The Hunt (aka 27)

  Frankie Kee was never a suspect. He was in Boston General in intensive care when it happened. Since the authorities didn't know Fusco's bullet had put him there, no connection was ever made. For the record, Francis Scott Keegan's attack went down as an attempted stickup. As for Keegan, he was never sure who had disposed of Fusco. It was one of those unclaimed favors one simply takes for granted, savors and forgets.

  So Shultz tried unsuccessfully to give Frankie Kee the big gift—the concrete overcoat and the deep swim. But Keegan, touched with the luck of the Irish, always proved equal to the challenge. Each time the Dutchman failed, his assassins felt the sting of his Irish vengeance in strange, sometimes almost supernatural ways. One of his attempted assassins was kicked to death by a racehorse in a stable at Belmont Park. Another choked to death on a chicken bone during a birthday celebration in Reuben's Restaurant in Manhattan.

  "Listen, pal, I never lifted a finger against anybody, " Keegan once told Albert A at a meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, where Anastasia had been sent to put Frankie Kee in a box and Dutch Shultz out of his misery. "It's just that bad things seem to befall people I particularly don't like. And Albert, I particularly don't like you as much as anybody I know. "

  Anastasia, probably the New York mob's top killer and a man unaccustomed to insults, was so astounded he didn't say anything in response. At first he didn't even tell anybody that this smartass mackerel snapper from Boston had insulted him. Then his anger got the best of him. When he decided to start his own Boston Tea Party, Arnold Rothstein stepped in.

  A few days after the Anastasia meeting, Keegan was in The Rose for dinner, his Uncle Ned serving the best Kansas City sirloin east of the town itself. Ned slid into the booth opposite him.

  "I heard this rumor that you put the double hex on Albert A, " he whispered in his Irish lilt. "Tell me it's a lie. Tell me yer not mixin‘it up with them Guineas. Jesus, Francis, they'll cut off yer jewels n' have 'em fer breakfast. "

  "Now why would I do a silly thing like that, Unc?"

  "But you talked to him, didn't ye? Ye had a conversation with Albert A. "

  "He wanted to buy my Rolls. "

  "So what'd you tell 'im?"

  "I told him him no dice. Told him it wouldn't fit him.

  "You told Albert A that? That it wouldn't fit 'im?"

  "Yeah. I told him he was too small for it. He shrank another two inches when it sank in. "

  "Why ye do things like that, Frankie? Ye better watch yer step, son, them dagos have a short fuse. "

  "Been tried, Unc. " He wiped his mouth with his napkin. "I've got a meeting to go to. "

  "What're ye gonna do, sell a bottle a scotch to the mayor?" Ned said with a snicker.

  "I'm going uptown to Central Park. "

  "Central Park is it?"

  "A meeting with A.R. "

  "Rothstein himself! Are ye crazy, then?" Ned shook his head. "I'll tell ye this, boy, when I die they's gonna be hell t‘pay. When I get to heaven yer old man's gonna kick my ass to Baltimore and back fer lettin' you go astray. "

  "And well he should, " Keegan answered with his cockeyed smile.

  Arnold Rothstein, who had been known as A.R. since his teens, was a democrat in the true sense of the word. Every day he held court on the same bench in the southwest corner of Central Park just off 59th Street, listening to deals, requests for loans, entertaining favors. Want to shack up with a chorus girl? Ask A.R. Want to buy a load of whiskey and willing to pay the interest? Ask A.R. Want to fix a cop, bribe a judge, dispose of a witness, fix the 1919 World Series? Ask A.R. Want to lose a bundle in a poker game? Sit across the table from A.R.

  Keegan had leaned on the stone wall on Central Park South watching him for about ten minutes. Not as trim as his pictures showed him to be, Keegan thought. Getting bald. But you could sense the power in the man, sitting with his back ramrod straight in his gray pinstripe and polka dot bow tie. All brains, thought Keegan. There sits the most powerful gangster in the world. More powerful than Capone, Luciano, Costello, any of them. Just sitting there in the sun feeding the pigeons. It's a crazy world.

  Finally he strolled down the path and stood in front of the big man. Rothstein looked up at him for a moment through narrowed eyes, then held out his hand.

