A President In Peril (A Snap Malek Mystery)

by Robert Goldsborough

  "Happen to know the company name?" I posed, again using the most off-handed tone I could muster, given my interest.

  Tucker smiled sheepishly. "I'm ashamed to admit I don't, Mr. Malek, although I hope you won't use that in your story. But we can find out quickly." He pressed a button on his phone and picked up the receiver.

  "Phyllis, can you please get the name of Mr. Warren Jones's company, and his phone number, for Mr. Malek? It's important. Thank you."

  Not more than thirty seconds had passed when the very proper Miss Henderson stepped gracefully into the room, walked over to Tucker's desk, and placed a sheet of paper in front of him. Efficiency personified, and not a single word spoken.

  "Ah, yes," Tucker said, studying the sheet and nodding. "That's it. Howell-Jones Printing & Engraving, I should have remembered. But then, I have had a number of other things on my mind," he added with a chuckle, handing the sheet across to me.

  "You indeed have had other things on your mind, Mr. Tucker. I thank you so much for being generous with your time today. I know you are fighting a damn long battle."

  He laughed. "'A damn long battle'? I like that, Mr. Malek! Maybe I'll use the phrase in a speech sometime. That's exactly what it is. I knew when I started up this business it was not going to be the most enjoyable picnic I'd ever had. I just didn't know the picnic would come with rain, ants, and vipers in the form of U.S. senators and congressmen. That's to say nothing of my 'friends' at the Big Three car companies who don't like the idea of competition and innovation. But I'm tough, Mr. Malek–extremely tough. And I'm ready for that 'damn long battle' that you mentioned."

  I nodded, told him I might call him for more information as I worked on the article, and said my goodbyes. As I left, he was gazing out of his office window onto the all-too-empty factory floor with its four newly minted Tuckers. I was convinced he was tough, all right, but unsure as to whether he was tough enough for the challenges that lay ahead of him.

  Chapter Twelve

  D1 I1 S1 A1 B3 U1 S1 E1

  (v) to free (a person) from deception or error; set right

  After my session with Preston Tucker and his cars, I drove north, stopping at the first phone booth I spotted, which was on the sidewalk in front of an IGA grocery on

  Cicero Avenue. To my surprise, there was an intact Chicago White Pages hanging on a chain inside the booth. No need to call information. I found the number of Howell-Jones Printing & Engraving, which was located up north on Diversey Avenue. I dropped my nickel in the slot, dialed, and asked the soft feminine voice on the other end for 'Mr. Jones, please.' The next voice I heard, also feminine, was less soft in announcing that I had reached the office of the company's chairman.

  "My name is Steven Malek of the Tribune," I told her. "I am doing a feature for the newspaper on Preston Tucker and his revolutionary new automobile. I just finished interviewing Mr. Tucker, and he mentioned to me that Mr. Jones was the owner of one of the beautiful new Tuckers. I was hoping to talk to him about his car for the Tribune story."

  "Mr. Jones is a terribly busy man, Mr…"

  "It's Malek."

  "Mr. Malek. As I said, Mr. Jones is terribly busy. I just don't know when–"

  "I appreciate the situation, really I do. I would not want to take a lot of Mr. Jones's valuable time, of course, but I do feel it's so very important to get an owner's comments on what it's like to drive the most exciting new automobile to come along in the United States in decades–maybe ever."

  I have found that it's almost impossible to lay it on too thick after you've identified yourself as being with a newspaper–particularly the Tribune. People seem to have an exalted opinion of the power of the press, and we ink-strained wretches are not about to disabuse them of that opinion.

  "Well…"

  She was wavering, so I leaped back in before she could spit out another word.

  "I really wouldn't be asking for these few minutes if I didn't think if was absolutely necessary to the story," I urged in the tone I used when trying to wheedle the city desk into giving me fifteen more minutes to turn in a story.

  "And so very few people are proud owners of this amazing machine," I pushed on. "I know our readers–our millions of readers–are interested in what the owner of a Tucker has to say about these remarkable vehicles. I am sure Mr. Jones, as the only Chicagoan so far who has purchased one of the Tuckers, would certainly want his opinions to be recorded."

