The Hunt

A loud banging on the door finally awakened Keegan. He put on a robe and went into the living room of his suite, closing the bedroom door behind him. When he answered the door, Bert Rudman rushed past him without waiting for an invitation.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve been calling you all morning!”

“I was tied up,” Keegan groaned.

“It’s almost noon.”

“It was dawn before I got to bed.”

“Look, old buddy, I need your help. Did.

Rudman stopped abruptly and stared open-mouthed over Keegan’s shoulder. Keegan turned to find Vanessa standing in the bedroom doorway wrapped in the bed sheet.

“Oh...I...uh...I...”

“Vanessa,” Keegan said. “Vanessa Bromley. This eloquent person is Bert Rudman.”

“How do you do?” she said and pulled the sheet up a little higher.

“Now what the hell’s so important?”

“I’m onto a hot story but I can’t pin anything down. I know Wally Wallingford’s a friend of yours and I thought.

“Not anymore,” Keegan interrupted. “Want some coffee?”

“Great.”

“I’ll call down and order it,” Vanessa said.

“What does Wally have to do with this scoop of yours?”

“You know who Felix Reinhardt is?”

Keegan hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “I know who he is.”

“Apparently he was arrested sometime during the night, although I can’t confirm it. The way I get it, he was with an American officer attached to the embassy when he was nabbed and there’s a big diplomatic stink brewing. But nobody’ll talk to me.”

“What was he arrested for?”

“From what I can put together, he was editing The Berlin Conscience and a man named Probst was printing it. Yesterday afternoon the SA raided Probst’s print shop. A big gunfight broke out, then a fire. Probst was shot and his place burned to the ground. They had the whole damn Sturmabteilung after Reinhardt and caught up with him about two o’clock this morning.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“The Nazis had a press conference and announced the details on the Probst part of it. I pieced the rest of it together, y’know, a little bit here, a little bit there, but I can’t confirm anything. The Nazis are staying mum on Reinhardt.”

“It didn’t happen that way.”

“What?”

“The Probst part of it. It didn’t happen the way you said. He wasn’t even armed. The SA kicked in his door, shot him in cold blood, then set his place afire.”

“How do you know?”

“I pieced it together.”

“C’mon, don’t be a schmuck. Where did you hear that?”

“From an eyewitness. That’s all I can tell you. Just don’t print that official Nazi bullshit.”

“When’d you find out about this?”

“I don’t know, Bert, sometime during the night.”

“And you didn’t tip me off?”

Keegan didn’t say anything. Rudman had never seen this expression in his friend’s eyes.

“You consider this eyewitness reliable?”

“As reliable as you can get.”

Rudman’s eyes narrowed.

“It was Reinhardt, wasn’t it? You talked to Reinhardt.”

“I’ve told you all I can. Don’t push me.” He looked down at Vanessa. “Why don’t you go put something on,” he suggested.

“All I’ve got’s my dress from last night.”

“There are half a dozen bathrobes in there. Take one.” She walked out of the room, the sheet dragging along behind her.

“Phew,” Rudman sighed appreciatively.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Keegan said.

“I’ve already got so many ideas I couldn’t ... ah, forget that.” He stopped and waved his hand. “At least talk to Wallingford, okay? See what you can find out for me.”

“Wally isn’t speaking to me right now.”

“What the hell did you do to him? Wally speaks to every body.”

“I didn’t RSVP one of his parties.”

“Ah c’mon. Take him out for a drink or something, Francis, I’m hurting for a lead right now.”

“Believe me, Bert, the guy will not give me the time.”

“Try.”

There was a long silence. Then Keegan quietly said, “All right, I’ll try.”

“Thanks, buddy. I’ll be at the Trib office and then the Imperial Bar.”

“I didn’t know the Imperial had a pressroom,” Keegan said sarcastically.

“The Imperial Bar is a pressroom,” Rudman said. “Everybody in the press corps hangs out there. Goebbels even drops by in the afternoon with his latest proclamation.”

