The Story of 1929
Robert Richardson, the owner of the Navy Colt and an old pal of Al Capone’s, is coming into Chicago this Friday. Leaving his badge and his department-issued pieces at home, he’s only carrying the Colt - if there’s any killing to be done, it will be done with the Colt.
Capone sends one of his men, Jack McGurn (Machine Gun) a telegram letting him know that Richardson is coming into town. He’d like his boys to be hospitable and give Richardson whatever he wants. Anything. When McGurn makes it to the Four Deuces, he has a message waiting for him - an IOU of $70,000 from a P.F. Strauss.
It’s Anita Defazio’s evening to sing at the Four Deuces. An employee of Capone’s as well, he likes to have her spin around the floor, collecting information from the men who frequent there. On this particular night, she tries to shimmy up to Mickey Ross (One Eyed Mickey). They go upstairs (she’s hoping he’s had enough to drink so he can keep his hands off of her. I hate to point out that this is often the opposite of what happens 
) and she tries asking him what’s going to happen when Al gets back into town. She’s heard people are going to get into trouble - which sparks Mickey into action. He grabs her wrist, pins her down and tells her that she should mind her own business and punches her in the stomach. Since she’s a singer, he can’t very well hurt her throat or her chest, and he really doesn’t want to dispose of a body right now, so he can’t kill her…. oh, he knows! He’ll just break a few of her fingers! Wow! What a guy! Anita’s screaming (of course) and then sobbing as he leaves her there, damaged.
Jake Guzik, a.k.a. Greasyfinger (Already I have no desire to find out where that nickname comes from because I am just RIGHT in the gutter) is one of Al Capone’s men and hangs out at the local speakeasy/whorehouse, The Four Deuces (heh. the Four Deuces. 42. Oh you guys are so sneaky. Kinda. ) After hearing screams coming from upstairs, Mickey Ross (a.k.a. One Eyed Mickey) comes down and asks to be dealt into the poker game between Jake and Jack McGurn (a.k.a. Machine Gun (pause while I comment on the absolute cheesiness of the 1929 Mobster Names)) and orders up another bottle of scotch (everybody loves the scotch in this game) and an ass grab on a waitress. Once at the table, the three talk about Al being too famous and needing to get himself out of Chicago to let the heat die down a little. Maybe Florida would work well (Florida?! What is he? A retired old fart?!).
Mickey leaves the table and goes over to talk to a stranger having a beer. Turns out the stranger is none other than the Richardson Capone told him to look out for, so Mickey runs off and Richardson has another beer.
A kid comes in shortly after looking for a fight. Peter Schwimmer (any relation to the David Schwimmer of Friends? Yes? No? Damn.) comes storming into the Four Deuces looking for the man who killed his uncle, which is pretty pointless at the Deuces because no one really gives a crap as uncles die everyday. Officer O’Kelly snags Schwimmer’s attention and then socks him one in the mouth. O’Kelly and a few others drag Schwimmer out to the alley and proceed to wale on him. Ten minutes later, they come back into the bar. Mickey asks O’Kelly who the kid is, with the reply of “Pete Something.” This causes Mickey to twitter a bit, as he met Schwimmer’s uncle last February when he was pumping him full of lead (no, again, with a gun. Not THAT gun, a real gun. Gah, Sickos!)
Pete wakes up outside in a bundle of trash, poked awake by a colored man, Armageddon Jones. Jones takes him back to his place to rest up. There he spots one of Jones’s boxing posters. Jones is also a reverend/preacher (fits well with the cards on the table 
)
A bit shy of the Four Deuces after her knuckle breaking courtesy of Mickey Ross, Anita heads down to the train station to buy tickets to New Orleans, but manages to leave her money back in her apartment (doh!). So instead she shoves some doctored gloves over her hands and heads to the Four Deuces to sing. After her set, she heads out into the crowd as she always does and meets the new guy in town, Robert Richardson. Looking down at his pants after introducing herself, she comments on his nice, big gun (the COLT! Not the shlong. Though that might be big too. We just don’t find out in this story). After commenting on her curiosity, Richardson mentions that he saw her mailing a letter to Capone in prison. She slips up and starts saying at first that Al likes to know the song names, correcting herself to say Al likes to hear her sing. Richardson bets that he does, and informs her that he’s in town to look after Al’s interests himself (seeing as he’s Al’s brother, a.k.a. Richard Hart), and if she gets in trouble (or hears something) to let him know, and with that, leaves. Anita, a bit shaken, composes herself only to find that Jake Guzik wants to talk to her.
