On August 30, 1934, at around two thirty in the afternoon, Eddie “Pretty Boy” Van Sant, the last living member of the John Dillinger gang, was shot dead by the police in a blind alley near Marion Street and University Avenue in St. Paul. The newspapers said he had been betrayed by fellow gangsters for trying to collect his share of the loot from the Security National Bank Robbery in Sioux Falls. Eyewitnesses told how the St. Paul police, armed with sawed-off shotguns and machine guns began firing at Van Sant after he exited an auto dealership wearing a blue serge suit and a straw hat. At the following Sunday dinner at Auntie George’s, though it might have been more proper to dissect Pastor Whitmore’s sermon, the shooting of Eddie Van Sant was the first topic of conversation.

Two of the younger aunties were there that Sunday with their husbands, so Auntie George had brought a folding table into the dining room for Ignatius and the three youngest girls.

Auntie Roberta said, “It’s convenient for the police Van Sant won’t be testifying in court.”

“What can you mean by that?” said Will.

“Well, it’s common knowledge that the St. Paul police are in cahoots with the gangsters. The cops get a percentage of every bank robbery in return for protection.”

“I can’t believe that,” said Will, “If the police were in cahoots with the gangsters, why would they have tried to apprehend this man in the first place?”

“Since the Feds gunned down Dillinger last month in Indiana, Van Sant’s got no more friends left in the mob,” said Roberta, “The papers say he tried to collect on some old debts from ‘Dutch’ Sawyer, the head of the local syndicate in St. Paul. Sawyer got mad and turned him in to the police just to get him out of the way. One of the officers who shot him – Tom Brown, the former police chief – why, he’s under investigation. They say he got an $8,000 cut when Dillinger’s gang kidnapped that rich banker, that Bremer guy. It’s obvious why he’d want Van Sant out of the way.”

There was an uncomfortable silence around the table.

“Well, you certainly seem to be more well read on the doings of gangsters than I am,” sighed George, “Please pass the butter.”

“Well, I say if the police are involved in all of that, it’s a shame,” said Auntie Geraldine, taking a sip of water and nibbling on her mashed potatoes.

“I just can’t believe that,” said Will, shaking her head, “They say that the Twin Cities have the lowest crime rate in the country. How could that be true if the police are in cahoots with the gangsters?”

“No, it’s true,” chimed in Ignatius’ older sister Christine from the kids’ table, “I read it in True Crime. The FBI refuses to work with the St. Paul police, because they’re all corrupt, to a man.”

“Christine, since when have you been taking an interest in that kind of rubbish?” George scolded, “I shall really have to pay closer attention to what you’re reading.”

Christine blushed, “A friend of mine at school let me borrow it.”

George frowned.

Roberta continued, seeming to relish provoking her older sisters. “I say, who is the worse, the bandits who take some money out of the pockets of rich bankers, or the bankers who ruin the lives of thousands of hard-working people by putting them out of their homes or their farms, after they’ve lost their livelihood, and the stock market’s turned their life savings to ashes?”

Will shifted in her seat and cleared her throat before answering, “Well, I still say ‘two wrongs don’t make a right.’ And anyway, John Dillinger was no Robin Hood. What about all the innocent people who’ve been killed, just because they got in the way?”

Ignatius had read a story in the papers a few weeks back, about how John Dillinger and his gang had hijacked a car during a getaway in Hastings. As he asked the car’s owner, his wife and their little daughter to get out, Dillinger had been quite polite about it, saying, “I’m sorry, but I’ll need to borrow your car.” He actually apologized for scaring the little girl, assuring them, “Your daughter is quite safe – I have a boy of my own.” The police recovered the car a few days later in Chicago in perfect condition, with a ‘thank you’ note from the thieves to the family they had taken it from. Ignatius wondered about people losing their farms or homes to the banks, and in his mind that seemed worse than having a car borrowed – even at gunpoint. And he wondered about how it weighs in the grand scheme of things when evil men act decently, while decent men act evilly. But he decided this was no time to ask his aunties what they thought about it.

“Well, I’m not saying the killing is all right,” sighed Roberta, lowering her eyes a bit. “I’m just saying, who’s more right?”

Ernest Wick cleared his throat noisily and growled, glaring around the table, “Let’s change the subject. It’s Sunday dinner for Christ’s sake, let’s not ruin it by dwelling on low-life bank robbers, bootleggers, and cut throats! For Christ’s sake!”

So after a moment of silence, George sighed, “Ignatius, tell us what you learned in Sunday School this morning…”

Ignatius was a bit ashamed of the fact that what fascinated him most about the Van Sant case was the fate of the body. He read avidly what he could about it from the papers. The first blast from the sawed-off shotgun of Officer Tom Brown had not killed Van Sant, as, according to eyewitnesses, he was still trying to aim his gun when the pursuing officers riddled his body with over fifty more bullets. His hand was mangled by machine gun fire, and they found his revolver more than twenty feet away from his corpse, knocked away by the burst of fire that killed him.

Photos of the scene shortly after the shooting showed dozens of St. Paul passers-by grinning as they crowded around the corpse. Gawkers soaked their handkerchiefs in the pool of blood on the street for souvenirs of the Dillinger gang member. A Minneapolis Daily photographer, disappointed that the cadaver had already been removed by the time he arrived at the scene, improvised by covering himself with a sheet, lying down in Van Sant’s blood, and having an assistant photograph him. The photographer apparently caused a few screams of fright from passers-by who arrived after he did when he threw off the sheet and leaped to his feet again.

