Morris PI Read online

  Also by Dion Baia

  Blood in the Streets

  A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

  ISBN: 978-1-64293-898-2

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-899-9

  Morris PI:

  The Men from Ice House Four

  © 2021 by Dion Baia

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art by Cody Corcoran

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Permuted Press, LLC

  New York • Nashville

  permutedpress.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Printed in Canada

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: The Tombs

  Chapter 2: Two Weeks Prior

  Chapter 3: Walter Eugene Morris, PI

  Chapter 4: Cuthbert Hayden

  Chapter 5: Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York

  Chapter 6: Hayden Manor

  Chapter 7: The Creo Room

  Chapter 7.5: Bad Dreams

  Chapter 8: Drunk Dump

  Chapter 9: Hotel Claridge

  Chapter 10: Laszlo Strozek

  Chapter 11: Pier 72, Icehouse #4

  Chapter 12: M1911A1 .45 Pistol Full Auto Conversion

  Chapter 13: Ouch

  Chapter 14: Growing a Tail

  Chapter 15: Motterman’s Salt & Preservatives Present: Johnny Flash, Intergalactic Space Marshal

  Chapter 16: The Whalley Room

  Chapter 17: Out, Past Long Beach

  Chapter 18: The Orient

  Chapter 19: More Bad Dreams

  Chapter 20: Ve Day

  Chapter 21: Laying It All Out

  Chapter 22: The Creo Room Take II

  Chapter 23: Showtime

  Chapter 23.5: Albert Fish

  Chapter 24: The Piano Room

  Chapter 25: Doctor Josef Mengele

  Chapter 26: Cuthbert Hayden’s Lot

  Chapter 27: The Chase

  Chapter 28: Grand Central Terminal

  Chapter 29: The M42 Basement, Substation 1T And 1L

  Chapter 30: Pier 72, Icehouse #4

  Chapter 31: Back in the Tombs

  Chapter 32: Victory Day

  Chapter 33: Tomorrow

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  To Helen Grace—thank you.

  PROLOGUE

  On April 15, 1945, Edward R. Murrow’s voice came through the wireless accompanied by an eerie, low-frequency hum that was married to the recording.

  “Permit me to tell you what you would have seen and heard had you been with me on Thursday. It will not be pleasant listening. If you’re at lunch or if you have no appetite to hear what Germans have done, now is a good time to switch off the radio, for I propose to tell you of Buchenwald. It’s on a small hill about four miles outside Weimar, and it was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany, and it was built to last….

  As we walked out into the courtyard, a man fell dead. Two others—they must have been over sixty—were crawling toward the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it.

  “In another part of the camp, they showed me the children, hundreds of them. Some were only six. One rolled up his sleeve, showed me his number. It was tattooed on his arm; D6030 it was. The others showed me their numbers. They will carry them till they die. An elderly man standing beside me said, ‘The children, enemies of the state.’ I could see their ribs through their thin shirts. The old man said, ‘I am Professor Charles Risha of the Sorbonne.’ The children clung to my hands and stared. We crossed to the courtyard. Men kept coming up to speak to me and touch me. Professors from Poland, doctors from Vienna, men from all of Europe, men from the countries that made America.”

  Emotion tittered in his voice.

  “Murder had been done at Buchenwald. God alone knows how many men and boys have died there during the last twelve years. Thursday, I was told that there were more than twenty thousand in the camp. There had been as many as sixty thousand. Where are they now?

  “And the country roundabout was pleasing to the eyes, and the Germans were well fed and well dressed. American trucks were rolling toward the rear filled with prisoners. Soon, they would be eating American rations, as much for a meal as the men at Buchenwald had received in four days…. I was there on Thursday, and many men in many tongues blessed the name of Roosevelt. For long years, his name had meant the full measure of their hope…. Back in ’41, Mister Churchill said to me with tears in his eyes, ‘One day the world and history will recognize and acknowledge what it holds to your president.’ I saw and heard the first installment of that at Buchenwald on Thursday.”

  Chapter 1

  THE TOMBS

  New York City, 1945, the early hours of May 11. The hundreds of brick, iron, and steel buildings that filled out the evening skyline with their many chimneys bellowed thick smoke into the atmosphere, one skyscraper seeming to climb over the other to reach the clouds and stars above. Some reached that height, disappearing into the smokescreen from the many chimneys piping out their own clouds over the isle of Manhattan. The glare from the tens of thousands of windows in the metropolis painted the night sky with a dreamy glow, creating a focused haze softening the brick-and-mortar stalagmites that shot upward as high as the human mind could design.

