Fear Itself

by Andrew Rosenheim

  32

  Late May 1940

  San Francisco

  ‘I WAS MEANT to be back east by now,’ said SAC Morgan, as he stood by the window. Nessheim remembered Morgan had started as a cop in Philadelphia. Behind him Nessheim could see lights on a freighter in the Bay, heading for Oakland. It was nine-thirty at night, and there was no one else on the floor except for the late receptionist.

  Nessheim had phoned him from the Oakland terminus that afternoon, then on Morgan’s instructions waited until the office was deserted. He’d killed time sitting on a bench near the Embarcadero, trying to concentrate on what he needed to do here, and not think about what had happened in the last week, especially with Annie.

  As the train sped through Ohio he had written her a letter he’d posted when switching trains in Chicago:

  Dear Annie,

  I am heading out to California, following leads, as they say at the Bureau.

  I’m so sorry – though an apology looks pretty thin on the page. I feel worse than you could know about what I put you through. I know that may sound like the boss who says it hurts him more than the man he’s firing, but our friendship came to mean a lot to me.

  Maybe some day you will let me explain.

  Yours sincerely,

  Jimmy

  Now Morgan came back to his desk, looking down at the papers on it with distaste. ‘Harry said it was urgent. Though from what I understand, Harry’s not in any position to call the shots these days.’ It was clear he was doing Guttman a favour that might never be repaid. ‘I don’t want you talking to the other agents while you’re here.’

  ‘Not even Devereux?’ His friend from his time out here. When Morgan shook his head, Nessheim said, ‘He’s got my pickup truck. I was hoping to collect it.’

  ‘Another time.’

  Nessheim sighed. It wasn’t as if he could afford to come 3,000 miles at the drop of a hat.

  Morgan sat down on his padded swivel chair and used his long legs to push it nearer the desk. He took his keyring out of his trouser pocket and unlocked a drawer, then brought out a file. ‘I’ve done some digging into this guy Jahnke and there isn’t much to show for it. I’d have thought there was more in D.C.’

  ‘Just enough to send me out here. The HQ file mentions an undertaking business Jahnke started, shipping Chinese stiffs back to their homeland. He sold it to some Chinamen who were crooked – their zinc coffins never got to China. You may have forgotten, but you had me and Mueller work on it.’

  ‘I remember.’ He looked intently at Nessheim. ‘And I remember Mueller.’

  ‘I thought maybe there would be some back trail to Jahnke through the business.’

  Morgan had half a smile on his face. ‘Funny you should say that. It’s the one lead in the file that doesn’t look completely cold. Let’s take a little trip to Chinatown.’

  * * *

  They walked north, the night air cool and salty from the Bay. The business district lay like a series of deserted canyons underneath the concrete cliffs of commerce, but as Morgan and Nessheim turned west and climbed Sacramento Avenue the streets grew more residential – and more Chinese. They were one street over from Clay, where he’d chased the trio of bank robbers in what seemed an age ago. He hadn’t thought about that day in months, but now it came again, close as his breath.

  At the corner of Grant, Morgan looked at his watch. ‘We need to kill half an hour. How about a bowl of noodles?’

  They went into the nearest restaurant, a single room brazenly lit, with low tables and cheap kitchen chairs. At the back you could see a couple of cooks standing over the stovetop, holding woks that hissed and spat from the fierce gas flames. They sat down and Morgan ordered a bowl of chow mein and a bottle of beer from the Chinese waiter. Nessheim was too tense to feel hungry and asked only for egg rolls and tea.

  Almost at once, the waiter came back and put a bowl of noodles the size of a tureen in front of Morgan. He reached for the soy sauce. ‘Have you liked working for Harry?’

  Nessheim picked his words with care. ‘Let’s just say it’s been eventful.’

  Morgan slurped some noodles with a Chinese soup spoon. He wiped his chin with his napkin, then said, ‘Harry’s not exactly what he seems, now is he?’

  ‘How’s that?’ asked Nessheim.

  ‘Everybody knows he’s smart – do you know a Jew in the Bureau who’s dumb? And they see this short dumpy guy and assume he’s the resident thinker. Don’t get me wrong – Harry is smart, but he’s tough too.’

