Robofootball: Doublespin

It was a dark and stormy mid-October night in 1928. Obviously it was going to be dark since it was only 20 minutes before midnight. The rain was just a pain in the ass as the temperatures dropped to a thin hair above 40 degrees. The wind that drove the light rain at 14 mph made it seem colder. It was a time long before global warming; nevertheless, even the soon-to-be reduced Detroit auto factory output was doing its best to accelerate that process.

“Damn it, I can’t see a thing,” said Vincent Verlucci as he struggled with an old Ford Model T Depot Hack. A Model T may have only lasted 4 or 5 years before being scrapped for parts, but this one was going on a decade. The back had been modified and expanded with wood to carry extra luggage from train stations for passengers to their homes or hotels. The enlarged space was also ideal for transporting goods like illegal liquor.

“Ees up here, laft,” Marcus Delano spoke in broken English with a heavy Sicilian accent as he gestured wildly with his arms as Italians are prone to do.

“Okay, I see it,” said Vincent. He pulled behind a small boat garage that was connected to little more than a few uneven boards that made up a rickety dock. Roped to one of the partially rotted and crooked support posts was a 16-foot rowboat. The dock was on the Detroit River several miles north of downtown Detroit; hopefully, far enough away from the watchful eyes of the dreaded Purple Gang. Vincent backed up along the garage with the expanded back in facing the dock. It would take two trips across the river to fill the vehicle.

“All right, Julius, you stay with the car. “Here’s your gun.” Vincent handed him the 3rd most worn of the 4 Colt .45’s that Tom Licavoli had provided for him. The most worn and rusty of the 4 stayed inside the car. Vincent also pulled out a handful of greasy fat cartridges from one of the ammo boxes and handed them to him as well. “Keep it dry, in your coat pockets,” suggested Vincent.

“Yes,” was all Julius said. His English did not allow for much more.

“Here’s yours too Marcus,” said Vincent as he handed the elder brother one that was less corroded and used as the one Julius now held awkwardly. “Do you know how to use them?” He asked both brothers simultaneously. The brothers stared at each other and started examining and playing with them in an attempt to save face and figure them out.

“You roll out the cylinder like this,” Vincent demonstrated his own that actually had some black gun metal shine to it. “Slide the bullets in, throw the cylinder back in tight, and you might want to give it a spin for good luck, and to look good eh?” They may not have understood his words, but Vincent had gone slowly and they followed his actions.

“Now you cock it. Damn it Julius keep that barrel down, don’t ever point it at a man unless you intend to shoot. Once it is cocked, all you do is point and pull the trigger. Tom said to point down an inch or two where you’re going to shoot, use an extension of your finger to aim.”

“Why?” Asked Marcus.

“Because it has a nasty ass kick to it. We’re not going to use them tonight unless we really have to, now uncock them like this so one of you fools don’t shoot me. Maybe tomorrow or the next day we can go out to the dump, shoot some cans or rats or something. Tom just gave them to me an hour ago and there’s no time to practice. Put ’em away and keep ’em dry like I said.” The big heavy colts of old lacked safeties like modern firearms. The Delano brothers did as they were told and stuffed the big guns into the even bigger pockets of their denim pants.

“Enough, let’s go Marcus.” They got in to the boat. With little more than a sizeable heavy lantern style flashlight with a 6-volt car battery, Vincent checked his fat pocket watch, another gift from Tom. It read 12 minutes to midnight. “Take the ropes Julius,” was Vincent’s last command before he and Marcus commenced rowing.

With a slight limp, Julius did what he was told. He was only 16 years of age, 3 years younger than Vincent and Marcus, and he had been born with a slight twisted club foot. The leg with the club foot was 2 inches shorter than the other; it didn’t sound like much, but he had to alter his gate to compensate, which, in turn, resembled that of a typical but slight limp.

It only took a few minutes of hard rowing to cross the river and a few more minutes to go south along the Canadian shoreline before they saw the signal lantern, 3 short bursts, meaning everything was clear. Anymore, and the rendezvous would be broken off. There was little threat on the eastern side from the Canadians as liquor was legal; nevertheless, the Purple Gang patrolled both sides of the river looking for easy marks. They would wait until the liquor was loaded and back into the water, and even when it was unloaded on the American side before striking. Vincent flipped his own lantern off and on to return the 3 signals. The money was paid, the cases loaded, and everything went as smooth as a baby’s freshly powdered bottom over the next several weeks with the possible exception of the weather.

As was Vincent’s habit, on the second trip each night he would have Marcus and Julius exchange positions. Vincent made this decision on his own to give the brothers the same, equal experience. With the Model T loaded to the hilt, Vincent’s many excursions into Canada were quite successful and it added to his growing reputation with Don Berzzini and the Licavoli Brothers as an up and coming capable man who got things done. It didn’t hurt that he was 5’10” tall and carried 210 pounds quite well with broad lumber jack-like shoulders, biceps to match, and an eventual devastating overhand right that would earn him the nickname of “One Punch Vinnie.”

