The train left Penn Station on time at 3 p.m. for a two day journey to the Deep South. Fred was gambling that the police hadn’t yet broadcast his likeness and even doubted that they had one they could use effectively. After all his face was not typical and had a commonplace regularity that offered few distinctive traits. Of course with a good artist’s rendition…He spent the endless hours reading newspapers and planning his next move while constantly on the lookout for unusual police presence on the train. In Raleigh, North Carolina two uniformed state troopers came on board and looked at everyone’s identity and tickets. They saw his forged Pennsylvania driver’s license but Lawrence Hills wearing horn rimmed glasses and a black mustache didn’t fit the description they were on the lookout for and they moved along quickly.
A few unscheduled stops to hitch up military cars were as many false alarms and in Atlanta a small group of FBI agents boarded the train just as it was pulling out for New Orleans, but they didn’t search the train and the trip turned out to be uneventful. On arrival local cops were checking the passengers as they got off and waved him through after simply looking at his ticket. New Orleans turned out to be the best choice to exit the country. Surveillance was heaviest along the Mexican border and the Florida coast, from Miami to the Keys. The Gulf of Mexico on the other hand was considered more secure and consequently less subjected to patrols.
He put on a pair of sunglasses and changed to less fancy clothes in the washroom, then he hailed a cab to the French Quarter.
“You comin’ from up north sir?” asked the nosy old driver
“Yes, from Philadelphia, I’m here on business.”
“Oh yeah? What kind?”
“War related…”
“Oh sure, everything is war related these days…”
The guy was a talker and wouldn’t stop blabbering about everything and anything. Finally he pulled up in front of the Bourbon Street Hotel, a third rate establishment that catered to cheap tourists before the war and was now filled with boisterous draftees. He registered as Morris Alderman from Miami and immediately took a short walk to the dormant section of the harbor that advertised pleasure boats for hire. There were no tourists in sight, fuel was severely rationed and most young men were in uniform; the pleasure boat basin was practically dormant. Only a few fishing excursions were still being advertised and Fred examined each one to see if it could take him across the Caribbean. Only one or two boats could handle such a trip.
“Lookin’ to catch some fish, mister?” he turned around to face a happy looking old salt with a three day gray beard and a soiled sailor’s cap.
“Well it looks like it’s getting scarce these days.”
The man smiled and planted a pipe into his mouth. He was a broad fellow with big hands and a hefty beer belly as he sat on the deck of a rather tired sail and motor job called the Norbert.
“I’m lookin’ for customers mister so if you feel like goin’ out on the gulf to catch some marlin, I’m your man!”
“You have enough fuel?”
“I reckon I can go for eight days, sir. That’s plenty of fish believe me…if you’re lucky, that is.”
Fred didn’t show any enthusiasm or the old sailor might get suspicious. He quickly calculated how many nautical miles he could cover with eight days worth of fuel.
“Depends on the price, captain.” He finally answered after a long pause.
The man stood up, wiped his hand on his shirt and extended it with flourish.
“My name is Trumbull, Horace Nelson Trumbull and I guarantee you a great deal. Haven’t seen any action around here since the Pearl Harbor abomination! Well, let’s see, there’s me and my son Eddie, there’s several hundred gallons of fuel, motor oil and food for eight full days and nights, extra lamps for the radio, the short wave, I mean. I do the cookin’ and Eddy cleans up and pilots the boat. Twenty a day will make me a happy captain, sir!”
Fred pursed his lips and shook his head
“Sorry, too much for my pocketbook…”
Trumbull looked grief stricken and took his pipe out of his mouth.
“Look here sir…I mean this is an honor and a need for me and Eddy who by the way will be joinin’ the navy very soon… I can go as far down as $18 with a bonus.”
“What do you mean by bonus?”
“Well it’s customary for us to get $5 per fish you catch. Bonus means we get $10 instead.”
“My name is Morris Alderman by the way. So $18 a day and $10 per fish caught, right? You provide the food.”
Trumbull kept on beaming.
