Operation Underworld (37 page)
“The universal motive, Doc. You taught me that.” The only problem Doc and Louie had with finding a bar was which one to choose. They settled on O’Casey’s on 14th and Nassau. Webs of shiny cardboard shamrocks and green crêpe paper loomed everywhere.
“Yeah, greed. But what the hell could he possibly have that anyone would want?”
The middle aged barmaid wearing a green paper hat floated over to the duo. “You boys wanna go again?” Doc looked up at her.
“Yeah one more.” Doc pushed some of the coins forward which he had laying on the bar.
“Well, he sure as hell wasn’t into anything illegal,” Louie said authoritatively.
“You sound like you know that for a fact.” Doc was surprised at Louie’s statement. Louie took one last pull on his beer.
“I do. I had Doris ask around the neighbourhood when we first got the case. Any cleaner, the guy would squeak.”
“Son-of-a-bitch! That gossip circle is good for somethin’, ain’t it?”
“Doc, there’s gotta be a connect with the money.”
“I agree, Louie. But he wasn’t killed for money.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe information.”
“Somthin’ he found out about the money?”
The barmaid brought the drinks, took a few coins from Doc’s pile and began to walk away. “Hey, doll!” Doc called after her.
“Yeah?” She came back over.
“You familiar with the Coroner’s office?”
“You that desperate for a date, honey?”
“Never knew a waitress could resist a bad joke, Louie,” Doc fired back. “I need ta know if there’s a bar or restaurant nearby.” “
There’s Botticelli’s on Temple. Great food, good service,” she informed him.
“You got a phone?”
“In the back, near the john.”
Doc glanced over his pile of coins and picked up a dime. “Ya got a couple’a nickels?” He handed her a dime.
“You want me ta dial the phone and drink ya drink for ya while I’m at it?” she asked.
“We goin’ bar-hoppin’?” Louie threw in.
“Nah. Just had another brainstorm. Be right back.”
“You guys cops or somethin’?” the barmaid asked. Louie slid right into the role.
“Yeah. Workin’ a murder case.” He leaned forward to emphasise the secrecy of the case. “Very hush-hush. Guy worked for the Feds.”
The barmaid had been around the block. “You mean that old guy they fished out of Bushwick, the mail clerk? Amateur job. It wasn’t the Mob. That DA’s just lookin’ ta get himself re-elected.”
Doc returned from his phone call and the barmaid walked away. “You want another one? We got a little while yet,” he asked Louie.
“Nah, let’s walk a little. Talk about the case.” They headed for the door and once over on Nassau Street, flagged a cab. As they got in, Louie offered a theory.
“Doc, I been thinkin’. That was an amateur job. It probably wasn’t the Mob. I’d say that DA’s probably just sayin’ that ta get re-elected.”
Doc and Louie were now accompanied by Harry. Doc had phoned him from O’Casey’s, and they met at Botticelli’s.
The three entered the police headquarters building which housed the Coroner’s main office and approached the watch commander’s desk.
“Coroner’s office?” Doc was brief, but authoritative. They had no business sniffing around this murder case, and if they got caught it would be very expensive. Especially with the phoney twenties and fifties Doc was carrying.
“Downstairs, turn right.” The burly Sergeant never looked up from his paperwork until they had walked away. He puzzled at Harry’s limp and smiled at Louie’s shoes.
“Doc, how come we were waitin’till six-thirty ta show up over here?”
“Change a shift. Night guy’s more likely ta go for a bribe. Besides, less of crowd after hours.”
As they turned right, they could see the Coroner’s office was about fifty yards ahead. However, that was as far as they were going.
The hall was jammed with reporters. Thirty or forty of them. The DA was taking the high profile angle seriously. In just over twenty-four hours, Ira’s murder had become national news.
Wading through the press corps was the little headache. The big headache was the two policemen standing in front of the office door. Not rookie kids, either. If these guys owned dark suits they could have worked for Luciano.
