Out Of The 1960s Film Noir Night- With Blast Of Silence In Mind

From The  Pen Of  Frank Jackman

Nah, nobody cried when Frankie, Frankie Fingers bought the big one, when he made that one mistake too many, when he cashed his check. Yah, maybe a couple of younger guys, young guys on the make and presumably on the way up, snickered like some hearse horses when the reports came in through the corner boy grapevine that they found Frankie boy face up like he was looking at the rain-filled clouds over in the marshlands on the Jersey side filled with more 38s holes than a colander. In case anybody wanted to know Frankie met his demise on that Jersey ditch because New Jack City was full-up, filled up to the brim with unsolved gangland slayings just then what with some Don angry at another or something like that, the heat, the downtown heat, the cop heat, was on, was on big time and hence old Frankie met his maker on the Jersey shores side of the fast flowing Hudson River.       

It was kind of a shame though that Frankie took his final nap in Jersey since he was so identified with the bright lights of the big city. He grew up, if that is what you could call it, an orphan or close to it on those wicked Hell’s Kitchen streets and came of age there performing his first big time assault and battery with a deadly weapon which landed him in a state school for boys upstate, Utica, where they tried to rehabilitate him. And from there almost without missing a beat, as if to mock those  rehabilitation efforts, he graduated, some strong arm jobs at first, then some off-hand low level punk wastings, and then he  stepped up to the big ice jobs when Big Louie came calling and needed that work done. And done well since Frankie, unlike the average joe who took on this kind of work, had things worked out to avoid mistakes while he was on an assignment.  

Funny someone recalled, someone from the old Kitchen days recalled, when they heard the news of Frankie Finger’s demise that he had once told this unnamed source that he actually liked killing, actually liked being a “hit man,” that the act gave him a rush, maybe not sexual like the shrinks up in Utica thought, but a rush, a feeling of being in control, of being god. He figured that as long as certain guys needed certain other guys wasted that he fit the bill, fit it to a tee. That he would have a long and prosperous career at it.             

See too he had, when he was a kid, gone over to the Paramount over on Seventh Avenue to see this guy Raven in a film called This Gun For Hire. This Raven was a stone cold -killer hit man who wasted his target, some guy trying to put the squeeze for dough on some song and dance man,  AND the target’s honey just because she was there when she wasn’t supposed to be. Beautiful. The lesson Frankie took from that film was that you have to figure all the angles, keep one step ahead, at least, of everybody, including the guy who hired you. Watch out for double-crosses night and day, day and night. Raven paid with the big blackout for not paying attention to that elementary principle. That and letting some skirt, some skirt with big blonde hair, big eyes and a sultry voice let him get off track, let him take his guard down. This Raven moreover was burned up about something, had some personal stake in doing his work. No way, no way said Frankie after that view.  No way two ways. Nothing personal, just follow the plan. And no dames, no dames except maybe a toss or two on the pillows and then out the door. It wasn’t that he didn’t like dames, he wasn’t that way, that other way, no way, but they didn’t figure except for a night or two in his plans. Strictly a loner, strictly a pro.         

And for a long time Frankie ruled the roost, ruled the exclusive high-end hit men kingdom. Why? He didn’t make mistakes, didn’t leave traces, and didn’t leave anything but a dead body and no leads for the coppers (if they were looking for more than a day to try to solve some yawn gangland slaying). Then the Capo assignment came up, a juicy assignment and a path to easy street and everything came unglued. While nobody knew all the details (and maybe nobody cared either) the Capo cashed his check thanks to Frankie’s work. But either Frankie had his occasional bout of head problems and didn’t take his medication to control it or he had just been on top too long and the percentages had worked their way against him but there was a slip-up.         

A standard Frankie Finger’s job entailed coming into town all fresh and ready to go. Spend plenty of time scoping a target’s routine, and more importantly, his steps out of his routine, that time was hit time. So lots of tailing, plenty of switched cars while trailing along getting the lay of the land, and plenty of figuring avenues of escape. When Frankie was ready for the kill, working himself up nicely to “want” to do the deed, he worked his network to get a non-traceable gun and that was that. The problem this time, at least that is what those rising corner boys speculated happened, Frankie had some trouble with his source and had to waste him. Not good, not good at all with the Mister Big who was paying the freight. Still Frankie, a pro’s pro until the end, pulled his weight and took out that Capo, a guy who really did need to be taken out. And Mister Big to show his gratitude for a job well done had Frankie Finger’s fall down under a hail of bullets in some forsaken Jersey ditch with no one crying over him…