Love's Trap, by Francesca Quarto

Love’s Trap

Thom Love was an unusually clever twenty-eight-year-old. Even as a young boy on the fast and furious streets of Brooklyn in 1911, he was considered a sharp kid. He had a reputation for always besting the local gang of bullies. After years playing the avenging angel for his baby brother, Albert, he had plenty of time to perfect his tactics.

The fates were unkind to little Albert. He came into this seething cauldron of poverty and ignorance, generally known as The Devil's Parlor, blanched as white as a rich man's sheets. Seeing the tears leaking from Albert's pink eyes, always moved Thom to greater schemes, protecting him from the brutes that targeted him endlessly for his obvious difference.  

Albert enjoyed little in his pale life.  Bunty Park, a patch of scraggly trees fighting for light under the shadows of the tenements, was his favorite place.  Women, hanging laundry on endless rope lines, set like fluttering islands between the buildings, saw everything.  They often spotted Thom, his hand wrapped protectively around Albert's, making the painfully slow journey over four city-blocks, to this green Mecca.  Watching the sturdy ten-year old and his spindly, freakishly- white little brother, brought some of these life-hardened wives to tears.  To others, it made them raise a thumb and forefinger in their ignorance, to ward off the devil.

Thom found ingenious ways to foil attempts to harm, or tease his albino sibling. He became astute at reading the signs of planned ambush along their walk to the park. Some of the gang members shadowing them, would grow bored with their pursuit, or frustrated with Thom's ingenuity in avoiding their traps. With little else to occupy immature, cretin minds, the others persisted in their efforts to fool young Thom, in hopes of tormenting the ghostly looking brother. 

Thom prevailed in these bouts between brains and brawn. After years of protecting the milky-white Albert from harm, he became something of a folk hero, using his unique talents to protect other social misfits up and down the street car line that was the demarcation of his neighborhood turf. His calling in life seemed life seemed predestined. Thom became a copper.

Called ‘Lovey’ on the street since he wore short pants, as a man wearing a police uniform, his incredible sleuthing talents soon transcended his nickname. He rose quickly in the ranks to become a highly decorated Detective, earning a new name on the streets; ‘The Ghost.’ His area of expertise was organized crime. To Thom, that still meant gangs.

He'd already scarred, maimed and terrified several of the notorious criminals roaming the gritty New York streets like war-lords. Many were well-known to him as the thugs from his childhood days. The Ghost didn't leave a clue when he stealthily took revenge on any guilty of tormenting Albert and casting long shadows over his short, tortured life. 

After five years on the force, Thom managed to ferret out every man from the old neighborhood, who had been part of Albert's years of misery as their freakish target.  The ring-leader of those local urchins, passed from street bully, into politics. A seamless transition in Thom's mind. Thom watched as this man now wielded his thuggish powers over his neighbors, from behind the Police Commissioner’s desk. 

Thom was obsessed with bringing his revenge to the man who orchestrated the slow killing of Albert's spirits, eventually making him so desperate, he took his own life in the fast-moving waters under the Brooklyn Bridge. The Ghost would complete his revenge by luring the Commissioner into his own trap; an ambush he'd never survive.

A letter found its way onto the Commissioner's desk, listing the political cover-ups and crimes he was engaged in for his own profit. The letter was clearly an attempt at blackmailing the man, demanding ten-thousand-dollars in small bills and directing him to arrive at two o’clock the next morning, at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Thom, dressed completely in black, concealed himself just below the street-level approach to the bridge. The Commissioner’s sleek, black Packard, slid out of a haze of street lights and onto the darkened entrance to the bridge, rolling to a stop. The engine was switched off.  He wasn't alone, just as Thom had predicted. The burly figure that exited the driver’s side, was quick to melt into the shadows. All went according to Thom's guess about the Commissioner’s own plans.

The portly figure of the Commissioner exited the back seat. His steps echoed in the heavy silence. He walked slowly to the side of the bridge where the money was to be left on the high railing. One hand carried the paper sack with the money, the other, kept close to his side, held a small revolver. The Commissioner was prepared to kill his blackmailer; an easy prediction for Thom to make.

Thom waited until he saw the bag placed on the ledge. Knowing the bodyguard was watching for him to make a move toward it, he put the next phase of his trap into play. Holding two flashlights as far apart as possible, he pierced the gloom where the thug hid. He surprised both the bodyguard and his boss, who reacted by lumbering toward the safety of his car. 

Foreseeing the whole scenario, Thom had arrived earlier that night, disabling the few lights leading onto the bridge, and causing the area to fill like a well, with deep shadows. He switched off his flashlights, throwing them onto the bridge in opposite directions. The sounds hung ominously in the night air. Thom was moving like a cat, up the side of the ramp, toward the large vehicle. The Commissioner opened the driver’s door, sliding his large girth behind the wheel. He started the engine, ready to abandon his thug to his own fate. As he drove forward, the tires of the heavy Packard were ripped to shreds on a long plank of nine-inch nails, laid by Thom, anticipating the coward would make a run for it. 

The Commissioner threw open the car door, scrambling to get out, and screaming for the lurking bodyguard to help him. Thom heard the big man panting as he ran like a dog to his master.  Thom grabbed the huge bucket he had strategically placed across from where the nail trap was laid. He came up behind the Commissioner as his thug threw the spike strip aside and began looking at the ripped tires. 

Thom poured the thick, white paint, weather proofed to be used on the bridgework, over the sputtering Commissioner's head, leaning close to his quickly clogging ear.

"Remember the albino? You made his life a living hell until he ended it here. Care to join him?'

Without another sound, the Ghost shoved the blinded, starkly-white figure toward the edge of the bridge and ordered him to walk forward. The thug stopped his futile efforts to salvage the tires, when he saw the ghostly apparition approaching, moans and gurgled words coming from it. The shots from his gun filled the night. The apparition tumbled backward over the lower railing and into the waters below. 

 Love's trap was sprung. The Ghost faded back into the night smiling at the sound of a heavy splash.