THE CITY BENEATH THE LAW by GIC
Chapter 3: THE RETURN OF THE GHOST
Chapter 1: THE MOURNING AND THE MISSION | Chapter 2: THE HIDDEN AGENDA
Nova Loncastre, March 1925
“Well, ain’t this a kick in the teeth,” the goon muttered, his grip tightening on the pistol. “All this time, we’ve been chasin’ our tails, thinkin’ some outside outfit was musclin’ in — turns out, it’s just the ghost of Harvey Turpin.”
Curious about what’s happening but have no time to read Chapter 2? Here’s a recap: Harvey Turpin and Ernie Harlow hide in Nova Loncastre’s underground tunnels as tensions rise. The city’s power players — Mayor Langston, Judge Hawthorne, and the crime bosses — are preparing for the end of Prohibition, but someone’s skimming from their secret fund. Harvey has suspicions and plans to sow paranoia among the bosses to move freely. Harvey demands trust, which makes Harlow reveal a ledger left by Kearns, filled with coded secrets about the city’s players. As a reward, Harlow gets a rare taste of sunlight after months underground before returning to the shadows to work.
The goon kept the piece trained on Harvey, voice raising as he barked for backup. The warehouse stood empty… for now. The goon and his backup were the first on-site. The exterminators sent to sniff out rats before the real business started.
“Look what we got here.”
“I’ll be damned,” came a voice from the dark. Gil T. Azell stepped into the light, his face settling between disbelief and amusement. A veteran, he had seen his share of bodies turn up cold. Harvey was supposed to be one of them.
“You always crack the case, Turpin. When you didn’t, we figured you were takin’ a dirt nap. Even poured on out in your honour. Hell, I almost shed a tear,” Azell said.
Harvey’s mouth curled into a smirk. “Mourning or celebratin’?”
Azell chuckled. “Neither. The bosses were sore about losin’ Harlow. And their bankroll,” he paused as if weighing how much rope to give, then shrugged. “Not lost, exactly. Just sittin’ somewhere they can’t reach… for now.”
Harvey exhaled through his nose. “That sounds more like ‘em.”
Azell nodded. “They’ll be mighty interested to hear you’re still breathin’ and nosin’ around.”
The rookie licked his lips, eyes flicking between Harvey and his partner. He was green, still wet behind the ears. “What do we do?”
“Hey, kid,” Harvey said, low and steady. Commanding. “Get that gun outta my face.”
The rookie started to lower it. Only stopped because Azell let out a barking laugh.
“Jesus Christ, junior, you takin’ orders from him now? Grow a pair! Harvey talks like he runs the joint, but I’m signing your pay.”
The rookie stiffened, swallowing hard. He yanked the pistol back up.
Azell sighed, shaking his head. “Nah, put it down. Harvey here’s gonna behave, ain’t that right?”
Harvey’s smirked. “Don’t I always?”
The rookie let the barrel drift downward.
Azell nodded approvingly. “That’s more like it,” he stepped closer to Harvey, the click of his heels echoing in the cavernous warehouse. Azell exhaled, rubbing his chin like he was mulling over a tough decision. “Now, what the hell am I gonna do with you?”
Harvey laughed — low, slow, the kind that crept up your spine like cold fingers. The rookie flinched. Even Azell hesitated for a second.
“Never pegged you for the greedy type,” Harvey said, voice like sandpaper. “Guess I ain’t always right.”
Azell exhaled through his nose. “I like bein’ a good soldier. But good soldiers get retired nowadays. The bosses got plans, and fellas like me ain’t part of ‘em,” he cast a sidelong glance at the rookie. “Instead, they bring in this… a placeholder. A warm body in a cheap suit. Temporary, sure, but I got a wife — and more kids than she knows about. So maybe I hand the bosses a present so damn sweet they start thinkin’ twice ‘fore cuttin’ me loose.”
Isn’t Harvey a fantastic investigator? He got a bunch of answers without asking a single question.
Harvey rolled his shoulders like he was already bored. “Fine. Let’s get it over with. Knock me around, drag me to The Blind Tiger — or wherever they hold their little book clubs these days.”
Azell studied him, then flicked a glance at the rookie. Slowly, he reached for his piece, drawing it smooth and steady.
Then, quick as a card trick, he spun…
Bang.
The shot shattered the quiet, the sound ricocheting off steel and stone. The rookie barely made a sound before he crumpled, the gun slipping from his hand as his body hit the floor.
Harvey let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Jesus, Azell. Am I not juicy enough on my own? You gotta pin some extra bodies on me?”
Azell holstered his gun. “Didn’t like him. Kid thought he could replace me. Now he doesn’t gotta think at all,” he flashed a tight grin. “And yeah. Framin’ you don’t hurt, neither.”
Harvey narrowed his eyes. “Why do I get the feelin’ that’s not all?”
