"So, Antsy, will you be joining Snap and me in reporting on our esteemed presidential candidates?" Dirk O'Farrell asked Anson Masters. "We already know that Packy here has taken a pass on covering the nocturnal politicking."
"No, Dirk, I have done that sort of thing more times than I care to count," Masters replied. "My God, I've been covering presidential conventions and visits since…let's see…1912."
I realized that a Pandora's box full of Anson's reminiscences had been opened and there was no closing it, at least for the moment.
"That 1912 campaign was really something," he went on, leaning back in his chair. "I covered it for the old Inter Ocean, which was in its last days. Taft was the incumbent, but Teddy Roosevelt wanted to get back to the White House. The Republican convention got held in Chicago, and even though most people in the G.O.P. wanted Teddy, Taft controlled the delegates and got the nomination. Teddy and his crew stormed out and formed their own 'Bull Moose' party."
"That's when Roosevelt got shot, eh?" Jeff from City News asked, remembering our earlier conversation.
"Yes, later that year," Masters said. "After the Bull Moose people walked out on the G.O.P., they ended up holding their own convention at the Auditorium Theatre. What a show it was. They nominated Teddy, of course, and Jane Addams of Hull House gave the seconding speech. Then Roosevelt gave one of the greatest talks I've ever heard in accepting the nomination. I remember it like it was yesterday."
"Very interesting, Antsy," Packy Farmer put in. "But Roosevelt didn't get back into the White House, did he?"
"No. His jumping into the race split the Republican votes between the Bull Moose–or Progressives, as they formally called themselves–and Taft. Woodrow Wilson won the election with less than half the popular votes and Teddy finished second. Poor fat Taft was a distant third. Quite a humiliation for an incumbent president."
Masters then launched into some other campaign stories, including the other Roosevelt dramatically flying into Chicago in 1932 to accept the Democratic nomination at the convention. I think he might have gone on all morning if my phone hadn't rung. It was Elsie down in Fergus Fahey's office.
"The chief would like to see you, right now if possible," she said.
I told her I was on my way and headed out into the hall, saying "Duty calls" over my shoulder to the press room crew.
"Something urgent?" I asked as I breezed into Elsie's cramped alcove.
"I can't answer that, Snap, but he did seem awfully anxious to see you. Go on in," she said, handing me a steaming mug of coffee.
"Responding to your summons," I told Fahey as I sat opposite him after closing the door behind me.
"There's been another one," he muttered, giving me a sour expression.
"Another what?"
"Murder, dammit! Up on
Lincoln Avenue a little north of Belmont. We haven't released any information yet; thought I'd give you a heads-up first and you can pass the information along to the boys upstairs." "Good of you, Fergus. What's the story?" I asked, pencil and notebook in hand.
"Guy named Goldman, Ed Goldman, forty-one, bachelor, lived in a flat in
Logan Square," he said, giving the address. "Assistant manager of a National Tea grocery store out west on Belmont. He was found in an alley early this morning with his throat slit." "Ugly stuff."
"It gets uglier. The knife used to kill him was buried in his chest, and it had been stuck through a sheet of paper with the Star of David drawn on it."
"My God, The New Reich again?"
The chief's shrug was a tacit confirmation.
"Any other message found with the body?"
"Certainly not a suicide note," Fahey growled. "No. Nothing else."
"You been able to find out anything else about this Goldman?"
"Not yet, although we've got several men out there poking around. I want to keep the Star of David part quiet, at least for now."
"You've got it. Is he at the morgue?"
"Probably, by now; if not, very soon," Fahey answered, looking at his pocket watch.
"I'd like to see the body."
"Why?" he asked with raised eyebrows.
"Just a hunch."
"Snap, what are you up to?"
"I knew a guy named Ed Goldman once, years ago," I improvised.
"Yeah?" The suspicion stayed in his tone.
