They crave for the story, all the buzz about the excitement of being me and
the advantages of rudimentary education.
They want to understand how my family gathered so much power in
society, how we became the friend and the archenemy at the same time.
Me the unfortunate boy, drunk by ten and gun by twelve. Started with
robbing grocery stores and worked up to running pool halls and gambling
joints. Just getting started smoking cigars when I
decided not to pay for them at the local grocery store.
Fine cigars and five hundred bucks from behind
the counter found their way into my
pockets. Married to jail for the year,
my father died while I was locked up,
no great loss except he owed me
money.
My pockets always stuffed with
money, broke girls admired my
gunshot wounds before I was
twenty five. The family farm outside Chicago was
sold for ten cents on the dollar after pop died, my brother got all
that money, nine hundred bucks and change, made no difference.
I spent my life in attics with girls with no names, infamous companions in
petty crime and sex, cigar smoking women the kind mother told us about,
these women, like malaria in Mexico, they kill you slowly while they sweat
you under the sheets. Except this one girl, along time ago, her name was
Helen Mooresville, I miss that one, I loved that one, the only one.
My brother and I suffered a great deal, Jesse and I about starved to death
with our pockets stuffed with money. You can’t spend stolen cash
anywhere you get hungry. If we talked we lied, many times we hurt
people because we were just pissed off, badly wounded many people but
never killed for crime. Hiding for weeks at a time in the woods without
enough food or supplies we would simply rob local farmers. We were
hunted like the wolves that we were, nothing surprising to my story,
pockets still stuffed with cash, old girls with makeup take up with me, my
hat and wrinkled coat, my gun close at hand, it’s 1934 in Chicago and it’s
my turn, i’ve been waiting for a long time.

My name is Rock Jackson, it’s not my real name but it’s o.k.,
the rest of me is real. I spend a lot of time behind the grim
gray walls of the prison that holds men as bad as me, maybe
a few of them worse.
Shortly after midnight on the morning of March 8 1926 I shot
three muddleheads of crime, some said I was famous, others said I was
stupid but, one thing for sure, I collected $45,000 in reward money offered
for the one guy dead or alive. The little group of three had very little
chance as no official witness was standing around, I made sure we were all
alone and then pulled the trigger. The guy the state paid me to kill had the
scaffold waiting on him, the empty noose with his name attached like a
price tag in a store.
No pleasure in killing him but no pain either. The other two muddles were
just around for the killing, their criminal history make it fine that they laid
in blood. Through a small door at the back of the city jail I entered as I
always do, cigarette in my mouth, two day shirt with a one day coffee
stain, shoes with polish but not brushed for a while, no sleep for 36 hours,
staring fixedly at the floor until I found my chair.
I’m not a killer and i’m not a cop, there’s pride in my work. I’m a detective
in the worst and loveliest city in the world, Chicago with the greatest
newspapers and the greatest crimes and one guy like me.
Rock Jackson, that’s me and i’ve got twenty nine hundred dollars in the
bank, an old house that needs a new floor, the gray automobile that
reminds me of the grim gray walls of the prison. My diet is coffee and
cigarettes and all my influence is from hell. They call me the police killer,
just call me and I pull the trigger. Have killer will travel, it keeps me in the
chips and beans and my morning beer.
I don’t care about conviction rates, doesn't bother me what the criminals
did or want to do, scores of criminals in jail today and they remember my
name, noose about my neck, it’s only a matter of time.

Every morning I stumble through the back door except this
morning. The Chief Detective, Perry Turner, told me to stay
gone until nine o'clock this morning. Here I am at nine fifty
two just glad that I’m alive. The city jail is not a place of
bank robbers, jail breakers, notorious criminals they write
about in the paper. The city jail is full of muggers,
muddleheads, pimps and whores and kids with sticky fingers, that was
yesterday.
Chief Detective Perry Turner was placing a black hood over this woman's
head as I walked through the door. The last time I seen that act it was
uptown by the train station with a bullet in her head. I kept waiting for a
gun shot to wake me up. This hooded figure was a woman, her legs
dangled off the chair stool, the rest of her not known but, the legs would
win any contest.
After the good mornings that nobody means the trap was sprung on me
they just call it a job offer. Detective Turner, not too tall but very smart
gave me cold coffee and the old story of this broad with the black hood.
The unhallowed subject of this story is that she was a whore that seen
something that will make her dead. Turner told a great story but never
gave me her name, the job was to protect her, catch the bad guys and
forget who gave me the job.
All my work would be unpaid until the complete job was done. Protect the
whore and get the bad guy behind bars within the next 10 days. All the
theories and deductions, complex classified material, bad photographs,
and three more cops explained my challenge, I was tired now and just sat
down, they kept talking.
I’m the anti-social type and the coffee was bad and Turner loved the sound
of himself, I wanted to see the girl. No words written on any contract now
just me and Turner alone in the small green room, they marched our lady
friend away so our accounting could take place.
Why me Turner? My fabled courage is not official. Why me?

