The Case Of The Lumbee Millions (Woody Stone, Private Investigator, Series)

by R. D. Herring

  “Glad that worked out, Wood. Gotta go. Al’s got a bug up his ass about the seltzer gun splashing. I think he spent too much time eatin canvas.” He smiled and shoved off to work his magic.

  I migrated back down to the oval bar for another hook. I didn’t see anyone I couldn’t live without talking to. For a moment, I thought about grabbing a cab six blocks north to the Park Central Hotel. I’d read they just brought in Cab Calloway and his orchestra. That was one of the top Negro bands in the country. I’d been wanting to get up there. Maybe they could recreate a little of the Beale Street sound of my younger days in Memphis.

  The Hotel Taft had a different policy about house bands than most other hotels. When it had an orchestra that folks liked, the orchestra stayed indefinitely. The Vincent Lopez Orchestra was tops for jazz and swing, but they’d been at the Taft since Valentine’s Day. It’ll be a while before I request their theme song, ‘Nola’, again. Betty Hutton sometimes drops in with the band for some jitterbugging. That’s a different story. She’d started out with Vince Lopez as an eighteen-year-old kid way back in 1939. She was still a hot dish in 1961.

  I shot the fight-scene breeze with Al Vadelfi for a while. Al was still wound up about the championship bout in March. Floyd Patterson defended against Ingemar Johansson in Miami. Al had been betrayed, “Dat bum, Johansson, cost me three C-notes. Coupla love taps on the side a’ the head and his legs folded like a Chinese laundry. He was walkin on queer street.”

  I saw footage of the fight. Johansson caught a sledgehammer left to the forehead followed by two locomotives to the temple. But I didn’t want to interrupt Al with facts. He’d lost the money; that made it his story to tell.

  I finally decided to grab an afternoon edition and head over to the Taft. I’d go through the paper for properties something like mine and check the asking prices. Not a bad evening; I’d planned on blowing five bucks on a steak dinner - ended up having a delicious seventy-five cent meal, for free. ‘I think my luck is holding’.

  I folded two aces and pushed them across the bar, “Good night, Al.”

  “Catch youse later, Wood.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  (Wednesday, June 7, 1961. Hotel Taft, Manhattan.)

  The brilliant morning sun drilled through my eyelids. I woke from a dream of walking an icy tightrope above a frozen landscape. Crimson red blotched the ice and snow below. One misstep, it would be my blood. I twisted and heard paper rattle. Arching my neck to look down, I was fully clothed, minus my coat and shoes, lying on my bed propped on pillows. Sections of the New York World Telegram and Sun were everywhere - the Real Estate Section draped my torso like a tent. The shade on the bedside lamp was tilted and the bare bulb glared.

  I had no recollection of reading the paper, but I knew I was late for a trip to the Spice Islands. I gained my feet, unsnapped my shoulder rig from my belt and tossed it, with the .45, on the bed. I started shucking off dirty clothes on my way to the head. I unbuckled my watch and saw it was 6:30. Taking a seat, I wished I had brought a section of the newspaper.

  After I dropped the kids off at the pool, I turned the shower up as hot as I could stand it. The steaming water beating on my gourd started the forward motion of my brain. I took a stab at remembering our pending caseload. We put some on the back burner because of the Gallo trial - others, I pecked away at as time permitted. I needed Gina to brief me. As I was tucking in my clean shirt, the telephone rang.

  I picked up a deck of Luckies from the nightstand and lit one, “Stone Investigations.”

  “Woody, it’s me, Gina.”

  “Hey, sweetie, how you doin this morning?”

  “Not so good. My mother’s house got burglarized last night. I won’t be at the office til about noon, if that’s okay.”

  “Where you goin, Gina?”

  “Over to Bath Beach, to Ma’s house.”

  “Has she called the police?”

  “No, she and Grandma were out when it happened last night. Only Grandma’s stuff was stolen, and she doesn’t want to involve the police.”

  “Don’t you think a report should be made?”

  “Yes, I see your point, Woody, but Grandma thinks she forgot to lock the door going out to the porch. She said she was sitting out there before they left last evening and can’t remember locking the door. This morning, they discovered a screen removed from the back end of the porch.”

