"That so? Well, no insult intended. Now, can we talk turkey?"
"Fire away. You're footing the tab for this fine repast."
"Before I go on, I just realized that I don't know much about your distant past. Are you by any chance Jewish? I have a reason for asking."
"Sort of, which is to say, I'm really not much of anything, at least not in what you would call a religious sense. My father was a Russian Jew, my mother a Romanian Catholic. They both were born in Europe, and they met on a boat coming over here way back before the turn of the century. Sounds like something out of a movie, huh?"
"And you were born here?"
"Yeah, right over on
West Roosevelt Road, not two miles from where we're sitting now. My parents got married in New York after knowing each other for only two weeks or so. Then they came to Chicago because my father had a cousin in the scrap metal business, and he took my old man on. It was enough to live on, I guess. Both my folks are gone now, and I was an only child, so I'm all there is. End of story." "Quite a story it is, Pickles," I said as our food came. "Now I've got a story for you as well."
"Just a wild guess, but does it have something to do with Jews?"
"Sort of, yeah. Seems there's a group in town calling itself The New Reich."
Pickles dropped his sandwich on the plate and gaped at me. "Geez, you mean like Nazis?"
"So it seems. They–or maybe it's just one person–hate Jews."
"Nothin' new about that; it's been going on for thousands of years. But I would have thought they'd pick some other word than 'reich' after the way it got used by Adolf and his goddamn thugs."
"So you would think. No accounting for bigotry, I guess. Anyway, I thought you might have heard of this outfit, if that's what it is."
"Nope, not a word. And just how do you come to know about it?"
I proceeded to fill Pickles in on the last few days, omitting nothing.
"My God, whoever this is claims they want to bump off Truman?"
"That's how it looks, and I've got to wonder what else is going to happen before the president gets to town. Pickles, you have a lot of pipelines running all through the, shall we say, underbelly of this city. What are the chances you can find anything out about these wannabe Nazis?"
The little gambler bit a chunk out of his second kosher dill and frowned. "I got me a couple ideas. I know I shouldn't be mercenary, what with a president's life maybe at stake and all, but what's in this for me, oh gazetteer to the masses?"
"Gazetteer, eh? That sounds like a good Scrabble word."
"Scrabble? What the hell is that?"
"Never mind. Okay, Pickles, I think we can come up with a few greenbacks to reward you for your noble efforts."
"Would that by any chance be in the form of…an advance?"
I sniffed and reached for my billfold. "Here's a crisp Hamilton, looks like it's just off the press. If you find out anything helpful, I'll match it." I made a mental note to put the sawbuck on my expense account under 'sources', which had always worked before.
Pickles folded the ten-dollar bill, then folded it again and slipped it into a vest pocket. His expression was joyless. "Ah, Snap, I must say that I was hoping for more up front, an Andy Jackson at the very least, and maybe even a U.S. Grant. But because of our enduring friendship, I will reluctantly settle for less than I deserve."
"What you deserve remains to be seen, you old rogue. And erase any thoughts of a piece of U.S. Grant currency. Fifty-dollar bills are not part of this discussion. Care to tell me anything about those 'couple of ideas' you claim to have?"
"At present, I do not. I gather from what you said earlier that the esteemed chief of detectives is at a loss regarding all of this."
"So far, yes."
A twinkle came to Pickles' watery eyes. "Now wouldn't that be something if I beat the coppers to the punch. Seems like it would be worth maybe a double sawbuck or even more, eh?"
"Not so fast, Poker Puss. Let's just see what you come up with first," I told him as I left a tip on the table and rose to leave.
Chapter Seven
C3 O1 N1 F4 L1 A1 G2 R1 A1 T1 I1 O1 N1
(n) a large and destructive fire
When I got back to the press room after lunch, Packy Farmer practically tackled me. "Cripes, I'm glad you're back, Snap. There's been another shooting–a fireman this time, dead. City News just got the bulletin," he said breathlessly, waving in the direction of Jeff, the City News Bureau reporter.
