Operation Underworld

by Paddy Kelly

  “They found him!” Berryman announced as he burst through the door.

  Johnson was taking a framed certificate off the wall and turned towards Berryman with a smile. “Where?”

  “They think he was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital!”

  “Huh, Park Avenue. He didn’t make it very far, must be hurt pretty bad. That’s a good thing.” Johnson nonchalantly turned back to packing and placed the framed DA’s special commendation into a box. The other agents resumed their tasks as well.

  Berryman had a puzzled look on his face. “Well? Aren’t we gonna go get him?” he asked.

  Johnson didn’t turn, just kept working. “What for? Cops know where he is. He’s hospitalised, where the hell’s he goin’? Besides, our job is done. They’ll arrest him, he’ll spend one to two years tied up in court, that’s if he can afford a good lawyer, then the rest of his life in jail.”

  “But there’s no evidence he did it. What if he walks?”

  “Walks? Come back to Kansas, Dorothy! Guilty until proven innocent. Plus the publicity around this thing. The cops know he did it, the DA will take it from the cops, make sure he gets the right judge, the rest is history. Even if he gets a good lawyer, he can’t fight the system from inside a cell. End of story.”

  “Hey Boss, what about the money?” One of the other agents was holding a small leather carrying case as he spoke to Johnson. “How much is left?”

  “Little over eighteen grand.”

  “Divvy it up five ways. Give me Robbie’s cut, I’ll take care of it. The rest of you…” The agents stopped what they were doing and paid attention. “Every man is responsible for himself. That not only means the money, but your alibis, and everything else. From the time you walk out of this office, you’re on your own. Questions?”

  Their silence signalled they were in agreement. Johnson turned back to Berryman.

  “You reschedule the travel arrangements?”

  “Yeah, here.” He reached into his breast pocket, took out a thick envelope and opened it.

  “This is your plane ticket. Your wheels are up at eight-thirty. You guys are goin’out by train, nine forty-five. All separate cars.” He dealt out train tickets to the other agents as he spoke. “I’ll follow tomorrow by car. We meet back on F Street Monday morning, and go back to work.”

  “Last chance. Questions, comments, snide remarks?” No one spoke. “Gentlemen, it’s been a slice.” Johnson headed for the door.

  As evening settled in, the glitter of the falling snow caused the trees, greens and lake to take on a magical, winter wonderland ambience. The view across Central Park East from the tall office buildings and apartment houses revealed a fairytale quality not often seen in a wartime metropolis. The serenity was momentarily interrupted by the flashing red light of a Cadillac ambulance and the shrill echo of its siren resonated throughout the neighbourhood as it made its way down the avenue.

  The side doors of the vehicle were lettered in gold leaf and red enamel, Lenox Hill Hospital, NYC, NY.

  “When the hell you think you’re gonna see a machine ta monitor the human heart inside a ambulance? And besides standin’ on it to reach high places, what we gonna do with it?” The ambulance driver spoke with the courage of his convictions. His partner, slumped down in his seat gazing out the window, answered with the same amount of intensity.

  “If we vote at the union meeting to take the pay cut, and let them institute their new training programme, we’ll know how to use the machine!”

  “You’re dreamin’, Carlos! We ain’t doctors! We drive a meat wagon, dat’s it! Pick ’em up and drop ’em off. Period! It‘s simple. All you gotta do is think about it. We ain’t paid, trained or supposed to save nobody’s lives!”

  “I got somethin’ for you to think about! Think about all them medics and Navy corpsmen coming back after the war. All that shit they seen and done! Watcha you think? They’re gonna go back to deliverin’ milk and bread?” The driver signalled his rejection with a smirk.

  The ambulance pulled up to the emergency department and unloaded the patient. The blood-soaked blanket which covered the patient’s face horrified several people in the waiting room as the gurney was wheeled down the hall to the morgue’s holding area. Two people in the waiting area took no notice at all.

  Nikki and Louie stood in the back corner of the room, pretending to drink their coffee. After what seemed to be an eternity, a doctor, who appeared older than his years, found the duo and told them Doc was awake and asking to see them.

