Operation Underworld

by Paddy Kelly

  “You two and the passengers get down to the engine room. Dog the hatch! Stay there till I come for ya! You understand?”

  The crewman signalled okay and began to herd everyone through the narrow hatch and onto the ladder. A single shot ricocheted off the chest to Doc’s right and he reckoned Johnson was bracketing his target.

  Waiting till a second shot sounded, Doc exposed himself to the shooter’s blind side of the steel box and took careful aim with the Marakov through the heavy snowfall. As he focused on the overcoat moving across the upper railing, the chest came into perfect view.

  Squeezing off a single round, he saw blood spatter on the bulkhead behind his target and the man’s stomach area quickly became a mass of red. The limp body tipped over the rail and fell two decks in a broken heap about ten yards in front of him. Doc breathed a sigh of relief.

  Rising up slowly with his back against the port-side bulkhead, he had an irresistible urge, probably out of morbid curiosity he thought to himself, to look at the man who he didn’t even know, who was willing to put him in prison or take his life. Holding his arm wrapped in the remnants of his soaking wet cast, his hair matted to his head with freezing water, he approached the body, and kicked it over. There was a sudden burning sensation running through his leg and he heard a shot.

  Falling to his knees, Doc struggled to understand what was happening as he stared at the face of the body lying on the deck. It was one of the unknown agents from the planetarium.

  Crawling into the car deck out of the line of fire, a voice called after him while he stared at his Marakov lying in the open, next to the body.

  “Hey McKeowen! Happy St. Patrick’s Day! How come you didn’t wear your skirt to the party?”

  Doc frantically tore a piece of his shirt and tightly wrapped it around his leg wound. “Johnson? Isn’t that a slang term for penis?” Doc yelled back.

  “Listen, I’d love ta chat all night, Mac, but I gotta get over to Governor’s Island, you understand. So I got a friend comin’ down to help ya outta your misery.”

  “Still subcontracting your dirty work, Bob?” While he spoke Doc looked at the body of the dead agent and then at the five foot long steel fog nozzle clipped to the bulkhead. The sign above the apparatus read, For Emergency Use Only.

  A minute later, a second agent came down through the hatchway from above to the main deck level and instantly fired three rounds through Doc’s brown leather bomber jacket into the slumped-over form lying on the deck. Before the last round was discharged, the agent was struck across the back of the head with the hose nozzle repeatedly until he was unresponsive.

  “Asshole! You’re supposed to say ‘hands in the air’ first!” Doc threw one in for good measure. “I had that jacket for twelve years!” Picking up the agent’s gun and looking for any other visitors, Doc spoke to the unconscious agent as he frisked him. “That’s the second time I pulled that on you dumbshits!”

  The passengers in the engine room were not faring well. Between the choppy wintry waters and the unexpected, prolonged length of the ferry ride, speculation erupted into arguments about hijacking, kidnapping and pirating the ferry to some faraway place like Atlantic City. All they’d wanted when they boarded was to get back to a nice warm house and a quiet meal. Instead, the noise of the hot, smelly engine room began to grate on their nerves as they apprehensively awaited their fate.

  A scared, middle-aged bakery clerk clung to her husband as they stood beneath a hot noisy bilge pump.

  “Jesus, Phil! What if dey’re Nazi saboteurs, sent ta take over the ship?”

  “I think there are more important ships then the Staten Island Ferry, Edna!” The man held his wife to reassure her. “Besides, if it is something big, not to worry, there’s probably government agents on board right now!”

  Doc frisked the unconscious agent for extra rounds while he tried to formulate a plan. He was feeling a little light-headed and knew he would have to move fast. He couldn’t tell if it was getting colder or it was the loss of blood, as he struggled with frozen hands to retrieve his damaged jacket.

  Doc struggled up the iron ladderway to the pilot house and as he pushed open the door, he was forced to blink his eyes several times to clear his vision. He didn’t like what he saw.

  The Captain was sitting in the corner with his hand on his chest, trying to stem the bleeding, and Johnson stood behind the Mate who was at the helm, a gun to his head.

  “I gotta give you credit, Mac. You don’t quit! You’d a made a good treasury agent!”