"Yeah, poor guy was sitting outside of his firehouse on South Damen, was shot by somebody going by in a car, so they think," Jeff said.
"Christ, Snap, I'm close to a deadline, so's Anson, although he's not back yet. He and Dirk are still out to lunch, probably having themselves a few martinis. You gotta go and talk to Fahey–get some details fast."
"You know, Packy," I snapped, "nothing was stopping you from going down to see Fergus yourself or even, heaven forbid, picking up the phone and calling the chief. You don't have to wait for me, for God's sake."
"Yeah, but you know Fahey the best. You can get stuff out of him."
"Packy, if I didn't know you better, I'd think that you, supposedly a tough, hard-bitten veteran of a thousand deadlines on a dozen different papers, are afraid of our stalwart chief of detectives. All right, I'll bail you out…again," I muttered over my shoulder, walking out of the press room.
It was only as I started down the single flight of marble stairs to Fahey's floor that it hit me: The New Reich may have struck again.
Elsie wasn't at her desk, so I went straight to the chief's closed door, rapped on it once with my knuckles, and strode in. He looked up with a grimace.
"Fireman shot, right?" I asked.
He nodded slowly as I sat. "Yeah. Poor bastard was sitting on a chair next to the open doors of a firehouse down on Damen near Pershing Road, reading the paper when somebody–we think going by in a car–fired once and got him square in the pump. We haven't been able to find anybody who saw it."
"Jesus, Fergus, not a single damn witness, not even one?"
"Apparently nobody was walking on that block at the time, and if someone in another automobile saw what happened, they haven't come forward yet. To top it off, nobody in the firehouse saw anything, either. They all ran outside when they heard the shot. They found him slumped in the chair with the paper still clutched in his hands."
"Did this fireman have any enemies?"
Fahey raised his shoulders and let them drop. "Not that we've found out yet, although my men have only radioed in from the scene once so far. They're still out there. The dead man, Charles Mooney, age fifty-four, had been with the department his entire working life, thirty-five years. Exemplary record, citations for bravery twice, six kids, three grandkids. Shit."
"The New Reich," I muttered.
"What? That makes no damned sense!" Fahey exploded.
"Neither does killing a young cop on a sidewalk without a reason," I remarked.
"Huh! We don't know it was them."
"True enough. But I'm willing to bet they take the credit."
"Well, if they do, I'm sure you'll be the one that hears about it first."
"Maybe. Fergus, I hope I'm wrong about this…not that it would bring poor Mr. Mooney back to life either way."
I went on up to the press room. By now, Masters and O'Farrell were back from lunch. I gave them and Farmer what little I'd been able to get from Fahey, and they all turned to their phones.
As they dictated the scant details to their respective city desks, my own instrument rang. The voice at the other end was no surprise.
"Mr. Malek, heard anything interesting lately?" came the nasal tone.
"What do you mean?"
"I think you know exactly what I mean."
"Try me."
"Oh, come now, Mr. Malek. With all the resources at your disposal in that building where you work, you must be aware by now that a member of the Chicago Fire Department has almost surely lost his life, bu
t not while fighting a conflagration."
"Hmm, is that so? Interesting. What can you tell me about it?"
"I did not telephone you to play games, sir. I cannot tell you the name of the dead man because I do not know it, although I strongly suspect that with all your resources, you do."
"I'm all ears, Mr….?"
"A fireman was shot while sitting in front of his engine company, on
Damen Avenue, reading a newspaper, quite possibly your own newspaper. I am reasonably sure that the single bullet fired was sufficient to cause death." "You sound pretty confident of yourself. How do you happen to know this?"
"I pulled the trigger, Mr. Malek. I am a good shot, a very good shot."
"From a moving automobile, no less?"
"Ah, I see that you do know about this occurrence. Good! Good! Are you now ready to write about us?"
"You being The New Reich?"
