Operation Underworld

by Paddy Kelly

  “Do you know that boy’s mother wrote to me every month for the rest of her life. Cookies on my birthday, too. How the hell did she know it was my birthday?”

  “The New York Bar register,” Haffenden deduced.

  “Huh! Son-of-a-bitch!” He released his briefcase, sat forward in his chair and looked Haffenden in the eyes.

  “Alright, god-damn it! But there are some ground rules we’re gonna get straight first.”

  “You have my undivided attention, Mr Polakoff.”

  “First and foremost, we get this visitor routine shit straightened out. Last time I was up there it was a freakin’ fiasco! I seen better organised riots, fer cryin’out loud!”

  “I’ll call DC this afternoon.”

  “Lansky’s responsible for everything, not me. I’m strictly window dressing. Dorothy Lamour in a Road movie, get it? Along for the ride, nothing more.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I go up there once a week, no more. That trip is murder, especially in winter. That’s non-negotiable, I don’t care if the Nazis are landin’ in Jersey! Are we in agreement?” Polakoff asked.

  “Yes, Moses, we’re in agreement.”

  Polakoff stood, shook Haffenden’s hand and turned to walk away. Haffenden followed close behind and once out on the street, Polakoff turned to Haffenden.

  “Would you really have tried to reactivate me?” In the distance, a siren sliced through the thin, crisp air, and quickly faded.

  “I wouldn’t have had a chance in hell. You’re way over the age limit.”

  Moses smiled in appreciation of the tactic. “Prick!”

  Owing to the drop in temperature the aviary was quieter than usual. Hoover was walking over to the trash basket to deposit his empty Coke bottle when he heard footsteps echoing through the bird house.

  He looked at the man approaching him, and took a seat on a wooden bench facing a giant glass cage containing assorted birds of the great northwest. The man sat down next to him and removed his hat. It was treasury agent Johnson.

  In an unusually subdued tone, Hoover opened the conversation.

  “What’s going on?”

  “The Navy’s got some kind of operation going. Not sure about the whole thing, or all the details.” Johnson was in league with Hoover, but only to an extent.

  “What kind of operation? Information? Espionage stuff?”

  “Like I said. None of our guys have the full dope.”

  “Well, is it local, national or what?”

  “All we know at this point is they’re havin’ some kind of trouble, and the whole thing might collapse.”

  “There’s gotta be some kinda paper trail. Records, something!”

  “There’s a book. A little black book.”

  “Tell me!”

  “Apparently it has the names, dates and places of all the contacts associated with the operation.”

  “And chain of custody is followed to the letter?”

  “With these clowns? Figure the odds!”

  “Can you get it?”

  “I think so, yeah.” Johnson was hedging his bet. His men not only had the book, they had it hidden in a safe spot.

  “I want that book!”

  “Actually, I thought it would be safer to copy it and return it.” Johnson was considering his retirement benefits.

  “No. Get it, copy it and stash it somewhere. This way we have leverage against them if there’s an investigation from another agency later on.” Johnson liked the sound of that and nodded his consent.

  “Won’t they say something once it’s missing?”

  “To who? The Boy Scouts?” Hoover asked sarcastically.

  “Who knows you’re working for me?” Not knowing who in Washington knew about this mysterious operation, Hoover was exceptionally cautious.

  “No one. There’s only three treasury guys at the third district and they all report to me. They know about the book, but have orders to keep quiet to everyone downtown and to report to me if something looks fishy.”

  “What about money for outside help or miscellaneous expenses?”

  “We’re covered. We have our own sources.”

  A small group of school children paraded through the aviary, holding hands and chatting away excitedly. The teacher directed the giddy children to the display in front of the two men, and began to lecture. Hoover and Johnson stood up.

  “I want that item. By Friday!” Hoover reiterated.

  “Friday’s not good,” he said apprehensively.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “It’s the thirteenth.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was just another Tuesday evening. In accordance with the new blackout rules, one by one the lights were switched off on all forty-seven floors and the offices and hallways fell into darkness as the workers gradually filtered out of the East Side skyscraper.

  The Ludlow & Peabody Building in the Murray Hill District near the Public Library is at 10 East 40th St. Built in1928, the last year of unbridled prosperity before the Crash, it housed mainly corporate offices. Its brown stonework is topped with a beautiful copper hip roof and rises 48 storeys to claim its place amongst the tightly packed chess pieces of the New York skyline.

  As was his routine, the building superintendent stood in the lobby, locking and unlocking the door to accommodate the last of the sporadic flow of typists, secretaries and executives dribbling out of the building, ending another workday.

  The head of maintenance strolled across the expansive marble floor towards the superintendent. He was accompanied by a young man in a dark blue uniform similar to the one worn by the two veteran employees. The red embroidery above his breast pocket identified him as belonging to housekeeping.

  “Henry, this is Jimmy. The union sent him over this afternoon.”

  “What happened to Frank?”

  “Beats me. They said he was transferred for personal reasons.”

  “Personal reasons? He empties garbage cans, fer fuck’s sake! What happened? He have a disagreement with a mop?”

