Operation Underworld

by Paddy Kelly

  “Oh, really?” Where the hell is this going?

  “Yeah. Like this time this farmer over in Weehawken had a rooster. Guy was from Palermo, a friend of the family‘s. Problem was the rooster would try to screw everything in sight. The dog, the cat, the cows. All the chickens. He tried to get the rooster ta slow down or else he’d kill himself. Did that stupid bird quit? Hell no. Then one day, the inevitable happened. That’s when he called me.” Louie sipped his drink.

  “You squared him away, huh?”

  “No! Not much I could do under the circumstances! I went out in the barnyard with him, and there was that dumb rooster. Flat on his back, legs up in the air, head cocked over and tongue hangin’ out. Dead as a doornail! Even had a big old buzzard flyin’ around in circles over him.”

  “I’m waitin’.”

  “We both bent over that stupid bird and just looked at him. Then I guess that old farmer got overcome by grief, and he just let loose on that rooster. ‘You stupid bird! Look what you done ta yerself! Now you’re no good ta’ me, yer no good ta’ the chickens!’”

  “So he lost a good rooster?”

  “Oh hell, no! Just then the damn thing looked up at us, pointed up at the buzzard and said, ‘Shut the hell up! She’s gettin’ closer!’”

  “I think your elevator doesn’t go to the top, Mancino, ya know that?”

  “Could be. But I know I drink another need.” Louie held his glass out unable to stand. It was only 10 p.m., but after Doc poured Louie his last drink, he prepared the cot in the back room and helped Louie to bed. Then he rang Doris to let her know Louie was okay. She thanked him and reminded him that if he needed anything to call her, and speaking of calling, he ought to call that nice girl downtown.

  After he hung up, Doc sat back down at his desk, put his feet up and turned off the light.

  Maybe Frank Capra was right.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Lorraine, have our two doves flown the coop?”

  “Yes, sir. I booked them on the 23:45 last night out of Grand Central. Their ETA is 07:50 this morning.”

  “Notify me if you hear from them. And have your pad ready. They may use code if they need to leave a message.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Also notify the mail room that the package is in their safe. Don’t talk to some kid, either, tell that old supervisor, the one that was here when the Dutch landed.”

  A discretionary fund is like a secret lover. Everybody loves them, everybody would like to have one, but if its existence is made public, it gets extremely expensive.

  So it was with the discretionary fund assigned to Third Naval District for the expansion of Operation Underworld. These types of discretionary funds were always in cash. This posed a problem for the Logistics Officer, who passed it onto the Disbursement Officer, who passed it onto the Communications officer because the mailroom fell under his domain. The mail room, which housed the only safe large enough to store $125,500 in small bills, the size of the discretionary fund The Boys in Washington decided The Boys in New York needed despite the fact they had only requested $62,250.

  To keep the existence of said fund from leaking out to the public, or worse, to the auditors, there were no duplicates, triplicates or extra files anywhere in the system. The senator, who by United States Code was not supposed to issue such funds without the approval of Congress, knew about it, and the individual who received it also received the only receipt in the form of a memo in a sealed envelope.

  “Sir, Ira Birnbaum is a very sweet old man. Just because he’s old doesn’t mean he doesn’t contribute. I think it’s wrong to insult him!” The senior civil servant was taken off guard by his secretary’s defence of the mail room supervisor, and felt browbeaten into an apology.

  Lorraine rang down to the mail room, but Ira wasn’t there. It was close enough to coffee break so she decided a walk downstairs was in order. At the same time, she would try and locate Ira herself to deliver the message.

  After ten minutes of searching the lower floors with no success, Lorraine wandered out to the reception desk, and asked Nikki if she would relay the message to Ira. Nikki informed the secretary that Ira had a special day off to be with Norma. As one comment gave way to another, Nikki, Lorraine and Shirley spent the next fifteen minutes telling each other what a sweet idea it was and how considerate this Doc guy must be. Ten minutes after their coffee break was supposed to be over, they all returned to work. In the course of the day Nikki came to realise that it might be okay if Doc called.

