The Gemini Agenda

by Michael McMenamin

  Would Cockran approve of her being alone with Ted so late at night and so barely dressed? Not bloody likely! But that was more than Cockran needed to know, she thought and opened the connecting door. Her adrenalin and alcohol levels were high but she knew how to handle Ted. She always had. Except that hazy last night in Paris. What in hell had happened?

  Ted Hudson was standing there in his own blue silk dressing gown sporting a TSH monogram. It was loosely knotted, giving Mattie a full view of a broad chest covered with tight golden curls. He was holding a bottle of Martel in one hand, two brandy snifters in the other. His blond hair was boyishly tousled and he was flashing that million-dollar smile, all too aware of just how good looking he really was. Mattie sighed. This was not going to be easy.

  “Hello, beautiful,” he said, his eyes undressing her as they slowly roved up and down her body, his unspoken intentions unmistakable.

  “Hello yourself,” she replied and self-consciously pulled the sheer silk of her robe more tightly around her but this only made her naked breasts beneath more obvious. Impeccable timing, she thought. Ted was intent on making his way back inside her knickers and an accommodating Mattie wasn’t even wearing any. The fact that Hudson was also naked under his robe wasn’t lost on her either. Still, what else could she do? After all, when a man twice saves your life, a girl shouldn’t seem ungrateful.

  “Make yourself comfortable” she said, as she waved him in with a sweep of her right hand, a movement which briefly opened the top of her robe more than she expected. Belatedly, she pulled the robe closed with her left hand. Damn! Had she done so in time to deprive Ted of his own private peep show? She sadly concluded she had not. Ted’s face was impassive but his eyes had never left her body. No, this nightcap was not going to be easy. She really hoped she wasn’t going to regret in the morning her display of gratitude tonight.

  MATTIE woke up and was pleasantly surprised she had no hangover from having overindulged the night before. Her luck was still holding. She slipped from beneath the sheets where she had slept alone, walked naked to the window, threw back the curtains and looked across Main Street to the courthouse where sunshine reflected off windows and its golden dome. She called room service and ordered breakfast for two, with plenty of coffee for Ted.

  As Mattie turned from the window, she realized she had no regrets. She felt refreshed and energized from all her adventures yesterday—the twins discovery, dancing, a gunfight and even that nightcap. Still, she was a tad sore but that was only to be expected after a semi-naked wrestling match with a determined man who mistook an accidental opening of her robe for an invitation. It had required no small effort to persuade him otherwise. But she had given as good as she got and the end result was a satisfying climax to an eventful day. Well, satisfying for her. Ted, quite drunk by then, would have to speak for himself. But her godfather Winston had got it right. Last night proved there was nothing as exhilarating as being shot at without result. True, having a handsome blond Adonis lust after her 32 year old body came in a close second even though, to her regret, it had been only Ted, two sheets to the wind, and not Cockran, doing the lusting. But unlike Paris, she thought with a smile, this time it would be a hungover Ted left wondering what in hell had happened between them last night. It served him right.

  Mattie signed the chit for breakfast and knocked on Ted’s door. Hearing no reply, she opened it and laughed. A completely starkers Ted was sprawled face down on his bed clutching an empty brandy bottle. She hadn’t gotten a good look when he staggered back to his room in that same state last night but now, framed in the sunlight, she saw Ted still had the same attractive and well-muscled body he did in Paris. Who cared? Cockran had a much cuter ass.

  27.

  We Weren’t Painting the Town

  The Cedars

  Sands Point, Long Island

  Sunday, 15 May 1932

  COCKRAN, dressed in khakis and a navy blue cotton sweater, was standing on the porch and about to head down to the stable for an early morning ride on the beach with his son Paddy when he heard the telephone ring. He hoped it was Mattie. He had been worried when she hadn’t called the last two nights. He had phoned her hotel in Cleveland but was told she was never registered there. He waited expectantly and was relieved a few seconds later when an eager eleven year old boy with tousled red hair opened the screen door.

  “Dad! Telephone! It’s for you. It’s Mattie,” he said in an excited voice.

