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CONTENTS
Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: MEN OF MYSTERY by Linda Landrigan
Department: THE LINEUP
Fiction: GET SINATRA: A FOUR HORSEMEN STORY by Loren D. Estleman
Fiction: THE ART OF DECEIT by Christopher Welch
Fiction: THIEF IN THE HOUSE by Brendan DuBois
Fiction: BETWEEN MINKHE AND MAYREV by Kenneth Wishnia
Fiction: JANGO SAYS by Mark Patrick Lynch
Fiction: AS THE SCREW TURNS by Shelley Costa
Department: THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER by by Willie Rose
Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn
Fiction: HIGH FINANCE by Andrei Bhuyan
Department: SOLUTION TO THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER
Department: COMING IN MAY 2010
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Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: MEN OF MYSTERY by Linda Landrigan
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A few months ago I was able to bring you the happy news that Dick Stodghill's story “Panic on Portage Path” (January/February 2008) was among our nominees for a Shamus Award for Best Private Eye Short Story. This month I am saddened to bring you news of his death on November 8, 2009. He was eighty-four years old and had written for Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine for thirty years. He was also an award-winning journalist, a former Pinkerton detective, and a World War II veteran, which he wrote about in his memoir Normandy 1944: A Young Rifleman's War. He will be greatly missed.
We will also miss two novelists who died earlier this year, who not only gave us fine mysteries but were generous to their up-and-coming peers in many ways: William G. Tapply and Stuart M. Kaminsky. This month our Booked & Printed columnist Robert C. Hahn gives us a retrospective of these two authors.—Linda Landrigan, Editor
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: THE LINEUP
Brendan DuBois's novel Dead Sand, the first in his Lewis Cole series, is now available from Plaidswede Publishing.
Mark Patrick Lynch makes his AHMM debut with “Jango Says.” He lives in Yorkshire, England.
Robert C. Hahn reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly and the New York Post.
Andrei Bhuyanhas worked as a business analyst in the investment banking industry. “High Finance” is his first contribution to AHMM.Loren D. Estleman's second Valentino novel, Alone, was published by Forge in December 2009.
Christopher Welchworks as an attorney in Rhode Island. “The Art of Deceit” is his first published short story.
Shelley Costa is the author of The Everything Guide to Edgar Allan Poe (Adams Media). She teaches creative writing at the Cleveland Insistute of Art.
Kenneth Wishnia is the author of The Fifth Servant (HarperCollins, 2010). His novel 23 Shades of Black was shortlisted for a 1998 Edgar award.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Fiction: GET SINATRA: A FOUR HORSEMEN STORY by Loren D. Estleman
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Art by Edward Kinsella III
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"Lieutenant? I mean, Zag?"
Zagreb looked up, scowling at the slip, then felt his face crack into a grin as McReary came trotting up from the water, trunks wet and sagging, holding down a winterweight gray fedora with one hand against the wind from Canada. He was freckling badly and resembled nothing so much as a polka-dot scarecrow.
"You might as well give me the rank, Mac. That hat screams cop. You got a wool scarf to go with it?"
The young detective flushed. McReary was a good-looking kid, but he'd lost his hair early and was sensitive about it. “Sorry. I had a Panama, but I think I threw it out during the last snowstorm.” He sat on the edge of Zagreb's beach towel, drew his service piece from under it, and put it in his lap. “I don't think they're coming. It's almost sundown, and torches mean gasoline. Even phony Nazis aren't crazy enough to burn up all their ration stamps just to celebrate the fall of France."
"We got another hour. Eastern wartime, did you forget?"
"Well, fifty of ‘em showed up on the first anniversary, but the U.S. wasn't in the war then. They had that kind of guts, why not enlist in the Wehrmacht?"
"Keep your shirt on. Put it on, I mean. Vice picked up the Bundenfuhrer an hour ago, trying to lure a fourteen-year-old girl into his Studebaker with a lollipop."
"Where'd you hear that?"
