A President In Peril (A Snap Malek Mystery)

by Robert Goldsborough

  "I regret to say I missed most of the fun," I answered.

  "When do you get rid of that?" Farmer asked, pointing to my cast.

  "Soon, I hope. My arm's getting claustrophobia inside this thing."

  "Good thing you're not a lefty, Snap," he said. "What do you think's gonna happen to this Becker character? For that matter, his boss, that guy who owns that big printing company?"

  "You all know as much as I do, but I've got to figure they'll be put away for a long time if they're able to dodge the electric chair."

  "I'd give 'em both the chair, screw 'em," Packy snarled. "Nobody messes with both the president of the U.S. and my pal Snap Malek and gets away with it."

  "Thanks for the support," I told him and then turned toward Masters. "Hey, Anson, it's almost nine-thirty. Isn't it time you sent us off to our respective beats? Or have you foregone that fine custom in my absence?"

  "The custom remains intact," Masters rumbled. "I was just giving everyone a chance to celebrate your return and allow you to regale them."

  "Well, I'm all regaled out now, thank you. And I will treasure this award," I said, pointing to the medal. "And now, I'm off to see how Chief Fahey has survived in my absence these last weeks."

  On the way downstairs, I took off the medal and slipped in into my pocket.

  "Oh, you poor baby!" Elsie Dugo Cascio leaped to her feet as I entered her little room outside Fahey's office. "Does it hurt terribly?" she asked, pointing to the cast and sling.

  "I would endure that and more just to receive your concern and consoling," I told her, bending down to give her a squeeze.

  She flashed a smile and then quickly became serious. "We've been thinking a lot about you lately, both of us." She tilted her head in the direction of the chief's closed door. "He was very concerned about you, although you can't tell him I said that."

  "I gotcha. Can I see the old gentleman now?"

  "Let me announce you. Here, I'll pour you a cup of coffee to take in with you."

  "Such service," I said as Elsie pushed the button on the intercom and spoke my name.

  "So he's back, is he?" came the answer. "Oh, all right, send him in."

  "That's the clearest I've ever heard your voice over that damned squawk box," I told Fergus as I entered his office and dropped into a chair.

  "I thought I'd try enunciating for a change to celebrate your return," he said as I tossed a pack of Luckies onto his desk. "How are you feeling?"

  "Glad to be back. I was getting cabin fever at home."

  "No doubt. But I also bet you were getting a lot of first-rate care from that lovely wife of yours."

  "I was indeed. Glad you had a chance to meet each other. She likes you."

  "That so? I was impressed with her. She's got her hands full."

  "I won't ask what you mean by that. Did my replacements behave while I was gone?"

  "Neither of them brought me cigarettes," he grumped.

  "I've spoiled you. What's going on with our Nazi playmates?"

  Fahey scowled. "They're all being held, seven of them. I doubt there'll be any trials soon, though. You know how slow things are in the legal world."

  "Lawyers, lawyers, and more lawyers."

  Fahey nodded, lighting a Lucky. As he flipped his spent match into the ashtray, the intercom buzzed. "Yeah?" he said to Elsie. "Okay, I'll take the call."

  He picked up the receiver and his eyebrows shot halfway up his ruddy forehead. "No shit! When? Oh, Christ! Damn! Damn!"

  I watched as his face successively registered anger, disgust, and dismay, all within the space of a few seconds. "Is there any question that it's murder?" he snarled into the phone.

  It was frustrating for me being in on only half of the conversation.

  Fahey asked a few more questions, grimaced a few more times, and then slammed down the receiver.

  "Well?" I said expectantly.

  "About a half hour ago, Warren Jones hanged himself in his cell at the Bridewell," the chief said with a groan.

  "Why the question about murder?"

  "The guards all hated him and the other Nazis who got rounded up. I thought maybe somebody decided to deliver their own brand of justice."

  "But that wasn't the case?"