  "You must be Frankie Kee, " he said.

  A little cross-eyed, Keegan thought. He took the hand.

  "Francis Keegan, Mr. Rothstein, " he answered.

  "Call me A.R. Everybody calls me A.R. Take a load off. " He patted the bench. Keegan sat down.

  "Where's Jimmy Noland?" Keegan asked, using Legs Diamond's real name.

  "Know Legs, do you?"

  "Never met the man. I've always heard you want to meet Legs Diamond, find Arnold Rothstein. "

  Rothstein laughed. "That's a kick in the ass, " he said. "The way I heard it, you wanna meet A.R., find Legs Diamond. He's over at the Plaza having a coffee. I told you this was just you and me. I'm not a welcher. "

  "I've heard that too. "

  "Good. We'll get along. "

  "What's to get along about, Mis . . . A.R.?"

  "It comes to me you had this thing with Albert A, up in the country. "

  "It was in Providence. "

  "Anything past 125th Street is country to me, son. So anyway, it comes to me you insulted him. Something about a car. "

  "What it was, Anastasia proposed a merger. I'm supposed to give up my little specialty business and pitch in with Charley Lucky, Costello, Capone, that whole Sicilian bunch, right? And they send Albert A to talk the deal. That's what it was. Anyway, he got a look at my car and got all hot and bothered to have it. "

  "And you told him it was too big for him. "

  "Something like that. "

  "That's rich, that is. I admire your moxie, pal. The little bastard really blew his cork, y'know. You're lucky he didn't start World War Two right there on the spot. I'm sure you know Albert's specialty is the big knockover. "

  "The conditions weren't right. "

  Rothstein laughed again. "Knowing Albert, I gotta agree with you, " he said. "He's not one to go face-to-face with anybody. "

  "Well, he was a very pushy guy, you see, and I figure he came to me wanting something, so pushy was not the right attitude. "

  "You're large on attitude, are you?"

  "No, I'm large on if you want something you say ‘please' and ‘how about it,' not ‘gimme. ' "

  "I'd say that's reasonable. Unfortunately, Albert A is not a reasonable fellow. He is definitely a gimme' guy. "

  "He's a back-shooting son of a bitch. He kills for wages. He smells like death. And he has hyena breath. "

  "Hyena breath. " Rothstein laughed. "That's great. You're full of 'em. "

  "Anyway, he is definitely not the kind of a man you send to talk business. Not if you're serious anyway. You send a negotiator, somebody who talks give and take. Somebody with a greased tongue and the long schmooze. So what we did, we moved him around some before we sat down to talk. Spooked his tails. Anastasia's a planner. He couldn't take me on because he was out of his element, he didn't have a plan. And his backshooters were lost. "

  "Very clever. So you think he came to kill you?"

  Keegan looked at Rothstein and raised an eyebrow.

  "No, I think he came to borrow a smoke. "

  "I must admit, sending him to negotiate anything was poor judgment. Not mine, incidentally. I'm simply here to mediate some differences. "

  "That's why I don't believe it, A.R. That's why I think it was not a proposal made in good faith. It was a setup that went sour. They thought they were dealing with one of the Katzenjammer Kids. "

  "What exactly do you want, Francis?"

  "What do I want? Nothing. Not a single, solitary thing. Zip. Just leave me alone. I've got a little specialty business. Hell, it's a nothing to you guys. Somebody got a wire up his ass on this thing. I do a thousand cases a month, your people do twenty thou. If they wanted to do twenty-one thou, no big thing. See what I mean, w
hat's the dif? A couple of times they tried to knock me over and for what? A thousand cases a month?"

  "Three times they almost pulled it off, " Rothstein said with a note of fatherly caution in his tone.

  "But they didn't, "Keegan answered. "So why are we here, Mr. Rothstein? Have you got a beef with me?"

  "You wanna know the truth?"

  "That would be nice. "

  "I wanted to meet the man told Albert Anastasia he was too small a guy to fit in a goddamn Rolls-Royce. "

  "That's the whole of it?"

  "Look, Francis . . . that's what you prefer, isn't it?"

  "That's my name. I never have gone in big for monikers. "

  "Or publicity. "

  "Or publicity. I'd rather have my face on the post office wall than the front page of the Daily News."