Zagreb pointed at the radio, still playing The Green Hornet under someone's colorful umbrella.
Suddenly they were both in shade. Sergeant Canal stood over them with his square feet spread, listening to the Hornet's chauffeur reporting to his boss. In a striped robe, green cheaters, and with a glob of white zinc on his nose, he was as quiet and petite as the Big Top. “Didn't Kato used to be a Nip?"
"That was before Pearl,” Zag said. “Now he's a Filipino."
McReary said, “You hear? We nabbed Heinrich on jailbait."
"Maybe he was recruiting for the Hitler Youth.” Canal bit down on his cold cigar and spat out sand.
They were joined by Detective Burke. He wasn't as big as the sergeant, but made up for the difference in body hair. Tight white trunks made him look like a Kodiak bear that had been shaved for gallbladder surgery. Briefed by the others, he said, “I bet the girl was Shorty O'Hanlon. When he puts on a girdle he looks just like Linda Darnell."
Lieutenant Zagreb broke the pungent little silence that followed this remark. “Mac, I'm putting you on that black market case at the Detroit Athletic Club. Burksie's been staking out the locker room a little too long."
The detective's face darkened while the others laughed.
"Why didn't you call us in an hour ago?” McReary was the youngest member of the Racket Squad and the most earnest.
"When's the last time any of us got the chance to top off his tan?"
"This detail's the bunk anyway,” said Canal. “We can't even make an arrest, just get a look at the faces under them storm trooper caps and match ‘em to the mug books downtown."
Zagreb said, “So far there's no law against playing dress-up and singing love songs to Schickelgruber. If they've got a record we can haul ‘em in and sweat ‘em later, put the fear of FDR in ‘em."
Burke scratched his chest hair. “Busywork's what it is. The commissioner can't break up the squad because we get headlines, so he's going to bore us into quitting and joining the army."
Canal said, “The navy for me. Them sailor boys get laid more."
McReary said he thought Canal was saving himself for a nice girl from the Old Country.
"There won't be any left if we keep dropping bombs on ‘em. Man's not made of stone."
Zagreb got up and folded his towel. “Let's get dressed. I'll talk to the commissioner."
Burke leered at Canal. “I hope you know all the words to ‘Anchors Aweigh.’”
* * * *
"These rats in the Bund are a serious threat to the Home Front,” Commissioner Witherspoon told the lieutenant. “You'll stay on the detail until further notice."
Witherspoon, a sour parsnip in a stiff collar, considered the Racket Squad the chief impediment to his ambition to run for mayor. He resented the tag the press had hung on Zagreb and his men—the
Four Horsemen—and reprimanded any department employee who used it.
"Setting up their leader on a morals charge has scared the sauerkraut clear out of them. They're tearing up their brown shirts to donate to the armed services."
The commissioner put on his pinch glasses and shuffled the papers on his desk, gesturing dismissal. “You're insubordinate, Lieutenant. This department doesn't railroad innocent men."
"Heinrich and I bowled in the same league before the war. He's a blowhard and he's got a screw loose when it comes to Jews, but he's never so much as looked at a woman except his wife. Putting Sergeant O'Hanlon in a pinafore wouldn't change that."
"It wasn't O'Hanlon. I'd like to know how these rumors get started. We used a female volunteer from the steno pool."
"So it was a frame."
Withersoon sat back and unpinched his spectacles. “What is it you want, Zagreb? Half my men are overseas and I can't keep a secretary; they all want to build tanks for Chrysler. I don't have time to listen to you gripe."
"You just made my case. You're wasting four experienced men on a pissant detail that Uncle Sam's Whiskers should've been doing in the first place."
"The last time I let in Hoover's boys, it took a can of Flit to get them out.” He twirled his glasses by their ribbon, lips pursed. Then he put them back on and reshuffled his papers. “Here. A job for experienced men."
Zagreb hesitated before taking the sheet, a letter typed single space on heavy bond. He didn't like the commissioner's constipated little smile.
