Frank laughed and bent her over the front edge of the loading dock, her face flat on the rough wooden surface. Drop the story? Who were these guys working for? She had caught her breath by now and shouted in a loud voice “Let me go, you bastards! Help! Someone help!”
Frank, one big hand in the small of her back holding her down, clamped the other over her mouth, stifling her shouts. When Eddie lifted the back of her coat, she felt the chill night air on her legs followed by Eddie’s big hands on her hips sliding her dress up and realized the lesson he had in mind posed a more immediate problem than the identity of whoever had hired these thugs. Damn it! Where was Hudson?!?
21.
Make Yourself At Home
New York City
Friday, 13 May 1932
COCKRAN tipped the garage attendant and stepped into his Auburn Speedster. He’d spent most of the day and a good portion of the evening in the Wall Street Journal morgue and was pleasantly surprised to find out how much information there was publicly available about Wesley Waterman and a lot of other wealthy individuals as well. The Journal’s morgue was well indexed and many famous names had equally fat files. The family Rockefeller alone had an entire file cabinet. Cockran had filled two legal pads with notes on Waterman holdings which would find its way into the trial record. He had checked in with his secretary at the law firm and Sarah had left a message for him indicating that she was having comparable success at the New York Times morgue. Who would have guessed that Waterman owned a major gun powder company in Cleveland and small arms manufacturers in Connecticut and California?
Cockran turned left and headed uptown on Broadway away from the financial district and lower Manhattan. He wondered how Mattie was doing. She had called him, as promised, the last two nights. She had sounded in better spirits last night when she told him she had a good lead in Cleveland. Caught up in thoughts of Mattie, he did not spot the black Lincoln sedan. It was after 10 p.m. and, while there were no other motorcars on the street, he did not pay particular attention when the Lincoln pulled up abreast of him at a red light. Casually glancing to his right, he saw that the rear window of the car was rolled down. The temperature was in the high thirties and a lowered window was curious. He was turning his head back to focus on the traffic light when he saw movement in his peripheral vision.
It happened in an instant. His head stopped. He looked back and chilled. The ugly but unmistakable snout of a Thompson .45 caliber submachine gun was poking out of the open window. Without hesitation, Cockran slammed the accelerator pedal to the floor and the Auburn shot forward as Cockran heard the chatter of automatic weapons fire and several metallic pings on the rear of his car. Cockran had run a red light but, with no other traffic, he shifted the Auburn smoothly to second, then to third and within a block was at sixty miles per hour, the Lincoln giving chase behind. Ignoring red lights, Cockran began to put distance between himself and the Lincoln. The big black motorcar had a powerful engine also, but the Auburn’s engine at 240 horsepower was equally powerful; the chassis was lighter; and the suspension was more finely tuned. The machine gun kept firing as Cockran accelerated, but he was now a much smaller target than when they were alongside of him. He could still hear the rattle of the machine gun and he instinctively flinched when a lucky shot tore through the rear window and out the windshield. Seconds after that, a shot hit the right rear view mirror, tearing it loose.
Cockran downshifted and turned right onto 23rd, tires screeching as he took the turn at forty miles per hour. The Lincoln had been a block and a half behind. He turned left at Madison Square, sped past the Court of Appeals and hung a right on 27th. He slowed at Park Avenue, looked for traffic on the left and right, and ran another red light. He turned left on Third Avenue and barreled uptown, hoping no police car was patrolling nearby, as he kept the Auburn close to sixty miles per hour. At 57th he turned right, headed over to First Avenue, took another left, pulled into the first available side street, stopped the car and took stock. He had lost the Lincoln.
Cockran figured that if the bastards had followed him from his midtown parking garage down to the Wall Street Journal building, they also probably knew the regular garage he used near his Fifth Avenue townhouse. So prudence dictated that he not park there for the night. He selected one on Second Avenue in the sixties, a good fifteen blocks from his residence.
