Operation Underworld (42 page)
He guessed he was under the annex passageway and assumed there must be an access panel somewhere. Suddenly, Doc felt a wall in front of him with his foot. He systematically felt right and left. More walls. It was a dead end. The sounds behind him grew louder as he quickly ran his hands up and down all three walls, while above he could hear the other agents and policemen running through the annex.
Finally, he felt an iron latch. Lifting it as slowly as he could to avoid unnecessary noise, he pushed open the narrow steel hatch and peered through to the other side. A short iron ladder, embedded in the wall, led up to a grating in the museum floor.
“I see light!” The voice behind him signalled he was spotted. Slamming the door hard, he braced his foot against the adjoining wall and pulled out as hard as he could on the latch of the handle. The latch bent, not much, but enough to keep the handle from being able to slide open. The men behind the door rattled it furiously but couldn’t open it.
Back inside the planetarium, a very annoyed crowd were being told that the show had been cancelled, and refunds would be afforded. The Zeiss projector revealed no little black book, and so was lowered and the trap doors were closed and locked.
Up on the lobby level, the men’s toilet door slowly opened and Doc stuck his head out, looking up and down the hall. He saw a welcome sight – a bank of phone booths just outside the ladies’ toilets only yards from the main exit. Time to call for back-up.
Once inside a booth, he unscrewed the overhead light and dialled the office. He could get out and lie low until Louie showed up with a cab. The phone continued to ring. And ring, and ring.
“God-damn it, Mancino! You better be dead or dying!”
“He’s in here!” Through the glass of the double folding doors, Doc could see a cop’s uniform, and an arm pointing into the phone booth.
The cop grabbed at the door handles and Doc followed suit. He resisted letting the officer open the doors just long enough to establish a rhythm, and as the cop gave one determined mighty pull, Doc released the handles, trapping the officer’s right hand between the doors as they folded open. The cop yelled. Doc punched him twice in the stomach, and closed the doors so he could collapse onto the floor, gasping for breath.
With no hope of back-up, and the lobby crowd now swollen with the ranks of the planetarium people, Doc reckoned the main exit was a good bet. The parade was due to start in less than half an hour, so the streets should be equally as mobbed.
Once again, Doc donned his Negro League baseball cap and tried to blend in. The crowd ebbed and flowed around the twin Brontosaurii mounted on their bronze replicated landscape, displayed in the center of the massive lobby. Doc could see the sunlight peering through the large brass doors as he approached them. He cautiously looked around; no cops, no agents.
Then Doc hit the floor, hands sprawled in front of him. Shit! He’d been tackled from behind. He was able to roll over and see the cop who tackled him removing his billy club from its holster. Things switched to fast-forward.
The cop swung and Doc rolled left and the hardwood club struck the marble floor. Doc pinned the arm holding the club to the floor and climbed onto the cop’s back. Holding the officer by the hair, Doc slammed his face into the floor and the fight was over. Out of breath, soaked in sweat, he looked up. The exit was only ten feet away.
As he rose to his feet and looked around, he was struck in the back of the head and fell to the floor. Doc kept waiting for unconsciousness to overtake him, but it didn’t. Instead, he rolled over onto his back and looked up. He recognised the agent who was swinging down hard with the cop’s billy club towards his face. Doc instinctively moved to block the blow, and the full force was taken by his right forearm. He knew instantly that his arm was broken.
Strange how you notice insignificant details of your surroundings when you’re scared, thought Doc. He focused on the polished marble floor. Then turned to the walls and ceiling. He thought about the great times he’d spent here as a kid and how for the longest time he’d vowed to be an archaeologist in a far away place, and dig for dinosaur bones. Then things slammed into focus.
Amazingly, the agent wasn’t swinging any more. He was standing upright calling to other police and agents. Doc seized the moment. Kicking the agent’s feet out from under him, he watched as feet flew in one direction and the Billy club in another. The bone-crunching thud when his head hit the floor, and the agent writhing in agony holding his lower back, told Doc he had bought more time.