It’s Saturday night, and Jake Guzik, Capone’s accountant and right-hand man, is feeling a little guilty about what happened to Anita at the hands of Mickey Ross. He invites her over to his table, buys her drinks and offers to pay her doctor’s bills for her fingers. He compliments her on her singing and her balls for showing up to work after her “accident.” She sits next to him for the rest of the evening, laughing and drinking champagne while Guzik does some business. When Ross and McGurn show up to the table though, Guzik informs Anita that she MUST need to go powder her nose. Anita, not taking any of that “Go pee while we talk business” shit, heads to the bar for another drink while the men head up the stairs.
Her presence at the bar allows her to overhear the boys’ conversation, where Ross convinces the other two that they should really get rid of Capone in a permanent fashion. Tweedledee and Tweedledum have no interest in soiling their pretty white hands with Capone’s blood directly, and ask if Ross has any brilliant ideas on a good way to get rid of him. Which of course Mr Brilliant does - Throw a bomb under Capone’s car when he gets back from his trip to jail in Philly. Tweedledee and Tweedledum say “OTAY!” and leave the details to Ross.
Jack McGurn then heads out to the links in his pansy golf outfit to play a round with his financial guru, Palmer Strauss. Wandering down the fairway, Strauss mentions that he wouldn’t mind gathering a small, 1% commission on the total gross of McGurn’s take, you know, about $100,000 or so. Jack laughs and mentions that he had another guy that always used to ask him for money, but he doesn’t ask anymore because Jack cut his tongue out.
HA HA HA.
Oh. That’s not funny.
McGurn decides that he can at least do Strauss a small favor and rip up the note Strauss had left him at the Four Deuces, which pisses Strauss off because he’d really rather have the money (Duh). They agree to disagree and that when McGurn goes legit as a broker, he’ll hire Strauss as his lawyer for $50 an hour. Which is so not $100K, but whatever. McGurn asks if Strauss really believes that the stock bonk on Tuesday was just a fluke, which Strauss does (poor Strauss. If only you had the benefit of knowing the future).
Meanwhile, back at the Lexington Hotel, Peter Schwimmer is trying to exact some revenge for killing his uncle on McGurn by sexing up his wife, Laura, McGurn’s alibi for the Valentine’s Day Massacre. He gives her a gold bracelet with some tacky, red glass bead dangling from it to smooth her over, and when she tells him McGurn is out playing golf, he says that he’d be in bed with her, not playing some dumb game (oh he’s smooth, ladies. My panties are a-moisty). She laughs at his ridiculous behavior (we all are, Laura) and they bet 45 cents that he can show her a good time. Which results in Peter managing to get his hands inside of her silk robe and his hoo-hoo dilly inside her cha-cha.
Peter, in what can only be described as post-orgasmic stupidity, forgets his real purpose for being there - hate Laura, revenge on McGurn - and asks her to run away with him and leave McGurn. Which causes Laura to AGAIN laugh at him, and sweetly admit that she’s not leaving Jack because he’s her “gravy train” (ouchies) and will be that gravy train even if Capone goes down, because McGurn has “plans” involving heisting some bankers bonds and thieving away with the cash and becoming a stock broker. Why she confessed this to Peter, no one knows, but I’m betting that she too was hit by a dose of post-orgasmic stupidity. She then kicks Peter out of bed and when he asks if she loves him (oh stupid stupid boy), she laughs (AGAIN!) and says no, but that he did show her a good time, handing him 50 cents.
50 cents.
50.
cents.
(I’m dying here. 50 cents! That hurts ME! It’s so tacky it’s hilarious!)
Peter, feeling a little rebuffed after his knob buffing, takes the information he beat (Unf! Unf! Unf!) out of Laura about McGurn’s deal back to Armageddon Jones, who understands that the bearer’s bonds are like money anyone can spend. Armageddon relays the information to his contacts at the Prohibition Treasury Department and heads to their building on Sunday to sermonize and collect his next mission. After practially yelling himself hoarse, his contact finally emerges and shoves some cash and a note into Jones’s hat. The note, once translated (a simple substitution of 2 numbers/letter; e=31 from the serial number of the dollar bill) says “regarding man you reported at lexington hotel is commodities broker on chicago exchange no prior conection to the outfit name is palmer strauss find what he is doing if just buying liquor for get him anything else let me know ”
Sunday night, Anita’s getting ready to go on stage and sing, when she sees Richardson in the audience and knows that she’s going to have to sing a lot to get her message across. Her set list, when the capital letters are anagrammed, sends Richardson the message “Ross Bomb On Arrival” - what she overheard from the bar the night before.