  Cockran smiled at his son’s enthusiasm. Mattie had made an instant impression on Paddy and he looked forward to her frequent visits and the adventure stories she would tell him. He avidly followed her articles when they appeared in The New York American. He was her biggest fan and Cockran knew he loved her. When he grew up, Paddy had once told Cockran, he was going to be a journalist, just like Mattie and his Mom, whom he knew only from photographs and the stories Cockran and his grandmother told him. Cockran was pleased and had teared up. He didn’t deserve two women like Nora and Mattie. But Patrick did.

  Cockran picked up the receiver from the telephone table in his study. “Mattie. I was worried when you didn’t call. Are things OK? You weren’t registered at the hotel in Cleveland.”

  “That’s because we left there yesterday. We’re in northwest Ohio now. Findlay.”

  “Findlay? What’s in Findlay?”

  “Not much,” Mattie said and laughed softly. “Except it’s where I found the answer to the connection among all the murder victims.”

  “Really? So soon? What is it?”

  Cockran listened as Maddie recounted all that had happened since she found her first lead in Pittsburgh through her mugging in Cleveland to being shot at in a nightclub parking lot.

  “Shots? At a nightclub with Ted?”

  “Relax. We were meeting a source. We weren’t painting the town. Anyway, Ted went into the woods after them. Killed one of them at point blank range in the woods and got the other in the parking lot as he was running away. You should have seen it! A fifty yard head shot in the dark with only a pistol! I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t know Ted was that good.”

  Cockran didn’t reply. He knew all too well how good Hudson was. They had been in MID training together and Ted had received high scores in marksmanship in both pistols and rifles. In fact, if Ted hadn’t been in MID, he could have been a sniper. He was that good with a long-range rifle. But Cockran still didn’t trust him. Or like him.

  Finally, he broke the silence, choosing his words judiciously. He couldn’t let Mattie’s favorable report card on Hudson weaken his resolve to refrain from criticizing her conduct in the field. “You need to be careful, Mattie. This is obviously more dangerous than you anticipated.”

  “I know. In more ways than one. But trust me, after all that happened last night, I’ll be a lot more careful in the future.” Mattie replied, “Now, could I ask a favor?

  “Sure. Name it.”

  “One of the guys was named Eddie Monahan. He admitted he was one of Owney Madden’s men. The other was Frank or possibly Franklin. No last name. I’m not sure who he’s with. Eddie said he wasn’t with Owney and claimed he was an ex-Government guy. Said he was the one in charge. But he may have been lying. Can you have Bobby check them out for me? See if he can find who this Dr. V character is who hired them?”

  “You got it,” Cockran said, making a note of their names and Frank’s Chinese laundry ticket. “I’ll call him this morning. So what’s next? When do you think you’ll be home?”

  Mattie laughed again, her voice excited. “There’s good news and there’s better news.”

  “What’s the good news?”

  “I’ll be back in New York by Friday after I check out some of the other victims to see if they were twins also. I’ll be in Detroit tonight and tomorrow, Chicago on Tuesday and St. Louis on Wednesday. If I’m right about the twins angle, then it’s straight home to write the story. After that, it will be in the Sunday Hearst papers all over the country.”

 
; “That is good news. But what’s better than that?” Cockran asked.

  “How about Ted Hudson will no longer be traveling with me?” Mattie asked.

  “Dumping your golden boy? That is good news.”

  “Watch it, Cockran. I told you he’s not.…”

  Cockran cut her off with a laugh. “I know. Seriously, this is great news.” Cockran paused. It was great news and yet it wasn’t. Mattie without Hudson was good but Mattie alone in Detroit was not. Owney Madden wasn’t going to be happy to learn one or possibly two of his thugs had been taken out. Would he want to get even? With Madden, you could never tell.

  Cockran listened with half an ear as Mattie began to give him the details of where she would be staying. He was analyzing the import of Hudson’s absence on an assignment that had suddenly turned very dangerous. His philosophy was not to worry about things he couldn’t contol and, reluctantly, he had put Mattie’s safety into that category as most of her work was abroad and out of his reach. Not now. This was different. She was only an overnight train away. If Hudson wasn’t there to look out for her, he would be. “Mattie, wait.” Cockran said, interrupting. “I don’t like your being alone. Whoever sent those two thugs after you may send more. I don’t have to be in court this week. I can catch a train to Detroit today.”

