27.
To Avenge Her Death
Cleveland Heights
Tuesday, 13 August 1929
10:30 a.m.
Cockran told Hasim everything as they sat in the suite’s living room. Beginning with Nora’s and Devoy’s murders and ending with the Westwoods and Sheila.
“I need your help, old friend. I can‘t stay here. If my enemies can buy the Feds, they can also buy the police in Cleveland. I must go to Chicago. That‘s where I‘ll find them and make them pay for what they did to Sheila.”
Hasim nodded sympathetically. “You are correct. The services of call girls in Cleveland are more expensive than the police. What is it you wish me to do?”
“I need you to do two things. I must make one long distance telephone call, preferably from your private office and not from this room. It will only take a few minutes. Then, I’ll take a taxi to Union Terminal. If you could wait until I leave to call the police, I’d appreciate it.”
“No problem, my friend. You and I will return to my office by way of the service stairs. The maid will have cleaned all the rooms on this floor before noon. I will wait for her to discover the body and report it to me. Then I will notify the police.” Hasim motioned towards the door. “We should leave now, before the maid arrives.”
A few minutes later, Hasim opened the wall safe in his office, hidden behind the polished mahogany paneling and produced from inside it a bottle of Jameson’s Irish whiskey. He poured the whiskey into two coffee cups already two-thirds full with the same sweet thick brew with which he had greeted Cockran two days earlier. Cockran raised an eyebrow and gave Hasim a quizzical glance. Hasim shrugged his shoulders. “It’s the government’s fault,” he explained. “I never drank before Prohibition except on ceremonial occasions when I did not wish to offend my hosts. But when the authorities said that I couldn‘t drink at all, it became a matter of principle. We could both use a stiff drink right now,” he said and raised his cup. “To Miss Greene. May she find eternal peace and salvation and may you take your revenge upon the evil ones who have committed this horrible crime. Now, my friend, what is the second thing you wish of me?”
“Thank you, Hasim. The other favor I have to ask will be more painful. Sheila’s father knows I was here and knows that Sheila has met with me. I don’t believe he knows she was with me inside the warehouse. She stayed in my suite last night because she didn’t want her father to know that she had been in danger. What I can’t take the time to do and what I need you to do is to personally tell Mr. Greene of his daughter’s death; why I believe the IRA was responsible; and why I have gone to Chicago to avenge her death.”
Cockran paused, coffee cup in hand and looked up at Hasim. “I know it’s a lot to ask. Will you do this for me?”
“But of course I will, Bourke,” Hasim said. “It is a sad duty but I feel an obligation myself as she was a guest in my establishment where she should have been safe from harm.”
Cockran had the hotel switchboard track down Bill Donovan at his New York office. Cockran described the events of the night before, omitting only Sheila’s name and the graphic details, focusing instead on Sean Russell and the dead Commerce Department agent.
“The devil, you say! The Commerce Department? My god, Bourke, that’s at least four murders you’ve been close to. I’m a hell of a lawyer, but there’s only so much I can do.”
“What you can do,” Cockran said, “is find out who that federal agent was and why he was out there last night. The arms were there, Colonel, and so was McBride.”
Cockran looked up. Hasim was back, making urgent gestures of haste. “I’ve got to leave, Bill. I’ll call you again when I get where I’m going,” Cockran said and hung up..
“What is it, Hasim?”
“You must go! Quickly. The police are here. Someone must have called them.”
“Were they looking for me,” Cockran asked.
“Not by name. They asked who was registered in your room and I gave the name you used when you checked in. I also gave them a description which should draw suspicion away from you unless you lose six inches in height, gain fifty pounds and dye your hair black.”
Cockran smiled. “I am once more in your debt, Hasim. Do you think it’s safe for me to leave through the lobby and take a taxi?”
“There’s no need to take that risk. My driver is waiting for you in the garage. He’ll take you to the station. Here,” he said, pointing to the corner, “take my private elevator.”