  The Naval officer dressing in front of the mirror in the cramped cabin of the Pullman car, finished putting on his dress blue jacket and made some last minute adjustments to the three ribbons on the left breast of his dark blue garment. He noticed the rolling landscape slowly drifting past the picture window of the small room in contrast to the whoosh of the telegraph poles as he checked his watch. He considered taking his gloves and cover with him to breakfast but decided against it.

  “Arthur, you ready?” Lieutenant Commander Cowen banged on the door of the adjoining cabin and the much younger Ensign joined him en route to the dining car. Old eating habits from the Academy precluded conversation during the two to three minutes it took to eat the meal, and so the two officers only began to speak after they had finished their ham and eggs.

  “Sir, is it SOP for the Nav to spend so much money on a two day trip just to play messenger boy?” The Ensign was only on his fourth month of active duty and so was keen to learn the ropes from the veteran Commander, whom he had come to respect.

  “Some things can’t be sent through regular channels. But it is a bit unusual to send a field grade with a message to a state employee.” Reaching in his breast pocket, he produced the tiny, half-sized envelope the two were charged with delivering. Holding the envelope in both hands, he commented, “Sorta looks like a wedding invitation, doesn’t it?”

  “You suppose he‘ll come to the reception?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, whoever in the Nav sent us to this politician must be askin’ for some kind of favour. Are we to wait for a reply?”

  “Ya know, Arty, that’s the other strange thing. They said they didn’t know if he would reply right away.”

  “ALBANY! TEN MINUTES! NEXT STOP, ALBANY!” The porter walked through the dining car with his announcement, and the Commander checked his watch.

  “Fifteen minutes early! Very nice. Let’s shove off.”

  The long line of Pullman cars cast a distorted shadow over the station platform as it pulled in, and the officers were not required to wait for baggage after they disembarked as they had been ordered to travel with overnight bags only.

  An old man dressed in remarkably light clothing for the markedly cold temperatures in the northern upstate climate, sat on a bench smoking some sort of white clay pipe, overseeing the activity of the station. The Commander nodded to the Ensign and they approached him.

  “Excuse me, sir. Can you tell us where to get a taxi?”

  “Sure can.” The old man enjoyed an uncomfortable silence from the two officers who looked at each other and then back at the old man. The Commander attempted to kick-start the conversation.

  “Sir, are there taxis here, north to Albany?”

  “Yup, sure are.” Cowen looked at Lamberson, who shrugged and twirled his finger around his left temple and smiled out of sight of the man, so he thought. Being a glutton for punishment, the Commander sought to out-manoeuvre the old man.

  “Sir, where is the taxi stand?”

  “Right in front of the station, son, out on the street.” He threw his thumb over his left shoulder.

  “Thank you.” The officers walked away.

  “Welcome to Albany,” the old man called after them. If nothing else, he was cordial.

  After a fifteen minute wait in the cold, the two sailors discussed returning to the old man for further advice, but thought better of it. Instead, they made for the Station Master’s office, and Cowen spoke thr
ough the small ticket window to the heavy-set man on the other side.

  “Sir, we’ve got to get to the Prison Commissioner’s office, can you call us a taxi, please?” The Ticket Master smiled.

  “I will if you really want me to. But it won’t do ya no good.” Cowen turned to Lamberson.

  “You’re from this area, talk to these yokels!” he ordered the Ensign.

  “I’m from Connecticut, sir.”

  “And I’m from Santa Barbara! Get us a damn ride!” The Ensign stepped back to the window.

  “Sir, we’re here on official business, and we need to get to the Commissioner’s office. Can you please arrange for a cab to take us there?”

  “I’m sorry, son. There’s only one cab here anymore ’cause a the gas rationing and parts shortage, but if you can wait about ten minutes, Floyd’ll be going out that way on delivery. I’ll get him to take you out there.”