Things didn’t get dicey until late November on into December. First it was thin ice as the surface of the river would freeze at night, and then melt some in the day time depending upon the temperature. Vincent and the Delanos could punch through the thin layer enough to row, but it wasn’t easy. With the holiday season, demand for liquor was through the roof, especially for Don Berzzini’s northern Michigan endeavors. Where the Purple Gang controlled much of the liquor trade in Detroit, particularly down river, Don Berzzini was slowly but steadily establishing bases further north in Flint, Port Huron, and the tri-city area of Bay City, Saginaw, and Midland. Like Vincent and the Detroit River, he had another crew regularly crossing the St. Clair River between Port Huron and Sarnia, Canada. The two crews were working diligently 6 nights a week.

When the respective rivers completely froze over, they loaded up sleds until Vincent got the idea to just drive the old depot hack beater directly on the ice. They rigged up some chains on the tires back in the day when there were no such things as snow tires or all season radials. Vincent and his crew of two Delanos rigged up a crude ramp to access the river with little more than four 12-foot long 2” x 10” boards. On the other side, Vincent just backed up to the dock without actually leaving the river. On the Michigan or northern Detroit end, they added some rocks for support under the boards. They only had to come up about 3 feet or so and ramped a good 24 feet with two sets of boards for the wheels, not much more incline than a 2:12 pitched roof.

Trouble came as word invariably leaked out to lookouts and paid informants of the Purple Gang that something was going on a bit further north than the gang normally patrolled. As they ascended the makeshift ramp into Michigan on a cold December night a week before Christmas, 2 dark Chevrolets pulled up in front of them blocking their path to the road. The first warning was not a shout or a voice, but a bullet hole in the front windshield that shattered the non-safety glass as easily as a fine porcelain plate dropped on a hard tile floor.

“Sonnabitch!” Exclaimed Marcus Delano who was riding shot gun as the bullet whizzed by his head. He crouched below.

“Damn it,” said Vincent. “Their damn lights are in my face, can you see how many?” He was already itching at the colt in his waistband knowing it was full of 6 big fat .45 caliber bullets.

“I think two een da one on de left,” said Julius from the cramped back seat as he squinted forward.

“All right, everyone out with your hands up!” A voice shouted. “Next one goes in your head pretty boy.” Like Vincent Verlucci, Ray Bernstein was young. At 21 years of age he was 3 years older than Vincent but untried. He was the youngest of the 4 Bernstein Brothers and had successfully led 2 heists. With 3 men and 2 cars and barely armed opponents who had given up easily, one in fact who had been working alone, he had grown overly confident in his inexperience. He had yet to face a true fight like the one he was about to engage in.

Vincent wasn’t sure who the man was speaking to since his face wasn’t all that pretty, but he thought fast as he crouched down like Marcus below what had been the windshield line. Fortunately, Marcus and Julius were getting better at understanding English with his help. “You two, get your guns ready, put them behind your back, in your pants. Listen carefully, I’m gonna act like I’m gonna surrender, when we open the doors Marcus, pull your gun out as you put your hands up and start shooting, you got 6 shots, just follow my lead.”

“I SAID GET OUT AND GET YOUR HANDS UP!” The voice repeated louder and angrier. “I’M GOING TO COUNT TO 3, AND ALL 4 OF US ARE GOING TO START SHOOTING!” The main reason that they didn’t shoot in the first place and ask questions later was to not damage the precious and valuable cargo.

“Okay, Okay!” Vincent yelled back in return thinking that it was a mistake that the man had revealed their number. “We’re unarmed, please don’t shoot, we’re coming out.” Vincent tried to speak with fear which wasn’t in his nature. “Ready Marcus?” He added in a low voice.

“Yeah I suppose,” he was twitching nervously while Julius was visibly shaking in the back seat.

“Okay, one hand on the door, one in the air, put your shooting hand on the door and then go for the gun once you’re out. Try to keep your shooting hand hidden behind the door. Let’s go.”

Vincent raised his left hand up and opened the door with his right. “Please don’t shoot!” Vincent reiterated.

The man who had done the talking laughed, “We’ll decide that pretty boy, now step forward.” Ray Bernstein turned to his sidekick on the car on the left. “Bunch of young Nancy boys as the Irish would say, this should be easy.”

“Should we just shoot them boss?” His companion ventured.

Before he had time to answer, there was shooting all right as the first shot fired came from Vincent Verlucci. In one smooth motion, he kept his left hand high and slid the big black colt up his side with his right. He was careful to turn slightly sideways and use the edge of the Model T’s pitch black door for camouflage. It wasn’t hard since it was dark, just past midnight, and the only light came from the pale beams of the Chevy’s, and their parabolic beams were slightly distorted by light flurries; furthermore, high beams had not been available yet on Chevrolets of this era. Vincent moved his hand up ever so slowly and patiently as if to put it high in the air to match his left. He already had it cocked so he could keep his left hand up briefly.

They had practiced a little at the landfill, but he was no great shot, no slouch either, about average. He could hit tin cans at 10 or maybe 15 feet, but who couldn’t with a slight amount of practice? His first shot struck the man who had done the talking in the face, right below the cheekbone. The powerful .45 caliber projectile blew much of the back of the man’s head away as it exited. In rapid succession, Vincent cocked with his left hand and fired with his right like an old Western outlaw with a posse bearing down, emptying the other 5 chambers in a matter of seconds. 3 of the bullets struck the man’s immediate companion, one in the arm, another in the shoulder, and another in the throat. The throat was the kill shot.

