Morris PI

by Dion Baia

  The American public at large was more than happy to do their part, buying blackout curtains and keeping their shades drawn at night or their windows painted black. They enthusiastically stuck to the country’s war rationing and restrictions on food, metal, rubber, and the like.

  Air wardens patrolled the skies, and in New York City, searchlights were set up to look for any signs of a possible attack from the air. A steady lookout was kept along the waterfronts for fear of any possible covert submarine landings to smuggle spies and saboteurs ashore or any acts of overt sabotage on the New York area waterways and its ships. This potential threat became a reality in the public’s psyche in 1942 when an ocean liner being converted into the troopship USS Lafayette spontaneously caught fire while docked on the West Side and capsized in the Hudson River.

  Tensions were high. The public was on alert for any possible collusion with the enemy, and people were paranoid. As we would come to see, for good reason.

  It was a foggy, overcast night in Manhattan. The dark skyscrapers that inhabited the garden of stone looked like colossal tombstones, massive monoliths that reached up and disappeared into the cloudy night sky. Lanky chimneys pumped out endless plumes of smoke that connected like arteries to the foggy haze above.

  A large postal service zeppelin appeared out of a bank of clouds and darkness, lumbering toward the Empire State Building’s massive aerial mooring tower at the top of the tallest building in the world. Once the premiere docking station in the Western hemisphere for transatlantic flight traffic, commercial exchange had all but dried up with the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, and now the aerial mast that also doubled as a radio antenna at present only serviced government aircraft.

  A smaller and stouter blimp was already anchored to the mooring station. It was a supply ship, awaiting the signal that it could commence with its embarking procedure to depart on its route north toward Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, and Boston. It was a tricky affair to monitor the wind speeds and directions for incoming and outgoing traffic, especially when more than one zeppelin was to be anchored at the mast. The aerial mooring station had originally been envisioned to dock up to four aircraft, but that soon proved to be impractical due to high winds, so it was determined only two should be secured at a time. What had also become an unforeseen complication of the zeppelin flight paths in the city were the region-wide blackout restrictions that had been put in place when the war began. Pilots had to rely on ambient and moonlight to navigate the city buildings, much like they did out over the Atlantic, keeping a high enough altitude to clear the majority of the tall skyscrapers, and rapidly ascend or descend on their flight path when navigating the Empire State Building station.

  Air wardens on nearby rooftops stood next to enormous floodlights armed with binoculars, patrolling the skies, looking for anything that was out of place.

  A large, sleek, and cylindrical gray postal zeppelin descended from above, righted itself, and floated lazily toward the building on approach, its engines already slowing down in preparation to dock. Searchlights on neighboring buildings clicked on and swung their beams of light like swords onto the airship so the serial numbers on the canvas fin could be checked. After cross-referencing with the expected night traffic of the evening, the wardens were satisfied, and the floodlights were extinguished like blown-out candles, making a notation in their logs.

  The zeppelin’s large engines changed sounds during its rate of deceleration, like a vessel in the water when approaching a dock. Various small infrared lights now turned on at the top of the building to help guide the airship to the station’s berth. While the crew aboard the blimp and atop the mooring mast busied with the airship’s approach, a creeping figure unclipped himself from the frame under the large rear lateral fin and began to crawl along the top of the blimp, making sure to stay low in the shadows of the massive vessel. The figure was dressed in all black with a matching ski mask over his face. The creeper was tall and very well built, his physique emphasized because of the snug outfit that could have almost been painted on.

  The engine downshifted again as the zeppelin expertly pivoted into the correct orientation and ropes were thrown down from the nose section to pull it into dock. The airship’s bow was carefully guided to the antenna and the nose cone was secured to the platform at the top of the mast. Workers on the mooring platform grabbed a gangplank that protruded from just below the vessel and attached it to a track that doubled as the railing. Wheels at the base of the gangway anchored it to the railing, which in high winds allowed the gigantic vessel to swing 360 degrees while connected. Once secured, the engines of the postal zeppelin were turned off.

  The other stout dirigible shifted its engines into gear, was disconnected from its moor, and backed away from the building to embark on its journey south toward Atlantic City and Philadelphia.

  Workers came down the gangway of the postal craft and began their duties of dropping various-sized sacks of mail down to the platform below, while staff on the station brought various parcel bags up to be loaded onto the floating vessel. Only once the workers were busy did the masked creeper scurry undetected along the top of the dirigible toward the nose. He got to the cone and gracefully jumped from the nose of the airship to the building’s large radio antenna directly ahead and above, making hardly any sound.

  Up in the Bronx, in a pre-war walk-up tenement way up in Woodlawn, a man dressed in a tank top, seated at his kitchen table, and reading the evening edition of the paper listened to his radio, while behind him in the kitchen, his wife fried a steak on a small stove. A policeman’s cap was on the table next to his department-issued baton. The wireless on the dresser against the wall squawked out the news.

  “The fiend who the New York newspapers have dubbed the ‘New York Ripper’ has struck yet again, ladies and gentlemen….”