  Floyd’s 1931 Ford pick-up was not only cramped with three men stuffed into the two man bench seat, but the heater didn’t work and the god-awful smell of chicken shit was inescapable. On top of it, Floyd wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Or a hygienist. However, twenty-five minutes later Cowen and Lamberson were dropped off in front of the New York State Correctional Authority Headquarters, and were walking up the gravel path to the front door.

  They walked through the cold, lifeless building and simultaneously came to the same conclusion. That if, after the war, they choose to remain in government service, the Penal System was the last branch they would ever choose to serve in.

  At the end of a long hall, they were directed by a security guard to the Commissioner’s office. They introduced themselves to the secretary and were told in no uncertain terms that no one saw the Commissioner without an appointment. After several failed attempts to explain to the secretary that the Commissioner had been notified by the Pentagon of their coming, Cowen had had all the Albany hospitality he could stand.

  “Let’s go.” He signalled the Ensign and they by-passed the receptionist-secretary-aspiring bureaucrat and started for the Commissioner’s door. The spindly, middle-aged brunette trailed behind them through the door and into the office, spewing protests. Once inside the room, they wasted no time and went straight for the Commissioner’s desk.

  Commissioner Lyons looked up from his work when he heard the commotion, and sat back in his chair. The officers were already standing in front of the Commissioner’s desk by the time the fat guard seated to his right had time to drop the pen-knife he was using to clean his nails.

  “Sir, we understand you were notified of our arrival?”

  “Yes, I was. That’s alright, Jane. Thank you.” He dismissed the frustrated woman and turned his attention back towards the two officers.

  “Do navy officers always barge into high government officials’ offices, Captain?”

  “The rank is Lieutenant Commander, Commissioner Lyons, and Washington would like to know if you are refusing to accept a Top Secret message sent to you?”

  Lyons wasn’t sure how to react. Whatever it was the two officers brought, he had been told through his grapevine that it was coming and that he probably wouldn’t like it.

  “What is it you want?”

  Cowen reached into his jacket pocket and produced the small envelope and handed it to Lyons. The Commissioner accepted it, and without reading it placed it in his desk drawer.

  “Sir, by order of the Department of the Navy you are to open it in our presence.” In his short time in this billet, Ensign Lamberson had never heard the Commander speak in a more commanding tone of voice. “And then return it to us.”

  Lyons’ face clearly registered his anger as he opened and read the classified document. He was incensed and wanted only to expedite the officers on their return journey as quickly as possible.

  “I’m a god-damned former police inspector. I worked in New York City risking my life for half my career! I was appointed by the Governor himself! And now some god-damned Navy guy gets to tell me what to do with my prisoners? Son-of-a-bitch!”

  Cowen and Lamberson fought back their smiles not out of any kind of respect, there was none, but out of the military discipline they had been taught by men whom they did respect.

  Cowen held his hand out and Lyons threw the message on the desk. Lamberson moved a gilded ashtray from one corner of the Commissioner’s desk and Cowen lit the piece of magnesium-impregnated paper with a match and dropped it into the ashtray.

  “You bastard! That’s my Governor’s award for exemplary performance!”

  “Sorry, sir. It looked like an ashtray to me,” Lamberson said, with no trace of sincerity.

  “Sir, you’re required to answer to the Third Naval District Headquarters within twenty-four hours and you are cautioned against revealing the contents of this message to anyone. Thank you. Sir.”

  “Get the hell outta my office! I mean right now, god-damn it!” Lyons was on his feet, as was the guard with the clean nails. Cowen and Lamberson walked out the door and once in the hallway, clear of the secretary, Lamberson questioned Cowen.

  “Suppose we should have asked him for a ride back to town?” Cowen snickered. “C’mon. Let’s find Floyd.”

