RDP Saturday: playful

Written for RDP, where Punam asks us
 to get creative with the word “playful”.
Thanks, Punam! Here’s where the prompt took me.

Truth be told, I wrote the following story yesterday
and added the word “playful” just now. Enjoy!

The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre

The warehouse stank of motor oil and something darker. Detective Tom O’Riley crushed his cigarette under his heel and pushed through the crowd of uniforms already turning green.

Seven bodies lined the brick wall like discarded puppets. Execution style. Clean. Professional. The kind of work that made your blood run cold even when you’d seen it all.

“Capone’s boys,” his partner muttered, lighting a Lucky Strike with shaking hands.

O’Riley knelt beside the nearest corpse. The wall behind them was painted red, bullet holes pocking the brick like smallpox scars. These men …. Moran’s crew …. had been lined up, disarmed, and cut down like wheat. The killers had worn police uniforms. Walked right in. The victims probably died confused, thinking they were being pinched for bootlegging.

Instead, they got Tommy guns and the big sleep.

“Valentine’s Day,” O’Riley said, bitter as ash. “Real romantic.”

He knew what would happen next. Nothing. The witnesses would develop amnesia. The evidence would disappear. Capone would be in Florida, untouchable, grinning at the morning papers over eggs and coffee while his playful female companion fed him grapes.

Seven men dead in a Clark Street garage, and Chicago would keep spinning, keep bleeding, keep drowning in bathtub gin and corruption.

O’Riley stood, his knees protesting. He’d write the report. File it away. Maybe take a long pull from the flask in his desk drawer.

In this city, justice was just another racket. And business was always good.

NAR©2026

This is “My Kind Of Town” by Frank Sinatra

RDP SATURDAY: PLAYFUL

All text and graphics are copyright for Nancy Richy and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.