“Obviously,” she said, “I couldn’t just head to the recruitment offices as myself.  I might have been a WAC, but I don’t think they would have had me.  So I went to the local station in full costume as The Bald Eagle.  I was far from the only person to show up that way.  When the time came to do the paperwork and the physical, I filled it out as Mike Harrison, which was the name I’d been using with Linda.  It was weird to tell anyone my secret identity, but the Army said they needed to know.  There was a war on.”

Siegel sipped his beer.

“Nobody suspected you were a woman, natch?”

“Natch,” she said.

Siegel nodded.  “Well,” he said, “What would they have done anyway?  Courtmartial?”

“Yeah,” she said, “Probably.  Anyway, there were a lot of us assigned to the ‘Extraordinary Measures Battalions, but there turned out to be a lot of guys with powers on the Axis side of things too.  So many that the Draft Board started to look at the guys inside.  Most of the super bad guys were in Alacatraz then.  They started reviewing cases and offering conditional pardons to some of them.  Patriots mostly.  The real lunatics and extremists they left inside supposedly.”

“They didn’t think the SKULL counted as an extremist?  I heard that guy once peeled a welsher like a goddamned banana.”

“Apparently Uncle Sam…the army anyway, felt he was a manageable risk.”

“Nuts to that.  Sounds like a crazy plan to me.  No offense, but I always felt that all of you costumed freaks were too dangerous to walk the streets.”

She looked at Siegel with cool disdain.

“You have no idea how lucky you are we were out there?  You ever hear of Kijulon, the Monster from Dimension X?”

“No.”

“Yeah.  That’s right, you didn’t.  So shut your yap about too dangerous.”

Siegel waved his hands in front of his face.

“Whatever you say, lady.  I was actually just trying to say it was nuts for them to put a guy like that in the service.”

“I don’t know.  I saw a lot of those guys do really good work over there.  One or two of them maybe turned their lives around for good.  Sounds corny, but once you get a taste for doing the right thing, it has a way of changing you.”

“So I hear,” Siegel said, thinking of neon.

“Anway, Alexis wasn’t in my platoon, or anything.  I only saw him once or twice during thepush.  He did what he was told.  They had enough sense to put him with a group of guys who could keep him in line.  He saved a lot of people in Dresden.  They sent in all the fireproof guys they could to reduce the civilian casualties.  We worked side by jowl with the German supes that night actually.”

Her eyes got unfocused and she stared out for a second.  Tears were running down her face.  She showed no signs of speaking up again.  He snapped his fingers and regretted it immediately.  It came off pushy, when he was really just checking in.

“Sorry,” she said, her throat a little dry.  “I don’t think it really made the news here what happened that night.  It wasn’t much better than an A bomb.  I don’t think anybody realized how bad the fires were going to get.  I…like to think that.”

She shook her head and stood up.  She walked over to the broken balcony door, careful in her bare feet.  She walked like she was wearing a pair of new shoes, like she was trying to remember how her body worked.  She was, Siegel supposed.

“I,” Siegel said, “I had a buddy there actually.  Funny little guy from Indiana.  Locked overnight in a meat locker.  He got pulled out of there by one of you guys.  Might have been you even.”

“Might have been.  Anyway,” she turned back, leaning on the pane and looking at Siegel, “he kept his distance from me, and I kept clear of him, and I thought it would be okay.  Then the war’s over, and we’re there doing cleanup work, liberating towns and all that, doing some quick and dirty reconstruction, getting supplies to places.  I’m counting pallets of flour and he walks right up to me.

“I turned to look at him, and he had his stupid mask of.  I couldn’t remember why I’d ever even been a little fond of his crazy eyes.  He says, ‘I know who you are.’”

Siegel let his ash drop on his slacks, and batted it away.

“‘You’re Mike Harrison,’ he says, ‘You have a wife and twins in New York.’  I just laughed at him, but he knew he’d hit a nerve.  He told me when he got home he’d do it.  Not right away, but one day, and then he walked away.  I thoguht about killing him.  He was strong and fast.  I was stronger.  But I couldn’t.  I had to use my powers for good.  You ever have a moment in time you wish you could take back?”

Siegel had about nine thousand of them.  He just nodded.

“Later that night, I snuck up on him by himself when he was pissing.  I said my word, and he turned to look at the flash.  There I was.  His jaw dropped, and he did something I never expected.  He bawled.  I didn’t know what to do or say.  I’d planned to act the part of the angry ghost.  I couldn’t.  He was begging me to forgive him.  So I said my word again, and turned back.  ‘You made me,” I said.  I looked at him as he put it together, and then I walked away.”

“Wow.”