  Past the steady drone of city life below, a faint police siren managed to break through the buzz of sound, getting increasingly louder. Down on the street level, an unmarked police sedan screamed down the streets heading downtown, haphazardly overtaking and passing slower-moving vehicles that pulled over to let the unmarked car pass. The car’s siren squealed between the buildings of the avenue like a wailing banshee, blowing through traffic lights and intersections, with many other vehicles laying on their loud horns to make their feelings known. But the sedan persisted, picking up speed and taking more risky moves as it got closer to their downtown destination.

  The vehicle took a hard corner, skimming the gutter, and screeched to a halt outside the New York City Tombs, the police department’s detention complex. The four-year-old, fifteen-story Art Deco high-rise called the Tombs III or the Manhattan House of Detention had replaced the aging forty-year-old City Prison building that sat across the street. It was an entire complex of buildings connected by both above- and below-ground tunnels which sat on the same patch of land in which the former Five Points neighborhood previously resided.

  With one tire up on the curb, the passenger’s-side door swung open, and out jumped a man hidden under a black Stetson hat and matching long black trench coat. Two uniformed officers awaiting his arrival hastily saluted and led him into the building.

  As they entered the empty lobby, the motley crew picked up two more officers, scooted around the massive security desk, and continued down the hall. The loud staccato clapping of their dress shoes on the marble floor reverberated inside the dark, quiet corridor. The man in black rounded the corner toward the elevator bank and came face-to-face with a waiting group centered round the chief of police, the commissioner, and the district attorney. The man flipped his high collar down and removed his hat, handing it to one of the accompanying officers. Hands flew out and the man in black shook them all. Without much more of a pause, the ma
n in black led them toward a freight elevator. The group eagerly exchanged glances and hurried after their guest. They all crowded into the large lift and started to descend into the exposed elevator shaft, down in the subbasements, passing floor after floor. As they traveled further into the bowels of the building, the visible walls and brick got older and the paint continued to fade and peel. The group reached their destination, the lowest basement level of the facility.

  They exited the lift and entered an old brick hallway illuminated only by a string of bulbs attached to the ceiling. The group passed by various-sized holding cells, some that still had the hundred-year-old grille-styled cell doors and peeling two-tone paint on the walls. They reached a tall, thick wooden desk with a guard stationed behind it who immediately stood to attention. He nervously handed a clipboard to the man dressed in black.

  The man flashed a cold smile to the young guard and handed the clipboard over his shoulder to the commissioner behind him. The commissioner, not expecting this, awkwardly juggled it and pawned it off to the man behind him, the chief of police, who signed.

  The man in black then dutifully started to unbutton his long black trench coat so the desk guard could see if he was armed. Underneath he revealed a slick but plain-looking three-piece black suit. Undoing those buttons, he opened his jacket and flashed a .45 automatic holstered under his arm to the guard, who acknowledged it. The man then plopped his foot up on the desk and hiked up his pant leg to show his backup .38 on his ankle. The desk guard nodded and turned to indicate they were now all allowed to pass.

  The group continued past the desk, further down the hall toward the very last cell, which was guarded by two officers. The cell door they stood in front of only had an eye-level slit opening that offered a view inside. A third plain-clothed officer waited to greet the large party. His suit was stained, ripped, and torn. His name was Sergeant Ambrosio. He extended a hand to the man in black, who ignored it and peered past him through the peephole, into the cell.

  “Is he conscious?” the man in black asked, his first words since he’d arrived at the Manhattan House of Detention.

  “Uh…yes he is, sir,” Ambrosio replied. “We just got back from the hospital. He needed patching up.”

  “How is he now?”

  “He’s been stabilized.”

  “Okay. How long has he been in custody?” the man asked.

  “About an hour and a half. I was with him when this all happen—”

  “Has anyone debriefed him?”

  “I spoke to him. I’ve been working with him since the beginning, so I can appraise you on everything I know.”

  “I will certainly read your report once you submit it, Sergeant.”

  Ambrosio made eye contact with the brass standing behind their guest, who all glared right back at him. His eyes jumped back to the man in black. “Yes, sir.”

  The man looked at the two uniformed guards stationed on either side of the door. “Please open the door. I’m going to speak with him.” He glanced back at the large group and addressed no one in particular. “Please inform me the minute the Secretary of Defense arrives.”

