Operation Underworld

by Paddy Kelly

  “Harry has a past. Let me see that article.” Louie continued to speak as Doc perused the article.

  “Says they found him in Bushwick Creek. That’s up in Greenpoint. Whata ya suppose he was doin’ over there?”

  “He probably wasn’t in Brooklyn. They iced him somewhere else and dropped him over there. The Mob uses the East River all the time for their private cemetery.”

  “You think it was the Mob?!”

  “No. If they did it, he wouldn’t have been found so soon, if at all. I think they wanted it to look like the Mob. Looks like we’re gonna meet the Kings County Coroner.”

  “You know somebody over there?”

  Doc reached into his pocket and began to count the bills he had on him. “No, but I got a feelin’ somebody in the Coroner’s office and myself have some mutual friends.”

  “You’re not gonna give him that phoney dough, are ya?”

  “Only if I have to. Besides, look at it as doin’ him a favour.”

  “What?”

  Doc continued to talk as they headed for the door. “The law says a bribe is takin’money for doin’ somethin’ illegal. This ain’t really money now, is it? So he really won’t be breakin’ the law now, will he?”

  “Yeah, that’ll hold up in court!”

  It was a quarter to twelve when they left the office to head over to Brooklyn.

  Thirty minutes later, there was one pissed off potential client storming back down the stairs and out through Harry’s onto Christopher Street.

  As Nikki climbed the stairs to Mrs Paluso’s apartment, she experienced an overwhelming sensation of relief from the familiarity of her surroundings. The extra time in the taxi had allowed her to compose herself prior to Mrs Paluso’s routine culinary onslaught. Predictably armed with potatoes and sausage, the Polish neighbour was only satisfied with no for an answer after Nikki relented and told her a friend had died. She finally accepted a cup of tea as a compromise.

  “Is Kate in the front room?” Nikki asked, sitting at the kitchen table.

  “Yes. You vant I call her?”

  “No, no. I‘ll surprise her.” Kate did not hear her mother approach and for a brief moment Nikki’s heart was once again filled with the special kind of joy as she watched her daughter content at play. From behind the door jamb Nikki could see Kate had lined up several play chairs and boxes and had dolls sitting on them to form a mock classroom. Teacher Kate was reading the class an imaginary story from a small book. As Kate turned to ask the pupils if they were enjoying the story, she spotted Nikki.

  “Mommy!” She ran to Nikki with open arms.

  “Hi, sweetie! Reading a story, huh? What’s it about?”

  Katie took Nikki aside and shielded her answer from the class by whispering to her mom. “I’m not exactly sure. This is a weird book. So I’m telling them about the beautiful princess and the evil sheriff. But they don’t know what’s really in the book.” Nikki took the little black book from Kate and glanced through the pages. Her mouth involuntarily dropped open and her knees weakened. She knelt down and held Kate by the hands.

  “Honey, where’d you find this book?” Nikki was fighting back a tidal wave of panic as she spoke.

  “In the porch.”

  “You mean on the porch, sweetie.”

  “No, in the porch. There was a loose brick. We were playing there the other day and Stachie found the brick. It fell out and the book was there.”

  “Do Stachie and Lydia know about this book?”

  “Lydia doesn’t. But you know Stachie, he’s a boy. He probably forgot about it already.”

  “Honey, listen to me. This will be our little secret. You musn’t tell anyone. Understand?”

  Katie didn’t understand, but nodded to her mom in agreement.

  At half past two in the morning ,Nikki was still sitting at her kitchen table, a half cup of cold tea at her elbow next to a full ashtray, staring at the little black book lying in front of her, trying desperately to decide what to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Daily News sports page gives the track attendance for Belmont every day, and this number is always in the five or six figures. The last three numbers of the attendance are the most important numbers in many a New Yorker’s life. These numbers are known, in the vernacular as, ‘The Number’.

