by John Knoerle
We needed to play this out together, Henry and me. So I took a calculated risk and stuck the .44 back in my coat pocket, leaving the Schooler free to plug me. He barely noticed. At the moment I was the best friend Henry Voss had in all the world.
I cranked the ignition and wheeled off, nearly got side-swiped by a speeding taxi, wove my way through traffic like a broken field runner and took a left on Frankfort. We weren’t a well-oiled machine just yet.
Chapter Thirty-four
This entire thrown-together-at-the-last-minute criminal enterprise depended on what I saw through the front window of Lulu’s Place. I hadn’t known the precise time of H-hour when I called Ambrose, just that it was after dark. I told him to park himself and his brothers at the counter and keep an eye out for a wine red Packard.
I took my foot off the accelerator. We glided up to Lulu’s Place.
The front window was cloudy with condensation save for a wiped-away square in the middle. I looked through that square and saw what I wanted to see. Three eager young scoundrels looking back.
I double parked. Sean, Patrick and Ambrose tumbled out the door a heartbeat later, Ambrose in the lead.
They piled into the back seat of the Packard, all cowlicks and eyebrows. The youngest brother had a glob of bloody tissue on his chin from a shave he didn’t need. Raw assed rookies, eager for action. God help us.
“Gentlemen,” I said, indicating The Schooler, “meet the man in charge.”
The Mooney Brothers looked from me to him and back again.
“Here’s the drill,” I said. “You drop us off a block from the front steps. Fifteen minutes later you park across from the gate on Rockwell. When the gate opens you drive to the loading dock. Sean and Patrick jump out and flank up left and right, Ambrose wheels it around and backs up to the dock. He unlocks the trunk and stays put. Do not fire unless fired upon. Got it?”
The Mooney brothers nodded.
“Maintain your positions. If you hear gunfire it means we’re dead. Do not go looking for us. Understand?”
They nodded in unison.
“Any questions?”
A quick whispered powwow between the brothers. Ambrose spoke.
“How long do we wait at the loading dock and what do we do if you don’t show?”
“As long as you can and run like hell.” I turned to The Schooler. “Anything else?”
Henry was facing forward, presumably cursing the day our paths had crossed. And searching the street for a black panel truck.
“You know the layout better’n I do.”
The Schooler remained silent, motionless. We waited until he heaved a sigh and turned around to address Sean, Patrick and Ambrose.
“The loading dock is only eight feet wide. There’s no room to flank up, no room to wheel around. You have to back into the gate.”
So much for my brilliant plan.
“There’s a toll gate inside, before you get to the loading dock. A steel arm across and an armed guard in a bulletproof booth. He works for the Secret Service, not the Federal Reserve Police. He doesn’t care who has a gun to whose head, his job is to keep unauthorized personnel from entering no matter what.”
We waited on the punch line.
“We got to him. But he’s expecting a panel truck, not a Packard.”
Cripes. This was the first I’d heard of the tollbooth.
Ambrose piped up. “Is the guard lookin’ for somebody at the wheel? Someone he knows?”
“No one in particular,” said The Schooler.
“Then we tell him the panel truck threw a rod if he beefs us.”
The Schooler almost smiled. He liked this itchy young man.
I put the Packard in gear, had a terrible thought and turned around. “You do know how to drive, don’t you?”
“Of course,” said Ambrose.
“Show me.”
Ambrose and I swapped seats. The Schooler gave him a quick briefing on the workings of the Packard. Ambrose put the great beast in gear.
We bounced west on Frankfort, lurched south on W. 9th and jounced east on Superior, Sean and Patrick trying not to pee their pants, The Schooler issuing instructions in a mild voice and me, bracing myself against the back of the front seat as we jerked to a halt at a stoplight on W. 3rd, wondering why I didn’t just throw open the door and step in front of a truck.
But I never do anything the easy way.
