Seven Silent Men

by Behn, Noel;

  “What?”

  “He said he was going to Emoryville. Said he was going ‘to put the last nail in the coffin.’ Know what Emoryville is?”

  She knew because he had mentioned it before, but she said, “Tell me.”

  “The place over in Illinois where damn near a dozen people provided alibis for Mule, Ragotsy and Wiggles. Swore under oath that the three were there in Emoryville the night of the robbery and for another week. When Brew said he was going there to put that last nail in,” Yates continued, “I figured he meant he was going to discredit the alibis, disprove those testimonies. For a time I went on thinking that. After all, Brew got murdered just before he was going to do it. That’s part of why Alice Sunstrom died too, knowing Mule wasn’t in Emoryville when the robbery came down. But then I started to think that maybe there was something else at Emoryville, besides witnesses, that Brew was going to check out. Something to do with Natalie Hammond.”

  Yates rolled over, and propping his chin in his hand stared at Tina Beth. “Hon, I want you to go home.”

  She looked past him. “Fiddle-faddle, I’m going with you.”

  “Nick and Nora Charles time is over, Tina Beth.”

  “I don’t know who those fine folk are, and I don’t care. If you felt it appropriate I come this far with you, it’s appropriate I accompany you still farther. Shush up, dear child, and get some sleep.” She rolled her back onto him.

  Yates hadn’t wanted her to come this far with him but at the same time desperately needed to be with her, to know she was safe, to have her there to help him. She was, and always had been, his one ally. He functioned best with her. Reasoned and figured things out best when she was close and listening or discussing. The time now had come to go on alone, and he knew he couldn’t tell her that directly. He knew he couldn’t say that, more than anything, he wanted her far off and out of harm’s way. Where he really wished she would go was to the safety of her parents’ home. He knew at best, using all his wiles, he could only get her to return to Prairie Port. He had pondered how to accomplish this. Speaking of the danger they might run into if they went on together, such as from, the unknown assassins of Brewmeister, would only reinforce her determination to stay with him. Saying she would be in the way in Emoryville and after, which was true, would trigger feelings of betrayal. If worse came to worse, though, he could settle for betrayal. What he had searched for in preference to this was a plausible diversion. Something in which she could feel she was contributing as a partner but yet be willing to separate from him. The diversion he came up with made him uneasy; it might bring her much too close to the case for his liking. On the other hand, he very much wanted the information.

  “I need you to go back to Prairie Port for me,” he told her. “I need to know where Hoover’s helicopter landed in Prairie Port.”

  “If I go back to that town, Billy Bee, I’ll be detained and questioned about where you are. I’ll have as much chance to ask after helicopters as a warthog has of being handsome.”

  “If you don’t go back, hon, I’ll have to.”

  Tina Beth’s tears had a way of letting themselves be known in the dark. “That’s unfair and unkind, Billy Bee, putting it that way. You know you can’t go back to Prairie Port for being arrested.”

  “I need that information, I need it real bad.”

  The tears silenced themselves.

  110 Sumpter Place was a large, white, wooden boarding house on an elm-shaded side street in Emoryville. It was also where Mule Corkel was reported to have been at the time of the robbery by three eyewitnesses, all of whom resided here … two permanent guests and the owner-operator of the establishment. Yates did not go in, only watched the location for a bit. Little was to be observed other than a woman in her seventies on the front porch, moving gently back and forth on a glider, and an elderly handyman mowing the spacious rear lawn.

  A four-block walk along the tree-lined, porch-fronted streets brought Yates to Hitzig Arms, the boarding house where four employees attested, in sworn affidavits, that Wiggles Loftus had been when Mormon State was robbed. This was a shabbier edifice than the one at 110 Sumpter Place, more run-down but pretty nonetheless. The few people Yates observed entering and leaving were in their sixties and seventies.

  A half-mile away, at the Marchonet, a long, red-pebbled driveway traversed the wide hillside lawn and ran up to a sprawling, turn-of-the-century wooden resort hotel, a five-story, double-turreted main house flanked on both sides by two-story verandaed wings. Here was where the balance of witnesses had said Rat Ragotsy had been at the time Mormon State was perpetrated. The Marchonet made no secret of its advantages, boldly listed them on a directional board near the main house—a swimming pool, miniature golf course, tennis courts, croquet lawn, tea garden, rock garden, solarium, clinic and child-care center. Yates noticed that the people wandering on the grounds were considerably younger than those seen at either Hitzig Arms or 110 Sumpter. Several of the women were pushing baby carriages.