  A leading economic indicator of how good things are in the waterfront neighbourhoods, is how busy the bookies are. Jimmy Erickson, who fixed the bets at the track for Hoover, so he’d laid off the New York families, couldn’t keep up with the workload. Even though his wife had thrown him out of the house twice already for roping her younger brother into running the numbers for him, he risked it again. He had no choice. He even took in two more runners just to keep up.

  By order of Luciano, and by virtue of the all-round increased profit margins, the Mob were directed to back off on petty crime, in order to lower their profile in the media. The decreased profile placated the public, which thereby placated the politicians and allowed the Unione to consolidate more efficiently and preserve resources to make inroads into bigger and more profitable enterprises. A primary building block of how Lucky thought an organisation should be run.

  Additionally, the inter-union co-operation was breaking all records. The cloak of secrecy provided by the US Naval Intelligence service allowed the boys to run circles around anyone they felt should be restricted from sharing future dividends in the new world order of organised crime.

  Slack about crime stories in the press was taken up by war news and political rhetoric telling everyone how it was only a matter of time before the Allies struck back, and when the headlines heralded the meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill at Casablanca following the taking of Africa, it became common knowledge that Italy was not far behind.

  Lansky was successful in making the Sicilian connection and that Thursday night, within yards of John Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge, a meeting of unprecedented magnitude took place on Front Street.

  Meyer Lansky, in his last major act with the Unione before going legit after the war, laid out Lucky’s plan to traffic heroin into Sicily from Turkey following the Allied invasion. Lucky would provide the Navy strategic intelligence about the island in exchange for reinstatement of as many of the local politicians as he could wrangle. The OSS would be only too happy to cooperate.

  These ’politicians’ would in turn help export the ’slow death’ to the United States after the war. Only one of the five family heads was against the plan to shift from prostitution, extortion and robbery to the drug trade. He objected on moral grounds. In time he would be persuaded to reconsider. The others were tripping over themselves to get involved.

  The next day a trustee passed the word to Lucky that “the Dodgers were a shoo-in”. Lucky immediately ordered Lansky to donate fifty large to the campaign fund of the Honorable Judge McVay. The judge who, coincidentally, would preside over Lucky’s bid for parole in less than two weeks.

  “Whatch’a readin’?” Doc talked to Louie over the screeching of steel wheels as they passed into the East River tunnel. They were on the F train to Brooklyn. Doc wanted to snoop around Bushwick Creek before approaching the Brooklyn DA. Louie carried the copy of the New York Daily News with the report of Ira’s death.

  “Winchell’s new column. He’s slammin’ Luciano again.”

  “Luciano? He’s been up the river for half a dozen years. Must be hard-up for material.”

  “Winchell says they outta hang ’em.”

  “Ever notice how much braver Winchell got after Luciano got tagged?”

  “He says here he has sources that say Luciano’s people gave Roosevelt nearly seven thousand for his ’32 campaign. That’s how he beat Smith.”

  “Ya mean Walter’s tryin’ ta say the Presidency can be bought? Say it so, Joe!”

  “Says here further, that that’s why FDR let all them drug dealers go while he was still Governor. All them ones that went back to Sicily.”

  “Walter’s braver
than I thought.” The train slowed to a halt. “This is us.”

  Ataxi from the station dropped them at 14th and Kent. Doc and Louie stared in disbelief as they exited the cab. A giant iron gate patrolled by a pair of Marine sentries greeted them.

  “Son-of-a-gun!” Louie expressed their surprise. “It’s a goddamned Navy base. It didn’t used to be a Navy base.”

  “Yeah, but now it is and we got a snowball’s chance in hell of gettin’ in there.”

  “Unless we enlist,” Louie jokingly suggested.

  “Been there, done that. I need a drink.”

  “Jeez, Doc, where we gonna find a bar in Brooklyn?”

  Brooklyn, although only one of the five boroughs, was the third largest city in the country and so was large enough to its own police department, fire department and District Attorney’s office.