Cockran tipped the garage attendant and inspected the damage on the Auburn with dismay. Damn it! He might well have to replace the sheet metal on the rear half of the car, not to mention the windshield and the right-hand rear view mirror. This was serious. He needed to find Bobby Sullivan. Someone was going to pay. He made a mental note to increase his final bill to cover the Speedster’s repairs if the court ordered Waterman to pay Ingrid’s legal fees.
COCKRAN cautiously approached his townhouse from the alley behind it, running between East 79th and 80th Street. He pulled his keys from his pocket and unlatched the rear gate, walked through the patio and up a flight of three steps to the rear entrance and froze. The left pane of glass above the door handle had been broken. Someone had gained access to the house and might be waiting for him inside. Cockran tried the doorknob but it was still locked. Rather than shove his hand through the jagged opening, he used his key to unlock the door and silently opened it. He stepped into the kitchen and stopped, alert for noise or movement. He drew his .45 automatic from his shoulder holster and held it beside his thigh, its barrel pointed down. In his stocking feet, he walked from the kitchen into the hallway, moving along the wall. The hallway was dark, the only illumination coming from the clerestory window above the front door. Once he reached the entrance to the dining room, he carefully put his left foot around the corner of the entrance. There were no windows in the darkened dining room. Cockran’s eyes had adjusted to the low light by now, but as he turned to face the interior, he was alert for any movement but saw none. The dining room was empty. He retreated to the hallway and continued along its right-hand side until he reached the sitting room which had windows facing onto Fifth Avenue. He repeated the procedure but the sitting room was also empty. That left one more room to clear — the library — before he headed upstairs.
Cockran moved back to the left-hand side of the hallway when he heard a noise, the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered. He froze.
“And wouldn’t a wise man put his weapon down and step out where I can see him? T’is living and breathing you’d remain. Whereas, I can assure you, a Thompson submachine gun will rip through that wall you’re standing behind like a knife through soft butter.”
Cockran breathed a sigh of relief and laughed. Bobby Sullivan! Kneeling down, he placed his .45 automatic on the floor and shoved it into the entranceway to the library. Then, carefully raising his hands above his head, he stepped slowly into the doorway. “Didn’t your lawyer ever tell you breaking and entering is a felony?” Cockran asked.
Sullivan smiled. “My lawyer couldn’t tell his arse from his elbow,” he said. “Besides, it was an accident. My elbow hit the glass inadvertently. I opened the door to come inside so I could clean up the damage.”
Cockran laughed again. Sullivan was sitting in a leather armchair with the Tommy gun resting comfortably on his lap, a crystal tumbler half full of what had to be Irish whiskey on the side table beside him.
“Make yourself at home. Go ahead, have a drink,” Cockran said.
Sullivan did, lifting the glass to his lips and taking a sip. “The twelve year old Jameson’s is far superior to the eight year old, I would be thinking. Easily the equal of the Black Bush.”
Cockran raised his eyebrows. “Bushmill’s? You drink whiskey made by Protestants?”
“Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then. If I were the king of Ulster, Bushmill’s distillery is one of the few things I’d keep around.”
Cockran moved to turn on a lamp in the library.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Sullivan said.
“Why’s that?”
“Really?”
“Aye. I have a few friends who work for Owney who believe it’s more healthy to stay on my good side than his. Imagine that.”
Cockran grinned. “Yes, imagine.”
“Well, they told me that one of Owney’s customers had ordered a hit on you tonight and paid double to make sure it was his best men. You weren’t at your office, and your secretary wouldn’t tell me where I could find you. I figured they didn’t know either and the only other place they knew you’d be sometime tonight is here. I thought it best if I came over to hold down the fort, so to speak.”
“But what if I’d come in the front way instead of the back?”
Sullivan motioned him over to the window. He saw that Sullivan had placed his chair at such an angle that he would see Cockran approaching from his regular garage before the men waiting in the car, with their backs to Cockran, would have seen him.