  Yates, before arriving in Emoryville, had suspected that any or all of the three locations supposedly stayed at by Mule, Rat and Wiggles could have been “safe houses” used by one governmental service or another. At the Marchonet this view was somewhat substantiated. The Marchonet, while not being the type of place the CIA or Bureau people might use for a safe residence, had a distinctly institutional ring to it.

  Having lunch at a popular diner in the heart of town, Yates learned that the Marchonet was used as a vacation spot by several out-of-town industries. Checking at the local library, where copies of the city plats were available to the public, Billy saw that the Marchonet belonged to Marchall Industries of Ames, Iowa, whereas the Prairie Farmer Association held title to both Hitzig Arms and 110 Sumpter Place. The Prairie Farmer Association was no stranger to Yates. It owned the tallest building in downtown Prairie Port, the one on which the electric time and temperature sign had blown out the night of the robbery. Billy had also run across Marchall Industries in his perusal of back cases in the office file. Marchall Industries was owned by the same corporation as the Prairie Farmer Association … the Grange Association, of which Wilkie Jarrel was board chairman and chief operating officer. The same Grange Association which, through another subsidiary, controlled Mormon State National Bank. The same Wilkie Jarrel whose son-in-law was president of Mormon State.

  Yates returned to the Marchonet, stood on the grounds. Eventually, three young women came into view, chatting happily. Two were pregnant, the third was wheeling a baby carriage. He had no trouble recognizing the one with the carriage. It was Natalie Hammond.

  Billy left. He had been far luckier than he had expected. He had answered not only the fourth question but the first as well … not only had found out what had become of Natalie but also had connected Wilkie Jarrel to the conspiracy.

  Over the course of Romor 91, Billy Yates had come up with three possible explanations for why J. Edgar Hoover had chosen the moment he had for removing Ed Grafton. One was that Hoover felt the Mormon State investigation either was going to fail or would run into heavy criticism and therefore wished to spare his old pal Grafton from such an embarrassing eventuality. Second was that Hoover, for whatever his reasons, wanted Romor 91 to fail, to this end had stripped the Prairie Port office of what he considered to be its prime asset, its leader, Ed Grafton.

  The third possibility dealt with the ongoing feud between Ed Grafton and Wilkie Jarrel. Imperative for the FBI, in any robbery investigation of this nature, was the maximum cooperation of the victim bank. But how much cooperation could be expected from Mormon State, which was controlled by Wilkie Jarrel, the very man Grafton had sworn to indict? Worse yet for the FBI, Jarrel’s son-in-law, Emile Chandler, was the bank’s president. What could the Bureau really expect should Ed Grafton walk into the bank and start asking questions? Without Grafton around, the prospects became rosier.

  Yates had always postulated that once Grafton was gone J. Edgar Hoover could sit down and talk man-to-man with Wilk
ie Jarrel. For this to occur, Hoover himself would have to remove Grafton, since in all of the Bureau only he had the power to do so. Yates had believed J. Edgar Hoover would never sacrifice Ed Grafton except under the direst of conditions. Billy, as he drove from Emoryville, was getting some idea of just how dire those conditions were.

  … Driving farther, he was pretty certain he had the answers to all his questions except one: the identity of the Silent Men.

  She was waiting at the phone booth in Prairie Port he told her to be at, waiting at the time he said. The phone rang.

  “Billy?” she asked, picking up.

  “Howya, hon?”

  “I miss you, Billy Bee.”

  “Double here. What’s happening?”

  “Cub came to see me,” she told him. “I couldn’t have been in the house more than an hour and he was there. He told me he was having the house watched, hoping you and I would be coming back. Cub said that Denis Corticun had put out an alert to have you picked up, but then Cub talked him into taking it back. Cub says he put you back on extended leave and that if you come back to town by this weekend there won’t be any trouble. He says he and the other RAs understand how you feel about the killings, but he says if you don’t get back right away, things could get serious. He wants me to let him know what you say.”