"He worked in a little ma-and-pa grocery up in
Logan Square when I lived there with my first wife. Seemed like a good guy." That appeared to satisfy Fahey, if only for the moment. He knew I had lived in
Logan Square with Norma, so my story held some water. But he wasn't done. "Snap, I don't know what you're up to, if anything. But I do know that you've conducted more than your share of maverick investigations in the past, and in the process you've also gotten into more than your share of trouble. But this is different, much different. We're talking about a possible assassination attempt on the president, and if you know anything whatever that might help us stop such an attempt, goddammit, we have to know it too. Got it?"
"Got it," I replied. "Fergus, I swear to you that if I learn anything that might help catch these New Reich bastards, you'll hear about it from me. After all, I've shared all these notes and calls from them, haven't I?"
Fahey looked doubtful. "All right," he finally said. "I'll have Elsie check with the morgue and call you upstairs if Goldman's body is there."
I thanked him and went back up to the press room, where Anson Masters was still pontificating about past presidential conventions and campaigns he had covered. "In 1920," he said, "the Republicans met here, and they had four candidates trying to get the nomination. It took them ten ballots and they finally picked Warren Harding, the weakest of the lot. It was the biggest travesty I've ever–"
At this point, I decided to interrupt. "There's been a murder up on the North Side," I told them, proceeding to give them the bare facts I'd gotten from Fahey, excluding the Star of David element.
"Goldman, huh?" O'Farrell said. "A Jew, huh? Could be more of this New Reich crap."
"Could be," I agreed. "So far, the police don't know much, don't know anything about a motive." With that, I phoned in my own report on the murder. Just after I hung up from talking to the City Desk, my instrument rang. It was Elsie.
"Mr. Goldman's…body…is at the morgue," she said in an unusually somber tone for her. I said thank you without speaking her name and turned to my colleagues. "That was one of my dear editors on the phone," I told them. "I've got to go over to the Tower for a conversation about the coverage of the candidates. I shouldn't be gone more than an hour or so."
Outside, I flagged a Yellow cab, destination: the County Morgue. I've had to visit the morgue only a few times over the years, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a few times too many. As a police reporter for half my life, I've seen my share of corpses, but it's always worse seeing them at the morgue. Other than the dreary surroundings, I suppose it is the utter finality and dehumanizing aspect of the place.
The taxi made its way to the sprawling medical center on the Near West Side, where the morgue is located in a bland little building wedged in amongst the much larger hospitals and medical schools.
I went in and introduced myself to a raw-boned old geezer at the front counter who wore a green eyeshade and– believe it or not–garters on the sleeves of his striped dress shirt.
"Oh, yeah, got a call that you'd be coming," he said, studying me through thick, rimless glasses. "Tribune, eh?"
I nodded, showing him my press card.
"Don't get many newspaper fellers comin' in here these days. Guess they got better things to do, eh?"
"Could be."
"I will never forget the time they brought ol' Dillinger's body in here back in '34 after the feds pumped him full of lead up at that Biograph Theatre on Lincoln," he said with a faraway look in his rheumy eyes. "It was like a goldurn circus, I'm here to tell ya. I've never seen the beat of it. People lined up to see the corpse like it was
some kind of a freak show. If we'd sold tickets, I do believe we woulda made a bundle. Yes sir, those were the days."
"Yes they were," I agreed.
"Now, you want to see this Goldman, right?" he asked, looking down at a sheet on his counter.
"Yes."
"Some sort of story in this?" the coot asked.
"No, I just think he might be somebody I knew once, a long time ago," I answered, the impatience probably evident in my tone.
"Well, somebody had it in for him, that's for sure, yes they did. C'mon back."
I followed his shuffling gait into the long cold room where a peculiar smell–likely formaldehyde–permeated the space. It had been years since I had set foot here, but everything seemed the same. The overhead globes cast a dull yellowish hue adding to the pall. Metal drawers–one corpse to a drawer–filled the wall from floor to ceiling. The old fellow peered at nametags until he found the one he was looking for.
