The Big Kiss-Off of 1944: A Jack LeVine Mystery

by Andrew Bergman

  “Surprised that I eat with a spoon?” I asked no one in particular. The silence in the room was swallowed by an even larger silence.

  “Jack, we mean you no harm,” said Redlin.

  “Fine,” I answered. “You just wanted to throw me a free breakfast. I appreciate it.” Somebody coughed. It takes a while to get used to my sense of humor.

  “Shall we get down to brass tacks immediately? I feel the usual civilities bore you.” Redlin’s voice was getting a little frosty.

  “Remind me to tell you of some civilities I got on a fire escape yesterday,” I said, my mouth half-filled with melon. “You’ll enjoy it.”

  “Ken, let’s just lay it on the line with him,” said a large snowy-haired admiral.

  “Please do,” I said.

  “All right,” Redlin began, “it’s very simple. You have, in the past few weeks, gotten involved in matters affecting national security and we’d like you to get out before you get hurt. That’s all of it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a small-time detective. There must have been a mix-up.”

  Lee Factor smiled.

  “LeVine, I think I like you. Your innocent guile is refreshing.”

  “Most people make that observation,” I told him. Factor laughed. I joined him. That made two people laughing.

  But Factor stopped abruptly. “So why don’t you stop putting on a show,” he barked, running a delicate hand through his untamed hair.

  “Level with me and I will.”

  “We want, we urge, you to stop working for Eli W. Savage,” said General Redlin.

  “Meaning what, and why?”

  A rotund admiral got incensed. His name was Thomas, or Thompson. I forget.

  “Who are you to insult the rank of these officers? You’ve been given an order by the highest military men in the country, men whose job it is to win a war. Who the hell are you to talk back to us? Get off the case and stop asking questions.” A half-dozen officers murmured assent. One of the limeys said, “Quite right.”

  I was unawed, maybe because the admiral was the kind of bluff artist I run into all the time.

  “I’m very sorry, sir, but I start asking questions when strangers start shooting at me. Maybe you military men take it for granted, but I like to know why people want to kill me.”

  “It’s a delicate matter and things happened,” said Redlin. That was his way of explaining things.

  I took a look at Butler, who turned away, and then stood up, giddy with chutzpah.

  “If no one wants to tell me anything, I’m getting the hell out of here.” I threw down my napkin. “We’re sitting around playing footsie. I ask a question and get a tap dance in return. Maybe you figured the sight of all these ribbons was going to bring me to my knees. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a misuse of your power. Something goddamn ugly is going around, and all this shadowboxing isn’t going to put me off. Two people have died in the past week and yesterday I was almost number three. Either you tell me what’s coming off or I’m walking out of here and finding out for myself, let the chips fall wherever they damn please.”

  “Please sit down, LeVine,” said Factor. He looked at the others. Their jaws were open—that’s how good I had been. “You’re right. We should tell you exactly what the situation is. Then I think you’ll understand the necessity of your getting off this case.”

  I pointed at Butler and sat down. “He screwed this case up nice and pretty,” I ranted. “In pink ribbons he screwed it up.” A waiter came over with my eggs in a covered dish. He lifted the cover.

  “I’m going to eat my eggs,” I announced. “While eating them I expect to get told and told straight. Like I said, people have been shooting at me and I’m curious.” There are times to be a crazy man and this was one of them because when you’re in as deep as I was at the Waldorf, the only way you can get out with pride and skull intact is to act so loco that people will assume that you hold all the aces. In the Savage case, I probably did. Because before sticking my fork into the eggs, I looked around the table again and observed that these men were scared, very scared.

  Redlin looked at a big blond officer.

  “Colonel Watts, why don’t you sum it all up for Mr. LeVine.”

  Watts cleared his throat and started speaking. His voice came out high and comical, like a silent-screen lover in his first and last talkie.