  ‘Yeah?’ It seemed unlikely.

  ‘Let me tell you a story. I first met Harry when he came down to Philly – I was still a cop then. It was a mail fraud case, but with some muscle involved. The conmen had crossed state lines, and we hadn’t got anywhere, so my Chief of Police decided to call in the Bureau. It was still pretty new then – I don’t even think it was called the FBI.

  ‘Anyway, I was pissed off about having the Feds called in over my head, and even more so when this fat, sloppy Yid comes into my office. I brief him, and we go out to find some of the crooks – this was in south Philly, which can be a rough part of town. I’m thinking I’ve got to look after this guy, who’s heavyset but otherwise a pretty unimpressive physical specimen. And then, all of a sudden we spot one of the guys we’re looking for, and I go to collar him, and out of nowhere he whacks me with a roundhouse I didn’t see coming.

  ‘Boom, I’m out on the sidewalk, figuring my jaw’s broken and what the fuck? when suddenly I look up and the fat little Heeb hits the guy with a right hand like I’ve never seen. Never! The crook is not only down on the sidewalk with me, he’s out completely cold. I mean KOed completely.

  ‘I get up, we cuff the jerk, a paddy wagon shows and we throw him in, and then we keep walking. Unbelievably, Harry’s exactly the same as ten minutes before, short and squat and smiling kind of nervously, as if nothing’s happened at all. But if you’d seen him tag the other guy, you’d never forget it. And after that I looked at him in a different way, and you might even say we were friends.’

  ‘Were?’

  Morgan looked at him hard. ‘Nessheim, if I can get you out of my hair and go back east, Harry and I will be friends again.’

  They walked down Grant Avenue, which was growing crowded with a mix of Chinese and sightseers. Morgan was moving quickly now, with such long-legged speed that Nessheim could barely keep up. Ahead of them on the left he could see the brick bulk of the Episcopal church looming.

  Morgan wheeled to his right, towards an open doorway, and stopped. Nessheim could see a couple of Chinese customers standing inside. It was night-time but inside the scene was identical, as if neither the passage of several years nor the difference between day and night could alter it. The same thin wire holding the unfolded strips of dough; the same Chinese girls filling flimsy cardboard boxes with the finished article. The sickly smell of the finished fortune cookies – sweet and cloying, like unpleasant perfume.

  Morgan walked straight through the room to the back. Nessheim remembered the small concrete paved yard behind the building, but Morgan didn’t open the back door. He walked instead into the tiny kitchen where the last time Nessheim had almost retched at the sight of putrid chicken necks sitting in a saucepan of greasy water. The room was as tiny as he remembered but Morgan walked to one corner, kicked a garbage can out of the way, then reached down and pulled at a large square of the linoleum flooring, which immediately gave way. Beneath it sat a panel of plywood, roughly a yard by a yard, and when Morgan stomped on one corner it flipped into the air, revealing an opening with an iron ladder leading down.

  He followed Morgan cautiously down the ladder, and found himself in a cellar, which was half-lit by a high small window that was just above the street level outside. Crossing the bare room Morgan pulled open a large door, and they entered a dank corridor with whitewashed sides and faded wall lamps.

  They walked slowly along until Morgan stopped at an open doorway on the left. He gestured for N
essheim to come and have a look. In a space the size of Sally Cummings’s drawing room, a dozen men sat around a long table, each with a stack of coins and bills. The table was covered by a green baize mat which had Chinese numbers and characters etched in red; at one end an old man sat, reaching with a curved bamboo stick for some of the black-and-white buttons that lay scattered in front of him.

  ‘Fan Tan,’ Morgan explained. ‘One of the old Chinese games.’ They kept going along the corridor, and came in semidarkness to a heavy wooden door. It was locked, and Morgan banged on it with his fist. A slit no bigger than a mail slot opened at face level, and Nessheim could just make out a pair of eyes. Bolts were shot, a key turned in a lock, then the door slowly opened. A stocky Chinese man with a pockmarked face and a white short-sleeved shirt stood in the doorway, holding one hand up to block their way. ‘What you want here?’ he demanded. Nessheim wondered why his face seemed familiar.