  “No, Bourke,” Mattie replied firmly. “I’m not going to let you ruin the rest of Patrick’s weekend with his father. That boy looks forward to it all week.”

  “But Mattie.…”

  “Don’t start, Cockran. No. That’s final. Saddle up and go for a ride with your son.”

  Cockran didn’t reply. He let the silence grow until Mattie got the message. Finally, he spoke. “OK, I’ll come tomorrow. I’ll wire the details to your hotel. You have your Walther?’

  “You bet.”

  “Locked and loaded?”

  “It is. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Be safe.”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  “You’d better.”

  SULLIVAN’S call late that afternoon disturbed Cockran. Eddie was one of Owney’s thugs but no one knew where he was, let alone that he was dead. But Frank? The only Frank in Owney’s outfit was a 56 year old accountant. Remembering that Mattie had said he might be an ex-Government guy, Cockran called O’Hanlon in D.C. and gave him the name of the Chinese laundry and the ticket number. The MID man agreed to track the lead down and run any name he found through MID personnel records.

  28.

  This Is a Travesty

  Fifth Avenue

  New York City

  Monday, 16 May 1932

  COCKRAN was in the library, revising the proofs of his father’s biography. Lifting the tea cozy from the teapot on the side table, he poured himself another cup, added milk and half a teaspoon of sugar. He had returned to the page proofs when the doorbell rang. Cockran was puzzled. It was only 8:45. He had bundled Paddy into a taxi for school fifteen minutes ago and his mother-in-law was on her daily trip to shop for groceries, a Galway habit which could not be broken. Even with Cockran’s new Frigidaire, food must be shopped for every day.

  Cockran walked to the front door, opened it, and was astonished to see Ingrid Waterman standing in front of him with a bruised and battered face. She now had a second black eye to accompany her first, and her upper lip was swollen.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but I got away as soon as I could,” Ingrid said.

  “Come in, come in. Don’t worry about it. What happened? Who did this to you?”

  “My husband. He raped me last night,” she said. “The two men with him, bodyguards I suppose, stripped me and held me down while he did it. After that, he beat me with a belt.”

  Cockran was furious. He had always had a temper from a very young age. Unlike his father who joked — gently, of course, as was his father’s way — that Cockran’s temper must have come from his mother, the Mack side of the family. Cockran believed this if only because he had never seen his father lose his temper. The same could not be said of Cockran. Growing up as an Irish Catholic on Long Island’s Gold Coast as a son of privilege when most other Irish were servants had involved Cockran in more than one fist fight over his ethnic and religious heritage.

  Right now, his temper was at the boiling point. Ingrid still didn’t want to file criminal charges so if he dwelled on what Waterman had done, he would call Bobby Sullivan right away and let nature take its course. Waterman would be dead by nightfall and not a pleasant or painless death either.

  Instead, Cockran took a deep breath to control his anger; called Sarah Steinberg; and had her arrange for a court stenographer to be sent to his townhouse to take Ingrid’s new sworn statement. More photographs to follow. Meanwhile, he asked Sarah to try and schedule a hearing before Judge Perkins as early in the afternoon as possible. Then he called his secretary and had her switch his early afternoon Pullman reservation to the night train to Detroit..

  Sarah called back an hour later. Judge Perkins would see them at 3:00 p.m. Ingrid signed a new sworn statement later in the morning. At 2:00 p.m., they took a taxi down to the courthouse where they met Sarah Steinberg and Bobby Sullivan. Upon entering Judge Perkins’ chambers, Cockran found the Judge’s secretary in tears and her bailiff close to it.

  “George,” Cockran said, “what’s the problem? What happened?”

  George Kahn, Judge Perkins’ bailiff, looked up at Cockran for the first time.

  “She’s dead, Mr. Cockran. We just heard from the police. A bar association luncheon. The Judge was struck by a hit and run driver afterwards. She was dead on arrival,” George Kahn said, and then he burst into tears along with the Judge’s secretary.