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For fifteen seconds after the lieutenant stopped speaking, the only sound in the squad room was Canal mashing his cigar between his teeth. They had their hats on—matching pearl gray fedoras, to avoid bopping one another with blackjacks when they waded into brawls—because the nights were beginning to get cool. They were alone except for an officer flipping through files in a drawer. He was ten pounds too heavy for his uniform and five years past retirement. Witherspoon was desperate for manpower but too cheap to restore his sergeant's rank. The room was filled with empty desks and typewriters covered like canary cages.
"Bodyguard duty,” spat Burke. “That's actually a step down from watching fake Nazis."
Canal said, “I can't stand Sinatra. He sings like olive oil coming to a boil."
"He's okay,” said McReary. “Next girl I have, ‘I'll Never Smile Again’ will be our song."
Canal snorted. “If you ever had a girl, you'd know you don't get to pick your song. It's the one that's playing the first time you plant one on her."
"Your luck, it'll be ‘Thwee Iddie Fishies.'” Zagreb held up the sheet. “The letter's from Frankie's manager, asking for police protection when he plays the Fisher next month. He's been getting anonymous calls promising to lay a lead pipe across his throat if he doesn't agree to pony up five grand."
"Worth a shot, if it improves his singing.” Canal blew an improbably long jet of smoke out the open window next to him.
Burke said, “Hell, anybody can drop a nickel. Some soda jerk's sore because his broad's in love with that twig."
"The manager thinks it's the McCoy. Remember that lug tried to throw acid in Mae West's face?"
"Serves him right for aiming at her face,” Canal said. “It's a publicity stunt."
McReary wasn't listening. “I've had more girls than you've had cheap cigars. You fall in love with Hedy Lamarr every time you go to the can."
"I told you, her picture came with the wallet."
Zagreb said, “You're both Errol Flynn, okay? Let's get back to business. Frankie's the job, that's it. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had it up to here with beating up on ham radio operators with Lawrence Welk accents. What's so wrong with show business? Maybe we'll get to meet Betty Grable."
"We got a couple of weeks,” said Burke. “I'm thinking we might wrap this one up before we have to dive into a mob of bobby-soxers. Don't this sound like just the kind of lay that another Frankie dear to our hearts would love to sink his teeth into?"
Deep contemplation followed. The Greektown bar where they hung their hats off duty had a picture of Francis Xavier Oro on the dartboard. Frankie Orr had his paws on every automobile tire and pound of butter that passed through the local black market.
"I'd like five minutes with that greaseball in the basement,” Canal said thoughtfully. “I'd swap it for my pension."
Burke chuckled. “Big talk. Someday you'll punch a hole in Witherspoon's face and your pension'll be dead as Valentino."
Zagreb lit a Chesterfield with his Zippo. “There isn't a man in this room won't be on the dole the minute the boys come back from Berlin and Tokyo; the commish will see to that. Meanwhile, let's have some fun with our Frankie."
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Orr's office of record stood high in the Buhl Building, an Art Deco hell designed by a firm of chorus boys from Grosse Pointe, with a checkerboard of ebony and pickled-birch panels on the walls and a chrome ballerina hoisting a lighted globe on his glass desk. He sent someone there to pick up his mail and read it in his private dining room in the Roma Cafe, a Sicilian restaurant in which he owned part interest; that was speculation. His name didn't appear on the ownership papers.
A freestanding sign in front of the door read private party. As Canal lifted it out of their path, a man nearly his size took its place. His suitcoat sagged heavily on one side.
"'S'matter, Junior, you only read the funnies?” Canal said.
Zagreb touched Canal's arm. “Hey, pal, you like Vernor's?"
"Never heard of it."
"Out of town,” Zagreb told the sergeant. “Frankie rotates ‘em like tires so they don't get lazy. It's not his fault he doesn't know we're famous.” He flashed his shield. “Boss in?"
"No."
"Then what the hell you doing here?” Canal swung the sign at his head.
