Doc sat down at his desk after setting the coffee pot on the hot plate, and opened the folder someone had placed squarely in the middle of the blotter so he wouldn’t miss it. He opened it and saw it was the client report on the Birnbaum job. Louie must have done it to impress, and maybe to make up for losing track of Birnbaum last week. Just as he began to read it, the door opened and Louie came in.
“Hey, Doc! Got the new window in, huh? When are we gonna get it lettered?” Louie sounded extra chipper. He offered no excuse. Zero points on the dart board.
“I got Redbone working on it. Hey, Louie?”
“Yeah, Doc?” Louie hung his coat up and was making his way over to his table when Doc held up the report with two fingers like a used handkerchief.
“What’s this?”
“Pretty good, huh? That’s the Birnbaum case. Makes ya proud, don’t it?”
“Louie, that’s not a report. I’ve seen reports, they don’t look like this.”
Louie was impervious to insults. He took a magazine out of his back pocket, sat at his table, put his feet up and began to read.
“Come on, Doc. That’s a completely usable report.”
“Yeah. For the bottom of a bird cage.”
“Tell me one thing that’s wrong with it?”
“‘Followed subject as he disembowelled himself from the station’.”
“That’s right! Disembowelled! It means to remove. I looked it up! Hey, Doc, look at this! Five acres of land for only 500 bucks! What a deal!”
“Yeah? Where? Siberia?” Doc crumpled the report and threw it in the trash.
“No, better, Southern Florida,” Louie related. “Some place called Coconut Grove.” He circled the article with his pencil.
“You ever been to Southern Florida, Louie?”
“No. But you have. Just recently, too, haven’t ya?” Louie laughed. Doc didn’t.
“You better get on the ball, Bonehead. If I’m not mistaken, you got about three weeks to your State Board exam. You screw it up because you’re trying to describe the ‘ambulance of a room’ on your final test report, and you’re gonna be back haulin’ garbage with ya cousin Guido!”
“Come on, Doc! Don’t I always pull through?” Louie opened the manual and started to idly flip through the pages. “Hey! Speakin’ of screwin’ up, you called that broad down on Church Street yet?”
“She’s not a broad, Louie. She’s a good kid that’s had a tough break.” Doc removed a blank Client Report form from the files and began to fill out a new Birnbaum report.
“Sorry, Doc. You called that nice broad that’s had a tough break down on Church Street yet?” Louie lowered his magazine. “How the hell you know she’s had a tough break? She spill her guts to you already?”
“Louie, what do private detectives do?”
“Well, in this town one of two things. They pay the cops or the judges to get work or… they starve. Which is probably why that prick Sammon is doin’ so good uptown.”
“They detect. That’s what they do. Now get your head outta yer ass, Louie, ’cause you’re
PISSIN’ME OFF
!”
Louie never saw it coming. Doc blindsided him by flinging a copy of the New York State Private Investigators’ Regulations at him and nearly knocked him off his chair.
“Jesus, Doc! What the hell was that for?” He sat up straight and started to pay attention. Exactly the intended effect.
“Louie, you got a lotta potential. But you piss me off with your nonchalant attitude. You better start payin’ attention! Because someday, when your ass is draggin’ in the dirt and you least expect it, some asshole cop, some irate husband, or just some punk off the street is gonna put one in your back! Doris and the kids ain’t gonna make it on what their handin’ out downtown, god-damn it!” The part about Louie’s family was unexpected, by Doc as well as Louie. Doc realised he had recently developed an uncontrollable gut reaction to images of kids and family.
Louie looked down at the manual. It was impossible to find
the right words. “Jesus, Doc, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you cared. I’ll…”
“Don’t say it! Just do it! Be a detective, god-damn it!”
“Christ Doc! Don’t you think I wanna be? I try my ass off to figure stuff out. Get clues, find traces. Nuthin’! And then there’s you! You look at a god-damned piece of dust and give me the history of the room! I can’t do that. Honest ta Christ, Doc, I don’t know how you’re not rich! You should’a stayed on the force. You’d’a made Chief by now.”
Louie’s retort was disarming, but Doc wouldn‘t be thrown off the track of trying to focus his best friend.