“Apparently, he tried to burn his own head off with that hellfire power of his, and wound up in a VA mental hospital with his full pardon.  I took the kids, changed my last name to Carter and moved everyone to LA.  I tried to work a straight job.  I really did, but the things I saw.”

She looked back out the window.

“You know all the rest, really.  I don’t know how or why, but somehow he found out I was here, and either followed me home without me seeing, or somehow somebody told him.  They were supposed to inform me when he got out of the hospital.  I’d pulled a favour.  They were supposed to tell me.”

“Back in the day, Bugsy, there were things even the bad guys didn’t do.”

“I know, doll.  I know.”

She was shaking, and he wanted to put his hands on her shoulders.  He was afraid he’d get her dirty.

“I might as well have killed them myself,” she said.

“That doesn’t follow,” Siegel said softly.  “Honest.”

“Liberty!” she screamed, slamming her fist through the glass, and the light came again.  She tore out into the night sky until Siegel could barely see her and she screamed the word again.

She fell like a stone, and he ran for the door.

Siegel stood up and walked to the balcony window.  He leaned his forehead against the glass, and looked out at the lights on the strip.

“Tell me the story,” he said.  “Tell me every damned thing.”

She rubbed the burn on her forearm, and then put the ice back, wrapped in his handkerchief.  She let all her breath out in a long ragged sigh.

“You first, Mr. Murder Incorporated,” she said, “Why don’t you tell me your whole sordid fucking life story, Bugsy Siegel?”

He drove his fist through the glass and turned on her with a roar.  He was on her before she could realize he was grabbing her.  He back handed her, then wrapped his hands around her throat, making sure she couldn’t so much as mumble her little magic word and turn back into the Eagle.  She smiled at him, looking up into his eyes angrily, her own eyes filmed with tears.

“Don’t you fucking back talk me, you little cunt.  You think I won’t do it?  You think I wouldn’t break your fucking neck?  You’re nothing to me, NOTHING.”

She smiled, a little bubble of blood popped between her two front teeth from where his ring had cut her lip.  She arched under him, fighting for breath, but her eyes showed no sign of wanting it.

He shook her by the neck, his heartbeat in his ears, his hands sweating.  He lost his grip and she drew in a breath.

“Do it,” she said.  “DO IT!”

Not “Liberty”.

He reared back from the bed, and ran to the bathroom sink.  His guts lurched and emptied themselves.  He heaved until he felt dizzy, and ran the water to clean the mess.  His hands shook, and when he looked in the mirror, Siegel could see blood in the whites of his eyes.  It always happened to him when he threw up, or when he got too angry.  He took deep breaths, wanting to calm down.  Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the skirt just lying there, staring at the stucco on the ceiling.  In the morning she’d have a fresh necklace of bruises to explain.  Probably.

He crossed to the door of the suite, and put his hand on the big brass knob.

“Don’t be here in the morning.  Take your shit and go.”

He heard her sit up.

“Mr. Siegel,” she said, “You wanted to hear the story.  I’ll tell it to you.”

He wanted to tell her to go to hell, but he couldn’t do that.  He did want to know.  He absolutely did want to know.

He didn’t turn to look at her.  He didn’t think he could stand to see the marks on her neck.

“Why?”

“So somebody knows.  Even if it’s you.  Especially you.  Who’d believe you?”

He gripped the knob tighter, and then turned around to look at her.

“You think you’re better than me, honey?”

“Yes.  You’re a murdering rat.  On my worst day, Siegel, I’m twice the man you ever were.”

He raised a hand, but he could tell she wanted it, wanted him to beat seven shades of hell out of her.  It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to blow their brains out with his temper.

He laughed, and picked up the phone.

“Send up a sandwich and a couple of bottles of beer,” he said to the front deskand hung up.

The broad stared at him.  Her shirt had come untucked at the front.  She might have been a hot number if she knew how to take care of herself, and if she were into men.

He sat down on a chair near the bed and spread his hands out in a magnanimous gesture.

“Talk sweetheart, and if you’re a good girl, I’ll brain you with a lamp at the end.”

She laughed bitterly and it reminded him of Barbara Stanwyck, another dyke, if the rumours were true.

“God, I sure missed this.  Being talked to like a child by dumb apes like you.  I haven’t had tits since 1942.”

“You liked being a guy that much, huh?”

“Mr. Siegel,” she said, “A choice between being married to Alexis Demeter and being the lantern-jawed idol of the world, is no choice at all.”

Alexis Demeter was a name that Siegel knew, but from where he didn’t know.

“Demeter,” Siegel said, “Where do I know that name?”

“Silver Skull,” she said.

“Oh, that guy,” Siegel said, “Nasty piece of work.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” she said.

