The Judas Plot - Part Five
Every honest man has his price.
You look like you’re new here. Better get caught up.
Read Parts 1-4 in Somewhere in Forge City.
Midtown. The next morning.
I was in that pipe again, so deep that I didn’t know which way was out. Something feral, vicious, and hungry growled behind me and I crawled forward on my forearms, but the growling got closer.
Keep moving! I crawled until my shoulders burned.
My scalp prickled and my eyes burned with sweat. Claws scraping against concrete echoed off the curved walls and drove me forward into a shrinking tunnel until my head scraped the roof and my shoulders were wedged tight. The beast’s fangs sank into my neck and I screamed with my full chest but no sound came, just the rush of my last breath squeezed from my chest.
I shot off the cot, tangled in a wool army blanket, and toppled onto the cold concrete floor. For a few disorienting seconds, as I struggled to free myself, I thought I was still dreaming. I cursed, got to my feet, and rubbed my throbbing head. I was in the old storage room at the back of my safehouse on Carol Street.
In the tiny bathroom, the face in the mirror looked like it had gone twelve rounds with “Lefty” Gwynne. It didn’t even seem like my face, until I looked into my eyes. I couldn’t meet the gaze.
A black scab drew a crooked line down across my jaw. I probed the broken skin, and the cut oozed a bit. It was inflamed and tender, but it wasn’t openly bleeding anymore. I didn’t want to think about what it had picked up in the tunnel. I turned on the Cold tap, cupped water in my hands and rubbed my face. It was bracing and I felt a little better. I patted my face dry with a towel and stuck a plaster over the cut.
My shoe shop safehouse had a small kitchenette in the corner of the back room. I made coffee on a hot plate, found a stray pack of cigarettes in a drawer, and smoked as things turned over in my mind.
Unless I could get to Flanagan before Doyle sprayed his brains all over the bay, I was going to be out five grand. I had to figure a way to get to him and pry that money out of his claws. And then there was Jimmy. Fucking Jimmy.
When the coffee was ready, I wiped the dust out of a chipped cup and sat down at the flimsy card table against the wall and tried to empty my head, but Claire Drummond’s face kept coming to mind.
After dropping her off the night before, I had gone to Saint Brendan’s Cathedral. Like an amateur, I was propelled by money and revenge. Nothing wrong with money, but revenge…. That’s what landed you a three-by-eight foot cell in Farfield.
I spied on the rectory from the cover of shrubbery along the cathedral’s cold limestone wall. It was a modest two-storey brick house. All the windows were dark. Easy pickings.
Across town, one of the foundry’s steam whistles let out a mournful cry to signal the start of the 5 AM shift. It wouldn’t be long until sunrise. I left cover and circled the house in search of an easy way in. The back door was sheltered by a porch, and I was working the lock with my picks when the kitchen light flared to life and the window cracked open. My heart stopped and I held my breath.
A radio came alive and, as water ran from a faucet, a woman’s voice hummed along in perfect harmony with the clarinet intro to Guy Lombardo’s “Paradise”.
I eased the picks out of the lock and risked a glance through the back door window. Through the lace curtain, a plump middle-aged woman glided around the kitchen in a pale blue robe, starting the morning routine for McMurphy. The God damned housekeeper.
On the counter were cups and saucers. One for her and one for McMurphy. I assumed the third was for Flanagan. I needed to get in there, but I held myself in check.
Entering an occupied house with no plan, no knowledge of its layout, no alternate exit, and a head full of spite was the cardinal sin of my fraternity. It would have been a rerun of the Tremblay fiasco, and I had sworn I would never let that happen again.
A few windows in the neighbourhood were starting to wake up. My moment was over and I backed off the porch.
As gray dawn broke, I spied a break in the dark rank of cedar hedges that lined the cathedral grounds. I took off across the wet grass for the lane and slowed down only when the rectory was out of sight. I walked back to the pickup, drove to the safe house, and collapsed on the cot.
It was now almost 9 AM. Hadn’t slept that long, but I felt like I was already behind. I drained my cup, rinsed it, and set it on the counter. Time to get moving.
I checked the back door’s peeper and the coast was clear, so I locked up and started down the alley, abandoning the truck despite the threat of rain. Driving it was too risky since it would have been reported as stolen by now. I needed a new set of wheels because the streetcar was too public. I turned my collar up and hurried on foot under rain-soaked thunderheads, their bellies scraping the tops of the high rises.
On King Street, I moved against the stream of pedestrians like a salmon looking for a good time. The curb was a line of parked cars and I kept going until I found an empty spot in front of a tobacco shop. I ducked into the bakery next door, paid for a black coffee and a cruller and ate breakfast on my feet leaning against a telephone pole as I watched the empty spot.
Ten minutes passed and the rain started to fall. I retreated into the bakery’s doorway.
Five minutes later, a midnight blue Dodge Six glided into the spot. Single occupant, too, which would make things easier. It was as if God Himself wanted me to have it. I sucked down the last of my coffee, tossed the cup in the bin, and shook a newspaper free of the trash. I joined the crowd and started toward the Dodge, pretending to read.