Chief Detective Perry Turner poured me a cup of hot fresh
coffee, sociologists call this, because it’s happened so much to
me and me alone, fucking the rock.
My early environmental problems and a few convictions and
fucking the rock was about to explode.
God damn it Turner. Why me?
Turner sipped his coffee and looked me in the eye.
Rock, the lady in the hood, it’s Helen
Mooresville.
Without a lot of melodramatic exploits
and confusing words I knocked Turner
of his dead ass. His courage got the
best of him and the son of a bitch hit
me back, little guy can hit even though
not hard enough. We only landed a few numbered hits and we both got
three in before his guys heard the furniture breaking.
They came to Turner’s rescue and mine too but they don’t know, too old to
fight but strong enough to pull a gun. In the language of the street I told
that little son of a bitch what I thought about his friends, this cops, his
mothers and his dog, without looking he landed number four on my chin
without any notice.
Chief Detective Perry Turner is taller when my ass on his floor, to a lesser
degree I tried to get up and continue my story of his family. Turner didn't
become the best cop in Chicago by being stupid, he knew who and what
Helen Mooresville was to me, the son of a bitch.
The last time I seen her I left her in bed sound asleep in the state of
Indiana at the crown point hotel. I wasn't too nice back then and in some
perverse way I’ve always been sorry about leaving her there.

Both a sucker and a sap I found my footing long enough to sit
down in the booth. The most notorious criminals in Chicago
were the money men. They controlled the power and all their
punks acted out their orders. Detective Turner wanted me to
grab up the money master,
the most powerful of them all.
With Helen Mooresville help as a witness,
the cops wanted it all. They could get the
money master, if Helen only knew his
name. She describes the best she can a man sitting at a large table and
from his neck down he was buried in money.
They never used a name in front of her, she just glimpsed at his ugly face
when some bastard slapped her across the face. As this story is being told
the bastard that slapped Helen has never been paid back yet.
Detective Turner had already worked with Helen and she wanted no part of
catching this guy, whatever his name, money master or not. She had
made ten bucks for taking a ride in a guys car, obvious fact it was for cash
and carry sex for some John riding the streets. Helen ended up in some
warehouse office on her back when lesser members of the gang wanted to
have some unpaid fun.
With courage and cleverness she took off down a hall way and burst open
an office door. It was the money room, the money master, Detective
Turner was sure.
In the absence of a gun, Helen jumped eight feet to the alley way after
jumping from the office window. She was swift but not swift enough, the
lesser ones caught up with her, their car faster than her feet.
Without any doubt Helen should be dead right now but, some off duty
Chicago cop got involved and is living through hell right now at Chicago
Central City Hospital. He got one shot to the leg and one shot skinned his
hair back, he’ll live but he won’t need a hair comb for a few months.
The cop shot one of the muddleheads and the others took off, it was close
for crime that night. Helen and the wounded cop booked it down the
street and found some sympathizers.

I’m sitting is this diner booth at two thirty in the morning still
drinking bad coffee. I told the detective that no way was I
chasing or solving his riddle, presented in great fashion, by
some ass kid detective about twenty years old. Helen’s
unbelievable escape from that murder-
ous gang of bandit’s was
good enough for me. Her great escape
puts her in danger but she can move to
another state. Two men from across
the room sure do like the looks of my
face, still watching me, don’t like that.
Another fact significant is that Helen
pocketed some money as she ran
through the money masters stacks of
cash. The cash never earned but
collected from whores, drug dealers, liquor smug-
glers, petty bookies for gambling and the list goes on. Helen says she got
a fist full of cash but dropped it running.
Helen has never dropped a dime in her life, let alone a stack of cash. Now
some of my early adventures in crime taught me something about money,
people lie about it. If Helen said she took the sex ride for ten bucks that
means she got twenty. If she picked up a thousand bucks from the money
table than she really got ten thousand bucks.
Helen wasn't a bad kid, no mother to raise her up right and her father
drank more than most. She grew up in the slums of Chicago and could
never get out, bad grammar, no education, no job and great legs, she was
bound to hit the streets. I fooled with her some, even played some
baseball one day in a park with her, she was fun and required regular
attendance in the bed. No opportunity ever found her and she never
looked, I didn't help a whole lot with her and I violated her interest in me
and left her stranded in a dumpy motel, twenty bucks left on the table for
her, my automobile headed west toward Chicago, that was three years
ago.
Whatever the reason, she’s back in Chicago, working the streets with her
hard habits of stealing every dollar in your pocket. I sure do miss her.

