by Will Rayner
“And then you carry it out to your car and drive to the construction shack. What kind of a car do you drive, Mr. Bloom?”
“A two-door Chevrolet. A black one.”
“Where would it be parked?”
“Right outside, usually.”
“All right, I will come into the bank about two o’clock,” T.J. said. “You will tell them I am coming and I will introduce myself. I’ll find a quiet corner and wait. Do you have any questions?”
“Will you … uh … be carrying a gun?”
“Yes, Mr. Bloom, I will be armed,” T.J. said. “See you tomorrow around one.”
After replacing the receiver, he took a deep breath. “Well, that’s done,” he told his father. “Now, I guess I’d better clean my gun.”
Sam Flood looked at his son. He’s a little nervous and certainly excited, too, he thought. It is not often a potentially violent confrontation can be so carefully planned ahead of time. Usually, these situations rise up so quickly that one only has time to react.
“Sleep in tomorrow,” he said. “Get plenty of rest. In fact, take the morning off. Miss Wilkins and I will look after the office.”
T.J. thought about it. “Yeah, mebbe I will,” he said. “Drop in just after lunch.” Right after I stop at Emrick’s, he told himself. A couple of beers would be just the ticket.
Chapter 30
The two Floods had a brief conference the next afternoon – a quick review of the essentials before T.J. undertook his assignment. “Be careful, son,” Sam said as T.J. headed for the front door. He gave an obviously curious Agnes a big wink and left, whistling a spritely tune. T.J. strolled down Bush Street toward Kearny for half a block before darting onto the pavement and hailing a cab.
“City Hall,” he said. “And step on it!”
The hackie accelerated away and headed rapidly toward the civic center. “Where to, chief … the front entrance?” he asked.
“Forget it. Turn right at this corner and park,” T.J. ordered. The hack swung right with a screech of tires and halted at the curb. T.J. wrenched himself around in the back seat to observe who followed. Nobody. “Okay,” he said. “Over to Van Ness and up to Lombard.”
T.J. paid the driver off a block away from the Bank of California. There was nobody idling on Lombard as he entered the bank. He identified himself and was given a seat behind a desk with a ‘Mortgage Application’ sign on it. Hope nobody asks me for mortgage advice, T.J. thought. Bloom and his banking pal were in an office somewhere counting their shekels, so he sat and watched and waited.
Retail banking routine was so boring and repetitious that watching it was mind-numbing. People would come in, fill out a slip, get in line before a teller and either deposit or withdraw funds. Over and over again. This branch was too small to have a bank guard, but T.J. noted that one male teller behind the cage always had his eye on the front door.
Finally, Winston Bloom appeared, carrying his case. T.J. took it from him. It was surprisingly light. They left the bank, with T.J. taking the lead. He switched the case to his left hand, leaving the right one free to swing around to grab his Detective Special. The sidewalk was clear. There were no pedestrians close by and those further down the block didn’t look like they were about to make any sudden moves. Traffic was normal.
Winston Bloom hurried around to the driver’s side of the Chevy. Both of them climbed inside quickly. T.J. put the case on the floor in front of him and laid his gun down alongside it. “Proceed, dear sir,” he said. Bloom waited for a gap in the traffic and pulled out.
“Did anybody follow us?” T.J. asked. He refrained from turning around in his seat to have a look.
“There is somebody behind us,” Bloom said. They kept rolling slowly with the traffic along Lombard.
“Is that bird still behind us?” T.J. asked.
“Yep,” Bloom said. “Whoops, there he goes, right by us!” T.J. tried to get a glimpse of the driver, but he blew by too fast. The car appeared to be a dark-colored Ford. It turned right onto Broderick. A few minutes later, Bloom eased the Chevy into the construction site, bumping along the uneven ground. He stopped next to the shack and pulled on the hand brake.
Suddenly, the door was wrenched open and a burly man with a kerchief obscuring most of his face grabbed Bloom and threw him out onto the ground. A heavy revolver appeared in his hand. “Gimme the goddamn box!” the gunman shouted.
“Yessir, boss, don’t shoot, boss,” T.J. said. He reached down as if to grab the case tucked between his legs and came up with the Detective Special.