“I couldn’t stay on the force because most of those guys are in it for the steady pay check and the pension. Half the shit they solve gets solved because some guy rolled over for them, the other half gets solved because the crook screws up. Look, Louie, you gotta feel it. Here, in your gut. You gotta eat it, sleep it, breathe it and shit it. You gotta want it! It’s not about the money. It’s about doin’ somethin’ you love. Somethin’ you’re good at. Somethin’ you’re passionate about!”
“Yeah, but Doc. I ain’t no good at nuthin’! Hell, I nearly lost that old Birnbaum guy last week and he’s older then Methuselah!” Louie looked down at the desk. Doc guessed what was coming. “And there’s something I gotta tell ya. I broke a rule. A rule of tailing.”
“Yeah, I know. He saw you.” Louie’s head snapped to the upright position, and he looked at Doc like a dog seeing its own image in a mirror for the first time.
“Now see, damn it! How the hell did you know that?”
“I pay attention.” Louie continued to stare. Doc felt compelled to explain. “You told me you and Birnbaum came downtown on the same train, that means you got off the train at the same time, at Wall Street. I saw you were in the phone booth before Birnbaum was through the door. And, since the phone is further up the street than the door, that means at some point you had to cross in front of or by him. So I had to assume that you were made.” Louie was relieved Doc hadn’t deduced the screw-up on the platform.
“The important thing is, that he didn’t see you in two separate locations during the tail. That’s a dead giveaway.” Louie was exasperated. He threw the book on the desk and himself back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes.
“Look, I’ll help you. Teach you everything I can. But you gotta work with me here, Louie. Louie!” He looked back at Doc. “Focus, will ya?”
“I will, Doc.”
“I’m serious!”
“I will!”
Doc had no way to know if he had really got through. If he hadn’t, he would try again.
“Good. Now, where were we?”
“You were just about to tell me why you’re so chicken to call that girl, what’d you say her name was?”
“I didn’t. Her name is Nikki. Nikki Cole.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“You gonna call her? Or you gonna wear your heart on your sleeve the rest of your life?”
“I don’t know. I gotta think about it.”
“Think about it? What the hell is there to think about? Ya pick up the phone, ya dial the number, she answers, ya pop the question!”
Doc winced.
“Sorry, bad choice of words!”
“I don’t wanna seem too anxious. Besides I don’t even have her number.” Louie reached into his pocket and removed a small piece of paper from his wallet. He got up and laid it neatly on the corner of Doc’s desk, smoothing it out a little for effect.
“What the hell’s that?”
“Delancy 5 9000. Number to the switchboard at the Federal Building. You know, down on Church Street.”
“What? You think I wasn’t gonna look it up?”
“Yeah, Doc McKeowen. The original Romeo. Like the last day before Prom Night when you were tryin’ ta get up the guts ta ask Charlene Meeny ta go with ya.”
“What’s your point?”
“Jesus, Doc! The day before?”
“I like suspense. Besides, I already knew she didn’t have a date.” Doc tried to remain casual.
“Then, during third period break, you came around the corner like a bat outta hell ’cause you were late for gym and
slam
! There goes Charlene Meany bouncing down the hall on her bony ass like a little blonde basketball.”
“Hey, I got the date, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but you were shittin’ like a dog in a Chinese restaurant when you asked her!”
“So, I asked her!”
“Then the poor little thing had to limp into the dance from the size of the bruise she had.”
“I suppose you saw pictures?”
“Jesus, ya asked her while she was still sittin’ on the floor! What were you doin’? Waitin’ ta see if she refused before you’d help her up?”
“Prom night? Isn’t that the same night Doris slapped the hell outta you for gettin’ so – ”
“Don’t change the subject, councillor! From what you told me and what I saw through that door, Nikki looked pretty good to me. And you know me, I’m no judge of women.” Louie walked over to the hot plate and poured two cups of coffee. “Besides, Doris thinks it would be…”
“Doris? Christ, Mancino! Now I’m in the gossip columns?”
“Then give them somethin’ ta gossip about, damn it! Call her!” Louie coaxed.
Doc picked up the piece of paper and put it in his wallet. “I’ll call her!” Louie continued to stare. “I said I’ll call! Later! I gotta be uptown at eleven. I have to go convince Mrs Birnbaum her husband is a patriot, not a playboy.”