  Morgan held up his own hands to show his peaceful intentions. ‘I want to see Tang Hui,’ he said. ‘Tell him Mr Morgan’s here.’

  ‘You wait,’ the man said, and walked away down another dim corridor. There was something almost medieval to this subterranean nest. Nessheim could imagine people imprisoned here for years in lightless cells, with the world outside none the wiser.

  Morgan pointed to the door the pockmarked man had just opened. On their side it was lined by heavy metal studs, each the size of a belt buckle, spaced only inches apart. ‘When this is locked from the inside, it takes the cops half an hour to break it down. You can’t use an axe because of these studs. By the time they get through you’d think you were in a nunnery.’

  The pockmarked man returned. ‘Follow me,’ he said shortly. He led them through two more heavy doors, each with the same viewing slit at head height. Then suddenly he stopped by a final door and, opening it, motioned them to go in.

  They stepped into what must have been another gaming room, for though empty now of tables it was very large, probably fifty feet long and half that wide. It reminded Nessheim of the visitors’ room at Sing Sing where he had met Beringer.

  In a far corner an old Chinese man sat in a yellow wing chair. He wore a silk smock, scarlet with gold embroidered dragons. Next to him was a low stool, which the pockmarked man went and sat down on. Nessheim wondered if he was there to translate; then Morgan said quietly, ‘Tang Hui’s English is pretty good, but his hearing’s not – he must be eighty years old. Let me do the talking.’

  ‘Tang Hui,’ Morgan said loudly, approaching the old man.

  The figure in the wing chair looked up. His face was the colour of caramel milk and wrinkled as a walnut. Wisps of white hair ran down from his lower lip and hung like fuzzy strings beneath his chin. His eyes, black and the shape of almonds, studied Morgan carefully. Then Tang Hui gave the slightest of nods.

  ‘I need to ask you about someone from a long time ago. It’s nothing bad for you – the man I want to know about is in another country now.’

  Tang Hui did not reply. Morgan continued: ‘He owned the coffin business before the last war. It sent many Chinese people to lie in peace. His name was Jahnke – Kurt Jahnke. He’s a German. Do you remember him?’

  There was a long pause while Tang Hui stared at Morgan. Then he lifted an arm and pointed at the younger man on the stool. ‘This is my son. Soon he will have to be the family memory. But I remember the man Jahnke.’

  ‘What can you tell us about him?’

  The old man flipped his palm up in a gesture of indifference. ‘What is there to tell? He start the business and it did very well. It was a time when life was very difficult for Chinese businessman. Jahnke had the advantage. I believe he sold it for a very large sum.’

  ‘I thought he sold it to you,’ said Morgan.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was bought by the Wong brothers. They got in trouble with the authorities. Then the Six Families stepped in. It was important for the community to know the business would continue. That is no surprise: I too would like my bones to rest in Canton.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to Jahnke after that?’

  ‘No.’ The answer was quick, too quick.

  Morgan pressed him. ‘You never saw him again?’

  Tang Hui looked down at his son on the stool. Nessheim realised that he was avoiding answering the question.

  ‘I think not,’ said the old man at last, turning his head to look at Nessheim.

  Morgan sighed, and Nessheim decided to speak. ‘Do you know where this man lived back then?’

  Tang Hui’s eyes widened involuntarily.

  Morgan said sharply, ‘It’s worth your while helping us, Tang Hui. We could always take another look at this business.’

  Tang Hui shook his head. ‘There is nothing for you to discover. I assure you, the coffins that leave the harbour here arrive untouched in China.’

  Nessheim intervened again. ‘We are not here to cause you problems. The difficulty we face comes from long ago, not today.’ Risking Morgan’s ire he went on, ‘But it is very serious. This man wants to hurt this country, maybe even hurt the President.’

  Tang Hui examined Nessheim’s face as if it were a map of uncertain provenance. Nessheim stared back at the almond-shaped eyes, and said calmly, ‘I am telling you the truth.’

  The old man kept his gaze fixed on Nessheim. Then his face broke into a smile, revealing a line of crooked yellowing teeth. ‘Jahnke made a joke to me about his home. He said, “Some people want a place to go to when they die. I want a place to live more.”’