  "No. The lieutenant I just talked to said Jones took one of his bed sheets and kept twisting it until it was like a rope. Then he fashioned a noose and threw the other end over a pipe that ran across the ceiling of his cell. He tied the noose around his neck and jumped off his cot. When a guard found him, he was hanging with his feet about a foot off the floor."

  "What the hell is a pipe doing there anyway?" I asked. "Seems like somebody should have figured it could be used just the way Jones used it."

  Fahey held his head in one hand. "There are suicide-proof cells in the Bridewell as you know, padded and all. It's just that no one figured Jones was a candidate for bumping himself off."

  "Or just maybe they were hoping the bastard would make use of that pipe. Well, look at it this way, Fergus, the taxpayers have been spared the expense of his trial. Now tell me who I can call to get the grisly details. This is page one news, of course."

  "Yeah," Fahey answered glumly. "All the prison reform groups are going to have a field day with this one. I can see the headlines now: Go to Prison to Die and Why We Can't Protect Our Prisoners from Themselves."

  "Hey, you would have made a great copy editor, Fergus. Could be you missed your calling."

  He gave me a look and lit up another Lucky. I rose and headed back upstairs.

  By noon, I'd gotten all the information and doled it out to my comrades in the press room. The timing meant the afternoon papers would run the Warren Jones suicide first, but that couldn't be helped. These things tended to even out over the long haul.

  God, it was great to be back on the job.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  M3 I1 S1 S1 I1 V4 E1

  (n) a written message; letter

  Before the day was over, I learned more about Jones's death from a variety of sources in the Police Department and at the Bridewell. First, no suicide note had been found in his cell. Second, his sobbing widow told police after his death that on her visit to him the day before he hanged himself, he told her that because the plan to kill Truman had failed he felt 'a lot like the Fuehrer must have felt near the end.' She blamed herself for not reporting the conversation. I shared all this information in the Headquarters press room and phoned my article in to a rewrite man.

  I didn't realize how tired I was until five o'clock rolled around. Apparently I had lost a lot of energy in the days I'd spent lazing around at home, and it would take time to get the old stamina back. I was getting used to the cast, though, and it didn't bother me on the swaying, bouncing ride home on the Lake Street Elevated.

  As I climbed the front steps of our house, the door swung open and Catherine greeted me with a smile. "I've been keeping an eye out for you," she said. "I thought on your first day back at work you should have a proper welcome at the door. Besides, an interesting-looking piece of mail came today and I'm dying to have you open it."

  "You could have opened it yourself, my dear. I have no secrets from you," I said as I plopped down on the living room sofa after we had kissed.

  "I really think you should have the pleasure," she replied. "Here."

  She handed over an ivory-colored envelope addressed to me in longhand. On the back flap were the words The White House and under that, Washington, D.C.

  "Now don't just rip it open like you usually do with your mail," she scolded, handing me a letter opener. "This looks like it deserves to be handled gently and with the greatest respect."

  "Oh, all right," I said, emitting a long-suffering sigh. I made a neat slit and under her watchful eye gingerly pulled out the missive.

  It was headed with the same words that graced the envelope. The letter, too, was in longhand, and written by someone who obviously had learned the Palmer Method of penmanship in school.

  Dear Mr.
Malek,

  I would have written you sooner, but as you are no doubt aware, these last days have been somewhat tumultuous. Also, I only recently learned of your role in dealing with a man who was bent upon creating a large amount of mischief.

  I understand that you have suffered injuries as a result of your encounter with this man. But I further understand you are recovering nicely from these injuries, for which I am thankful. I never thought I would be writing such a letter as this to a member of the Chicago Tribune staff, but I assure you I write it with my unreserved thanks and my continued hope for your successful recovery.

  Very sincerely yours,

  Harry S Truman

  P.S. When I heard your name, I realized it was familiar to me. I now recall a chat we had three years ago in that old palace at Potsdam when I admonished you for asking a question about Mr. Attlee in what was advertised as a social situation. I hope I did not appear rude at that time. If I did, please consider this a belated apology.

  "I'll be damned," I said, showing Catherine the letter.