I checked my watch. There was another unpleasant possibility that I hadn’t raised. Jimmy wouldn’t stay broken down for long. When the panel truck crapped out Jimmy would know I’d screwed him. He and his bad boys would hijack the first vehicle big enough to hold them and make a beeline for the exit gate on Rockwell. The Mooney boys would have to park elsewhere.
I have always been good in a crisis. Don’t laugh, it’s true. My foresight isn’t always 20-20 but I usually compensate with some inspired improvisation just before the clock ticks down to zero. The clock was ticking. Where the hell was my inspiration?
“Take a left at the next intersection,” I said to Ambrose as the light turned green.
The Schooler looked a question at me over his shoulder. The Bank was dead ahead, why the detour? I shook him off, no time to explain.
Ambrose signaled for a left, hemmed and hawed his way through the Public Square traffic and down Ontario and didn’t hit anybody. He was getting the hang of it.
“Right on St. Clair,” I said and slumped down in my seat as we passed the Standard Building and FBI HQ. We turned right. I sat up a block later.
“And a right here at 9th.” Ambrose turned right. Rockwell was one block ahead. “Kill the headlights.”
Ambrose hit a switch, the windshield wipers started clacking. The Schooler said the next switch over. The dome light clicked on. The Schooler said to turn it the other way. The headlights dimmed.
“Now slide halfway past this corner and stop,” I said, looking hard. No vehicles were parked across from the bank gate on Rockwell.
“Turn right,” I said, betting there was an alley off Rockwell.
There was, just past the side delivery gate, other side of the street.
“Here.”
We stopped by the alley. “Back in and park behind that dumpster,” I said to Ambrose. “Wait for the gate to open.”
I pondered what to tell him about the possibility of Jimmy and his punks arriving in a hijacked truck but the answer was obvious. Nothing. There were unknowns in every operation, and the kid had enough to worry about.
The Schooler showed Ambrose how to find reverse. We climbed out. The Packard crabbed its way up the alley. Henry and I buttoned up against the wind and quick stepped up Rockwell to E. 6th.
“What’s the play?”
“Your troops are massing up the block for a frontal assault,” I said. “You were going to use me as your ticket in but I flipped the switch.”
The Schooler nodded.
“And I’ll need your weapon.”
The Schooler stopped walking, I stopped with him. He dug in the pocket of his topcoat and stood there for a long moment.
Henry Voss could have plugged me there and then, jumped in a cab on Superior and sailed off into the sunset. He could and should have but he didn’t. He forked over a tiny elegant seven-shot Beretta instead.
“Nice gat.”
We resumed our walk. A gust of wind whistled down the concrete canyon and carried off his remark.
“Say again?”
“Do-you-need-anything-else?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I need you to play the part. Look angry, look glum.”
The Schooler expelled a fat cloud of steam. “That shouldn’t be difficult.”
Chapter Thirty-five
The twenty-foot Greek statues were female, laurel wreaths on their heads, holding sheathed swords aloft on either side of the stone steps leading up to the high-arched front entrance of the pink granite building otherwise known as the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. The front door was narrow, a black steel fram
e punctuated by eight panes of double thick glass. It had no outside handle, just a call box to the right, head high.
I marched The Schooler up the steps with the .44, in my pocket, to his back. I positioned him in front of the door and pressed the call box button. I pressed it again. I stood behind The Schooler and peered through a door pane, saw a cavernous lobby with great hanging lamps shaped like lanterns and a curved white marble reception counter and nobody, not a soul. I pounded on the door. It paid no attention.
“Hey!” cried a voice from the street behind me. I spun around. A swabbie in deck whites had his arm draped around a slender young woman. He was very happy. “You never heard of banker’s hours?”
I smiled and nodded and returned to the business at hand, pressing the call box and peering at no one.
The young woman’s “Jerry, don’t” alerted me. That and Jerry’s hundred proof breath. I turned around.
“You din’t answer my question mate.”
“Sorry, thought you were joking,” I said pleasantly.
The call box squawked to life. “Identify yourself,” said a hollow voice.