"Of course."
I needed water, but there was none at hand. "What if I said I would be willing to meet you somewhere so we could talk?" I asked, clearing my throat and licking my lips.
The laugh at the other end was devoid of humor. "Really, Mr. Malek, a veteran reporter like yourself knows better than to suggest such a thing."
"I do not do telephone interviews in situations like this. By the way, just out of curiosity, how do you happen to know who I am? I assume we've never met."
"I have not laid eyes upon you, sir. But you underestimate your notoriety. Besides, a simple phone call to almost anyone in your newsroom would elicit your name."
"Which is what you did?"
That mirthless laugh again. "Your curiosity amuses me. But then, you are a reporter, so I shouldn't be surprised. Does it really matter how I found out who you are?"
"I suppose not," I conceded. I thought again about trying to trace the call, but all of my colleagues were busy on their own phones except Jeff, the City News Bureau kid, who was out of the room. "Do you still have it in your mind to–"
"To kill the Jew-lover Truman? Oh, yes, yes indeed we do. But until we get you to write about us and our quest, another person will die in this city, perhaps every day, every single day. Maybe a young mother next. Or a grocery clerk. Or a nun. Or, sadly, a child. There are so many targets, so many opportunities and no way for anyone to stop us, because there's also no way to guess where we'll strike next."
"Why do you want publicity in the first place?" I asked, making no effort to keep the abhorrence out of my voice. "That would only make your so-called quest more difficult. You'd be alerting every cop and G-man in this town."
"It doesn't matter how alert they are," he shot back. "As I just told you, there is no way to stop us. No way whatsoever."
"Okay, I'll ask again: Why do you want the publicity?"
"It's not enough to kill the president. That's really the easy part–ridiculously easy. What we need now is to let the world know who we are, what we stand for, what our goals are."
"The world isn't going to like what they hear."
"So you say. It is easy to tell that you don't like our goals or our methods. But thousands, hundreds of thousands, will cheer us on, just like they did in Germany. And our ranks will grow, again just as they did in Germany."
"And look what happened to Germany as a result. Do you think they will really cheer about how you shot a young cop, or a heroic fireman? And what about killing young mothers and nuns and kids? What do you think the reaction to that will be?"
"As someone once said, desperate times call for desperate measures, Mr. Malek. And these indeed are desperate times. All that the Fuehrer was trying to accomplish has been temporarily stymied. But only temporarily. We are here to continue his work, and we need to get the word out to the widest possible audience."
"But why come to me? There are plenty of other newspapers, three of them in fact, right here in this very town."
"But yours is the biggest, the mightiest, the most powerful. And, like us, you hate Truman."
"Not hate. Dislike perhaps, at least in our editorial page stance. But any reasons that the Tribune has for opposing Truman have nothing in common with yours, nothing at all."
"So you say. Have you informed your editors about us?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe means yes, of course. And what is their response?"
"The same as mine. However, I am willing to meet you and hear you out in greater detail."
"We have already been through that, sir. You can get everything you need on the telephone, talking just like we are now."
"Uh-uh. It doesn't work that way. Face to face or no story. Nothing. Period."
He exhaled hoarsely. "You realize, Mr. Malek, that you have just sentenced another person to death, indeed perhaps several more. You will be hearing from us again."
I tried to keep the conversation alive, but before I could get another word out, the firm click on the other end told me that I would be talking only to myself.
Chapter Eight
R1 A1 U1 C3 O1U1 S1
(adj.) harsh; strident; grating
For the next two days, I figured I would leave behind all thoughts of the so-called 'New Reich.' This was my third annual football weekend visit to my son down at the University of Illinois. I packed an overnight bag, bid Catherine goodbye, and on Saturday morning rode the Illinois Central's eight-fifteen train south to the school. Peter was at the Champaign station to meet me when we pulled in a few minutes after ten o'clock.