  “The reelection of Franklin Roosevelt is absolutely essential to the successful conclusion of our war effort. His defeat, which this group adjudges to be a real possibility, would be calamitous not only to the efforts of our fighting forces in Europe and the Pacific, but to the shaping of the postwar world. As Wendell Willkie said just yesterday afternoon after reading the Republican platform plank on foreign policy, it is so vague that it could lead, if implemented,” and here Watts put on glasses and started reading from a newspaper, “to ‘no international organization and no effective force for the suppression of aggression.’ End of quote.” Watts looked around the table and drew nods of assent.

  “Willkie really say that?” I asked.

  Watts pounded the newspaper, the Times. “It’s here in black-and-white.”

  Warren Butler was biting his nails. He caught me watching him and blushed.

  Watts continued: “The defeat of Dewey, then, is a defense priority. We feel it necessary to cut off his principal source of revenue. Eli W. Savage figures prominently in the Dewey strategy, both as a contributor and a fund raiser. Contacts were made and Warren Butler informed Lee Factor that he was in possession of films made by Savage’s daughter that were sufficiently injurious to the Savage name as to cripple his effectiveness in the campaign. Since the operation had to be carried out extragovernmentally, Warren Butler was placed in charge of the matter, reporting to Lee Factor. Coded progress memos were to be filed weekly.”

  I smiled at Butler. He was scared shitless and knew that I knew it.

  “So Butler hired me as a blind,” I said through a mouthful of bacon.

  “Correct,” said Redlin.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Now,” the general said, “we hope you see our position and get off the case.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “We hope you say yes. It wouldn’t do you very much good to say no.”

  I smiled broadly. It wasn’t a very nice smile. “It wouldn’t do you gentlemen very much good if anybody found out how this deal was totally mishandled, would it?” I asked coyly. “Does the whole military know about this? Are your careers on the line for you to go to such extremes in support of FDR? Or did Mr. Factor just snow you into thinking so?” I looked at Factor. He looked at his sleeve. “General Redlin, is the entire military hierarchy in back of this? I could find out very easily. Couple of phone calls …”

  Redlin flushed. “What good would it do you to find out?”

  “Maybe a great deal. Look, maybe I’ll help you gentlemen out and maybe I won’t, but the way I figure it, you don’t have me over any kind of a barrel. It wouldn’t be very hard to lock me up under some pretense, but I’d bet that your last hope is that I’m Mr. Nice Guy and keep my mouth shut about this botch.”

  “Botch?” Factor asked innocently.

  “Of course it’s a botch. It’s a scandal. Not only is it blackmail, but crude blackmail. You let this clown of a producer play gangbusters, and he goes out and hires fourth-rate pa-lookas like Fenton and Rubine, who couldn’t stick up a candy store without shooting themselves in the asshole. If this is high-level blackmail, then I’m Walter Winchell. This has been a nickel-dime operation from start to finish: the federal government going out to hire cheap gunsills and not even paying them enough to keep them loyal.”

  “Shut up!” Butler bellowed, the veins bulging out of his neck. “Shut up, you bastard!”

  “You have two murders on your head, Broadway,” I told him. “You’ll have to be more polite than that if you want me to keep it quiet. You hire mugs for two bits, then get surpri
sed when they get a whiff of the real gravy and try to put the squeeze on you. So you have to kill one and then the other. No wonder you were shocked when I told you Rubine had blown Smithtown. He knew you had fingered Fenton for trying to shake you down and he knew he was next. So instead of a simple, if high-stakes, blackmail deal you have two dead crooks and a stink so bad you have to call in the army and navy to bail you out. You try bumping me off and screw that up. And here I am, still alive but very angry and with the strong suspicion that you folks are in big trouble. FDR isn’t going to like hearing about this, is he, Factor?”

  Factor shook his head. “Just help us out, LeVine. You’re right. We need you. Please help us.”

  “I might have at the beginning, but not now. The best I’ll do is try and keep your names out of it—if you lay off my client. But if you think I’m going to roll over and play dead while you blackmail Savage and his daughter, you’re crazy. I don’t like Dewey, but I don’t like extortion either. My politics are strictly for LeVine. I don’t care if Attila the Hun wins this November.”