Once his cylinders were empty, Vincent dropped to the ground to what sounded like strings of firecrackers going off. The two men in the second car were shouting like crazy as they used their doors for cover. Marcus was shooting too and Vincent heard him groan with another “Sonnabitch” as was Marcus’s favorite cuss word, followed by a thud as Marcus dropped to the ground, hard. Julius had only partially exited the hack and scrambled back in, trembling and not shooting.

With Marcus apparently down and Julius not much help, Vincent didn’t slow for an instant. He didn’t take the time to reload, but strode up to the Chevy on a quick sprint, the one where the two bodies that he had shot were leaking an enormous amount of blood, staining the light white snow on the ground a deep crimson where they fell. The sticky red mess was rippling outward in sort of a pinkish circle in the outer edges, like a stone thrown in a tranquil pond. Vincent raced around to the back of the 2nd car to get behind the other two who were in the process of reloading. Luckily they had revolvers like him, 6-shooters though they looked smaller, .38’s he would find out later. If they had had Tommy guns or if he had hesitated, things might have been much different.

With a big strong hand and thick wrists honed from plowing rocks and tough dirt from a nearly barren hill on the island of Sicily, Vincent clamped down on the man’s shoulder like an industrial vice and squeezed. The man had already been in a crouched position, but was busy fumbling with bullets in the dark as the lights from the car projected forward. The pain of the grip went right to the bone. Vincent held him briefly with one hand, then slammed the door into his head with the other. There was an audible pop as the man’s skull exploded as the top hinge broke on the door too leaving it somewhat limp, just like the man.

With his adrenaline running at an all time high, Vincent didn’t think but just reacted as he had done with the car door. He jumped through the loose and broken door, caught a hold of the other man through the car, and dragged him across to the passenger side, hitting the man’s head on the steering wheel hard as the man tried his best to bring his freshly loaded gun up in Vincent’s general direction. It was too late, the gun went off as the bullet harmlessly pierced the seat backing. Vincent wrapped a thick hand around the man’s gun wrist and squeezed until all circulation ceased and the gun clattered on the car floor. Vincent yanked and pulled him forward by the wrist, twisting and breaking it as the man yelped like a little dog. When he got him far enough along, Vincent hit him hard in the jaw with his right hand, and again, and again. The first punch, for all practical purposes, knocked the man out, but it was dark and Vincent wanted to be sure. When his hand started to hurt, he placed both hands around the man’s neck and squeezed out whatever life was left in him. In hardly 3 minutes time, Vincent had killed all 4.

“Sonnabitch!” Marcus cursed again but was sitting up in the snow.

“Julius! Damn it! Get your lazy ass out here!” Vincent shouted. “Go get one of their shirts,” he gestured to the men on the ground as Julius sprang out of the hack. “Now tie it up over Marcus’s arm.” Marcus had been hit by a .38 slug in his left bicep but didn’t quite have the punch of a .45 magnum round. Still, he was bleeding heavily. That was the first order of business, get Marcus on his feet, thank god he was conscious. As Julius got more into gear and aided in applying a tourniquet to Marcus’s arm, Vincent was finally able to stop and consider what to do next. It would have been nice to have had a cell phone, but they wouldn’t be standard equipment for at least another 75 years.

In the age of rumble seats and small storage compartments, one of the cars had enclosed space large enough to accommodate bodies like a modern trunk. The depot hack was loaded to the hilt too and miraculously escaped damage to the cargo in the crossfire. While Julius was attending to Marcus, Vincent lifted the dead bodies on his own, stacked them in the backseats of the cars after relieving them of their money. Ray Bernstein, the obvious leader, had a nicer suit, a fat money clip, and a gold pocket watch. He didn’t have time to examine them but just dropped them into his pockets. Vincent collected their guns, four snub nose .38’s, convenient for carrying, but he noted how small the bullets looked compared to the .45’s. Luckily too, the dock was somewhat isolated, but shots at 12:30 a.m. on a relatively quiet night were sure to gain some attention. He could see some lights in the distant residential neighborhoods that he did not think were there before. He strode back hurriedly to the brothers.

“How are you Marcus?”

“My arm, eet hurts like ’ell,”

“Can you drive?”

“I theenk so, I can shift okay, I theenk.”

“All right then, the keys are in the Chevy’s you guys follow me, Julius?”

“Yeah boss?”

“Here’s your chance to drive.”

Julius grinned, “Yeah, okay.” He knew how to drive, it was just that Vincent always did so.

“Back that one out so I can get through. I’ll help Marcus to the other one.”

“Okay,” said Julius who seemed to recover from his fear now that bullets were no longer flying about. The lights of the cars were still on and Vincent had seen where Julius had wet himself, but Vincent did not mention it, nor would he later. The kid was only 16, and though they were constantly on the lookout for trouble, it was different story when it arrived.

“A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall.”

Vince Lombardi