“I asked you a question!” said the sailor, stepping closer, eyes crossed.
“Identify yourself,” repeated the hollow voice.
“You deaf or sumpin’?” said the sailor, balling his fists.
I looked an appeal to the slender young woman. She examined her fingernails. I would have to handle Popeye by myself. We had already acquired a small cluster of onlookers, and tossing a uniformed veteran down the steps would start a brawl.
The two-finger lock is simplicity itself. You grab your opponent’s ring and pinkie fingers, turn his palm upward and bend his fingers toward his wrist, using your index finger as a fulcrum. The drunken gob didn’t like it. He took a swing at me with his left, I ducked. His sailor’s cap went flying.
I bent back harder. He cocked his fist for another punch. I was about to snap his fingers clean in two when The Schooler said, in a hearty voice I hadn’t heard before, “Shove off mate. This finny ain’t worth the chum.”
The sailor grinned at this and unclenched his fist. I eased the pressure some. He cocked his head and studied my battered mug. “You got that right mate,” he laughed.
I released my grip. The swabbie picked up his cap and stumbled down the stairs, the young woman meeting him halfway, pulling his arm around her shoulders. They tripped off down the sidewalk, happy as clams. I pressed the .44 Special to The Schooler’s back once again.
“Identify yourself!” said the disembodied voice.
“I am Harold Schroeder of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and I need to speak to Commander Frederick Seifert.” I released the call box button and pressed it again. “Immediately.”
No response. Then the microphone keyed on. I waited to hear. The disembodied voice said, “Stand by.”
I stood by for several eons of geologic time. Finally a deep angry voice said, “This is Seifert. How do I know you’re Schroeder?”
“I’m from Youngstown, I served in the OSS, I was hired by Chester Halladay to infiltrate the Fulton Road Mob,” I said to the call box. “I have ID.”
“Who’s the man with you?”
There was no one on the other side of the door. How had he seen? The Schooler ticked his chin up, towards a black steel frieze above the door, a world globe flanked by American eagles. A tiny lens protruded from the South Pole.
I pressed the call button. “The man in my custody is the head of the Fulton Road Mob, the feds call him Mr. Big. He has ten men waiting two blocks away. They intend to rob your bank.”
A disembodied snort from the unseen Commander. “And just how do they propose to do that?”
“Sir I’m happy to explain the details but my fanny is flapping in the breeze out here at the moment and I sure would appreciate it if you could open the door.”
A guard appeared on the other side of the door with a ring of keys. An old gent with a shuffling gait, a lifer.
“When the door opens the prisoner enters by himself, hands behind his head,” said Seifert through the call box.
“No can do sir,” I said back. “He’s my collar. Where he goes, I go.”
The microphone keyed off, presumably so the Commander could loudly curse my uppity young self. It keyed back on several moments later. Seifert’s deep voice rumbled out of the call box as if it came from three stories below which, for all I knew, it did.
“Once you enter both you and the prisoner lace your hands behind your heads.”
“Yes sir.”
The guard with the ring of keys went to work on locks and sidebars. He yanked open the door, releasing a blast of heat. We shuffled inside and put our hands behind our heads. The welcoming committee consisted of four uniformed officers arrayed in front of the curved white marble reception counter, sidearms drawn. Two more stood behind the counter, sporting carbines. No sign of the Commander. The guard with the ring of keys locked up behind us.
My eyes climbed skyward despite themselves. The lobby of the Federal Reserve Bank made St. John’s Cathedral look like Granny’s parlor. I felt small. Tiny. Infinitesimal. I had obviously been insane to think this austere principality could be conquered by a ragtag army of five.
I queued up behind The Schooler and looked around, past all the gun barrels trained on my every move. Where the hell was the Commander? The entire loopy half-baked scheme depended on my getting hold of him.
“Do they have explosives?” said the deep angry voice from somewhere to my right. I turned to see. The Commander stepped out from behind a potted palm. Apparently the Federal Reserve Police didn’t have a height requirement. Frederick Seifert was barely five foot two.
