After a moment, Bayer’s voice sounded excited.
“Well, would you look at this…”
Koch downshifted the transmission to slow for a traffic light that was turning red—the wound in his left leg hurting when he depressed the clutch—and then looked over.
A grinning Bayer held up a small form.
On it, next to a tiny shield design that encouraged the buying of war bonds and stamps, it had UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION GASOLINE RATION CARD at the top, a seven-digit serial number, and, twice the point size of the number, a big letter T. Under that was the handwritten information of the holder—Stanley Smith, who, the form stated, had agreed to “observe the rules and regulations governing rationing as issued by the Office of Price Administration”—his address, and the truck’s make and model and license plate number.
Koch grinned at the rules and regulations part—What a joke—then his eye went to the T.
“That’s good for five gallons,” he said. “All we need.”
He looked at Bayer.
“But when we stop,” he added, “check for that rubber hose. We may need it later.”
Koch, after they had finally found a gas station open and pumped fuel in what had been a dry tank, took the U.S. 1 bridge across the St. Johns River into downtown Jacksonville. He drove up Main Street, looking intently in each direction as he went through the intersections at Monroe, Duval, then Church Streets.
“Something wrong?” Bayer asked.
There now was a short coil of half-inch-diameter water hose at his feet, on top of the scattered receipts from the glove box.
Koch didn’t answer right away.
A minute later, when they came to State Street, he said, “Damn, went too far. I knew this didn’t look right,” and turned left, drove six blocks to Broad Street, made another left, and then a right onto Water Street.
There, Bayer pointed out the train tracks.
Koch smiled and nodded, then pointed to a lamppost on the corner with a street sign that had the representation of a train track on it—Looks like a stepladder, Koch thought—an arrow, and JACKSONVILLE TERMINAL.
Down the street, a row of two dozen palm trees, each easily thirty feet tall, separated Water Street from the parking lot of the terminal building.
The building itself was quite grand.
“Impressive,” Bayer said, marveling at its massive stone façade.
The wide entrance featured a row of fourteen Doric columns towering four stories high. The main building itself rose even higher, topped by a peaked roof.
“Typical American overkill,” Koch said, unimpressed. “They say the design is a smaller version of New York’s Penn Station, which, of course, was designed to copy the Roman baths.” He looked at it a moment before pulling into a parking spot. “Disgusting, if you ask me.”
As he pressed down on the clutch with his left leg, the wound in his leg triggered a spasm of pain and he involuntarily jerked the leg. That caused him to dump the clutch—killing the engine and banging Grossman’s head on the back window.
Koch turned at the thump, saw the big oberschutz vigorously rubbing his skull like a little boy with a booboo, and called back, “Sorry!”
Grossman glared back through the window.
Bayer and Koch got out of the truck.
“We’ll be back shortly,” Koch told the pair in the back of the truck.
“Be quick,” Grossman called out as they started to walk across the parking lot toward the giant columns. “I have to piss.”
Inside, Bayer thought that the terminal was even more elaborate and massive—if that was possible.
The main waiting room, light and bright, held grand arched windows that towered upward six stories to an ornate vaulted ceiling. The floor itself—the first thing he had noticed—was marble polished to an incredible gleam, which seemed to hold its shine well despite the heavy foot traffic.
And there was a mass moving through. The place was packed with hundreds of civilians and soldiers, some traveling, others there to see off or greet those traveling. They milled about the room or waited on the long wooden benches, talking, reading, couples holding hands. Many lingered in the huge restaurant and in the snack bars and newsstands. A few were even getting trims at the barber-shop.
Bayer looked around the great room and saw signage indicating MAIN CONCOURSE and, just before the ornamental iron gates that led to the trains themselves, TICKETING.
He lost sight of Koch in the crowd, then saw him walking toward the semicircle of ticketing windows in the marble wall at the right side of the main room.
The idea was for each agent to buy two round-trip tickets to different destinations. They would give these—one for each destination—to Grossman and Cremer, who would travel on one and keep the other as an alternate route, a backup.
The reason Koch and Bayer and not Grossman and Cremer were buying the tickets was so that if someone should later try to retrace their path, there would be no one able to recall either agent having ever purchased a ticket or the destination of those tickets.
And there was enough speculation between them that they had already left a very clear trail.
Bayer navigated through the crowd. He noticed that Koch had gone to a line for a ticket window at one end of the semicircle. Bayer, accordingly, headed to a line at the opposite end.
Bayer’s line was shorter. He had only three people in front of him, including a young mother holding on her hip a toddler who didn’t want to be held.
Surprisingly, the line moved quickly, though, and after only ten or so minutes of Bayer being annoyed by the toddler at his feet he was at the window.
“Destination, sugar?” the young blonde woman behind the window asked pleasantly.
Bayer was caught off guard for a moment, surprised at how attractive she was. And that Southern accent seemed to drip with sweetness.
He smiled, but didn’t reply.
“Where you going?” she said.
“Birmingham,” he said, then remembered to add, “Round-trip.”
“Atlanta or Mobile?”
He looked blankly at her. “No,” he said after a moment. “Birmingham, please.”
