The Red Storm (15 page)

Standing over him, breathing hard, my legs and body felt shaky. I could barely stand. My vision went blurry, and when it came back, I was propped up against the retaining wall behind the building. My clothes were saturated in sweat and blood while my knuckles were raw and swollen.

I stumbled to my machine, and with shaky hands drove away. By some means, I got back to my room. I washed up, changed my clothes, and cleaned and bandaged the burn on my hand.

I sat on the bed smoking, and called the Carlyle Hotel and asked for room 308. The phone rang several times. I about hung up when a tired voice answered the line.

“Yeah?”

“Is this Jack Stein?” I asked.

“Who is this?”

“I'm the one that was looking for Devland. You told me to call you if I found him. You can figure that since I'm calling, that means I have.”

Stein was now alert. “That so?”

“Yes. I'll give you the address if you tell me what you want with Devland.”

A short pause before he said, “It's no big deal, just some business about fixed numbers.”

“I think it's about more than fixed numbers, but I'll take it,” I said, and gave him the address on Orchard Street.

“If this is legit, I won't forget you giving it to me.”

I put the phone on the hook, filled a bucket of ice, and stuck my hands into it until the swelling went down. My knuckles had held up to the beating without fracturing primarily because they had been broken and rebroken to the point they were now nothing but calcified knobs of reinforced bone.

This kind of callus conditioning went as far back as the days when the planter would take the strongest of us younger workers and beat us into being prizefighters. It was an easy racket for planters to make side money. Every afternoon he'd have us fight each other until sundown, while he stood to the side with a switch and caned anyone that fell over from injury or exhaustion.

But them days weren't all bad. You learned to like working the ten-hour days in the fields, the same way you learned to like fighting until you were torn up raw. I didn't have any real boxing skills then, which is what caused what little looks I had to be beaten off me. It was not until Harlan Odell, a big man that used to spar with Jack Johnson, came along and taught us all he knew. I'd spend many of my days talking with him. He educated me on the science aspect of boxing, how to avoid being hit, and how there was more to the sport than just throwing fists around.

The one piece of advice I remember the most was him telling me, “You got to get out of these fields, son. Make your way to a big city or else you're going to waste your talent here until they ain't nothing left to show for it.”

I took his advice, but no doubt Odell, had he lived, would be disappointed with how things worked out with me.

Brushing these recollections aside, I took my hands out of the bucket and went to bed. I slept roughly twelve hours.

 

CHAPTER 11

The morning paper had several articles of interest. The first article was the results from the local horse track. The numbers came from the last dollar of the pari-mutuel total of three races. First was a three-race total of $98.33. Second was a four-race total of $121.66, and the third eight-race total was $166.03, making the winning number 816.

The second article read:

Four men were found shot at Walter Jenkins & Company. Police responded to a report of gunfire at the business site. They arrived to find four men who had been heavily beaten and shot in the back room of the establishment. Police suspect stockbroker Walter Jenkins may be involved, and his whereabouts are unknown at this time. Police say Jenkins has had shady dealings since his business went bankrupt after the stock market crash in 1929. There have been allegations that Jenkins was implicated in the trading of fraudulent stocks, and dealings with crime syndicates …

I discarded the paper and changed. My hands were sore, but after a few exercises, I got improved movement out of them.

The drive to the mansion Mallon's parents had owned before their deaths took little over an hour. The mansion was near Huntington Harbor in Long Island, and it looked like a castle. It was of French chateau design, with red-clay, tile-hipped roofs, circular towers that had conical grooves, and elongated brick chimneys.

A giant wrought-iron gate prevented me from entering the property. I parked the car on the side of the street and walked to the gate. A hundred yards just inside the entry, a tall colored man trimmed bushes with a pair of gardening shears. I yelled for him to come over.

“What do you need, mister?” he said.

“How long you been the groundskeeper here?”

“Been workin' this property going on fifteen years.”

“That would mean you were around when the Mallons lived here,” I said.

The man's expression lost its warmth. “Say, what's this about, mister?”

I handed him my card.

“I can't read so good,” he said.

“That's okay. It just says my name is William Fletcher, and that I'm a private detective from New Orleans.”

“Orleans is a good city. Got family there. Them French folks are pretty decent to us coloreds.”

“Yes, I suppose they are,” I said, and changed the conversation back to the business at hand. “Did you know the Mallons well?”

“Not too well. Ruth would be the one to talk to.”

“Who's Ruth?”

“Ruth was the nanny for that boy the Mallons had.”

“And she's still here?” I asked.

“Sure, sure. The new folks kept most of the old help. Ruth now nannies for the new folks' two boys.”

“Can I speak to Ruth?”

The man looked down at his shoes. “I suppose I can see about findin' her. But I best get back to work soon. The boss wants the place in top shape for the party he's havin' this weekend.”

He unlocked the front gate and allowed me to step in.

“Wait here,” he said.

I lit a cigarette and waited until he came back with an old colored woman in her eighties.

“This is the fella that wants to talk with ya,” the man said.

“Sorry to bother you, ma'am,” I said.

“It's all right, young man. I need the exercise. What is it you want to speak to me about?”

“Sal Mallon,” I said.

Dismayed by the name, the elderly woman said, “What has that child got himself into?”

“A lot. That's why any information you can give me would be helpful.”

“I don't know what I can possibly tell you, outside that the child was disturbed.”

“Disturbed how?” I asked.

“He did sinful things. Things I'd hoped he'd outgrow, but I reckon he never did. There was a time I thought he'd gotten better, but he just hid it from me. When he was about fourteen I found this journal he had. It was full of awful things. He threatened to kill me if I didn't give it back, and tore up my room looking for it. He found it, but I never saw it again. I'm sure of it that he hid it somewhere.”