  “Well, it needs to be run down. We don’t want the word on the street that your mother’s house is wide open for midnight shopping.”

  “My God, I hadn’t thought about that, Woody.”

  Gina moved out of her mother’s South Brooklyn house about a year and a half before. It was a respectable neighborhood; Mrs. Kowalski invited Mama and me for dinner the last Fourth of July. Gina rented her own place in the Webster Apartments on West 34th Street, a nice affordable place exclusively for working women.

  “Gina, you just stay put, and I’ll pick you up after a while. I’ll call you from the Webster lobby, okay?”

  “Okay, Woody. Thanks.”

  I got a couple of extra packs of smokes and went back in the head and gargled with Listerine; I could taste chicken livers. The vague notion of being crowded fluttered around my brain. I wanted to smack the lowlifes that had broken into the Kowalski home. But the waiting around on the Gallo deal was sucking the life out of me.

  I skinned my heater and pulled back the slide an inch to double-check the round in the chamber. Clicking the hammer back to the half cock notch I re-holstered the pistol. ‘Screw it; I’m gonna call Sal. Maybe he can help with the legwork’. The Joey Gallo Circus had me tied up waiting for it to fold its tent and leave town’.

  I found a scrap of paper with Sally’s barely readable phone number in my billfold. The phone rang four times. I was about to decide I had the wrong number.

  “Hullo.” The voice sounded hollow.

  “Sally, that you?”

  He laughed, “Yeah, Wood, it’s me. The phone scared the crap out a’ me. I was standin here makin a cup a’ Nescafé. It ain’t rang in o-vah a year.”

  “Sorry, Sal. Didn’t mean to do that.”

  “Fugiddabowdit. It’s only hot wa-tah on da flo-ah. It’s my own guilty soul.”

  I could only guess what that meant, “Sal, I just got hold of something I need to look into. I’m half-ass on call with the Gallo new trial hearing that’s s’posed to be set for tomorrow. Any chance a’ you gettin a little time from Dempsey’s to lend a hand?”

  “Shu-wa. Time ain’t a problem. What’s it all about?”

  “I’m just gettin off the ground with the thing. It’s 7:30 now; if I can pick you up in thirty minutes, we’ll both go find out.”

  “I’ll meet youse on the corner.”

  I paid the three bucks parking garage ransom for the Studebaker and drove around to get Sally. He looked dapper wearing a double breasted suit and a painted silk tie. Sixteen blocks south and three blocks west on 34th, we arrived at the Webster Apartments. Double-parking out front, I went in and rang up Gina’s room. I told her to call her mother and tell her we’d be there within the hour. An associate named Spitieri would be coming along.”

  I drove east to 3rd Avenue, south through China Town, and crossed the East River on the Manhattan Bridge. Traffic was slow, but I’d seen it worse. The twenty-mile drive wasn’t one I ordinarily would have planned during the busiest time of the morning.

  Mrs. Kowalski greeted us at the front door. She gave Gina a big hug and me a small one. She asked about my mama. I introduced Sal and he gave the ladies a short bow. In the process of making a fresh pot of coffee, we all gravitated to the kitchen, so we ended up sitting at the dining room table. Sal sat at attention and kept his chin up.

  “Do you mind if I smoke, Mrs. Kowalski?”

  “Woody, I’ve been telling you for most of ten years to call me Lois. Just let me open ths back door.” I found myself wondering, ‘Had it really been that long since Ed Kowalski’s memorial service’? I first met this
family at the service; and that had been two months before my dear Virginia was killed.

  Lois placed an ashtray on a doily-looking thing on the table. I lit a fag and turned to Grandma Collins, “I know it’s not pleasant to talk about, but could you tell us what you found when you got home last night.”

  Mrs. Collins needed to confess again, “Entirely my fault. I didn’t lock the door to the porch before we left for the game at Madge Russell’s house.”

  “Mrs. Collins, don’t think of it like that. Nobody has the right to come into your house uninvited.”

  “Well, it was. I had just been sitting on the porch…”

  “Mother,” Lois broke in, “Woody has a good point.” She explained, nothing seemed wrong when they got home at ten o’clock. She said her mother’s bedroom was on the first floor so she wouldn’t have to climb stairs.