"It's really terrific to see you, Dad," he said with an enthusiasm that pleased me immeasurably. "We've got good tickets–forty-yard line. After the game, I want you to meet Amanda."
"So she's not going to the game with us?" I asked as we stopped for coffee and a sweet roll in a noisy café a block from the depot in downtown Champaign.
He smiled and flushed. "She said we should spend some time together, just the two of us, as I don't get to see you all that often. We'll meet her after the game."
"Great by me," I said. "By the way, let me reimburse you for the tickets."
"Not necessary," he said. "I got them from a fellow in the architecture school who went home to Springfield to see his girlfriend, like he does most weekends. He wouldn't take any money for them. I've always had the impression that he comes from quite a bit of dough. Oh, and by the way, I've arranged it so you can sleep in his room in the dorm tonight."
"A nice friend to have! By all means thank him for me. Now, on to more important issues: Are we expecting a victory today?" I asked as we left the diner and began the fifteen-minute walk to the stadium, on one of those sunny and breezy days that can make a Midwestern autumn so enjoyable.
"A fairly good chance," Peter answered. "As you know, we're not very good, but then neither is Purdue. There's supposed to be a big crowd this afternoon. Maybe that will help us. What's going on at work?"
"The usual stuff," I said off-handedly, then decided to tell him about the activities of the last few days. When I finished, he was open-mouthed.
"God, that's really terrible, Dad. After all we've learned about what went on in Europe during the war. But I even know about a guy here who…" His words trailed off and he shook his head as we stopped at a corner to let auto traffic pass.
"A guy here who what?" I prompted.
Peter scowled. "I don't really know him and haven't ever even spoken to him, but he lives in the same dorm as me, one floor up. I'm not even sure what school he's in. Engineering, maybe."
"And what about him?"
"From what I've heard around the dorm, he seems sort of like that…that man, the one you've been getting calls and letters from."
"You mean a Nazi?"
"Well, it sounds pretty harsh when you come out and say it like that, but somebody in the cafeteria the other day claimed that he's got a picture of Hitler up on the wall in his room."
"Maybe that's just a manifestation of some sort of warped college humor," I ventured.
"I don't think so," Peter replied. "From what's been said a
round the building, he thinks Hitler and the Nazis had the right idea."
It was my turn to scowl. "Meaning anti-Semitism, among other things. What's this character's name?"
"Believe it or not, Jones. Alvin or Allen or Albert Jones. I've just heard him called 'Al'."
"Any idea where he's from?"
"Chicago, I think, or maybe some suburb. And like the guy I got our tickets from, he apparently comes from money, too, or so it's said around the dorm. His father is some sort of big industrialist up in the city from what I've heard through the grapevine."
"I guess there's more of that kind of thinking around than I ever imagined," I said, shaking my head. "Very depressing."
"Gee, I'm sorry I mentioned the Jones character," Peter said earnestly. "I meant for this to be a really nice weekend."
"And it will be," I told him with a grin. "Let's go and watch us some Illini football!"
The game that delightful afternoon wasn't for folks who like to see a lot of scoring, but it was enjoyable anyway, and all the more so because Illinois won, 10 to 6.
Purdue's quarterback and star, Bob DeMoss, had a bad day. His passes seemed to go everywhere except into the hands of his receivers, or when they were on target, they got dropped. Although the home team didn't do much better, it was enough to give them their first Big Nine victory of the season and send the crowd home happy.
At halftime, a ceremony out on the field honored Illinois alumnus Lou Boudreau, the player-manager of the Cleveland Indians, who, just a few weeks earlier, had led his team to victory in the World Series against the Boston Braves. It was the first time Cleveland had been in the World Series since back in 1920.
"Did Boudreau ever play football at Illinois?" Peter asked after the game.
"No, but besides being on the baseball team, he made a name for himself in basketball here. Quite a star, he was. I saw him play for Illinois against somebody–DePaul, maybe–in the Chicago Stadium years ago."
A President In Peril (A Snap Malek Mystery) Page 6