A dame in a green suit and pillbox hat slid out from behind the wheel and I almost called the whole thing off, but I needed the damned wheels, so I grit my teeth and gave her the shoulder just as she popped out between the Dodge and the Buick in front.
“Oh!” she yelped. Arms and legs flying, she went down hard on the wet sidewalk. I went down, too, just for show. Her purse lay on its side out of reach, wallet, compact, lipstick, keys, and a mahogany hairbrush scattered across the sidewalk.
“You oaf! Do you know how much this suit cost?”
“Ma’am, I’m so sorry,” I said, quickly collecting her things and dumping them into her purse. “I’m on my way to a job interview and wasn’t paying attention.”
I held out my hand. She took it and I helped her up.
“Here you go,” I said, handing over her purse. “Got everything?”
Rain pelted from overhead. She opened it impatiently and took a quick inventory. I brushed her shoulder aggressively with one hand to distract her from what the other was doing.
“You have some dirt there. Let me just…”
“It’s all right,” she said, swatting my hand away. She clicked her purse shut. “Just watch where you’re going next time.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, saluting her with the newspaper. “You, too.”
She fired a look that would sear a steak then crossed the sidewalk and disappeared inside the bookstore. I stepped into the street, unlocked the Dodge with her keys, and drove away feeling guilty about rolling a woman for her car, but I was desperate.
Took me half an hour to make it back to Liffey Bend and another five to reach Saint Brendan’s Cathedral. I wanted to get a look at the rectory by daylight, maybe catch something I missed earlier.
I was cruising up Dufferin when I saw the Hudson Super Six parked on the other side of the road. A pair of thick-necked mopes in grey vests and newsboy caps sat up front. The passenger was reading something and the driver was smoking while he kept watch on the rectory. They were Limerick Doyle’s men, and all the confirmation I needed to be sure Flanagan was tucked in with the good Father. I kept my eyes forward, my speed steady, and drove straight past the church to Shannon Street then bore left.
The next item on my list was locating Jimmy Caruso, so I could wring his neck. I steered the Dodge toward Midtown.
In the six months since I had taken Jimmy on as a partner, he’d moved his little family from a cold water flat in The Foundry to a swanky two-bedroom apartment on Millar Street. It was a three-storey red brick walk-up on a clean, tree-lined street awash in smiling people. Looking around, it gave you the impression that the Crash hadn’t killed anybody’s dreams in Midtown.
I pulled up to the curb and stopped beside a phone booth. The receiver buzzed in my ear, and I thumbed a nickel into the slot and an operator came on the line. I recited Jimmy’s number from memory. There was a click then the line rang. It barely got through two when someone answered.
“Jimmy?” It was Gladys. I held my breath. “Hello? Jimmy, is that you?”
Her voice was taut, on the verge of panic. I coughed, angled the mouthpiece away.
“Uh…is this Simmons Transmission?” There was the faintest of sobs before the line went dead.
I tapped the receiver against my chin. Gladys was home, but Jimmy was in the wind. I expected them both to be gone, but this was good. With his expectant wife still at home, it meant that Jimmy couldn’t have slithered off too far. But where to?
I dug out another nickel and fed the machine. I needed help, but the guy I had in mind might not like it.
“Operator.”
“Herald Gazette, please.”
“One moment.”
More clicks, then a ring, and another.
“Good morning. You’ve reached The Herald Gazette. How may I direct your call?”
“Crime Desk.”
“Right away, sir.”
Click, click, ring. A woman’s crisp voice over the clatter of typewriters and telephones.
“Hello. Crime Desk.”
“Yeah…uh…I want to talk to the guy who ran the Dunbar reward piece.”
“Robert Burback.”
“That’s the guy.”
“I’ll connect you, sir.”
“Nah. I can’t talk right now. Tell him to find me in one hour at The Silver Spoon.”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“J. Alfred Proofrock.”
“Spell it.”
I spelled it, but not Eliot’s way. My younger brother Robert had misspelled it in his Tenth Grade English essay on the great poet. Cost the kid an A+. I still laugh about that. I hung up and the phone ate my nickel.
I made a pit stop at a Tamblyn’s pharmacy, picked up a bottle of Aspirin, and the new issue of Argosy, then walked the three blocks to The Silver Spoon Diner. The day’s special was a hot beef sandwich with mash and peas. I ate it in a window booth and drank more coffee while I waited for Robbie to turn up. Halfway through Gardener’s The Danger Zone, Robbie slid onto the bench opposite me.
“Jesus, your face,” he said, reaching across the table and tilting my head to the side to get a better look. “The cops do this to you?”
“One of them,” I said.
“Looks like it’s getting infected. Go to the hospital.”
“And get pinched before I pay the bill. No thanks. I got a guy that owes me a favour.”
Robert frowned. “A doctor,” he said.
“He’s a real doctor. Jeez, will you lay off?”
Robbie was my junior by two years, sandy-haired where I was dark, handsome where I was less so. That may have had something to do with the lack of abuse his baby face suffered compared to mine. It was an occupational hazard.