Doc struggled to his feet, one knee at a time, cradling his arm, and continued to make his way to the door. The pain surged up his back and into his head as he made his way through the crowd. His brain on high alert, he pushed the door open with his left shoulder and stepped out into the sunlight. The cold, fresh air helped to clear his head and he was compelled to take the stairs one at a time, holding his broken arm close to his chest.
Leaving the danger of the museum and entering the carnival atmosphere of the street was surrealistic. In contrast to the relative dark and quiet of the museum, everything outside was colourful and busy, like a Dali painting. A clown across the street stood against the Central Park wall selling balloons, dozens of men in kilts made their way south to the parade route, and women in varied costumes accompanied them as kids scurried in all directions. Doc tried to focus on making it into the park to hail a cab.
Crossing Central Park West was easy as traffic was blocked off further north to accommodate the parade. Weaving between a marching band who were just forming ranks and some shivering baton twirlers, Doc heard a voice from behind.
“Hey, asshole!”
As he stood in the middle of the sidewalk, across the street, Doc slowly turned and saw a treasury agent standing on the sidewalk behind him. Something was wrong. This fat, slobby guy didn’t look like Johnson or any of the other agents. As the agent slowly removed his top coat, Doc stared in disbelief.
The guy’s chest rose to touch his jaw, and he had no discernible neck. His biceps nearly exploded out of his sleeves and Doc thought that he looked like an Aryan genetic experiment gone amok. It was one of the few times McKeowen regretted not carrying a gun.
Doc decided that, under the circumstances, there was only one reasonable course of action. He took a deep breath, held his broken arm, looked around… and ran like hell.
Through the crowd and up the sidewalk, trying desperately to make it to the park wall, he scurried on the icy walk.
Maybe I could lose him in the undergrowth. Yeah, the bare, winter, defoliated undergrowth! Shit!
As he reached the wall, Doc heard a sound like raw meat slapping the pavement.
Just as he got one leg over the low granite wall, a woman screamed and he looked to his left in time to see a couple of dozen balloons floating into the air and the balloon-selling clown frantically administering non-stop punches to no-neck. The agent was on his knees, but the clown, now with a stranglehold on the agent’s necktie, kept punching. Blood spurted from his face, and on the fifth or sixth punch, the unconscious agent fell face first onto the pavement with a sickening thwack. Blood pooled around his face.
The clown was out of breath, propped against the park wall for support when a panicky woman made her way through the onlookers and ushered her kid away from the scene.
“It‘s okay, lady. He just tried to steal the kid’s balloon.” Doc squinted, stared and made his way over to the clown. In between gasps, he spoke to Doc. “I have got to get another set of these!” He held up his right hand covered in blood and brass knuckles. “Hey Doc! How’s it hangin’?”
“Louie! What the…?” Louie’s big clown feet flopped over to Doc.
“I tailed you all the way from downtown! Never even seen me, didja?” Doc smiled and fell back against a soot-stained bench, holding his arm. “Doc! You okay?”
“I think I got a busted arm, Louie.” Doc looked very pale. “We gotta get outta here before the rest of the goons show up.”
Louie helped his friend over the short perimeter wall into the park and they kept to the narrow footpaths snaking through the shrubs and trees. By the time they reached Belvedere Lake ten minutes later, Louie noticed Doc was slowing down.
“Here, Doc, sit here.” Louie brushed the light, powdery snow from a bench and sat Doc down facing the frozen lake. He walked over to a garbage basket and removed the rest of his clown outfit, stuffing it in the receptacle. He put the collar up on his coat and returned to Doc.
“Louie…” Doc inquired in between pants, “why’d ya keep hittin’ that guy so many times?”