  "Hold on, please," the now-flustered secretary blurted, clicking me into limbo. After about a minute, a new voice came on the line, snapping "Jones here!"

  I started into my spiel but he quickly cut me off. "I know, I know!" he snarled in a high-pitched tone. "She told me who you are and what you want. And I suppose you need to see me right this damn minute, is that it?"

  "Well, I can be at your office in, say, a half hour, if that would be agreeable."

  "Agreeable? No sir, it is not agreeable, but then, when does 'agreeable' matter to anyone these days? Everybody wants some of your time and they want it right now." He cut loose with an extended exhalation meant to show me his displeasure, then growled "All right, all right, come ahead, as long as you're sure that it won't take long."

  The Howell-Jones Printing building was a muscular brick structure six stories high with opaque windows, running for a full block along Diversey a few blocks east of

  Cicero Avenue. I found a parking spot near the front door and walked into a lobby dominated by glass cases displaying publications the company printed, including women's and sports magazines, textbooks, best-selling paperback novels by famous authors, and fat mail order catalogs. A sign over the display cases proclaimed CHICAGO–PRINTING CAPITAL OF AMERICA! HOWELL-JONES, PRINTING KING OF CHICAGO! A receptionist with carrot-colored hair and long cerise fingernails was seated in a small room behind a sliding glass panel. She flashed an insincere smile and directed me to an elevator, saying between chews on her gum, "Mr. Jones can be found on the fourth floor. You just can't miss the office."

  As the elevator rose slowly, I could feel a throbbing vibration, likely caused by giant presses churning out books and magazines for a voracious reading public. Somewhere, I had read that this was one of the three or four largest printing plants in the country. Quite a contrast to Preston Tucker's operation twelve miles to the south.

  As I got off at the fourth floor, I faced a highly varnished dark wood door with the words WARREN JONES in raised metallic letters on it. Entering the sanctum of a chairman for the second time that day, I was greeted by the smiling face of a raven-haired, porcelain-skinned beauty far younger than her telephone voice had led me to believe. The nameplate on her desk said she was Miss Emily Ames.

  "You are…Mr. Malek?" she half-asked, half-stated. I nodded, returning her smile.

  Emily Ames reached under her center desk drawer, apparently pushing a button. "You can go right through to Mr. Jones's office," she said, nodding toward another highly polished, dark wood door, this one with no name on it.

  "You mean I should just go on in?"

  Her smile broadened, which showed off her dimples. "Oh, yes, sir. He told me when you got here to buzz him, and to send you right in. No need for you to knock."

  The printing tycoon's lair was larger than a one-car garage but smaller than a tennis court. The paneling was in a brown tone similar to that on the two doors I had opened to get here, and the windowless walls were covered with photographs, many of them showing Jones posing with famous people, among them a grinning Thomas E. Dewey and a dour Senator Robert Taft, the conservative stalwart from Ohio, who ached for a presidential nomination but would never get it.

  Jones's desk, dark brown of course and almost the size of our dining-room table, anchored the far end of the room in front of an American flag on a brass staff that was crowned by an eagle with wings outstretched. I walked across a quarter-acre of burgundy broadloom toward the desk as Jones looked up from paperwork. He did not stand or offer a hand, but silently gestured toward an elegant, u
pholstered guest chair, which I slid into.

  His face was square and hard, his eyes an icy blue, and his bushy eyebrows white, although his slicked down hair was brown, which suggested dye. He dropped the pen he was using onto the desk blotter and considered me from beneath those overhanging eyebrows, which arched over his eyes like eaves above windows.

  "Malek, isn't it?" he said in a high-pitched voice that didn't go with the face, which seemed to call for a bass or at the very least a baritone.

  "Yes, Steve Malek. I really appreciate your seeing me on such short notice."

  He nodded curtly, lips pursed. "If you'd been from any place but the Tribune, I wouldn't have wasted my time on you, that's for damn sure. But I have great admiration for your Colonel McCormick; he's my kind of man. I assume. of course. that you know him."