Richardson, realizing the message, heads over to play some poker with Mickey Ross, the one-eyed goomba that wants to off Capone with a bomb. Mickey asks Richardson how he ended up carrying such a rusty old gun (the Navy Colt) and in place of answering, Richardson mentions that he heard Mickey likes to hit women (ooo touche). Richardson then mentions that everytime his Colt gets brought to a poker table someone dies, which Mickey takes, not as a warning, but as another reason to take every dime of this “hick’s” money. He asks if Richardson is one of Al’s boys from his New York City days - Richardson grimaces and says that he doesn’t owe Al anything, he’s only doing what’s right. Mickey asks what he means (dumbass) allowing Richardson to mention that he heard about Mickey and the boys’ plan to throw a bomb under Al’s car when he gets home (ooh which just makes Mickey mad! He is SO going to kill Anita once he’s done with Richardson). Why would he care, Mickey asks Richardson, who points out that besides Al in the car, they’d also be blowing up Al’s innocent wife and kid, which Richardson just can’t let them do. Mickey claims that he would *never* do such an un-gentile thing, getting his hand on his gun so he can pull it out and quickly shoot holes in Richardson. Only Richardson already has the Colt leveled to Mickey’s blind spot, sending a bullet smack into his glass eye.
Hell of a Shot.
Tuesday, acting on his knowledge of the heist, Armageddon goes to the client’s home that was to send the bonds by the Midwest Courier that McGurn et al were planning on robbing and intercepts the delivery. He himself walks the bonds over to Harris Bank and hands the bonds over to the manager, grabbing a receipt and, ta da! preventing McGurn from capitalizing on his evil doing.
However, the Courier still runs that night and the boys still attempt to rob it of the bonds, only to find the truck empty, causing more than a little upsetness amungst the boys. Guzik gets ahold of McGurn, asking what the hell happened with the “perfect plan” and informing him that Al Capone is a little more than upset, seeing as he fronted a lot of money to set McGurn up with a legit (looking) background and shares. Al wants his money back (not the shares, which, after Thursday’s stock market crash, aren’t work much of anything), Guzik informs McGurn, which leads to some “you dirty Jew” comments from McGurn and Guzik telling him to stop talking crazy and go spend some time with Laura and get Al’s money.
McGurn, on the other hand, heads home to Laura who is sitting on the couch, reading, post-bath. He says “hello” and flops on the couch with a sigh, the cue for her to come and soothe his ails. But she doesn’t - she keeps reading. He mentions how the heist of the bonds fell through and how Guzik’s on him about paying Al back, expecting her to understand that THIS was her cue to take off her robe and make him feel better by shimmying her ta-tas in his face. Alas, she keeps reading, playing with the glass trinket hanging from her bracelet (ohhhh Laurie, Laurie, Laurie. You’re wishing you hadn’t given up those 50 cents aren’t you? You’re thinking how good a nice Hot Toddy and some Little Debbies would be right now, right?). He offers to take her to Chinatown for dinner and some gong ringing. She agrees but keeps reading, not looking up and most definitely not taking her robe off and dancing around for him. Pissed and now sexually frustrated, he gives up and calls the boys at the Cicero to get the gang together for his arrival around 11.
Palmer Strauss hopped on a train headed west from Chicago after the failed robbery, stopping in Kansas City flophouse. He’d emptied his bank account and fled once hearing the armored car was empty, driving down to Calumet City to hop a train rather than stay in Chicago, thinking McGurn and his mob boys would be looking for him in Chicago. Pondering whether to head down to Peru or Brazil to start over and hide with the $10 grand in his suitcase, he hears a knock upon his door.
The next morning, Peter’s out waiting for his train at the station, hoping to see the blonde Laura come prancing his way, boobs jaunting about. Instead, he’s seen off by Armageddon, who thanks him and congratulates him on his work stopping McGurn. Peter says goodbye and compliments Armageddon on his preacher disguise - Jones really had him convinced. As Pete climbs onto the train, Armageddon sets his hat and his case on the ground and begins another sermon.
Richardson is also on a train heading home, the Colt heavy in his pocket. The killing of Mickey Ross, though deserved, weighed on him and made him feel as old as the gun.
It was Colton White’s gun. At least, that’s what the Texan who sold it to him said.
Richardson thinks about his son, Richard Jr. who’s 10 years old now. Maybe handing down the gun as a legacy to him when he turned 18.
Now wouldn’t that just be dandy?