“Atlanta or Mobile?” she repeated.
Bayer, staring, wondered if he couldn’t be heard over the din of the room.
The blonde rolled her eyes.
She said, “You have to connect to get to Birmingham, sugar. You can go to Mobile, then go north. Or you can go to Atlanta, then go west.”
Shit! Bayer thought. We went over this!
“Atlanta, please,” he said, trying not to appear nervous.
“That one departs in fifteen minutes or four hours. Is fifteen minutes a problem?”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“Six dollars.”
“Six!” he said.
She gave him a big smile, a flash of bright white teeth.
“It’s the Orange Blossom Special, sugar. Real luxury. Air-conditioning and diesel power. You want cheaper, take the coal-fired train to Mobile.” She paused. “It departs in two hours.”
“No, no,” he said, “that’s fine.”
He pulled out his wallet and removed a ten and two singles.
“Two, please,” he said, putting the cash on the marble. “I’m with, uh, a friend.”
Her eyebrows went up for a second, then she reached into a drawer, came out with eight tickets—two for each of the round-trip’s four legs—then put four tickets each into two sleeves decorated with oranges and slid the sleeves toward him.
“Track 20. Y’all have a nice trip.”
Bayer nodded Thank you, left the window, and walked toward the front door, making what he hoped was an inconspicuous glance over at Koch. He saw that Koch was still in line, with two people between him and the window.
“It’s that way!” Bayer heard his ticket woman say.
He turned to look at her.
“The passenger boarding
ramp is that way,” she called, helpfully, pointing toward the ornamental iron gates. “Track 20.”
Bayer waved and nodded, mouthing Thank you.
He went out the front door.
When he got to the truck, Cremer and Grossman were standing on either side of the cargo area, looking anxious. Grossman was closing up his duffel.
“Where’s Koch?” Cremer said.
“Still in line getting the backup tickets.” He discreetly set the two orange sleeves with their tickets in the cargo area. “These are the ones to Atlanta and on to Birmingham. It leaves in fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes?” Grossman repeated.
He snatched up a sleeve, stuffed it into his coat pocket, then pulled his duffel out of the truck and swung it onto his shoulder.
“Forget the backup tickets,” Grossman said, adjusting his fedora and walking toward the building.
Bayer said, “Where are you going?”
“To take a leak and catch a train.”
Cremer looked at Grossman, then at Bayer, and shrugged. He grabbed his tickets and a duffel.
“Tell Koch thanks.” He offered his hand, and as they shook he said, “Take care of yourself, Kurt.”
“And you, Rudolf.” He looked toward Grossman. “Watch yourself with him.”
Cremer smiled. He waited a moment until Grossman blended in with the crowd that was entering the building, then followed.
Grossman entered the main waiting area of the terminal building. As he scanned the room, looking for a restroom sign, he saw Richard Koch walking away from the ticket windows. They locked eyes a moment, and Grossman shook his head, then immediately turned and walked in a direction away from Koch.
Just before the iron gates leading to the trains, Grossman saw a sign reading MEN. He entered and found a stall at the far end empty, then squeezed into it with his duffel and closed the door, sliding the latch to lock it.
Two minutes later, his bladder and his duffel both somewhat lighter, he exited the stall.
An anxious young man started for it, but Grossman, wrinkling his face, waved the young man off as he spiked a piece of paper on the coat hook attached to the outside of the door.
The paper, scrawled in heavy pencil, read: “Out of Order.”
Koch went out the front entrance of the terminal about the time Cremer entered it, but neither saw the other in the crowd.
Bayer was at the truck, waiting in the passenger’s seat, when Koch got there. Koch got in behind the wheel.
When Bayer had explained what had happened to the other two agents, Koch did not seem surprised or upset.
“Good riddance,” Koch said.
Koch shifted the truck’s gearbox into neutral, then depressed the starter pedal on the floorboard. Nothing happened. He pressed it again and again nothing.
“Dead battery?” Bayer said.
“Hell if I know,” Koch replied, opening the door.
They got out and went to the front of the truck. Koch raised the hood. The engine had oil seeping at nearly every seam, and the oil itself had mixed with dirt to create a thin coat of oily, black cake.
Koch located the battery. It appeared to have the same oily dirt coating—how oil got on it, he had no idea—and there was a plume of gray-white corrosive growth on the battery’s positive lead post.
“Nice,” Bayer said. “More than enough corrosion to make it lose contact. I thought I saw a wrench in the toolbox. I’ll get it.”
Cremer had made his way with the flow of the crowd along the passenger boarding ramp. He saw that the end of each track had its own white stone train bumper—a big block about four by four by four—with the bold, black track number painted on it. In keeping with the landscape design scheme of rows of palm trees outside the station, each bumper was topped with a potted, four-foot-tall palm, creating a similar row inside.
Cremer came to the palm-topped, white stone train bumper with its black-painted 20. The passenger train there—its cars had ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL lettered on them—appeared to be a very nice one.
He got in line to board behind a well-dressed older man in a dark two-piece suit and hat.
The man looked back at him, smiled, then stepped to the side.
“After you, soldier,” the man said to Cremer, appearing pleased to offer Cremer the courtesy of going ahead of him.