“That was the Silver Skull you killed downstairs?”

She winced, and looked away

“Yes.”

Siegel ran a hand over his forehead.  He hoped the Skull wasn’t still working for the Chicago mob, or his life was going to get even more complicated.

“You were married to the Silver Skull?”

“Obviously, I didn’t know that.  He brought home good wages, and spent most of his time away from the house which was fine by me.  I didn’t look into it any further than that.  He kept that part of his life to himself, which, I guess, was some kind of sign he had real feelings for me.”

“How nice for you,” Siegel said, “considering he left you to die.”

“He had a temper.  I’m sure you wouldn’t understand.”

Siegel smiled thinly.

“I put him in jail, the last time he went in,” she said.  “As the Bald Eagle, of course.  I still remember when I unmasked him.  He could see the shock on my face.  He kept screaming at me as they took him away wanting to know who I was. That was 1940.”

She shook her head.

“Can I have another cigarette?” she asked.

“You gonna put it out on your arm?”

“No,” she said.  “I figured I’d smoke it.”

He pulled the pack from his pocket and handed it over.  She took it, he lit it.  She pulled in a lungful and, again, reminded him of Stanwyck.

“Mr. Siegel,” she said, making it a question.

“Yeah?”

“Do you find me attractive?”

He shook his head.

“What’s it to you,” he asked.

“I would just think it was funny,” she said.

“You’re okay,” he said.  “I’ll stick to showgirls, thanks.”

She laughed, deep and mirthless.

“With him in jail, I felt like I was free to start over.  When I met Linda, I knew I wanted to be with her.  She loved the Eagle.  I don’t know if it’s right or wrong, but I married her.  I love her.  Loved.  And I was him.  He was me, and as far as I was concerned, it was good works.  And so were the twins.  I won’t be sorry.  I was free.  Michelle was gone, and Mike was a hero by night and a hard worker by day.”

She took another drag, and there was a knock at the door.  Siegel rose and got his meal.  Rolling it back to the bed, he offered her the other beer.  She shook her head no.

“I didn’t see him again,” she said, “until after Pearl Harbor, when they offered most of the super-villains conditional pardons for service.”

“Hey,” Siegel said, “It’s all over, big guy.”

He shifted from foot to foot, trying to decide which way to run, choosing neither.  The superhero choked on his own tears, and looked up at him, miserable.

“You should have killed me, Mr. Siegel.  That night with the pillow.  You should have killed me.”

Siegel’s eyes turned wide as saucers, and his guts turned to cold water from the back of his neck all the way to his balls.

“What are you talking about?” Siegel said, half laughing.  “Nobody tried to kill you.  Don’t be…”

The Eagle was standing right in front of him, had moved so quickly that Siegel had barely seen it, hadn’t even had a chance to startle.  His shritfront was held tight in those fists.  He’d seen those fists grind bricks to powder like clumps of dirt.

“Don’t lie to me,” the Eagle whispered.  “I was there.  I remember.  I’m not even sore about it.  I knew what you were when I took the job.”  The Eagle swallowed.  “I always know.”

Siegel’s attempt at words came out as a dry hollow rasping sound with no more content than a moan.  His lower jaw wobbled loosely.  The Eagle looked at his hands again, and opened them.  Siegel felt his weight come back down on the balls of his feet.  The Eagle stepped back a couple paces, more or less stumbling down onto the bed.  He put his face in his hands.

Siegel wanted to bolt, but he held himself back.  What was the point of running from a guy like this.  If he’d meant to kill, Siegel’d been dead.  He drew in a steadying breath, and did what he usually did when he was terrified.  He got mean.

“I got an idea,” he growled, “Why don’t you tell me what the fuck happened in my hotel the other night.  Who the fuck was that guy you beat to death on my floor?”

The Eagle looked at his knees and whispered, “Liberty.”

The room filled with a strange swirling light.  it made him feel queasy to look at it.  It cast shadows of things that weren’t there, things that must never be there.  He wanted to scream, and then it was over.  When the light was gone, so was the Eagle.  In his place was a girl.

She was maybe five feet tall, short dark hair, green eyes a nose on the large side.  She wore a pair of denim trousers and a white men’s shirt.  It took Siegel a minute to process.

“The fuck?” he said, and then realized a lady was present.

“It was my husband,” she said.

“Your what?  You told me you had a wife and kiddies for Christ’s sake.”

“I did,” she said, “He did.”

Siegel shook his head.  Tears were already starting on the dame’s face.

“You.  You’re the Eagle?” he asked.

She nodded and laid back down on the bed.

“How did this happen?” he asked.

“Promise me first,” she said, still looking at the ceiling.