"Ah, Goldman…here we are," he wheezed. "Still sure you want to look?"
"I'm sure."
He rolled the big drawer open and drew back the sheet covering the body. I was repelled but not surprised by the distorted and discolored face of the man I had lunched with a few days earlier, a man I had known only as 'Lou.'
"Sad business," the old man said, shaking his head and making a sucking sound. "This the guy you knew?"
"No…it's not him."
"Well, I s'pose there's lots of Goldmans around town, eh?"
"Yes, I'm sure there must be."
"Well, you've got to be relieved now, anyway. Woulda been awful to know one of your friends ended up dying that way."
"Yes, I'm very relieved," I told him, then I walked out into the wonderfully fresh air of a sunny, late October day and flagged a cab.
When I got back to Police Headquarters, I went straight to Fahey's office and dropped into a chair. He looked up with a questioning expression.
"Okay, Fergus, I've got something to tell you."
"That so?" he said, looking at me over the glasses perched halfway down his nose.
"That man I went to view in the morgue–I'd met him before."
"But not in a grocery in
Logan Square." "No." I proceeded to tell him about the lunch, without mentioning Pickles Podgorny or his role. I was going to be as open as I could with Fahey, but there was a limit.
"So this guy Lou–or rather Goldman–had infiltrated the Nazi group, or so he thought, right?"
"Or so he thought."
"Christ, why didn't you tell me anything about this before, Snap?"
"Because I felt this guy Goldman was a phony. His story sounded fishy to me from the start. He didn't want to say where the German restaurant was that The New Reich held their meetings at, and he also didn't seem the least bit upset about the killings of the cop and the fireman and the shooting of the rabbi. I thought he could have been a Nazi himself, trying to learn more about Jewish groups."
"You were wrong."
"I don't have to be told that, Fergus."
"So…if we had known about all this, Goldman might still be alive."
"I doubt that very much. If The New Reich was intent on bumping him off, they would have found a way, sorry to say. What would you have done, put him under some kind of protective custody?"
Fahey made a face. "How did you find out about this Goldman in the first place?"
"Through one of my contacts on the street."
"I suppose you're not going to identify him?"
"You suppose correctly."
"Just remember, Snap, we're talking about the possible shooting of a president."
"I assure you, it has never been far from my mind."
"Have you heard from these damn Nazis since the Goldman killing?"
"No, but I probably will if they run true to form. I'll let you know."
"Be sure to do that," Fahey snapped, returning to his paperwork.
Sure enough, I had been back in the press room for only ten minutes when my phone rang.
"So, Mr. Malek, I'm sure that you've taken note of the body found in an alley on the North Side."
"Want to tell me about it?"
"I'm sure I don't have to. And I hope we'll read about it in your newspaper."
"There will be something in tomorrow's editions," I replied.
"Will it mention The New Reich and the…uh, item found on the body?"
"You'll have to buy the paper to find out."
"He was a spy, Mr. Malek, plain and simple. A Jew spy. As I'm sure you are aware, governments around the world have a long tradition of executing spies."
"I wasn't aware you and your organization comprised a government, Mr.…"
"Consider us The Third Reich in exile, Mr. Malek."
"I consider you mainly scum–that is, if I think about you at all."
"Not a good attitude to take, sir. I was always under the impression that newspapers thrive on scoops, and I have offered you several so far, but you have chosen to ignore them."
"We seem to continue talking in circles. You would stand a far better chance of getting coverage if we could meet."
"We have been over that before and it is not worth wasting any more breath on. By the way, if you are trying to keep me on the line so you can trace this call, don't bother. I will be gone from this place long before the police arrive. Oh, and Mr. Malek?"
"Yes?"
"I have now seen you. And I must say that judging from your voice, I was expecting a much taller, more virile individual. You are not terribly prepossessing in person."
"Sorry to disappoint you."
