Operation Underworld Read online

  The women began to relax a little. Doc wanted to stay her fears a little more.

  “How did you know about that warm air mass and cold air mass stuff? That’s pretty interesting.”

  Martina was still trying to make up her mind who he was, and so remained in the foetal position on her seat. Without turning away from Doc, she reached into the seat back in front of her and removed a trifold brochure. Like a dagger from a scabbard, she pulled it and thrust it at Doc.

  “I read about the disturbulance in dees!” Taking it from her, Doc glanced at the latest issue of Captain Carl’s Tips, an informational brochure published by the airline.

  “They many good dings in dare. Maybe someday jew read. Den jew don be so scared and den jew don drink so much,” Mrs Kaminski explained to her involuntary travel partner, nodding at the seven or eight empty drink glasses stuffed in the seat back, in front of McKeowen.

  “Tell ya what, lady, my mother dies, you got the job!” As he spoke, he jammed the pamphlet back into the seat packet.

  She was slapped by his irritation but didn‘t want any more tension between them. “I sorry! I Dun mean to criticalise jew! My father? He used to drink also. All dee time!”

  Doc smiled and nodded, reminiscing about happier times when the woman was being quietly entertained by the clouds.

  “All dee time, he drink, drink, drink, drink, drink.” She was again very animated in her behaviour. Doc wished he had a drink. “Are you anything like your mother?”

  “Why jes! Sometimes people dink dat we are seesters. Why do jew ask?”

  “Just wonderin’ why your father drank.” Doc was back on form.

  “I dunnno…” Martina seriously contemplated the question.

  After the plane taxied to the appropriate tarmac, McKeowen reached under his seat and produced a small, navy blue gym bag. The initials YMCA were stencilled across one side of it and it was easy to see there wasn’t much in it.

  Doc always travelled light for two reasons. One, he hated carting luggage around, and two, he didn’t own any. He didn’t need it. The fact was that he had never been out of New York State before. Except to New Jersey, and what the hell, that didn’t really count now, did it?

  Standing around the base of the roll-up stairs, out on the tarmac, were several skycaps in their mandatory dark blue uniforms. The sky blue Pan Am logo on the breast pocket and brim of the cap showed they had paid their mandatory fees to work for free. These men, all of them black, made their livings solely on tips. One of them approached Doc with an oversized metal cart, and asked if he needed a grip. Doc looked at the enormity of the cart, then to his diminutive bag, shrugged and said, “Why not?”

  Doc passed him the bag which he placed on the cart, tilted it back and they headed across the tarmac towards the terminal.

  “Mr McKeowen! Mr McKeown!” Doc turned to see Mrs

  Kaminski running after him, her black, slide-on heels clopping on the asphalt while struggling to keep her overstuffed black bag on her shoulder.

  “Go on. I’ll catch up,” Doc instructed the cap. “Mrs Kaminski. What a pleasure to see you again.”

  She came alongside and dropped anchor, then removed her oversized sunglasses before she spoke. “How do jew know my husbent he’s older?”

  Doc sighed. “I figure there’s plenty of young guys in Cuba, but no money, so you come here where there’s money. But not many guys your age have that much money. If they do, they’re probably connected, in which case you probably wouldn’t be screwing around.”

  She didn’t know whether to be pissed off, indignant or just clop away.

  “Anyding else, whise guy?”

  “Yeah. If my wife had a body like that she wouldn’t have time to go to Cuba.”

  Her anger began to leak away. “Are all jew Irish so smart?”

  “I’m not Irish. I’m Scottish.”

  Outside the terminal, taxis snaked in a never-ending line along the curbside. A black Checkered pulled up immediately and the operator hopped out. While the driver went around to open the trunk for his passenger’s luggage, Doc tipped the cap.

  “What happen, Mac? Bastards lose your luggage?” asked the cabby, eyeing the cart.

  “Yeah, second time this month,” Doc answered, as he threw the gym bag into the trunk and got into the cab.

  “Where to?”

  “1929 Christopher Street. Don’t wake me till we get there, and don’t go by way of Brooklyn Bridge,” Doc instructed.

