by Don Satalic
by
Don Satalic
www.donsatalic.com
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Don Satalic
Copyright © 2014 by Don Satalic
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
* * * * *
Return of the Falcon is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, incidents, other than historical references, are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Don Satalic
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Don Satalic
www.donsatalic.com
ISBN 978-0-9890346-0-9
Cover art by J.C. Grande
https://jcgrande.blogspot.com
https://johnnymorbius.deviantart.com/gallery
First Edition
To Digger whose belief
became this book.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my wife, Ann, who charms the birds and the squirrels and the possums and me. And thanks to my son, Digger, who has a keen sense of what is cool. I am especially grateful to cryptology expert Fred Brandes and longshoreman Jose Garcia.
Table of Contents
Author's Note
About the Author
Yet let him remember the days of darkness;
for they shall be many.
All that cometh is vanity.
Ecclesiastes 11:8
SOUTH CHICAGO
Late Summer, 1946
The war was finally over. It ended in an orgy of destruction and death unleashed by Fat Man and Little Boy, horrific creations of the new "Atomic Age."
But it brought our boys home.
And with them came a secret. If you looked real hard, you might be able to see it, just behind their eyes. Joe Ganzer knew what to look for. He saw it every morning in the mirror.
Today, Joe Ganzer only takes the easy cases, the cases with no danger, no challenges, no chance to trigger his memories or his fears. Fortunately for Jos. Ganzer Investigations a lot of returning GIs were curious about how their lovely ladies had occupied their time while they were away saving the world. Not that they doubted their fidelity, it was just insurance. Joe’s policy cost $50, more than enough to guarantee her virtue.
He settled into the complacency of these domestic cases, where his GI clients needed assurance that life was what they thought it was, that the world was essentially good if only a little screwed up.
But Joe knew better.
A couple of bullet holes kept him out of the war, at least that was the story on the street. Rumors surfaced about counter-espionage, about the "Bomb," about hunting down Nazi spies for the FBI. That last one played well with the ladies.
And it was a lady client he would see today. She had called the office to arrange a consultation. He wasn't sure he even wanted her kind of case, too many unknowns. But Joe agreed to meet her at Vookie’s Tavern, his "other" office. Besides, no sense meeting at his Commercial Avenue command center– it was hot and dusty and a mess. Vookie’s was good enough, the kind of place where everyone minds his own business, especially in the quiet of late afternoon.
Her entrance shattered the cathedral’s silence and spilled some afternoon heat into the place. Her eyes caught Joe’s in the last booth. She immediately walked over and slipped into the opposing side. “How’d you know?” asked Joe with a broad smile, admiring her angular features, blonde hair, and winter eyes, slate-gray with flecks of blue.
“I didn’t think you could be that drunk over at the bar or the bartender or that peculiar man with the hat leering at me. So, that left you,” she said with only the hint of arrogance in her soft, rich voice. She was bright and knew how to handle herself. She had depth. This case would be different.
But this is too soon, he told himself, too many risks. He wanted the mundane, the easy buck.
“So…how can I help you, Miss Kemidov?” Joe asked cautiously.
“I want you to locate my Uncle Yuri– Yuri Kemidov, ” Polina said almost defensively. “I know this will be difficult, and I’m quite willing to and able to pay for your services, though perhaps not in the way you seem to be thinking.”
Joe laughed, “I already like you, Miss Kemidov. May I call you by your first name?”
“Surely, if you would like. It is pronounced Po Lee Na,” she said with a corrupted German-Russian-Polish accent that defied Joe’s ear for detecting such subtleties. He’d been trained to recognize the regional German dialects and, to some extent, the Russian as well. He just couldn’t quite place this one.
He kept looking at her. Maybe she's learned too many languages.
“My uncle is a displaced person, you see. He was a general in the Russian Army during the war. He was more of a figurehead than a field general. More an honorary position, you see. The Germans captured him late in the war, and he was held in a POW camp. The Americans liberated him, and he wrote that he wanted to immigrate to Canada. We have relatives there. That’s the last I knew of his locality.”
That accent was rolling around in his head when Joe asked, “Last you heard, he was in Canada? That’s one big country.”
“No– he is not in Canada now. He wrote me that he was going to Toronto. That’s all I know,” she said as she reached in her purse, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper, clutching it in her delicate hand.
“Wrote you from where?”
She winced, and Joe immediately held himself back fearing that he would come off as an interrogator. He followed the question up with a smile that almost wasn’t. She's dancing around that location.