  “All I know is this is Jimmy. Jimmy, this is Henry, the building Super, he’ll help ya get your bearings. I’m outta here. The Yankee game starts in half an hour.”

  “So, Jimmy. You got a union card or what?”

  “Yeah. I got a union card. You want I should show it ta ya?”

  “Yeah. If you would be so gracious as to indulge my wishes.”

  Jimmy produced the bona fide yellow, Building Maintenance Union card and in an apologetic tone Henry explained.

  “Nuthin’ poisonal, you understand. It was just last week that a guy I used ta woik wit, who knows a guy that was married to a guy’s cousin, seen dem FBI guys nab dem German spies. Ya know? So . . ”

  “I get ya drift, Henry. No big deal. Just happy ta be workin’, know what I mean?”

  “I know what ya mean! Cleanin’ gear’s in that closet over there, start on 45 and work ya way down.”

  Jimmy collected his cleaning gear from the mop closet and headed for the elevators. Henry sat down at the reception desk, tuned in the radio and waited for the Yankees game to start. He put his feet up on the desk and then, out of idle curiosity, watched the brass plated indicator point to the successive floor levels as Jimmy’s elevator car gradually climbed to the top floor.

  Jimmy got off on 45 and immediately stashed his cleaning equipment in the store room down the hall. Returning to the elevator, he stared at the indicator for several minutes. It didn’t move, and so he was satisfied that Henry was not on his way up. He checked his watch.

  The young man dashed for the stairwell and bounded down the staircase to the forty-first floor. Once there, he walked quickly while consulting a piece of paper he removed from his pocket and began to systematically pan the office doors up and down the hallway.

  He stopped in front of suite number 4109, knelt on one knee and produced a small lock-picking kit from his hip pocket. His expertise allowed him entry to the suite in a matter of second
s, and once inside, he referred to a small floorplan of the office taped to the back of the lock pick kit.

  It was seven o’clock. He had three more offices to do before Henry began his nightly rounds. Jimmy moved swiftly through his work. Filing cabinets, desks, storage units and cupboards of any size were all carefully searched, and all items replaced exactly as they were found so as to leave no trace of intrusion.

  Suddenly, heavy footsteps echoed in the hall, and Jimmy nervously looked at his watch. Eight ten! He had lost track of time on his last office. Henry was ten minutes late.

  Jimmy froze as the sound of rattling doorknobs grew louder, and realised that Henry was checking that the officers were locked. Jimmy had not locked the door behind him when he entered the last suite.

  The knob rattled, the door opened and there was the flick of a switch. Blinding light flooded the room.

  “Jimmy!” Henry scanned the small office. “Jimmy!” he called out again. “Where the hell are you? God-damn it! First day on the freakin’job and ya freakin’disappear on me!” Henry switched off the light, closed and locked the door, and moved down the hall in search of the new janitor.

  After he was sure that Henry had had enough time to move onto another level, Jimmy slithered out from underneath the overstuffed couch in the middle of the room, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  The next morning Jimmy reported to Commander Haffenden that, with the exception of a few porno magazines, nothing of any significance was found in the suspected office suites he was assigned to search. Similar reports filtered in throughout the day from other agents around the city.

  In spite of the fact it was only one day after Polakoff had rejoined the group, the operation was now in high gear. In contrast to its meagre beginnings with Socks Lanza and the Fulton Street Fish Market, Operation Underworld now generated a frenzy of round-the-clock activity. So much so that Haffenden was hard pressed to keep pace with the influx of information flooding into the command centre his office suite had now transitioned into.

  If the Commander was contented with his handling of the previous crop of problems which had sprouted up in the planting of the operation, he was certainly dismayed at the new bumper harvest of headaches caused by the explosive expansion of this new phase of activity.

  The increase in manpower and operational capital were accompanied by a disproportionate increase in paperwork. Captain MacFall issued a second memo requiring Haffenden to forward daily status reports to his office on the progress of the operation. That was three weeks ago. The Commander had yet to forward one status report, and as a consequence HQ had nothing to give DC, which made some people PO’d. All were getting nervous. Rumours began to circulate that Haffenden was in over his head on what increasingly appeared to be a very expensive snipe hunt.

  Labour pipelines, such as factories, piers, warehouses and trucking companies, were considered to be the primary targets of enemy agents, ergo much attention was initially directed at these areas by the government operatives. Counter-espionage assignments were determined by potential importance of a given facility to the war effort. However, ammunition storage facilities and shipping firms in support of those installations were poorly monitored or ignored altogether in the early phases of the operation.

  “Meyer, we gotta talk right now!” The voice on the other end of the telephone line expressed a sense of urgency Lansky was unable to ignore.

  “Johnny! Where the hell you at? What’s wrong?”

  “How soon can you be at Carlucci’s, the one on the West Side?”

  “’bout an hour. Why?” Lansky was puzzled, but knew Johnny Dunn, whose father had fought in the Easter Rising in Dublin, was not one prone to panic.

  That afternoon in the back room of the Italian American Club on Mott Street, Lansky himself met with Haffenden.

  “One of our people from the West Side says that your security at the receiving station for the Piccatinny Arsenal is terrible.”