“Hands up!” he barked, “or I’ll ventilate ya’.”
Then he reached over with his other hand and gave the horn a good, long push. The gunman jumped back in surprise. His revolver went off. Strictly by reflex, T.J. pulled his own trigger. The gunman’s shot went into the roof of the Chevy, but T.J.’s bullet winged him. The gunman dropped his gun and grabbed his left arm. Then Jimbo Bracken was there. He had his own Detective Special in his hand.
“Don’t make any sudden moves!” he ordered. The gunman froze and Bracken tore the bandana off his face. “Jackie Plante!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been a very naughty boy, Jackie. Now go and lean against that car with one hand. Let the other one bleed, You’ll live, more’s the pity.”
At the sound of the shots, the supervisor had cautiously opened the construction shack’s door and peeked out. A crowd of onlookers had also gathered.
“You, sir, call an ambulance and the police station – the robbery detail,” Bracken told the supervisor. “Right now!” He gave him the dispatcher’s phone number.
The beat cop came running up, one hand on his holster. T.J. noted distractedly that he was left-handed. Bracken showed him his badge. “Lieutenant Bracken, homicide,” he said.
“Yessir, I know you sir,” the patrolman said.
“Okay, son, your job is to keep this area cleared.” He raised his voice and bellowed: “Foreman!”
A worker pushed through the crowd. “Here, sir.”
“Okay, get these guys back to work,” Bracken said.
The foreman turned around and made shooing motions with his hand. “C’mon, let’s get cracking,” he said, “Whaddya think this is, a picnic? We still have some cleaning up to do.”
By this time, Winston Bloom had risen shakily to his feet. “Mr. Bloom,” Bracken said, “get your bags of money right now and lock ’em up in the safe.” Turning to T.J., he said: “Robbery would confiscate them as evidence and nobody would ever see them again. Where’s your pistol?”
“In my holster,” T.J. said.
“Keep it there. We’ll have a little chat about it later, of course we will.”
****
The ambulance and the robbery detail arrived. Lieutenant James T. Bracken took full charge. He outranked everybody on the robbery squad, so they had to defer to him. There was an attempted armed robbery of a payroll, he said. The culprit, patrolman Jackie Plante, is the one with the hole in his arm. Two shots were fired. One by Mr. Plante and one by Mr. Thomas J. Flood. He allowed the detectives to examine the bullet hole in the Chevy’s roof. They inspected the patrolman’s revolver and T.J.’s Detective Special. Bracken suggested they bag the revolver as evidence but leave him to look after the smaller piece.
“Mr. Flood was assisting me in a stakeout,” he said. “He fired in self-defense. When patrolman Plante is discharged from Harbor Emergency, keep him under guard until he is tossed into a holding cell. The charges are attempted armed robbery and attempted murder. You boys can take credit for the collar, indeed you can. Get gold stars on your report cards.”
The payroll? It is in a safe place, the lieutenant said. Of course it was.
****
T.J. Flood finished his account of the events at the Lyon Street approach and carried it and the morning paper out of his office. He deposited his scrawl on Agnes Wilkins’s desk and took the Chronicle with him when he sat down in one of Sam’s client chairs. “Agnes will have kittens when she re
ads that report,” he said. “Real life always takes her by surprise.”
“You would think she’d be used to your escapades by now,” Sam said.
“I’ve kept the Chronicle away from her,” T.J. added. “Have you read it?”
“Of course not.”
“Let me enlighten you, then.” T.J. opened the paper to Page Two and read aloud: “‘Golden Gate Shootout’– that’s the headline. ‘An attempt to hijack the payroll at a construction site for the Golden Gate Bridge ended in a shootout yesterday. Prompt action by a security guard thwarted the gunman and he was arrested by quick-thinking robbery squad detectives after the hail of bullets subsided. Police wouldn’t comment on reports the would-be robber was wounded in the shootout. They also refused to confirm the bandit was another police officer.’”
“It appears to be both inaccurate and needlessly sensational,” Sam commented.
T.J. folded the Chronicle neatly and tucked it under his arm. “Jimbo Bracken should be returning my gat today sometime,” he said. “What was robbery going to do, scientifically prove it had been recently fired? Everybody knew that.”