  I got up and walked toward the door. A few mouths were open and all eyes were on me. I’m no megalomaniac, but at this moment I felt clearly superior to every other living creature.

  “If you have plans to bump me off, forget it. It doesn’t worry me and it wouldn’t help you even if you managed to do it right. Other people are on to this mess.” I stared at Butler. “This thing has been blown so bad my Aunt Sylvia could find out what happened. In fact, I’m your only chance. Savage trusts me.”

  “Savage must not be a contributor to this campaign,” Redlin said, his voice shaking.

  “You’re whistling in the dark, all of you. If you had any brains you would have let me handle this from the beginning.” I was heading down the stretch, ears pricking in the breeze. “Savage would be on a slow boat to Tierra del Fuego by now.”

  The Negro opened the door for me. I started out, then turned back to the group. They appeared paralyzed.

  “And I would have done it cheap.”

  I winked at the guy holding the door. He didn’t laugh, but his eyes did. Then he closed the door.

  “Rough crowd,” I said.

  “Yessir.” He paused. “They had you figured for a chump. I heard ’em.”

  “Everybody does.”

  “You’re no chump, Mister.”

  “Keep it under your hat.”

  The door opened behind me. Factor, Butler, Redlin, and Colonel Watts came out. I pointed at Butler.

  “Get him the hell out of my sight.”

  “Jack,” Warren Butler said. “Jack.” He was lost. Factor whispered to him and he forlornly returned to the other room.

  “LeVine, you’re being very, very rash,” said Factor. “You could get hurt.”

  “I’m sick and tired of being threatened. It’s a bore.”

  “I figured you for a man who loved his country,” Redlin blushed almost as he said it. It was too nauseating even for him.

  “That’s priceless, general, really. You love your country so much you can put the squeeze on a twenty-year-old girl for making a not-very-terrible mistake, and you can stick some schlemiel of a crook head first into a drainpipe. If that’s patriotism then I’m Tokyo Rose.”

  “It has been unpleasant and terrible, LeVine. Granted.” Redlin was cranking out the sincerity now, having tried everything else. “I’ve been appalled again and again at the manner in which this operation has been executed. If we had fought the war this way, the Germans would be in Ohio by now. But,” and he took a deep, sincere breath, “what’s done is done, and this operation must be seen through to its conclusion. Please help us. If you’d like, it could be made very profitable for you.” And now, finally, he had tried to buy me. Redlin looked at Factor, who waved his sculptor’s fingers.

  “Take that for granted, LeVine,” said Factor.

  “No dice. I won’t make it worse for you, that’s my side of the bargain. Your side is stopping all the muscle. If you sic anyone on me, I’ll sing so sweetly you’d think I was Russ Colombo. You understand that? The election’s four and a half months off. That’s a long time. If this thing breaks between now and then, Dewey could goose-step down Fifth Avenue and he’d still get elected. Play it smart and leave me alone. Ask anybody in this town: I know how to talk and I know how to keep quiet.”

  Redlin bit his lip and Factor shook his head. I was a nut. I left and the door closed. The two plainclothesmen were waiting outside. They rode down with me in the elevator. I thanked them and gave them my card.

  IT WAS A MORNING to go through mail and sort things out. I had gotten a bad case of the shakes after walking out of the Waldorf and had hailed a cab to get me to the office. Being cheeky was one thing, but telling three-star generals, admirals, and FDR’s top errand boy to take a jump was something out of an opium dream. I didn’t have much choice, the way I figured it; I was the man in the middle, a pawn in the biggest crap game going. When I added things up, it meant I could decide the outcome of the 1944 presidential election unless I kept everybody at a stalemate. I had to keep the Democrats too scared to lean on Savage, and keep Savage in the dark as to who was behind it—or else the blackmail would get turned around. It would be my all-time juggling act, maybe anyone’s all-time juggling act, and there was a good chance that all the oranges would bounce off my head. I had to hold my ground against pressures that weren’t going to be pretty. If those pressures were sustained over a span of months, chances were I’d end up walking around Creedmore in a bathrobe and slippers, trying to crap on the ceiling.