“No sir. They don’t have any explosives, armored vehicles or battering rams. No need to push the panic button.”
Commander Seifert approached. No wonder he was grumpy. In addition to being short he was bald and wore thick glasses.
“Then explain yourself!”
I looked him over. Spit and polish top to toe. Wispy strands combed straight back and plastered to his skull, uniform blouse and pants steam pleated, brass buttons gleaming, a see-yourself shine on his oxfords and clear polish on his fingernails.
I skipped the details. How Mr. Big planned to use me as the Trojan Horse to breach the castle walls, how I got the drop on him and flipped the switch. Seifert would want to know what was in it for him.
“Can I check my watch?”
Seifert nodded.
“Okay, it’s 7:27. The Fulton Road Mob plans to storm up the front steps in three minutes time. I know, I know. So what?” I spread my stance to lower my height and lowered my voice to draw him close. “Here’s what. Why let the Cleveland PD grab all the glory when you, Commander, can round them all up in one fell swoop.”
The Commander did not reply.
“I don’t have time to explain all the why’s and wherefore’s. But the mob thinks I’m on their team. They’re expecting I’ve taken you hostage by now. They’re expecting to see me standing behind you by an open front door.”
The Commander didn’t say anything to this either. One crooked eyebrow sufficed.
“Ridiculous, I know, but here’s the thing. We’ve got superior knowledge, why not use it? If you send your troops out the tunnels to those statues and you allow me to stand behind you at the open door, the mob lookout will give the others the go-ahead. They storm up the steps, you slam the door in their faces. Your men pile out of the statues and round them up from behind. Duck soup!”
Commander Seifert’s eyelids narrowed to tiny slits but what was left of his eyeballs burned with a fine cold light. He was tempted but not convinced.
There was one more angle I could play. I had grown up with men like Seifert, hard working second generation Krauts, shamed by their ancestry, noses pressed to the glass, on the outside looking in.
“Sir, Chester Halladay and the rest of the country club brass screwed me six ways to Sunday on this operation. You k
now how they are. But if we can pull this off, well, they’d have to raise a glass in your honor next Friday at Rohr’s. Wouldn’t they?”
Seifert’s eyelids raised up to half staff. I couldn’t throw in the closer. This is your last best chance to win that promotion to New York or D.C. or wherever it was Federal Reserve Police Commanders aspired to go. I wasn’t supposed to know about that. And Commander Seifert could do the math.
He took his time toting it up, precious time we didn’t have. Jimmy and the seven twerps would be rumbling our way in a hijacked hay truck.
Seifert spoke. “The tunnels haven’t been used for years. The entry doors are padlocked, I don’t have keys.”
Christ, one step forward and two steps back. I was about to give up the ghost and devote my life to serving the poor and destitute when Commander Seifert snapped to and started barking orders.
“Grab the bolt cutters from the maintenance room, machine guns from the weapon’s locker! Deploy down the tunnels! Keep watch through the peepholes. When the front door swings shut, jump out and make arrests!”
The squadron of officers looked at their Commander as if he were speaking in tongues.
“Go!”
They went. I used the momentary chaos to return The Schooler’s Beretta to his coat pocket. He kept his hands laced behind his head and his eyes downcast, a tiny shrug of his shoulder his only acknowledgment.
I slipped my hand in my pocket and slipped my fingers around the butt and trigger of Jimmy’s .44, my pestering brain wondering whether Slopehead was already laying in wait outside the ribbed steel gate on Rockwell. I told my brain to shut its yap.
Timing was key now. I was tempted to stick the .44 in Seifert’s belly this instant but that’s not the way spies work.
West Point trains soldiers to press the attack when they’ve got the enemy in transition, scattered, on the run. They teach different in spy school. They teach you to wait for the enemy to take their positions, wait for the enemy to train their weapons on ghostly phantoms in the far distance. At which time you sneak up and shoot them in the back.