“What was in it?” I asked.

“I can't say for sure. At the time my reading was not so good. I just remember certain vulgar words being in it.”

“Is it okay if I have a look at the room he was staying in?”

The woman sighed. “I don't see the point. The new folks got rid of everything that was in that room.”

“All the same, can I take a quick look around?”

“Oh, if you must. But you best hurry; the lady of the house will be arriving with the children soon.”

I tagged along behind the woman into the castle that made me feel like I had stepped into the medieval age. She showed the way up a teakwood spiral staircase to the top floor and into one of the towers.

“This was the boy's room,” Ruth said.

She was right; there was nothing in the room that showed a little boy had once occupied it. Only a reading stand and a lamp decorated the room.

“I'll be back in a moment, and then you best be going,” Ruth said.

Not knowing what I was expecting to find, I tried to think how a little kid would go about hiding his secrets. Boys that did this would go about it in a detailed, elaborate way, and take pride that their parents or whomever couldn't find it. Was it worth finding? That depended on what it would be.

I made a swift assessment of the room. Not having time for scrutiny, I checked under the bed, across the floor for hidden cracks, and the walls. I searched everything but the ceiling and found nothing.

Ruth stepped back in the room and told me I had to go. I thanked her for her time and for allowing me to take a look, and showed myself out. Midway to the front gate the groundskeeper came up to me.

“I don't know if it will help, but I just remember somethin'. It wasn't too long after Ruth took the diary that the boy came up to me and said he stole it back and buried it under the harbor. Said he got the idea from all the pirate movies his dad took him to see. Told me that I best not say nothing about it if I knew what was good for me. I don't know why he bothered telling me if he was gonna be all like that.”

“He just wanted someone to brag to,” I said.

“I suppose.”

Thanking him, I allowed him to show me out. I then bought a small shovel at a hardware store in Peter's Landing, and drove out to Huntington Harbor. Once parked, I peeled out of my suit jacket, and with shovel in hand went out under the pier.

The odds were stacked against me. If Mallon did bury something, he had probably removed it long before he left the place. My outside chance fell on him never bothering to remove his stash.

Half an hour into digging, two young lovebirds holding hands came down the pier, took one look at me and what I was doing, and backtracked the direction they came.

Forty-five minutes later I unearthed a couple bottles, an opium pipe, a shoe, and some fishing tackle. Close to calling it a day over frustration, I plodded on until I uncovered a cut plug tobacco tin box. It was approximately seven inches in length and four inches tall. The box had a painted-on picture of George Washington coated over in a brown tarnish.

I opened the rusted latch to find a gray diary inside. The pages were yellowed, and upon opening it, several aged newspaper clippings fell out. The clippings were from Mallon's kidnapping, and a follow-up article that had Bill Storm's grotesque mug shot on it.

I needed only to read the first entry in the diary to have the once-blurry photo of Sal Mallon come into clear focus.

 

CHAPTER 12

I called Steve Crew to pick me up after I had dropped the heap off at the lot the next morning, and had him drive me back to the train station.

“Have a nice trip?” he asked.

“I can safely say I can go my entire life without ever steppin' foot back in this city again,” I said.

Crew laughed. “Aw, it ain't that bad here. The Depression has kind of hit us hard, but things are lookin' up.”

“I'm sure they are. It just ain't my city. Never was,” I said.

He got me to the station in good time. I paid my fare, tipped him, and said, “You look out for yourself, kid. If you ever come to New Orleans, be sure to look me up.”

“Will do, mister,” he said, and pulled out.

I made my way to the platforms and picked up on a possible shadow job. He was a young kid in an oversize ten-gallon hat that made him look like a rodeo clown. I went to several different platforms and the kid bumbled around behind me trying hard not to look noticeable.
Who the hell would hire such an amateur?
I thought as I headed to my platform. I would deal with the kid during one of the stops.

The returning train looked to be much fancier than the one I came in on. Hitched to the green and gold Pacific locomotive were luxury Pullman coaches and a club car with moveable easy chairs to lounge in. Problem was, I wasn't allowed to do any kind of lounging in them.

I got put in the semi-crowded passenger car next to an old woman that kept talking to me, even when I put my hat over my head and pretended to be asleep.

The train pulled into Greensboro Southern Railway Depot in North Carolina at two a.m. The main building, made of Flemish bond brickwork with Romanesque columns, had three-story brick entry arches.

With twenty minutes to kill, I got out with the unloading passengers to stretch. No sooner had I left the main platform, the rodeo clown was behind me.

Following the crowd through main doors and into the waiting room, I detoured down an empty hall and went into the public bathroom. There, I stood by the door until I heard footsteps coming up to it. I swung the door open, and the kid tried to move back, but it was too late. I hit him with a straight jab that pushed his face back, followed by a left hook that connected with his chin. He fell over like he'd been blackjacked in both knees. I relieved him of his rod, a nickel-plated .38, and went through his wallet. His name was Michael Mooney. Also inside his wallet was a sheet of paper with my description and the flophouse I had been staying at in New York.

The only person I could think of that would have someone following me would be Jack Stein or possibly Mallon, for reasons unclear to me.

I took his boarding pass and replaced it with my business card, and stuffed Mr. Mooney into the bathroom. I got back to the platform in time for the final boarding call. On the train, I found the annoying old woman next to me would not be with me the remainder of the way. Relieved, I reclined the chair and slept until we pulled into the Birmingham Terminal Station.

The station was of Turkish-style architecture. The main building was made up of light brown brick, with a freestanding dome with ornamental glass and two towers on the north and south wings.

I used the time during the stop to visit one of the barber shops the station provided for a quick trim and shave.

“Had some business in New York, did you?” the older colored barber asked while smoothing his straight razor on a leather strap.