Stolen Away

“Keep playing along with him, for the time being. Only don’t give him another red cent! I’m an inch away from having you demand your dough back, and then, when he doesn’t cough it up, call in the cops.”

“You think my money’s gone?”

“Is Hitler a stinker?”

She sighed. “It’s not the money. It’s the child. I thought we might get that child.”

“We still may. With Means, it’s hard to know the truth, even when he’s telling it. His wildest stories have twenty or thirty percent reality in them. The rub is narrowing down and identifying that percentage.”

She nodded, with a frustrated smirk. “He knows enough about the kidnapping, then, to make you think he’s had at least some contact with the kidnappers?”

“That would be my guess. With his government and socialite connections in D.C., and his underworld ties, he’s the ideal bagman for a job like this. Only, choosing Gaston Means to collect and deliver money really is, as we say in the Middle West, putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”

She nodded, wearily. Then she brightened, rather unconvincingly. “Do you want to make those calls? I can have the phone brought to you.”

“Why not?”

I tried to get Elmer Irey at his temporary office in New York, but got Frank Wilson instead. Quickly, and with few details, I revealed that Gaston Bullock Means had passed himself off as a negotiator for the kidnap gang. I did not mention Evalyn’s one hundred grand. This was not quite the moment when the boom—whether federal or local—ought be lowered on Means.

“Means is the biggest damn liar,” Wilson said calmly, “on the face of the earth.”

I agreed. “But he is connected to half the bootleggers in the U.S.”

“That’s true enough,” Wilson said reflectively. “Back in the twenties, when he was a Justice Department man, he sold 1410-A’s right out of his office.”

Form 1410-A was a federal government permit to deal in alcohol, meant for druggists and other legitimate users.

“Well,” I said, laying it out on the table, “Means says two bootleggers engineered the kidnapping.”

“Really.” Wilson’s voice had turned as flat as last night’s beer.

“They’re both named Max. Max Greenberg and Max Hassel. Heard of ’em?”

“Waxey Gordon’s two top boys?” His sigh conveyed boredom and irritation. “I hardly think two of the biggest beer barons on the East Coast are going to mess around with kidnapping the goddamn Lindbergh baby.”

“Why not?”

His voice had a shrug in it. “They don’t need the money, Heller. They’re businessmen, and kidnapping is not their racket. Besides which, they’re up to their asses in a beer war.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Dutch Schultz and Waxey Gordon’s respective hoodlums have for several months been shooting at each other with some regularity—which as long as innocent bystanders don’t get killed, is fine with me.”

“Well, I think Greenberg and Hassel are worth looking into.”

“They already are being looked into.”

“In relation to the Lindbergh case?”

“Hell no. In relation to income-tax evasion. And we’re working on their boss Waxey, too.”

“You mean, that’s a case you’re working on personally?”

“No. I mean the Intelligence Unit of the IRS.”

I had to try one more time. “Well then, will you alert the agents handling the case that there may be a Lindbergh connection?”

There was a long pause. Finally, he said, “I appreciate your efforts, Heller. I know you feel frustrated, as do I, as does Chief Irey. And you’ve kept us informed about things that Colonel Lindbergh has unwisely kept to himself. I appreciate that. We appreciate that.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“But…I’m not going to interfere in another agent’s ongoing case. Not on the say-so of Gaston Bullock Means, for Christsake! Heller, you’re a police liaison from Chicago. Stay out of federal business.”

“What about New Jersey business?”

“When did they move Cook County to New Jersey? Why don’t you call up Colonel Schwarzkopf? I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear from you. Is there anything else?”

Fucker.

“What about Capone’s boy, Bob Conroy?” I asked. “You guys were going to track him down.”

“Well, we haven’t. If he’s on the East Coast, he’s well hidden. Maybe he’s taking a swim in cement overshoes.”

Wilson was probably right on that score. “What about the spiritualist church? I would think the Marinellis—who seemed to know about Jafsie before Jafsie knew about Jafsie—would be a hell of a good lead, now that the old boy has paid fifty grand out to God knows who.”

“Heller, Pat O’Rourke joined that church, stayed undercover and joined in on their mumbo-jumbo for three weeks, but found not a damn thing.”

I didn’t know what to say. O’Rourke was a good man. Maybe there wasn’t a damn thing to find.

“So what do you suggest?” I asked Wilson.

“I suggest you think about going back to Chicago. We’ve got fifty grand in marked bills floating around out there, and that’s going to lead us to our kidnappers.”