  "I'm not surprised," she said after reading it. "In a very real sense, he owes his life to you."

  "Maybe."

  "Maybe nothing! If you hadn't been there that night…"

  "No, Catherine. If you hadn't come up with 'argo', we might have a different president today."

  "Well, it has all worked out…more or less," she said, placing a hand on my cast.

  "One thing I don't understand…"

  "And what is that?"

  "How do you suppose Truman knew my home address?"

  "Leave it to a newspaperman to ask a question like that," she said, laughing. "After all, my darling, he is the President of the United States."

  "And will be for four more years," I replied, putting my arm around her slim waist and walking with her into the kitchen. I could detect a pleasant aroma wafting from that direction, and was anxious to find out what lay in store at the dinner table.

  After that, perhaps a nice, quiet, friendly game of Scrabble.

  The End

  AUTHOR'S NOTES

  The preceding is a work of fiction and all of its principal characters, except those mentioned below, are creations of the author. Also, all of the occasions in which historical characters interact with fictional ones are strictly products of the author's imagination.

  The Presidential Campaign of 1948 was among the most spirited and contentious in U.S. history. Harry S. Truman, who had become president on the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945, was running for his own full term against former New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, who had lost to Roosevelt in the 1944 election. The major polls all had Dewey pegged as the clear winner in '48. Truman's victory was viewed by the pollsters and the media as a stunning upset, although Margaret Truman, in her book "Harry S. Truman" (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1973), wrote that her father was fully confident throughout the campaign. She recounts the family going to the polls in Independence, Mo., where "reporters asked Dad for a final prediction, and he said, 'It can't be anything but victory.'"

  Despite being seen as the underdog in almost every major poll, Truman won the election somewhat handily, winning 303 electoral votes to Dewey's 189 and State's Right's candidate Strom Thurmond's 39. Henry Wallace received no electoral votes. Truman won 28 states to Dewey's 16 and Thurmond's 4. Truman got 49.6% of the popular vote to Dewey's 45.1%. Thurmond and Wallace carved up most of the remaining 5.3%.

  The controversial United States' recognition of the State of Israel came on May 14, 1948. The U.S., in the person of President Truman, became the first nation to recognize the newly established country. Truman's own advisors were sharply split over his decision, some of them feeling it would look like a ploy to win Jewish votes at home, while others thought it might endanger U.S. access to oil in the Arab countries.

  The "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline in early editions of the Chicago Tribune on the day after the election stands as one of the most storied gaffes in U.S. journalism history. In his book "Chicago Tribune: The Rise of a Great American Newspaper" (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1979), Lloyd Wendt described how the paper stuck with Dewey as the winner until late into the night, when West Coast results came in heavily favoring Truman and the headline was finally changed–but only after 150,000 copies of the paper had been printed with the infamous headline.

  Wendt also wrote that in 1972 a bronze plaque of the front page with the incorrect headline was presented by the Tribune to the Truman Library in Independence, Mo. The plaque read, in part, "Presented with admiration and affection to Harry S. Truman, whose election victory in 1948 made this one of the most unforgettable front pages ever published by the Chicago Tribune." Sadly, the former president died just before the scheduled presentation.

  The Truman assassination plot described in this story is fictional. However, on Nov. 1, 1950, an attempt was made on the president's life. At that time, the Trumans were living in Washington's Blair House during extensive and long-overdue renovations to the White House. Two fanatic Puerto Ricans stormed the residence with guns blazing. One of the Puerto Ricans was shot dead, as was a White House guard. Two other guards were wounded in the gun battle.

  In his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography "Truman" (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), David McCullough described the scene in the street: "There were screams, shouting. People everywhere were running for cover. The noise of the gunfire was terrifying–twenty-seven shots in two minutes." The surviving Puerto Rican nationalist was sentenced to death, but Truman commuted the sentence to life in prison. Decades later, President Jimmy Carter pardoned the man.