Azell exhaled, long and slow, like a man savouring his last cigarette. “Because you’re too clever for your own damn good,” his smirk deepened. “You’re helluva gift as is, but I figure… I can wrap you up even nicer.”
And that’s when it clicked. Azell might’ve played the brute, but he wasn’t just muscle. Nobody survived this long without a brain in their head.
“I don’t know where Harlow is,” Harvey said. He almost believed it in himself.
“Harvey, Harvey, Harvey…” he shook his head, amused. “I had my doubts, y’know. But now I know. And that means I work you over ’til you talk. If you’d kept your mouth, I mighta figured you were clean. Mighta figured you and Harlow weren’t thick as thieves,” he cracked his knuckles. “But now…”
Bang.
Azell staggered, clutching his chest. His knees hit the concrete with a dull thud.
Bang.
His skull came apart like a cracked egg, splattering blood across Harvey’s coat.
A shadow peeled away from the darkness. Boots clicked against the floor, slow and deliberate.
“I saw you snooping around Needle’s operation,” the voice was smooth, unhurried. “But I never thought Ledger’s own Azell would be the one to get the drop on you. Guy can’t count past two without taking off his shoes, yet here you were, pinned like a bug.”
Harvey’s ears were still ringing, but he knew that voice. Couldn’t be. It was impossible.
But then the man stepped into the dim light, hand outstretched.
Harvey wanted to laugh. Wanted to grab that hand, haul himself up and slap the bastard on the back to make sure he was real. But that wasn’t Harvey Turpin. That wasn’t the kind of friendship they had.
Does Harvey have a friend?
So he schooled his face, ignored the blood soaking his collar, and muttered, “You ruined my goddamn plan,” his voice was pure gravel.
“I saved your ass.”
Harvey wiped a chunk of Azell off his sleeve. “He was talking.”
“He was stalling.”
“I woulda turned it around.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”
They stepped over the bodies, moving toward the exit.
Harvey pushed the door. Beyond it, no city streets, no flashing headlights — just a dark, yawning tunnel. The kind where whisky, bourbon and moonshine flowed freer than the river. The kind where no lawman dared to follow.
Once they hit the tunnels, Harvey took the lead.
His friend trailed behind, watching Harvey navigate the underground like he had drawn the blueprints himself. “Hell, Harvey, the way you move, I’d think you built these damn things.”
Harvey let out a dry chuckle. “Guess you weren’t usin’ the afterlife to do any diggin’.”
“Cut the crap.”
“That was all Kearns,” Harvey said, stepping over damp tracks. He started talking, laying it all out — Harlow, Kearns’ plans, the note, the ledger, Runaway. Not everything, though. Just what the man needed to know. Not because he didn’t trust him but because Harvey liked knowing more than the next guy.
They soon reached Harvey’s hideout, a hole in the wall just big enough to disappear in.
Harvey stepped inside first.
“Harvey, I…”
Movement. A blur from the corner. Then, a rustle of sheets, the scrape of wood against concrete. A pistol swung up, shaking in unsteady hands.
Harvey and the man looked at the gun. Then, at each other. They laughed.
Harlow, the poor bastard, could barely hold the gun straight. He would blow his foot off before hitting anyone.
“Harlow, you look pathetic,” Harvey said, lighting a cigarette. “Put the damn thing down.”
Harlow hesitated, eyes darting between them.
With a sigh, Harvey waved between the two.
Drumroll, please…
“Harlow, meet O’Keefe. O’Keefe, Harlow.”
Silence.
O’Keeffe sized him up, the disappointment plain on his face. He had expected someone sharper, tougher, more… useful. Meanwhile, Harlow just stood there, pale as a sheet.
“You should be dead!”
O’Keeffe shrugged. “You don’t make Chief of Police by dying every time someone tries to kill ya.”
“But… but…” Harlow stammered, his lips moving like they were searching for words that wouldn’t come.
O’Keeffe eyes stayed on Harlow, but he was speaking to Harvey. “The bosses think they’re the smartest guys in the room. Most of them aren’t. Ironclad’s got brains — I’ll give him that — but he wasn’t going to get one over me. The second Kearns hit the ground, and we solved the case…”
Back in “The Last Trial of Judge Charles Kearns.”
“…I knew I’d be next. Langston? Hawthorne? Neither of them got the courage to kill a judge, so there had to be another game at play.
Harvey grabbed a cigarette and handed it other over. O’Keeffe took it between his fingers and struck a match. The flame flickered, caught.
“I saw them coming,” he went on. “Played their game. Better to let them think I’m six feet under. Freedom’s got its perks.”
“How?” Harlow asked, voice small.
Harvey exhaled smoke and ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus, kid, he’s sittin’ right here, ain’t he? There’s a million ways to fake a death.”