  Even during the war, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office was habitually swamped with murder cases of every mode and description. However, at a special session of the senior investigators and prosecutors with the borough DA himself, Ira Birnbaum’s homicide was stamped a priority. The fact that he was a federal employee weighed heavy, and part of his motivation for moving as swiftly as possible was to avoid a federal investigation by solving the crime quickly.

  “Justin, what have we got for sure?” the DAaddressed the head investigator at the special afternoon meeting. The investigator read from a hastily composed file lying in front of him on the large conference table.

  “White male, late seventies, early eighties, found face down in the reeds at Bushwick Creek. Cause of death asphyxiation secondary to strangulation. Manhattan resident, federal employee. Survived by wife.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “Coupl’a guys fishin’ in the river.”

  “Where’d he work?”

  “Third Naval District. Mail clerk.”

  “Mail clerk? What happen, somebody’s relief cheque come late? Who the hell’d wanna take out a mail clerk? Any priors?”

  “Not this guy. Paragon citizen.”

  “Possible motives?”

  “He was close to retirement. He and the wife hadn’t saved much. We think maybe he was in over his head. Sharks, ponies. Who knows?”

  “You think it’s Mob related?”

  “Virtually certain of it. Has all the earmarks. Strangulation, dumped in the East River. Probably met the perpetrator, or perpetrators at Greenpoint on one false premise or another and that’s where they gave it to him.” The investigator, who spoke with confidence, finished his remarks and sat down.

  “Gentlemen, for years the Mob has been using Brooklyn for all its dirty work. Meanwhile, whenever there’s some kind of breakthrough on the crime front Manhattan gets all the credit.” The assembled group nodded and commented to each other in agreement. “I intend to change all that. I spoke to the mayor this morning and he’s agreed to allow us to carry the ball on this one. As of right now, I’m open for suggestions.”

  One of the junior investigators spoke up in the back. “Sir, I understand this may not be what you want to hear, but… realistically, we may never catch the guys that did this.” Loud objections flooded the room as the young man continued to make his case.

  “In a way, it’s not all that critical that we do. But if we can parley this murder, this heinous act of violence, arrogantly perpetrated against the people of this fair city, in flagrant defiance of all that is right and just, then…”

  The objections began to subside as the group began to realise where he was going. “We can dominate the headlines of all the major dailies for at least two to three days. Be a helluva boost for the campaign image.”

  “I like the high profile angle.” The DA nodded his support. “John, get a hold of Patricia. Draw up a press strategy and get it out to the API and UPI for tomorrow. What else. People? C’mon, talk to me.”

  “History of similar crimes in the last six months and how we have to move to curb the ever growing menace?” someone else chimed in.

  “Go with it but change it to the last year. What else?” The DA was anxious to maintain the momentum.

  “A special joint presentation to the widow by the mayor and the DA. Great photo op!” someone else suggested.

  “I hope you mean the Brooklyn DA, Samuelson?”

  “You mean there’s another DA?” Laughter circulated the room. Suggestions flowed for the better part of an hour and by late afternoon there was nearly enough material to launch a presidential campaign.

  Ira Birnbaum’s murderer may never be brought to justice, but it was sure as hell gonna look like he was.

  “I can’t for the life of me figure out why the hell anyone would want to kill Ira.” Doc twirled his shot glass idly as he spoke.

  “The universal motive, Doc. You taught me that.” The only problem Doc and Louie had with finding a bar was which one to choose. They settled on O’Casey’s on 14th and Nassau. Webs of shiny cardboard shamrocks and green crêpe paper loomed everywhere.

  “Yeah, greed. But what the hell could he possibly have that anyone would want?”

  The middle aged barmaid wearing a green paper hat floated over to the duo. “You boys wanna go again?” Doc looked up at her.

  “Yeah one more.” Doc pushed some of the coins forward which he had laying on the bar.

  “Well, he sure as hell wasn’t into anything illegal,” Louie said authoritatively.

  “You sound like you know that for a fact.” Doc was surprised at Louie’s statement. Louie took one last pull on his beer.