  “I’ll tell you later. Anything else going on?”

  “Billy, trust Cub, please trust him. And Sissy too. I know what Jez Jessup said about Sissy and maybe making phone calls to him, but I don’t believe it. Cub and Sissy are the only friends we’ve got. And Billy, we need friends right now.”

  “I’ll think about it, Tina Beth. What else is happening?”

  “… I found out all about that helicopter, Billy Bee. I went right on down to the airport and talked to an air traffic dispatcher and he was nice as punch and took me for a coffee and told me who the pilot was. The pilot flew his helicopter up to Saint Louis and picked up Edgar. Then he flew Edgar back to Prairie Port and landed at Thurmond Hill. That’s the big estate out past the highway that belongs to Wilkie Jarrel. Wilkie Jarrel has his own heliport there at Thurmond Hill.”

  “Know the phone out in the Shop Now supermarket parking lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll call you there at eleven tomorrow morning.”

  Billy Yates wasn’t surprised at learning where the helicopter landed … had pretty well figured that out before leaving Emoryville. What concerned him now was expediting the discovery of the Silent Men, which was why he drove hellbent for leather toward Carbondale, Illinois.

  The very first summary report to come in on the newly installed twelfth-floor teletype machine the night the FBI entered the Mormon State investigation dealt with the origin of the $31,000,000 in used currency and the shipment of this amount from the branch Federal Reserve Bank in New Orleans to Prairie Port. The shipment had been destined for St. Louis, but a series of circumstances saw the funds diverted for overnight safekeeping. Yates had found the summary to be, as he put it, “full of holes” and had always meant to get in touch with Alexander Troxel, the special agent who compiled the summary. That never occurred. Reaching Carbondale, Illinois, at two in the morning, he did the next best thing … he went directly to the Majestic Garage at 45 Clayton Street.

  According to the Troxel summary, a U.S. Treasury official by the name of Klines had contracted with the Gulf Coast Armored Security Corporation of Corpus Christi, Texas, to pick up and transport the money. The truck crew consisted of company vice-president David C. Swoggins, company security director Allen J. Noble and Jack W. Manly, a company guard. Mechanical trouble along the way caused delays and prompted a decision to drop off the load at Mormon State National Bank in Prairie Port so the truck could be repaired. The summary showed that after reaching Mormon State and transferring the funds into the vault on Friday evening, August 20, Manly, Swoggins and Noble took the truck to Carbondale, Illinois, to the Majestic Garage at 45 Clayton Street … that by Sunday morning, August 22, the repairs had been made and the three men started back for Prairie Port, and en route learned of the robbery.

  Yates found the main door of the Majestic Garage open. The night attendant, sitting in an enclosed glass booth just inside the door, was dozing. Billy entered without being seen, followed the signs up to the office, tripped open the door with a plastic credit card, went in. The files were well kept, showed that a truck belonging to Gulf Coast Armored Security of Corpus Christi was serviced on August 21 for radiator problems. The bill came to $677.82 and was paid by check.

  Billy compared the serial number on the bill with others in the file. Though it wasn’t in exact chronological order, it was in the general sequence for that week.

  Leaving the office, Yates wandered through the four-level premises. Parking was on the upper levels, repairs and fueling on the ground floor. He left through a rear door, wandered to the adjacent street, walked up a hill to the side of the garage and beyond and found, just below the crest, a perfect vantage point … the deepset doorway of a factory from which he could see most everything below.

  The Chevrolet sedan was black and had a powerful radio antenna attached to the rear. Its windows were dark, which made seeing into it difficult. Tina Beth hadn’t noticed the Chevy following her the night before, and even though she glanced back and around, didn’t spot it tailing her into the Shop Now parking lot. Noticed nothing getting out and going to the outdoor pay phone. A phone which began ringing as she neared.

  “Billy?”

  “You all right, Tina Beth?”

  “I wish you were here, Billy.”

  “I am, down the walkway in front of Golb’s Bakery … only look up slow.”

