A Raven With A Broken Wing- With Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd’s This Gun For Hire In Mind  

From The Pen Of Sam Lowell

“Everybody, every corner boy knew that the Raven, that’s what everybody called him in the old days and most people around didn’t know his first name was Phillip, would be famous someday, would put the old neighborhood in the daily headlines, put his home turf the Annandale projects in Pittsburgh on the map. And there he is now right there front and center of the F.B.I.’s 10 Most Wanted List after that caper at the Livermore Labs out on the West Coast, I am not sure exactly where but out around Frisco somewhere,” Frankie Ryan, the current Annandale Central High schoolboy king of the corner boy night was telling Bill Bradley about Annandale’s now most famous resident.

Bill had just moved into the projects, you know public housing that every town was supposed to provide after World War II for the down and out and which everybody from Mayfair swells to sociologists who study such things to the residents themselves calls the projects, a few months before when his father had run out with some woman, some whore he had been shacking up with for a while before hand when he said he was working late according to his mother when he asked where his father had gone, and  left her high and dry. So there they were reduced to public housing but what are you going to do since you had to live somewhere and it was better than the county farm where you basically stayed in a dormitory and had to do farm chores for the length of your stay which was the next step down, way down on the social curve. So Bill didn’t know about the effect that the Raven had on the kids in the projects like Frankie and his corner boys who hung on his every caper when they heard about them. Cheering him on, living vicariously through him although no one of them would have expressed it that way in a million years. Maybe didn’t know what the word vicariously meant although Frankie was covering up his native smarts behind a sullen no nothing facade (he would later turn out to be a crackerjack lawyer with a big firm in Boston when he settled scores with his wild oats and sullen looks). They were just hungry, how did Frankie put it, oh yeah, had their “wanting habits on”, for one of their own to break out anyway he could.      

In answer to Bill’s question about the Raven’s reputation around the projects this is what Frankie had to say, “Of course the Raven was seven or eight years older than the rest of us but that didn’t mean we didn’t still look up to him, especially after what he did to Father Benoit. See the Raven was living with his aunt, Fedora I think her name was, after his father who was some kind of hit man, maybe a heavy I don’t remember, for Dutch Malone’s gang out in the Midwest somewhere got caught for wasting some rum brave cop who thought the quarter million dollar heist of the First National Bank in Chicago belonged to him or something and took the big step-off, got the chair, as guys like his father do when they get caught and his mother died of a broken heart or something and so the Raven maybe about eight or nine himself then came to live with his aunt here. He husband had died and since he was some kind of city employees she got to stay here rather than the county farm when he passed on. This aunt was merciless with him, punished him for every little infraction, you know stealing candy from the jar, grabbing dough from her pocketbook, strong-arming kids at school for their milk money harmless stuff really and stuff every kid in the projects had done ever since they caught onto the projects idea to keep people off the streets and off the county farm.”

“Her idea of making a kid toe the line, make him see the light of reason according to my mother after Fedora died was to beat the badness out of the Raven. One day she went over the top after he took some candy or something, remember this is stuff my mother told me so there might be more to the story than she let on she was always “protecting” us that way not knowing we were wired into lots of stuff they didn’t have a clue we knew about, and took a hot flat-iron and broke his wrist, mangled it all to hell. That’s why they throw that photograph of his mangled wrist in the newspapers every day because it is pretty hard not to see that it was seriously deformed and easy to identify him by. Somehow that was the blow that blew the Raven’s gasket, made him stone-cold indifferent to any pain he might inflict, made him like some robot although he would always wave back to us when we waved to him at Carter’s Variety Store where we hung out. But he never smiled or if he did it meant no good.”       