  “Which one of you two checked me in here? The cops are searchin’ every hospital from the Bronx to Coney Island!” was Doc’s way of saying hello as they entered the room. Nikki was embarrassed and started to answer until Louie put his hand on her arm and stepped forward.

  “You got seven stitches in your head, your arm is broke in two places and they gave you two pints of blood. You passed out, fer Christ’s sake! What were you gonna do? Go home and take an aspirin with a whiskey chaser, Doctor Mayo?”

  Doc closed his eyes and put his head back on the pillow. “Shit, Louie! I’m sorry! I’m a little pissed off about that son-of a-bitch gettin’ one over on me.”

  “We used a fake name,” Louie reassured Doc.

  “We? Do I want to hear this one?”

  Louie launched into the story with a smirk of pride. “We told them you guys were married. You got in fight over her, with your brother-in-law. He’s a Jar Head and he‘s pissd off ’cause you ain’t in uniform. Ya bum!” Doc fought back an agonised smile. “Your name’s O’Malley. Should be ashamed of yourself, not doin’ your bit!”

  Nikki felt obligated to interject. “If you don’t like it, we can fly to Vegas and have it annulled, Mr O’Malley.”

  “So it’s a conspiracy!”

  “How ya feelin’, cowboy?” Nikki put on her brave face. What she really wanted to know was, if Doc was going to be stupid enough to go after Johnson.

  Doc pointed to his head with his right arm wrapped in a thick cast. “Except for these little guys inside my head pounding away with sledgehammers, I don’t feel too bad.”

  “Just pretend it’s another hangover,” Louie consoled Doc as he helped himself to Doc’s Jello-o. Nikki moved over and sat on the side of the bed and Doc sensed the impending tone of the conversation and told Louie to go look for a nurse.

  “But Doc, I’m married! Besides, you got a buzzer hanging right there next to – ”

  “Louie! Why don’t you…”

  Louie copped on when he realised Nikki was no longer sitting, but lying on the bed. “I’ll go find a nurse.”

  “Thank you, Louie,” Doc said as he turned back towards Nikki.

  “Doc, I know you want to go after him…” Nikki spoke hesitantly for fear of how Doc might interpret her words. “But this guy is worse than bad news, he’s evil incarnate. There’s no way they can prove you killed Ira, ’cause you didn’t do it. Plus, we know about the phoney money scam, we can peg him on that! Doc, what I’m tryin’ to say is…”

  “I know what you’re tryin’ ta say, baby, and it means a lot. But if I don’t find him, he sure as hell will find me. He’ll duck down ta DC for awhile, but he ain’t gonna let me walk away. And that means he has to deal with you, too. I can’t let that happen. That’s what I’m tryin’ ta say. In my own pathetic, clumsy way.”

  Doc smiled and put a hand on Nikki’s face. She leaned forward and kissed him. He forgot about the pain in his head as he held her with his good arm. Just as they were about to kiss again Louie burst into the room and ran around the bed to peer out of the window.

  “What’s the matter, you piss the nurses off, too?” Doc asked.

  Louie continued to look out the window. “Doc, I got good news and bad news. The good news is we still got two or three minutes.” Louie did a good job of concealing his excitement.

  “Till what?” Doc slid off the bed and stood there.

  “Till a whole shit load’a cops comes bustin’ in through the door.” Doc re
ached for Nikki with his good arm and took her hand. “They don’t know about Louie, where he lives,” he told her urgently. “Go there, stay there. Wait for me to call. If I call you from any place other than jail, you’ll know I’m okay! Got it?”

  Louie threw Doc his clothes and Doc began to dress quickly.

  “But Doc, what if…”

  “We’re outta time, baby. Get outta here now, go down to the waiting room, sit there, read a magazine like you’re waitin’ on somebody and wait till it blows over, then just walk out through the back door.”

  “You ready, Doc? It’s all clear.” Louie had the door partially open, peering down the hallway and as Doc approached the door Nikki grabbed his arm.

  “They’re flying outta LaGuardia tonight, back to Washington.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I talked to Agnes, the secretary who made the arrangements for them.”