“My plan was to open your front door and let the boys in the car see me holding Mr. Thompson’s finest firearm.”
“Do you know who is behind it?” Cockran asked, as if he didn’t know.
“You pissed off one of Owney’s clients the other night. Got a little too friendly with the man’s wife. My friend didn’t know the client’s name but we both know who it is, don’t we now?”
Cockran nodded.
“I think it’s time we took him out,” Sullivan said.
“We?” Cockran asked.
“That was a royal ‘we,’” Sullivan replied. “I assumed an Anglophile like you would understand.” He smiled.
“Aren’t you afraid of what Owney will do?” Cockran asked.
Sullivan didn’t reply for a long time. When he did, he wasn’t smiling. “It’s Owney who should be asking that question about me,” Sullivan said. “So, are my hands untied?”
Cockran shook his head. He knew he was probably Sullivan’s closest friend but they didn’t share all the same values. Sullivan was an eye for an eye man, the law be damned. Cockran, on the other hand, was willing to give the law a chance to do the right thing. Once.
Cockran shook his head. “No, Bobby, not yet. This isn’t Germany, like last summer, where most of the cops were corrupt or in bed with the Nazis. We had no choice but to fight fire with fire. This is New York. It’s different. We give the police a chance.”
A moment later, Cockran dialed the local precinct house and talked to the desk sergeant, explaining the presence of a parked motorcar, after midnight, with two men in it, staking out his townhouse. The desk sergeant promised to send a patrol car around to check it out.
Cockran refilled Sullivan’s glass and then poured a Jameson’s on the rocks for himself. He pulled a chair over beside Sullivan and the two men sat there in companionable silence, sipping their whiskey and waiting for the police to arrive. It took fifteen minutes, but in due course a police car arrived, two uniformed officers got out of the car, guns drawn and approached the stake-out vehicle. After forty-five seconds of the officers’ conversation with the occupants of the car, the driver put it in gear and pulled away from the curb.
Cockran pulled the drapes closed and they rearranged their armchairs until they were facing each other beside the fire place. Cockran lit a fire and turned on two table lamps..
“Did you visit Waterman’s accountant this afternoon.”
“I did,” Sullivan replied.
“And?”
Wordlessly, Sullivan stood, walked over to the dry sink where Cockran’s liquor supply was on display, and picked up two envelopes. He sat back down and handed one to Cockran.
Cockran opened it and quickly leafed through its contents, noting here and there a discrepancy between what he had found in the Wall Street Journal morgue and what Waterman’s actual holdings were. They were much more than the newspaper had imagined. He frowned when he noted a series of nonprofit corporations owned by the Waterman Foundation which were valued collectively at $11.5 million. That was a drop in the bucket of Waterman’s net worth, which was well north of $400 million. If the nonprofits had been formed after Waterman’s marriage to Ingrid, however, she deserved her half of that $11.5 million.
“Good work, Bobby. Find out what you can tomorrow on these nonprofits.”
“You got it,” Sullivan said as he rose to his feet. pulled his wallet out and extracted a $20 bill, laying it on the side table.”
“What’s that for?” Cockran asked.
“Would you be thinking I’d be the kind of man who breaks into a house without paying for the damage he caused? That’s not how my Da raised me. See you tomorrow.”
22.
We’re Making Some Progress
Cleveland
Friday, 13 May 1932
MATTIE was pinned, helpless and furious. She tried to struggle but Frank easily held her for that bastard Eddie who, having finished pushing her coat and dress up, was starting to pull down her knickers. Then she heard a sharp cry to her left and Frank’s hands suddenly released her. As Frank’s body slumped to the ground, Eddie also cried out and he fell away as well.
Mattie turned her head around to see Frank unconscious on the ground and Eddie on his knees holding his face, blood streaming from between his fingers. Above them stood Ted Hudson, looming like a golden avenging angel, blood dripping from the barrel of the revolver with which he had pistol-whipped her two tormentors. She realized she had been holding her breath and exhaled deeply as she pushed herself up.