“Promise what?”

“That I’ll still have a job after.”

“Lady,” he said, “I can’t promise a damned thing.  I have no earthly idea what’s going on  here.”

She sighed.

“Bugsy,” she said, “Can I have a cigarette?”

He let the nickname go and sat on the bed, and fumbled in his pockets for one.  She smelled like a girl.  She could have crawled off the bus from any farm town in the world, now.  He offered her a smoke, and she sat up halfway, resting on her elbows.  He lit it, and she took a drag.

She didn’t look at him.

“I married him when I was sixteen.  My parents set the whole thing up.  I didn’t want to.  I didn’t like men,” she said, and then stopped.  “Not that way.  Most of my best friends are men now, mind you.  Anyway.  I don’t…fancy them.  Do you follow me, Mr. Siegel?”

Siegel had met some lesbians.  He’d paid for lesbians once or twice.

“I didn’t want to be a bad girl, so I did what I was told, Mr. Siegel.  I went with him.  I did my duty.  We were trying for a baby.  There was a depression on, but he never was short on money.  We were very comfortable.  I didn’t ask questions.  I didn’t know what he did for the money.  I never caught pregnant.  The doctor told us I couldn’t.  That night, Mr. Siegel, he beat me bad.  He beat me so bad that he drove me out to the country and left me there to die.”

Siegel swallowed and nodded.  He wasn’t sure what to say.

“As I laid there, looking up at the stars, realizing I was going to die, I was really fine with it.  Deep in my bones.  That was the most peaceful I ever felt.”

She stopped talking for a long time then.  Siegel thought maybe she’d fallen asleep, but then she tapped the ash into an ashtray.

“I was picked up by a man in a top hat made out of a flag.  He had a little white mustache, and the kindest eyes.  He sat down with me on his lap, and I was like a child to him.  He was that much bigger than me.  He said that my heart was pure and that I lived in a land of liberty where anyone could be free, be what they wanted to be.  He told me his name was Sam.  He said that he was going to give me another life.  He taught me a magic word and said that when I said it, I’d be free.  In return, I had to agree to do only good works.”

She laughed bitterly.

“It sounds crazier every time I think about it, every time I say it.”

She put the cigarette out on her forearm, holding it there.  Siegel winced and slapped the butt from her flesh, going for ice.

“Jesus,” he said, “You’re crazy.”

“Yeah,” she said, “Kind of.  But he’s not.  He always knows what to do, and it’s fine for him to marry a girl.  And he can even give her kids….”

She trailed off.

“Dead now,” she said.  “He killed them.”

Siegel froze.

“Your husband killed your wife,” he said.

“And kids,” she said.

“Jesus,” he said, “how…how would he even know?”

“The army,” she said.  “He was in my unit.”

 The cops weren’t releasing the identity of the dead guy.  Siegel’s people told him that the FBI showed up and hauled the corpse away in a trailer truck with a military guard.  To his surprise, he was informed that the Departmentof Extraordinary Measures was going to pay for the damage done to the lobby.  The weedy, officious little prick that informed him sounded like he was drinking piss as he said it.
 
 The Eagle had been asleep for three days.  To look at him, he was fine now.  Whatever made him tick, made him into a monster, had rebuilt him like a classic car.  He was sleek and strong and smooth.  No scars, even.  His breathing was slow and regular.  His eyes fluttered beneath the lids, but he didn’t move. Most people would have rolled a few times.  The doctor was worried about bed sores.  Siegel looked at him like he was crazy.  Bed sores.

 Siegel had spent as much time as was possible waiting it out, but he had responsibilities.  The staff was all in a tizzy about it.  Two of the cleaning girls had quit rather than go into the room.  They said the first time that they heard voices, and saw things moving around the bed. 

Bunk, as far as he was concerned.

 When the Eagle woke up, Siegel jumped out of his chair.  The first thing the guy did was sit bolt up right and scream.  The scream broke some glass, and sounded like the cry of a hunting bird.  Naturally.
 
 ”KAREN!” he said immediately after.
 
 Siegel wanted to step forward to calm him, stepped backwards instead.
 
 ”She ain’t here,” he said.  “Calm down, Mikey.”

 ”Is he?” Mike wheeled on Siegel, glaring with maddened eyes his tone terrified as much as questioning.
 
 ”He’s gone, pal.  Tagged, taken away, the whole routine.”

 The Eagle put his hands in his face and sobbed, his body shook, and so did the bed, and most of the room.  He screamed again, more of a moan and it was a human kind of sound this time, though loud.

Please do forgive the crudity of this first draft thing I’m putting up about Bugsy Siegel.  This is something of a writing exercise I do from time to time.  Superheroes and Vegas mobsters are on my brain right now, an I need to give vent.