“Thanks. Also, would you be so kind as to fetch from your safe those leather journals I left with you yesterday? They’re part of this somehow and I need to study them some more.”
Hasim did so and Cockran walked over to the corner where Hasim pressed a button and an entire section of wood paneling swung out to reveal behind it a small three-person Otis elevator. Hasim’s bulk, however, would have made for uncomfortably close quarters had he and Cockran been joined by a third person. In the garage, Hasim embraced Cockran in a bear hug.
Twenty minutes later, Hasim’s driver dropped Cockran off at Union Station beneath Terminal Tower with a half hour to spare. No one had appeared to be following them and he observed no one now as he purchased his ticket and started walking toward Track 18. On the way, he stepped into a phone booth, closed the door and placed a call to William Fitzgerald, a commodities trader in Chicago and a friend of John Devoy. Devoy’s name overcame the trader’s initial reluctance as did the name of Cockran’s father whom Fitzgerald said he had met at the 1920 Democratic convention. Fitzgerald wasn’t sure he had sufficient contacts at First Union Trust to find out as much as Cockran had learned in Cleveland but he promised to try his best. He also agreed to call in a marker with the alderman for the warehouse district and see what he could dig up on recent shipments received by bonded warehouses.
Sitting in his Pullman compartment, Cockran thought again of McBride. Calmly now. He looked at the Webley in its holster, propped against a pillow on the bed. He hadn’t felt this way since his trip out west, seven years earlier, on the hunt for the unholy trinity. He had felt this way in the war. A quiet, deadly calm. Most men weren‘t nearly as bloodthirsty as former pacifists like his father believed them to be. At least not up close. It was true on both sides. Most of the dead and wounded in the Great War were hit by artillery fire and grenades, not by men who could look them in the eye when they shot them or hear their screams when a bayonet pierced their bellies. All the Apostles Michael Collins had recruited could do that.
So could Cockran. Not all men could. Cockran had been surprised to find that few soldiers in his unit ever fired their weapons in battle, barely ten per cent. After the war, he learned it was not uncommon. But it wasn‘t because those who wouldn‘t shoot were cowards. Maybe a few were but he had seen too many acts of courage and heroism from most of them to believe it. Cockran also discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that he had no qualms himself about killing other men—at long range with a rifle, short range with his .45 automatic, or a knife thrust into a sentry‘s kidney. Killing wasn‘t something he enjoyed, just something, given the situation, he knew he could do and did. He didn‘t know why. It didn‘t make him better. Just different. It was something most men didn‘t talk about.
28.
Another Hearst Publisher?
Chicago
Tuesday, 13 August 1929
7:30 p.m.
Bill Fitzgerald was a tall, red-faced, white-haired, blue-eyed Irishman in his late fifties, his face creased in a perpetual smile. Cockran sat with him in the dining room of the Yale Club. Fitzgerald wore a tailored gray chalk striped suit whose vest concealed a well-rounded stomach.
“You look just like a younger version of your father. The last time I saw him was at the Democrats‘ convention in 1920. Those were grand times. We had both parties lined up, I tell you. Self-determination for Ireland. I never saw John Devoy so mad as when Dev came in with his own plank. Split our delegation right down the middle. Not even your father’s silver
tongue could pull that one out. But enough about the old days, boyo. Let’s get down to your business.”
Fitzgerald described his efforts in detail but his contacts at First Union Trust had been unable to verify if checks had been drawn. All he found was the name on the account: Andrew Sinclair, the publisher of the Chicago American, another Hearst paper.
Cockran absorbed the detail and considered its significance. Another Hearst publisher? The hand of his old boss had turned up a second time. Well, not really his boss. He had never met Hearst personally. But regardless of who signed their weekly paychecks, every Hearst employee knew who he worked for. The Chief. Cockran couldn’t conceive of how any publishers working for Hearst would dare to handle sums this large behind his back. First Westwood, the publisher of the Hearst paper in Cleveland, and now Hearst’s publisher in Chicago. It couldn’t be a coincidence, Cockran thought, and it wouldn’t be the first war Hearst had helped drum up.
