Sight Unseen

by Brad Latham

  “I know you don’t.”

  “So, I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I want you to stay here and help me with this thing. If you leave here now, I’m going to use my power as a federal officer and have you arrested as a renegade Treasury agent who defected in an emergency.”

  “You couldn’t make that stick.”

  “I might even be able to make it stick,” Manners said. “You may not think much of me, but I got plenty of favors around Washington I could call in.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Good,” Manners said. “So, where does that leave us?”

  “I’m going to stay. Not for your sake, but because you’re right. Tibbett is likely to be here.”

  Manners smirked. “We’re going to have to come up with something to figure out how the five of us are going to get this crate past a couple of hundred of them.”

  “I’m going to run this, Manners.”

  “This is my show.”

  Lockwood opened the door and stepped out. “Stay right here, Manners. I’m going for help. If I don’t find you here when I get back, I’m going to assume that I should go in on my own.”

  It was an hour later when all three doors of Manners’ black car opened and Lockwood slid into the front seat and three other men got into the rear.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Manners asked. “Thing should be over in an hour, and we don’t even have a plan. Who are these guys? Hey, what’s that on your arm?”

  Lockwood turned his shoulder so that Manners could see the armband—a red strip of cloth on which glared a white circle around a black swastika.

  Manners looked in the back seat, and the three men there turned so he could see their armbands too.

  “What’s all this?” Manners asked.

  “Our tickets to get us inside,” Lockwood answered.

  “Not bad,” Manners said. “But what can the five of us—and my three guys—do?”

  “We already got forty-five guys in there,” said a low voice from the back seat.

  “Remember Benny Harris?” Lockwood asked Manners.

  The T-man jumped and turned around to look at Benny through the gloom. “Not again, Lockwood!”

  “It’s my show,” Lockwood said. “And Benny’s.”

  “Who’re these other guys?”

  “No names, Hook,” the guy to the right of Benny said.

  ‘They’d prefer to serve their country and not get the credit,” Lockwood explained to Manners.

  “I’d prefer not to be known by him, period,” the same guy said.

  “You’ll get the credit, Manners,” Lockwood said. “Northstar will get the bombsight. Transatlantic will get to keep its money. I get Tibbett.”

  “Let’s move, Hook,” Benny said.

  “Here’s your armband,” Lockwood said to Manners. “And three more for your three guys.”

  “Hey, wait! What are we going to do in there?” Manners asked as Lockwood and the three others opened their doors.

  “Come on, Manners,” The Hook said. “We’re going to do what you’ve been itching to do. Disrupt a Nazi rally.”

  “In the Fatherland now, we are a blockaded nation,” the man at the podium screamed. “We are a beleaguered fortress. We have struggled to make ourselves self-sufficient in essential raw materials, but we have been ganged up upon by other countries.”

  Led by Lockwood. Manners and the three men from the Mob pushed their way through the crowded aisles of Madison Square Garden. Only once inside was it apparent how many people the Bund rally had drawn.

  “Jesus, Lockwood,” Manners hissed. “Must be 10,000 people in here.”

  “The bombsight’s under the speaker’s podium, if Braunschweiger was telling the truth,” Lockwood said. “It isn’t the 10,000 here that worries me, it’s those boys around the podium.”

  Manners looked. What he saw was a ring of brownshirted men, arms folded, each one with an armband like the one he was wearing. There looked to be about fifty of them standing there.

  “The Fatherland has had phenomenal results in manufacturing substitutes for rubber and wool,” the speaker shouted. He was a large, intense men with a face that seemed to wrap itself around each word and spit it out. He leaned so far over the podium it looked to Lockwood as if he might drive himself through it into the audience. “Our people are generously making sacrifices for the Fatherland.”

  A roar of approval rose from the crowd.

  “Yes!” shouted the speaker. “Nothing is wasted today. Shopkeepers use as little paper as possible to wrap packages and no string. Our women do without rubber in their garters. Even the children have forsaken toy balloons, knowing that the Fatherland needs all the rubber it can get. Toy balloons, friends! Toy balloons! Not a toothpaste tube in all of Germany is thrown away today. And I ask you: What are you doing for the Fatherland? Have you given us a check this month? Are you matching the sacrifices that your brothers and sisters and even nieces and nephews—no toy balloons, friends, no toy balloons!”