  Morgan gave Nessheim a baffled look. Tang Hui said, looking only at Nessheim, ‘Do you know where I mean?’

  ‘I do; I’ve even been there. Thanks,’ he added, but the son was already rising to escort them out.

  They followed him back along the corridor, past the various gaming rooms, which were now teaming with gamblers. Finally they clambered up the short iron ladder and re-emerged into the back of the fortune cookie factory. The pockmarked man replaced the false cover on the floor and followed them through to the front, where the same shift was tending the miniature assembly line, the girls packing boxes with the still-warm cookies.

  They had almost reached the door when the pockmarked man called out from behind them. ‘I have not forgotten you.’

  Turning around they saw him standing about ten feet away, anger in his face as clear as his scars. It took Nessheim a moment to realise it was him and not Morgan the man meant. And now he remembered why the man looked familiar, how this man had tried to keep him from coming into the factory after Danny Ho. What you want? the man had shouted. He could hear the words again.

  ‘I know you too,’ he said mildly.

  The man reached back to his rear trouser pocket, then suddenly came out with a hatchet, its blade curved to a menacing point. Beside him, Morgan tensed and stepped back, ready to draw his gun. Seeing this, the pockmarked man stayed where he was, though he was shaking his weapon in fury.

  ‘You killed my cousin Danny Ho,’ he said harshly, glaring at Nessheim and spitting the words out like bitter pills. ‘Do not come back here again, or next time you will be the one who dies.’

  33

  NESSHEIM SPENT THE night in a hotel off the Tenderloin, kept awake by rowdy sailors, drinking and chasing whores, and by more than one police siren. Morgan had picked the place, telling him that no one would think to find him there.

  Once Nessheim had explained where he was going next, Morgan had been helpful, though grudgingly. ‘I suppose you’ll want the use of a car. You’ll have to pay for the gas.’

  Nessheim skipped breakfast and crossed the Bay Bridge by eight-thirty. Fog had swept in from the west side of the peninsula, but it lifted almost immediately once he reached the eastern side of the Bay. He took Route 50 south, skirting Oakland and touching the base of the foothills, where it was already warm, and summer had turned the meadow grass a gorgeous gold. Near Hayward he turned east and drove through the Castro Valley, then climbed a series of switchback roads.
The little Dodge struggled a bit, and at the top Nessheim pulled into a cut-out and let the car cool down. A breeze off the Pacific reached him, unimpeded this high up, but the temperature was already in the seventies, and he remembered how quickly the heat came when you moved away from the ocean.

  He rolled down the hills mostly in neutral, to keep from paying more of Morgan’s charge for gas. He had no clear plan in mind – how do you locate a foreigner who moved away over twenty years before? – but he knew where he would start.

  Down in the flat, he stopped to check his oil and fill the radiator on the edges of Livermore, about ten miles further east. Here it was hotter, 85 degrees in the shade he guessed, and though not even summer the land was bone dry, the twisted trunks of the sycamores and oaks mimicking their roots straining for water underground.

  He found the bar easily enough, spotting the lot out back where Mueller had parked his car. But the sign outside was gone, and two of the front windows were broken. He pushed at the old saloon door, but it was bolted from inside; when he peered through the glass, he saw dusty tables and several overturned chairs.

  It had seemed his best bet, the watering hole for the local Bund meetings where Mueller had got drunk and a Jew’s application to join had been vetoed. He’d hoped that at the very least he could procure from the owner names of local German-Americans who might be able – and willing – to say they knew Kurt Jahnke all those years ago.

  He wondered where to try next. Tax records? Would the clerk at the Town Hall let him see them? Probably, with a Bureau ID. But records might not go that far back, and the clerk might just say no. Nessheim didn’t have time for court orders, nor could he have got one without an authorisation that he didn’t dare seek. There was a safer bet, which would not involve his indicating what he was looking for.

  The Livermore library was in a small adobe building sitting next to a branch bank. On a Tuesday at midday it was virtually deserted. Behind the front desk, a bored woman in her twenties directed him to shelves in a far corner. The phone books were low down; when he kneeled he saw they went back to 1910, and he felt more hopeful. With reason, for he found the 1913 edition had a K. Jahnke listed on 4th Street.