The Halfway to Hell Club

by MARK J. McCRACKEN

  “I kind of thought of that. That is why I am calling Mrs. Broadcreek for the appointment. She’ll get her old man to play ball,” I said.

  “I got to hand it to you, O’Farrell, you have got some balls.” Ashwythe was chuckling.

  “I’ve got plenty of balls, no brains though.”

  Ashwythe was still laughing as he hung up.

  I called the Social Club and asked for Jimmy Chin. I gave him the scoop. He agreed to get both Mr. and Mrs. Chin to the Borgia Room at the St. Francis Hotel on time.

  My last call was going to be tricky.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Broadcreek. My name is Sean O’Farrell. I am a private investigator in San Francisco and I am calling about your daughter, Dorothy.”

  I had her complete attention.

  “Dorothy? Is something the matter?”

  “She is fine, madam. I have been hired to do a background investigation on your daughter by the parents of a young man she is dating.”

  “My daughter is not dating anyone at all. What kind of trick is this?”

  “Mrs. Broadcreek, this is not scam or a trick. I need to meet with both you and your husband to discuss this matter.”

  “Do you have any idea who my husband is, young man?”

  “Yes, madam, I do. He is a Deputy Attorney General of the United States in charge of Organized Crime Task Force in San Francisco dealing with Chinatown.”

  That brought silence to the line.

  “Mrs. Broadcreek?”

  “Yes, I am not sure what to say or think. I don’t even know who you are. Who is she supposedly dating?”

  “That’s what the meeting is about. There are complications for both families and these matters are better discussed in person. I have arranged a meeting room at the St. Francis Hotel, the Borgia Room for six p.m. this Wednesday. It will be private and agents of the FBI will be attendance to provide security for all those in attendance.”

  “I will call my husband and call you back.”

  I hung up, took a drink of coffee, and opened a fresh deck of Luckies. I lit a smoke and waited. It didn’t take long.

  The phone rang and the man on the other end was completely out of control.

  “O’Farrell, you son of a bitch, who the hell do you think you are calling my home, talking to my wife, and discussing our daughter? I’ve got a good mind to come down there and kick your ass all over Union Square, you two-bit peeping bastard.”

  I was amused by the onslaught, but I’d be upset too, if it were my daughter.

  “Easy, Mr. Broadcreek, you are running your mouth pretty carelessly to a fellow member of the bar.”

  He calmed down a little bit. “You are an attorney at law.”

  “Yes, sir, a member in good standing with the California Bar.”

  “Still, you have been poking around in my daughter’s business. You have no right.”

  I explained. “I am not blowing smoke, wasting time, or looking to make a buck here. There is very sensitive information you both need to hear in person. You are a Deputy Attorney General of the United States; you have a reputation and family to protect here. I need you to be at this meeting. Special Agents Ashwythe and Dunderbeck will be present to ensure you and your wife’s safety. You really need to be at this meeting, sir. You will regret it if you pass on this.” I was doing my best sales job.

  “Forget it, O’Farrell. I smell a rat.” He was starting to heat up again. “You are just some shakedown artist with a law license. All you are is a thug with a smart suit. You call me or my wife again and I’ll—”

  I cut him off. “Look, Mr. Broadcreek, I am going to contact someone that I know who may know you and I think he would be willing to vouch for me. If he contacts you, please listen to him, then call me back at this number.”

  He chewed the idea over for a minute.

  “All right, but I am not going to wait here all day. I’m a busy man.” He slammed the phone down.

  I hated to do it, but I had a suspicion that I knew someone who knew Broadcreek, and I didn’t mean Danny O’Day.

  I dialed the phone and waited for an answer. “Good morning, Standard Oil of California.”

  “Good morning. Shamus O’Doherty, please.”

  “May I say who is calling, sir?”

  “Sean O’Farrell.”

  It took ten minutes for the big cheese to come to the phone. “Sorry, Sean I was in a meeting. What can I do for you?”

  “This is a business call, Shamus. I am working on a very sensitive case with two of the biggest wheels in San Francisco. I am trying to get them to come to a meeting. The first party is all set; the second is a real hothead. I think you might know him.”

  “Who is he then, lad?”

  “His name is William Broadcreek.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know Bill. He is a member of the University Club. We have played cards a couple of times. He is a senior guy with the Attorney General’s office, I think. A real good Joe.”

  “He’s not real fond of me. I need him to come to a meeting about his daughter; he thinks I’m shady or trying to pull a fast one. This is pretty serious. I really need him and his wife to come.”

  “His daughter, aye?” Shamus mused.

  “I can’t give you any details, Shamus. But his family is in a real fix, personally and professionally.”

  “I got a feeling you wouldn’t have called me unless it was important. I’ll give Bill a call. As a matter of fact, I’ll call him now.” The line clicked off.

  I started handwriting a report for Connie Morehouse. I gave her a call and set up a meeting for Wednesday afternoon next week. I gave her an overview of what I was up to, and told her that we would meet and decide where to go from there. She agreed; I hope this was going to be a business meeting only this time.