  The crowd again roared its approval.

  “The German housefrau—every German housewoman—collects rags, copper, aluminum, iron scraps, paper, bottles, and bones. Are you putting yourself out for the Fatherland in a similar manner? Are you?”

  Again the crowd roared its approval, this time with a long, “Ja! Ja! Ja!”

  “He really gets them worked up, doesn’t he?” Manners said to Lockwood.

  “You ready, Hook?” Benny said. “I don’t much like it in here.”

  “You wouldn’t like it in Germany either,” Hook said.

  “I didn’t the first time,” Benny said with a sour grin.

  “Let’s go, Benny,” Lockwood said.

  Benny turned toward the rear of the Garden and gave a high sign to someone back there.

  “Hook, what’s the plan?” Manners shouted.

  “No time to explain. You follow me.”

  In the back a man stood up on a seat and shouted at the speaker. “Lies,” he shouted. “All this is lies. The German people are imprisoned. It’s not the children who refuse to play with toy balloons, the government has banned them!” The man standing on the chair shook his fist so hard his long blond hair fell into his face.

  The speaker at the podium had stopped in mid-sentence. “Who is he?” he shouted.

  The man on the seat answered, “I have just come back from Germany. I saw the truth there. Housewives must collect waste and scrap. You can only buy meat from one shop, month after month. To prepare for war, the new government is putting wood fiber in the flour! Even the length and fullness of the housewives’ dresses are controlled by law—to save material! Is this what you want to encourage?”

  Boos rase from the crowd, and there was a surge around the new speaker. Lockwood thought he recognized the angry man on the chair as Timmy the Greek, a mild guy who hung out at Nathan’s Place. Lockwood had never known he was such a good speaker. As the crowd surged up and around Timmy, Lockwood saw Tooths O’Grady and Joey Pitt and half a dozen of the other boys keeping them from pulling Timmy down.

  Benny jerked his head toward the official speaker’s platform, and Lockwood and Manners followed.

  “Get him out of here,” the speaker shouted in a frenzy to the men down front in the brown shirts, Sam Browne belts, and armbands. In puppet-like gestures, the one who looked to be the leader of the Brown Shirts began to wave them toward Timmy. Lockwood saw them pull heavy night sticks from their belts. He winced; on the other hand, Timmy and Tooths and Joey and that crowd could take care of themselves.

  “Sure, he wants to get me out of here,” Timmy shouted. “Before I tell you that German housewives are urged by this rotten government to serve more horse meat.”

  A man stood up about fifty feet in front of Timmy and jumped onto his chair. “Don’t listen to this man. All these things are done in Germany so that the glory of the German people may rise again.”

  Timmy gave an exaggerated laugh. “Tell me, friend, what glory i
s worth a government that legislates how long your shirttail must be, to save cloth? What glory is worth the fear people have of grumbling about these things? What glory is worth eating horsemeat? Not finding any meat at all in the shops, that it must go for soldiers? And all for what? For military expansion, that’s what for! Didn’t we learn anything in the war the last time?”

  By now, he could hardly be heard over the rage of the crowd, which was angered by the disruption. The Brown Shirts had arrived at the knot of men around Timmy, and fighting broke out there. It seemed to spread quickly, for all over Madison Square Garden fights began.

  The speaker shouted at the remaining troopers, “Get over there, Braun, and stop those communists! They want to take over everything!”

  On the other side of the Garden a little boom went off, and Lockwood heard the shout, “A bomb!” The crowd began to surge toward the exits. A whiff of something that smelled awful hit Lockwood’s nostrils, and he smiled. God alone knew where Tooths and Benny had come up with stink bombs on such short notice. Several other booms announced more bombs.

