Operation Underworld (32 page)

The Victorian design of the Central Park Zoo attracted many visitors, but was relatively quiet that morning. As he strode through the turnstile of the entrance gate, a retiree volunteer worker yelled after him. “Hey, mister! That’ll be ten cents!”

Hoover ignored him. Checking his watch, he saw that he was ten minutes early for the twelve o’clock meet. Halfway down the path, a policeman approached him from the rear and tapped him on the shoulder with his billy club.

“What’s a matter, Mac? You think you’re better’n everybody else, or you just can’t afford a dime?”

Hoover turned around, and the patrolman knitted his brow in a signal of vague familiarity. Remaining silent, but flashing his small gold badge, Hoover detected no signs of the shock he expected to see on the officer’s face. The officer dutifully inspected the bifold identity, and decided it really was the head of the FBI, thanked him in a curt manner and walked away. Hoover thought again how much he hated this god-damned city.

Standing beneath the blue and gold umbrella of a hot dog cart, he paid the vendor for a hot dog and a soda and ate his early lunch as the Glockenspiel over the gate of the Children’s Zoo chimed twelve o’clock. It was time and so he headed for the aviary.

The chief FBI agent’s comment about Central Park having gone to the birds meant nothing to the assembled crowd in the auditorium that morning. However, it wasn‘t a throwaway line, either. It had meant something to an individual downtown listening to the radio broadcast of the awards. It offered the details of a meeting he had been waiting for all week long. At the conclusion of the broadcast, the individual switched off his radio and left to catch the subway north to the park. He had been listening to Hoover’s awards ceremony from his office.

His office at No. 90 Church Street.

At half past eight that morning Shirley had received an urgent message via courier from the New York City DA’s office. It was for the Commanding Officer of the Intelligence branch. Hogan didn’t know about the Hotel Astor office and so sent the handwritten message to Church Street. It was short and to the point:
M. P. out of game. Row with Prison people. States he desires no further contact with either of our offices. Good luck. Hogan.

“Office of Moses Polakoff, attorney-at-law. How may I help you?”

“Mr Polakoff, please.”

“May I ask whose calling pa-lease?”

“Haffenden, Commander Haffenden, US Navy.”

“One mo-oment pa-lease.” Haffenden hated this politicking bullshit. He didn’t give a damn if he ever made Captain, but the fact that the home defence front depended on his operation warranted him wooing Polakoff back into the game. After a short pause, the secretary came back on the line.

“I’m sorry. Mr Polakoff is not in at present. Would you like to call back at a later date?”

“Look, sister! Here’s the skinny. You put your boss on the line pronto or in thirty minutes I’ll have more agents over there than Chinamen on Mott Street, savvy?”

“Please hold, sir.” A moment later Polakoff came on the line.

“Who the hell is this?” he demanded.

“Mr Polakoff, it’s Commander Haffenden. Sir, it’s urgent that we – ”

“Urgent? I’ll tell you what’s urgent! It’s urgent that you stop calling here, that’s what‘s urgent! And it’s even more urgent that you understand if you call me again or threaten me in any other way, I’ll show you how I do business! We have nothing to discuss!” Polakoff slammed the receiver onto the hook

“Well, that didn’t go as well as expected,” Haffenden said out loud to himself, replacing the receiver. Typical Monday morning. He began to realise what Hogan had been talking about.

Accustomed to patriotic co-operation by others, Haffenden had difficulty accepting the fact that his keystone operator had just jumped ship. Worse yet, he realised that the entire operation was hanging by a slender thread, just as funding was renewed and an increase in personnel was authorised.

He rose from his desk and made his way out of his office suite at the Astor, to the balcony of the mezzanine. He walked to the rail overlooking the lobby and racked his brain for an angle, some way to get Polakoff back in. What the hell was he going to tell MacFall? What the hell was MacFall going to tell Washington? “Thanks for risking your political careers on a shaky operation, boys, but it fell apart.”

Haffenden held the message in his hand as he looked down and watched the hotel guests mill around in the lobby going about their business. A small group of businessmen exited the elevator, hungover and wearing green paper hats, carrying small replicas of the Irish Flag. Eight days to Saint Patrick’s Day, he thought to himself. Easy to lose track of time on this job.

He glanced at two of the Naval Intelligence agents stationed on sentry duty. Dressed in casual clothes, they sat at a table in the corner of the lobby discussing baseball. Haffenden checked his watch, nine forty-five, turned away from the balcony and went back into his office. Then a smile slowly made its way across his face as he remembered being told that Polakoff was a Navy veteran.

A few minutes later a bellhop informed the two agents that their room was ready, and they made their way to Haffenden’s office.

“Gentlemen, we have something of a crisis.” The two men stood in front of his desk as the Commander spoke in that calm but firm tone which had become the universal hallmark of a military leader addressing his troops in time of peril.

“You are to go to Church Street, they’ve been notified that you’re coming, go to the reception desk. There’ll be a manilla envelope for you. On a separate piece of paper will be an address. Moses Polakoff, a lawyer, it’s his office. He leaves for lunch every day between half past eleven and one. Follow him, call me immediately with the name and location of the restaurant.” The agents exchanged glances. “Do not open the folder. Do not let him see you and, if he hasn’t left by two o’clock, call in to me.”

“Here or Church Street, sir?”

“I’ll be here until you call. Questions?”

Both agents shook their heads.