  "We've had some conversations," I said, which was the truth.

  Another tight nod. "So, you're here to talk to me about my Tucker, right?"

  "Yes. As I told your very nice secretary, I'm doing a Sunday feature on Mr. Tucker and the car, and I'd like to know what made you choose to buy one. And also, of course, how you like it."

  "First things first," Jones snapped. "I admire this Tucker guy and his style. He's his own man, goddammit, not beholden to anybody. This country needs more like him, lots more like him. He doesn't take any crap from anybody, just like your Colonel McCormick. And just like me, for that matter."

  "All right, you like his style, but do you also like his car?"

  "Hell yes I do! For one thing, it's big–low-slung, but big, wide, lots of room inside. You feel safe, too. And you should get a look at the way people react when you drive past. Hah! They've never seen anything like it. Makes their eyes pop out of their sockets. One fella riding a bicycle damn near fell off it when he saw me coming in the opposite direction." He cackled dryly at the memory.

  "Uh-huh. Have you driven the car a lot?"

  "Only had it a few weeks. I drove her down to Champaign on the weekend for the football game against Purdue. Damn smooth ride–and fast. Plenty of power under that hood. Or I guess I should say in the trunk. I got plenty of stares along the road, and a lot of pointing."

  "Are you an Illinois graduate?" I asked.

  Another desiccated laugh. "Hell no! I'm what you'd call a self-made man. School of hard knocks and all that. Never got past the ninth grade. My son's in school down there, though."

  "Oh, really? So is mine. As a matter of fact, I was there for the game this weekend too."

  "That so?" he said without interest. "What's your boy majoring in?"

  "Architecture."

  "Hah! Maybe he'll be the next Frank Lloyd Wright, eh?" He cackled mirthlessly. "Wright. Now there's another guy who's his own man. Always has been. Does exactly what he bloody well pleases. Nobody tells him what to do. My kind of man.

  "Now my boy, he's in civil engineering–which if you ask me is a damn sight more practical than architecture, which is filled with dreamers…maybe with the exception of this Wright fellow."

  But I didn't ask you, I wanted to say. However, I merely smiled and pushed on. "How did you come to know about Tucker and his car in the first place?"

  "Hell, I keep up, man. You've got to. I read the papers, including your own, of course, and I saw pictures of the car. I liked what I saw, so I went straight to Tucker himself and slapped down my money. I believe in going straight to the top to get something done."

  "Avoid any middleman, right?"

  "Damn right. Screw the middleman. Now if you're done asking questions, I'd like to ask you a few myself, since you've been imposing on my time."

  "Fair enough. Shoot."

  "You're a newspaper guy, so you know what's going on. Dewey has got this election in the bag, am I right?"

  "Seems like he's running ahead, at least from what the polls from around the country are saying."

  Jones scowled, fiddling with a letter opener. "Don't know about you, but I've never been one to put a lot of faith in polls. I remember back in '36, some fool literary magazine survey had Landon beating FDR, and poor old Alf ended up getting himself clobbered. Only won a couple of states, didn't he? Anyway, we've got to get this bastard Truman out, get rid of him once and for all. This can't go on."

  "That sounds pretty final, the way you put it," I deadpanned.

  "Dammit to hell," Jones barked, banging a fist on his desk, "we can't abide having this left-wing, Jew-loving idiot in the White House any longer. I–" He interrupted himself and leaned forward in his chair, peering at me as if he were studying some sort of specimen. "You're not…Jewish…are you?"

  "No, I'm not. Why?"

  His angular face softened slightly and he nodded several times while making a clicking sound with his tongue. "I thought not. Worst thing we ever did, y'know, was to grind Germany into the dust. It's one thing to beat them–we had to do that, of course, they gave us no choice–but, well, they accomplished a lot as a country. And now look where we are: The goddamn miserable Commies are crawling all over the place in that part of Europe, including Germany. First the Jews, now the Commies."

  "I didn't realize the Jews had been trying to take over Europe," I remarked.