Sam shrugged. “Saving face, probably. It appears from your verbal report that Lieutenant Bracken quite effectively stole their thunder.” And thank goodness for that, he told himself, or else this agency would get some very unwelcome publicity.
T.J. yawned. He was still coming down from the high drama of the day before. “You know, Eager Edwin hasn’t called lately,” he said. “You think he might be mad at us?”
Edwin N. Atherton must have felt some sort of vibration, for he called that very afternoon. Sam and T.J. were standing at Agnes Wilkins’s desk, looking over a prospectus on something called an ‘integrated telephone system’. “I think we’re integrated enough,’ Sam said, handing the prospectus to Agnes. They were heading for their offices when Agnes’s phone rang. “Mr. Atherton would like to come by, Mr. Sam,” she said.
Ah, the mystery of integration, T.J. told himself. Aloud, he said: “Hope he doesn’t bump into Jimbo, coming or going.”
Lieutenant Bracken arrived first, carrying a small paper bag. “Your revolver, sir,” he said, presenting the bag to T.J. “The bullets have been removed.”
“You took the bullets out? Those were five perfectly good bullets!”
Sam Flood, who had followed Jimbo into T.J.’s office, chuckled.
“C’mon, pop! Bullets are expensive!”
“Why on earth would robbery want to preserve five unfired bullets, lieutenant?” Sam asked.
“Something tangible to put their own stamp on the collar, I suppose,” Bracken said. “They talked about firing a test round to compare with the one which clipped patrolman Plante, until I pointed out that we didn’t have the first bullet. It’s out there in an acre of dirt somewhere, or maybe in the gutter on Lombard Street.”
“Things could be a lot worse, son,” Sam said. “You’re off the hook for firing a weapon, thanks to Jimbo here, and you’re still in one piece.”
“But gee whiz, five bullets!” T.J. wailed.
Lieutenant Bracken took his leave. The Floods settled back in their respective dens for a contemplative smoke when Agnes Wilkins announced the arrival of Edwin Atherton. “We should put in swinging doors,” T.J. grumped to her as he headed for his father’s office.
The imported talent from Los Angeles looked harried and downcast as he slumped into a client’s chair. “Our investigation was compromised to some extent by a woman we engaged to file correspondence,” Atherton said. “She apparently succumbed to a bribery offer from a representative of the Turk Street Social Club. Needless to say, this woman is no longer in our employ.”
“Damage?” Sam asked.
“I’m not sure. Some of our strategy and tactics, perhaps. I got the feeling a couple of times that the … ah … opposition knew exactly what we were going to do. At any rate, it may not matter much longer. As you know, this investigation has been hampered by opposition from the highest levels. We have managed to carry on, but now that resistance is affecting our financial position. It seems likely that I will be denied any more funding.”
“Which means the investigation will be abandoned, whether you attain your objectives or not,” Sam said.
“In a word, yes. I am asking Flood and Flood to submit a final accounting as of this date because I am unsure about future projects.”
“So you’re kissing us off,” T.J. said.
“That is rather blunt, sir,” Atherton said. “Let us say we are suspending our … ah … arrangement.”
Sam Flood nodded. “We will do as you ask,” he said.
“Thank you,” Atherton said. He stood up and mumbled some quick goodbyes, as if he were anxious to distance himself from the Floods.
“Well, it was fun while it lasted, I guess,” T.J. said.
“Yes,” Sam replied. “And quite lucrative, actually. It is not the end of the world. There will be more cases, I am sure of it.”
“I guess I’d better go and reload my piece, just in case,” T.J. said.
“Before you do that, pass over the taxi receipt.”
“You mean the hack I took to Lombard Street?”
“Yes,” Sam said, opening a file on his desk. “It is a legitimate expense and we can bill Winston Bloom for it.”
T.J. reached into an inner pocket and extracted his billfold. He took out the crumpled receipt and handed it to his father.
“Should bill him for the cost of five .38 caliber bullets, too,” he mumbled.
