Operation Underworld (35 page)

“Doc, what the hell…”

The stranger turned nearly at the same time as Louie but it wasn’t fast enough. Doc’s right hit him hard enough to send the tall man crashing against the opposite wall of the vestibule and crumpling to the floor.

“Ow!” Doc put his fist under his arm. “God-damn, that hurts!” “That’s why they use brass knuckles, Doc,” Louie said in a cocky tone.

Doc held his hand up for Louie to see. “Thanks for the update!” He was wearing brass knuckles.

“Did you just want to show me how to use those things, or you know this guy?” Louie asked.

Doc looked around to see if there were any witnesses. There were none.

“We’re old buddies, Louie. This is one of the assholes that jumped me coming back from Nikki’s house.” Doc did a fast frisk and produced a wallet from the man’s breast pocket. He then reached into his own pocket and produced an identical bifold. He held them side by side. Both credentials were the same, treasury agent ID’s.

“Bingo!” Doc declared.

“You owe back taxes or something?”

“I don’t know, Louie. I can’t figure what they hell they want.” Removing a second set of brass knuckles from the man, he tossed them to Louie.

“Happy birthday.”

Trying them on, Louie commented, “Hey I never seen these things up close. They’re pretty neat.” He pretended to swing at someone. “Maybe they’re pissed off ’cause you keep takin’ all their stuff?”

“Well, now they got something ta really get pissed off about. This guy’s gonna be eatin’ through a straw for a coupl’a months. Looks like I broke his jaw. They’re not gonna have any sense of humour about that. We better make ourselves scarce.”

Louie started for the front door but Doc grabbed him by the arm.

“Through the building. We’ll come out on Trinity.”

Both of them were already through the lobby doors when Doc had an afterthought. He ducked back into the vestibule and quickly dug into the hip pocket of the unconscious man. Doc found what he was looking for. Money. He returned to Louie with a small wad of fifties and twenties. A lobby guard noticed them and slowly made his way over to the vestibule. They made it through the building to Trinity Street and back to Christopher Street without incident.

Once safely inside Harry’s, Doc went over to the counter to talk to Harry.

“Well, if it ain’t the Dynamic Duo,” Harry greeted them.

“We had any visitors today, Harry?”

“Yeah, early this morning. Big tall fella. Looked like a Fed.”

Doc showed Harry the photo ID.

“That’s him.”

“Did he say what he wanted?”

“Said ta tell ya he wanted ‘it’ back.”

“Wanted what back?”

“Beats me. Said you knew what he was talking about.”

“Thanks, Harry.” Doc and Louie went upstairs to put their heads together. Louie emptied the letter box and Doc took out the whiskey bottle and sat at his desk.

“Hey, Doc, looks like ya got yerself a fan club. This one’s a real letter. You wanna look at it?”

“Is it from an Irish society?”

“Don’t look like it.”

“Alright, gimme.” Louie threw it across the desk and Doc opened it. As he unfolded the handwritten letter a hundred dollar bill fell out onto the floor.

“Nice fan club! How do I join?!” Louie exclaimed. “What’s it say?”

Doc handed the letter to Louie.

“I need your opinion on this bill. Please contact soonest. Except Saturday. A grateful client,” he read out. “Who the hell is – ”

“It’s Ira,” Doc declared.

“How do you know? He didn’t sign it.”

“That’s because he’s afraid of these clowns.”

“How do you know it’s Ira?”

“How many grateful clients we had in the last month? Plus he’s Jewish, that’s why he mentioned Saturday. He must think he’s onto something.” Doc thought for a moment. “Louie, run this down to Harry.” He handed Louie the hundred and then reached into his pocket. Peeling away a twenty and a fifty from the wad he had recently confiscated, he added them for Louie to take to Harry and then threw the remainder of the wad into a cigar box with the other bills.

In ten minutes Louie was back upstairs, out of breath.

“You’re gonna love this one,” Louie panted.

“Talk to me.” Doc abandoned the diagram he had been sketching and took the bills from Louie.

“The hundred’s phoney. Harry says he’d bet it came out of that original batch you brought in.”