  “Bullshit! We got armed guards all over the place.” Haffenden was incensed.

  “You do, huh?” Lansky reached into a burlap bag he had under the table and produced a detonator for a 2,000 lb blockbuster.

  He threw it across the table and Haffenden jumped up, his chair tumbling to the floor. Several of the clubs regulars took mild notice.

  “Don’t worry. It’s been deactivated. We got it from the main stores bunker in Area Seven.” Lansky made his pronouncement in a matter-of-fact fashion in order to emphasise his point. The Commander righted his chair and eyed the detonator.

  “Some asshole could waltz right in there and plant a bomb on one of your outgoing supply ships. I ain’t no sailor, but I think if New York Harbor got blocked up by a sunk boat… ferget about it!”

  “We’ll… rectify the situation.” Haffenden was pleasantly surprised by Lansky’s initiative and enthusiasm as he stared at the detonator.

  The food service, housekeeping and entertainment industries were no less affected by the increased anti-spy effort. Restaurants, hotels and nightclubs were descended upon by eager, dedicated agents posing as waiters, porters and hat check girls.

  For a brief period in New York history, there was no way to tell if your fedora was being babysat by a kid working part time waiting for her next audition, or guarded with all the might of the US Government.

  However, the success of these infiltration measures was not due to the far-reaching power of the Federal Government. It was due, instead, to the far-reaching power of its purported sworn enemy and latest business partner, organised crime.

  With orchestration from Lucky Luciano, the lieutenants swiftly formed an intricate network of co-operating union factions. Factions who previously were hostile to one another.

  The establishment of this network, which reached from the Canadian boarder to Florida and as far west as Ohio, allowed union credentials, papers, ID cards and financial records, to flow freely across interstate boundaries, oblivious to local, state and federal restrictions.

  The Unione Siciliano was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and with their new-found, interstate freedom, many other commodities flowed freely across the boarders as well. Booze, cigarettes and clothing topped the list, and within a week, all were flowing in record scale.

  The boys were back in town.

  Lucky, accompanied by two guards, walked past the trustee mopping the floor on his way to the warden’s office. Lansky and Polakoff were already there and the warden had received strict instructions to leave when their meeting began.

  The trustee averted his bruised face as Luciano walked by. It was the slightly-built prisoner who had passed the comment at the dinner table.

  “You get the problems straightened out about comin’ up here?” Lucky asked, after the warden closed the door behind him.

  “Yeah. Polakoff worked somethin’ out.” The conversation was casual and unhurried. Polakoff sat in the corner with a newspaper, doing a crossword puzzle.

  “How’s Albert A. doin?”

  “He went under.”

  “He’s hidin’ out? Where?”

  “You ready for this? The Army. He joined up.”

  “Good place ta hide.” Lucky smiled and shook his head. “All the shipments come in?”

  “Everything right on time.”

  “Any problems I need to know about?”

  “You’d be proud, boss. Unprecedented co-operation. It’s like they’re all pulling in the same direction.”

  “Dat’s good news.” Lucky leaned in and spoke a little lower to Lansky, despite the fact that they continued in Sicilian.

  “I been doin’ some thinkin’. This is a pretty convenient arrangement. But it ain’t gonna last forever.”

  “How’dya mean?” Meyer asked.

  “No matter if they catch spies or not, sooner or later some politician is gonna figure it don’t look too good youse guys comin’ up here all the time.”

  “I follow. You sayin’ we should look for spies all the time?”

  �
��Nah, dat ain’t important. We can always come up wit a few spies if they need ’em. What I’m sayin’ is, we need to come up with a plan to reconsolidate and rebuild soon.”

  “Things are comin’back together pretty good right now. Whata ya wanna do different?”

  “I mean a big plan, fer after the war.”

  “Who the hell knows when this thing is gonna blow over?”

  “Who cares? But it will, and when it does we gotta be ready.

  No matter who wins, things ain’t never gonna be da same again. Da old markets are gonna shift or dry up and new markets are gonna hav’ta be opened up.”

  “You already got some’a those ‘new markets’ in mind, don’t ya?” Lansky studied Lucky’s face.

  “Yeah, I do. But what I’m woikin’on is way too big fer just one family.”

  “We need a council,” Meyer said as he began to cop on.

  “Exactly. Contact all the heads. Don’t tell ’em why until they show. The Camardos’ll get ya a warehouse on the Brooklyn side. Then get a hold of our friends in Naples. Tell them to contact me. Only me! Got it?”

  “I’m with ya.”

  “Set it up fer tomorrow or Thursday and then get back up here and I’ll give ya an agenda and tell ya what to say,” Lucky instructed.

  “That won’t work out.”

  “Why not?”

  “Part of Polakoff’s deal is he can only come here once a week.”

  “Shit!”

  “Look, with the word from you, we know they’re gonna show up.” Lucky listened and nodded as Lansky suggested an alternate course of action.

  “Tell me what you got in mind. Tell me what you want them to know. I’ll call the meet this week, we’ll give them a couple days ta think about it and I’ll be back up next week.”

  “Sounds okay, but dat don’t give us much time ta contact Naples. And I’m worried some’a de utter heads may not go fer it.”