The bodyguard tried to roll with the blow and reached under the sagging side of his coat. McReary, stationed on that side, slid the blackjack out of his sleeve and flicked it at the back of the man's hand as it emerged. The big semiautomatic pistol thumped to the carpet. Burke kicked it away.
"Just like Busby Berkeley,” Zagreb said. “Show some manners. Knock on the door."
The bodyguard, bleeding from the temple, ungripped his injured hand and complied. When a muffled voice issued an invitation, he grasped the knob. “What's Vernor's, anyway?"
"Just the best ginger ale on the planet,” Canal said.
"I like Canada Dry."
Frankie Orr, seated in a corner booth, closed and locked a strongbox on the table and looked at the bodyguard without expression. “Call New York. You're still on the payroll till your replacement gets here. I don't want to see you after that."
The man left, closing the door. Orr turned his gaze to Zagreb. The gangster was handsome, if you liked the gigolo type. He trained his glossy black hair with plenty of oil, practiced his crooked Clark Gable smile in front of a mirror, and the man who cut his silk suits at Crawford's swore he hadn't added an inch to his waistline in ten years. “I wish you'd put a leash on that St. Bernard of yours,” he said. “There's a war on. Good help's scarce."
"He's still a pup. I don't want to break his spirit.” The lieutenant spun a chair away from a vacant table—they all were, except Orr's—and straddled it backwards, folding his arms on the back. “Sinatra's coming, did you hear?"
"I bought a block of tickets. I didn't know you followed swing music."
"Der Bingle for me. Crosby was here when he came and he'll be here when he's gone. That might be sooner than we think. That goon on the Manhattan subway, before you came here; didn't you beat him to death with a lead pipe?"
"I never killed nobody, not with a lead pipe or a gun or a custard pie. If that's why you're here, you need a warrant. Small talk, Sinatra and Ishkabibble, won't do it."
"They don't call you The Conductor because you shook a stick in front of the Philharmonic, but that's New York's headache. One less of you heels bac
k East doesn't annoy me one little bit. Some joker's making noise about doing plumbing on the Voice's throat, maybe right here in town; that does. Since you both like the same weapon I thought we'd start here."
"You're barking down the wrong hole, Lieutenant. I don't spit in the wind, especially when it's blowing from New Jersey. You know how Sinatra went solo?"
Burke said, “We ain't deaf. Willie Moretti got Tommy Dorsey to release Frankie-boy from his contract by twisting a .45 in his ear. Every little girl in Hoboken sings about it skipping rope."
"I heard it was a .38,” Orr said. “Anyway, the organization has plenty tied up in Sinatra. Anything else you heard is bushwah."
"His manager doesn't think so.” Zagreb got a Chesterfield out of the pack and walked it back and forth across his knuckles. “I believe you, Frank. It's easy enough to find out if you bought all those tickets, and everybody knows you're cheap. Any loose cannons in your outfit? Some driver thinks he didn't get his end smuggling a truckload of Juicy Fruit past the OPA?"
"You got to do better than that if you want me to say I got anything to do with the black market. Say, where'd you learn that trick?” Orr stared, fascinated by the sleight of hand.
"I used to deal blackjack before I got religion. Okay, so when it comes to waving Old Glory, you're Kate Smith. But if you weren't and one of your boys wanted to cross you, who'd it be?"
"I clean up my own messes. Listen, there's a showgirl at the Forest Club who'd think that thing with the cigarette's swell. I can get you a deal on a set of whitewalls if you taught it to me. Pre-war, never used, so there won't be any trouble over stamps."
Canal drew his shadow over the booth. “Frankie, I think you're trying to corrupt us."
"Signora Oro didn't raise any dumbbells, Sergeant. It's a friendly trade is all."
Zagreb stood and put away the cigarette. “Keep your nose clean, Frankie. We don't want to have to come back and blow it for you."
Out in the public area, the lieutenant stopped. “You boys wait in the car. I forgot my hat."
AHMM, April 2010 Page 1