Further parts are forthcoming, but at present I’m heads down on another project.

I hope all is well for you out there.

Siegel had sold his place in Beverly Hills.  He wouldn’t be going back.  He lived at the Flamingo now, in a suite on the top floor.  It was starting to feel like home.  That was for the best because he was a dead man if he left Vegas now.  He’d been kicking up to the new seats in the Commission, but Mrs. Siegel didn’t raise any fools.

He was going over the numbers in bed, and hoping it bored him enough to sleep.  Deep sleep was the cost he’d paid for Vegas.  The other operators in Vegas had thrown in with him, or had pretended to anyway.  He needed to get himself a mindreader in his corner.  He’d put the word out.

His phone rang, and he stared at it for a few rings before he answered it.

“Yeah?”

“Sir, this is the front desk.  There’s a man down here asking to see you,” said the desk clerk, a small guy named Marion.  He sounded like he was ready to wet his pants.

“Do I know this guy?” Siegel asked.

“He seems to think so, sir.  I wouldn’t bother you, except he’s threatening to hurt someone, and he’s…well…hovering.”

“Put him on the phone.”

There was a sound of the phone being set on the counter, and some distant, impenetrable chatter.

“Sir, he insists on speaking face to face.”

“Christ.  I’ll be right down.”

Siegel put on his thick purple robe and slippers and opened his door.  Joe was outside, and looked a little surprised.

“Trouble, boss?”

“Some kind of mask trouble downstairs it sounds like.”

Joe raised an eyebrow.  “Where’s Mikey?”

“I don’t know.  Fuckin’ guy sometimes just disappears for a day.  Probably with his kid.”

“How you wanna handle this?”

“I’ll talk to him.  He wanted me dead, he’d have come to the room.”

Joe shrugged.  “Think I’ll tag along, if it’s the same to you.”

“Fucking right,” Siegel said, laughing.

They took the elevator down.  Before they reached the lobby, the lights in the car went out, and the building shook, ringing like a bell.

“Holy shit,” Joe said, as the lights came on, and the cage jerked sharply before descending.  When the doors opened, Joe had his gun pointed at whatever they were going to see.  There was smoke and dust in the air, and they could hear people crying and screaming.  Two guys were rolling on the floor, their limbs moving back and forth like pistons into each other, and each blow was like an axe striking a steel pole.  There was blood in a pool under them, and the tile was cracked in a spreading spiderweb.  Then the motion stopped with a sudden wet crack.

One of them stood up again, his jaw canted so far on his face that he looked like a cartoon.  The rest of his face was swollen and already bruising.  What was left of his suit left him a little less than modest.  Siegel had no idea who he was at first, until the guy took a step toward him.  Joe fired, and the shot ricocheted into the wall.  The guy clutched where the bullet had bounced off him and dropped to a knee.  He moaned a half spoken word at him and fell face forward on the floor at his feet.

It was Mike.  It was the Eagle, what was left of him.  He allowed himself three seconds of silence, and then knew he had to act.

“Joe,” he said.  “Call the guys in to help out.  Make sure that other guy is dead.  If he’s not, you call the Shape.”

Joe’s eyes widened at the thought.

“Do it.”

Siegel crossed to Marion.

“You hurt?” he asked, and looked around.  “Anybody hurt?”

Some people shook their heads, and a couple people waved for help beside someone who’d fallen.  There were some people in his lobby he didn’t think would see morning.

“Fuck,” Siegel said, turning back to Marion.  “Call ambulances.  Call the cops.”

Marion did as he was told.  Siegel got two guys from the counting rooms to come out and carry Mike up to his room.  He didn’t know if a doctor would be able to help him or not.  He’d never seen Mike with so much as a scratch.

It also happened that he had no fucking idea what had happened here.  There’d be time for that later.  He needed to look and act the part of leader right now.

He spent the next four hours with the police telling them the truth over and over.  It was a refreshing thing, actually, not that the cops were really going to push in this town.  The important people knew better and were paid to know better, but they had to at least look the part.

They demanded to talk to Mike, and he was in no position to deny it.  The only catch was that Mike wasn’t wearing his fancy union suit.  Siegel couldn’t help that.  It wasn’t like he had his ID on him.  Siegel didn’t even know his last name.  He’d been working his army connections, to no avail.  Mike was in no position to talk right now anyhow, and unless he was letting himself be moved, he wasn’t movable.

By the time the sun was coming up, they’d taken the other guy to the morgue, and Siegel was sitting and Mike’s bedside feeling something like concern, and more like curiosity.  The guy had fallen asleep and you could almost watch him get better from what had almost killed him.  Siegel would look away to bat the ash off the end of his butt, and when he looked back, Mike’s jaw was just a little closer to where it belonged.  It was like his own personal clock was slowly ticking backwards.