  Nearly an hour later, the taxi pulled up outside Harry’s Front Page News. Doc got out and, with the last of the bills and change in his pocket, paid the driver.

  Despite the early hour of half past five, the dark of winter had set in. Traffic was flowing freely now in The Village, and the evening chill could no longer be ignored.

  Harry’s Front Page, which everyone called The News Stand, occupied the entire ground level of 1929 Christopher Street. The corner entrance and small display window were capped by a hand-lettered, green enamel sign which hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint since Lindy had seen Paris.

  Packed with black wire, twirly racks, stacked with postcards that never sold, (come to think of it, nothing ever really sold except newspapers and an occasional stale candy bar), you’d be hard pressed to squeeze four people in there at any one time. That included Harry.

  Harry’s claim to fame was the time Mel Blanc came into his candy store and said it was so small you had to go outside to change your mind. Harry was a Bugs Bunny fan forever after.

  Harry’s life had long ago settled into sitting on a high-backed stool all day, framed by racks of candy bars and potato chips, and he was rarely seen to venture out from behind the counter. An unseen radio constantly played in the background and he read all day long. To his credit, he read only the classics. Captain Marvel, The Shadow and The Phantom. These were by far the best, for it was common sense that they were the most realistic. Every time Superman or Batman got in a fix, they would come up with some wild gizmo they just happened to have nearby or hanging on a belt, and escape certain death. Ridiculous. Who ever heard of yellow kryptonite, anyway?

  Harry had lost a leg in the last war, and in between warm sodas and cold coffees, the old man would give Doc tips on horse-racing, despite the fact Doc had never been to the track in his life. Doc respected Harry because he was one of those old people who could tell you what he had for breakfast on any given day, six months ago, and he seldom ate the same thing every day. This made Harry the perfect lobby watch-dog.

  The ground floor of the five storey building was never intended as any sort of a shop, so when the owners remodelled it, just before World War I, access to the upper floors had to be rerouted. The ground floor conversion was an attempt to keep up with the flood of businesses which swept the Greenwich Village neighborhoods just before the war broke out. Doc walked in through the glass door which opened into Harry’s.

  “Doc! Where the hell you been for a week?”

  “Vacation, Harry. I figure I earned it. Anybody hangin’ around I should know about?”

  “Not a bad guy in sight, Doc.”

  “Gimme a late edition, will ya.”

  “Didja hear the news? The Krauts sent a sub into the harbour! Sunk some big boat!”

  “You sober?”

  “Honest ta Christ, Doc! They did!”

  Doc took the half-folded newspaper and tucked it under his arm while he headed for the door to the upstairs offices.

  “Thanks, Harry. See ya later.”

  “I’m tellin’ ya, Doc, this war ain’t like the last one. We could lose!”

  “We ain’t gonna lose, Harry. We’re the good guys. Hell, Lamont Cranston lives here!” Doc called over his shoulder, passing through the single door to Harry’s left.

  The sixty-year-old structure was immaculately cleaned and maintained but the elevator seemed perpetually out of order, so visitors and residents had to climb the ornate metal staircase to reach their destinations.

  At the third flo
or, Doc turned left down the hall towards his office. He took the paper from under his arm and, just as he began to open it, a voice called out.

  “Hey, Doc!” The voice startled him, making him jump, but as he looked to the right of the corridor, a smile slowly crept over his face.

  “Hey, Redbone!” Tucking the paper back under his arm, he continued walking towards his office. The elderly black man, bent on one knee, was repairing a lock, and as he passed by, Doc patted him on the shoulder.

  Redbone spoke in a slightly diluted Cajun’ accent. “Sorry if I startled you, man. Just surprised to see ya,” he said, reaching into his tool box.

  Doc noticed the mop and bucket propped against the wall on the man’s left.

  “Still on double duty, eh, Redbone?”

  “Goin’ on six months now. But I don’t mind. Keeps me busy since Saddie went to sleep.” Doc smiled and nodded in acknowledgement of Redbone’s stoicism. He continued down the hall and stopped in front of a door on the left.

  “Hey, Redbone!”

  “Yeah, Doc?”

