Did Dummy O’Connell Just Sign His Own Death Warrant?
The Fall of Dummy O'Connell: Part 1 | The Wild Dog
This is Part 1 of a four-part crime saga. Dummy O’Connell thinks he’s on the rise, but Chicago doesn’t crown fools—it buries them.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
A Tommy Gun barked, the drum whirring as it spit lead into the cold night. The muzzle flash lit the night like a lightning storm in hell. Glass exploded—shattered into dust—as bullets ripped through the underground speakeasy’s windows.
The neighborhood panicked.
People ducked, slipped, and scrambled for cover on the icy Downtown Chicago sidewalk. A Buick Master Six screeched around a corner, tires skidding on frozen pavement. The air reeked of burnt powder. The gun smoke cleared just enough to reveal the wild-eyed, grinning face of a sinister killer—Dummy O’Connell.
"Bollocks to ya, Oralie! Yer joint’s nothin’ but a pisspot for rats and gobshites!" Dummy spat, his words slurred with whiskey. He hawked up a thick gob of phlegm and spat toward the wreckage, sneering. Then—just as quickly as they arrived—he and his crew vanished into the night.
Inside the getaway car, Dummy's knuckles whitened around the Thompson's grip. His gloved hand trembled–not from fear, but from adrenaline. The car was freezing, the seats torn and reeking of liquor and stale cigarettes.
“Ey, Connie, we gotta see Mickey,” one of his crew muttered.
"Yeah? What for?" Dummy grunted, still catching his breath.
“Dunno. Think he wants to talk.”
Dummy gritted his teeth. That bastard O’Malley’s ridin’ me arse like I ain't done nothin’ but feckin’ good shite!
BOOM! Click… CLACK… BOOM!
"Feck’s sake, Connie! Look at that scuttery copper an’ his wee pea-shooter!" hollered his crew member.
A beat cop, bogged down in snow, high-stepped after them. His revolver clicked empty—click… clack… clack.
Dummy chuckled, lifting the Thompson. “Hah! Look at this feckin’ gobshite—thinkin’ he’s got a chance.”
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The cop jerked sideways, diving behind a parked Ford as a trail of blood streaked the snow.
Dummy’s crew stared, horrified. The wind whispered through the alley. Silence.
Dummy could hear the blood in his ears. Rushing. Roaring. Pulsating in his ears like distant artillery.
He licked his lips, slumped back, and drained his flask in one go.
Then he grinned—beady-eyed and soulless.
Like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Dummy and the crew finally pulled up to Smitty’s Warehouse, the Buick gliding through the rutted lane, tires crunching over frozen grooves as they rolled into the lot.
Smitty’s was a squared antebellum structure, its weathered bricks drinking in the sun’s fading rays, casting a looming, drab silhouette. Heavy storm shutters clung to each window, their tops arching into smooth curves like ancient gravestones. The sides dropped straight down, meeting a blunt horizontal edge that swallowed the last traces of daylight. By day, they yawned open like gaping mouths; but now, in the dimming afternoon, they clamped shut—sealing the building from prying eyes as the underworld began to stir.
The crew mired through the deep snow, trudging toward the warehouse. At the entrance, they knocked their boots clean, slamming them against the brick. O’Malley would burn like a thousand suns if so much as a flake of snow defiled his sacred establishment.
The narrow interior was dimly lit by hot, buzzing Edison bulbs, casting a dull glow over rows of whisky barrels stacked high on wooden racks. The air hung thick with the scent of aged Irish whisky. The floorboards, dusty and warped, creaked under each step. The corridor stretched ahead—long, narrow, suffocating.
At the far end of the corridor, a half-open door swayed slightly, its hinges groaning under the weight of time. Flickering light spilled through the gap, shadows shifting within. Dummy led the way, stepping cautiously—like a son peeking his head in to see if it was safe to ask his father to go outside and play.
“O’Malley, ya in there, yeah?”
The room stilled.