  “We put our hats away and I asked mother if she wanted a cup of tea as she went back to her room. I heard a little scream and hurried in there. Tell Woody what you found, Mother.”

  Mrs. Collins, not a big fan of instruction, launched her story again, “It was my own fault. Things were out of place. My room was ransacked. The doors of my armoire stood wide open. My hope chest lid was raised with my wedding dress thrown on the bed. I had twenty-three dollars folded in a handkerchief on my bureau - it was gone.”

  I wrote ‘$23.00’ in my notebook. “Did you see anybody inside or, maybe, outside when you arrived home?”

  “No,” it was Lois, “after finding Mother’s room in disarray, I turned on all the lights. Then I checked the locks on all the doors and windows. They were locked except the door going out to the porch. This morning, I found a screen from the porch laying on the ground.”

  I looked back to Grandma Collins, “Have you done a thorough check to see if anything else is missing? A jewelry box or a fur coat, something you don’t use or wear often.”

  “I don’t have any expensive clothes, but I did open my jewelry box. I keep it inside the armoire drawer. Everything was still there including my late husband’s Patek Philippe gold watch.”

  I shot a quick glance at Sal and he responded to the question mark in my eyebrow, “Woody, you could buy a couple Studebakers wit dat.”

  I turned back to Grandma, “So, they didn’t steal accessible valuables, yet twenty-three dollars is missing. Any damage to your wedding dress?”

  “No, the dress is folded inside one of those zip up plastic bags.”

  “And just laid on the bed?”

  “Yes.”

  Gina saw me slowly shaking my head, “Grandma, tell Woody what they took from your hope chest.”

  “That’s silly. It was an artifact my father gave to me. He died without telling me what it is.”

  “But it’s gone,” I asked?

  “Yes, gone.” That obviously made her very sad.

  “What does it look like?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  (Wednesday, June 7, 1961. South Brooklyn.)

  With a little coaxing, Grandma described the artifact as a rust-encrusted metal rod, two inches thick, maybe a foot and a half long. One end was pointier than the other. It was flattened, or at least flatter, on the pointed end.

  Once she got the mental picture, she seemed to open up. Family lore reputed the artifact to be the clue to a million dollars in Spanish gold bullion. Rumor said the gold shared a grave with a dead Indian, one that had been hanged.

  She added, “It even occurred to me that it might be the ‘Spear of Destiny’ that had pierced the side of the Christ.” That snapped Sal’s head around. No, she couldn’t remember where she had heard all that - she just knew.

  The description went into my notebook. Gina looked stunned as she listened to her grandmother’s story. Lois stared at her hands folded on the table. I had it mapped as useless to ask why so few were familiar the ‘Family Lore’. So, I asked Miss Audrey to start over with how she came to possess the artifact. She told the story of her father, Dr. Wesley DeCamp, hospitalized and on his deathbed in 1936, including his cryptic dying words.

  I said, “Everything seems to point to one fact, the thief had an idea what he wanted and got what he came for. Who else knew about the artifact, Mrs. Collins?”

  “Not a soul, just Lois and I.”

  “Mother, I saw that thing maybe once just before Gina was born. I hadn’t thought about it in years before two weeks ago.”

  “What happened two weeks ago, Lois,” I asked?

  “Mother, tell Woody about your mentioning it during the game at Mildred Scalise’s house.”

  “What? Are you saying Mildred or Madge broke in and stole it?”

  “No, but Mildred’s son, Adam, was there that evening. Not to gossip, but Mildred once told me he has a police record. She said that’s the reason he can’t get the good job he deserves.” Sal and I glanced at each other.

  “Well, I didn’t see that boy there, I declare!”

  “He was there, Mother. Tell Woody about Mildred’s National Geographic story,” Lois said while making the rounds with the coffee pot.

  At that point, Grandma Collins was in her element, free to tell her story the way she wanted. She started by reestablishing the whole thing was her fault. “I never would have mentioned the artifact if Mildred Scalise wasn’t such a know-it-all, bless her heart.”

  Grandma spoke of Lumbee Indians and the giant swamps of the North Carolina coastal plains. Then wondered out loud, “How in the world could the Roman spear that pierced the side of the Christ be a clue to the hiding place of a million dollars in gold bullion?”

