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165 pages

English

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Eddie Madison had just moved into his new house when the ghost of Al Capone shot into his living room.Would Al be a bad influence on Casey, his ten-year-old son? Would he be an immoral challenge to Kate, his social worker wife? And what about Eddie.? Would he begin to change his world view under Al's malign influence?What did Al want?Whatever it was, Eddie thought he could handle him.But could he?A satire on social workers, gangsters, bad crime novels, and sex and violence.

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Publié par	eBook Versions
Date de parution	04 août 2014
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781843963127
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0180€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published 2014
by Book Demon Publishing

Copyright © 2014 Alan Ford

Alan Ford has asserted his
right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
to be identified as the author
of this work.

ISBN 978-1-84396-312-7

Also available in paperback
ISBN 978-1-50024-173-5

A CIP catalogue record for
this book is available from
the British Library.

eBook edition production
www.ebookversions.com

All rights reserved. No
part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system or transmitted
in any form or by any means electronic,
photomechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior written
permission of the publisher. Any person
who does any unauthorised act in relation
to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution.
AL
CAPONE S
GHOST

Alan Ford

BOOK DEMON PUBLISHING
Contents

Cover
Copyright Credits
Title Page

PART ONE - The Arrival
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen

PART TWO - The Gathering
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four

PART THREE - The Departure
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine

Also by Alan Ford...
PART ONE

The Arrival
Chapter One

Al Capone did notdie in Chicago. He died in a villa in Florida. But Eddie Madison did not knowthis. How could he? He wasn t an historian, a gangster, an academic or a knowall. He was a writer of comic crime novels. Not exactly Agatha Christie, butnot Mickey Spillane either. For him crime was funny. It was peopled with comic toughguys, lunatics and losers.
Thisdid not bode well for his future.
Butright now he was standing outside Al s villa. The place was old but it didn tlook like a house that was haunted. There was no gothic, no towers that loomedthreateningly overhead. No one heard an organ playing dramatic music. Therewere no mysterious dark corners. No one, no matter how visionary, had everimagined that a dead soul lurked here.
Evenso it didn t look the same as it did in 1946 when Al had died. Then it waslived in. Smoke curled innocently out of the chimney. The grounds were surroundedby a white picket fence to give an illusion of respectability. In this house Alwas no longer a gangster, he was a respectable citizen. He said hi to theneighbours. He gave the local kids a buck to clean his car. If the cops weregetting on his case in Chicago he took his holidays here.
Now,though, time had done its worst. A broken cobweb hung over the letter box. Thechimney had an empty Blackbirds nest in it. There were whole strips of paintmissing and the windows were caked solid with dust. But even if Eddie couldhave seen through them he would not have seen the history of the house.
Noone knew it. No one except the realtor who sold him the house. And he was nottalking. It had been on the market for so long he had been rendered financiallyspeechless.
Naturallyif he had given the house an historical scratch Eddie might have seen theoccasional suspicious looking visitor. Once in a while he might have noticed aninquisitive police patrol car go by. In the garage he may have found a BuickCoupe or a Ford Sedan. But that was not his fault. Who researches the historyof a house? If the surveyor says it s not about to fall down you move in.
Kate,Eddie s wife, viewed it idealistically.
It swonderful, she said, her eyes shining.
Eddiegrunted. No romantic him. Kate had been the main mover. All he had wanted wassomewhere quiet to laze around in. Given that, he thought it best if he fadedinto the background for a while. So he lounged around in the kitchen while Katesupervised the removal men.
Whenthey had gone, Casey, their ten year old son, struggled into the living roomburied under a large box. Eddie followed him holding a small box in one hand. Caseydumped his in a corner and straightened up.
Eddiethrew his box to him in a bonding exercise. It whizzed back and forth, eachtrying to make the other drop it. They didn t want Kate to join in. In Eddie sfantasy world keeping her at bay was a strike against motherhood. In thedomestic war against mothers you had to close her out. She couldn t be a partof the ritual. But Casey, with only a ten-year-old s appreciation of thebattlefield, fouled up. He spun around and threw the box to her as she enteredthe room.
Shesnatched at it, surprised, and dropped it onto the floor. A valuable antiqueclock inside made an ominous cracking sound.
Eddiethrew her a disapproving look. Now look at what you ve done.