"Oh, I'm not disappointed in the least, Mr. Malek. Before I hang up, I have these words for you: Truman must die. And there is absolutely nothing that you or the police or the FBI or the Secret Service can do to stop it. Nothing."
I had no retort, and even if I had, there was no one at the other end to hear it.
Chapter Seventeen
V4 E1 R1 B3 A1 T1 I1 M3
(adv, adj) in exactly the same words; word for word
To show Fahey that I was earnest in trying to help, I immediately went back to his office and repeated our phone conversation verbatim. At the risk of bragging, I'm good at remembering every word of a dialogue.
"That miserable Nazi," he raged. "Well, going back to what the late Mr. Goldman told you–assuming he could be believed–at least the good news, if there is any, is that this is a pretty small group we're dealing with."
"True, but it doesn't take a lot of people to cause a lot of trouble. I think that man John Wilkes Booth, who shot Lincoln, was operating pretty much on his own. Same for the killers of those other presidents back in the last century, Garfield and McKinley."
"Okay, so you know your history," the chief growled. "Don't show off."
"Sorry, Fergus. It's just that even if only one man is involved, it can be hard to stop him."
Fahey nodded and reached for a cigarette. "Stay in touch," he said. "And for God's sake, don't try to play the Lone Ranger again. It hasn't worked all that well for you in the past."
"Thanks for the reminder," I told him. I excused myself and headed back to the press room. As I climbed the flight of worn marble stairs, I mused on how–and where–the New Reich voice had seen me.
Perhaps he had stationed himself outside Police Headquarters and spotted me on my way to or from the job, or heading out to lunch. But if that were the case, how would he have recognized me? My photo had never been in the Tribune–or any other paper, for that matter.
Back at my desk, I half-heartedly joined in a discussion about whether the latest polls showing Dewey in the lead were reliable. After ten minutes of mostly listening to the opinions of my fellow reporters, I went down to the lobby, eased into a phone booth and dropped a nickel into the slot.
Pickles Podgorny answered on the fourth ring. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, star reporter?" he asked.
"Have you heard about Lou, the guy that we had lunch with?"
>
"No, why?"
"For the record, his real name was Ed Goldman. He was found early today in an alley with his throat slit."
"No shit?"
"No shit. And they used the knife a second time, to nail a paper with a Star of David on it into his chest."
"Oh my God, that's…that's…" His voice trailed off.
"Now listen, Pickles, I want to see the man who hooked you up with Goldman. What's his name again–Arnie Kravitz?"
"I can't do that, Snap. It's–"
"Shut up, Pickles! You can and you will. As it is, I've got Fergus Fahey all over me right now. I'm trying to keep you and the Kravitz guy out of all this, but by God, if you don't play ball with me, I'll hand you both to the chief."
"Shit, Snap, you wouldn't do that."
"Just try me, card sharp. We're all up to our asses in this one."
He emitted a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. "Geez, I don't even know if I can find Arnie."
"Bullshit, Pickles. Don't give me that helpless crap–it's not like you. I want a meeting with you and Kravitz and I want it today. Understand?"
The silence at the other end went on so long I thought he'd hung up on me, except I never heard a dial tone. Finally he spoke: "I'll try to find him and call you."
"All right. Let's see, it's just after two. I'm here 'til five, and we can meet someplace quiet for a drink after I get off. There's a little joint on Van Buren in the Loop under the El tracks…"
At four-fifteen, Pickles phoned me in the press room. "Arnie really doesn't want to see you or me either," he said plaintively.
"We've been all through that; he doesn't have a choice, unless he wants to make a visit to Headquarters," I said, keeping my voice low.
"I explained all that to him, and he gave me an argument. But when I mentioned Chief Fahey, he, well, changed his mind."
"So as I said before, there's this little saloon on Van Buren near Dearborn called Sonny's. We'll meet in exactly one hour, at five-fifteen. If you and Kravitz get there first, take one of the booths toward the back. We'll have more privacy there."
A President In Peril (A Snap Malek Mystery) Page 13