  Doc stood, propped up against the doorway of the pilot house, arms outstretched in front of him, the .45 pointed at Johnson. Doc reached into his hip pocket and produced the little black book. The rocking motion of the boat aggravated Doc’s ability to maintain a bead on Johnson as he held the book up for Johnson to see.

  “Thank you. Throw it here.”

  “Take the gun away from his head.”

  “Book! Now!” To emphasise his point, Johnson fired his weapon just above the head of the crew member, who cringed.

  “You must be pretty scared of whoever this belongs to.” Doc tossed the book across the centre-board console, away from Johnson and the Mate, purposely throwing it hard enough to land on the deck on the opposite side of the pilot house.

  Johnson reacted instantly and fired two rounds at Doc from around the left side of the Mate’s head. The sailor fell to the deck, holding his left ear, deafened by the report of the weapon.

  Doc’s attempted dive to cover behind the console was more a fall and crawl manoeuvre. Johnson spoke as he fired two more rounds through the console.

  “Just outta curiosity, why didn’t you bring the book to the Planetarium?”

  He then took time to kick the Mate out of his way as he came around the center-board, firing ahead of him. On the other side, all he saw was a circular trail of blood, and quickly surmised that Doc was coming at him from behind. Instead, Doc dived for the Telegraph and was just able to signal the engine room for full aft before Johnson emptied his weapon into the signalling device. Despite an heroic effort, the Mate was unable to remain at the helm, and was forced back onto his knees, covering his head as the pieces of the shattered Telegraph flew around him.

  Realising his weapon was empty, and now possessing the two things he wanted, the book and his leather satchel, Johnson abandoned his desire to fight. Making for the port-side hatch, he scooped up the book and scurried down the ladderway. Doc forced himself onto his good leg and lifted a fire extinguisher off the bulkhead, near the hatch. Without looking, he flung it with everything he had so that it ricocheted off the companionway bulkheads and down the ladder. Hearing it hit its target, Doc said to himself, “Spare in the ninth.”

  Making his way down the ladder, and across the deck, he watched as Johnson, blood covering his face, tried to get to his feet without success. As he attempted to crawl towards the fantail, Doc grabbed him and punched down hard at his face.

  “You should a used your secret decoder ring, dickhead!” Doc bent down and took the book from Johnson’s hand. “You were ready to kill people for this. You think I was gonna let you get your hands on it?”

  Johnson’s face wore a puzzled look as he stared up first at McKeowen, then at the little black book.

  “Yeah, that’s right. This is my little black book. The one with Charlene Meeny’s phone number in it. The real one’s been mailed back to Third Naval District.”

  Police boat sirens sounded in the distance.

  “Uh-oh, Bob! Sounds like the fat’s about to sing!” Doc looked over the starboard fantail and saw the blue flashing lights of two NYPD Harbor Patrol boats quickly closing in on the ferry. However, the smile melted from his face when he looked out over the bow.

  With an unmanned helm, the rudder had swept the vessel into a wide arc to port. They had completely missed Governor’s Island, which was now off the starboard rail, and were heading directly into the piers of Brooklyn Heights.

  Doc immediately th
ought of the passengers and crew below as he watched the waterfront lights grow rapidly larger. Johnson took advantage of the distractions when McKeowen stepped forward to limp around the felled agent to get to the pilot house. Grabbing him by the ankles, Johnson brought Doc to the deck, and immediately began to punch his leg wound, opening the clot and causing it to bleed vigorously. Doc yelled in pain, but refused to release his grip on Johnson collar. He punched him repeatedly with the tattered remnants of his cast, ignoring the pain in a blind fury. Doc spoke as he intensified the beating, speaking his words in between punches.

  “I was gonna be a treasury agent… but they wouldn’t let me! Found out my parents were married.”

  In the pilot house, the Mate struggled furiously to avert what seemed to be an inevitable collision with the oversized freight docks on the Brooklyn waterfront. Unable to communicate with the engine room due to the smashed Telegraph, he could only pull back full on the throttle, and fight the helm hard to port. The Fairbanks-Morse motors vibrated the entire vessel in protest and began to overheat, which spooked the passengers and caused them to run for the ladderway.