  Doc was up an hour before Louie and so cleaned up, made coffee and went straight back to work on some diagrams. He’d been using the technique of flow charts ever since he happened to read about their application to any given problem in Science Illustrated magazine about five years ago. So why not, he reasoned, apply them to detective work? The thing that kept eating away at him was that he couldn’t come up with any plausible theory as to why the DA would meet with someone as high up the chain as Meyer Lansky. There could be many reasons, theoretically, but the fact that he was trying so hard not to be seen could only mean one of two things. Either he didn’t have Hogan’s okay on the deal, or if he did, Hogan wanted it under wraps as well, which could only mean it wasn’t legitimate. That was the part Doc was interested in.

  Everyone on the DA’s staff disliked, if not hated, men in Doc’s profession. Partially because they were more trusted on the street than the DA’s and their investigators. Of course it never occurred to the DA’s that the PI’s didn’t have a corporate-styled political ladder to climb and so could go wherever the case took them. If they didn’t perform, they didn’t get paid. In addition, the DA’s professional success was measured by how many convictions they have to their credit. Sorta like RBI’s in baseball, Doc always figured.

  However, to compound matters, beyond their dislike of PI’s the DA’s had nursed a special hatred for Doc McKeowen ever since the fatal incident involving his father. And Doc remained ever vigilant to any crack in their defences so that he might one day demonstrate the fact that the feelings were mutual.

  Doc decided Louie had had enough time to sleep off his biannual dose of hard liquor and so woke him at about half past nine. Louie fought but lost the battle to remain in bed and a half hour later, they were in a mid-town restaurant finishing breakfast and preparing for the day’s events.

  “So what the hell’s at the library, Doc? We gonna sit around reading all day?”

  “Hopefully not all day, Louie. But I think if we look in the right place we could improve our battin’ average a little.”

  “Well, the Silver Clipper ain’t got nuthin’ta worry about, that’s for sure. What the hell we lookin’ for anyway, Doc?”

  “Not a clue Louie. Not a clue.”

  Doc paid the waitress and they walked the four blocks to Bryant Park and entered the 42nd Street branch Public Library on the Fifth Avenue side. The two men were forced to detour into the street for a short way as there was a large crew of steel workers replacing a twenty-foot section of wrought-iron fencing.

  “We’ll check the records here first, then shoot over to the Times Building this afternoon,” Doc explained as they climbed the granite stairs. Doc watched Louie rubber-necking as they entered the foyer.

  “You‘ve never been to a library, have you?”
>
  “Yeah, sure. All the time.”

  “You ever check anything out other than the librarians?”

  “You mean you can take these books home?” Louie knew Doc was angling to give him a lesson and he wasn’t disappointed. After a fifteen minute introduction to the card catalogue, Louie learned about periodicals.

  “The advantage of periodicals is they can supplement your research because they contain information that’s not included in things that are on microfiche. Few other investigators use the library. If they don’t find it in the newspapers or in the public records, they usually give up. That’s where you can get a leg up. Got it?” Louie didn’t respond. “Well, any questions?”

  “Yeah! What the hell’s a microfinch?”

  “A very small bird. C’mon.”

  Five minutes later, Louie was an expert at locating, inserting and scanning microfiche film. Each of them took a booth and several canisters of film. Louie went to work on the New York Daily News and Doc took the Times. Doc instructed his partner to take notes on anything to do with the DA’s office, starting back two months before Pearl Harbor. Two and a half hours later, he was snapped out of a mesmerising tedium when Louie suddenly yelled out.

  “Incredible!”

  “What? What’d ya find?”

  “This lady, in Saskatchewan, not only gave birth to triplets that lived, but all three of them were breeched! That’s amazing!”

  “Am I gonna have ta go back over all your work and check for myself? What the hell good are you here, Louie?”

  “Doc! I got all the DA shit! There just ain’t that much of it. It’s all shoved aside for the war news. The Japs doin’ this and the Russians doin’ that. Hell, all I came across was about ten articles havin’ anything ta do with Hogan’s office.”

  “Yeah, you got a point, I guess.” Doc set his pencil down and rubbed his eyes. “Hell, most interesting thing I found was George M. Cohan’s funeral and the Normandie thing.”