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//Author’s Notes: Written in 2014. A challenge and inspiration to take a poppy tune and write it into a noir crime story.
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We got to the speakeasy at midnight. Our man on the inside had the back door cracked for us, much simpler than trying to steal a key. We weren’t about to pay the steep price they charged at the door. We’re self important people, not the sleazy “VIP”s that formed the normal clientele of the White Flamingo.

As the crew stepped in, our inside guy handed me a shot of the stuff that Houghman was serving the gangsters and flappers in his club. It was fruity and sweet, the kind of drink that goes down too easy and too fast, getting the ‘guests’ nice and toasted nice and fast. We started moving towards the club proper, and I noticed the doorman hanging back.

“You’re one of us.” I motioned him forward, and once we were all stacked at the rear entrance to the dance floor, I kicked the door open. People were startled, but they only started to panic when we turned off the overhead lights and one of my men shot the phonograph. “Alright, ladies and gents. Tonight, we’re taking over, and no one’s getting out.”

Another of my guys produced our trump card: a bundle of dynamite, enough to collapse the entire building. In case anyone thought we might have been bluffing, he pulled out his Wonderlite at my nod and struck a flame inches from the TNT, driving home the seriousness of our intent.

The muted panic began to cede to silent terror, until one flapper had the idiotic gall to ask “Now what?” I looked her in the eyes as I repeated the question back to her. Then I took my revolver from its holster. People didn’t know what to make of me, this five foot nine blonde with a gun in her hand and crime on her mind. The confusion solidified into stark fear when I put the barrel to the temple of the dumb broad stupid enough to talk back.

“We’re taking control. We get what we want…” the sharp pop of my pistol punctuated the pause. “Because we do what you won’t.” People screamed. The flapper’s corpse landed on the packed dirt dance floor, the glitter on her body fluttering to rest with her. The people here were used to an older class of criminal, the gentleman gangster. Not maniacs like us — pretty and sick, young and bored.

The crowd lost it. Panic set in. All people are crazy — some just manage it most of the time. Seeing how far we were willing to go, they let their crazy out. We took note of the few who kept their cool, names of those who might be of use to us after the night’s festivities came to a close.

“See?” I shouted above the din. “We don’t mess around.” People went insane, glitter falling like drops from a cloud of screams, men and women trampling each other trying to escape. I fired a warning shot into the ceiling. “Let me see your hands!” Most complied — I repeated the command, and people finally understood that it was no longer themselves, the gangsters, or even the law that controlled them. It was me.

“We’re taking over. Get used to it.”