  Col. Robert R. McCormick continued to head the Chicago Tribune as its editor, publisher, and principal owner until his death in 1955 at the age of seventy-four. He remained a staunch Conservative and Republican throughout his life, vigorously opposing Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, Harry Truman and the Fair Deal, and foreign aid to countries including the United Kingdom and China.

  J. Loy (Pat) Maloney started his Chicago Tribune career in 1917. Through the years he steadily rose through the ranks at the paper and became its managing editor in 1939 on the death of Bob Lee. He directed the Tribune's news coverage throughout World War II and into the Post-War era, retiring in 1950 for health-related reasons. He died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five.

  John C. Prendergast began his 43-year career with the Chicago Police as a traffic cop in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. He served as police commissioner from 1945 until his retirement in 1950. He died in January 1958 at the age of seventy-four.

  The Tucker Automobile never went into mass production. From the beginning, the company was plagued by design problems, a lack of financing, and continued difficulties in obtaining steel and other materials. Preston Tucker contended that the Detroit automakers and the Federal Government were thwarting his attempts to bring out his revolutionary vehicle. In all, only 51 Tuckers were manufactured in the giant Chicago plant, all of them hand-tooled. Forty-seven of the cars are still operable, according to the Tucker Automobile Club of America, and the Club reports that 20 of the cars were used in the well-reviewed 1988 theatrical film "Tucker: The Man and His Dream," directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Jeff Bridges as Preston Tucker. Lloyd Bridges, Jeff's father, played Sen. Homer Ferguson of Michigan, whom Tucker felt was bent upon seeing the company fail.

  Tucker and six aides were tried in Federal Court in Chicago for fraud, with the government charging he never planned to mass-produce the automobile. In the four-month trial, the seven defendants were acquitted of all charges. One irony: The trial's presiding judge, Otto Kerner Jr., later was elected governor of Illinois and in 1973, after his years in office, he was sent to federal prison after having been found guilty of numerous counts of bribery, conspiracy, and perjury. After the trial, Tucker was approached by a group of Brazilian investors about building a sports car there, to be called the "Carioca." He died of cancer in 1956 at the age of fifty-three before the project got off the groun
d.

  The former Dodge Plant on Chicago's Southwest Side, where the Tuckers were briefly manufactured, was taken over in 1950 by the Ford Motor Co., which built aircraft engines for use in war planes during the Korean Conflict. Ford continued to produce piston engines and later jet engines there before vacating the buildings in 1959. In 1965, the facility reopened as Ford City, a mixed-use complex that includes manufacturing facilities, offices, and an extensive shopping mall.

  The Chicago Municipal Airport on South Cicero Avenue, which Steve Malek passed on his way to meet Preston Tucker, was renamed Midway Airport in 1949. It was Chicago's principal air terminal before O'Hare Field's ascension.

  Scrabble, the popular board game that first hit the retail market in 1948, was the Depression Era brainchild of out-of-work architect Alfred Mosher Butts, who wanted to create a game that combined the verbal skills used in crossword puzzles and anagrams, with the additional element of chance thrown in. It was first called Lexico, then Criss-Crosswords, before Scrabble was settled on as its title (one of the word's definitions is "to grapple frantically"). Letters are given numeric values, with the most-used ones, such as vowels, having the fewest points, while rarely used letters such as Z, X, and Q have the highest point values. Organized Scrabble competitions are popular in bars and other social gathering places, and each year a national tournament is held, as well as a national school competition.

  The Maccabees mentioned in the story was a fictional group only in the sense that it never operated in Chicago. However, a vigilante organization called the Maccabees, named for a famous family of rulers and warriors in Israel in the Second Century B.C., was formed in New York City in the early 1960s.

  The civilian patrol group was founded in racially-charged Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood by a rabbi who saw the need for civilian patrols to combat crime. These patrols worked with local authorities and were unarmed. Later, the Maccabees were absorbed by a larger civil patrol organization called Shomrim (from the Hebrew word "Shomer," meaning custodian). Shomrim groups now operate in several U.S. cities in cooperation with law enforcement authorities.