  Johnson kicked his way free and made it to his feet. Doc was running out of gas fast. Lying on the deck, he noticed Johnson desperately clinging to the black leather satchel. Both men were far too engrossed in their struggle to notice that the police boats had caught up to the ferry and were now attempting to put men aboard.

  Using everything he had left, Doc made a desperate dive for the bag as Johnson intensified his grip.

  “What’s in the purse, Gladys?” Doc managed only a partial grip, tore the bag open, and turned it upside down. The stormy wind scattered money across the fantail of the ship, and out into the harbour. Notes of varying denominations swirled into the nght air and clung to fixtures and bulkheads.

  Johnson screamed like a wounded animal, clutching the near empty satchel, wet notes stuck to his face and chest. Rage consumed his mind as he bent over, grabbed Doc by the collar and lifted him to his feet. Doc hung like a wet rag, smiling, exhausted and soaked in frozen snow and blood. Johnson dragged him to the edge of the fantail, and looked at Doc and then at the churning wake.

  “Say hello to your father, you Irish prick!” Now, with their faces only inches apart, the wind and snow whipping between them, Johnson was puzzled by Doc’s smile. Suddenly, he understood.

  A painful burning sensation in his ribs made him look down to see Doc’s left fist covered in blood, tightly clutching the stiletto which was buried to the hilt. Doc moved his face closer to Johnson’s, and spoke in a loud whisper.

  “I’m Scottish, not Irish.” Doc twisted the knife deeper into the agent and Johnson opened his mouth as if to yell in agony, but nothing came out. “And it’s called a kilt.”

  Releasing his grip on Doc, who crumpled to the deck in a painful heap, Johnson stumbled backwards, struggling to remove the long, slender knife from his ribs. Glancing up, mouth still open in disbelief, the last thing he saw was the surrealistic sight of Mancino and two policemen, moving across the slippery deck, back-lit by a police boat spotlight.

  He stumbled back, still fumbling for the knife, tripped over the mangled fantail safety gate, rolled off the fantail and disappeared into the white foam of the wake. The wake instantly turned pink, and tatters of shredded clothing churned to the surface, mixing with the remnants of the money floating off the deck.

  Louie ran over to Doc and surveyed his wounds.

  “Doc! You okay?”

  “Call Lennox Hill, will ya? See if they still got my room.” Louie looked back at the jetsom in the wake.

  “I‘ll have the mixed green salad with extra tomatoes!”

  “You’re a sick son-of-a-bitch, Louie.” Doc’s eyes slid closed and his head dropped back onto the wet deck.

  The large white wake continued to arc across the harbour back towards Manhattan and back to Pier One, as the first snowfall of the season, which came in the form of a blizzard, began to show signs of letting up.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Doc didn’t mind Monday mornings, especially this Monday. It was nine-thirty, a lovely young nurse who’d give Veronica Lake a run for her money had served him breakfast, he was still in bed and he was offered pain medicine on request. To top it all off, his favorite switchboard operator was en route to pick him up.

  Rumours floated through the nurses’ station that Doc was to have a press conference with LaGuardia, as soon as he was well enough. In addition, he had the pleasure of telling the head nurse that he was too tired to take the long distance call from Tampa which had come in an hour before.

  “Well! Look at you! Mr. High and Mighty!” Doc was sitting up in bed reading the newspaper, amused by the much embellished accounts of the ‘Staten Island Ferry Hero’. He looked up to see Nikki standing in the doorway. She was dressed to the nines and had turned heads from the lobby all the way to Doc’s room.

  “I’m sorry, did you make an appointment with my secretary?” Doc asked in a mock executive voice. Nikki slowly sashayed over to the bedside, one hand on hip the other holding her black clutch.

  “You have a secretary? What a coincidence. I’m currently unemployed and dropped by to talk to you about a possible position!”

  “What position would you prefer, Ma’am?”

  “Well, naturally I would be looking to work my way to the top as soon as possible.”

  “So, you want to be on top? In an executive sense, I mean.”