Cremer thought he must have looked confused to the man because the man attempted to clarify by nodding at the olive drab duffel on Cremer’s shoulder.
Now Cremer understood.
“Thank you, sir,” he replied. “But I insist, you first.”
That seemed to please the older man even more. He nodded and went ahead.
As Cremer boarded behind the man, he saw Grossman farther down the ramp, looking like another soldier boarding at another doorway.
It took Kurt Bayer longer than he expected to find the right-sized wrench in the toolbox, then more than a little effort to loosen the nut on the clamp that attached the electrical cable to the battery. He took his time, knowing that the corrosion had weakened metal and that if he broke the clamp they were really screwed.
A train whistle blew and Bayer checked his watch. Seventeen minutes had passed since he bought the tickets to Birmingham.
“Must be their train leaving,” Koch said.
Bayer nodded and went back to working on the clamp. After a few minutes of painstakingly unscrewing the clamp nut, he finally had it loose of the lead post.
Richard Koch reached in and grabbed the cable. As he began tapping the clamp against the truck’s framework, dislodging some corrosion in the process, there came a horrific explosion from behind the terminal building.
The sound from the concussion was such that it caused Bayer and Koch to jump. Richard hit his head on the underside of the truck hood.
They exchanged wide-eyed glances, then looked toward the building.
A black cloud of smoke was rising above the terminal, where the passenger-boarding-ramp area met the main building.
People came running and screaming out of the building. Some were bleeding. A few—all of them men—had their clothes on fire.
“Whatever that is,” Koch said, “it’s not good for us.”
Bayer quickly put the clamp back on the battery post, then tightened it as best he could with the wrench.
The parking lot was becoming chaotic as people raced to their cars to get away from the explosion while others ran from their cars to try to find loved ones inside the terminal.
Bayer wasn’t sure but he thought he’d just seen one woman, hysterical, bolt from her car and run to the terminal, leaving the car there with its door wide open and its engine still running.
Koch got behind the wheel of the pickup and tried to start it.
Nothing.
“Dammit!” he said, slamming his fist on the dash.
He mashed the starter pedal again.
Still nothing.
He stuck his head out of the window, looking around the open hood, but he couldn’t see Bayer.
“Now, what the hell?” Koch muttered.
As he got out of the truck, he heard Bayer call, “Richard!”
He turned and saw Bayer putting their two duffel bags into the backseat of a 1940 Ford sedan, then getting behind the wheel.
Koch went to the passenger’s door, got in, and Bayer calmly eased away as police cars and fire trucks, sirens wailing, began arriving.
Koch gave Bayer directions on how to take Bay Street east, back to Main, where he could make a left turn to drive north on U.S. 1.
[ FOUR ]
Penn Station
New York City, New York
1130 6 March 1943
As the Washington–Baltimore–New York commuter train rolled into Pennsylvania Station in midtown Manhattan, its brakes making a long, high-pitched squeal, Major Richard Canidy, United States Army Air Forces, prepared to put the sheet of paper that he had been reading back in its brown accordion folder. Murray Gurfein had given the f
older to him when Gurfein had dropped him off earlier that morning at Union Station in Washington, D.C.
The folder was fat, packed with a three-inch-thick stack of research that represented the highlights of Gurfein’s background check of Charles “Lucky” Luciano. As Canidy glanced at the last sheet of paper, he found its contents curious though not necessarily surprising:
* * *
New York Department of Corrections
Great Meadow Prison
Comstock (Washington County), New York
Medical Evaluation of:
LUCIANO, CHARLES
Inmate #92168
The inmate noted above, a White Male, Age 44, has been examined by this physician and the following conditions have been found:
HEAD: Normal. Scalp clean.
EYES: Normal, corrected. Vision, right, 90 percent. Vision, left, 90 percent.
NOSE: Clear.
MOUTH: Teeth good, tonsils not visible.
NECK: Normal, with notable scar. Thyroid normal.
EARS: Hearing 36/36 both ears.
CHEST: Normal. Lungs clear.
HEART: Strong, with occasional murmurs.
GENITALIA: Negative for penile scars, discharge.
RECTUM: Negative for hemorrhoids.
PULSE: 75 resting, 95 after mild exercise, 77 after 2 minutes rest.
BLOOD PRESSURE: 125/85.
HEIGHT: 5-8.
WEIGHT: 158.
WASSERMANN: Negative.
NOTE: Due to the existence of heart murmurs, it is this physician’s opinion that the inmate NOT be assigned duties that are arduous (i.e., laundry work).
Signed this 12th Day of May 1942
L A Thume MD
Leo A. Thume, M.D.
* * *
Canidy’s eye paused on the line noting the results of the Wassermann test—the German bacteriologist August von Wassermann in 1906 designed it as the definitive diagnosis for the sexually transmitted disease of syphilis—and it brought to mind the other wild information on the mobster that Murray Gurfein had supplied in detail at dinner the previous night, including that in the course of running prostitution rackets Luciano had sampled his own product—just as he’d sampled the heroin he ran—enough to contract syphilis once and gonorrhea eight times.
The Saboteurs Page 14