  When Lockwood, Manners, and Benny arrived at the speaker’s platform they had with them about twenty men who had gradually come out of the crowd to join them. Lockwood recognized about a third of them as belonging to Benny’s organization, and he recognized another third as belonging to several rival mobs. He smiled to himself. Amazing how much cooperation Benny could get for something like this. The other third he did not recognize, but he had no doubt that they were similar recruits.

  “Around back of this thing,” Lockwood said to Benny.

  They went around the rear of the speaker’s wooden platform and ran into a dozen Brown Shirts standing there looking nervous and jumpy.

  “We are here to take away the crate,” Lockwood said in bad imitation of a German accent. “It might get mislaid in the confusion.”

  Lockwood led them forward under the platform, and there sat a large wooden crate about as tall as a man and as large around as a telephone booth. Quickly, Lockwood ordered Benny and Manners and the other men to hoist the crate on their shoulders. It was heavy, and the men staggered. Lockwood pressed a couple of the Brown Shirts into service, too.

  “Quickly, hurry mine brothers,” Lockwood said. “The communists would dearly love to get their hands on this.”

  Just as they emerged from under the speaker’s platform, the speaker himself came running down the stairs.

  “Jung!” he screamed at the senior Brown Shirt. “Where are they going? Tell me!”

  “Sir! We are removing the crate to a place of safety!” the officer shouted.

  “You fool! I never saw these men before,” the speaker shouted. He looked ready to pop a blood vessel, he was so outraged. “Stop them!”

  The dozen Brown Shirts threw themselves at Lockwood and his men. Lockwood drew his gun and Manners drew his, and they shot three of these men in the legs and thighs to stop them. The noise of the shots didn’t seem to rise much above the roar of the crowd. The three men twisted about on the floor and writhed in pain. The other Brown Shirts stood back and flapped their nightsticks into their palms. Clearly, they were itching for a fight.

  “Come on, guys,” Lockwood said. He and Manners kept their guns out. Benny lit a cigar and led the way up the corridor between the seats behind the platform. The crate, looking like an ungainly centipede with the dozen men under it, marched along behind Benny and Manners. Lockwood took the rear position and kept his eye on the speaker and the Brown Shirts. When they were out of earshot, the speaker began to give orders and the Brown Shirts fanned away.

  They went through a door and a short corridor.

  Lockwood ran around to the front of the centipede. “Benny. Manners. They’re going to be coming around the other way. Maybe this time with guns.”

  “No problem,” Benny said. He held up his hand and snapped his fingers.

  From out of the gloom of the lower part of the Garden, a motor sounded. A large Chesterfield cigarette truck roared up to them, made a fast rear turn, and backed up to the crate.

  The back doors sprang open, and two men jumped down.

  “Get back in there!” Benny shouted. “Take it from them, morons!”

  The men under the crate moved it forward and slowly passed it to the two men in the truck, who had only enough strength to pull it along into the rear. They slammed the doors shut.

  From a distance they heard a clatter and looked up to see a dozen Brown Shirts running down the sidewalk to them.

  “We’ll take care of them,” Benny said to Lockwood and Manners. “You guys get the hell out of there.”

  “Thanks, Benny,” Lockwood said.

  “Nice job!” Manners said.

  Benny reached under his jacket and drew out a pistol and waved it in their general direction.

  “I told you,” he said. “Get the hell out of here. Now.”

  Lockwood grinned at him and clapped Benny on the back. Benny gave him a sour grin and held up the hand with the cigar in a gesture of victory.

  “See you at Nathan’s, Hook,” Benny said.

  “See you at Nathan’s.” Lockwood answered.

  A minute later Manners and Lockwood were barreling down Ninth Avenue at fifty miles an hour.

  Chapter 18

  All the way out to Patchogue Lockwood and Manners kept their guns on their laps. The driver, an Italian named Sally who Lockwood knew only vaguely, kept the Chesterfield truck moving through the spring night. Small towns came and went. At every red light Lockwood and Manners peered around, certain that a horde of Brown Shirts was about to jump the truck, but the ride out was uneventful.

  As they pulled up to the gate at Northstar, Lockwood said, “I didn’t see Tibbett at the rally.”

  “No,” said Manners. “So what?”

