Johnny Saturn

Death on the Docks by Scott Story – Part I – Copyright 2008 Story Studios LLC.  All rights reserved.

Ramirez “Manny” Calabria limped along I-60 out of Spire City in the break-down lane, that part of the interstate that was posted “No Foot Traffic or Non-Motorized Vehicles.”  Manny was having the grand whopper of all bad days, and he did not particularly care which laws he was violating.  Normally a rakishly handsome fellow, Manny’s bellhop uniform was filthy and torn, his face was bruised and swelling, and one of his bicuspids was certainly loose.  Manny had to get out of Spire City.

Manny’s evening had definitely begun better than it had ended.  During the day, Manny headed the bellhops at the Northanger Arms, a posh Spire City hotel; at night, Manny ran the Charlie Blockers, an assortment of ne’er-do-wells for hire that all shared the not so singular distinction of having served time in Bolden Penitentiary’s C Block outside Spire City.  Well, all the boys but Lamar, but that was not worth rechristening the Charlie Blockers.

More often than not, the Charlie Blockers were on the payroll of Dr. Horatio Synn.  Synn was the Brazilian owner of the multi-national corporation Synn-Tech, and an adventurer.  Well, Synn was an adventurer, if “adventurer” could be taken to mean world-class smuggler, terrorism financier, black market arms dealer, developer of illegal technology, money launderer, and the high-level partner of many major North American, South American, and European crime cartels.  The good Dr. had engaged in increasingly darker and more dangerous dealings as the years passed, and his personal actions had become more and more erratic.  None of the men could spell or define the term “psychotic,” but they knew it when they saw it.  The Charlie Blockers had gone from moving simple contraband for Synn to arson, corpse disposal, extortion, and murder. 

Tonight, the Charlie Blockers were working security on the Spire City wharves.  They awaited a shipment that was to be delivered in the dead of night by some dark ship that was never entered into the harbor master’s logs.  Clouds filled the late April sky, their steely underbellies reflecting light from the city beneath.  There would be no moon to light this night.

Spire City was perched on Sorrow Bay on the northeastern shore of Lake Avernus.  Avernus was the southernmost and smallest of the Great Lakes, and its connection to Lake Michigan to the north joined Spire City not only to the Great Lakes Watershed and the St. Lawrence Seaway, but to the Mississippi River by way of the Big Opossum River.  Spire City was large and metropolitan, yet, like so many Midwestern rustbelt cities, it had an air of dilapidation and sadness about it, a hint of brighter days long gone.  Wired into the country by Interstate 60, which afforded the city access to both the east and west coasts, and fed by a web of rusting train tracks, Spire City was a city that was easier to describe not by what it was, but by what it was not.  Spire City was not quite as tall as Chicago, or as rough as Gary, as poor as Detroit, as dangerous as Los Angeles or Miami, or as sleepy as Indianapolis.  Its music scene lacked the character of Indianapolis’ Naptown sound, Detroit’s rhythm and blues, Chicago’s blues, or New Orleans’s zydeco and jazz.  The Spire City Ferrets never made it to the Super Bowl, and the Spire City Opossums never played the NBA playoffs.