The Case of the Crime King

Chapter 28

During the following week the gang struck four more times, twice in the northern and twice in the southern part of the state. In both northern jobs the robbery team was identified as Harvey Daniels and Edward Saltenson. One of the southern jobs was pulled by men answering the descriptions of Big Julie and Maury Wey, the other by men positively identified as Wey and Harry Strite. Apparently the individual teams of the gang had switched areas of operation.

Aggregate take from the four jobs was $37,000. None of them occurred in Los Angeles.

On May 22nd a brazen daylight robbery of an armored payroll truck was made; the take was $75,000. All five members of the gang participated. Then they dropped from sight, leaving no leads.

Friday, May 23rd, when we returned from lunch, Frank and I found a notice in the message book to report to Chief Brown’s office. Two men were with the chief when we got there. One was a smooth, well-dressed man of middle age. The other was a small, olive-skinned man with coal-black hair and piercing black eyes. He was faultlessly dressed in a blue serge suit, white shirt, and conservatively dark tie.

Chief Brown introduced the larger man as Thomas Henderson of the F.B.I., and the dark man as Senor José Martinez.

After a polite exchange of greetings, F.B.I. man Henderson said in an easy voice, “Senor Martinez is with the Honduran Embassy, gentlemen. We just flew in from Washington.”

“British Honduras?” I asked Martinez.

He flashed white teeth in a rueful smile. “No, Senor. Jus’ Honduras. My country is so small, many Americans do not even know there is a plain Honduras. They have hear of British Honduras, and they think we are that, too.”

“Can’t understand that, sir,” Frank said. “You’ve got five times the area of British Honduras and twenty times the population.”

We looked at Frank with varying expressions. The chief’s and mine were surprised. Thomas Henderson’s was merely politely interested. Senor José Martinez’s was delighted.

“You know my country, Senor?” he asked.

“Never had the pleasure of visiting it,” Frank said. “Know a little about it. Suppose you live in Tegucigalpa, if you’re in government service?”

“In your Washington, D.C., jus’ now, Senor. At home in Tegucigalpa, of course. Though the city of my birth was Amapala.”

“Uh-huh,” Frank said. “Down south, on the Pacific Coast.”

Henderson smoothly broke up what was promising to become an old-home-week reunion by interjecting, “Senor Martinez and I are interested in that letter your chief sent us, Lieutenant Friday. The one from a man named Harry Strite.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and glanced at the chief.

“Mr. Henderson and Senor Martinez think it may be a lead to a problem concerning both our governments,” Chief Brown said. “But they can explain it better than I.”

Senor Martinez obviously was not yet ready to tear himself away from Frank. But he had a diplomat’s politeness. With reluctance he wrenched his mind to business.

“As you gentlemen may know,” he said, “there is at the moment a serious threat of revolution in my country.”

I, for one, didn’t know it. While I wasn’t guilty of being one of the “many” Americans whom the Honduran thought confused his country with British Honduras, about all I knew of it was its name and general location on the map. If a possible revolution had been mentioned in the news, I’d missed it.

Apparently this was one item Frank wasn’t up on, either. He said, “Hadn’t heard about that, sir.”

“As a matter of fact, the threat has been with us for some years,” Martinez went on. “But until recently it was only — how do you say? — to be taken with a grain of salt.”

“Senor Martinez means it wasn’t considered a serious threat,” Henderson interpreted.

“Exactly,” the Honduran agreed. “The leader is a notorious bandit chief of the name Diego Lopez. An illiterate man, half-Indian, who rules a ragged band of outlaws that calls itself an army. He has a mountain stronghold near the Nicaraguan border. For years Lopez has been calling himself ‘The Liberator,’ and promising to deliver the people from oppression.” He drew his small frame erect and snorted indignantly. “Oppression, indeed! We are a democratic republic. Our constitution guarantees as many liberties as yours of the United States. It is Lopez who wishes to become the oppressor, by overthrowing the legal government and making of himself a dictator.”

Frank said, “So far, it’s been just talk on this Lopez’s part, huh?”

“Exactly,” Martinez said. “He had not a sufficiency of arms to create real trouble. He had barely enough to defend his mountain stronghold against army attack. You will understand how little that was when I tell you a few rifles could hold any of those volcanic passes against any force. The place is a natural fortress. But certainly he never before possessed sufficient arms to attempt a coup.”

I said, “And now he has them, sir?”

“Not quite enough, yet. But our agents report that more come all the time, smuggled across the Nicaraguan border. American-made arms. Springfield rifles, machine guns, grenades, even some small obsolete artillery pieces. It is also rumored that a trained American army officer, a man of military genius, is to arrive with the last shipment of arms. And this man is to general the coup.”

I looked at Frank. He frowned and scratched an ear. I said to Martinez, “You believe the plans described in that letter may explain where the guns are coming from?”

Henderson answered the question. “We’ve pretty well established that the actual source of arms is a notorious international gunrunner named Henri DuBois. Maintains secret agents in half the ports of the world, including New York City and San Francisco. Until your letter came to us, we hadn’t the slightest lead on the source of the money that paid for the arms. Except an assumption that the so-called ex-army-officer-military-genius probably either furnished it or raised it.”

“Big Julie Martin never had any military training,” I said.

Frank said, “Year of R.O.T.C., Joe. He went to U.C.L.A., remember?”

I looked at him, then said thoughtfully, “Yeah. And he’s quite a snow artist. Don’t doubt he could convince an illiterate mountain bandit that he was a military genius. Only question is, how’d he ever get in contact with Lopez?”

“That’s easy,” the F.B.I. man said. “Diego Lopez was in this country for two weeks last November. Was this Martin man in prison then?”

I shook my head. “He took a fall for carrying in December.”

“Well, the Honduran Embassy asked us to keep an eye on him to see what he was up to. Seemed to be just a vacation trip. But one thing ties him in with the letter from Strite.”

“What?” I asked.

“He spent the whole two weeks in Los Angeles.”

We continued to talk with Martinez and Henderson for some time. Chief Brown promised that when and if Big Julie and his gang were apprehended, the F.B.I. would be informed immediately and the suspects would be made available for questioning. Henderson also asked that he be informed of any exceptionally large scores the gang made, since if the gang actually was purchasing the guns, such scores would probably immediately precede gun shipments.

“Gunrunning is strictly a cash business,” Henderson said. “DuBois won’t be making any shipments without cash in hand.”

“They’ve taken over a hundred thousand in the past week,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been following the papers. We’ll be on the lookout for a shipment in the near future.”

When we finally left the chief’s office and started back toward Robbery, Frank said, “Think Big Julie really is the guy they want, Joe?”

“Figures,” I said. “Sure sounds like what Strite described in his letter.”

“But the letter said Big Julie meant to be boss of the country. From what Martinez said, this fellow Lopez means to be the dictator.”

“If Julie could snow him enough to let him general the revolt,” I told him, “he probably figures he can snow him out of the top spot, too.”

“Or maybe plans to bump him at the right moment,” Frank said.

“Yeah. Incidentally, how you happen to be so up on Honduras?”

“Television,” Frank said.

“Huh?”

“Last Tuesday, on ‘The $64,000 Question.’ Had on an expert on Central America. Asked him a half dozen questions about Honduras and British Honduras, and he answered every one right.”