  “Oh, my God, Bourke,” Ingrid said, “how horrible. That poor woman.”

  Cockran’s eyes narrowed. This wasn’t an accident. This was Wesley Waterman. Cockran looked over at Sullivan who moved his head almost imperceptibly. But Cockran knew that Bobby agreed. It was almost a sign language between them. Bobby raised his eyebrows, a question asked: Should I go and kill the bastard now? Cockran shook his head slowly from side to side. No, not now.

  The resulting glare from Bobby Sullivan would have chilled the blood of anyone who didn’t know him as well as Cockran did. But Cockran made eye contact and held it until Sullivan looked away, conceding the point to Cockran. For the moment. Bobby Sullivan was an untamed tiger over whom Cockran had some control. Not a lot. And it wouldn’t last long.

  Cockran whispered in Sarah Steinberg’s ear. “Go down to the assignment commissioner. Have him appoint a new judge. After he does, get a hearing scheduled this afternoon.”

  “Right away, Mr. Cockran,” Sarah said and headed for the door.

  COCKRAN, Sarah, Sullivan and Ingrid were ushered into the chambers of Judge John Donnelly at 4:00 p.m. Sarah was surprised, she had told Cockran, to find that the assignment commissioner had already appointed a new judge to the case.

  “I’ve never known them to be that efficient,” she had told Cockran.

  If Sarah had been surprised to find that the assignment commissioner had already assigned the case to Judge Donnelly, Cockran was even more surprised upon arriving at the Judge’s chambers to see a smiling Chet Bowles emerge from the Judge’s private office.

  “What’s Judge Donnelly’s reputation?” Cockran asked Sarah in a stage whisper.

  “Scuttlebutt in the court is that he’s a dirty old man. None of the female clerks like to be assigned to work even for a week in his court because their bottoms end up black and blue from being pinched and squeezed so often.”

  Cockran walked over to the bailiff, a brunette in her late twenties. She was quite attractive but dressed for business in a crisp white blouse, black skirt and dark stockings.

  “The Judge will hear this in the courtroom in a few minutes,” the bailiff told Cockran.

  Moments later, they were in the courtroom. “All rise,” the bailiff said as she rapped a gavel on the desk in front of her and stood while the bla
ck-robed Judge Donnelly ascended to the bench. He looked to be in his mid-seventies, compact, maybe five feet eight inches tall. There was a ruddy glow to his sagging face but the nose was even brighter. A hard-drinking man.

  “Be seated,” the Judge said as he sat down himself. “I’ve read the file, all the pleadings and looked at all the exhibits as well,” he added. “So why are we here today, Mr. Cockran?”

  Why the hell was he asking that if he had read the pleadings? Cockran’s motion made clear he wanted Waterman held in contempt of court and fined for disobeying Judge Perkins’ order to stay away from the Central Park West penthouse.

  Cockran stood and began to explain this to the Judge in the courtroom voice he had not used in Judge Perkins’ chambers. It was a mellow baritone and the words seemed to flow from him effortlessly. Cockran paused. The Judge was actually smiling. He stopped speaking and looked quizzically at the Judge. “Does Your Honor find any of this amusing?”

  The Judge started and shook his head, as if coming out of a trance. “Uh, no, I don’t, Mr. Cockran. I apologize, but your voice reminds me so much of your father’s. I was a delegate at the 1920 convention, you know, when your father nominated Al Smith. It was the grandest speech I’ve ever heard. Hearing you now took me back in time. I apologize. Please proceed.”

  Cockran was annoyed and distracted. Probably it was what Donnelly intended. Eventually he concluded and the Judge asked if he had testimony to offer the court.

  “I do, Your Honor. We call Ingrid Waterman.”

  Ingrid and her testimony were as impressive as she had been before Judge Perkins. If anything, it was even more painful for her than before because it had transpired so recently. The late night arrival of her husband and two other men, each one with a plaster of Paris cast on a forearm. They ripped off her robe and nightgown and held her arms tightly while her husband raped her. After he finished, the two men rolled her over onto her stomach and held her arms and the other her legs while her husband beat her with a belt until she lost consciousness.