  “I do. I had Doris ask around the neighbourhood when we first got the case. Any cleaner, the guy would squeak.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch! That gossip circle is good for somethin’, ain’t it?”

  “Doc, there’s gotta be a connect with the money.”

  “I agree, Louie. But he wasn’t killed for money.”

  “What then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe information.”

  “Somthin’ he found out about the money?”

  The barmaid brought the drinks, took a few coins from Doc’s pile and began to walk away. “Hey, doll!” Doc called after her.

  “Yeah?” She came back over.

  “You familiar with the Coroner’s office?”

  “You that desperate for a date, honey?”

  “Never knew a waitress could resist a bad joke, Louie,” Doc fired back. “I need ta know if there’s a bar or restaurant nearby.” “

  There’s Botticelli’s on Temple. Great food, good service,” she informed him.

  “You got a phone?”

  “In the back, near the john.”

  Doc glanced over his pile of coins and picked up a dime. “Ya got a couple’a nickels?” He handed her a dime.

  “You want me ta dial the phone and drink ya drink for ya while I’m at it?” she asked.

  “We goin’ bar-hoppin’?” Louie threw in.

  “Nah. Just had another brainstorm. Be right back.”

  “You guys cops or somethin’?” the barmaid asked. Louie slid right into the role.

  “Yeah. Workin’ a murder case.” He leaned forward to emphasise the secrecy of the case. “Very hush-hush. Guy worked for the Feds.”

  The barmaid had been around the block. “You mean that old guy they fished out of Bushwick, the mail clerk? Amateur job. It wasn’t the Mob. That DA’s just lookin’ ta get himself re-elected.”

  Doc returned from his phone call and the barmaid walked away. “You want another one? We got a little while yet,” he asked Louie.

  “Nah, let’s walk a little. Talk about the case.” They headed for the door and once over on Nassau Street, flagged a cab. As they got in, Louie offered a theory.

  “Doc, I been thinkin’. That was an amateur job. It probably wasn’t the Mob. I’d say that DA’s probably just sayin’ that ta get re-elected.”

  Doc and Louie were now accompanied by Harry. Doc had phoned him from O’Casey’s, and they met at Botticelli’s.

  The th
ree entered the police headquarters building which housed the Coroner’s main office and approached the watch commander’s desk.

  “Coroner’s office?” Doc was brief, but authoritative. They had no business sniffing around this murder case, and if they got caught it would be very expensive. Especially with the phoney twenties and fifties Doc was carrying.

  “Downstairs, turn right.” The burly Sergeant never looked up from his paperwork until they had walked away. He puzzled at Harry’s limp and smiled at Louie’s shoes.

  “Doc, how come we were waitin’till six-thirty ta show up over here?”

  “Change a shift. Night guy’s more likely ta go for a bribe. Besides, less of crowd after hours.”

  As they turned right, they could see the Coroner’s office was about fifty yards ahead. However, that was as far as they were going.

  The hall was jammed with reporters. Thirty or forty of them. The DA was taking the high profile angle seriously. In just over twenty-four hours, Ira’s murder had become national news.

  Wading through the press corps was the little headache. The big headache was the two policemen standing in front of the office door. Not rookie kids, either. If these guys owned dark suits they could have worked for Luciano.

  Halfway through the reporters, Doc diverted the trio into the men’s room. Once inside, he cocked back his ball cap and put on his game face.

  “This ain’t gonna be easy, guys. If we get nailed, it’s all over but the cryin’. Harry, give me the sack.” Doc brandished the government bifold wallets.

  “These ID’s will likely get us by. But neither of you has to do this.”

  Harry and Louie reached for the wallets simultaneously.

  “I wanna be Johnson,” Louie declared.

  “What is this, What’s My Line?”

  “We gonna stand around jabber-jawin’all night or we gonna do this thing?” Harry asked as he limped towards the door. A moment later, they were in front of the two cops guarding the door.