The Yankee

Chapter 2
The Fall of the Yankee

Chapter Description: Not quite perfect, but worth sharing anyway, for those who wanted to see the villain get his comeuppance. WARNING This chapter contains scenes violence.

The year is 1921 and the days are getting shorter as the world ticks closer to 1922. Its snowing in New York, and all around you can hear carols being sung by scratchy records and scratchier carolers going from door to door. Maybe it’s a sign of the times that these young, innocent singers, so full of Christmas spirit, are about as innocent as that quarter of a barbershop quartet they work for. It’s a pretty slick way to case a neighborhood, and when he knew a place was empty, the Yankee sent his smallest boys out to play.

Like a twisted Sherlock Holmes, the Yankee’s irregulars followed his instructions to the letter. All of them did. Call it a once-bitten-twice-shy sort of thing. See these boys are a little older than they look. The Yankee saw to that. His "power" is what put him at the top of New York’s criminal food chain. Any man that crossed him was likely to wind up as one of his boys, working for him to escape the orphanage. What choice did they have? They could go on the radio and tell the whole world what happened without a single person taking them seriously, excepting the Yankee himself of course. He’d take it very seriously.

The Yankee, however, was preoccupied. Tonight, those boys would be in for the shock of their lives when they went back to the old boarded up storefront only to find a squad of police standing by. The word orphanage had become the new word for jail for these kids. Not for Sunny Side, though. They pinched him at sixteen and tried him as an adult for gunning down a copper. The Yankee had sprung him once before, but now the kid was as good as dead to him. Tonight, he was the farthest thing from his mind.

"Damn you! You little son of a bitch! I’ll beat the life out of you, I swear!" The old man bellowed at the bruised and bloodied child he held pinned beneath him, "You betrayed me, you tiny little bastard! You brought them here!"

"Boss!" shouted another child from behind him, his eyes red with fear, "Just get it over with! They’re coming!"

"Are you giving me an order Spitter?" The Yankee growled, pushing himself off of the barely breathing boy. Slowly, he removed his blood stained gloves, "Need I remind you how you came to my employment?"

"WALTER MACDONALD!" Shouted one of several officers outside, "WE HAVE THE PLACE SURROUNDED! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!"

The color drained from his face until he looked like a man in a picture show. He never took his eyes off the boy, "Spitter! The passageway, take it!"

"What about you?" the frightened boy replied, "You can’t fit through there!"

"I’ll do just as they said." He looked down at his now bare palms, "I’ll put my hands on my head."

Spitter nearly fainted, "Is that possible, sir?"

"I’ve been around for a long time, Spitter, since before you actually were that age." he said gravely, "Now get out of here while you still can. I’ll follow if I’m able."

"But, boss-"

"The Yankee’s finished, Spitter. Little Mikey over there saw to that." He nodded to the barely breathing lump, "Now get out. I have work to do."

Spitter didn’t need telling twice. He turned around and dashed into the basement. From there he slipped into the crawlspace that he was on the verge of outgrowing, and came out in the backlot of a nearby market. As the snowflakes fell on his curled red hair, he realized that he’d left his coat behind. It was cold, and he was hungry, but he’d have to get used to that now. He ran off into the night. He didn’t know where he was going, but that didn’t matter now, because he had nowhere to go. The Yankee was finished, and Mikey had seen to that.