He was halfway sure that this person, if that’s what you called him, had just saved his life again.  Mike had been nothing but decent with him from day one.  He had been honest, maybe a little surly, but he’d done the job, and he’d been easy to get along with.  Siegel was ashamed at how scared he was, even now as the guy put himself back together from a beating that was probably meant for him.

He wanted to take the pillow up again, and finish this, but he knew that if he did that, he’d never find his answers.  Also, the Shape was great at the bloody work you didn’t want talked about but he wasn’t the sort of weapon you flashed around.  He needed the Eagle.  So did the Flamingo, and so did Siegel’s Vegas.

He was the big man now, and his money would have to comfort him.  Sleep was dead to him.

It was half past four in the morning up in the hotel room and The Eagle was laying on the bed with his arms out at his sides like Jesus on the cross.  It would have been more beatific if he hadn’t been laying sidewise on it with his knees bent and his feet touching the floor.  His hat had landed half on the covers, and was still half tilted up across his forehead.  His pants were puddled down around his ankles and his pecker was poking out through the front of his shorts.  His eyes were swimming in his skull like little fish, darting from light to light.

Siegel was leaned back in his chair, drinking scotch from the neck of the bottle, his own eyes half-focused, and his temperament leaning to the petty and the mean.  He knew he could be a shit when he drank, and so he rarely did.

The skirt was pulling up the front of her dress, asking him with her eyes if that was really everything.  She was maybe nineteen years old and straight off the bus from Los Angeles.  She was a lousy waitress and not much better when it came to serving up other treats, but he had a soft spot for these wounded doves on the fly from failure.

He gestured at the money on the table by the door.  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, took the money and headed out the door.  It made a heavy click as it shut.  Lou was still standing guard outside, which was good.  The Bald Eagle’s bald bishop was still hanging out, drying in the light breeze from the open window.  He wasn’t going to be snatching any bullets out of the air in his mighty hands.

The Eagle, Mike, let out a rattling sigh and started to snore.  Siegel owed him his life three times now.  The first time, and then a week after that, and now tonight.  That was going to be the last time.  Siegel had another guy on the team who was headed to New York and Chicago to take some proactive measures.  A month from now, Siegel expected Vegas to be his.  All of it.  His.  He’d kick up something out of consideration, and in the name of cooperation, but only because he chose to.

Vegas was it’s own thing already.  The cops stayed clear of trouble with him.  The place was drawing a new kind of crowd, looking for freedom from the rest of the country and a total lack of boring bullshit.  If you wanted to be gratified, you’d get it here, and he’d own it all.

Still, this one drunk farmboy could fly him into the sky and let him go, just to watch him drop.  He was just too stupid to grab the scene for himself.  Too used to commanding officers and rules to follow.  Siegel could give him that.

Siegel crossed to the bed, and took his penknife out.  He slashed at the bare skin where the Eagle’s dress shirt had come untucked from his belly, and watched the blade bend.  The guy didn’t even stir.  Something in that made the bottom of Siegel’s belly drop out and his balls grow cold and heavy.

These goddamned super people were more than he could stare in the face without losing his cool.  He’d been fighting his temper for days.  He tried to do that again, and wrestled the anger down.  Something cold crawled up out of his belly to take its place.

He picked up the pillow from the bed with half a smile on his lips.  Standing at the Eagle’s head, looking at his soused face upside down, he lowered the pillow and leaned down with all the force he could muster.  The snoring stopped.  In a few seconds, the Eagle’s body started to fight, even in his sleep, shaking and convulsing.

It was all Siegel could to to hang on, straining.  The Eagle’s hand swept up in a blur, reaching in the wrong direction and missing him.  Siegel knew that if the blow had connected he’d have gone to the hospital at best.  Possibly the morgue.  Then the fighting slowed, and Siegel lifted the pillow.

The Eagle drew in a sharp breath, and the color of his skin started to look healthier.  His eyes fluttered open for a second, and he mumbled , “Jerome?”

“Yeah kid,” Siegel said.  “I’m here.  Get some sleep.  You’re drunk.”

Siegel watched him sleep until the phone rang.  It was the new guy, letting him know that his hands were wet with fresh blood.  Siegel thought the guy was a creep, but a temporary creep.

He hung up the phone and wondered how he’d have felt if he’d just kept holding that pillow in place.  As the Eagle’s putz shriveled and climbed back inside the shorts, the sun was coming up, and Siegel passed out knowing that he could have done it if he’d wanted to.   Which meant he must not want to, for some reason.