Halfway through the reporters, Doc diverted the trio into the men’s room. Once inside, he cocked back his ball cap and put on his game face.
“This ain’t gonna be easy, guys. If we get nailed, it’s all over but the cryin’. Harry, give me the sack.” Doc brandished the government bifold wallets.
“These ID’s will likely get us by. But neither of you has to do this.”
Harry and Louie reached for the wallets simultaneously.
“I wanna be Johnson,” Louie declared.
“What is this,
What’s My Line
?”
“We gonna stand around jabber-jawin’all night or we gonna do this thing?” Harry asked as he limped towards the door. A moment later, they were in front of the two cops guarding the door.
Doc did the talking. “We’re here to see the Coroner.” He flashed his Treasury Department ID, thumb partially obscuring the photo.
“Is it about the Birnbaum case?”
“Yeah, why?”
“His personal possessions are still at the DA’s. They didn’t bring them over here,” the officer explained. Harry was quiet, but Louie did his best to look like a mean treasury agent.
“Why would we want his personal possessions?”
“Ain’t you guys here to see if his money was phoney?” This is where Doc pulled ahead of the pack in the PI business. When he was pitched a curve ball, he could swing low and inside.
“No, we work with him, down at Third Naval District. His boss, Admiral Mancino, asked us ta look in on how it’s going.” The officers looked at each other. “The Admiral’s flying out to DC tomorrow. He wants ta know the score before he leaves.”
The cops looked at each other a second time in a challenge to see if either one was willing to assume responsibility. Doc picked up on their reluctance. “The Admiral has to report whether or not your people are doing all you can. If not, the FBI’ll be brought in.”
They slowly stepped aside to let the trio pass.
As they went through the door, both cops noticed Louie’s bowling shoes.
“Talk about dedicated. You’d never get me in off the alleys to go back to work,” the older policeman commented.
As soon as they got inside, Louie and Harry realised right away that Coroner’s ’Office’was a misnomer. Through the dim light of the large, open room, they saw what was in fact a large medical lab. Glassware covered black, marble-topped tables, a large beaker boiling, discharging some sort of distillate into a stainless steel receptacle and the whole place appeared abandoned.
“Igor, send up the kites!” Louie commented in a bad accent. Harry shook his head.
Doc disappeared off to the right and Louie went poking around like a kid in a toy store. Harry heard Doc and some young guy talking in the back. Although the voices were subdued, they were clearly audible.
“Look, I appreciate your orders from the DA, but they dragged this guy out of retirement and flew him all the way up here,” Doc explained.
Harry saw the kid poke his head around the corner to look at him. He waved and Doc continued. “Now, I know it’s highly unlikely, but if you guys miss somethin’, especially on the forensics of the money, it’s gonna look pretty bad for the department.” Harry heard Doc pause to let it sink in. “Now, you may not get fired, but you’ll sure as hell be buyin’ your own coffee and donuts till you retire.”
A moment later Doc and the kid emerged from the back
“Doctor Kravitz, this is Special Agent Harry… Patton.”
“No relation,” Harry quickly added.
“And that… that’s agent Johnson.” Doc pointed over to where Louie was trying to see how fast he could get the centrifuge to spin without his pen falling off. “Doctor Kravitz, Harry is one of the world’s leading experts on currency forensics.” They shook hands and Doctor Kravitz displayed a guarded admiration for Harry.
“Harry, the good Doctor has agreed to let us examine a sample of a twenty they have from the money which was found on the deceased.” Kravitz showed Harry to a table and helped him get situated.
While Harry looked through the microscope, Doc quizzed Kravitz.
“Was the victim killed in Brooklyn?”
“No, somewhere else. Probably across the river.”
“How’d they do it?”
“Strangulation. Yesterday, between eleven and one, rough guess.”
“It’s phoney,” Harry announced.
“We haven’t determined that yet,” Kravitz explained.
“Why not?” Harry asked in genuine disbelief.
“We‘ve been concentrating on the body. We haven’t gotten around to the sample and the experts from Albany haven’t arrived.”
