The Big Kiss-Off of 1944: A Jack LeVine Mystery

by Andrew Bergman

  “Don’t do it,” he said hoarsely.

  “Do what?”

  “City room, city desk. Don’t tell them.”

  I got very close to him, close enough so that I felt sorry for him.

  “Then you just stay away from me and tell our mutual friends that the next time I’m followed anywhere at all, I’ll blow the whistle so loud their eardrums will pop.”

  “Okay, sure,” he said. His light blue suit was stained and salt-marked under the armpits. “I didn’t ask for this. Sounded like a dumb idea to me, but I don’t have any say.”

  “They said to tail me and stop me if I walked into a newspaper or wire service?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Number twelve. City room,” the elevator man said.

  “Take us back to the lobby please,” Toots told him. He said something to himself in Italian and slammed the doors shut.

  We bid adieu to the tail. Toots went back to the Lava. I went home.

  I listened to the Republican Convention for a while. H.V. Kaltenborn said it was wrapped for Dewey on Wednesday. First ballot for sure. The only question was the second spot: either Governor Earl Warren of California or Governor Bricker of Ohio. Then Warren himself came on to deliver the “keynote” address. Strictly craperoo: the GOP would “get the boys back home again—victorious and with all speed.” I had trouble keeping my eyes open and missed entire sentences, and just managed to switch off the radio before rolling over on the couch.

  When I awoke I could hear plates being scraped in other apartments and that post-dinner, pre-darkness sound of kids roller-skating in the street. I rubbed my eyes until I could make out the numbers on the hall clock. It was seven-thirty. I had been out for nearly two hours and it took ten minutes more to get off the couch and into a bent position over the sink. Cold water didn’t help. I went to the kitchen and got a can of Chase and Sanborn out of the icebox. It dropped from my hands like a lead weight.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said to the floor. I picked the can up, put it back and walked into the bedroom. I had never felt so tired. I sat down and turned over, fully dressed, and slept until ten o’clock the next morning.

  “I LET SOMEBODY INTO THE OFFICE,” Eddie told me.

  The elevator jockey has a set of keys to my outer office. If anyone gets there before I do, he lets him in.

  “What kind of somebody?”

  “Little guy with deepset eyes and a big kind of Hebe nose. Like yours.”

  “Thanks. He have bushy hair?”

  “He’d break the comb, Mr. LeVine. Nine, all out.”

  It sounded like Factor and was. He was sitting in my outer office with a briefcase held tightly between his feet on the floor. A raincoat was thrown over the other chair. He was going through the morning papers—all of them.

  “Hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

  He smiled and stood up, putting the papers aside on the little table with the pelican lamp.

  “Not too long. I have to go through the papers for the chief anyhow.”

  I unlocked the inner office door and threw my hat on the moose head. Factor followed me in carrying his briefcase.

  “I’ve been leading a rugged kind of life,” I told Factor, sitting behind my desk and gesturing toward the easy chair. “Last night my body called a strike and I slept for thirteen hours. After a two-hour nap.” I lit up a Lucky and offered him the pack. He shook his head and pulled out some Chesterfields. “I haven’t slept like that since I was four.”

  “Since I went to work for the chief, oh, it’s fourteen years now, I’ve averaged four hours a night. Once a month my body gives up too and then I conk out for the weekend. It recharges the batteries.”

  I smiled, he smiled, we smiled.

  Factor and I blew cigarette smoke toward the ceiling. It caught the dusty sunlight I get for fifteen minutes a day. I didn’t know what was going on, but it was kind of peaceful.

  “They said it was going to rain,” Factor said. “But you wouldn’t know it.”

  I looked toward the window. “Looks nice enough.”

  “It’s a crazy world,” he said, giving me a long look, what they call significant in the better magazines.

  “Guess so,” I answered, if that’s an answer. “I’ll make some coffee.”

  “That would be fine.”

  I ran some water into my little kettle and put it on the hot plate, then spooned some drip-grind into the pot. When I turned back to my desk, Factor was closing his briefcase.

  And there was twenty-five thousand dollars on my desk. In ten packets. Twenty-five C-notes to a packet.

  All for me.