  “I owe ya one, sweetheart!” Doc smiled and stroked her cheek.

  “There’s just one thing I want you to do for me,” she added.

  “Name it.”

  “Get that prick son-of-a-bitch!”

  “If you’re tryin’ ta get me to love you, you’re doin’ a helluva job!”

  Louie was getting nervous. “Any time this week, Romeo!”

  Doc kissed Nikki and followed Louie through the door.

  At street level, over a dozen uniformed officers accompanied by two detectives poured out of five squad cars and stormed into the hospital lobby. They assembled at the reception desk and looked to their chief detective for instructions.

  “Remember, this guy’s not just a cop gone bad, he’s a murderer! Be careful!” With that, the police moved to infiltrate the building.

  At the elevators, the officers were directed to split up and cover all four elevators and both stair wells.

  Doc and Louie were descending the stairs as fast as possible.

  “They’ll have to find out what room you were in. That’ll buy us some time.” To his credit, Louie was thinking strategically; however, no sooner had the words left his mouth than they heard the police rushing up from one floor below.

  “Looks like they already know,” Doc suggested. “Quick! In here!” He grabbed Louie’s arm, and led him from the landing into the third floor ward.

  As the door closed behind them, they instantly realised that if they were looking to blend in, they were definitely in the wrong place. Female nurses and pregnant women were everywhere. They were in Maternity.

  Back on the stair well, a senior officer shouted orders to his minions. “Last man in line, check each floor as we go then catch up! Do it!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  As the detail passed by the third floor, the last officer in line stopped on the landing and pulled the door open. Stepping onto the Maternity Ward, he saw nothing suspicious about a few pregnant women standing around chatting and two new fathers standing in front of the newborns’ window, congratulating each other and tapping on the glass. He moved on.

  A few minutes later, McKeowen and Mancino were in the lobby. The main entrance was covered so they diverted down the hall to try and get out through Emergency.

  Reckoning that they weren’t looking for Louie, and so wouldn’t recognise him, Mancino went through the exit first. He made it safely and standing outside in the falling snow, signalled Doc that the coast was clear. Doc carried his bomber jacket over his arm to conceal the bloodstains on the collar and his cast as he walked to the exit.

  Outside on Park Avenue, there was no trouble hailing a taxi and in a moment they were heading south.

  “Airport, on the double!” Doc instructed even before they were in the cab.

  “What for? Airport’s been closed for two hours.” The cabbie reminded Doc of Spike Jones with glasses on relaxation tablets. “Blizzard’s movin’ in.”

  “What if we wanted to go to DC?”

  “Washington DC?” Dollar signs flashed before the cabbie’s eyes. “How much money you got?”

  “Not by cab. Public transport!”

  “Well, ya got your storm movin’up from the south, specifically Pennsylvania. All your secondary roads were closed an hour ago. That means…” Doc and Louie looked at each other. “… that all your primary roads will be closed in about an hour. That eliminates your cars and buses. So…”

  “Hey pal! How ’bout we skip the meteorology lesson and you tell us the best way to DC. Tonight!”

  “Best bet, if you gotta travel tonight, is by train.”

  “Penn Station?”

  “Only place to get a train to DC from the City.”

  “How long to get there?”

  The cabbie gestured with open hand to his windshield. “You tell me!”

  Through the wet glass and the rhythmic slapping of the wipers, Doc and Louie saw red tail lights the entire length of Park Avenue fading into the darkness.

  “Shit!” Faced with the possibility of losing Johnson, Doc realised that confrontation was becoming an obsession.

  On the long cab ride from 77th Street to 29th, McKeowen had adequate time to consider the ramifications of not intercepting Johnson in time. Not only would Johnson be able to solidify his position and reinforce his alibi if he made it back to Washington, but Doc would be faced with evading the police for an indefinite period of time. Johnson had to be stopped and made to show Doc’s innocence, but how?

  “I wouldn’t worry about it if I wuz you,” suggested the cabbie.

  “Oh yeah, why not?”