  Doc was staring at the glass pane on the office door as he unlocked it. “You get time, take this damn name off the door, will ya? It’s stinkin’ up the joint.”

  “Sure, Doc. First thing tomorrow.”

  McKeowen unlocked the door and went in, thought for a moment, stuck his head back out, and called down the hall.

  “Redbone, there’s probably gonna be a baptism tonight, so if you hear anything, it’s okay.”

  “Don’t be goin’ doin’ nuthin’ stupid, Doc!”

  The door shut and the glass panel was back-lit when Doc turned on the office light inside. Sammon and McKeowen. Private Investigations Agency. We Peep While Others Sleep, was the only office occupied at this late hour. The unremarkable office was only about 400 sq ft, and was partitioned to the right as you walked in the door. The partition was wood halfway up, then iced glass and stood just over six foot tall. There was a pair of opaque, deco globes suspended by chain from the ceiling around the lights. An army cot, half-sized ice-box and hot plate on the other side were home. They were semi-stashed out of sight. Just in case a client accidentally showed up.

  Doc peered into the letterbox screwed to the back of the door, but didn’t bother to remove the three or four envelopes it contained. He locked the door, dropped his bag and moved over to his desk in the corner of the room and, exhausted, removed his coat and flopped into his chair. Staring into space, he suddenly jumped up and violently kicked the chair, knocking it to the floor. He stared at it for a while to make sure it wasn‘t breathing, then sighed and reached into his jacket pocket and produced an airline ticket stub. Staring at it, he shook his head.

  “Chump!” he mumbled as he tore the useless document into small pieces and threw them in the air.

  Standing still for another moment, he righted the overturned chair. He decided he didn’t feel any better and so he went over to the sink and washed his face for longer than necessary, and as he dried himself, the reason for his inability to focus dawned on him. He was fighting something that he had never felt before.

  After all the physical and emotional strain encountered during thirteen years on the job, and seven years of marriage, something was different. Something made him feel like nothing mattered anymore. It was depression. Doc was smothered by it.

  Throwing the towel in the basket under the sink, he walked back over to his desk and opened a wall cabinet behind him marked Classified Files. He withdrew a rocks glass and a bottle of Irish Whiskey. Pouring a full measure into the glass, he adjusted the chair and sat down.

  Glancing around the room, which he realised contained the sum total of his life, he sank deeper into his depression. He saw the steely simplicity with which he used to approach life methodically eroding away and became lost in the resulting mist of confusion called apathy.

  His lifted his drink and his eyes drifted off to the right, settling on a picture of a middle-aged man in a policeman’s uniform sitting on a shelf next to some shooting trophies. The policeman’s photo had a black ribbon tied around the upper left hand corner of the frame. A gold NYPD badge was mounted on a dark wooden plaque, and stood next to the photo. Doc stared at the picture and after a minute he smiled.

  “Alright! You were right. I shoulda stayed on the force.” He threw back his shot. “But ya gotta admit, it ain’t nuthin’ like the god-damn movies!”

  Reaching underneath the desk and into a specially constructed compartment under the drawer, Doc removed a snub nosed .38 and a .45 Colt. After a functions check on both weapons, he loaded them and placed them in separate desk drawers.

  He sat forward, leaned on the desk and slowly let his gaze drift until it fell on a picture of a woman, sitting on the shelf below the policeman’s photo. She was a semi-attractive brunette, late twenties and wore some sort of graduation gown. The handwritten inscription read, To Hubby, Love Forever, Mary. Doc downed his second drink and shook his head in the direction of the photo. He leaned back, put his feet up and turned off the desk lamp, leaving himself and the room bathed in the alternating shadows of Jimmy O‘Sullivan’s neon sign.

  Like in those god-damned movies.

  Chapter Four

  The syncopated rhythm of the Smith-Corona keys reminded Shirley of the Morse code radio messages she had heard in an Alan Ladd war movie last week. Alan Ladd! Now there’s a man! The engaging, eccentric black girl indulged her fantasies as she trudged through her work day. With instinctual dexterity, her well-manicured fingers floated in mid air, coercing the keys to perform.