Frankie stopped for a minute in his explanation to try to remember if the Father Benoit incident was two years before the Raven’s aunt’s death or more. He continued, “Yeah it had been two year before when the Raven was maybe sixteen. Part of the deal with the Raven living with his aunt meant that he had to regularly attend Mass over at Saint Francis’s on Taffrail Road, the one I go to still to. Had to attend Christian Doctrine class too. In one of the classes Father Benoit was grilling the Raven about something and the Raven gave a silly answer or surly one I forget since I wasn’t there although my older brother Johnny  whose in the Navy now getting every girl in every port the way he tells the tale was there. Now this Father Benoit didn’t take any guff and so had a reputation for not sparing the rod, the ruler is what I think he used. He ordered the Raven to the front of the class and prepared to exact punishment. Raven went up to him, gave him a stone-cold look according to Johnny, and said in a calm voice that if Father Benoit tried to impose punishment it would be his last time. They stared at each other for a moment and then Father Benoit backed off. That was the last time the Raven was seen in any church as far as I know except for maybe using one as a hideout. As for Father Benoit he would on Sunday, on any occasion as he got older declare that the Raven was the “angel of death” come to earth. But after that Raven incident the good Father never used that ruler for punishment again. So yeah even we younger boys admired the Raven.”         

Bill sat there in silent awe for a moment, Frankie too reflecting on what it took to be stone-cold tough in the world, to be indifferent to what society though about the low-lifes who lived in the projects, if they thought about them at all except when they crashed out, broke from the mold or made the Top Ten list and they started sweating that the guy was going to come up their front door.

Then Bill asked a question about when the Raven left the projects. Frankie replied, “You know after that Father Benoit thing the Raven must have realized that he could do anything, get anything he wanted if he made a man of God back down without a fight. That is when we first heard about his robbery sprees. One night, a Friday night the Raven walked into Carter’s Variety like he always did and then came out waving to us after we had waved to him. A few minutes later Mister Carter came out all pale and shaken. The Raven had robbed Mister Carter of all his cash without doing anything but telling him to give him the dough or lose his life. He gave the dough. When we asked if he was going to call the police he said he would later but he never did. And the next Friday the Raven walked into the store just as calm as could be, returned our waves like every other time, and came out with his pack of Camels that he just bought, we know he paid because Mr. Carter told us later, tapped the pack on his hand like all the guys did before they unwrapped the cellophane, open the pack, pulled out a coffin-clutcher, lit up and walked up the street to catch a bus to downtown. Beautiful. There were a few more like that gas stations, department stores and nobody called the cops until some goof in a jewelry store over in Harding got rum brave and called them in. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Bill asked why that event broke the camel’s back although he was not sure what that meant more intrigued than ever by these tales which seemed unbelievable but which he would later find were confirmed by the newspapers when they dug into the background details of the case when the Raven drew the F.B.I’s  big 10. “When the Raven was arrested over in Harding his aunt had to go draw his bail since he was still (barely) under eighteen. When she got him home not knowing what a cool customer she had turned him into she tried to use that flat-iron to break his other wrist probably thinking foolishly that he wouldn’t be able to do more crime. She was wrong. Dead wrong because unlike when he was eight and had to take it he was ten times stronger now and twenty-times angrier. He grabbed the flat-iron and bludgeoned her to death. With a nice touch he broke her wrist as well although according to my mother the coroner said that those wounds were post-mortem. That was the last anybody ever saw the Raven around the projects although we would occasionally scan the papers looking for any news about him. Nothing doing until after about four years we got this latest headline about the Raven’s latest caper which announced to us that he had been doing okay.”           

What Frankie did not know and what the newspaper headlines only alluded to was that the Raven had become a “hit man,” a freelance hit man doing whatever anybody needed to have done, done quickly and done on the quiet. After that botched unarmed jewelry heist in Harding and after the damn bludgeon murder of his aunt the Raven decided that going around without serious  weapons, and plenty of them, going around like some caveman with a club was a sure way to be dead or in prison. So he got very familiar with guns, practiced constantly to perfect his skills, did a few smaller jobs for cheap money to get a reputation for doing his work quickly and quietly. Eventually when a Mister Big wanted a rival wasted or some big time political or business guy wanted his wife, or his wife’s lover wasted they called for the Raven. Paid very nicely for quick and quiet work and the Raven prospered.                 

