by P. N. Elrod
“Brogan knew about Swann?”
“Let us say that Swann’s actions tonight confirmed a number of vague suspicions.
“And Endicott?”
“That was a surprise. Brogan thought that body was gone forever. We were set to invade Swann’s little funeral party, waiting until you and Isabelle arrived so we could get everyone at once. Then someone fired a gun and all hell broke loose. Brogan’s men rushed in—are you sure Isabelle’s—”
“The last I saw she was fine.” I did a rough calculation of the time and was shocked that it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes, if that long, since I tackled Thorp. Izzy could still be in the immediate area, dammit. “So it was Brogan’s men shooting at us.”
“That would have been Swann’s crew. Everyone on Brogan’s side was ordered not to shoot because of Isabelle and—”
“So you and Fleish Brogan are cozy. What’s your take from him every week?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not in his pocket and never have been. It’s a gentleman’s agreement.”
“Is that what they’re calling eyewash these days?”
And very unexpectedly, Clapsaddle swung and connected. Not an easy move with one of Brogan’s men in the way. I wasn’t ready for that much pent up frustration, anger, and fear; my head snapped back from the force, but I kept my feet, barely.
It hurt him; he shook his fist out and rubbed his knuckles, pinning me with that stare. “You judgmental prig—don’t you ever doubt my word.”
My plan to goad him into talking hadn’t included collecting a right cross. “Then enlighten me.”
Our part of the parade had stopped. My escorts eyed us both.
Clapsaddle jerked his head. “He won’t run off. I’ll look after him.”
One of them made a growling sound, but decided to go. He and his friend got a few yards ahead before Clapsaddle resumed walking, slowly.
“So what put you on Brogan’s side?” I asked, pitching my voice so the guys in front wouldn’t hear.
“Graft Endicott,” he said with much disgust.
“I read your column. He disappears with forty grand, leaving his wife high and dry. Only not really.”
He snorted. “I omitted things.”
“Like Brogan killing the man three weeks earlier and carting him out to Long Island to plant the body in a fill site.”
“Yes.”
Another surprise. I didn’t think he’d admit it. “What the hell is going on, Clapsaddle? How could you not take that to the cops? You hate guys like Brogan.”
“No more than myself, my lad. And don’t put on airs with me. Your own character has been thoroughly sullied since you departed for the city of the big shoulders. You’ve hardly been subtle. Stories got back to me about your activities. I could ply you with the same questions.”
“I quit being a reporter. You haven’t.”
“Yes. . .” He drew the word out, as though mulling over the statement. He paused to dig a cigarette and lighter from his coat pocket and put them together, not offering to share. “Will you keep your mouth shut?”
He must have remembered that however drunk I got I knew how to button up. Whether I would agree to do so was another matter. “I don’t know enough to give an answer.”
“As far as Brogan’s concerned, you know enough to get yourself killed. I’m serious, Fleming. You mention this to anyone and it could mean your life.”
I took a chance. “Then don’t tell me.”
“Don’t play that game, my lad. After seven years of silence you know I can hold out, but you, your supine friend, and especially Isabelle are in real danger, and she’s the one I’m most worried about. If you understand what’s going on, then perhaps you can help me convince her to . . . to be discreet.”
“She doesn’t need help from either of us to make her mind up about things; she’s smart.”
“And stubborn. And honest. Those qualities and her talent might one day get her a Pulitzer, but she has to live to do so. My agreement with Brogan may not be adequate to protect her.”
“She’s got a better chance with him than she did with Swann.”
“That ill-named bastard. It should have been weasel.”
“What’s got you on Brogan’s side in this?”
“There’s worse people doing worse things in this city. Brogan keeps the ones within his purview in line. It’s better that he’s in charge of his patch than Swann. You go with the devil you know.” He ran a hand through his pale hair, as though his head hurt. “God, I want a drink.”
So did I. “What’s the story with you and Brogan?”
“You were a reporter, but you didn’t stay at it long enough. Sooner or later there comes a moment when you can’t simply record events; you either pull back or make a choice to take part in them.”
“With Brogan. He’s got a hold on you?”
“As I said, it is a gentleman’s agreement.”
“Only he’s no gentleman.”
“You noticed? How clever.”