Cockran pushed the thought away. “What about warehouses? Any luck there?”
Fitzgerald shook his large head slowly from side to side. “No luck at all. There are just too many bonded warehouses in Chicago. Maybe ten years ago our intelligence would have been good enough but not today. Now, it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. Here,” said Fitzgerald, handing Cockran a sheet of paper, “are five warehouses which meet the criteria you gave me. Bonded. Space leased within the last month. Shipments arriving daily. But there easily could be three or four times as many that I haven’t been able to track down. I’m sorry.”
Damn! Five warehouses. Too many to stake out. Maybe the Hearst publisher could help.
“Do you think you can arrange a meeting for me with Mr. Sinclair?”
Again, the large head moved sadly from side to side. “I’m a rich man, Bourke. But I’m just a trader and my money’s far too new to mingle with the likes of Mr. Sinclair and his ilk. They have their own country clubs. We have ours. The Jews have theirs. We don’t mix. Hell, boy, I wouldn’t even be here at the Yale Club if I hadn’t played football.”
“That stuff only happened to me when I tried to date their Protestant daughters. Pop said it never happened to him and he married two of them.”
“Ah, but your father was different. A natural aristocrat. Spoke French and Italian like a native. Traveled to Europe twice a year. A wiser man I never met. Not an average Mick like me.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” Cockran paused, touched, and not for the first time, that his father had meant so much to so many others. “Might you be able to acquire for me a Chicago police detective‘s shield for the use of an afternoon and identification to go with it?”
Fitzgerald grinned widely and took a sip of Irish whiskey from the coffee cup beside him. “Blessed be, Bourke, this is Chicago. For a price, anything is possible when it comes to the police or public officials. From the Mayor right on up to the highest-priced call girl on Lake Michigan‘s Gold Coast. A detective’s badge falls somewhere in between. I’ll have it delivered to your hotel.”
Cockran reached inside his suit coat for his billfold. “How much will it be?”
Fitzgerald held up a pudgy, well-manicured hand. “Put that away. Your money’s no good with me. ‘Tis the least I can do to help you stop the bastards that killed John Devoy.”
9:45 p.m.
“Is that you, Winston? This is Bourke,” Cockran said loudly into the phone. “We must have a bad connection.” Cockran was in his room at the Drake looking out at Michigan Avenue.
“No, dear boy, I can hear you clearly. It must be problems from your end.”
Cockran smiled as the static broke up Churchill’s voice. Churchill never had problems. It was always somebody else who did even if the Bell System in Chicago surely had more modern phones than the ones Bell shipped to Manitoba or wherever the hell Churchill was.
Cockran then told Churchill what he had learned both in Cleveland and Chicago about the bank accounts and the role of the two Hearst publishers in Cleveland and Chicago as well as the murder of the former. He further explained his inability to pinpoint a warehouse location in Chicago as he had been lucky enough to do in Cleveland. “I intend to start looking at those five warehouses after I visit this Sinclair, the Hearst publisher, tomorrow but I don’t hold out much hope. There are just too many warehouses in Chicago.”
Churchill’s static-laden voice filled his ear. “Leave that to Smythe.”
“What?” Cockran said. “I didn’t catch that. Please say again.”
“I said, leave it to Smythe. He and two of his men are in Chicago. They’re staying at the Palmer House. Go see him tomorrow morning. Give him the information about the five warehouses. See what he can do. You concentrate on Mr. Sinclair. That looks far more promising.”
Cockran next told Churchill about Sheila’s death and what she overheard between McBride and Sean Russell. Blackthorn. The Collins journals. He was greeted by silence which extended for a good fifteen seconds.
“Winston. Are you still there?”
“Yes,” Churchill responded. “I’m considering what to make of this new information.”