“Well, that’s a break, you don’t even have to go over to the propaganda ministry to pick up his latest lies.”

“It’s a starting place,” Rudman said. “He gives us his lies and we boil out the truth.”

Rudman started for the door, stopped short. “You know,” he said, “this is the first time I’ve ever known you to change your mind about something.”

“Maybe it’s because I want to know the truth myself.” “Well, that’s another first,” Rudman said, and left.

George Gaines was standing inside the door of the embassy when Keegan entered. He looked up sharply, his face drawn up with anger.

“What the hell are you doing here?” the attaché asked harshly.

“I came to see Wally,” Keegan said quietly. “What’s your problem?”

“You are,” the major answered. “You’re everybody here’s problem.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know damn well what I mean. Trace spent the night in Landsberg prison. God knows what happened to Reinhardt. And poor old Wally’s been recalled.”

“Recalled!”

Gaines started up the stairs to the offices and Keegan fell in beside him. When one of the Marine guards stepped in front of Keegan, Gaines waved him aside. “It’s okay,” he said.

“That Nazi bastard lifted his passport,” Gaines said as they went to the second floor. “With a little help from you

Keegan cut him off. “Look, I don’t get paid to stick my neck in a noose because Roosevelt snaps his fingers,” he growled angrily. “So Trace spent the night in jail. Big deal. He’s okay, isn’t he?”

“He’s okay,” Gaines begrudgingly admitted.

“If I’d been with Reinhardt I’d be dead now, I wouldn’t just have to worry about my damn passport. I don’t have diplomatic immunity, George.”

“Tell Wally about it. He’s the one whose career just got flushed.” Gaines nodded toward an open door. “There’s his office. Although I don’t think he’s too anxious to talk to you.”

As Keegan started to enter the office a Marine came by carrying a large cardboard box. Keegan stepped around him. Wallingford’s inner door was open and Keegan could see him in the office, taking pictures off the wall.

“It’s all right, Belinda,” Wallingford said. He walked back to his desk, his arms stacked with framed photographs as Keegan entered his room. Wallingford carefully placed the pictures in an open box on his desk. The rest of the room was almost cleared out.

“I heard they gave you the boot,” Keegan said.

“Come by to gloat?”

“Come on, Wally, I didn’t stick Reinhardt in that car with Trace. Hell, I’m going to miss you. You throw the best parties in Europe.”

“That’s all it means to you, isn’t it?”

“No, I’m worried about you. What’re you going to do?”

“Go back to Washington for reassignment. It’s the end of my career.”

“What the hell happened?”

“I screwed up, that’s what happened. Almost got Trace arrested for espionage. We tried to sneak Reinhardt out of the country in an official vehicle but the Gestapo stopped them. Roosevelt apologized to that little freak in the Reichstag and I got recalled. I’m going to have to quit. It’s like getting court-martialed in the army. Win or lose, you’re finished.”

“Didn’t the intelligence people help you?”

Wallingford stared at him for a moment, then sat down on the corner of his desk.

“Listen, Keegan. We don’t have an intelligence system. Every other country in the world is up to their ears in spies but we don’t have a spy among us. And you know why? Because my boss, the mighty Cordell Hull, says it’s ungentlemanly to pry in other country’s’ affairs. Ungentlemanly! So, we play by the Marquis of Queensberry rules and they play with a billy club. That’s what happens when the secretary of state is a gentleman.”

“I’m sorry, pal .

“Hey, it’s your country, too. And I’m not your goddamn pal.”

“C’mon, Wally, we’ve had some pretty good times together. How about those weekends in Paris. That trip down to Monte Carlo last spring .

“Christ, is that what life is to you, just one long goddamn party?! Reinhardt is dead! According to our best sources, they tortured him for hours and when he bit off his own tongue to keep from talking, they forced him to drink battery acid. Of course, we can’t confirm it but it sounds right. Felix is dead and my career’s in the toilet and what the hell difference does it make to you? You’ll find another party to go to.,,

“I’m sorry about Reinhardt. And I do care what happens to you. My friendship for you doesn’t have anything to do with him.”