Polina replied, “He wrote from London, if that is any help." She spoke a little too rapidly, as though she knew the drill, knew that answers had better come without hesitation, almost rehearsed. She glanced down at the paper.
Noting the furtive look, he thought: She must have been in Europe somewhere under Nazi occupation. The bad news was the POW repatriation thing was off. The Americans sent Russian soldiers right back to the Soviet communists. Many had actually fought with Hitler against the communists. If Uncle Yuri was one of those Russians, he would have been executed by the Soviets. So he escaped or paid his way out.
“Now, for all you know, Uncle Yuri could still be in London. He could have run out of money or he could have taken ill or….?” Joe suggested, raising his eyebrows in wordless speculation. He paused, leaned his head to the side, looked at that paper in her hand, and gave a slight nod “When was your last correspondence?”
“About three weeks ago, Mr. Ganzer,” Polina said. “He was at this hotel in London.” She passed Joe the paper with the name "Alhambra Hotel" on the letterhead. The body of the letter was in Russian Cyrillic, which Jo
e could partially comprehend. He asked if he could keep the letter.
“No, I don’t want to lose it. It means so much to me,” Polina pleaded. "Mr. Ganzer, I lost my whole family in the war– my mother, my father. Uncle Yuri is my father's only brother. This letter may be all I will ever have of him. I cannot let it go."
“That’s fine…it’s all Greek to me, anyway,” Joe replied. But it wasn’t fine. She doesn't want me to translate that letter. Maybe it's something personal or something else. What Joe inexpertly translated seemed more like a mundane list of requests, not a personal letter.
“All I need is that hotel name for now,” Joe said. “I just want you to know: London is a big city. There are thousands of people displaced by the war who are traveling to all parts of the world… mostly the free world.”
What Joe didn’t want to say was that most likely General Kemidov was running from the Soviets, that maybe they’d caught up with him. “I may have to go there,” he said. “Are you prepared for those kind of expenses?”
She responded quickly, “No, please, Mr. Ganzer. Money is not a problem. I just need to know what has happened to him– that he is all right.”
“Skip the ‘Mr. Ganzer.’ Call me Joe. So... why are you staying here in Chicago… on the South Side?” he asked. He motioned for Eddie the bartender, who arrived just as Polina was answering.
“I have relatives– cousins– that I am staying with on 71st and Jeffrey,” she said.
“What would you like to drink?” Joe asked. “Eddie will get whatever you want. Right, Ed?”
“I would like a martini. Not too strong, please,” she said. Eddie went back to the bar as Joe assessed this lovely woman across the booth from him, admiring her impeccable taste in jewelry and clothing. Elegant but not ostentatious. Her suit, though, looked a half size too large for her. She has lost weight, he thought.
Joe leaned into her. “Now, why did you choose me?” If she answered wrong here, he would drop the case cold.
“I was told you had contacts everywhere,” she said. “That you could reach people anywhere in the world.”
Eddie returned with the martini and a napkin that had “Vookie’s” printed on it in a tropical shade of blue. He set them both down and headed back to the bar. That's when he heard Joe say “Who’d you get that from?” Eddie tensed up. He knew that tone in Joe’s voice.
Polina sensed it too. "I– I was at the Blackhawk Restaurant in downtown... in Chicago and– "
"Let me guess: You bumped into a guy who talked me up."
"Yes," she gasped, "but how did you know?"
"I'm a detective. I'm supposed to know things. That's why people hire me."
Two nights ago, Polina had ventured into the Blackhawk Restaurant on Wabash and Randolf, a place made famous all across the country by WGN radio's "Live! From the Blackhawk" on the Mutual Network. The show featured top musicians, like Kay Kyser, Chico Marx, Louis Prima, Ish Kabibble, and others. They even had a telegraph right there in the restaurant to take remote requests from their listeners.
If you wanted to dance between the soup and the entrée, then the Blackhawk was the place. It was at the east end of the "bright lights" area, 139 North Wabash, across from Marshall Field's department store and just a ways from the stairway to Chicago's "L," the elevated mass transit. The sounds of the "L" and the bustle of the street crowd all added to its appeal.
The Blackhawk just happened to be the favorite haunt of a grifter named Ludko Randelli, a shadowy denizen of the city's underworld and one of Joe Ganzer's best operatives, not to mention his best friend.
Ludko loved the Blackhawk not only for the music, but also for the interesting people you could meet– politicians, gangsters, wealthy businessmen, reporters, janitors, girls from the office, models, actresses. Anybody who wanted a good time could find it at the Blackhawk.