  "Hah! Of course they were, man. Where in blazes have you been? For centuries they've owned some of the biggest businesses over there, the biggest companies, the biggest banks as well. You've heard of the Rothschilds, haven't you?"

  "Certainly. A huge international banking operation, maybe the largest."

  Jones folded his arms across his chest. "I rest my case. And all we're doing is helping the Jews to get even stronger and richer by recognizing that Israel country. Wouldn't surprise me one damn bit if somebody took a potshot at Truman between now and the election."

  I feigned shock. "You really think so?"

  He turned over a hand. "Just think about it. Has there ever been a more-hated president? Hell, not even cursed FDR was hated as much. I'll tell you this: If I was Harry, I'd be watching my back all the time."

  "Interesting to hear. You're opening my eyes. Do you think there's a chance of something happening when he comes to Chicago?"

  "How would I know?" he said, suddenly jerking upright in his chair. "But if I were to place a bet, I'd say that before election day–"

  At that instant, a tall, very thin, black-haired man in denim overalls burst into the room. "Sorry to bother you, Mr. Jones, but–"

  "Yes, Becker, what is it?" Jones said, swiveling in his chair to face the intruder.

  "Miss Ames wasn't at her desk, and I thought I should come right in," Becker said, scratching the large black mole over his left eye. "We got us an emergency with Goss No. 2 that's square in the middle of the Woman's Life run. We've still got four hundred thousand copies to go and I think we're going to have to shut down."

  "Dammit to hell!" Jones shouted, hammering his desk with a fist for the second time since I'd been in his office. "I told Everett last week to check into major maintenance on that damned press. It's way overdue. Now we're paying the price." He bolted from his chair and stormed out of his office in front of Becker, turning at the door in an afterthought. "Oh, uh…" he said to me, waving a hand and groping for my name." Got to go, sorry, Mr….Malek, is it? Like my man here said, we've got an emergency."

  Jones and Becker were gone, and I rose to leave myself, taking one last look around the large paneled room with all its pictures, the office of a self-made tycoon who seemed to know precisely who he was and what he believed in.

  Chapter Thirteen

  V4 I1 G2 I1 L1 A1 N1 T1 E1

  (n) a member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate

  I was back in the Headquarters press room the next day, getting ready to call in a story about an arsonist who got nailed in the act, when my phone rang a few minutes after ten o'clock. It was Pickles Podgorny.

  "Zounds and ye gods, man! What are you doing aw
ake at this hour?" I demanded. "You have insisted in the past that you never get up before noon–or even one o'clock. Your exact words, as I recall. I find myself in a state of complete shock."

  A snort came over the wire. "Okay, okay, spare me the dramatics. Once in a while I've been known to make an exception. Besides, I'm acting on your behalf."

  "How so?"

  "I've been doing your bidding since last we met, oh exalted maestro of the printed word. And I have gone and found you a man."

  "Afraid I don't follow, Pickles. Maybe I'm the one who got up too early today."

  "I will try to be patient with you and proceed slowly," he replied in feigned exasperation. "If you'll recall, you asked me to find out about any Nazi groups that might be operating within our fair metropolis."

  "That is indeed true."

  "Which is precisely what your humble servant has accomplished. I have located a gentleman who knows something and he is willing to talk to you, but on the condition that he remain anonymous. Which means of course that no quotes are to be attributed to him in your grandiose journal."

  "A fair request, Pickles. I will take an oath to respect this individual's privacy. When and where would you suggest we meet?"

  "That is up to you. If you are willing, as well you should be, to stand the bill for lunch, we can meet at your convenience, perhaps even at that establishment on Wabash where we took nourishment a few days back. I find the quality of their pickles, while less than superb, to be at least acceptable."

  "You mean Parker's Grill, right? It's jake by me, Pickles–that is, assuming you do not find the place to be…well…uncomfortable."

  "I sense that I am being mocked," he said with a sniff.

  "Not at all, my poker-playing friend. I just felt that when we dined there before you seemed somewhat ill-at-ease being in such close proximity to the headquarters of our great city's police department."