“I asked you to help me and all you did was worry about your goddamn plane. We could’ve gotten him out.”

“Maybe.”

“What’s it going to take to wake you up and see what’s going on here?”

“I see what’s going on.

“No, no. You don’t see what’s going n. You drive past the bloody storm troopers beating up some pawnbroker or doctor, but you don’t really see it. At least it doesn’t register. You think this can’t happen back home? Let me tell you something, pal, Hitler was absolute dictator of Germany less than a month after Hindenburg appointed him president and the Nazi party had less than forty percent of the vote in the last election. Hitler didn’t have a majority of anything, he was never elected to anything. He just took over. He threw out the Constitution and took over. Every time the arrogant little bastard opens his mouth he insults Americans. And he’s making racism acceptable. Hell, fashion able. Not only here—everywhere, everywhere! The other day I heard a couple of our secretaries giggling over the latest Jewish joke.”

“That’s human nature.”

“You call it what you want, I call it prejudice. Hitler wakes up that sleeping giant in everyone, he makes it desirable to flaunt hate. He has the key, Keegan. Pride. He appeals to their pride.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “What do you want, Francis? What are you after?”

“I don’t know, Wally.”

“Well, I do know. See, I’m just an everyday jerk from Philadelphia. I planned my whole life out. The diplomatic corps, that was it for me. That’s what I wanted, worked my ass off to get it. And you know where I wanted to be?” He jabbed a forefinger toward the floor. “Right here. Berlin. From the moment I entered the diplomatic service, this is where I wanted to be. Know why? Because I knew it was going to be the hot spot in the world. I knew it. I knew I could make a name for myself here if I played it just right. And I was doing great until last night.”

He turned back to the shelves and stacked the last of his possessions in the box on the desk. He kept out one book and opened it to a random page.

“Collected speeches of Woodrow Wilson,” he said. “My hero, Mr. Wilson. Great vision. Sold out by his own country. You know, the day Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany he also warned them not to be too hard on the losers when we won the war or they’d rise up and strike back. Had a lot of vision, Mr. Wilson. You paint a mouse into a corner and a tiger comes out. Nobody paid any attention to him. We left Germany with nothing and now the tiger is loose and America sleeps on, as fucking usual.”

“You’re an angry man, Wally.”

“I’m a scared man. People like you scare me. You’re sophisticated enough to understand what’s happening.”

“You don’t belong in the State Department. Go back home and run for the Senate or something.”

“I couldn’t get elected meter reader,” Wallingford said with disgust. “Nobody wants to hear what I’ve got to say. By the time they wake up it’ll be too late.”

“People are sick of gloom and doom,” said Keegan. “They’ve had their fill of war. Now they’re trying to get over the Depression. They’re looking for good times, not threats.”

“Typical attitude.”

“I’m calling it the way I see it.”

“I’ll admit you have a certain roughneck charm, Keegan, but as far as I’m concerned it’s all veneer,” said Wallingford wearily. “I’ve heard about your mother being a countess and all that romantic crap and that’s all it is to me, crap. Underneath it all, you’re nothing. Just another crook who got rich.”

Keegan nodded ruefully and turned to leave the office.

“I’ve got this theory, Keegan,” Wallingford went on. “If you’re not against something, you’re for it. When you turned your back on Reinhardt, you kissed Hitler’s ass.”

“Take it easy .

“No, I won’t take it easy. And you’re right, this doesn’t have anything to do with Reinhardt or my job. I asked a friend for a favor and he turned me down, that’s what it’s about.”

“One hell of a favor.”

“You would have been doing yourself a favor, too. You and a lot of other Americans think Hitler’s a flash in the pan, but he’s going to start gobbling up Europe and the only way we’re going to stop him is to go to war again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to be out of the country by six P.M. Deported, isn’t that ironic? Thousands of people desperate to leave Germany and I’m being thrown out on my ass.”

Wallingford walked past Keegan to the doorway and summoned the Marine sergeant.

“That’s the last box, Jerry,” he said.