  Nikki pretended to ponder the question. “That would depend on who’s under me. You understand?”

  Doc lost his composure, laughed out loud and grabbed Nikki, pulling her into the clean, crisp sheets of the hospital bed.

  “Ow! God… darn it! This fu…freakin’ arm!”

  “Getting old, cowboy?”

  “It ain’t the years, sweetheart, it’s the mileage.”

  Hugging him, Nikki looked into his eyes. “You sure

  Hugging him, Nikki looked into his eyes. “You sure it’s okay to leave here? The doctor told me at least a week,” she asked suspiciously.

  “That head nurse makes Boss Tweed look like the Pope, and I’d rather watch a Singing Randy movie than eat hospital food for one more day!”

  “You have lost weight. Mrs Paluso is gonna have a field day with you!”

  “Can’t wait to meet the lovely lady!”

  “So what are you tryin’ ta say?”

  “It’s the end of the third reel. Point me towards the sunset!”

  Nikki got up off the bed and crossed the room to help him pack.

  “You fit all your stuff in this little bag?” she asked, holding up Doc’s YMCA bag.

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “We need to go shopping!”

  “God help me.” Doc closed his eyes and dropped his head.

  “What?”

  “I forgot about that part of it.”

  “Very funny. Get your ass up!” She began to put his toiletries into the bag.

  “I got a phone call from Shirley this morning.”

  “Shirley? Where the hell is she?”

  “Connecticut. She eloped.”

  “Eloped? Jesus! And we’ve been worried sick about her all this time! Did she have anything to say?” Doc asked as he struggled into his trousers.

  “Yeah. Wanted to know if she’d missed anything.”

  Twenty minutes later, Doc McKeowen and Nikki Cole were riding up the West Side Drive in the back of a Yellow Sunshine cab, headed for Mercer Street, and an indeterminate period of rest and relaxation.

  Louie was in his glory. For the first time in the six months he’d been with Doc, he was in charge of the office.

  He occupied himself with menial tasks, basking in the comfort of actually belonging to the small firm, and thinking how proud Doris was that morning as she packed him an extra package of Yankee Doodles cup cakes in his lunch.

  “McKeweon and Mancino, Private Detective Agency?” the postman enquired as the sign painter was putt
ing the finishing touches on the big eyeball in the middle of the glass panel.

  The sign painter gave him a ‘What‘s the matter, you illiterate?’ look and continued to paint.

  As Louie was cleaning up the files from Johnson and his goons’ redecorating party, there was a knock at the door. Louie walked over, opened it and was confronted by the elderly man in a US Post Office uniform. He was holding a carton in one hand and a slip of paper in the other.

  “Doc McKeowen?”

  Louie smiled to himself, reached into the breast pocket of his new three piece suit and produced one of the treasury department leather bifolds. He held it up and let it flop open in front of the postman. It contained a photo ID and a brand new Private Investigator’s licence personally issued earlier that morning by the Deputy Mayor. Louie Mancino, Licensed Private Investigator.

  “Louie Mancino, Private Dick. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m not supposed to give this ta nobody but a guy named McKeowen.”

  “It’s okay. I’m his partner. I’ll sign for it if ya want. Doc’s in the hospital, he got shot up. Maybe you seen it in the papers?”

  “Yeah. That’s how I knew it was time to deliver this package.”

  “What is it?”

  “Beats me. Ira give me the ticket a few weeks back. Says if somethin’ should happen ta him, I was ta get it outta classified storage and get it ta some Mickey named McKeowen.”

  “I promise ya, he’ll get it.” The mail man was unsure of what to do. “Look, you can call Norma if ya like. She’ll vouch for me.” He was reassured by Norma’s name, gave the box to Louie and left.

  Louie set the box on Doc’s desk, trying not to succumb to the temptation of opening it. He signed reports, sorted files and swept some more, all the while glancing at the carton. He dusted, dreamt and finally decided.

  Carefully opening the mysterious package, Louie knitted his brow, then held his breath as he looked inside. His mouth dropped open and he fell back into the chair.

  Neatly stacked in denominational order, was twenty-two thousand dollars in cash.