back porch to be the most dangerous place in the house. Quietly Sam slipped out the front door, keyed the lock, slunk down the steps and ran off into the night. In the distance there was that sound again, thunder without lighting, the beating of stone drums by steel hammers.
Sam's mind spun like a carousel as he stopped in the darkness between gaslights to think. Vigilante or Psychopath? If given the chance to write his article he would definitely begin the clicketty-clack on a P stroke. But why? Why me? He knew this to be a stupid question. Because he's a nut-job, dummy, that's more than reason enough. Still, the former question stuck. Crime doesn't happen without something financial to the right of the question mark. There was always a reason. A voice spilled like syrup through the thick stand of privets behind him.
"It's cause you done me wrong, boy."
Sam screamed a falsetto, jumped forward and spun around – all in one motion – to land crouching with both guns trained on the row of bushes. There was a thunderclap and the man in the suit appeared at the far end of the street, standing in a kerosene pool of street light.
And that was when Sam saw the shoes.
The man wore two ham-thick slabs of concrete on the ends of his ankles. When held together they faintly resembled the tin wash basin they had been poured in, only these were not the Chicago standard in wiseguy wear. They had been split down the middle with a rough cut that left just enough room for each foot to be lifted up and slammed forward.
Sam skittered behind a postal box just as the Tommy Gun began to crackle and spit. The bullets tore into the blue metal and broke through one side only to dent the end against Sam's back. The shots felt like hits from a ballpeen hammer on his shoulder blades, and it took all his strength to not go tumbling forward, but Sam held his ground. Once the gun's firing pin ticked on an empty chamber, Sam bolted upright and laid into him with both .45's blasting. The cement shoes seemed to anchor the man to the ground. He simply bounced around the bullets, doing an elastic dance like one of those bakelight toys the kids had, the one where a little plastic effigy of a man danced about as their thumbs bounced him up and down. The gangster swung around on his ankles, arms jiggling and swinging in the swooping arc.
"Oh Sam," he cried, "You're just killing me here!"
Once the salvo was over, the gangster bent backward from his ankles to grab his hat up off the pavement. Sam ejected the spent clips from his guns and patted his vest for extras he knew he didn't have. He turned to run, only to find himself standing face to face with the hitman, or as close as the two cement shoes would allow. The creature was only human in silhouette. Up close he was sticks and mud and a dredged up corpse. The cloth of his suit was clotted with dirt and stunk of the river banks. Maggots wriggled and trickled from its shirt sleeves. More writhed out from a slice of cheek that had been torn back to the sinews. One shoulder held the handle of a deeply planted butcher knife. The other was so broken it looked ready to slide off and flounder about on the ground. One of Sam's own bullets – as he had seen, targetted, and placed the hit – carved a valley through the side of the thing's skull. The cut now flowed over one ear with a black stew of rotting brains, apparently working yet no longer needed.
"You know Mista Samuel.," the creature gargled, "You really should have just died when I called you out."
Without waiting for a reply, the thing purposefully swung a rock foot back and brought it forward with all the swift conviction of a wrecking ball. It aimed to demolish Sam's nuts and hit forthwright...
T
The Circus is in Town! Hoo-Ray! Hoo-Rah! Kids and cotton candy fill the stands. Bears on unicycles juggle brightly colored balls. The curviest Irish lass in the universe turns a sparkly blue sequined cartwheel on a death-defying length of highwire, far above the Earth.
Sam, himself, stops only for a moment to straighten out the waxy ends of his mustache and wave to the happy crowd before sliding into the cannon around his waist. He is a human eagle in the gold and white silk costume of an aviator. His confidence is strong! Astounding! Triumphant! ELEPHANTINE! Until it becomes evident that the compressed spring which normally sits coiled beneath his feet has been replaced by an actual keg of TNT. The ring master calls for applause as he lights the fuse.
The edge of the cannon is barely a foot beyond Sam's grasp, but in being unable to wiggle upwards it might as well be a mile. Silence. The fuse is gone. A hush falls over the crowd. The rippling explosion between Sam's legs stretches every nerve in his body until they splinter. A fraction of a second later he slices like a razor through the canvas of the big top and goes screaming through the different strata of atmosphere, flying among the cut silver of stars, planets and a moon made of cheese. Soon he is beyond it, beyond everything, falling through perfect darkness - perfect silence - twisting like a cat trying to find its feet and howling without a sound.