  "That's very smart. Anyway, the whole of it is this. You are doing business with some very important people. People I would like to get next to. Like the governor, for instance. So I thought maybe we could work a little something out. You wash my hand, I wash yours. You know how that works. I'll put Albert back in his box, tell the Sicilians to lay off. You got no more troubles. Shit, son, let's see, a thousand cases a month at your price, that would be about, uh, two and a half mil a year, correct me if I'm wrong. We got another two, three years before they repeal the stupid law. We're talking a lot of gelt here, seven, eight million bucks and nobody hassles you anymore. "

  "And for this?"

  "For this maybe you could put me in touch with some of your people. "

  "I never met the governor. "

  "You have access. "

  "I'm afraid I couldn't do that, A.R. "

  "Oh?"

  "Look, let's get to the bone, okay? I know these people socially. As far as they know, I've got a damn good bootlegger. They give me the order, I take care of things for them. I never see a dime at that end. So, you see, if I even suggested such a thing, that somebody should parlay with you, that would come down badly on me and you. You've got Tammany in your pocket, but it doesn't work that way up in Albany. It would not just blow a good thing for me, it would have the state boys up your ass with a searchlight. So what I'm saying to you, I'm giving you some advice. It's a bad call, A.R. You don't want to do that. It'll give you a headache aspirin won't cure. "

  Rothstein looked at Keegan with his mouth open just a hair. He was impressed. The kid made sense to him. Keegan knew the lay of the land upstate. He'd been operating free as a sparrow for three, four years now. On the other hand, Rothstein's corruption did not spread that far. He did not own any state cops or any upstate people that amounted to anything.

  "That's sound thinking, Francis. You're fast on your feet. "

  "I'm just calling it the way I see it. Why bite a tiger in the ass?"

  "I must say, I could use a man with a head like yours. Most of my people think with their guns and their balls. You give 'em two and two, they gotta take to the weekend to come up with four. Muscle they know about. Brains? Shit, they think you go twenty miles south of Yonkers, you fall off the planet. I don't suppose you'd be interested in a little change in professional direction at this time?"

  "That's a flattering offer but I like things as they are. "

  "Tell you what I'm gonna do, Francis. I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna tell Frank and Lucky to leave you alone. That I owe you one. I appreciate good advice. I give it out a lot but I don't get much back. I can understand why you backed Albert A down. He didn't know what to make of you. How many guns you have on him after you cut him out from his pack?"

  Keegan's smile broadened. "You'll never know," he said.

  "I guess I won't. " Rothstein smiled back. "Pleasure meetin' ya, Francis Keegan. Good health. "

  "You too. Mind if I ask you one question?"

  "Shoot. "

  "How much did you make on the Series fix?"

  Rothstein laughed. "You'll never know, " he answered.

  Less than two weeks later, Arnold Rothstein, the great fixer, the man who devised the criminal blueprint for the Mafia, a blueprint they followed almost to the letter, was in a card game with "Titanic" Thompson and "Nigger Nate" Raymond, two West Coast gamblers. Rothstein dropped $320,000 and walked out without paying, claiming the game was rigged. An hour later he was dead with four bullet holes in his back. Nobody was ever booked for his murder. But Rothstein was good to his word, even in the grave. Nobody in the mob ever bothered Keegan again.

  Francis Scott Keegan, Bootlegger to the Kings. He laughed thinking about it.

  What the hell, he thought, why close the window. In retrospect he liked the view. How many people did he know who had snookered Albert Anastasia, the most dangerous man in America, and Arnold Rothstein, its greatest fixer, both in the same week, who had defied the mob and lived to tell about it and who had sold short in the market in September, two months before the bottom dropped out, and made a killing?

  And anyway, this had all started because Vanessa had called him Frankie Kee. So if his conscience was having a problem dealing with her, forget it. Little girls grow up. And grow up she had. Hell, it was too late to worry about it and besides, his head was throbbing from lack of sleep and too much champagne and he was in no shape to deal with his conscience or his memories and here it was, dawn again, and every muscle in his body ached.