“No big surprise.”

“The twenty and the fifty are real.”

“Real?” Doc was surprised. “This wad’d choke a horse! There’s over six hundred bucks here! You sure he said they were real?”

“Coin o’ da realm.” The phone rang and Doc picked it up.

“Hey, Doc, it’s me.”

“Hey, Harry. What’s cooking?”

“I can’t see too good, but I think maybe you got a visitor.”

“Who and how many?”

“Just one. I think it’s your girlfriend.”

“Well, tell her come up.”

“That’s the thing, Doc. She’s just sittin’ on the other side of Christopher. She don’t look too good. You bust up wit her or somethin’?”

Doc stood up from behind his desk and looked out the window. There was Nikki, sitting on the curb crying. She appeared uninjured and clutched part of a newspaper. The pages were blowing away one at a time in the breeze. Scanning up and down the street, he saw no one else.

“What are you, my mother? You don’t bust up after one date. Keep an eye on her. I’ll be right down.” Doc hung up and made for the door. “Louie, watch out the window, when I look up give me the all-clear. If you see somethin’, point at it. Got it?” Doc was out of the door before Louie could answer.

Moments later, Nikki was safely up in the office, sipping hot tea. She had stopped crying and was settled enough for Doc to talk to her.

“I didn’t know where else to go.” She fought back the urge to sob again.

“Sweetheart, what happened?” Doc asked as Louie handed her another tissue.

“He didn’t show up for work the last two days, so I called his house. No answer. That’s not like him.”

“Like who?”

“He’s dead. Ira’s dead.”

Doc and Louie exchanged glances. “How do you know?”

She held up the last torn piece of newsprint she had been clutching in her hand. Doc and Louie shared the same thought. Even before Doc checked the tattered page, Louie was moving for the door.

“It’s the
Daily News
.” Louie nodded at Doc.

“Got it!”

“I don’t know what to say.” Doc tried to console her. He was unsure what to do and so walked over to the hot plate to make some more tea.

“Doc I… I don’t think it was natural causes.”

“Why not? What’d the article say?”

“It didn’t. But there was somethin’ about an autopsy. They wouldn’t do an autopsy if it was natural causes, would they?”

“Not usually, no. Where’d he die?”

“I… don’t know. I couldn’t get past the first paragraph.”

Doc was digesting events when he heard Louie coming back down the hall.

“Doc, there’s somethin’ else,” Nikki said.

He came back over and sat down next to her. “Tell me.”

Louie came in the door with a copy of the
News
folded over folded over to the appropriate page. Doc took it from him and began to read.

“Shirley’s gone.”

Doc looked up from the paper. “She quit?”

“No. Gone gone. Like missing gone.”

“How do you know she’s missing?”

“Because she wasn’t at work today, or yesterday either, and she doesn’t answer the phone at her apartment.” Tears began to well in her eyes. Doc signalled Louie behind her back to make her a drink. He handed Doc a short measure which he poured it into her tea. He motioned to Louie a second time to sit at his desk and take notes on what Nikki was telling them.

“Maybe she’s sick and went over to St. Vincent’s?”

“She’s healthy as a horse! Shirley doesn’t get sick damn it! Listen to me!” Nikki turned and saw Louie writing at the desk. “And don’t waste your time calling the hospital. I already did.” Louie crossed out the note he just made on the pad.

“Look, Doc, you gotta believe me. She doesn’t miss work, ya know? The day after Pearl Harbor, she was in that building for seventy-two hours straight. One of the officers had to order her to be escorted home. After thirteen years, that place is her whole life.”

“Okay, let’s assume she’s missing. Was she out with anybody in the last few weeks?”

“No. The last guy she was out with never showed for their second date. That was eight months ago.”

“Do we know anything about him?” Louie interjected.

“Plenty! He made up with his old girlfriend and now they’re married with a kid in Atlanta. The dopey son-of-a-bitch even sent her a wedding invitation!” Nikki succumbed to her frustration.

“Does she have any relatives in New York?” Doc asked.

“Her mother’s in Jersey.”

“You got her number?”