  “It is twenty-five thousand dollars,” Factor announced, “and every cent of it is yours if you join our cause.”

  I picked up a packet and went through it. All hundreds.

  “You may rest assured that this money is tax-free.”

  “But of course,” I said, lifting a few more packets and methodically flipping through the bills.

  “It’s all there, LeVine.”

  I winked at him. He smiled.

  “In fact, LeVine,” Factor said, warming to the job, “I think I may say confidentially that as long as this Administration holds the reins of power you won’t have many problems with Internal Revenue.”

  I picked up some more packets.

  “You’re telling me I don’t have to pay any more taxes?”

  “I’m saying you won’t be bothered by the IRS if, say, your returns are pegged a little low.”

  “How low?”

  “Well,” he smiled a tight little smile and crossed his legs, “as low as you want to make them.”

  “That’s quite an offer. What’s the expiration date?”

  “The offer expires, obviously, when the Democrats fall from power.”

  I kept counting. Factor looked encouraged.

  “You’re right. It’s all here.”

  “So you’re with us?”

  “No. Every minute that I spend on this case I get sicker to my stomach. You walk in here, dump a pile of bills on my desk, and expect me to roll over and start wagging my tail. This isn’t Washington, sweetheart. This is the big city.”

  He stood up, red-faced, and started shoveling the packets back into his briefcase. “If you weren’t interested, why the hell did you count all of it? You like playing games?”

  “I love it. And I love your persistence. What’s the next offer, perpetual life?”

  Factor was steaming. “There’s no next offer, LeVinc. You’re making a very stupid blunder.” He stared at me, blinking in anger and disbelief. “The mind boggles at what you’re just tossing away.”

  “Let it boggle, then,” I said, Mr. Breeze. “You know, Factor, there’s one way you can buy my help.”

  “Which is what?” he asked cautiously.

  “Which is bring me the negatives and prints of Anne Savage’s films, and nobody will ever know what happened.”

  He stood, holding the briefcase to his chest. “You’re a goddamn fool.”

  “Agreed, but I’m the only person in this whole gruesome world who can save your ugly face. Sit down and think about it.”

  He didn’t sit down. In fact, he walked behind the desk and stood over me. The little guy was trembling.

  “My reputation, my prestige, whatever you choose to call it, means nothing. The reelection of the president is the only thing that makes a damn bit of difference, because the peace and security of the whole world are at stake. Anything that returns him to the White House is worth it, is moral, is justifiable. Savage will be humiliated and he will not contribute to the Dewey campaign.” The words were coming out almost mechanically, as if Factor were a wire recorder that had just gotten plugged in. “Dewey will lose and Roosevelt will win, easily. That is the only thing that matters. You and I are nothing.”

  “Speak for yourself and how about sitting down. I don’t like people standing over me.”

  He sat down, the shakes all over him.
<
br />   “This whole affair is ruining my health.”

  “All you need is a cold shower.” I got up and poured some boiling water into the Dripmaster, then sat down again.

  “One thing I really don’t understand, Factor. If Roosevelt’s reelection is so godalmighty important, why risk it by staying with a scheme that’s blown up in your face?”

  “What gets started gets finished,” Factor said slowly. “Everything would be proceeding smoothly if you weren’t in the picture.”

  “I’m flattered, but you’re dead wrong. Shea of Homicide got pulled off two murders and he’s not the kind of bird who doesn’t ask why. He’s a smart guy. And if he knows, maybe so do a couple of other people. It’s a bust, Factor, give me the films and don’t let things get worse than they are.”

  “You’re bluffing.” I could tell Factor didn’t believe his own words; his eyes were doing figure eights.

  “Sure, I’m bluffing. I don’t know a thing. You and Butler have all the answers. Coffee?”

  He nodded yes. I got up and lifted the top of the Drip-master to make sure that all the water had drained out. When I put the top back on, a gun exploded and the pot flew from my hands, covering my pants with scalding java.

  “Damnit!” I screamed and hit the floor, as another shot creased the wall over my head. I went right under the desk.

  “Give up, LeVine,” growled Factor, his voice choked and strange. Give up? He was playing at some cops-and-robbers fantasy, some movie he remembered. And he had demonstrated his total ineptness with a gun.