These two guys watching me increased my bitterness about
the day and I was about to become unruly when one of the
bastards walked outside. That was a good thing but the other
one kept on looking. I don’t know him but he’s about to
know Rock Jackson. The other well dressed bum walked to
the phone booth across the street, hard to see him clearly it
was raining in Chicago and the wind splattered water against the diner
windows. One thing for sure, he was making a phone call and the other
guy was keeping one foot on
the rock.
An important indication of what
was about to happen was my
right hand moved toward my
pistol very gently and slowly. I
don’t know if the one looker
quickly became aware of my
movement but he also went out
in the rain. The secret habits of
these guys spoiled my mood
and I kept them in sight as I
removed my tired butt from the
seat. I left the waitress twenty
five cents and just stood there
for a while.
Reformatory school started to pay off for me this late in life, one son of a
bitch gave the other son of a bitch a gift by hand. The guy with the
walking Cain, most likely a sword or long knife inside, standing in the rain,
took something from the one standing in the phone booth. It was not a
bag of candy, somebody just got paid.
That Cain could be like a lead pipe across my head, and robbing me of my
wallet was not their plan. You don’t get paid by a guy in a phone booth to
steal a mans wallet. Now their best laid plans, if not shot all to hell could
ruin my night, my wallet and my future. This is not going to happen.

Their first misstep was to let me see them watching me. The
owner of the diner, a guy about my age by the name of Alvin
Karpin, red hair giant of a man, was just seized up less than
three months ago for some gun problems. I wondered if I
was just watching his past come to life and I’m in the middle.
Walking behind the counter it didn't take but a second for
Alvin to show his ugly self, too close to the cash and that waitress that
works just right for Alvin.
Alvin, you got a problem or I do and we’re about to share. Don’t jerk your
head but two guys in the phone booth over there are changing money and
keep watching your place, including me. I’ve got a shit pistol and one
extra load, show me the back door or start explaining this waylay we’re
sharing. Now lot’s of quick excitement was getting started. The one guy
with the cain was moving back to the diner. The other one moved to the
right really slow and stayed in the shadows, standing in the rain.
This ringside fight was about to start, without raising a hand in some
defense i’m about to lose something, don’t know what yet.
Alvin, the selfish red headed giant took off toward the back door and his
ninety five pound waitress wrestled me for second place for the same door.
It seems like glass windows are two way streets and the two boys outside
seen every move. Not one of those jackasses fired their guns until I
though I was safe. Moving through the back door and making a sharp
right turn bullets starting hitting the brick alley walls and all three of us
running.

We all three ran about two hundred feet and my reply to their
gun fire was about to take place. I turned on the critic trying
to kill me or all of us and it was the
damnedest thing you would imagine.
I voted to take aim on the son of a
bitch and took two shaky shots at
him. Didn't aim just got off two shots, maybe it
would finish the chase, hoped to scare him as I
couldn't run much longer.
This shooter had some kind of mask on and was
reloading his Tommy machine gun. His weapon
could tear down a building and mine would just
about kill a automobile tire at close range.
Our three members favored the keep running
slower and take a few shots plan. Now Alvin in the
food and gun business didn't have a gun with him
and he was too fat to run much further.
The ninety five pound woman was a sprinter and
by the time I started running away again she was
most likely half way home.
Now not believing in child labor I wished her well and didn't need her help.
Now Alvin could participate some but the ex champ of the food business
had some blood on his face and down his left arm. He kept running which
was a good sign but he was upheld by willpower alone. I turned to fire two
more shots at the son of a bitch and about eleven more rounds came my
way and killed everything I was hiding behind. Trash cans kicked up three
feet, dogs yelping and Alvin still running. The shooter was scary with that
gas thing over his face like they used during the war. The Tommy gun still
spitting and the flood of bullets kept me low and still running.
Long rebuked for being a coward under fire I continued the fine tradition
of staying alive. I fired two more shots and maybe hit the guy, he either
jumped to his left or one of my rounds knocked him around.