Doc went over to the rack and put on his coat. “Meanwhile, you stay here till I get back. With your nose in that Reg. Book.”
As he was halfway out of the door, Doc turned back to Louie.
“Yeah, Doc?”
“She didn’t tell me anything about her personal life. She was defensive, but pretended she didn’t know how to fix the jack plugs on her switchboard. She had pat answers to my questions, and was middle to late twenties.” As he spoke, Doc counted out the points he was making by extending the fingers of his right hand. “And she wore a charm bracelet with the name ‘Katie’ on it and a wedding ring on a chain around her neck. How did I know she had a rough break? Figure it out. See ya in a couple of hours.” Doc left.
Louie hung his head as the door slammed shut and muttered, “I hate it when he does that shit!”
The gargantuan sundial of the milky white Washington Monument towered over the tree-lined Reflecting Pool, casting its long, late afternoon shadow across Jefferson Drive. The Potomac appeared bluer than he remembered it, roughly flowing in stark contrast to the well groomed, motionless, green landscape of Arlington and its endless speckle of white headstones. Hoover felt a comfortable wave of familiarity wash over him. He was home; Washington, where he had the connections, knew the system and had the operatives positioned to find out whatever it was he wanted to know.
And the thing that he wanted to know right now was who had the audacity to order the arrest of three of his agents? It couldn’t have been locals, the disguises his agents described were too professional and, after their arrests, they were taken to a military installation. It could only be interpreted one way. Somebody was flexing their muscle.
Never having been a field man, Hoover was always uncomfortable away from his desk. His state of mind was greatly exacerbated by having been in New York a little too long for his liking. It wasn’t his territory, people didn’t intimidate easily enough. To add to his sense of aggravation about New York, his mind once again turned to the fact that he had not been consulted on the investigation of the Normandie. Even though they said it was a clear-cut accident, the FBI should’ve been called in. We should be called in on all large-scale accidents, he reasoned. Why the hell didn’t the White House understand that? And what the hell was that Alien Registration Bill Roosevelt vetoed, on the same exact day of the fire? What the hell was wrong with him? How could he not see that America was being attacked from all sides and that the FBI were Her only hope? Twisting around in his seat, peering out the airplane window, his thoughts continued to flow.
Maybe we should try and appropriate funding for our own air force? He thought of the stiff opposition he was likely to get, based on the grounds that the war effort took priority for men and materials. However, he reasoned, if the American people were told it was needed to enhance the war effort, they would get behind it. He made a mental note to bring it up at a later date.
His most haunting thought, though, was that in any other circumstance, Hoover had his entire bureau at his disposal. Through a combination of field work and the process of elimination, he could find out who the culprits were. However, now he wasn’t dealing with criminals. He was dealing with someone who knew the game at least as well as he did. His bureau was of little use to him now because the authority obviously came from someone higher up, but who? There weren’t that many higher up. At least not in his mind.
He did not like being on the outside looking in.
A 1942 black Plymouth sedan was waiting on the tarmac and Hoover went straight for it, walking as fast as he could. His two bodyguards and official aide walked at a moderate pace so as not to pass him.
Even the most ruthless crime bosses had an occasional drink or meal with their men. Hoover, on the other hand, never made the mistake of appearing approachable.
Once inside the car, no one spoke until Hoover started the conversation, and then they addressed only the subject he choose.
“Rollins, what time is it?”
“Half past four, Mr Hoover.”
“Driver, head straight for the Bureau building!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir, you have a meeting with some of the Chicago agents this evening at – ”
“Reschedule it for tomorrow.”
Hoover was in a position that was unfamiliar to him, and he had been taken completely off guard by the chain of events in New York. As a consequence, he was still unsure of what to do next.
“Rollins!” Rollins removed a pad of paper from his satchel and prepared to write.
“Sir?” Hoover had already begun speaking.
“Call the New York DA’s office and ask them for their status on the Normandie investigation.”
“The luxury liner?”
“Yeah. Tell them you’re from the Department of Transportation.” The other three men in the car gave a quick glance in Hoover’s direction and then at each other.