Harlow blinked, chewing on that. Then, suddenly, “Can Kearns be pretending, too?”
The hope in his eyes was damn near painful to look at — like a drowning man reaching for a rope that wasn’t there. He wanted this whole nightmare over, wanted Kearns alive because that meant there was a way back to before.
Harvey and O’Keeffe exchanged a glance.
Harlow wasn’t built for this. Not like them. He had been dragged into the muck blind without knowing how deep it ran until he was already drowning.
O’Keeffe sighed, lowering his voice. It was the voice of a cop telling some poor woman her husband wasn’t coming home. A voice that had delivered bad news so many times that it had been stripped of everything but certainty.
“Kearns is dead. I saw the body. Can’t fake it if there’s a body.”
Harlow didn’t sit, but he sank all the same. The hope drained out of him, leaving something worse than sorrow.
Defeat.
There was only one way out of this mess now: forward.
Harlow had spent too much time thinking he could return to where he started. But there was no returning. Not anymore.
“Oh.”
It was all he said.
A single, hollow syllable.
The sound a man makes when he realizes hope is dead.
Silence thickened the air, heavy as the smoke curling from Harvey’s cigarette. No one spoke, but words weren’t needed. They all felt it — the weight of something lost.
Mourning didn’t last long in their world. It couldn’t.
Harvey and O’Keeffe met eyes. An unspoken understanding passed between them.
O’Keeffe was the first to break the silence. “You and I had the same idea. Same results, too. Ended up at the same empty warehouse, sniffing around the bosses’ operations. Now we know how they’re running things these days.”
Harvey gave a slight nod.
“What you probably don’t know…” O’Keeffe dragged the words out, letting them linger like smoke, enjoying and savouring the rare moment of knowing something Harvey didn’t.
Harvey struck a match, lit another cigarette and blew a slow stream of smoke into the dim light.
Harlow, still lost in his head, wasn’t listening.
O’Keeffe continued. “Radcliffe’s ending Prohibition.”
Harvey’s match burned to his fingers before realizing he hadn’t shaken it out.
“Next Friday,” O’Keeffe went on, “the Prime Minister makes it official. Dry days are done. The whole country’ll be celebrating, but here?” he chuckled, low and knowing. “It’ll be a reckoning.”
Harvey was on his feet before he knew he had moved. That changed everything.
Even Harlow, sunk deep in whatever hole his mind had dug, snapped his head up. “What?”
Harvey’s eyes were locked on O’Keeffe. “How do you know?”
O’Keeffe chuckled, the kind of chuckle a man gives when he knows he’s holding all the aces. “I got my sources.”
Harlow opened his mouth, but Harvey got there first. “Are they solid?”
Offense flickered across O’Keeffe’s face. “C’mon, Harvey. You think you’re the only guy in town who knows which doors to knock on?”
Harvey didn’t answer. He just sat back down slowly, a silent way of saying, “Fair enough.”
Harlow, still catching up, rubbed a hand down his face. “Do the bosses have enough time and money to go legit?”
“No,” O’Keeffe answered, tapping the ash off his cigarette. “Nevertheless, time and money won’t be a problem. They’ll find a way — one way or the other.”
“The real question is: where they’ll stash the first legal shipment of booze?”
Harlow frowned. “Why does that matter more than money and time?”
Harvey and O’Keeffe shared a look.
Harvey met Harlow’s eyes, his voice smooth, deliberate. “Because before they can slap the word ‘legitimate’ on their operation, the bosses’ll need to make a show of cleaning house. That means scapegoating some poor bastards — pinning all the bloodshed and back-alley deals on the hired hands. ‘We were just trying to survive,’ they’ll say. ‘The real crooks were them.”’ Harvey exhaled slowly, smoke twisting around his words. “That shipment arrives right when they’re at their most vulnerable. Most of his muscles’ll be behind bars, and the rest’ll be inexperienced rookies.”
Harlow shifted uneasily. “Won’t the cops be guarding it?”
“Sure,” Harvey said. “But I’m betting they like O’Keeffe better.”
O’Keeffe smiled.
Harlow’s breath hitched. “You’re gonna steal it.”
Harvey and O’Keeffe exchanged another look. Silent approval.
“That’s the plan,” O’Keeffe confirmed.
“Why?”
Harvey stubbed out his cigarette and leaned forward. “Because it’ll piss off all the right people. The bosses, the mayor, the judge. More importantly, a job like this needs manpower and inside knowledge. That means every crook with an axe to grind will be a suspect. And whoever’s skimming from the pool? They’ll be sweating bullets.”
Harlow swallowed hard. “How the hell are three guys going to pull off a job that takes an army?”
“Well,” Harvey said, reaching for another cigarette. “We got six days to figure that part out.”
The match flared. The cigarette lit. The smoke curled. And Harvey smiled.