  “So, I got an appointment with him.” Lockwood felt tension rise within him. The ridges of the pistol handle felt hard and bony to his hand. He felt an urge to threaten Manners with it, but that would cause too much trouble. Better to win him over.

  “What do you mean, an appointment?” Manners asked. He held up his badge to the sentry, and the truck pulled through the gate.

  “I mean he and I got a date together, Manners. Whether he knows it or not.”

  “Hook—I mean Bill—let me send some of my guys over there,” Manners said.

  Lockwood didn’t answer except to lean forward and put his gun into the holster in the small of his back. He had a score to settle with Tibbett, and if he had to walk over there, he was going.

  “Besides,” Manners went on, “he’s probably already heard we broke up the rally and has skipped town.”

  “Will you lend me a car?” Lockwood asked him.

  “Where’s yours?”

  “Back in the city.”

  Manners shook his head. “No. If you want, you can go with a couple of my guys over there.”

  “I’m going to see him by myself, Manners.”

  “Let’s make it Guy and Bill,” Manners said.

  “Let’s rustle me up something to drive,” Lockwood answered.

  Manners grinned. “You need to borrow a jeep to run into town to eat, right?”

  It took Lockwood a few seconds to get it, the cover story. He grinned back and clapped Manners on the shoulder. “Maybe you’re not such a bad guy after all.”

  “I hope you enjoy your meal.”

  “I’ll take the jeep. Thanks a lot, Manners.”

  As Lockwood left the Northstar compound, he saw the troops unloading the huge crate. It took him a quarter of an hour to get to Tibbett’s house. He stopped the jeep a few hundred feet up the road and, after checking his gun in the light from the dashboard, he set out on foot.

  As he approached Tibbett’s shack, he saw a light on in the rear of the house. The rest of the place was dark. He crept around the house with his gun drawn, wary that Tibbett might be looking for trouble. Lockwood doubted that Tibbett knew he was coming. He hadn’t said anything to Manners, but h
e hadn’t seen a telephone in the old man’s shack that day he had searched it. And he knew why. To keep up the pretense that he was just a poor ex-machinist, a shuffling night watchman, he couldn’t have a telephone. It would cost too much money.

  Lockwood eased up to the kitchen window. Every sense was alert now. He felt the night breeze blow over him. He put his feet down softly, carefully. He moved slowly. He pulled the hammer of the .38 back, cocking it. He heard the sound of water splashing and croonings as he came closer to the window.

  Through the open window Lockwood saw Pops in his machinist’s overalls at the kitchen table, his back to Lockwood. He was washing Bingo. The German shepherd sat in a tin washtub of soapy water, and Pops was rubbing the dog with a sponge along its flanks.

  “Still, Bingo. Not long now.”

  Bingo whined and squirmed.

  “Hey, boy. Let me get a little soap there. That’s it.”

  On the floor next to Tibbett sat a couple of old fiberboard suitcases. It looked like Pops was getting ready to go on a trip, and he had no idea that the Brown Shirts weren’t going to show up.

  Lockwood crept around to the back door. He would have to go through a screen door onto a porch before he got to the kitchen. Lockwood dried his palms and prepared himself. He took off his jacket and put it on the ground and rolled up his sleeves. Then he took the porch steps quietly, a step at a time, and gently eased the screen door open. It screeched softly, and Lockwood hoped that neither Bingo nor his master heard it.

  He got onto the porch and eased the screen door closed. The kitchen door was open.

  “Will you be still?” he heard Pops say. “Consarn it! Stop wiggling so much!”

  Lockwood stepped into the doorway and said, “Freeze!”

  He was met by a wet, soapy, ninety-pound missile that hit him in the chest before he could do a thing.

  Bingo’s fangs failed to get a grip on any part of Lockwood, who staggered back from the blow. His finger pulled the trigger and the .38 smashed the glasses by the sink. The dog slid off Lockwood, who was now pressed against the doorjam. Pops made a move toward the sink for the butcher knife there.

  The German shepherd was scrabbling the floor with its wet paws for a purchase from which to leap again at Lockwood.