  The front side of my desk was closed; to get a clear shot at me, Factor would have to come around the back. I heard his shoes shuffling around the desk, clockwise, and strained to get a grip on the front end of the desk. I waited a fraction of a second, then gave a gut-breaking heave upward.

  The desk flew over and caught Factor as he was bending over, pinning him underneath and knocking the gun loose on impact. Still on my knees, I crawled across the floor to where the gun spun slowly on its side, picked it up, and started moving toward Factor. His lips formed a “no” as I got closer, smiled, and, just to seal our friendship, bashed him on the head with the butt end. It was a nice shot: hard enough to keep him dreaming about the election for a couple of hours, but placed so as to avoid doing further damage to his already crumbling mind.

  I got to my feet and pulled the desk back upright, then went to the closet and donned a fresh pair of slacks, tossing the coffee-stained pair on the floor. I lit a Lucky and went wandering down the hall. A songwriter named Abe Rosen was leaning out of his office.

  “Were those shots, Jack?”

  “Your imagination, Abe. Probably writing a song about the war, and heard shots.”

  Abe was a big guy, with black hair and horn-rimmed glasses. All his shirts had “AR” emblazoned on the pockets, with a little musical note. I’d known him for a long while and he knew how to keep his mouth shut.

  “But you’re all right?” he asked softly.

  “I’m fine.”

  “And the other fellow, he’s dead?”

  “Abe, that’s Hollywood stuff. Nobody’s dead, nobody got thrown out of the window. You’ve got brain fever.”

  “But if the police? …”

  I put my arm around his shoulder. “No police, Abe. No trouble. Go write me a little song about what a swell town New York is.”

  “I wrote one like that last week. You want to hear?” His eyes lit up. People usually weren’t all that anxious to hear Abe’s new songs. They kind of ran together in the mind. Too much moon and spoon.

  “Tomorrow, Abe.”

  It took a lot of leaning on the bell to get Eddie off his butt.

  “What’s the hurry, Mr. LeVine? There’s a john on the floor, ain’t there?” He picked up trouble signs on my face and wised up. “You need me?”

  “I need you. Can you get Vito to run this box for about a half-hour?”

  “Sure. It’s practically my lunch.”

  “Okay. Be back in my office soon as you can.”

  It took him about three minutes, during which I went through Factor’s clothes and wallet, finding nothing of interest. Eddie walked in while I was crouched over the body.

  “Christ, who’s that guy?”

  “Friend of mine. I want him out of here.”

  Eddie knelt beside me.

  “He’s still alive, Mr. LeVine. He’s breathing.”

  “That’s okay by me. All I did was give him a tap.”

  Eddie stood up and noticed the hole in the wall. His eyes widened.

  “Bullet holes. He fired at you, Mr. LeVine?”

  “Not very accurately. He couldn’t hit Kate Smith at three feet.”

  “And you want me to walk him?”

  “Correct. We’re going to steer him out of here like he’s stinko drunk, talking to him, et cetera. He’ll be dragging his heels and when Lou gives us a funny look downstairs, we throw him a sheepish grin. Then I want you to take a cab over to the Waldorf Towers and leave this mug with the bellhops. Make sure they take his briefcase.”

  “Can we get a cab with a guy who’s unconscious?”

  “I’ll hail the cab, then you come out with the dancing bear. It’s a five-minute ride to the Waldorf. If the hack gives you any lip, tell him the guy needs medical attention.”

  “I don’t know.” Eddie seemed to hesitate. “That’s a nice lump he’s got there. If the cops stop us …”

  I took a twenty out of my wallet and stuck it into Eddie’s hand.

  “Gee, Mr. LeVine, this is too much.”

  “It’s to keep you from being such a sap. Stop worrying. This is a cinch.”

  He kept staring at the bill. “Twenty smackers. Jesus Christ. That’s a week’s pay, Mr. LeVine. This is a pretty big case, isn’t it?”

  “The biggest. Now let’s get this chump into a cab.”

  It worked fine. Eddie and I grabbed Factor by the arms and “walked” him, legs dragging on the floor, down to the lobby. I hailed a cab tipped the driver, and told him to make sure this drunk bigwig got to the Waldorf in one piece. He knew the score, smiled and thanked me, and then actually got out of the cab to help us.