Chapter 31
Two days later, father and son stood side by side, staring out at Bush Street. The raindrops whispered against Sam Flood’s office window. Sight lines were smeared. There seemed to be an uncharacteristic chill in the summer air, brought on, perhaps, by the phone call from Jimbo Bracken the evening before rather than the dismal weather.
“Remember, he was not our client,” Sam said. “I repeat, not our client anymore.”
“But if we’d—” T.J. stopped abruptly and shook his head sharply. They heard the corridor door opening and wheeled around. T.J. reached for his gun. The reception area was empty because Agnes Wilkins didn’t work on Saturdays.
Lieutenant James T. Bracken noted the two wary Floods poised to react. It’s pretty hard to sneak up on these boys, he thought, not like certain members of the San Francisco Police Department.
Bracken chose his favorite client’s chair and plunked his fedora on Sam’s desk. “The thing is,” he said, “Miss Jane Brown committed a heinous crime with three police officers present in Randolph Baggett’s house. San Francisco’s Finest, my foot!”
“Better give us the details, Jimbo,” Sam said quietly.
“Well, it was like this,” Bracken said. “Our murderess knocks on the service door around the side. She’s carrying a big bouquet of flowers. How she slid by my boys parked out front is a question for another day.”
“You said on the phone that it was about six o’clock,” Sam said. “So there was plenty of light.”
“Of course there was,” Bracken said. “Anyway, this service door has a peephole on it. The officer on guard, whose name is Blore, slides open the peephole and sees this bunch of flowers. ‘Florist delivery for Mr. Baggett,’ a pleasant, innocent voice pipes up. The patrolman unlatches the door. Miss Jane Brown shoves it open and nails my man right between the eyes with the blunt end of the meat cleaver.”
“Ouch,” T.J. said. “Is he okay?”
“He’ll live,” Bracken said shortly. “Miss Jane Brown then goes upstairs, like a wraith, like the angel of death. Mr. Baggett is in his bathroom. She buries the cleaver in the back of his skull.”
“Imagine looking in your bathroom mirror and seeing that apparition behind you,” T.J. said.
“And nobody heard anything?” Sam asked.
“Not a peep. The sergeant is at the front door, where he’s supposed to be. He says he maybe heard some sort of scuffling sound. The other patrolman is in the kitchen, helping to
prepare dinner. Remember, there’s no Loomis. He was too busy rattling pans.”
“So then she just left?” Sam asked. He was finding it difficult to grasp how so simple a sequence was allowed to unfold.
“That’s right. The boys in the patrol car thought maybe they saw her running up the street.”
Sam looked at his son. “That leaves you,” he said.
“I haven’t told you the best part yet,” Jimbo Bracken said. “The thing is, Miss Jane Brown took our gaga patrolman’s service revolver with her when she skedaddled.”
Up to this moment, none of the three had felt the need for a nicotine assist. Now they did. Bracken found a cigar butt in one of his vest pockets, Sam filled his pipe and T.J. selected an Old Gold. Within minutes, the familiar haze of tobacco fumes filled Sam’s office.
“Fully loaded, I assume,” T.J. said.
“Fully loaded, indeed it is. Six shots.”
“And now she’s out there with a vehicle and a weapon,” Sam said. “In fact, she could be standing in the rain this very minute, across the street.”
“I doubt it, with a cop car parked outside,” Bracken said. “But the thing is, we have to make some contingency plans, of course we do, based on this new set of circumstances.”
“Which means this dippy dame can now plug me from down the street, just like that crossbow caper of hers,” T.J. said.
“Except that she doesn’t have to stop and reload,” his father said.
“One obvious answer is to keep you off the street, young Thomas,” Bracken said. “This evening, for instance. What are your plans, if you don’t mind?”
Sam Flood concentrated on tamping down his briar without looking at T.J. He suspected what the answer would be: have a few drinks at a saloon, or two, or three, or four saloons. He’d be easy pickings, wandering from one gin joint to another.
However, T.J. surprised him. “I kinda thought I’d go to the movies,” he said. “There’s an interesting double bill at the Warfield – George Raft and Charlie Chan. A little bit of escapism, maybe.”
“The thing is, my dear young Thomas,” Bracken said, “a quiet evening at home with a good book should offer lots of … um … escapism.”