“Yes sir,” the Marine answered, and carried it out. Walling- ford looked around the office once more. It was stripped clean of everything personal. He started to leave and then turned back to Keegan.

“You know, I hope! never see you again, Francis,” Walling- ford said, and there was a tone of sadness in his remark. “It will just remind me what a poor judge of character I am.”

He left Keegan standing alone in the empty office.

The Imperial was the most elegant bar and restaurant in Berlin. Its domed ceiling towered two stories over the deco and bronze interior. Tall French doors separated the garden restaurant from the bar, where fresh flowers brightened every table and the waiters in their white, gold-trimmed uniforms hustled stoically about the room. The place was buzzing with activity when Keegan arrived, the crowd a strange mix of reporters in their blue suits and flowered ties, tourists in white, SS officers in black uniforms, and the usual smattering of Gestapo agents, easily identifiable in their drab gray suits, their impersonal eyes suspicious of everything and everybody.

Rudman was sitting at a corner table, scratching out notes on the usual sheaf of curled and wrinkled note paper.

“Why don’t you get yourself a real notebook?” Keegan asked, joining him. “Looks like you retrieved that pile of scrap from a garbage pail.”

“Force of habit,” Rudman answered. “Besides, notebooks are too organized. How’s your girlfriend?” Keegan just nodded, “I did a little checking. Nice family background—if you like money.”

“That’s enough,” Keegan said.

“Did you see Wally?”

“Long enough to get insulted and say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?”

“He’s been recalled.”

“What?”

“Forget where you heard what I’m going to tell you.”

“Naturally.”

“Wallingford set up Reinhardt’s escape. A military attaché named Trace was driving him across the border and they got nailed by the Gestapo. The damn fool was in an embassy car. To avoid an international stink, Roosevelt has officially apologized to Hitler and Wally and Trace have been deported.”

A waiter appeared and Keegan ordered a double martini. “Jesus! How about Reinhardt?” Rudman pressed on eagerly.

“The way I get it, the Gestapo tortured him for several hours, then forced battery acid down his throat. He’s dead. It will probably be written off as a suicide.”

“Can I use this?”

“You can do whatever you want with it, just don’t mention my name. I don’t want to join Wally and Trace on the boat home. Anyway, I’m sure Herr Goebbels will be over here gloating about it by the cocktail hour.”

“Poor old Wally. Everybody writes him off as an alarmist.”

“He is an alarmist.”

“He’s a visionary, Francis. He sees it the way it’s going to be.”

For the first time, Keegan didn’t argue. He didn’t feel he had the right to argue just then, not with Felix Reinhardt on his conscience.

“Here comes the Bank of Massachusetts,” Rudman said.

Keegan turned to see Vanessa enter the Imperial. She spoke to the maître d’, who led her toward their table.

“She’s leaving for Hamburg tomorrow,” Keegan said. “Going back on the Bremen.”

“What a shame.”

“Let’s not talk politics in front of her, okay?”

“I’ve got to file this piece,” Rudman said. “And I need to get more background on this Trace fellow. You know anything about him?”

“He’s a major.”

“Everybody in the military over here seems to be a major.”

“It has a nice ring to it.”

“Good afternoon,” Rudman said cheerily as Vanessa approached the table.

She nodded at him politely, then smiled sweetly at Keegan.

“How did it go at the embassy?” she asked.

“Diplomacy is rampant over there,” Keegan chuckled.

“I hear you’re leaving us,” said Rudman to Vanessa.

“Yes. My daddy has taken a cottage at Saratoga every year since I was born. He still thinks I’m ten years old and dying to go to the afternoon tea dances.”

“It’ll be a nice place to dry out,” Keegan said with a snicker.

“I never liked the afternoon tea dances, even when I was ten. And I don’t want to dry out.”

“Well, Berlin won’t be the same without you,” Rudman offered with a sincere smile.

“What a sweet thing to say. Did you hear that, Frankie?”

“I’ve been listening to his malarkey for years.”

“How can you stand him?” Rudman said, fishing for his wallet. “He’s such a cynic.”