“Yeah, I’m a real genius. What happened?”
“Recall, if you will, that Griffin Endicott was Brogan’s lawyer and quite literally knew where the bodies were buried. When he got caught jury-tampering and key evidence disappeared and Brogan went free, disbarment was the least of Endicott’s worries. George Medalie was the district attorney then and he was going to make an example of him. George sicced his chief assistant on him, Ted Dewey.”
Thomas E. Dewey was now the current DA, the youngest man to hold the office. He was also running for governor. In the last few years as a special prosecutor he’d earned the nickname “Gangbuster.” He was too clean to be bought off, so Dutch Schultz tried to put a hit on Dewey. The idea was voted down by savvier business associates like Lucky Luciano. They decided it was better to knock off Schultz than risk war with the feds.
Good for Dewey, but bad for Luciano, who was now a convicted pimp pulling thirty to fifty upstate in Dannemora and probably wishing he’d voted the other way about the hit. Dewey had been the prosecutor to send him over.
Clapsaddle took a deep draw on his cigarette, the smoke leaving his mouth as he spoke. “Ted’s a straight arrow, always has been, but Medalie let him know that if he handled Endicott right they could get him and Brogan in the same net. Endicott made a show of cooperating. He admitted to the tampering, but claimed he’d been threatened, and that his wife had been attacked the day before by one of Brogan’s goons. No one believed it until Endicott marched her into Ted’s office. She had two black eyes so swollen she could hardly see, her arms were—there was more black and blue showing than normal skin. The worst was how she tried so very hard not to cry. I was there at Endicott’s request. He wanted his name in the papers, nothing new about that, but this time as a man desperate to protect his wife.”
“Did you write it up?”
“No.”
“Why not? It’d have been the story of the year.”
“Because I know when I’m being used, and, if I may make a boast, I know women.”
“She was faking?”
“No, her distress was real. There was something in her manner that didn’t sit right. I put Endicott being a born liar together with the way she recoiled when he took her arm to escort her out. Ted missed it. I did not.”
“Endicott beat her?”
“My first thought was that she’d consented to it as a means of backing up his story. My second was to consider her background. She’s from an old family, very much American royalty; they keep things private, and they’re proud. Miss Naomi Van Dusen of Newbury wouldn’t put up with being knocked around like a Hell’s Kitchen grisetté.”
“Nothing to stop her from taking a train to Reno.”
“Except pride. Women of her caste do not get divorced. The lady found another way to deal with her husband.”
I didn’t have to think too hard to reach a conclusion. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Don’t be vulgar.”
&nbs
p; “She had Brogan knock off Endicott?”
“Absolutely not. She only wanted payback.”
“Which resulted in murder.”
“Not the lady’s idea.”
“Then what?”
“Endicott had planned to pull a Judge Crater, but taking care not to end up under a boardwalk. Toward that end, Endicott withdrew a fortune from the bank, bought a boat ticket to Brazil, and had evidence ready to mail to the DA’s office that would keep the authorities busy with a fresh prosecution against Brogan. Endicott was bad, but not compared to Brogan; they’d let him get away. Naomi had quite a different scale of comparison, though. Then she got a call from her bank manager about the emptied account. That large a withdrawal was a serious blow to his establishment.”
“There were a lot of runs on banks in ‘31.”
“Which is why he called, begging her to consider putting it back. All in an instant, she comprehended Endicott’s plan. She went through his office and worked out that part of things as well. She hid his papers and paid a visit to Brogan’s trucking garage. She took a few pages along to prove her story and somehow got in to see him.”
“Gutsy dame.”
“She was scared stiff, but more terrified of Endicott finding out. She told Brogan everything, showed her black eyes and bruises, and proposed a deal. If he would get back the forty thousand for her, he could keep ten for himself, and in exchange for the rest she would give him every last scrap of the evidence against him.”
“What was to happen to Endicott?”
“He was to continue on to Brazil with similar physical damage and the clothes he’d packed.”
“Only he didn’t.”
“No. He spotted her leaving their house and followed her to the garage.”
“How do you know this? From Brogan?”
“I was more energetic then. I’d been following Endicott, and, by default, his wife. I didn’t know it at the time. When Naomi returned home, he did too, and shortly afterward obtained a full confession from her. I was in my car at the end of this very driveway having a smoke while . . . while that bastard beat her half to death.”