“Yes sir, I sure do hope we have ourselves a deal. And by the way, everybody calls me Horace Nelson.”
Fred pretended to hesitate then shook the captain’s hand.
“All right, you have a deal. I’ll be the only passenger.”
Horace Nelson put his pipe back in his mouth and seemed very pleased with the outcome. They agreed to leave at four the next morning and Fred handed over $75 in advance to seal the agreement.
“Come to think of it Horace Nelson, make sure you buy as much additional fuel as you can since we may want to go down a bit further if the weather is good. Enough for twelve days in all.”
Horace Nelson was impressed and already figuring out how much he’d be making.
“Sure thing, sir. See you here at five, then! Don’t you worry about that extra fuel either.”
Fred stopped at the fisherman’s general store and bought additional charts of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the coast of Colombia and Venezuela, a few small cans of white and black enamel paint and two brushes, plus five heavy canvas duffel bags with additional straps. He returned to his hotel and repacked the contents of his suitcase into two duffel bags.
They left on schedule in the early dawn, with the waters of the Gulf as flat as a billiard table. The Norbert headed straight down toward Cancun in the Yucatan peninsula some seven hundred miles south. The plan was to buy more fuel and supplies and begin the search for marlin off the Mexican coast and into the islands for two or three days.
Horace Nelson was so damn excited he made sure he kept his mouth shut and didn’t brag about landing a live customer in those dire times. When he asked for the extra fuel and slipped the gas pump attendant an extra dollar bill he had to make an effort for not singing all the way back on board. Eddie had enough food supplies and in a few hours they were ready to sail.
When they reached Cancun three days later, without even stopping to try and catch some fish, Fred went quickly ashore and stumbled upon a short article in a copy of the New York Times he found in the ships handler’s store.
“Even the horrors of war will not stop the terrible toll of the underworld. That’s what chief of Detectives George Maxwell of the New York City Homicide Squad told the press today in front of Maria’s Isle of Capri restaurant where a gruesome murder took place last night. The proprietor Mrs. Maria Nicolosi, a 39-year-old widow, was closing up around 10:30 p.m. when she was surprised by a burglar. The woman was brutally beaten several times then shot twice in the head. Restaurant employees who called the police found the victim dead in the back office of the establishment. Chief Maxwell said they are actively investigating the crime. The victim apparently had no known relatives.”
Anderson was the first person Maxwell called about the Nicolosi murder and they met within the hour inside the shuttered Isle of Capri. There was blood on the floor of Maria’s tiny office after her body had been carted off to the morgue.
“Any ideas about this one, Anderson?” asked Maxwell chewing on his usual cigar. Willy was puzzled but not surprised,
“In view of the company she was keeping, I’d say this was bound to happen someday. They tried to make it look like a burglary but didn’t quite succeed.”
“So you’re positive it was an execution?”
Anderson smiled wondering whether Maxwell wasn’t pulling his leg,
“Well, after hanging around you for a couple of years I’ve learned to think your way, George. Maria had to be part of an Italian spy network connected to mob elements sympathetic to the Fascist regime. Most of the Italian underworld is working with us right now but there are odd exceptions.”
Maxwell nodded and added with a touch of sarcasm,
“So how are you gonna catch the bad guys this time, Anderson? Can you fill me in, because I’m dying to hear it!”
Anderson thought for a while, then said slowly,
“We could get our underworld friends to pursue the bad guys and pick up the bodies along the way. But many innocent people would get killed in the process so that’s not really an option.”
“Well, you have another solution?”
“The other solution is that you decide to work with the FBI so I can lean on the people pulling the strings in this case. Maria Nicolosi is no mere accident. She’s just a small cog in a much bigger story.”
Maxwell knew that the Feds were getting impatient about his deadend investigations whenever the Mob part of the picture.
“No problem Anderson. I will not hold anything back.”