Once everything wasunpacked they took a break. The coffee tasted good. But the silence wasunusual. It seemed unreal, unnatural. It was not a pregnant silence as ifsomething was about to happen. It was the kind of silence people feel whensomething is missing.
Absence.
Where sCasey? Kate said.
Onsearch patrol.
What?
Hetried to reassure her. The last time he had seen him he was hanging from a beamin the attic. He distinctly remembered his fingers had gone white with thepressure. In fact he had expected him to fall at any second. But he was nothingif not a battler. He had hung on and rocked back and forth. Then he had thrownhis legs over another beam. But he had been too ambitious. Now he was sure hewould fall and break a leg. And then…
Oh,heavens! Kate said. Why didn t you stop him?
Eddiesmiled. She was thirty-two years old, a year older than him, and she stilldidn t understand the male psyche. Casey needed a beam to climb. Heneeded to plant some broken glass under the wheel of a cop s patrol car. He neededto experiment with fireworks. Throwing a Molotov cocktail into a neighbour sgarden shed was only natural. Life meant more than being girly over a boy band.
Hetold her that.
That sunadulterated gender stereotyping, Kate said.
Eddiesmiled again. She still didn t get it. Casey had never overstepped the mark.The cops had only called around twice. The swat team had got tooled up forabsolutely nothing.
Kategave up on getting a sensible explanation. She rushed from the room and ran uptwo flights of stairs. And there he was. His feet were hanging down from theattic trapdoor.
Come down at once. And be careful.
He lowered himself until he was hanging by his hands.Then he jumped down onto the landing. His face and clothes were covered in dustand streaky marks. There was a rip in his new jeans. And something with severallegs and bulbous eyes was crawling over his white T-shirt.
Justlook at you.
Yeah,I could have got dirty.

DownstairsEddie was unpacking a crate of books. He took out two paperbacks with his photographon the back covers. He shelved them looking pleased with himself. The titleswere Dead Dames Don t Talk and Death of a Loan Shark.
Kate then looked in.
So he picked up a book from the box with her name andphoto on it. The title was Social Work for Dummies. He held it up.
Thisone s not so hot.
She tookit from him and placed it on the shelf, her photo facing outwards. This one sa literary masterpiece so eat your heart out.
Shegave him a peck on the cheek and left for work. When he heard the front door closebehind her he pushed her book to the back of the shelf. Then he placed one ofhis books in front of it.
Huh! Let s get everything in proportion.

Eddie spent the daythinking about writing. At one point he went out and bought a hamburger. Butthat didn t give him any ideas apart from eating it. It was not, he decided, acreative nibble. Even the fridge, usually a reliable ally, was empty of both foodand inspiration.
Sohe spent some time peering through a clear patch in a dusty window. But he soongave that up and wandered around checking if there were any other patches hecould see through. But there were none. So he wandered about waving a cloth atthe dust. But that was a total failure. Despite his best efforts it didn t flyup and attach itself to the cloth. Then, getting a bit discouraged, he went ona tour of the house and looked at the dust that had accumulated elsewhere. Hemade a mental note of where it was and how thick it was. Then he spent sometime looking at grimy things. There were quite a few of these: a heavilystained bath, grungy taps, greasy carpets in the bedrooms, and cupboards linedwith yellowing newspapers in the kitchen. But that was okay. He could rememberwhere they were. Satisfied he had identified the worst of them he rested for awhile.
Katewould clean the house up when she got home from work.
Hewas looking blankly at the wall when she arrived.
Goodday? she said.
Hegave her his best glower. As glowers went it stopped short of being a superglower. It would not have won Glower of the Year, but for all that it wasconsiderably better than average.
Terrific.
Samehere. In the morning I persuaded an alcoholic to poor his liquor down the sink.I had hardly got over this triumph when I repaired a broken marriage.
Whatdid you do in the afternoon?
Iglowed.
Huh.I suppose you ll be going for Social Worker of the year next?
Imight.
Thatwas typical of her, he thought. She thought the world was a chaotic mess butone that had been created especially for her. So she could get to grips withit. So she could shape it more to her liking. So she could change old into new,render despair into hope. In a world of doubt and uncertainty she was a problemsolver.
Eddiewas a problem creator. Even Google annoyed him. He would enter bizarreques