T
When Sam came to, head throbbing and back aching, the inability of the single incandescent bulb above his head to touch a wall told him that he was in a warehouse or a stock room of some sort. A tug horn sounded off in the distance and he figured himself to be near the wharf, possibly right on the water's edge from the smell of it. Not that this mattered a whole hell of a lot, with his hands chained up and his legs strapped to a crate it was obvious that he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Half of the crate's bottom had been hacked out so a washer woman's clothes pan could be fitted under it and leave whoever was sitting there with his feet hanging directly over its empty pit. Sam glanced down to notice that his shoes were gone. He wiggled his toes in their socks and started to panic.
"Bouncin' and rattlin' around like that ain't gonna do you no good, reporter man."
"What are you!?" barked Sam.
"Why'se not try 'Who are you?' That'd be a right more sociable."
A grating sound accompanied the creature as it labored in the darkness. It wasn't just dragging its feet but something else, equally heavy.
"Okay, Who are you!"
The creature smiled as best it could and said, "The name was Vincent Magill. However, you may know me as Julius Lester."
"Of the Front Street Devils!?"
"One and only! But dat's not how it is. Now is it?"
Julius Lester. Julius Lester. Samuel plowed his brain trying to remember where he had heard that name before. Far too many names passed through his office, but this one did have a familiar ring. A hand snapped out of the darkness to backside him across the face.
"And I quote, 'May 15th, bank robbery, middle of the day. The police investigation is being helped by a witness to the crime, Julius Lester.' Does that sound familiar? That's your damn writing! You ratted me out you sonofabitch, and for the one time in my life I really didn't deserve it!"
A slamming of gears brought the cement mixer to life. A cloud of dust and a bucket of water soon had the machine churning sludge.
"Impossible! No," Sam pulled on his chains to no avail. "I-I made that name up!"
"Then you is pretty good at the guessing game now ain't chu? See. I made up Vincent Magill. Julius Lester is my real name. I planned and purpurtrated that bank heist. Everything went perfectly, then the gang read your column over breakfast, pegged me for a rat, and had me sitting right where you is by lunchtime."
"Ridiculous" shouted Sam, "I said I made that name up! What part don't you understand? I mean, yes it's not right but it's what I do. It's what the public wants. Names, Dates, Quotes and Exclamation Points. That is the news! But I swear I check the phone book every time. I make sure no one is using the names I need when I make them up."
Julius bent down, grabbed the levelling arm of the mixer and tilted it to pour. The cold grit of cement fell in clumps around Samuel's feet. His leg muscles charly horsed as he strained to break them free from the leather straps.
"Do you really think I am someone who can be found in the phone book?"
Sam stared at him, fuming, hoping anger alone could somehow set him on fire. Julius seemed simply amused.
"Bad Luck niether lives nor dies, Sam. It just gets passed along from person to person. Yupper. It weren't too long ago I was sitting right where you are at now. Confused. Anguished. Pissed all to hell with icy cold rock forming around mah feet. And wait until it hardens up. Den it gets all sharp and edgy like, makes you feel like you're standing in a box of broken glass. I tried to remember everything I had ever read about Harry Houdini, about whether he had ever performed in cement shoes. But nope, nothin' there. And it's not like he'd share any of his secrets if he had. Then those back stabbin' sonsabitches of mine purpurtrated the mutiny. That killed me. To them I had become just another Jack to knock the mazula out of. That's the loyalty of thieves for ya. In broad daylight those bastards wheeled me out to the end of that dock with me screaming for help, mercy, my mammies love – but nothin'. I went plunk in the water like a sack o wet flour, and down.
Down.
Down.
Down."
Julius leaned forward from his ankles and picked out a pinch of cement. It was a little stiffer than bread dough. "Almost there," he smiled, "this quick dry stuff works wonders now doesn't it?" His shoes boomed as he paced, bowlegged along the edge of the light. Sam wondered how anyone outside could not hear it.
"You know what?" Julius continued, "I like you Sam. You're a damn good shot. Ya don't hesitate.