  Perhaps without the weight of a wedding ring to encumber the fingers, they moved faster, Shirley mused. Although attractive by any standard, she was, by her own reckoning, an old maid at twenty-six.

  “Ouch! God-damn it!” Shirley cried out, quickly putting her index finger to her mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” It was Nikki Cole, the receptionist stationed with Shirley at the oversized reception desk.

  “I busted a freakin’ nail!”

  “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  “Maybe I got potty mouth, but there are worse problems to have!”

  “Like what?” Nikki challenged.

  “Like gettin’ the hiccups when you’re horny!” Shirley giggled.

  “I told you that in confidence, damn it!”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell nobody. Besides, I kinda think it’s cute.” Shirley smirked as she turned back to her typewriter. “This way he always knows when you’re ready.”

  Nikki reached under the desk and produced a large pickle jar, nearly filled with nickels, and held it out to her workmate.

  “About another week and we can have lunch at Grauman’s,” Nikki commented, as the five cent piece Shirley retrieved from her purse clinked into the jar.

  “Grauman‘s Chinese Theater? That’s in Hollywood!”

  “I know.” The sounds of laughter echoed through the empty, marble-plated lobby.

  The curved, Art Deco reception desk was surrounded by a chest-high counter, covered in Carrera marble. It was a large, D-shaped island floating in the center of a lobby, set back from the elevators, which appeared much too expansive for the two slender women it housed.

  The dual elevators, a few scattered ashtrays and the reception desk gave the distinct impression they were put into the lobby as an afterthought. There was no indication whatever that this was a headquarters for the intelligence service of the US Navy.

  Although no sentries were visible, a tap on one of the buzzers installed underneath the desktop where the girls were working, would summon Marine guards to assist with any unwanted intruders.

  As the conservatively dressed Nikki offered her help to Shirley, the switchboard buzzed. Donning the cumbersome headset, the attractive auburn-haired, blue-eyed twenty-something answered the incoming line.

  “Good morning, Third Naval District, may I help you?” Nikki Cole and her switchboard, nick-named Cary, were the primary means of communic
ation for 90 Church Street and the outside world.

  “That would be Captain McFall’s office, sir. Just one second and I’ll connect you. Thank you, Major, your voice sounds lovely in the morning, too.” Rolling her eyes towards Shirley, Nikki connected the cloth-covered cable to one of the dozens of brass plugs sprawled before her.

  Upstairs, at the other end of the line, lay a new desktop model, black rotary Bell telephone. These latest models were much more of a pleasure to use than the old ‘licorice stick’ phones which were awkward, difficult to dial and required both hands to manipulate.

  In stark contrast to the desolation of the lobby, the large upstairs office sprawled out to cover the entire floor, and was a cacophony of typewriters and telephones. Unabated activity was in full swing despite the fact the work day was only fifteen minutes old.

  “Good morning, Captain McFall’s office, may I help you?”

  “I’m sorry, Major, but the Captain is in a meeting. May I take your number, sir? Uh-huh… yes sir, I have it.” There was a pause as the secretary smirked into the phone. “And your voice sounds like Ethel Merman after a half pint of bathtub gin. Goodbye, Major.”

  Behind the secretary’s desk stood a wooden frame door with an opaque glass panel. Lettering on the glass stated that it was the office of the Branch Chief of Naval Intelligence, Captain Roscoe C. MacFall, which explained why the door was closed for the better part of the day and, more often then not, locked.

  A pair of thick fingers separated two slats of the metal Venetian blinds, allowing a pair of steel-grey eyes to peer out across the sprawling office. Like a headmaster staring at an oversized classroom, he observed the impressive collection of pre-war FBI agents, detectives, District as well as Federal Attorneys and Treasury Department operators at work in the office before him. Still facing the glass, Captain MacFall began to speak.

  “Two months into the war and we’re losing a hundred ships a month. We won’t be up to full production capacity for six to eight months. And now a raving lunatic who is too stupid to get into art school has got saboteurs in our backyard!” He made his way back to the head of the conference table and flopped into his high backed chair. “Hell, I thought it was bad when Dewey lost!” MacFall’s bad mood was interrupted by one of the men dressed in civilian attire sitting near the other end of the table.