As they were reviewing the facts in the Nicolosi murder, the crime lab had a lucky break: the fingerprints found in the restaurant matched a set in city police files. The lab technician was positive: the fingerprints belonged to Joseph Licata who had a very long rap sheet with the New York City Police Department. Maxwell sighed and looked embarrassed upon hearing the name of the main enforcer for Vito Genovese, whom he knew well from past interactions and who also moonlighted as an informer.
Licata was picked up in Little Italy and carted off to police headquarters where Maxwell insisted that he be kept in solitary confinement under heavy guard lest he try to commit suicide or be killed. Anderson wired Hoover about the connections between the Nicolosi murder and the counter espionage cases he was working on. The Director got on the phone with Commissioner Lewis Valentine who agreed that Anderson be lowed to witness Joe Licata’s questioning.
It turned out to be a simple matter: Licata knew he would get the electric chair. He provided a description of Vincent Chapman and how he had barely missed shooting him. But he also insisted that he was just a soldier and that others much higher up were really giving the orders. The description of Maria Nicolosi’s activities as a high-powered “madam” who ran several swank apartments and enjoyed the highest protection all the way up to “Charley Lucky” confirmed what the police already knew. A few hours into his confession, Licata was feeling confident, and expected to cut some kind of deal. He volunteered more information and even access to the “books” of the Genovese-Anastasia operation in exchange for a life sentence. Anderson said he’d give it some thought since it had become a federal case with Licata confessing to murders in several states going as far back as 1932. He was scheduled to be transferred to a federal facility within a few days when he was found dead of cyanide poisoning in his cell. They had managed to creatively spike a bottle of Coca Cola. The police was reduced to opening a new investigation into the murder of Joe Licata.
Dramatic war news in the Pacific, Russia and North Africa where the Axis suddenly appeared to be invincible drowned out the mob executions. The violent death of lesser underworld figures now seemed a very minor affair by comparison. George Maxwell went around saying that the Feds should have provided ‘their’ witness with better protection.
Yet Licata’s confession provided Anderson with a key piece of information: the location of Vincent Chapman’s loft. Suddenly Maxwell was again claiming jurisdiction, demanding that it be treated as a local matter. After some argument Anderson agreed and Maxwell promptly led six uniformed policemen and two detectives on a search of the loft on Great Jones Street. Anderson didn’t interfere to let the city detectives take the headlines.
Maxwell and his team had been tossing the place up for over one hour when one of the cops discovered that the floorboards under the mat below kitchen table were loose.
“What do we do, Captain?” he asked Maxwell who was now impatient to score points before Anderson arrived.
“I’ll tell you what you do, son. Go get me a couple of crowbars downstairs in the trunk of the car and we’ll get this goddamned thing open.”
“Yes sir…”
“I’ll tear the floor apart if I have to.”
Maxwell had removed his jacket and tie and grabbed the crowbar.
Anderson parked at the corner of Great Jones and the Bowery wondering why no leads on Chapman had surfaced before. Just as he pressed the button to call the elevator a thunderous explosion shook the entire structure, with debris and thick grey dust falling down the elevator shaft and spouting out the front door. The explosion tore open the roof and shattered every window on Great Jones Street as flames flashed high up in the deep blue summer sky. Everyone with Maxwell on the top floor was instantly killed. There were charred body parts and burring debris all over the street. Anderson coughing and covered with dust ran out into the street expecting more explosions.
The bomb squad later analyzed the debris and concluded that the booby trap was made up of at least three flat mines with high-level TNT explosives wired together with a sophisticated detonator that would click to zero by moving the floor boards. It was a very effective bomb of European manufacture but they had no other clues as to its origins. Anderson now agreed with McFarlane: this was expert military sabotage that must be kept secret. New York was a key electronic research and manufacturing center for the war effort that could be seriously affected by any kind of panic among the population.
The saboteur had to be Fred Vickers-Vincent Chapman, and tracking him down had become a major priority. By late morning J. Edgar Hoover was requesting clearance from the President to actively publicize the ‘Vickers’ drawing. FDR reluctantly agreed but insisted that the matter be kept very low key.