While J. Edgar Hoover was finishing his hot dog in the cold, surrounded by furry little animals, Moses Polakoff was finishing his prime rib lunch, in a warm, comfortable restaurant, surrounded by sharks.

Eddie’s Steak House, next to Saint Benedict’s on 53rd, was a popular place for mid-town lawyers to meet and bill their clients. Apparently, Eddie was the only one to notice the irony of so many lawyers congregating so close to a church on a regular basis.

Commander Haffenden’s agents met him at a Greek fast food stand a half a block west on Ninth Avenue. One agent huddled across from Eddie’s in a doorway, shivering and swaying back and forth to keep warm, while the second agent took his turn in the Greek place, warming up with coffee.

“What’s the story?” Haffenden asked by way of a greeting.

“He went in about an hour ago. Met with some other suits, probably lawyers. They had a drink, he ordered lunch and is eating alone. Goody is gonna give us the high sign when he’s done eatin’.”

“Good work.”

“Sir, if you don’t mind me askin’, what’s so special about an old lawyer?” The Commander looked at his agent and reasoned he would know about Polakoff’s critical relevance to the operation one way or the other.

“He’s the only way we can get into Great Meadows to contact Luciano. They want a lawyer with the visitors all the time.”

“Can’t we just get another lawyer?”

“It would take weeks to set up, the state people would fight us tooth and nail, and Luciano wouldn’t trust anybody else at this stage. I don’t think I would, either.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

Agent Goody waved from the doorway down the block.“You want us to go in with you, sir?”

Haffenden took the manilla envelope from the agent. “No. You two stay here and warm up. Eat your lunch and wait for me.”

“Any idea how long it’ll take?”

“If this morning is any indication, I’ll be back before your souvlaki gets cold.”

Polakoff had just flagged a waiter for the check when Haffenden approached him from behind and laid the sealed envelope on the table in front of him. It was obvious it contained some sort of folder or official record, but the lawyer was too experienced to be taken off-guard. He ignored the document.

“Looks like what we have here is a slow learner. I told the DA and I’m tellin’ you for the second time today! Take a walk!”

“Mr Polakoff, all I want to do is talk.”

“Oh yeah? Near fifty years on the bar and I’ve never heard that line. C’mon Commander. Dig deeper.”

“I could have orders cut to reactivate you back into service.”

“Good luck! I’m way past the age limit and you know it.”

“They raised it for the duration of the war.” Polakoff narrowed his eyes and stared at Haffenden, who had now taken a seat directly across the table from him.

“Yeah and by the time the court case comes up, the war’ll be over.” The waiter placed a small silver tray containing Polakoff’s bill on the table as he passed by.

“Look here, Hafffenden. I’m a private citizen. You can’t just go around threatin’ people, hopin’ ta get what you want by arm twistin’.”

Haffenden readjusted his position and eyed the envelope to see if it elicited a reaction from the lawyer. Again, no joy.

“Reactivating you, even to fly a desk, wouldn’t really be in the best interest of either one of us, Moses. Think of the good of the nation. The bad guys who are out there tryin’ ta sabotage the war effort. Think of the lives we… you could be saving!”

“You really are a slow learner, aren’t you? Apparently you forgot what I do for a living. Let me remind you. I argue. With some of the sharpest minds in the country. Your arguments are pathetic. There are a helluva lot more guys in Washington sabotaging the war effort than you’re ever gonna catch in this town, Buster.” Polakoff spoke like a man who wanted to get something off his chest. “All their bickering and self-serving interests, while patriotic young men are dying by the thousands. Don’t wave the flag at me!”

“Moses, the human angle?” Haffenden was losing ground faster than he thought possible.

“More bullshit! Not one single life has been lost that can be attributed to domestic enemy sabotage. The Normandie is a perfect example. Contradictory statements by eyewitnesses, conflicting reports in the press, a mysterious welder. Reports from the Navy, the Department of Transportation, the City and the DA’s office and what’s the upshot? ‘Still under investigation’! You got no more idea what happened to her then you do Emilia Earhart, fer Christ’s sake.” As he finished delivering his last salvo, Polakoff rose and began to put on his coat.

“Aren’t you curious about what’s in the envelope?”

“I could care less.” He picked up his briefcase, took the check and turned to leave. Haffenden played his desperation card.

“Hey, Moses!” Polakoff glanced over at Haffenden who remained sitting at the table. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“All that stuff about saving that kid from getting executed during the last war?”

Polakoff hadn’t thought about that case for nearly a quarter of a century. “What the hell’s that got to do with anything?”

“At one time you gave a damn about something.”

“You must’ve dug pretty deep to find out about that one, Commander.” Polakoff ignored the cashier as she attempted to hand him the change from his twenty. Instead, he walked back over to the table, sat down and, without releasing his briefcase or removing his coat, began to speak to Haffenden.

“They were gonna put that kid to death for something they knew he didn’t do. An eighteen-year-old boy, with a wife. A young man who volunteered to fight their war. But they needed a scapegoat to patch things up with some other clowns on the British side.”

“Is that when you resigned your commission?”

“That’s when I woke up.”

“Woke up?”

Polakoff leaned forward, one elbow on the table and spoke to Haffenden with a renewed intensity.

“You don’t remember the good old days, Haffenden. Murder, robbery, extortion. All the crimes that made this country great. Now it’s drugs. In the arm, under the tongue, up the wazoo fer cryin’ out loud! It’s a fucking cancer! This country will never recover. It just means bigger, better and more heineous crimes. I’m glad I won’t be around to see it.”