“It’s all bluff,” she said.

“Put your wallet away,” said Keegan. “I’ll spring for your beer.”

“Bloody generous of you. I’m sure I’ll be bumping into you in the next day or two. If not, maybe I’ll swing over to Paris for the races, if you think that nag of’ yours really has a chance.”

“She’ll run their legs off.”

“You have a racehorse?” Vanessa asked. “I didn’t know that.”

“He’s got half a dozen racehorses,” Rudman said. “And I bet there’s a lot you don’t know about Mr. Keegan.” He smiled, stood up, kissed her hand and left the table with a wave.

“Have you two been friends long?” she asked.

“Since the war,” Keegan said. “He’s a good guy, but he’s going to get in a lot of trouble.”

“Why?”

“He’s obsessed with the whole Nazi thing. If he’s not careful he’ll end up like Reinhardt.”

“Oh no, the little man you were talking about this morning? What happened to him?”

“He’s dead,” Keegan said, taking out his wallet and studying the check.

“Did they . . . did they kill him?”

Keegan looked around the crowded bar without answering her. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t like the company.”

“All right.” she said. But she didn’t move, she leaned back in her chair and studied his face. His expression scared her a little bit. And not much scared Vanessa Bromley. She took a long-stemmed rose from the tube vase in the middle of the table and stroked it slowly and gently down Keegan’s cheek. “I have a wonderful idea.”

He looked up at her questioningly.

“Dinner in the room. I’ll charge it to the bank. I really don’t feel like getting dressed again tonight. Besides, most of my things are packed.”

“I suppose you’ll be wanting to borrow another bathrobe,” he said softly.

“The train doesn’t leave until one tomorrow,” she said.

“I just happen to be free until one tomorrow,” He took her hand. “Let’s vamoose.”

He paid the check and they headed for the door. As they approached the revolving door leading to the street, a short, ferret-faced man in an SS uniform limped into the bar, accompanied by several officers. He stared at Vanessa for a moment, then nodded with a smile as they passed him.

“That little man has a club foot,” she whispered when they were outside.

“That little man is Paul Joseph Goebbels,” Keegan said. “Master liar of the master race.”

She shivered. “Are they all so

“Ugly?” Keegan offered.

“Yes, ugly.”

“Heart and soul,” Keegan answered, hailing a cab.

She cuddled against him and stroked his cheek with her fingertips. He could feel her relaxing as she had the night before. And just before she went to sleep, she murmured, half under her breath, “I hope I haven’t fallen in love with you, Frankie Kee.”

A moment later she was asleep.

He lay there for several minutes, regaining his breath. He rolled her gently on her side and looked over at her, admiring her naked body. What a revelation she had turned out to be. Who would have expected such passionate abandon simmered inside that once-mischievous teenager? She was a remarkable sex partner. Totally inexperienced, she was unhampered by modesty and accepted each sexual discovery with a rare mixture of wonderment and joy. So why did he still feel a tinge of conscience? Was it because he had known Vanessa as child? Or because her father was a friend of his? Was it because he still thought of her as thirteen (an embarrassing and uncomfortably erotic consideration)? Or was it just an unfortunate Catholic response—a sense of guilt because it felt so good.

Or perhaps she had opened a window he thought had been shut forever.

There would always be the rumors, of course. One could expect that. But rumors could be ignored, even turned to one’s advantage. The most romantic story about Keegan, the one most often repeated, had him the only son of an Irish countess and a New York bartender who had parlayed his inheritance into a fortune on the stock market, had sold short and got out clean before the crash.

It was a story Keegan liked. It had drama, it had romance, it had a touch of tragedy and a touch of mystery. There was also a semblance of truth to it, so he never disputed it. He never repeated the story as fact, either. Keegan never talked about himself at all, he let others do the talking.

Then there was the other part of the story. That Keegan had made his fortune as a bootlegger while attending Boston College, dealing only with the families of rich college friends.

Another rumor, also not without some merit.

“But what does he do?” the proper Bostonians would be asked, and the answer was usually the same. “He’s . . . rich.”