But the “gun for hire” business like any other business is filled with odd-ball quirks, filled with weirdoes looking to get off-the-wall jobs done. And like any other profession you have to pretty much take what comes in the door because you do not know when another job may come your way, maybe too the weirdos knows guys who need jobs done who are not weirdoes, or maybe you are bored and are willing to try an odd-ball job just to prove you can do odd-ball jobs quickly and quietly. Whatever the reason this latest caper is what got the Raven in the news and got him dug up for half the crimes committed in the country the previous four years.  

Here’s the way Frankie told it to Bill, Lenny, Larry and a couple of his other corner boys one night in front Carter’s Variety Store, half expecting the Raven to pop up in front of them with that old wave, when they asked about what the Raven was suspected of doing. “I don’t know about the other stuff, the string of gangland murders, the murders for insurance, the jealous husband or wife murders, it seems the newspapers, or the coppers, or the newspapers and the coppers, are trying to blow smoke and clean up their unsolved cases by laying them all on the Raven but this latest one, the one that has made him A Number One in my book makes sense.”      

“You know ever since the Russians got the bomb and old Stalin has the world sucking wind about it everybody in America has been going crazy to make sure that the Reds don’t get the plans for the really big next one that everybody knows we need if we are going to beat the damn commies. So some guy, a gofer, a suck-up, a pretty boy, probably a fag from his picture, who was something in Hollywood or owed somebody a favor, now dead, dead by the Raven’s hand, contacted him through this dame, some good-looking dame according to her photograph who I swear looks like Veronica Lake or one of those blonde Hollywood actresses that keep your temperature rising, who worked in one of his nightclubs as a singer. The guy, a guy named Walker according to the papers, didn’t want to go straight to the Raven because he was basically the middleman and because he was a punk really and just acting for a Mister Big. Not a gangster Mister Big but a guy who had plenty of dough, a guy who owned factories and stuff, but wanted some pull power in the world and had contacts with guys who worked at Livermore Labs where they deal with plenty of plans to make the next biggest bomb or whatever you want the next biggest and baddest of and they can figure out how to do it to order.”

“So this fluff goes to the Raven with Walker’s proposition about getting some plans from a guy who worked in Livermore, plans that would give that big factory owner plenty of power since his plants could produce whatever needed to be produced and he could give a damn about America. The Raven blew her off at first, whether she looked like Veronica Lake or not the Raven was always funny about women maybe after that aunt business although he was a pretty good looking guy in the Alan Ladd mold, a guy the girls would give a tumble if he just looked their way, some girls are like that, but he never did, tells her he only does certain kinds of jobs and this one looked like it would have the whole government down his back.”

“Now like I said I don’t ever remember the Raven ever having a girl on his arm, like I said maybe that business with his aunt turned him off women or something, made him a queer, but this blonde fluff worked on him, worked on him enough so that he bought into the idea of doing the job. But the whole set-up should have sent signals to the Raven that this caper was doomed. He must have gotten too much of that fluff’s perfume in his nose or spent too much time under the silky sheets with her.”

The Raven got to the Livermore guy alright, got through some back doors and cellars to get to his lab, had him with his hands in the air ready to give the plans, his wife and kids too if the Raven had asked, under duress but then this scientist, this nobody nothing goof scientist got rum brave himself or started seeing stars and stripes when he realized what the Raven wanted and refused. Blam, blam. The scientist got the wrong time to get brave against the wrong guy and he got himself killed for his efforts. The Raven fled trying to find the fluff to eliminate her from being able to talk about the whole deal but instead found this Walker down at one of his nightclubs, The Dove Club, auditioning acts. The Raven asked at the door if Walker was in, the usher pointed him out and he called him aside a little and without blinking his eyes, I don’t if that part is true but two of the witnesses said that is the way it went down, and put two square through his heart. Done. Now the Raven is wanted, wanted bad as some kind of red agent, a guy working for Uncle Joe according to my mother who really believes that a stone-cold killer like the Raven is working for the international Communist conspiracy something. Jesus are they kidding. I tell you thought I figure his next stop is that fluff and no silky sheets this time. I wonder how he will do the job when he catches up to that fluff, probably just like Walker. I hope he doesn’t go soft or anything like that. Hope he makes the old projects proud of him.”