  He scribbled a note to her and put it on the pillow beside her, then he covered her up and headed for the steam baths in the basement.

  He had heard her whisper to him when she thought he was asleep. He, too, hoped she wasn't falling in love with him.

  She was a nice kid, Vanessa. Beautiful, charming. But in the two days he'd been with her, something strange had happened to him. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about the singer, about Jenny Gould. Her voice haunted him, her eyes pierced him still.

  He hoped he hadn't fallen in love—with a German torch singer he didn't really know.

  FIFTEEN

  A burly blond sat behind the desk, dozing.

  "Is Werner at work yet?" Keegan asked in German.

  "Nein," the young man said, shaking his head, and told him in German that the masseur was not due in for another hour. Keegan went back to the locker room, stripped, wrapped a towel around his waist and entered the empty steam room. He poured a bucket of water over the hot, glowing coals in the corner of the small room and sat with his elbows propped on his knees, letting the hissing steam urge the poisons out of his body.

  He was dozing when he heard the door open and close.

  Through the swirling steam he saw the little man from the embassy party, swathed in towels to cover the unfortunate hump on his back, smiling across the room at him.

  "Good morning," the little man said in almost perfect English.

  "I suppose," Keegan answered.

  Was he a guest in the hotel? Keegan wondered. What was he doing here at seven in the morning? Was he following Keegan? Or was Keegan's hangover making him a little paranoid?

  Keegan couldn't have cared less at that moment. The hangover was now a thunderstorm in his head and he was trying to avoid any kind of movement or thought.

  "Have you been in Berlin long?" the humpback asked finally.

  "I move around a bit, but I spend about half my time here."

  "You like Berlin then?"

  "I like the chaos. Reminds me of home."

  "Chaos?"

  Keegan looked over at him. "You haven't noticed?"

  "The chaos is over," the professor said. "The Führer has the country under control."

  "Ah, that's reassuring."

  "Are you one of those Americans who thinks Hitler is some kind of human devil?"

  "I don't think about it at all. Believe me, not at all."

  "You know what I mean."

  The little bird's trying to get a handle on my political views, Keegan thought. What the hell's his game?

  "Chancellor Hitler's a bit radical for a lot of Americans, how's that?"

  The professor laughed and nodd
ed vigorously.

  "A bit radical, ja, I like that. That's quite funny." Keegan leaned forward and stared over at the humpback. He wiped the flat of his hand across his flat belly, sweeping away the puddles of sweat that were collecting around the towel at his waist. He smiled faintly and the smile stayed on his lips.

  "And how about you, do you think he's a bit radical?" the little man asked.

  He's fishing for something, Keegan thought. Well, whatever he wants he'll have to work for it. So Keegan did not take the bait.

  "I told you, I don't think about it. I'm your typical tourist. I spend money and give the economy a little boost, that's all."

  "Your name is Keegan, is that correct? I saw it when you signed in at the desk."

  "Keegan. That's correct. You are?"

  "Vierhaus. Professor Wilhelm Vierhaus."

  "Pleased to meet you."

  "Keegan, Keegan. You are Ire?"

  "Also correct. Irish-American. My parents both came from Ireland."

  "Ah, what part?"

  So that's it. He figures I'm an Irish patriot, an English-hater. This guy wants something. Maybe I should play his game, lunch with the little guy. Pick his brains, subtly, of course, and pass the info on to Wally in the States, just to show him I do have feelings about what's going on.

  "Belfast," Keegan said. "They weren't interested in politics either."

  "Ah. And were you in the war?"

  "You ask a lot of questions."

  "Please forgive me. Just curious. I don't often have an opportunity to talk with Americans."

  "Yes, I was in the war. The other side."

  The professor laughed again. Keegan's smile remained the same, a little arrogant, a little mysterious. He poured another bucket on the coal pile. Steam hissed and swirled into the room. Keegan leaned back, closed his eyes.

  "I don't suppose you have a cigarette tucked away in that pile of towels you're wearing?" he asked the professor.

  "Sorry. I left them outside."

  "Excuse me a minute."

  Keegan got up and stepped outside the steam room. He opened his locker and took out his pack of Camels and lit one. There were two men in hats standing in the hallway outside the club room, trying hard to ignore him.