Ludko spotted Polina Kemidov sitting at the bar that night, looking exceptionally beautiful. Of course, he couldn't help but strike up a conversation with her. Ludko was a street-wise psychologist, and in the course of their small talk, he noticed that Polina seemed preoccupied, worried.
"You seem a little troubled," Ludko said.
"Oh... it's my uncle. He is now missing," said Polina in that strange alluring accent. "He is my only living relative. The war took both my mother and father. He's all that I have...." She broke off and turned away.
"Hey, now don't go gettin' misty. Maybe there's somethin' can be done. Where was your uncle last time yuh knew?"
"London...the last I had contact with him."
"London, eh?" said Ludko trying not to sound too impressed. "Listen, I represent a private investigation company. I believe we can locate your uncle without a problem." Ludko's mind went into overdrive. He could impress this beautiful woman and make some money at the same time. "Of course, this will require a little money to open a case, but I feel we can help."
"I have monies," replied Polina eagerly. "Anything to find my Uncle Yuri."
That's when Ludko told her to call Jos. Ganzer Investigations and set up a meeting.
"So tell me what happened with this character you met."
"The band at the Blackhawk was marvelous that night and there was dancing and this fellow who asked me to dance. We had a few drinks."
"Did he pay?"
"Why, yes, he did."
"That's unusual. Go on."
Polina looked at Joe quizzically and continued, "I told him about my uncle, and... and he said you was only one detective in Chicago who could find him.”
Joe smiled and let out an imperceptible laugh, “Walter Randelli! Did he get any money out of you?”
“His name was Ludko Randelli– I am almost sure– and, yes, he did get money, but how did you know?” Polina said with that withering tone of someone who knows they have been taken.
“I’ll get it back for you,” Joe said. “My apologies, that guy is a professional con. He makes his entire living hustling people who are in one form of trouble or another. He's even going to try to charge me a finder's fee for sending in a new client.”
Ludko knew Joe had wartime associates inside British intelligence, so he steered Polina to Joe and made a fast C-note in the deal. He figured Joe could use his contacts to help locate her uncle.
But more than that, Ludko knew something was wrong with Joe, something only a lifelong friend could see. He watched one of the best detectives in Chicago become a second-rate domestic peeper. Ludko sincerely believed what Joe needed was a real case again, like before the war, like before those long absences, something to engage his mind again, something to unravel, something to change.
Joe saw through his friend's plan and appreciated his concern, but he wasn't sure he wanted cases like that anymore. He wasn't sure of anything since the war.
From habit, Joe continued, "Now, how can I recognize your uncle? Do you have a photograph?"
"No... no photograph. It has been many years, you see? He is taller than me, but I was a girl then. He had dark hair, gray at the temples. He has a medium build and a scar on the left side of his cheek, near the temple."
"How old is he now?"
"He was a few years younger than my father, so I would say 63, perhaps older."
Joe let the conversation drift expertly to talk of Chicago, places to see and things to do while she was in town.
They finished their drinks, and Joe asked her if she needed a ride somewhere. She said she would take a cab. Eddie was given the nod to get her a cab. It was near dusk in South Chicago. Cars were leisurely moving down Commercial Avenue. The scent of coke from the steel mills lightly perfumed the air, and the haze made the setting sun glow red, like the inside of a blast furnace. The cab pulled up.
“Cab’s here, Joe,” announced Eddie.
“Okay, call me at the office in a couple of days,” Joe said as he handed her his card. “I’ll see what I can dig up on your uncle, and I’ll track down Ludko, too.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ganzer. You don’t know what a relief this is,” Polina said. She walked, almost glided, to the door, giving Joe just enough time to admire her sparse curves and practiced gate.
She does that on purpose. This might be a good case after all.
When she got outside the door, Joe went over to the passed out drunk and said, “Ludko, she’s gone now. Better get going.”
Ludko raised his head from the bar. “See, Joe, I told yuh she’d never recognize me. Not in these clothes,” Ludko said with a certain pride. He was one of those people you never really see, even when you’re with them for a long time.
“Get going, before you lose her,” Joe said. “She’s headed to 71st and Jeffrey." He patted him on the back and headed down to the end of the bar. "Benny, you have to stop staring at these girls. You’re making it rough on my business.”
Benny was one of Joe’s part-time operatives, doing odd jobs whenever he felt in the mood or was in need of some cash. “Yeah, but Joe, she was beautiful. I’m sorry. What do yuh want me ta do now?”
“Hang tight, Benny. I’ve got to get a few things together. I’ll call you here later.”
Ludko tailed Polina in his unremarkable 1940 LaFayette, but she didn't end up at 71st and Jeffrey.