“Are you alright?” Hudson asked. “Did they hurt you?”
“I’ll be okay. This one here,” she said, pointing to Eddie, “punched me in the stomach a few times but he had a lot more in mind than that had you not come along in the nick of time. Thanks.” Hudson nodded and leveled a .38 revolver at Eddie while Mattie turned away and straightened her garments beneath her navy coat. That had been far too close a call. “Where in the hell were you, anyway? And what’s with the gun? I thought you weren’t armed.”
Hudson kept the revolver pointed directly at Eddie. “I wasn’t. But when I saw there were two people following you, I figured I might have need of one.”
“So how’d you get it?” Mattie asked.
“From a cop on the corner of East Ninth and Euclid.”
“He gave you his weapon?’
“Not exactly. More like loaned. I flashed my MID credentials and he agreed to let me borrow it for a few hours. Plan B. That’s my motto. Always have a Plan B.”
Mattie was impressed. Thank God Hudson knew how to take care of himself. She retrieved her Walther from Eddie’s waistband and patted him down.
“You want to question him here?” Hudson asked, his eyes cold and his voice flat as he hauled the bleeding Eddie to his feet. Below, Frank remained unconscious.
“Let’s take him back to my new quarters. That Van Swerigen Suite, or whatever it’s called. I don’t think from what I was told that we’ll be disturbed there.” With that, Mattie placed her Walther back in her pocket, grabbed the lapels of Eddie’s coat, pulled him close and drove her knee straight up into his crotch, leaving Eddie doubled over in pain.
Mattie thought briefly of doing it again but Eddie stayed doubled over and groaning. “That should last a while,” she said. “Why don’t you bind Frank’s hands with his belt while I pop out into the street and hail a taxi?” Hudson cracked his revolver barrel down again on the other thug’s head before he began to remove the man’s belt from his trousers.
MATTIE couldn’t believe it. Here she was on the twelfth floor of the tallest skyscraper between New York and Chicago and she felt as if she were in an English Tudor mansion. Which, in a way, she was. A thirty-foot high, heavily beamed cathedral ceiling loomed above her from which were hung three elaborate brass chandeliers. Either side of the room was lined with English oak paneling and leaded glass windows. At one end of the Great Hall was a small balcony for musi
cians. At the far end, a fire was blazing in a massive stone fireplace. A grand piano sat in one corner of the room and throughout were comfortable leather armchairs. It was a room fit for a London club or a home in the English countryside. No one standing outside the fifty-two story Terminal Tower would have guessed such a baronial room was hidden inside.
Hidden was the operative word. After Mattie had found a taxi, they had taken Eddie Monahan back to the Hotel Cleveland where they had hustled him through the lobby, pretending he was a drunken friend who had tripped and fallen on his face, explaining away the bloody gash on his cheek. Once on the twelfth floor of the hotel, they had followed the directions to the unmarked door which Mattie had unlocked. As they walked inside, they saw an intercom system on the left wall, beside a small brass-gated three-person Otis elevator. They got into the elevator and Mattie closed the door. She was surprised to see that it indicated they were on the tenth floor and not the twelfth. There was no stop for the eleventh floor and so Mattie had taken them to what the elevator panel showed was the twelfth floor. Once on twelve, she stepped from the elevator, turned the corner and walked up two steps into the Great Hall, lit at that time only by the roaring fire in the fireplace at the far end of the room.
Mattie had told Hudson to tie Eddie hand and foot in front of the fireplace.
“So where in New York are you from? Mattie asked.
“Sod off, you bitch. I’m not telling you nothing.”
Growing up in Great Britain, Mattie had an ear for accents. She wasn’t sure why. It was just part of her. Highlands, Liverpool, the Lake Country, Cornwall, Kent. She could place them all. She’d been doing the same with Americans. She was positive Eddie Monahan was second generation Irish who had grown up in Hell’s Kitchen on New York’s west side.
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