A perfectly respectable response.

Actually Rose Clarke was a countess and Clancy Keegan was a bartender. When they married, she bought the bar for him and when she died during the influenza epidemic of 1903, Keegan followed close behind, the victim of a broken heart, its shards awash in a sea of Irish whiskey.

Francis, only Jive at the time, was reared by his trustee, his father’s brother Ned, a sly entrepreneur who took his stewardship seriously and managed the bar into a classic East Side watering hole. Ned Keegan reasoned that a bar need only to attract hearty drinkers to be a success and so he concentrated on the heaviest drinkers he .knew, reporters and politicians. He pandered to them, providing extra phones for the reporters and a couple of nicely appointed rooms on the second floor for those times when they either couldn’t make it home—or simply required a little privacy for a couple of hours. There was an unwritten rule that the second floor was a kind of neutral ground for both the politicians and the reporters, as a papal decree had proclaimed it off limits to inquiring minds.

Many a devious political plot was hatched in the scarred oaken booths of the Killarney Rose—to be unhatched just as quickly by eavesdropping journalists, yet the two sects kept coming back. Gossip and news was a commodity oft/u place, to be bartered, sold and traded between drinks, and so The Rose, as it was known to regulars, prospered. And while Ned Keegan tried to keep his young charge out of the place and under the watchful eye of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, his efforts failed. By the time he was fifteen, Francis was bussing tables. At sixteen he had graduated to tending bar.

Like all good bartenders, Francis mastered the art of carrying on one conversation and listening to another at the same time. He never wrote anything down—but he had a long memory. It was at The Rose that he learned his most valuable lessons: never repeat anything he saw or heard; the quickest way to a politician’s heart was through his wallet; bribery was only illegal if one got caught; all sin was relative. It quickly became patently clear to young Francis Keegan that one man ‘s meat was indeed another man‘s poison.

By the time he was twenty, Francis had fought as a doughboy in the trenches in Europe. When he returned in 1918, a hero from the war, Ned offered to buy The Rose from him.

Half a million dollars.

Not bad for a kid with only a couple of Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and two years of bartending to show for his twenty years.

“Now what ‘re ye gonna do?” Ned asked.

“I’m going to get rich, but first I’m going to college,” Keegan answered. “Up in Boston. There a lot of class in Boston and there no such thing as a rich bum.”

He had been there less than a year when he called Jocko Nayles and invited him to lunch at The Rose. It had been two years since he had seen his wartime buddy. Nayles’s clothes were neat but showing wear and he wore the mottled tan of a man who spends long, hard hours working in the sun.

“What ‘ye you been up to?” Keegan asked him.

“Y’know, kid, I’m on the docks.

“You like it?”

“Nobody likes it, it’s a living.”

“I’ve got a better idea, Jocko. I’ve got an idea where we can make a couple of million dollars a year.”

“Yeah, sure. What‘re we gonna do, rent out the White House?”

‘Jocko, I got half a million dollars. We buy a couple of fast boats.

We make a trip to Scotland. We set up a deal, a thousand cases of scotch a month.

“That’s bootlegging!”

“Of course it’s bootlegging.”

“You wanna go to jail?”

“Listen to me. Everybody drinks. I’ve got friends who buy booze by the case. Rich guys. Connected people. We keep our clientele very select. We make a run a month. I’ll setup the sales, you handle distribution. The cut’s fifty-fifty.”

Nayles looked at him for a very long time before he decided the kid was serious.

“Make it sixty you, forty me,” he said finally. “You’re footin’ the bills.”

Keegan smiled. “Quit your job, “ he said, “we just went into business.