“I’m surprised you slipped away from Garrett,” he said, his voice low. “My source in the LCPD said it was a lock to grab you and your partner and Flanagan.”
“They nearly pulled it off. Thanks for the warning, by the way. You have no idea what I had to do to get away.”
“Did you expect a telegram? Don’t get sore, Walt. I’m a law-abiding citizen. If I get arrested for aiding and abetting a criminal, there goes everything I worked for. Do you know how much scrutiny I’m under because of you? Why are you out in the daylight? The city is crawling with cops.”
“I need your help. My partner is in the wind and I need a hand locating him while I handle something else.”
Robert’s brow crinkled, like I’d asked him to help me find a rat.
“What’s the something else?” he asked.
“Never mind. Just help me find Jimmy Caruso.”
“How do you expect me to help you with that?” he asked. “And why do you think I could do it any better than you? Between the two of us, you’re the one with all the underworld contacts.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You know everyone I know. Almost.”
“Sorry. I can’t help you.”
“Yes, you can.” Robert’s eyes were flat as quarters, but I could still read the refusal behind them. “Ah. I see. You mean you won’t. You’ve helped me before. What’s different now?”
Robert stole a careful glance around the crowd. No one was gawking our way. He leaned across the table, hands balled into fists, and dropped his voice.
“Because they just took me off the junior beat, Walt. I have my own desk now. Do you know what it was like being the oldest cub reporter in Herald history? I had to develop the contacts I have because of you, Walt. Because of your little crusade against the Founders, I got passed over and over and over for my own desk, my own assignments. I had to walk through shit to prove whose side I’m on. I’m not putting any of that in jeopardy to help you out of a jam.”
It was a slap in the face. I leaned across the table at him.
“I never asked you to sign up for dad’s rag,” I said, working hard to keep my voice down. “I never asked you to write a damned word for the Crime Desk, so don’t lay all that on me. If you don’t like walking in shit, maybe you’re better off back on the Society Desk with Mavis Greene, writing puff pieces about dog shows and who wore what to Founders’ Gala.”
Robert jerked backward, like I’d popped him in the nose. “Fuck you.”
He started to slide out of the booth, but I grabbed his arm. He pulled away, but I held fast and he slid back in front of me. I relaxed my grip, but I didn’t let him go.
“Sorry, Robbie. That was out of line.”
“I can’t help you, Walt. Don’t ask me to.”
“Not even for a scoop?”
His head tilted like a hound that heard a fox creeping through the grass.
“I might have a story for you,” I said. “A juicy one.”
He answered, dragging the words out of his throat. “Involving who and what?”
“A Roman Catholic Father over in Liffey Bend.”
“McMurphy?”
“The same.”
“It’s not one of those stories, is it? Priests being overly familiar with their altar boys sells a lot of papers, but…I always need a shower afterward.”
“I don’t think it’s that, but Limerick Doyle’s involved. He’s got the padre by the nut sack.”
The mere mention of Kieran Doyle had Robert salivating.
“What did McMurphy do to get in bed with Doyle?”
“I don’t have the details yet, but I can work on that. I met a little songbird last night in Doyle’s private room. She seems to know a thing or two about it. I could ask a few questions.” The wheels were turning in Robert’s head. “You help me with Jimmy,” I said, “and I’ll see where this Doyle thing leads.”
“What’s the woman’s name? Nancy Monroe? She doesn’t know anything.”
I shook my head. “Claire Drummond.”
“Claire de Lune?” Robert whistled low. “I love her voice.”
“And her other qualities,” I smirked.
“Don’t be a pig.” Robert grinned. He wrung his hands, balled his fists a couple times. “Fine. I’ll ask around quietly, but you don’t get a thing from me until I’m convinced this McMurphy-Doyle business is worth the risk of helping you find a fugitive.”
“Deal.”
Robert slid to the edge of the bench and looked back at me.
“Dad asked about you.”
The satisfaction I felt evaporated. “What did he want?”
“Mom’s having a rough time. He asked if you’d seen her lately.” A shadow passed through my chest and I closed my eyes. “He thought you should know.”
The worry around Robert’s blue eyes was real. I nodded.
“I’ll go see her as soon as I can,” I said.
Robert nodded farewell and slid out of the booth. I flagged down my waitress for a coffee to go and asked for the cheque. I tried not to think about my mother.
I hope you enjoyed this part of the story. If you did, consider Liking, Sharing, or Restacking it. Thanks for your time!
Kevin Coleman writes crime fiction from the cold edges of Canada. He writes about honest men who bend their integrity for a few dollars more.
© 2026 Kevin M. Coleman
Disclaimer
This article is an original work by Kevin M. Coleman. All rights are reserved. No part of this article may be copied, stored, or reproduced in any form — including but not limited to use in training artificial intelligence or machine learning systems — without the author’s express written permission.
You got me hooked. The plot is running on all cylinders, and this chapter shows depth in the protagonist with his family: brother, father, mother.
Ooo, the backstory with his brother and parents... that's intriguing! And this line: "I moved against the stream of pedestrians like a salmon looking for a good time." It made me laugh. I really feel like i'm slinking around with him! Awesome writing.