  So as I opened a letter from the Handwriting Institute of America, dedicated to the “scientific analysis of penmanship,” I decided to get everybody off my back by mid-July. I didn’t know how to do it, but just making the decision stopped my knees from knocking together. After calling Savage’s Chicago hotel and leaving word that I’d be out all afternoon, I rang up Toots Fellman and made a date to spend the afternoon holding hands at the Yankee-Browns game.

  Toots and I got up to the Bronx an hour or so early, to get a head start on the Ballantine and to settle back to enjoy a thoroughly ridiculous ball game. In return for his many favors, I treated Toots to boxes in the mezzanine, along the first-base line. Very nice seats, because we could make side bets on leg hits. The guy would start down the line and Toots or I would yell “safe” or “out,” always for a quarter. There was an okay crowd—the papers said 11,500—to check out the Browns, who were in first place for the first time since the War of 1812. To me they looked like the same old Brownies, kicking the ball around and chalking up three errors. Atley Donald went all the way for the Yanks, scattering eight hits. The St. Louis centerfielder, a guy named Byrnes who apparently suffered from glaucoma, dropped a fly ball in the third, and we scored three. In the fourth, Mike Milosevich walked and Stirnweiss hit a line drive to left, between Byrnes and a Brownie named Gene Moore, a victim of cataracts. Moore played soccer with the ball and Snuffy had an inside-the-park homer. New York finished on top 7–2, which put them 3½ behind and nobody could care less. My personal hero, Big Ed Levy, went hitless.

  The game was kind of a bore after the fifth and a lot of people left early, but we stayed and so did a skinny and obvious tail-job specialist who had arrived about a half an hour after we did, just so we wouldn’t get the idea he was following us. You hire somebody to tail two private dicks, you got to have your head up your ass. It was typical enough of the way the Waldorf Towers crowd had handled things to convince me immediately of what was happening. Toots had picked up on the guy as early as the third.

  “The guy in the suit isn’t too interested in the game,” he said, looking down at his scorecard. “He went to get a couple of dogs right after Lindell doubled last inning.”

  I turned around and gave him a look. A sallow, black-haired number in his twenties. When I turned around, he looked at his watch. Amateur night.

  “He definitely has the look, Toots.”

  “How do you lose so
mebody in Yankee Stadium?”

  “You don’t. And I don’t want to.”

  “He got a reason to follow you?” asked Toots, his bushy eyebrows twitching.

  “C’mon Etten, you slob!” I yelled at old Nick, after he took a hanging curve that DiMaggio would have knocked into Jersey. “He wants to test me on something, Toots, and I feel like obliging the guy.”

  Toots and I stood up slowly after the final out. The shadow was going out the ramp and chances were he’d pull an Elisha Cook, Jr., and stand just inside the ramp with a newspaper over his face. He fooled me: no newspaper, but rather, a complicated cigarette-lighting maneuver. Toots and I laughed out loud. He stayed about fifty feet behind us as we climbed the stairs to take the Woodlawn IRT back into Manhattan, then jumped into the crowded car with us as the doors were closing.

  “We take this to Grand Central,” I told Toots.

  “Then what?”

  “Then we go to the Daily News Building, which is where our friend is going to break down and cry.”

  The shadow intently read his scorecard all the way into the city. Toots and I stood in the vestibule, looked out over the Bronx until the train went underground, and then we just looked into the darkness, thinking our own dull and private thoughts. When we got out at Grand Central, our pal casually went out after us—yawning, that’s how bored he was—and tailed us into the daylight. I turned back and observed his consternation as we stayed on 42nd and crossed Third Avenue. He started to speed up, as if to catch us, then abruptly slowed down again. As we turned into the News Building, near Second, Toots said, “He’s running.” We pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby and headed past the giant globe and war map toward the elevators.

  “Wait for this guy,” I told the operator, as the shadow came hurtling through the lobby.

  He entered the elevator, pale and sweating.

  “City desk,” I told the operator. The shadow’s jaw dropped.