A President In Peril

Chapter Seven C₃ O₁ N₁ F₄ L₁ A₁ G₂ R₁ A₁ T₁ I₁ O₁ N₁ (n) a large and destructive fire

When I got back to the press room after lunch, Packy Farmer practically tackled me. “Cripes, I’m glad you’re back, Snap. There’s been another shooting — a fireman this time, dead. City News just got the bulletin,” he said breathlessly, waving in the direction of Jeff, the City News Bureau reporter.

“Yeah, poor guy was sitting outside of his firehouse on South Damen, was shot by somebody going by in a car, so they think,” Jeff said.

“Christ, Snap, I’m close to a deadline, so’s Anson, although he’s not back yet. He and Dirk are still out to lunch, probably having themselves a few martinis. You gotta go and talk to Fahey — get some details fast.”

“You know, Packy,” I snapped, “nothing was stopping you from going down to see Fergus yourself or even, heaven forbid, picking up the phone and calling the chief. You don’t have to wait for me, for God’s sake.”

“Yeah, but you know Fahey the best. You can get stuff out of him.”

“Packy, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think that you, supposedly a tough, hard-bitten veteran of a thousand deadlines on a dozen different papers, are afraid of our stalwart chief of detectives. All right, I’ll bail you out... again,” I muttered over my shoulder, walking out of the press room.

It was only as I started down the single flight of marble stairs to Fahey’s floor that it hit me: The New Reich may have struck again.

Elsie wasn’t at her desk, so I went straight to the chief’s closed door, rapped on it once with my knuckles, and strode in. He looked up with a grimace.

“Fireman shot, right?” I asked.

He nodded slowly as I sat. “Yeah. Poor bastard was sitting on a chair next to the open doors of a firehouse down on Damen near Pershing Road, reading the paper when somebody — we think going by in a car — fired once and got him square in the pump. We haven’t been able to find anybody who saw it.”

“Jesus, Fergus, not a single damn witness, not even one?”

“Apparently nobody was walking on that block at the time, and if someone in another automobile saw what happened, they haven’t come forward yet. To top it off, nobody in the firehouse saw anything, either. They all ran outside when they heard the shot. They found him slumped in the chair with the paper still clutched in his hands.”

“Did this fireman have any enemies?”

Fahey raised his shoulders and let them drop. “Not that we’ve found out yet, although my men have only radioed in from the scene once so far. They’re still out there. The dead man, Charles Mooney, age fifty-four, had been with the department his entire working life, thirty-five years. Exemplary record, citations for bravery twice, six kids, three grandkids. Shit.”

“The New Reich,” I muttered.

“What? That makes no damned sense!” Fahey exploded.

“Neither does killing a young cop on a sidewalk without a reason,” I remarked.

“Huh! We don’t know it was them.”

“True enough. But I’m willing to bet they take the credit.”

“Well, if they do, I’m sure you’ll be the one that hears about it first.”

“Maybe. Fergus, I hope I’m wrong about this... not that it would bring poor Mr. Mooney back to life either way.”

I went on up to the press room. By now, Masters and O’Farrell were back from lunch. I gave them and Farmer what little I’d been able to get from Fahey, and they all turned to their phones.

As they dictated the scant details to their respective city desks, my own instrument rang. The voice at the other end was no surprise.

“Mr. Malek, heard anything interesting lately?” came the nasal tone.

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean.”

“Try me.”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Malek. With all the resources at your disposal in that building where you work, you must be aware by now that a member of the Chicago Fire Department has almost surely lost his life, but not while fighting a conflagration.”

“Hmm, is that so? Interesting. What can you tell me about it?”

“I did not telephone you to play games, sir. I cannot tell you the name of the dead man because I do not know it, although I strongly suspect that with all your resources, you do.”

“I’m all ears, Mr...?”

“A fireman was shot while sitting in front of his engine company, on Damen Avenue, reading a newspaper, quite possibly your own newspaper. I am reasonably sure that the single bullet fired was sufficient to cause death.”

“You sound pretty confident of yourself. How do you happen to know this?”

“I pulled the trigger, Mr. Malek. I am a good shot, a very good shot.”

“From a moving automobile, no less?”

“Ah, I see that you do know about this occurrence. Good! Good! Are you now ready to write about us?”

“You being The New Reich?”

“Of course.”

I needed water, but there was none at hand. “What if I said I would be willing to meet you somewhere so we could talk?” I asked, clearing my throat and licking my lips.

The laugh at the other end was devoid of humor. “Really, Mr. Malek, a veteran reporter like yourself knows better than to suggest such a thing.”

“I do not do telephone interviews in situations like this. By the way, just out of curiosity, how do you happen to know who I am? I assume we’ve never met.”

“I have not laid eyes upon you, sir. But you underestimate your notoriety. Besides, a simple phone call to almost anyone in your newsroom would elicit your name.”

“Which is what you did?”

That mirthless laugh again. “Your curiosity amuses me. But then, you are a reporter, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Does it really matter how I found out who you are?”

“I suppose not,” I conceded. I thought again about trying to trace the call, but all of my colleagues were busy on their own phones except Jeff, the City News Bureau kid, who was out of the room. “Do you still have it in your mind to—”

“To kill the Jew-lover Truman? Oh, yes, yes indeed we do. But until we get you to write about us and our quest, another person will die in this city, perhaps every day, every single day. Maybe a young mother next. Or a grocery clerk. Or a nun. Or, sadly, a child. There are so many targets, so many opportunities and no way for anyone to stop us, because there’s also no way to guess where we’ll strike next.”

“Why do you want publicity in the first place?” I asked, making no effort to keep the abhorrence out of my voice. “That would only make your so-called quest more difficult. You’d be alerting every cop and G-man in this town.”

“It doesn’t matter how alert they are,” he shot back. “As I just told you, there is no way to stop us. No way whatsoever.”

“Okay, I’ll ask again: Why do you want the publicity?”

“It’s not enough to kill the president. That’s really the easy part — ridiculously easy. What we need now is to let the world know who we are, what we stand for, what our goals are.”

“The world isn’t going to like what they hear.”

“So you say. It is easy to tell that you don’t like our goals or our methods. But thousands, hundreds of thousands, will cheer us on, just like they did in Germany. And our ranks will grow, again just as they did in Germany.”

“And look what happened to Germany as a result. Do you think they will really cheer about how you shot a young cop, or a heroic fireman? And what about killing young mothers and nuns and kids? What do you think the reaction to that will be?”

“As someone once said, desperate times call for desperate measures, Mr. Malek. And these indeed are desperate times. All that the Fuehrer was trying to accomplish has been temporarily stymied. But only temporarily. We are here to continue his work, and we need to get the word out to the widest possible audience.”

“But why come to me? There are plenty of other newspapers, three of them in fact, right here in this very town.”

“But yours is the biggest, the mightiest, the most powerful. And, like us, you hate Truman.”

“Not hate. Dislike perhaps, at least in our editorial page stance. But any reasons that the Tribune has for opposing Truman have nothing in common with yours, nothing at all.”

“So you say. Have you informed your editors about us?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe means yes, of course. And what is their response?”

“The same as mine. However, I am willing to meet you and hear you out in greater detail.”

“We have already been through that, sir. You can get everything you need on the telephone, talking just like we are now.”

“Uh-uh. It doesn’t work that way. Face to face or no story. Nothing. Period.”

He exhaled hoarsely. “You realize, Mr. Malek, that you have just sentenced another person to death, indeed perhaps several more. You will be hearing from us again.”

I tried to keep the conversation alive, but before I could get another word out, the firm click on the other end told me that I would be talking only to myself.