  Her father returned to Robeson County, where he grew up, after being wounded in the Spanish-American War. She said she and her brother and sister were just children when her parents moved there from New York City. Her voice softened when she talked of attending Peabody Normal College in Nashville and being swept off her feet by Andy Collins.

  They got married, moved to Long Island and enjoyed a wonderful life together. Grandma Collins took a sip of her coffee, ”Wait a minute. I have a New York Times article about my father.” She was already up and headed to her bedroom.

  “What do you think, Woody,” Gina asked?

  “Two things, I want to talk to this Adam Scalise. And, where would anybody get a million dollars worth of gold bullion?”

  Grandma returned and laid a newspaper clipping on the table in front of me. The article was enclosed in a plastic document protector.

  New York Times. July 7, 1898.

  Dr. DeCamp wounded in Cuba. Wesley Alford DeCamp, the son of Alford and Betsy DeCamp of Lumberton, NC graduated the University of Pennsylvania with his medical degree in 1883. He was seriously wounded last week while serving in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps in Cuba. As an assistant surgeon at Lebanon Hospital, New York City, when the War with Spain was declared this spring, Dr. DeCamp wanted to serve. In April of this year he tested and became an acting assistant surgeon with the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. He was assigned to the First Marine Battalion and sailed aboard the USS Panther to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Having been ashore a mere two days, he'd been busily treating wounded while under heavy fire. He was shot in the head while in the medical tent arranging for a way to move his patients to a safer location. The bullet grazed his scalp resulting in blindness in his left eye and a severe concussion. He will be transported back to the U.S. Naval Hospital, Tampa, Florida for further treatment. Dr. DeCamp’s wife, Mrs. Marcella Berry DeCamp, and three young children continue to reside at home in the Bronx, New York City, N.Y.

  ***

  Sal and I took a gander around the premises including Mrs. Collins’ bedroom before getting the gals back together.

  “Gina,” I said, ‘let’s do this, call Mildred Scalise and try to get a location on her son. Tell her you have an unemployment check for him, or something like that.”

  Gina sat in the telephone chair in the hallway and Lois dialed the Scalise number.

  “Yeah?”

  “Good morning, is Mildred Scalise in,
please?”

  “Naw, Ma ain’t here. Call back later.”

  Gina hung up the phone and looked at me, “Jackpot! Adam’s there alone.”

  I looked at Sal, “Let’s go.”

  Ten minutes later, Adam Scalise answered my knock on his front door wearing baggy Eyetalian punk trousers and suspenders over a skivvy shirt. Sunken eyes and red nostrils told me he was gowed up on something. His hair was slicked back and he wore a blonde pencil mustache. Sally straight-armed the skinny shit. That sent him scrambling and almost on his ass.

  I stepped inside and arced an open right hand against the mutt’s pan. As juiced up as he was, it hurt his feelings more than his kisser.

  “You can’t come in my house without a warrant.”

  That bit of logic was Sal’s tipping point. He grabbed Scalise by the windpipe and jacked him against the wall. Then, with one hand, he lifted him completely off the hardwood floor, “We ain’t the cops, numb nuts. But youse would be correct to infer dat gentleman will ask da questions. Youse will give da answers, capiche?

  Realizing Scalise’s disadvantage, I put my hand on Sal’s shoulder. The boy was back on his feet with both hands to his own neck. I lifted his jaw so I could look into the piss holes in his skull, “Capiche,” I asked?

  Scalise jerked a nod, “Who sent you?”

  “That’s irrelevant, Adam,” and I explained that his long-term health was in question, but it was up to him. “I want the money and the rusty hunk of iron you acquired last night.” I knew he was the perp from his response.

  “That twenty-three bucks is long gone, man…”

  “Where’s the hunk of iron?”

  He sunk to the floor and starting sobbing. Sal picked him up, slapped him and flipped him into a chair, “Where’s dat piece of iron, shit-for-brains?”

  Between snot bubbles, Scalise described his midnight meeting with his bookie, Pinky Testa, at Testa’s warehouse in Red Hook, “I’m dead meat when he catches me.”

  Sally, who was standing behind Scalise, reached forward, grabbed a handful of oily hair and pinned his head to the chair back.