CHAPTER FOUR

Eddie West, handling routine work at his desk in the bank, waited for the call that had to come. It arrived at 11:35 A.M. Mr. C. L. Pick, Jr., was calling.

“Ed?”

“Yes, Charley?”

“Is your secretary on the line?”

“Are you on, Miss Mechanic?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get off, please.” They heard the click. “Go ahead, Charley.”

“Ed, never mind how or why, but they have my father in the Tombs on a murder charge.”

“Charley!”

“Can you do anything?”

“You’re goddam right I can do something. Go to the saloon just across Center Street, in Franklin Street. I’ll get there as quickly as I can.”

“Thank you, Ed.”

“Charley, please! I’m so glad you thought to call me.” He hung up, grinning. He sauntered to the hatrack, popped on his high-crowned derby and left the office.

By the time the Leader had sent for John Kullers of the First Assembly District and O’Connell had watched Kullers pull the same true-blue blank stare that convinced O’Connell that he had nothing to do with the setup, and by the time Kullers had taken him to the Franklin Street saloon to find Willie Tobin to get him to call Eddie (while the Leader began his tirade at the Fire Department, carefully avoiding doing anything about the Tombs until he could find out more about what was going on but promising everything), Eddie had met C.L., Jr, had heard the whole outrageous story and not only had C. L. Pick, Sr. out of the Tombs but had removed every shred of paper relative to his arrest and detention and turned them over to Charley.

He packed the tiny, dazed old man into a taxi with his son. The cab drew away from the curb just as O’Connell came sprinting across the street from the saloon. He called after Eddie. Eddie turned. “Pardon me, sir,” O’Connell said, “but was that C. L. Pick you just put into that cab?” Eddie stared at him coldly until O’Connell apologized and properly identified himself as C.L.’s partner. Eddie confirmed the passenger’s identity, adding that he had roomed at law school with Charley Pick and that he had been happy to help out. O’Connell was greatly impressed. The Leader had been helpless. The district leader who very nearly lived in the Tombs was helpless. But this young lawyer had done everything required. “Who are you?” O’Connell asked.

“I am Edward Courance West, president of the West National Bank.”

“But how—?”

Eddie shrugged charmingly. “My father was Paddy West.” he explained, “and I’m happy to see that they still remember him in there. And now—Mr. Heller. We’ll have to do something about him. Want to come along?” O’Connell fell into step beside him. “And after that the goddam Fire Department,” he said.

Eddie stopped. “The Fire Department?” O’Connell explained in an angry torrent. Eddie grew indignant. “Someone must be framing you, Mr. O’Connell.”

“Yes. That’s what it is. And if I have to spend every dime I ever made I’m going to find out who it is.”

Eddie gripped O’Connell’s shoulder with sincerity. “First we’ll see that your partner is off Ellis Island and comfortable, then I’ll just have one good, hard look into this whole thing. When I get finished you can be sure of one thing, Mr. O’Connell—we will have gotten to the bottom of this.”

“He’s one of the finest young men I’ve ever had dealings with,” F. A. O’Connell told his partners in Marxie Heller’s office, because the walls in C. L. Pick’s office were being restored, “and I think we’re obligated to try to do something substantial for him and get it all settled between us before he gets here.”

“Can’t offer a bank president money,” Heller said.

“Yes, we can, Marxie,” C. L. said in his trembling flute of a voice. “We control funds and we can see that a fair portion of them are deposited in the young man’s bank.”

“Yes. That’s the way,” O’Connell said. “We won’t ask him, we’ll just start depositing.”

“Marxie, you can persuade Mr. Morgan to speak to the Treasury people about reallocating some of their funds in the city.”

“If he comes in with proof of who did this to us,” Heller growled, “by God, I’ll open an account with him myself.”

Mr. West’s arrival was announced. They offered him a drink, but he didn’t drink. They offered him a cigar, but he didn’t smoke. Then Heller couldn’t stand it any more and he asked if Eddie had found out who had been trying to frame them.

“You have enemies, gentlemen.”

“I should hope so,” Heller replied.

“There is a certain man—politically and otherwise very powerful—whose name is Paul Kelly, born Paolo Vacarelli. He is boss of the waterfront among other things.”

“The gang leader?”

“Well, he calls himself a labor leader now.”

“We have never had anything to do with him,” C. L. Pick said flatly.

“Of course not,” Eddie reassured him. “But Kelly handled the arrangements. A certain person hired Kelly to have you harassed, thinking you would make an uproar and all of it could get into the newspapers. Hoping, I would say, that it might ruin you.”

“Who is it?” All partners leaned forward.

“At this moment the name is unknown to me. If you wish, I’ll have another talk with Kelly. However, Kelly’s client is said to be a well-known figure in the shipping business. I thought perhaps you might be able to deduce who he might be.” The law firm had been in publicly fought litigation for nine years with the Evans-Dwye Steamship Lines and had won, so far, eleven of the seventeen law suits filed. The litigation and its bitterness had seldom been out of the financial pages. Heller banged his fist down with force on the arm of his chair. “It’s Evans!” he yelled. “Let’s break his goddam back!”