Clapsaddle finished his cigarette and scuffed the remains into the paving with the toe of his shoe. “Had I been a little more energetic, I could have crept up to the house to peer in the window and perhaps stopped it, but I didn’t. I sat in comfort and smoked and outlined my next column. When he was done, Endicott decided on a quiet exit, leaving his car behind. He went out the back door, cut across the golf course, and called a cab from the Pelham club house to get him to the docks. And just in time, because Brogan, keeping his end of the bargain with Naomi, drove up. Alone.”
“Must have been a surprise to you.”
“I thought I’d hit the jackpot for a scoop. Couldn’t miss that. Brogan left the front door wide open. I walked right in, thinking I could get a photograph of him and Endicott, then run.”
“Chancy.”
“I always keep a gun in my pocket. I walked in, and there was Brogan standing over Naomi. She was so battered and bloody I took her for a scattered bundle of washing someone left on the floor and splashed with red paint. Then the smell hit me, blood and urine—I thought she was dead. So did Brogan, you could see it in his face.”
“You thought he did it?”
“Never. He didn’t have the time and there was no blood on him. . . and he looked absolutely—he’s a hard man, Fleming, a killer, but that moment . . .I saw inside him. He was as horrified and furious as I, and we both knew who was responsible.
“Then we realized she was still breathing, barely. Brogan called a doctor and set his dogs after Endicott. It didn’t take long, they picked him up before he reached the embarkation pier and took him some place. For all I know it was that same damned hotel. It’s quiet. Brogan was a very, very angry man. He got payback for poor Naomi.”
That would account for the many broken bones on the remains.
“He got the papers and the money. Gave the whole amount back to her, by the way. Not that it was much comfort. Endicott kicked her so badly . . . well, she can’t have children. It was days before she was even able to sit up, much less get out of bed. On Brogan’s advice she filed a missing person’s report through her lawyer. I played along, writing that column as though nothing was amiss. So far as she and the police know, Endicott is in Brazil, never to return.”
“You both agreed to keep quiet.”
“For her sake, yes. I have an old-fashioned streak in me about women.”
“Brogan, too?” That seemed doubtful.
“Brogan has a much more dangerous weakness than mere courtesy toward the fair sex. At least where this lady is concerned.”
“You’re not saying—”
“Indeed I am, my lad, and who would have thought it?”
“Oh, jeeze.”
“Brogan was a doomed man the moment Naomi walked into his garage. He fell head over heels at first sight, but don’t think he’s gone soft. He will do absolutely anything to protect her, up to and including murder to keep you quiet about her husband’s death. She is far more comfortable being a deserted wife than a widow. If she finds out he killed her husband, Brogan loses her.”
“Swann must know that, why didn’t—”
“It wasn’t useful to him. Swann’s goal is to take over the organization, not spoil Brogan’s romantic prospects.”
“But he brought the body out here to be found so Brogan gets arrested.”
“It wouldn’t go that far. He’ll see to it that Brogan and the lady disappear. It would look as though they’d eloped to avoid arrest. Then Swann steps into his boss’s office without a fuss.”
Clapsaddle and Brogan must have done considerable talking on the drive out. That discussion would have included what to do about me and my friends. “Brogan consented to this, he wants me to know his dirt. Why?”
“Because Swann’s no fool. He may have been routed for the moment, but he will reorganize. He’s a dead man unless he can remove Brogan first.”
“What’s it to do with anything?”
“I’m getting to it. Your activities in Chicago are not unknown to Brogan.”
“I wish you’d talk plain.”
“He knows you saw him in Chicago. He’s friends with Northside Gordy, who told him that you were someone worthy of respect.”
I winced. The term was “stand up.” I’d earned it, at one hell of a cost.
“He also said you were a better escape artist than Houdini.”
Thanks a heap, Gordy.
“Brogan wants you to know everything, then get you out of here before Swann comes back. If Brogan does not survive, you’re to be the one who makes sure Swann doesn’t get away with his coup d’etat.”
“Hey, I’m no triggerman. . .”
“You don’t have to be. Just tell the story to the right ears and they will take care of Swann.”