“He wouldn’t go down!” Louie put Doc’s collar up as well, then adjusted his ball cap. “Besides, it’s jocks like him that are always yacking about how bowling ain’t a real sport. They piss me off.” Louie rubbed his hands together. It was getting colder, with a slight wind and the snow was now falling in big, wet flakes and starting to stick.
“Hey, Doc, you want some coffee, or you want to push on to the hospital? Lenox Hill is only about six or eight blocks away.”
“Sure thing, Kato,” came Doc’s weak reply. Louie smiled and looked over at his friend. He did his best to conceal his horror as he saw the back of the bomber jacket was covered in blood that was oozing from the back of Doc’s head. Doc slowly closed his eyes and slipped into unconsciousness.
Treasury agent Berryman dashed out of the taxi even before it came to a full stop in front of number 90 Church Street. Flashing the night sentry his credentials, he went directly upstairs to the Department of the Treasury office, where Johnson and two other agents were packing up.
“They found him!” Berryman announced as he burst through the door.
Johnson was taking a framed certificate off the wall and turned towards Berryman with a smile. “Where?”
“They think he was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital!”
“Huh, Park Avenue. He didn’t make it very far, must be hurt pretty bad. That’s a good thing.” Johnson nonchalantly turned back to packing and placed the framed DA’s special commendation into a box. The other agents resumed their tasks as well.
Berryman had a puzzled look on his face. “Well? Aren’t we gonna go get him?” he asked.
Johnson didn’t turn, just kept working. “What for? Cops know where he is. He’s hospitalised, where the hell’s he goin’? Besides, our job is done. They’ll arrest him, he’ll spend one to two years tied up in court, that’s if he can afford a good lawyer, then the rest of his life in jail.”
“But there’s no evidence he did it. What if he walks?”
“Walks? Come back to Kansas, Dorothy! Guilty until proven innocent. Plus the publicity around this thing. The cops know he did it, the DA will take it from the cops, make sure he gets the right judge, the rest is history. Even if he gets a good lawyer, he can’t fight the system from inside a cell. End of story.”
“Hey Boss, what about the money?” One of the other agents was holding a small leather carrying case as he spoke to Johnson. “How much is left?”
“Little over eighteen grand.”
“Divvy it up five ways. Give me Robbie’s cut, I’ll take care of it. The rest of you…” The agents stopped what they were doing and paid attention. “Every man is responsible for himself. That not only means the money, but your alibis, and everything else. From the time you walk out of this office, you’re on your own. Questions?”
Their silence signalled they were in agreement. Johnson turned back to Berryman.
“You reschedule the travel arrangements?”
“Yeah, here.” He reached into his breast pocket, took out a thick envelope and opened it.
“This is your plane ticket. Your wheels are up at eight-thirty. You guys are goin’out by train, nine forty-five. All separate cars.” He dealt out train tickets to the other agents as he spoke. “I’ll follow tomorrow by car. We meet back on F Street Monday morning, and go back to work.”
“Last chance. Questions, comments, snide remarks?” No one spoke. “Gentlemen, it’s been a slice.” Johnson headed for the door.
As evening settled in, the glitter of the falling snow caused the trees, greens and lake to take on a magical, winter wonderland ambience. The view across Central Park East from the tall office buildings and apartment houses revealed a fairytale quality not often seen in a wartime metropolis. The serenity was momentarily interrupted by the flashing red light of a Cadillac ambulance and the shrill echo of its siren resonated throughout the neighbourhood as it made its way down the avenue.
The side doors of the vehicle were lettered in gold leaf and red enamel,
Lenox Hill Hospital, NYC, NY
.
“When the hell you think you’re gonna see a machine ta monitor the human heart inside a ambulance? And besides standin’ on it to reach high places, what we gonna do with it?” The ambulance driver spoke with the courage of his convictions. His partner, slumped down in his seat gazing out the window, answered with the same amount of intensity.
“If we vote at the union meeting to take the pay cut, and let them institute their new training programme, we’ll know how to use the machine!”