In the next few years, Francis Scott Keegan, the proper Bostonian college student, split his studies between business and the arts. He read voraciously and listened to music constantly. During the same time, he also was known variously as Frank the K, Scotch Frank, and Frankie Kee, a nickname whose subtle patriotic reference was lost to most of Keegan ‘s business competitors. Keegan had studied how territories were divided among the more noted gangland mobs of the day: Alfonse in Chicago, Louis the Lep in Brooklyn, Dutch Shultz and Frankie C in Manhattan, Willie Knucks in Philly, Legs in upstate New York, Nukey Johnson in Jersey and of course Luciano, Charley Lucky, who called all the shots. Boston was wide open, nothing but nickel rollers there. Nobody in the mobs paid much attention to him. Unlike his competitors, who bought scotch from offshore freighters for four dollars a bottle, cut it three or four times and sold it for eighteen dollars a fifth, Keegan paid three-fifty a quart and sold it to his customers uncut for fifteen dollars a bottle.

The fact is, Keegan liked to think of himself as a connoisseur of good liquor, a booze steward to the very rich. He never thought of himself as a bootlegger. Hell, everybody he knew drank. Keegan just didn’t like the sound of the word. Besides, he really wasn’t in the shabby end of the business. No bathtub gin, no homemade poison. His specialty was Scotch whisky imported straight from Edinburgh, perfectly aged and light as mist.

His circle of friends at Boston College were all rich or near rich, a snobbish set which suited Keegan just fine. They were all potential customers—and they all had friends who were potential customers.

“I know this wonderful bootlegger but he’s shy, “Keegan would tell them. “I’ll put the order in for you. “And the goods were delivered like milk to the back door. His was definitely a select clientele: two governors, half a dozen senators, one of Broadway ‘s brightest comedy stars, half a dozen Catholic bishops spread from Jersey to Connecticut to New York to Massachusetts, and one future president of the United States. He performed a service, got rich and everybody was happy. Well, almost everybody.

When the word got around, Arthur Flegenheimer, who had adopted the name Dutch Shultz so it would fit into newspaper headlines, blew up and went to the big man himself

‘Lookit here, Lucky,” Schultz told Luciano, “we got this Irish ass- hole, this Frankie Kee, he’s sellin ‘uncut scotch less‘n we‘re gettin’. Uncut. The word gets around, it ain‘t good for business, it s unfair competition, I say, and I say we burn the little shit and be done with it. An object lesson.

‘So do it,” Luciano answered around a mouthful of pasta. “Why the hell you askin’ me for? It ain’t like you re gonna bump off Calvin Coolidge.”

Keegan fit comfortably into the schizophrenic life-style he had adopted. He read six newspapers a day, everything from The New York Times to the Boston Globe to the New York News and Mirror to the Racing Form. He studied everything from the stock market to the morning lineup at Hialeah. And he had a way with language. He could turn his Irish brogue on and off at will, and had a keen perception of the differences in cadence and vernacular between the two worlds he had chosen, the social world of Boston and the underworld of the East Coast. He was as comfortable being Francis Keegan, discussing a fluctuation in the stock market with a Boston banker, as he was being Frankie Kee, discussing the pros and cons of a gangland rub-out with a Sicilian mobster. It was one of many lessons he had learned tending bar in the Killarney Rose saloon. When in Rome, talk like the Romans, when in Boston, speak as a proper Bostonian.

The Boston Ambush, as he would refer to it later in life, was a particularly cowardly act, the first perpetrated by Shultz. Keegan had been to the theater. As he got out of his car, a black Ford squealed around the corner and he heard someone yelling, “Shoot, shoot.” He dove behind the car as a half dozen shots rang out. He fit the ping in his side, then the burning, deep in his back, and he knew he had been shot. The shooter, a Philadelphia gunsel named Harvey Fusco, never made it back to Philadelphia to spend the ten thousand he was paid to do the job. When the Manhattan Limited pulled into Broad Street station, Fusco was found sitting in his compartment, the New York Daily Mirror in his lap, his eyes crossed and staring up at the bridge of his nose at the single. 45-caliber bullet hole there.

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 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 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 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 ‘II 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 of 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 c 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 f 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 back- shooters 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, what s the diff? 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

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 n 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 ‘ye 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 di4 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 fret.”

“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 of 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 c smile broadened. “You’ll never know,” he said.

“I guess I won ‘1.” 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.