  Both their heads turned slightly in unison to better hear the radio reporter. A sudden jolt of static interrupted the broadcast, as though the signal was temporarily lost. Before either could acknowledge the interference, the station was back, sharp and clear as ever.

  “…was on his regular milk route early this morning, when he unknowingly discovered the mutilated body of a woman in her twenties on the West Side….”

  The man looked back to his paper and ashed his filterless cigarette.

  The prowler secured his grip and footing on the antenna, careful not to damage anything. The Empire State Building workers continued their business of loading and unloading the day’s mail, so the man’s leap went unnoticed in the darkness. The creeper methodically scaled down the antenna to an access hatch cover at its base. With one sharp tug, he was easily able to break the strong iron hatch lock and, in seconds, silently disappeared into the building.

  The engines on the stout zeppelin roared when shifted into gear, as the massive machine cleared the building’s station and the other postal dirigible to begin its journey south.

  Once inside, the masked man hit the stairs at an unnatural speed, the figure in black almost flying down the stairs, the loud sounds of the airship’s engines fading away in the hollow shaft. The fast and loud staccato of his shoes racing down the stairs replaced any other sound in the narrow service stairwell.

  Way down on street level, though it was late, the surrounding avenues and streets encircling the Empire State Building still had their share of vehicular and pedestrian foot traffic. A large touring car appeared and turned the corner, sped down the crosstown street, and pulled up outside a service entrance to the building. Before the car was shifted into park, three men exited from its suicide doors at the rear of the vehicle. Two of them huge, almost looking like twins to the masked prowler already inside. In their arms they held violin cases. The third individual, a very thin but tall man, carried a large briefcase and army duffel bag over his shoulder.

  They all wore flesh-colored, plastic masks that were almost see-through, like the kind from the children’s sect
ion of a store. The masks resembled those of the popular gangster movie stars of the era Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and James Cagney, but as exaggerated caricatures. The two large men wore Cagney and Robinson, while the thin man who carried the bags and led the pack wore the Bogart mask.

  Inside the stairwell the prowler made it down to the ground level in a matter of minutes. He cracked open the door and carefully peered out to survey the lobby. The only part of his face that was visible behind his ski mask was the eye area, which was obscured underneath by black goggles.

  At the security desk, a janitor rocked back in his chair, listening to the same news program, while an elderly guard made his rounds checking the doors of the lobby.

  “…the sixth victim in the past two weeks. Authorities are baffled and young women in Manhattan, along with the other four boroughs, are frightened….”

  As the guard turned a corner, the prowler made his move, creeping out and taking the seated janitor by surprise. He put a hand over his mouth and went for the key ring that was connected to the worker’s waist. The janitor’s eyes widened with terror as the prowler actually picked the man up and moved him to the side door that led outside.

  Outside on the sidewalk, the service door opened, and the three masked men entered the lobby.

  Their leader, Bogart, gave the large duffel bag to the masked prowler to carry, with not a word exchanged. They passed the front desk, and the elderly security guard turned the corner and put his hand up as if to indicate them to stop. In one fluid motion, Cagney pushed the man’s arm aside, elbowed him in the face, snatched the guard’s gun out of its holster, and pointed it at the janitor, who enthusiastically threw both hands up.

  The other two continued to the elevators and pressed the call button. Bogart barked something out in German, and Cagney opened the cylinder of the service revolver, spilling the bullets to the floor before dropping the gun entirely.

  Bogart put his finger up to his mouth as if to tell the janitor not to say a word. The guard was picked up off his feet, and they were both carried away.

  Over on the other side of the lobby, a door creaked open and a younger janitor inched out, too afraid to move.

  Inside the elevator the hostages were positioned in front of the group by the doors. Against the back wall the three goons stood like statues towering above, their heads almost touching the ceiling. The ski-masked prowler stood between Cagney and Robinson. In front of them was the slender ringleader with the Bogart mask, whose narrow, relaxed, and lifeless eyes could have burnt holes in the backs of the prisoners. One eye was somewhat fogged over with the appearance of being blind. He had a scar just above his brow dipping toward the cheek, though it was hard to see under the mask. The other eye was just as soulless and cold.

  Not a word was said, the only noise coming from the elderly janitor and guard. Both pensioners, retired from their lifelong professions, tried their best to stay quiet. The black janitor, Gus Montana, worked this twelve-hour shift two nights a week after having retired from spending forty years as a porter on the New York Central Railroad. The white Polish guard, Bronislaw Potucek, or Ben as his friends called him, worked part-time after a twenty-five-year stint at the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation, back when it was still called the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. The two retired civil servants were only in this situation because they had to take another job in their golden years to make ends meet. They now stood as quiet as they could and stared at the elevator floor; their breathing and occasional hyperventilating echoed within the small, confined space.

  Bogart broke his stare and glanced down to the floor. Without hesitation he unsheathed a Luger P08 and shot both men point-blank in the back of their heads in quick succession. The sound was deafening within such a confined area. Gus and Ben collapsed to the floor, their lifeless bodies tangling with one another on the way down.