“Have you done a simple smug test or a litmus?”
“Well…no.” Kravitz was puzzled. Harry sat back from the scope and went into action.
“I need two strips of litmus paper, five drams of hydrochloric acid, two drams of sulphuric acid, some bicarbonate of soda, sucrose, two droppers, and three pipettes. Oh, and some phenophathelene, if you have it.” Harry looked at Kravitz, who was motionless.
“And a partridge in a pear tree,” Louie chimed in.
“You guys are the strangest treasury agents I’ve ever seen,” Kravitz commented, looking around the room at his guests. He turned to Harry. “You want that SO4 concentrated or diluted?”
Harry worked for about ten minutes, Kravitz asked questions and finally a page of notes was handed to Doc, which he read aloud.
“Hand engraved, soft metal plates. Three to six months old. Manufactured south-eastern US. All same batch.”
“What does that mean, all same batch?” Kravitz inquired.
“We had a similar case last year,” Doc countered as he continued to read. “That mean anything to you, Harry? Soft plates?”
“Yeah. Limits your run ’cause the plates wear down. If you’re runnin’ twenties, best you can do is twenty, twenty-five grand. Upside is you can carve your plates faster.”
“Then whatta you do?” Kravitz asked.
“You melt the plates down so they can’t be traced. Whoever did this wasn’t in it for the long run. Sounds like they just needed spendin’money.”
“What about this south-eastern US. How can you tell that?”
Doc knew Harry was good, but he had never seen him shine like this. The only time Doc remembered Harry discussing money was when he used to complain about the government reneging on the Expeditionary Force Bonus promised to the First War veterans. That and the fact that he would clam up if anyone asked where he got the dough to open the news stand.
“There’s a distinct style. I recognise the workmanship.”
Kravitz and Doc looked at each other in amazement. Harry made it clearer.
“I think I know who made these notes.”
“Who?” Kravitz was astonished.
“I’m sorry, but that’s classified by the Department of the Treasury,” he answered authoritatively. Doc was proud of Harry.
“Doctor Kravitz, have you done the autopsy yet?” he asked, to divert attention from Harry.
“Isn’t gonna be one. Not unless we get an exhumation order.”
“It’s a homicide, why wasn’t there an autopsy?”
“Two reasons. His religion, which says he has to be in the ground, intact, before sundown the next day. And the fight.”
“What fight?”
“The one that’s going on between the Mayor’s office and the DA right now about spendin’ two to three million on the court battle, along with the ensuing press war.”
“What court battle?”
“The one it’s gonna take to get him outta the ground and on the table. You know how many lawyers that guy had? Plus, we just found out he’s got a five and a half million dollar estate bequeathed to orphaned Jewish children, providin’ the money doesn’t get used for legal battles. You wanna be the shit who forces a bunch of Jewish orphans to miss out on five million so it can go to lawyers?”
“Can’t fight City Hall, huh?” Doc smiled as he remembered
Ira’s passive demeanor.
“Guess you won’t need those guys from Albany after all, eh, Perfesser?” Louie added, tapping Kravitz on the back as they left.
The taxi ride from Brooklyn back to the Village was a frenzied debate of murder theories and potential motives and enroute there were three stopovers. Two for drinks and one for Chinese takeout. By the second drink stop, the cab driver turned off the meter, and joined the trio for a beer. Intrigued and drawn into the deliberations, Murray, the taxi driver, reasoned that it was okay to turn off the meter because he was helping to solve a crime. Besides, he was due to go off duty in a mere four and a half hours anyway.
After dropping Louie home, Doc, Harry and Murray proceeded to Christopher Street. Murray was naturally invited up to continue the debate, but explained he had to get home to his wife and seven kids, so Doc tipped him a twenty.
“Harry, do you really know who made these bills or were you just yankin’ his leash?” Doc asked the next morning, lying on his desk where he had spent the night. He held one of the fifties up and was examining it.
“Scheinfeld. Ernie Scheinfeld.” Harry was in the cot.