  She did, saw him standing fifty yards away, heard him say into the phone, “When you leave here, tell Cub I’ll meet him at seven tonight out at the railyard diner Ed Grafton used to go to. Tell him I can’t make any decision till I talk to him, and I’d rather he come alone and not tell anyone where he’s going. What I’d also appreciate you doing, Tina Beth, is getting me some clean clothes. Put them in a suitcase. Have Cub bring them to the diner.”

  “What are you going to say to Cub you need a suitcase for, Billy?”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to say, Tina Beth.”

  “Try to trust him, Billy Bee. Cub’s a good man. Give him a chance.”

  Billy Yates very much wanted to trust Cub Hennessy. Doing so might insure Tina Beth’s further isolation from the danger involved with his immediate plans. Cub, if he chose to cooperate, could allow Yates much needed assistance. If Cub didn’t prove out, or refused to help, Billy would be sitting on a time bomb, would have to implement his plan in a matter of hours instead of days … implement it alone. “I want to trust him, hon, believe me. But I have to be sure of him first … have to test him out.”

  Tina Beth moved the receiver closer. “When are we going to be alone?”

  “Soon.”

  “Can’t you come out to the house just for half an hour? Come after dark?”

  “You know they’re watching the house, Tina Beth. Do like I ask, please. I’ll talk to you later. Nine tonight, I’ll call you at the next number on your list, the pay phone in the laundromat.”

  Tina Beth glanced over to see him walk away, then hung up.

  Cub came slowly up the diner aisle carrying the suitcase of clothes and sat opposite Yates in the last booth.

  “I need some help,” Billy said. “I said in my report that Jez was with us in the tunnel, with Strom and me. That was wrong. He was with Mule, Ragotsy and Wiggles. The bullet wound in Jez’s shoulder came from Strom’s gun. Here it all is, Jez’s part. This is a report I made out but never turned in.”

  Cub took the pages handed him by Yates.

  “Read it when I leave. Jez was Hoover’s spy all along. And someone else’s. Whether he knew it or not, Jez was taking orders from a group of people calling themselves the Silent Men. That was the reason Brewmeister was killed. Brew found out about the Silent Men, found
out that they were manipulating the investigation. Brew was going to blow the whistle on them. Those reports he supposedly stole from the twelfth floor had something to do with that. I know all this might sound looney-toon”—Yates was leaning forward—“but it plays. I found Natalie Hammond. I traced Ed Grafton’s removal from his post right into the living room of Wilkie Jarrel. J. Edgar Hoover and Wilkie Jarrel are in bed together. I believe I even know how it hooks into the Silent Men, but I need help corroborating that. Your help.”

  “… These Silent Men,” Cub asked, “do you know who they are?”

  “Not all of them, not yet. But I’ll have it tied up soon.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  “Authorization to go in and confiscate records at a garage in Carbondale, Illinois. The garage where the armored truck was repaired, the truck that brought the money to Mormon State.”

  Cub shook his head. “Billy, you know I can’t do that. Carbondale’s out of my jurisdiction, to begin with. And I’m not in charge of Romor 91, Corticun is.”

  Yates got up. “Coffee’s on you. Thanks for coming by.”

  “Hold on, Billy, we’ve got things to talk about.”

  “Later. I’ve got to get those records.”

  He was gone.

  Yates drove across the Mississippi River and on toward Carbondale. He stopped at nine o’clock and called Tina Beth at the laundromat. He told her that he would be on the move now … that he could no longer arrange any pre-set times and places for their conversations … that in spite of the risk of a phone tap he would have to call her at home from here on in.

  Sissy Hennessy heard the familiar sound of automobile tires rolling to a stop in the gravel driveway. She set the book she was reading on the rumpus room coffee table and, straightening her wool bathrobe, went to the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator as nearby a car door slammed. Sissy paused. It wasn’t like Cub to make noise this time of night … to be unthoughtful and risk waking the children. She listened. Footsteps crunched forward outside, Cub’s footsteps. Sissy smiled and continued taking a tray off the middle shelf. Never in all their years of marriage had she not waited up for Cub. Never had she not prepared a late snack. Tonight the fare was a cold platter of sliced roast beef, smoked breast of turkey and Polish ham with ample side dishes of cole slaw, apple sauce and potato salad. The diet soda was for her. The pitcher of beer she poured was for Cub.