“No, but it’s probably on record somewhere down at the Third District. But I don’t think I can get it.”

“Why not?”

“I’m afraid to go around askin’ questions. I think maybe that’s what happened to Shirley. She started gettin’ these weird messages through her switchboard, and started askin’ questions.”

“Weird messages?”

“Yeah. Real cryptic stuff. The kinda thing you’d think would be classified. Only she told me the guys on the other end of the line didn’t sound like they were Navy.”

“How’d they sound?”

“She used the word ‘rough’.”

“She ever say anything, or you ever hear anything, about money going through that place?”

Nikki thought for a moment. The whiskey was kicking in. “No, not that I ever heard of. All the financial stuff is handled through the Bursar’s Department.”

Doc opened the desk drawer and took out the over-stuffed cigar box. He showed it to Nikki. “The night we went out three guys jumped me coming back from your place. They were treasury agents. They had all this dough on them.”

“Jeez! Nice work if ya can get it, huh?” Nikki had never seen so much money. “We got a couple of treasury agents working down at the district. I don’t know what they do, but they’re with the Naval Intel department.”

Doc laid the cigar box on the desk and showed Nikki the four wallets. “Recognise any of these guys?”

“Yeah, these two. They’re both assigned to the district. That one’s the creep who’s always hittin’ on us.” She pointed to Johnson.

“Is it him?” Louie asked.

“No, another one.” Doc answered.

“Him who?” Nikki spoke to Doc.

“We met another one earlier today. This one.” He showed her the duplicate ID, one she didn’t recognise. Doc put everything away then thought better of it. He retrieved a cloth money bag from the bottom drawer of the desk and put the money from the cigar box and the identification cards in it. Holding back two twenties, he held them out to Louie.

“Louie’ll take you back downtown. I’ll meet you at five and take you home. Okay?”

“I’m not going back to work! I already told them. They brought in a temp. I’m gonna go home. Kate has a half day today. She’s probably already at Mrs. Paluso’s.”

Doc picked up the phone and rang downstairs. “Harry, get Nikki a cab, will ya? Tell him ta honk twice when he shows up.”

“Where to, Doc?”

“Tell him we’ll let him know when he gets here.” Doc turned to Louie. “Call Doris. Tell her ta call Mrs Birnbaum, see if she needs anything. I’ll take Nikki down to the cab.”

“Roger, Doc.”

On their way through Harry’s, Doc put the cloth bag on the counter. “Put this somewhere safe, will ya?”

Harry waited until the couple were outside to stash the bag.

Downstairs, Doc held the taxi door open for Nikki. He got a nice surprise. After she kissed him, she told him how good it felt to know she could rely on him. The cab pulled away and Doc went back upstairs, unsure of how to take Nikki’s compliment.

“Hey, Doc. I been meaning ta ask ya. How the hell does Harry know so much about rubber money?”

“Harry has a past. Let me see that article.” Louie continued to speak as Doc perused the article.

“Says they found him in Bushwick Creek. That’s up in Greenpoint. Whata ya suppose he was doin’ over there?”

“He probably wasn’t in Brooklyn. They iced him somewhere else and dropped him over there. The Mob uses the East River all the time for their private cemetery.”

“You think it was the Mob?!”

“No. If they did it, he wouldn’t have been found so soon, if at all. I think they wanted it to look like the Mob. Looks like we’re gonna meet the Kings County Coroner.”

“You know somebody over there?”

Doc reached into his pocket and began to count the bills he had on him. “No, but I got a feelin’ somebody in the Coroner’s office and myself have some mutual friends.”

“You’re not gonna give him that phoney dough, are ya?”

“Only if I have to. Besides, look at it as doin’ him a favour.”

“What?”

Doc continued to talk as they headed for the door. “The law says a bribe is takin’money for doin’ somethin’ illegal. This ain’t really money now, is it? So he really won’t be breakin’ the law now, will he?”

“Yeah, that’ll hold up in court!”

It was a quarter to twelve when they left the office to head over to Brooklyn.

Thirty minutes later, there was one pissed off potential client storming back down the stairs and out through Harry’s onto Christopher Street.