Ignatius had secretly torn a page from the Penny Press, where he found a photo of Van Sant’s corpse as it lay in the morgue, with smiling police officers posed around their trophy. He folded the page and stuffed it into his Bible, where he occasionally stole glances at it. Though spattered with blood, Van Sant looked like he could be waking up, his eyes half open and his lips trying to speak. How could a man be dead and look like that in a photo?

It seemed wrong to gloat like that over a dead man, even a dead gangster, so Ignatius actually kept his questions about it to himself when he saw Samael the next day. But Samael had a curious look in his eye, a half-smile, as if he knew something.

“You wanted to know about life and death and what is beyond?” said Samael.

Ignatius nodded.

“Then there is something I must show you,” he replied.

Ignatius felt a strange excitement when Samael told him they must meet at night at Lakewood Cemetery on the south side of town. Ignatius prepared his escape by stashing a spare set of clothes under his bed and keeping a flashlight under his pillow. Staying awake until after his father had finished his late-night puttering about was not a problem. Ignatius was too excited not still to be wide awake when the hallway light shining through the cracks of his bedroom door finally flickered out. He listened to floorboards creaking under heavy footfalls and bedsprings crying out under his father’s weight. The old man gasped and sighed and the bed complained loudly and long under his tossing and turning, until all finally gave way to blessed silence. Ignatius periodically checked his watch with the flashlight to make sure he had waited a full fifteen minutes after the last noise. Only then did he slide out of bed, pull on his clothes, and creep ever so carefully out of his room and down the stairs. He eased the mudroom door closed to shelter his father’s ears from the sound of the back door opening and closing, and did not mount his bicycle until he had walked a block or so away, where the clackety-clack of the chains would be out of earshot of the house.

The dark, empty streets gliding past as he rode his bike seemed mournful and surreal. Houses were lightless and asleep, except for an occasional dwelling where yellow light shone out of a single open eye or a stray argument tumbled down an alley. The early September air was unusually chilly, but Ignatius liked the feel of it on his face as he rode down the middle of the streets, alone and free. He found the cemetery gates locked, with a sign announcing they were closed to the public after dusk. Willow trees and bushes were transformed by the moonless night into unruly mounds of shadow. Visible at some distance from the entrance, a sole, dim yellow lamp mounted in front of the main office futilely defied the night. Otherwise the grounds were utterly swathed in gloom. Ignatius anxiously studied the darkness, wondering how Samael planned to meet him here, when a white face emerged unexpectedly from the shadows.

“You startled me!” Ignatius gasped.

With the flicker of a smile, Samael simply nodded and, without the slightest creak of the hinges, opened the gate just enough for Ignatius to slip through. Had it not been locked after all, or was this more angel magic? Samael looked different that night, his face less imperfect, his skin pale. He came wrapped in a long, black overcoat covering everything but his face. Ignatius was confused at first when Samael reached out for his hand. He did not quite understand the gesture.

But as soon as Ignatius took Samael’s hand, he saw the night transformed. The sky, which had seemed dingy and burnt around the edges by city lights, whose dullness had barely been nicked by the smattering of dimly flickering stars, was suddenly aglow with starlight every color of the rainbow, rippling like the northern lights. The trees, the grass, the soil, the roads, the stones and monuments were all luminescent. Everything shone with its own amethyst, gold, and emerald light, unearthly and dreamlike. All around them in the air, will-o’-the-wisp-like lights flashed and flickered. Ignatius looked down at his hands and saw rainbow light shining from underneath the flesh, as though the inside of him was glowing. Samael himself was changed into a being of pure white light above and impenetrable shadow below, blinding if Ignatius tried to look him in the eyes.

Ignatius heard Samael speaking to him, but he was no longer sure that he was actually hearing him with his ears so much as simply knowing what was being said, like in a dream. “We want to go there,” whispered Samael, aiming his finger at some point toward the far edge of the cemetery.

And suddenly, they were there, at the side of a fresh grave.

Ignatius noticed that the will-o’-the-wisps had faces.

“What are those?” he gasped.

“Spirits,” replied Samael.

“Ghosts?”

“Don’t be afraid,” Samael continued, “They have not passed through the gate and cannot hurt you. But there is one other yet I wanted you to see. It is why we have come here on this particular night.” Samael did not explain what that meant or what they were looking for. But suddenly Ignatius saw a withered, charred-looking spirit not far from where they were standing, creeping crab-like toward the grave. Ignatius instinctively started away from it as it turned its face up toward him with a look of anguish and stupid hate.

“Remember what it looks like. This one won’t stop until it has passed through the gate,” whispered Samael.

All the while staring uneasily at Ignatius and Samael through half-closed eyes, the spirit slowly disappeared from view, seeping into the grave. There was something about it that was familiar, something that triggered an ineffable memory. He struggled to remember, and then it came to him. He had seen that face in the Penny Press photo of the body in the morgue.

Ignatius looked down and saw the name on the newly engraved plaque above the mound of fresh earth. It read “Edward Van Sant, 1902 – 1934.”

“What gate is it passing through,” asked Ignatius, “that it should not?”

“The gate between death and life.”