45.
Shorty caught fire, pushing petal to the metal. After the Mermaids mow-down, Magee booked it straight to Atlantic City. A.C.
pumped the juice Shorty lived for. Round the clock gambling, booze, and tail. He had the money for the high-roller rooms, and let it ride. He started right back into the dope. Eight balls, heroin, and speed.
The casino detail never suspected anything. They see this kind of stuff all the time. Lonely old guys dropping boo-coo bucks.
Life opened up the cages, letting them loose. Shorty behaved, and tipped well. He had it. Lots of it. The casino's dug the angle. They were in biz to syphen riff. It was the posse spooking the suits.
Can't have these types roaming our halls. The hotels bounced him to a cheap row house, a few miles off the boardwalk. He needled splash. A hot spoon of heroin and coke. It took him back.
Back to that night at Mermaids..
Shorty spotted a shadow, and turned. A guy darted into the kitchen. Shorty scented. He hustled through the kitchen, and stopped. The shoot out going ape shit. Shorty paced the kitchen.
A Worker. A young guy, part of the kitchen help. Could have been Mexican. He held a machete. Not a killer. Protection. Shorty raised his gun. The young worker froze. His brown hands up, killer blade pointed away. Reminded him of Willie, a young Hispanic kid that hung around the stables. "I'm not part of this, man," the guy pleaded. Shorty kept the gun up, examining the young guy.
Shorty paused, lowering the weapon.
"Go on--get out." The guy turned, and smashed through a rear door. He hit the parking lot, and dissolved into the night.
Shorty paused, gazing through the open door. Stepping forward. The quiet, dark night. His escape.... Shorty exhaled deeper. He stopped, and looked back. No one in sight.
Fuck Tony and his loser son. No violence could bring him back. And for what? To fuck up some more, and cause his father grief. Shorty was tired of being a board piece. A chump in big shot agendas. He had the money, and the health. To hell with it all. I’m cashing in, and checking out. Tonight. Tired of scores taking the nosedive. What did Tony ever do for me? This is too high a price.
I'm gone.
Shorty ditched his sawed-off, and bolted through the door, dissolving into the night. The echoes of gunfire, lowered and lowered, until he was out of Mermaid's gravity. For good. Shorty hit a double-lane highway, and flagged a taxi from a local line-up....
Rocky Higgins stretched in a morgue. The faces and the names of the gangsters were more public fodder. News vans from the New York media weaseled in, chumming a wise guy-hungry TV
land. Badge angled Higgins.
Higgins led to Shorty Magee. Not a hot-line, but more of a crisscross. Magee did the rest. Holing up with local strippers, round the clock fun and fuck pad. Booze, dope, bangathons. Open door policy. Word got out to the dregs. House money. Shorty's pad.
The mermaids dug the dough. Shorty bragged outlaw. Heist.
Guns blazing. The chicks leaked. Spilled info smeared the streets.
Word started it's back alley baton. Picked up by the beats, passed to vice, squad room finish line. AC badge scoped and bugged.
They dimed the troopers. The fraternity brothers pounding that dog-gone Phoenix job.
They scooped up Shorty, brought him to an underground bunker, and laid law. He spilled fast. He spilled wide. He named names. Told them all about it. The depot, the fuck-up son, the blistering shootout. The same meat house where they found Higgins. Shorty baked them all.
When they heard Eddie Bones, the Hoovers went ape-shit.
Feebs and Marshalls, dispatched. Once they bagged the gang, they'd cut Magee some slack.