  The phone rang and it was William Broadcreek.

  “Mr. O’Farrell, William Broadcreek here. I don’t know what is going on; my wife tells me my daughter isn’t dating anyone. But Shamus O’Doherty tells me you are a straight shooter and a man that can be trusted. If you don’t mind me asking you, how did you come to know Shamus?”

  “I don’t know him well, but I have gone out with his daughter Kaitlin.”

  There was a long pause.

  “My wife and I will be there. I’ll take Shamus’s word that you are on the up and up. But I’ll tell you right now this had better be legitimate.” The line quietly went dead.

  I called Shamus back and thanked him for vouching for me.

  “Watch yourself, boyo. Bill Broadcreek is a boiling pot that is ready to overflow, if you know what I mean. It’s his only daughter.”

  “It must be a club with you guys, fathers of only daughters.” I was being serious.

  “Don’t worry, Sean. Bill doesn’t have dogs. His wife is allergic. He’ll just rip your balls off with his own two hands.” He laughed like a leprechaun. I thanked him again and hung up. Great another psychotic father out for my testicles. Wonderful.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  My next call was to Kaitlin.

  “Hey there, good-looking. When are you working today?”

  “Boy, just because you schmoozed my parents, that doesn’t mean you cut ice with me, buster.” She laughed.

  “Schmoozed? I am deeply insulted.” I changed my tone to a serious one. “Thanks for the wonderful evening last night.”

  “Any time, sailor.” She giggled again.

  “Listen, I am going out of town tonight to Sacramento. What time do you work today?”

  “I work three to close tonight.”

  “Can I buy you lunch? Don’t worry, I’ll take you somewhere where you don’t have to stand to eat.”

  “And I thought you would try to impress me with the hot-dog stand at Union Square.”

  “How about Sears again? It’s close.”
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br />   “I’ll grab a cable car and be there in half an hour.”

  I locked up the office and stopped by and talked to Marty. He was his usual friendly self.

  “You’re just as ugly as ever, O’Farrell.” Then he leaned over the glass counter. “That architect rolled in here ten minutes ago looking like he slept in the gutter. He had a couple of gees helping stay upright. You got a guess when he is going to take a powder to later?”

  “My guess is he’ll go to Sacramento and gamble all night on the boat. This gee is to a point where he can’t help himself anymore.”

  “For what it’s worth, there have been two thugs hanging around out in front of the building. They are definitely somebody’s apes. They seem to disappear when you are around, and they didn’t look too sharp to me. But watch your back. It don’t take brains to pull a trigger.”

  I thanked Marty and walked over to Sears. I stopped and tied my shoes, and as I did so, I looked in a store window. Wherever the muscle guys were, they were not around.

  The cable car stopped at the intersection and Kaitlin hopped off.

  “How come you were standing at the front of the car? It was empty,” I said as we embraced.

  “I love the rush of the wind coming down the hill.” She waved her hand in the air.

  We got a table and looked over the menu. Then Kaitlin surprised me.

  “So how was the Top of the Mark with my Dad?”

  “You knew?”

  “Oh course. He walks the dogs every night, and he ends up there. It’s his little private getaway for him and the lads. And by the way, don’t swallow that nonsense that those dogs are his. I let him think that, but they report back to me.”

  “Some well-kept, well-guarded secret,” I said.

  “He goes there a lot. But it is the first time he has every invited anyone to go with him. It’s also the first time he has ever had a drink with anyone I had been out on a date with. He likes you, and you made some progress with my mother. But she doesn’t like the private-eye thing, now that worries her.”

  “Does it worry you?”

  “It doesn’t worry me. But the fact that it worries my mother so much … that concerns me.”

  I ordered a bowl of soup and a Coke. Kaitlin ordered a half sandwich and salad special.

  She looked at me with a smile. “So how long are you going to be gone?”

  “I should be back on Wednesday. But I am booked through until Thursday evening.”

  “Well, I might drop by after work and visit.”

  “It is always a pleasure to see you, anytime, anywhere.”

  That got a got smile out of her. “Mabel will want a blow-by-blow on the date, what should I tell her?” She giggled.

  “Tell her your parents turned the dogs loose on me. She’ll like that a lot.”

  I looked out the window and glanced into Union Square. There they were. It was the two apes from the bar in Sacramento. They worked for Little Joey Patrone, the runt who owned that rat hole bar. Little Joey may have been tough, but he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and these two clowns didn’t add up to college material either. I decided I could take care of them on the Delta Queen, or at the very least, I could have a little fun.

  I excused myself and went to the phone booth in the rear of the restaurant. I called police headquarters and told the desk sergeant that there were two thugs in Union Square with guns. I gave their description. I went back to the table and joined Kaitlin.

  “Who did you call?” she asked.

  “Hold on, you’ll get a front row seat to the event.”

  She gave me a puzzled look. It took only a minute for the prowl cars to show up. There were two of them. The flatfoots got out and started roaming around. Those two dummies scattered like cockroaches when the light goes on. The cops didn’t see them before they faded.