Three men stood inside—battle-hardened warriors, their faces etched with years of violence. They turned slowly, their cold stares dragging over Dummy, sizing him up.
An imposing giant of a man sat sideways, feet propped on the edge of his thick, heavy wooden desk. His eyes—sharp and calculating—burned with ruthless intent.
Without a word, he abruptly stood, his towering frame casting a shadow over the room. The crew shuddered but forced themselves to stay composed.
He stared—too long, too hard. A slow-moving guillotine waiting to drop. Then, without looking away, he turned slightly toward one of his enforcers.
A short, rotund man with a long handlebar mustache stepped forward, silent and obedient. He frisked the crew—thorough, mechanical, no wasted motion.
Clean.
“Feck ya.” Dummy muttered to himself. Then, out loud:
“Left the heaters in the car, Mr. O’Malley.”
Mickey O’Malley stalked forward, his steps slow and deliberate. He leaned in, nose nearly touching Dummy’s, like a father scolding a wayward son.
“Took yer sweet feckin’ time, didn’t ya, lad?” O’Malley’s voice was a slow, gravelly drawl, thick with old-country Irish roots—but hardened by America.
His eyes burned through Dummy, scorching the back of his skull.
The reek of whiskey hit Dummy’s nose as he spat onto the floor and grinned slightly.
“Got done pumpin’ lead into Oralie’s shite, suh.”
He flashed a crooked smirk, hopin’ he’d said the right thing.
O’Malley wrinkled his nose, the reek of stale liquor and unwashed sweat curling in his nostrils. Disgusting. He had little respect for Dummy—the man was filthy, reckless, and crude.
But he needed him.
For now.
Still, O’Malley tread carefully. He was dealing with a walking feckin’ time bomb.
“Oh, aye? And how many o’Oralie’s men did ya put in the ground?” His tone was flat, expectant.
The door burst open.
A man stumbled in, breathless, jittery—like he had urgent news but feared saying it. His wide, panic-stricken eyes were nearly bulging from his skull, his face drained of color, white as a ghost.
He looked like the world was seconds from ending.
He shoved past Dummy’s crew but stopped short. His face paled. A man walking straight into his own execution.
His gaze snapped to O’Malley, pleading. Waiting for permission to speak.
His mouth hung open, trembling, as if the words sat on the edge of his tongue but refused to leave.
The room held its breath.
“What in o’Christ is the matter with you, Petey?” O’Malley exclaimed with lowered eyes, preparing for the worse but calm in demeanor. Petey swallowed hard, darted a glance at Dummy, then jerked his head toward the corner–urgent, wary, like he knew what was coming. He whispers in O’Malley’s ear. It felt like eternity. O’Malley’s face darkened—red, then nearly purple—like he might drop dead on the spot.
O’Malley turned away, calm as ever, and strode back to his desk.
Then, in a blur of speed and fury, he wrenched open the dresser—yanking out a Thompson.
The barrel swung dead-on at Dummy and his crew.
They flinched hard, stumbling back, hands twitching like they were deciding whether to reach or freeze.
“Whoa, whoa—what the feck, O’Malley?!”
O’Malley’s finger tensed. One twitch away from turning the room into a slaughterhouse.
"Jesus, Mary, an’ Joseph… tell me ya didn’t just do the dumbest feckin’ thing a man can do." O’Malley rumbled, his voice low, heavy—like a storm about to break.
Dummy stayed deadpan.
He ogled the barrel, then slowly lifted his gaze, locking onto O’Malley’s menacing eyes. Unflinching.
He didn’t fear death. Not since his father died in the Great War—not since his whoring, drunken mother tore his world apart.
A flash of a child-like grin flickered across his face, but his voice—low, unhinged, taunting—begged for death to take him.
"Well? We doin’ this or what? They ain’t takin’ me alive."
The room froze.
A deadly silence choked the air, thick and suffocating.
For a moment, the whole universe seemed to stop, time grinding to a halt in the face of Dummy’s defiance.
His crew—already accepting their fate—bowed their heads, muttering quiet prayers.
