out of your hand if you ever went into pictures."

"Trying to fix me up, eh?"

"Nah, I like you just the way you are," she said, giving him a gentle squeeze. "Bones and all, y' got nice bones. Don't change a hair for me, fella."

"Thanks," he said, taken slightly aback. God, what dame had ever told him that the morning after the night before?

He was still tempted to stay put that day. The other papers would be fighting for his shots, but he and Buchner had a kind of agreement on that since Maguire's, er, night job sometimes took him out of town for a while.

She gave him a little peck on the cheek. He was about to respond to this in turn when she slid out of bed and went out, stooping to pick up something off the floor and sling it on.

She came back much quicker than she went out, almost running for the bed, clad in his shirt.

"Hey, that's mine," he snipped, faking irritation. She really didn't look half bad wearing it.

"I had to put something on, it's freezing!" she said, burrowing under the covers.

He noticed the air seemed especially frigid. He stuck his head out again for a second opinion. God, you could see your breath!

He hauled himself out of the sack, pulled on his pants and slipped on his shoes on his way to checking the radiator.

It was stone cold. He tried kicking the frozen thing, but his shoe came off in the process and he only succeeded in bruising his foot.

"D—n!" he snarled.

"What happened?" Bridie asked, peeking out from under the blankets. "You kill yourself?"

"No, but I just about killed my foot on that radiator," he admitted, limping back.

She drew him in beside her. "Hey, I'll make you feel better," she said, smokily. This would have its perks…

The End

Afterword:

All right, enuffa dat for now! I've got about three more planned for this series, first a summer one (involving pineapples), which will have to wait till July; then another Christmas one, this one being a kind of Meet the Parents story with RtP characters; and then a cap-off which roots this series in the film, although I'll have to change the ending for that one to work.