Gang Rumble by Edward S. Aarons

Author:Edward S. Aarons [Aarons, Edward S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Thriller & Suspense, Hard-Boiled
ISBN: 9781951473532
Publisher: Stark House Press
Published: 2021-12-01T11:00:00+00:00

Johnny went out of the clubroom the way he had come in. There was no point in hanging around there, just asking for trouble. He had trouble enough. He was only beginning now to see the depth and dimensions of it.

He felt trapped by the night and the city that pressed in all around him. He was alone. There was nobody he could turn to. He thought of Comber, that fat slug. All Comber cared about was his own ugly skin. All he worried about was whether Johnny would talk about the warehouse plan and where he got the gun, if the blues grabbed him. Well, he’d talk plenty, if it came to that, he decided sullenly. Only, nobody was going to catch him. Not tonight, or ever.

He thought of the Judge, the way the albino sat there in the cellar like some animal in a burrow. He hadn’t expected much from the Lancers, anyway, Johnny told himself. A bunch of jerks, too dumb to know which end was up. So he had crossed them—but he hadn’t meant for anything bad to happen to the guys. He hadn’t meant for Comber to tip the blues and the Violets about the rumble. It was Comber’s fault, not his. If Comber hadn’t tipped the cops, then it would’ve been just a rumble, nothing special, done and over with. And nobody would have known about the warehouse thing at all.

And now Comber’s boys were looking for him.

And the Lancers, goaded by the Judge, would be merciless.

And the cops—

Johnny shivered. He felt more alone than ever. He hadn’t meant to kill Stephens. He hadn’t even known who the man was, until after the shot was fired. He hadn’t even meant to use the gun at all.

But he had. And Stephens was dead.

How had it happened? How did it begin?

For several minutes he sat on a brownstone step, wishing fervently he could go back in time, back to the hour when he lay on the roof coping and Pete was heckling him about taking a job in the warehouse.

Why hadn’t Pete understood what he really wanted? Nobody ever listened to you in this world, Johnny thought. You couldn’t talk to a person and expect them really to hear what you were saying.

Nobody cared, that was the trouble.

Nobody gave the smallest damn about you.

But they cared now. Now the name of Johnny Broom was broadcast all over the city.

Once he would have relished the thought of being so important. But now that it had happened, he only felt frightened. He wanted to hide, to become nothing and nobody again.

He had joined the Lancers because of a need to belong somewhere. Pete was all right, but Pete worked always at night, and he slept most of the day. And Pete was much older, so there was no understanding between them as brothers.

The Lancers gave Johnny a chance to feel important in a world that was too preoccupied to notice Johnny Broom. There was a time when he had been interested in school too.

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