  “If your planes are down, your trains are gonna be delayed.

  Penn Station is gonna be a mess!”

  Describing Penn Station as a mess was like saying Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers could dance a little. It was pandemonium. The foot and a half of fluffy white stuff which had fallen since that afternoon had turned into thick, black slush as a result of the nonstop traffic. Worse yet, it showed no signs of letting up, and even seemed to be getting worse with wind adding to the discomfort, forcing more people inside.

  Commuters had been converging on the unsuspecting station staff since midday, bound for all points up and down the Eastern Seaboard and, for the most part, were concerned with getting back to their jobs and homes by Monday morning.

  Entering through the East Portico, the two were overwhelmed by the scene which greeted them. Thousands of stranded commuters were jammed into the expansive Grand Concourse.

  “Doc! There must be ten thousand people in this place! How are we gonna find him?”

  “He’s here, we’ll find him.”

  “Hell, he may not even be here.”

  “He’s here, Louie. I can smell him.”

  “Jesus! Talk about a needle in a haystack.”

  “This must be what the train stations in Europe looked like when the Nazis went on the rampage.” Doc’s analogy was a good one.

  Penn Station is large enough to be considered a small town, and this city within a city was packed with people. People sleeping on benches, sleeping on their luggage and sleeping on café tables and chairs. Some were even sleeping standing up. In the midst of the undulating crowd, Doc and Louie found a porter who directed them to the lower level platforms. Downstairs, they found an engineer, sitting on a bench, eating a sandwich and reading a newspaper, oblivious to the chaos.

  “Hey, Buddy. Where would we get the train to DC?”

  “Best place tonight’d be Carolina or Florida.” The engineer took a swig of his orange Nehi soda and continued to read. Doc was maintaining his patience, but only by a thread.

  “How about from here?”

  “Everything is shut down from here to Pittsburgh south to Altoona. I don’t see anything leaving this station tonight.”

  “What tracks do the DC trains leave from?”

  “Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven and sometimes twenty-eight. End of the platform,” he added through a mouthful of bologna on rye.

  At the same time as Doc was getting a lesson on the station plan on track fourteen, Jo
hnson was waving his Treasury Department badge in the face of the platform manager, down on track twenty-five, attempting to beg, borrow or steal three seats on a train south. He neglected to take into account New Yorkers’ attitudes toward emergencies, national disasters and catastrophes. “Look, Mac. I don’t care if you’re J. Edgar Hoover, the Attorney General or Amelia Earhart, all the trains that are leaving this station tonight, are gone. Read my lips. No more trains!”

  As Doc and Louie moved up the platform, dodging commuters, Mancino sought to organize their plan of attack.

  “Okay, Doc. How we gonna do this? You want me to distract him? Sneak up from behind?”

  Doc stared straight ahead, perusing the crowd, and kept walking towards the southbound tracks, weaving between commuters with surprising dexterity.

  “Or maybe you could sneak up from behind?” Doc didn’t answer but increased his pace.

  “Look, Doc, I know you’re pissed off to beat the band, but…”

  Doc stopped, opened his jacket, and continued to glare forward.

  “Told ya he was here, Louie.”

  Louie looked at Doc’s evil grin and transfixed eyes. Then, following Doc’s line of sight, he saw Johnson, off to one side of the crowd about fifty feet ahead, standing in front of a railroad employee, arguing.

  “Doc, we gotta talk about how we’re gonna do this! We can’t just go up and get this guy!” Louie’s voice which previously registered excitement, now began to register apprehension.

  “Why not, Louie?” Doc maintained the look of a man possessed as he began to walk. His pace quickened and he soon pulled ahead of Louie as he broke into a run, still dodging commuters. Louie ran, two steps behind Doc, not so successfully negotiating the crowd.

  “Doc, there might be more than one!” Doc ignored the pleas. “They got guns!”

  Without breaking stride, Doc reached into his jacket and produced a strange-looking pistol that Louie had never seen before.

  “Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Now we got guns! Why didn’t I listen to you on the phone!” Louie gasped as he tried to run faster. “What the hell is that thing, anyway?!”