O’Malley’s cronies edged back, hands twitching, stepping as far from the line of fire as the walls would allow.
But O’Malley?
O’Malley didn’t let men dictate terms to him. He pulled the strings. Always.
O’Malley tightened his grip, knuckles white around the gun. His aim locked onto Dummy’s chest.
He squeezed the trigger.
Dummy’s crew snapped their eyes shut, every muscle seizing. Breath held. Hearts hammering. Waiting for hot lead to tear them open.
Click. A dead trigger. Dummy’s breath hitched.
Dummy’s gut twisted. His breath hitched. His men stood rigid, bracing for the impact that never came.
Silence.
The air hung heavy, thick with the weight of a death that never arrived.
O’Malley’s men slowly uncovered their ears, peeling themselves off the walls.
For a moment, they just stared—stunned, wide-eyed.
The room had been seconds from turning into a slaughterhouse.
Instead—nothing.
The silence settled in, thick and suffocating. Relief flickered in their faces, but so did something else—unease.
They looked at O’Malley like he’d lost his feckin’ mind.
Then, he smirked.
He popped the mag with his thumb–empty. Had been the whole time.
It had been empty the whole time.
He had made a show of it—just to watch them sweat.
O’Malley threw his head back and laughed.
"Hahahahahahahaha!"
It wasn’t just a laugh—it was a grating, unhinged cackle, his jaw shifting unnaturally as his teeth clenched and unclenched like he was chewing on the madness itself.
His men stiffened, uneasy.
They knew that laugh.
That was the sound of a man who didn’t just enjoy power—he enjoyed playing with it.
Then, his grin snapped away.
He fixed Dummy with a stare cold enough to cut glass.
“Yer a wild dog, Dummy. Always bitin’ at the feckin’ leash.” He exhaled, shaking his head like a man tolerating an idiot. “Man’s best friend, ain’t ya?”
A pause.
Then, suddenly, he spat on the floor.
“And I feckin’ hate coppers.”
His tone was almost casual, as if none of this had ever been about the dead officer, the heat, or the gun in his hand.
Dummy was a goner to him—but he wasn’t about to let Dummy know that.
Not yet.
Dummy’s jaw dropped. A nervous chuckle bubbled up—then, forcing it, he laughed harder, swiping a shaky hand down his face.
“Hah! They ain’t never gonna catch me, O’Malley!”
O’Malley tilted his head, watchin’ him like a cat watches a trapped mouse.
“Aye, ya might be right there, kid.” His voice was smooth, damn near friendly.
Then, offhand, like it was nothin’, he added—“But that old copper was one of Russo’s boys.”
The room shifted.
“We gotta put ‘im in the ground tonight ‘fore he comes sniffin’ ‘round an’ fecks with our liquor business.”
O’Malley’s gaze settled on Dummy, steady as a loaded gun.
Like he was handin’ him a crown.
Like Dummy was his golden boy.
Like this was the moment he’d been waitin’ for.
Dummy’s eyes widened.
Feckin’ Mickey’s losin’ his edge.
Why the feck we waitin’ ‘til tonight? Hell, I’ll be boss with a bigger crew ‘fore nightfall.
The thought made his chest swell.
Dummy flashed a grin, wild-eyed, cocky.
“Yea! Yer right! We ain’t waitin’. We goin’ now. Catch ‘em off guard. You can count on me.”
O’Malley didn’t blink.
Dummy’s grin stretched ear to ear. He turned, swaggerin’ toward the door, his crew trailing behind—reluctant, uneasy.
They didn’t know. O’Malley did. And that was enough…
This was just the beginning. Dummy’s got his sights on Russo—but is he making the biggest mistake of his life?
What do you think happens next? Drop your guesses in the comments, and stay tuned for Part 2: “Marching to Hell” dropping next Friday.
Fantastic writing! The dialogue is fast-paced, and the descriptions detailed without dragging. I'm ready for Part 2!
Compelling characters and snappy dialog, Darius. You got me hooked.