Maybe in the morning, he’d know what that reason was, and maybe he wouldn’t.  Either way he’d learned one thing, guy needed to breathe.  He filed it.

I happened upon an extraordinary document today.  Rian Johnson, the director of the remarkable film Brick has done a short concert film featuring The Mountain Goats.  It’s very simple.  John, his instruments, the crew and one long take of John performing the entirety of The Life of the World To Come, their album released in 2009.

It’s pretty much awe inspiring.  Happily, it is also streaming live here for the week, free of charge.  I will be seeking out a copy to purchase as soon as possible.

Give yourself an hour or so and watch.

His ear hurt like hell, but it didn’t seem to be festering, so that was something.  The liquor helped, but he didn’t want to overdo it.  he needed his teeth sharper than ever right now.  He had three guys he trusted without question, and he kept them close.  He’d spent most of his time laying low in his office.  So far, he’d heard nothing from anyone in the commission.  He hadn’t called them.  Words didn’t cut it.

The mask had called him, true to his word.  That came as a surprise.  He had thought that the guy would probably change his mind after thinking it over.  Most did.  This one hadn’t.  He’d asked for a meeting.  Siegel asked him to come out of costume, and the guy didn’t say a word about it.

It was just after nine when the guy walked right up to his table in the lounge.  He was tall, but nowhere near as tall as he’d looked in his outfit.  He was blonde, hair still cut military.  He wore a suit half a size to small, too much wrist showing, too much sock.  His shoes were beat up, and the heel flapped.  His eyes were dark and his lips pressed tight.

“Bugsy,” the guy said.

Siegel’s eye twiched.

“Jerome,” he said.  “Or Mr. Siegel.  I don’t like that name.”

“I’m aware,” the mask said.

“What do I call you?”

“Mike.  Mike’s good.”

“Okay, then Mickey.  Sit.”

The guy sat down, and one of the waitresses came over and set down a glass of ice water.

“Thanks,” he said.  “I’ll have a beer.”

Siegel nodded at her, and she went.

The two of them looked at each other for a couple of minutes.

“I didn’t want to come here,” the mask said.

“I figured,” Siegel said.  “What can I do for you?”

“I need money,” he said.  “Quick.”

“What kind of money are we talking here?” Siegel said, “I owe you, obviously.”

“A living.  I’ve got a wife.  I’ve got a kid.  I had a job, but…”

The mask looked at the table and said nothing.

Siegel didn’t know exactly what was going on in that head.  He stayed mum.  The waitress came back with a glass and a bottle and set it down in front of him.  She put a hand on his  shoulder.

“There you go, hun,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said.  He thumbed the cap off the beer with his thumbnail the way a normal guy might have popped the head of a dandelion, and then he took a sip.  Siegel swallowed, and was reminded that this guy was what he was.

“So you want to actually work for me?”

“Yeah.  My job didn’t work out.  I can’t do that bullshit anymore.”

“What did you do, bud?”

“I laid brick.  I can’t do that anymore.  Forget it.”

“Hey, I hear that.  Day jobs are for the birds, man.”

The mask nodded, looked at his beer.

“I did some reading up on you, no offense,” Siegel said.  “You got quite a reputation.  Strong, fast as hell, flying, bulletproof.  Brave.  You got two medals over there, and that shit you did in Berlin in the push…”

Siegel whistled.

“You’re a real fuckin’ hero,” Siegel said, “and I’m not blowing smoke.  I admire the hell out of you and what you did for this country.”

“Forget it,” the mask said, quickly, and with some irritation.

“For real,” Siegel said.  “So I got to ask why you’d come to work for me.  I think if you came clean to the public who you are, you’d be able to write your ticket.  Why work for, you know, a guy like me.  I want to be straight with you.”

“Not going to happen,” he said.  “I can’t go public.  It’s bad enough that army knows.  If I could change that I would.  I’ve got enemies you wouldn’t believe.  If they knew my name, that’d be it for my family.  You don’t know what it’s like.”

“You’re talking to a guy whose friends just tried to whack him.  I might get it.”

The mask was rolling the cap between his thumb and index finger like it was a ball of wax, rolling it smaller and smaller.  He looked up and met Siegel’s eye for a moment, and he let one little bark of laughter go.

“Well,” Siegel said, “Here’s my situation.  This hotel was built using someone else’s money, and they seem to think that I have spent that money unwisely, and that I haven’t brought results fast enough.  Therefore, they have decided to kill me and bring in somebody more suited to the company policies and procedures.  I would be more than happy to bring you in as a sort of bodyguard.”

“What would I need to do, exactly?”

“Well that’s the 64,000 buck question, huh?”