  Kaitlin observed the show. “You did that, didn’t you?”

  “I sure did, but don’t worry. I’ll see them tonight on the boat for Sacramento.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They are dumb, that’s why. They can’t help being stupid. They will be in a time and a place that I will control, then I will find out why they are following me.”

  “You are pretty good at setting them up, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not something I do every day, but I know how to.”

  “That you do, and pretty well, I might add.”

  We both smiled.

  I accompanied her on the short stroll to the library. There was a line a mile long at the desk, and Kaitlin went right to work, I waved to her as I checked in the corner at the lovebirds’ table. Sure as rain, there they were. I worked hard in school, college, and law school, and I busted my hump studying for the bar exam. But nothing like these two. I went outside for a butt and was enjoying the sun when the lovebirds came out holding hands. She had her head on his shoulder. They looked happy, which is something everyone one of us wanted in this world. They talked for a while and went back in to work some more. I could follow these two kids for a year, and they wouldn’t alter their schedule by a minute. I wondered how the meeting with their parents would go. I had a suspicion that it would not go well. The Wang’s and the Broadcreek’s, they might as well be the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s.

  I walked back to the office, grabbed my bag, and returned to the lobby. I told Marty where I was off to and told him about the incident with the cops.

  “Meatheads,” he said, chuckling. “At least they didn’t get picked up by the cops for carrying a roscoe, dumb as a bagful of hammers.”

  We looked across the street. There they were, holding up a building and reading a newspaper. I told Marty that both of these gees were too dumb to read.

  I crossed the street and walked right in front of Mutt and Jeff, then got into the Ford and headed to the Embarcadero. It was four thirty, too early, but I parked in my usual place and walked to the waiting room for the Delta Queen. I pulled out a magazine and tried to look enthralled. After a while I purchased my ticket, then I lit a butt. At ten minutes to five, Morehouse arrived. He was all cleaned up and sober. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t have to follow this gee around, that he came right to where I knew he would be. He lit a smoke in his cigarette holder while waiting to purchase a ticket. At five we started boarding. I went up to the deck that was open and above the bow. Just as the whistle blew and the workers were ready to remove the brow, here came Mutt and Jeff. I was going to make them wish they missed the boat.

  I ran up to the pilot house. Charlie was at the wheel.

  “Hey, Sean, how’s it going?”

  “Great, Charlie, I’m working a case. I need your help.”

  “Anything you need.”

  “Is there a dock you can pull into between here at Sacramento that is in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Once we leave Suisun Bay, there are a million docks up the river.”

  “I’ve got a pair of tails. I am going to eat dinner, come up here, and put the drop on them when it gets dark. “

  “I’ll let the first mate know what’s going on. If you could keep it quiet, I don’t want to upset any of the passengers. I know a place in the bend of the river near Antioch where we can dump them off. I’ll be going real slow and close to the pier, you just throw them off.”

  I nodded. “I have to check on the poker player. I’ll be back later with coffee.”

  “Hey, Sean, if you shoot ’em on board, I don’t want any blood on the deck, please.” Charlie laughed.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t shoot ’em. It will be too much fun dumping them off on a dark pier in the middle of Nowheresville.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I slipped out of the pilothouse and made my way down to the dining room for supper. I went by the stateroom where the poker game was going on. The evening was warm and the windows wer
e open and the wooden shutters were angled so I could see in a little. Morehouse was in the game. Smoke billowed out of the windows.

  I dashed below. Tonight’s special was beef stew and biscuits. I got a table and ordered a cup of coffee with fresh cream. I was looking over the sports section in the newspaper when Mutt and Jeff came in and got a table ten feet behind me. You could tell these two dopes were small-time; they both looked directly at me when they walked in. I was looking too, but I never raised my eyes up from the paper. When you are shadowing someone, you never make eye contact, period. You can walk by someone you are following twenty times in one day; they will only notice you when your eyes cross. These two clowns did everything but stop at the table and inform me that they were following me.

  The waiter stopped by and refilled my coffee.

  “What can I get for you, sir?”

  “I’ll have the stew special and an order of peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Hey, buddy, are you waiting on the table with those two gees behind me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you taken their order yet?”

  “No, sir, I was on the way.”

  I slipped a five-dollar bill on the table. “You take their order, then you make sure you are real slow delivering their dinner. As a matter of fact, don’t deliver their order until I am about finished with my dessert. Okay?”

  The waiter was perplexed, but he kept looking at the fiver.

  “Is there going to be some kind of trouble, sir?”

  “No trouble, just a little joke.”

  He looked over at the five again.

  “What the hell, why not.”

  He took my order to the kitchen, then in about ten minutes he took Mutt and Jeff’s orders. I could hear one of them complaining about the wait.

  The waiter delivered my dinner and he asked if I wanted my dessert soon. I told him to go ahead and bring it now. I plowed through dinner and took my time with dessert. Mutt and Jeff were getting antsy; I could hear them calling the waiter. I finished my dessert, swallowed the rest of my coffee, and dropped three dollars on the table as I got up to leave.