Another fifteen seconds of silence and then Churchill spoke again.
“When you report to Smythe, tell him this as well. Maybe he will have some insight we don’t.”
Churchill paused a moment and then continued. “One other thing, Bourke. Keep to yourself what you’ve learned about the two publishers. Smythe doesn’t need to know. He has what I would call a much more limited view of the scope of our mission. Call me after you’ve talked with Sinclair. It may be just what I need to persuade Ramsay to authorize a more robust interpretation of what I am permitted to do. Letting Smythe know as much as I do would not be helpful in persuading Ramsay to change his mind. The more I can learn on my own, the better my chances with the P.M.”
29.
Blackthorn
Chicago
Tuesday, 14 August 1929
10:00 p.m.
The message had been waiting for McBride when he checked into his hotel after arriving from Cleveland. He placed the telephone call at once. It was short and cryptic. Like the earlier call in Cleveland, all the current IRA codes had been used correctly. But it was the voice which once again persuaded him. Many times that faceless voice had conveyed commands to him during the Civil War. Assassinations. Kidnappings. Bank robberies. Sometimes all three. Even the time they hijacked a mail truck right in the middle of Dublin. McBride knew him only as Blackthorn and had met with him in person on but a few occasions, those always at night, in the shadows. Like it was with the mail truck in Dublin when they intercepted almost all of the Collins‘ journals, all but the ones sent to Cockran‘s father. McBride would not have been able to recognize the man who steered him toward so much murder and mayhem had he passed him on the street. It was entirely in keeping with their relationship, therefore, that Blackthorn had scheduled their meeting here, in the middle of Grant Park, at 10:00 p.m.
McBride paused now, as directed, between two lamp posts which illuminated the path, lit a cigarette and proceeded on his way. Moments later, McBride was startled to feel the pressure of a hand grasp his right elbow. Whoever it was had moved as silently as the rest of the night.
“Welcome to America, Thomas,” the hard Belfast-accented voice said. “Dev sends his regards. Are you making good use of our money?”
“Blackthorn!” McBride gasped.
Blackthorn smiled in the darkness, his face obscured by a fedora pulled low. The smile was all McBride could see. “I haven‘t heard that name in years but, yes, it will do nicely. Look straight ahead. The rules haven‘t changed.”
McBride turned away so that his back was to Blackthorn. He‘d never gotten a good look at the man in all the time he‘d worked for him during the battle against the Brits and later the Free State. “ And your answer about our money?” Blackthorn asked.
“Fine. Things are fine. No problems. A big shipment left Cleveland yesterday. The one from Chicago is being loa
ded now. After inspection, I‘ll authorize checks. Just like Cleveland.”
“Fine. There‘s a good lad. And the other matter Dev asked you to look into?”
“You mean the journals….”
“The same,” Blackthorn replied.
“I‘ve had no luck with the journals. Not at the big house on Long Island or at his law school office. Nor his New York townhouse or the apartment in Cleveland. Nothing.”
“Worse luck,” Blackthorn replied. “Dev had such high hopes.”
“I‘ve never understood why they were so important.”
“You don‘t have to. It‘s enough that I do. Traitors were among us back then and must be exposed.” Blackthorn paused. “Are there any other places you could have looked?”
McBride shook his head.
“I see. Well, do not discount the possibility that Cockran may have the Collins journals with him. I approve now of your efforts to kill him. But, above all, you must find the journals.”
McBride turned his head towards Blackthorn hoping to catch a better look at his face, but the man was nowhere in sight.
30.
Strictly Off The Record
Chicago
Wednesday, 14 August 1929
10:00 a.m.
Cockran disliked David Brooke-Smythe the moment he opened his mouth. His tone was clipped and condescending. Churchill might trust him but that didn’t mean Cockran had to.
The hotel room in which they sat was small and cramped. It had no view. “ Do you think this commodities trader you met with is a sound man?” Smythe asked.
The DeValera Deception Page 17