The mask frowned.

“I got these powers because I have principles.”

“I respect that.  What I’ll ask for now is that you stay close and keep me alive.  In exchange for that, I’ll pay you more than a living wage.  You gotta realize, though, that you might be busy.”

The mask nodded.

“I can do that, but I won’t kill anyone.”

“That’s fine by me.  You just keep me breathing.  How do you feel about property damage?”

The mask smiled broadly.

“I could live with that.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Siegel offered a hand over the table to shake, and for a moment, the mask hesitated, and then he took it.  His shake was firm and warm, and Siegel could tell how the guy was being gentle.

“Call me Jerome.”

“I’ll stick to Mr. Siegel.  For now.”

 Just after dark, the desert air blew into town cool and dry.  Siegel was leaning against the hood of a big black sedan parked across the street.  The beautiful bastard of a sin parlor glowed in pinks and greens.  The neon palm trees flickered like a dream, like the place was too dry and, they were gone, and then wishing made them so again.  He smiled and took a deep drag on a cigarette.
 
 He’d gone overboard, like always, the central flaw in his character, the one that always came crawling back around to bite him in the ass.  He tried not to think how far he’d overspent, and how it was not even half of his money.  He just wanted to stare at it, and dream of the future.
 
 The first bullet tore his flesh at the ear.  If it had been a needle, it would have pierced his lobe.  Instead, it was a bullet, so it tore the ear off and dropped him, screaming to the hard pack gravel road.

 He’d known pain worse than this, but he knew there was no point in going for his gun.  If not these two, someone else.  The commission had clearly made a call that the Flamingo needed a change of management.  He turned his head, gravel in the wound, but he didn’t care.  If this was the end, he’d go out looking at those lights.

 Heavy breathing and gravel crunching under feet.

 ”You get him?” said a voice Siegel thought he knew.

 ”Winged him.”
 
 The second voice came around closer.

 ”What are you waiting for?” asked the voice he now knew was Teddy Two-Tone.

 ”Do you mind,” said the other.  “Respect.  Nothing personal, Jerome.”

 ”Thanks,” Siegel said and he took in what he was pretty sure would be his last breath.

 The sound was like the whistling of a firework rocket followed by a deep meaty thud.  Teddy Two-Tone was screaming, but the scream was carried off to the distance.  The other guy was running for it.

 Siegel looked up and saw a streak of red and blue and gold slam into the gunman and carry him off into the night.  He leaned against the car, thinking he had a horseshoe up his ass.  A fucking superhero.

 He looked around for his cigarette.  The cherry glowed about two feet out of reach.  He wasn’t up to grabbing for it.  With shaky hands, he lit a new one.  It tasted fantastic.

 That whistling sound came in again.  The mask landed on the pavement in front of him, light as a feather, gaudy as a peacock in his fancy pants costume.  It had a cowl that covered everything but his eyes, mouth and chin, covered in golden feathers.  The rest of it was red white and blue, right down to the little booties.

 ”You need a doctor,” said the hero.

 Siegel waved his hand dismissively.

 ”I’ll get to it,” he said.  “Thanks.”

 ”You’re welcome,” the mask said, shifting from foot to foot like a bashful kid.

 ”No offense,” Siegel said, “but you look like half a fairy in that rig.”

 ”Go fuck yourself.  It’s a magic costume.  Anything else burns off me from the friction when I fly.”

 ”How come I never got one of these magic doo-hickeys?”

 ”Probably, your heart wasn’t pure.”

  The mask sounded bitter as hell.

 ”Probably not.  Say, you’re the..whatchacall…the Eagle, right?”

 ”Yeah, The Bald Eagle,” he said.

 ”I didn’t think you’d be back from over there yet.”

 ”I’m not, officially.  It’s not a long trip for me.”

 ”Oh yeah,” Siegel said, “Suppose not.”

 The Eagle shrugged.

 ”So, what’d you save me for?”

 ”Because it was the right thing to do,” The Eagle said, voice still dripping with acid.

 ”Don’t make me laugh.”

 The Eagle looked at him.

 ”Are you hiring?”

 Siegel didn’t know what to say to that, thought he must have misheard something.

 ”What did you say?”

 ”I said, ‘Are you hiring?’  Muscle, I meant.”

 Siegel stood up, and reached in his pocket, pulled out a card.

 ”Call me tomorrow,” he said.  “I need to get this ear looked at.”

 The Eagle stared at the card, and said nothing.

 ”I mean it,” Siegel said.  “You call me.”

 ”Yeah,” said the Eagle, and then he split the night with a whistle. 

 ”I’ll be god-damned,” Siegel said.

 Things were looking up.