  “Easy does it, boy,” I told the unconscious aide to Franklin Roosevelt. “Couple cups of coffee you’ll be fine.”

  “At least this one don’t stink,” said the cabbie, as he opened up the rear door.

  “Two drinks and he was out,” said Eddie. He looked at me and grinned, very proud of himself. I liked it myself.

  The elevator jockey got in and the hack closed the door. Factor fell over on his side. I leaned in through the window.

  “He’s already paid,” I told the kid. “And keep your eyes on that briefcase.”

  “I’ll report back to you, Mr. LeVine.”

  The cab roared away from the curb.

  When I returned to the office, my phone was ringing.

  I recognized Madge Durham’s voice.

  “President Savage on the line from Chicago, Mr. LeVine.”

  “LeVine, how goes it?” Savage sounded crisp and confident.

  “Somebody just took another shot at me, so I must be getting warm.”

  “Good Christ, man, are you all right?”

  “They keep missing and as long as they do, I’m content.”

  “Should I hire a couple of bodyguards?”

  “They’d just get in the way. Besides, I’m a tough guy. How’s Anne?”

  “She didn’t make the trip,” he said, matter-of-factly. Society families are wonderful. “How has my hunch about the Syndicate worked out, LeVine? You find it sound?”

  “I can’t give you a yes or a no yet, Mr. Savage, but I think they can be bluffed off, whoever they are.”

  “How?”

  “I’d rather not say over the phone.”

  “I can understand that.” He paused and there was a thin kind of whistling noise on the line. It wasn’t the best connection. “Listen LeVine, I’ll be in New York this afternoon. Tom wil
l be nominated at about noon, then he’ll give a speech and attend a luncheon. We expect to catch a three o’clock flight into New York. He’d like to meet you.”

  “Who?” I knew who and what-a royal bitch it was.

  “The next president,” Savage chortled. “We’ll be at the Sherry. Why don’t you come by at around nine-thirty. That will give us a chance to freshen up a bit. We’ll be in room 1807. Go to the desk and they’ll have your name.”

  “Mr. Savage, why does Dewey want to meet with me now?”

  “As you said, let’s talk about it in person. I’ve got to run now, LeVine. I want to be at the Amphitheater when the balloting starts. Be seeing you at nine-thirty.”

  He hung up and I was left listening to the whistling of the bum connection. All I needed was Dewey. Half a day after he gets nominated and he’s got to see LeVine. First the Democrats and generals try to buy me off, now a nighttime rendezvous with the Grand Old Party. I didn’t like it at all; it was a great big pain in the neck. Obviously, Dewey knew about the shakedown and wanted a word with the detective in charge. Just like the old days for him. Translated into the various possibilities it came out this way:

  A) Savage told Dewey he felt the Syndicate was in back of the shakedown. Racketbuster Tom asks me what I think about Savage’s hunch. If I say no, I have to give an alternative. If I say yes, Dewey and I go through an incredible song and dance, he throwing names and places at me, I hemming, hawing and blowing my nose. It didn’t sound nice.

  B) Dewey has a hunch himself, for example the right one—that the Democrats had their hands on Savage’s scrotum and were squeezing. What do I think of this? Who’s in back of it? Names and places, dates and faces. Once again, I have to soft-shoe or Dewey might want to blow the whole thing wide open and ride it to victory, even if Savage got a little burned.

  C) Dewey just wants to pat me on the back, ask a few questions and wish me luck.

  C didn’t shape up too well and I thought B more an outside shot. A looked pretty good to me and it meant I’d have to go on the offensive, dream up a plan of action and avoid cross-examination. I told myself that Savage had hired me for one purpose: to stop the blackmail. Beyond that, I didn’t have to say or do a goddamn thing.

  I turned on my little Stromberg-Carlson and tuned in the Convention, trying to piece together some kind of battle plan for Savage. Dewey’s name was placed in nomination after a couple of people had favorably compared him to Lincoln, Henry Ford, and Jesus H. Christ. I listened, thought, and filled my ashtray with a gnarled pile of cigarette butts.