  The echo of the report faded away within the compartment. Bogart holstered his Luger and stuck a pinkie in his own ear. Edward G. and Cagney opened their violin cases and retrieved stockless Thompson submachine guns, then, as if performing a synchronized timed routine, attached drum magazines and let the cases fall to the floor. They also connected the gun butts to shoulder straps so the weapons could be carried from the firing shoulder. The prowler in the middle connected to his shoulder strap a heavily modified sawed-off repeating shotgun.

  Down in the lobby, Lamont, the young janitor, was urgently talking on the phone. “Operator, get me the police! Now!”

  When the elevator came to a halt up on the seventy-ninth floor, the three exited and made their way down the carpeted hall. They came to a door with a sign that read OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES, NEW YORK BUREAU. Bogart gave his large briefcase to Edward G., who continued down the hall to the next office. The ski-masked prowler dropped the duffel bag he carried outside the OSS office door.

  Cagney kicked down the OSS door and fired into the air.

  “Everyone on the floor!” Bogart yelled with a thick German accent. A secretary was working late, and an older cleaning lady was also in the office. They screamed and dropped to the floor.

  Down the hall, the figure dressed as Edward G. reached the last office on the floor, which had the words DEPARTMENT OF TRANSIT CLERICAL OFFICE stenciled on it. He methodically retrieved a locksmith toolset out of his bag, knelt, and started picking the lock.

  In the other office, the ski-masked prowler positioned himself in the outer office area with the two women while Cagney fired at the doorknob of a locked door in the corner of the room that read CLOSET. He kicked it down and Bogart stepped in, followed closely by Cagney.

  Hidden behind the unassuming door labeled CLOSET was a cavernous room lined with bookcases filled with files, books, and vast transit maps on the walls. A plain-clothed agent came out from behind a cabinet and rushed Bogart, but Cagney stepped forward and hit him in the face with the butt of his Thompson before he could do anything, sending him to the floor dazed with a bloody nose already beginning to swell. Cagney flipped the machine gun around, pointed it at the man, and pulled back the slide, putting a round in the chamber, but Bogart quickly intervened.

  “Nein! Verlasse ihn,” he said in his native German. Cagney complied and swung the barrel toward another agent at the back of the office who had hesitated to act.

  Bogart locked eyes on this man, who he sized up to be the senior agent in the field office compared to the younger man writhing on the floor. Bogart walked over to him, coming uncomfortably close to the man’s face.

  “Where are your files on Operation Overcast?”

  The older agent unknowingly paused. He looked deep into the placid and vacant eyes of Bogart. They didn’t betray any kind of feelings, let alone empathy. They weren’t the eyes of a petty criminal, but the eyes of a war-weary killer, a man to whom death was a constant companion. There was an immediate recognition that these men were not to be trifled with and that the original question had been left unanswered for too long.

  Bogart barked out an order in German and the towering Cagney approached with a quick but unusual measure of calm efficiency in his motions, his boots heavy with every step. The agent was thrown onto a desk, crushing the lamp and other items on top. The man attempted to put up a fight but was immediately made aware of the almost unnatural raw power of the man under the Cagney mask, almost like the unfailing energy within a hydraulic press. The older agent stopped putting up any defense.

  Cagney let go, awaiting further instructions. The agent looked over to the tall, lanky Bogart, who queried again:

  “Where are your files on Operation Overcast?”

  There was no reply.

  Bogart nodded to Cagney.

  The agent turned back to the massive Cagney in preparation of what would be next. With one hand the henchman picked up a heavy metal desk chair like it was an empty shoebox and, with an effortless backhand, threw it through the window. The
re was an explosion of glass as the room depressurized and a gust of air blew through the window. Papers on other desks and anything else that was light enough flew up and were carried out the window following the shards of thick glass and the heavy, swiveling chair on their race down to the street seventy-nine floors below.

  Bogart’s eyes remained on the senior agent throughout this. “Show him where the files for Operation Overcast are or your last moments on Earth will be spent contemplating the aerodynamics of the human body as you hit the roofs of the many passing taxicabs below.”

  After a short moment, the terrified agent staggered to his feet under the watchful eye of Cagney and dejectedly made his way over to a large filing cabinet.

  Down the hall, the masked Edward G. had carefully made his way inside the Department of Transit clerical office, taking care to pick the inner office door lock as he’d done with the first. He entered the room, which was full of large filing cabinets. Each had its own title written on the front: LONG ISLAND RAILROAD, NEW YORK CITY SUBWAY SYSTEM, and PORT AUTHORITY BUS SYSTEM.

  Back in the Office of Strategic Services, the young secretary and middle-aged cleaning lady were brought into the inner office and made to stand by the wall, terrified as Cagney tore through the filing cabinet, searching.

  Bogart’s attention shifted, and he stared at the two females, his view becoming fixated on the older cleaning lady. Bogart’s tall and thin frame was perverted even further by the abstract mask he wore over his face. He stood under a bright light overhead, which obscured any features behind the mask’s eyeholes. Instead they were just empty black holes that looked endless and vast, like a demon’s. Only the reflection from his retinas remained periodically visible, a reminder that there were actual eyes hidden within those sockets.