  Inside the dark, dingy cell, a lingering stench of bleach and mildew assaulted the senses. The room was lit by a single bare bulb that hung overhead, and this light allowed the four corners of the room to dip off into darkness. In the center of the small ten-by-ten room was a large wooden desk with a chair on either side. The sound of several locks unhinging broke the loud silence within the cell, and the huge metal door slowly swung open. The man in black stepped into the cell, and the door closed behind him. He shed the long overcoat, folded it, and placed it on the back of the chair.

  Seated across the desk facing the door was a man with his head down, resting on his arms. He looked up to see who had entered. He was a black man in his late thirties, slender in build, with straightened, slicked-back hair wildly out of place. Both eyes were bruised black and blue, with his left almost swollen shut. His jaw was inflamed, and his entire face looked damaged. Dried blood was caked under his nose, and fresh bandages were visible underneath his shirt. His wrists were both handcuffed and attached to an old metal pole anchored to the floor.

  His name was Walter Morris, a private detective by trade.

  The man in black’s suit was tight fitting, not as baggy as the common style, instead more streamlined, as if ready for action. He unbuttoned his jacket and took a seat across from the detainee. He removed his Stetson and placed it onto the table. “My name is Agent Graham. I’m here to debrief you on what occurred tonight and get an overall account on what led up to this evening. You think you can help me with that?”

  Morris didn’t respond.

  “Would you like a drink? A coffee or a buttermilk? Something stronger, perhaps?”

  Morris perked up. “I’ll take a milkshake if you’re asking. Chocolate, some whipped cream, and a couple of nice red Maraschino cherries on top.”

  After a pause, Graham continued, “Okay, we can do that. Would you care for a cigarette?”

  The private detective looked up with his one good eye and for the first time made eye contact with the special agent. “Sure, that would be fucking fabulous right now.”

  Graham went into his breast pocket with one hand to grab his smokes and used his other to delve into another pocket for his Zippo. He gave Morris a cigarette, lit that, and another one for himself.

  “We can get some pain medicine onboard as well to take the edge off…,” he motioned to the facial bruising and Morris’s battered body, “…how you are feeling?”

  Morris took a drag from the cigarette, then exhaled. He looked the special agent up and down and had another drag. “What agency did you say you were from?”

  Agent Graham politely smiled. “The DOD.”

  Morris nodded and looked down at his broken fingers that could barely hold the lit cigarette. “Department of Defense. Not connected to the Office of Strategic Services, are you, eh…the OSS?” Morris made himself smile.

  Agent Graham smiled and shook his head.

  Morris took another drag. “So you want me to lay the whole thing out, huh? Spread it and straighten it out, see if you can make heads or tails out of it all?”

  Graham retrieved a notepad and pen from his other breast pocket, opened it, and settled in. “Roughly. Just spill it all out. Right now I’m just interested in your raw account of all this while it’s still fresh. Everything, even as ancillary as it may be. Savvy?”

  Morris had another drag and exhaled. He spat out a mixture of saliva and blood before he repositioned his body in the wooden chair. He took a minute to think and let out a long, deep, hearty laugh. “Alright, sure, what the hell.” He shifted his weight once again because his position wasn’t comfortable the way he was feeling. “From what I learned, this all started here in New York about a week ago….”

  Graham removed the cap from his pen.

  Morris brought his hands to between his legs under the table and leaned in. “Have you seen them yet? I mean, have you seen one of those freak shows up close?”

  Graham looked into Morris’s eyes and paused before he answered. “I have not yet been able to view what was recovered from the site.”

  That made the detective laugh. “Well, you should have gone there first, ’cause that would have saved us the bullshit of you asking me questions you could already know the answers to.”

  The special agent smiled. “Don’t worry, Mister Morris. You will be very surprised how much I am willing to believe.”

  Chapter 2

  TWO WEEKS PRIOR

  The world was at war for the second time. Europe had been battling the Nazis along with Italy and Japan for nearly six years. With the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the United States officially joined the war. Italy declared an armistice in September of 1943, and two fronts then remained: the European and Pacific theate
rs. By early ’45, Hitler’s last attempt to keep a foothold on what he’d conquered in Europe became known as the Battle of the Bulge, which failed once the supply lines were cut off and the German army’s precious Tiger tanks were starved of their petrol.

  Now the Nazis were desperately trying to hold back the allied forces to the west and the Russians from the east. By April, the war in Europe was winding down. Allies had converged on Berlin and were going street to street, building to building, fighting the last of the German army. News could come any day now of victory and then the united forces could focus their energy on pushing the Japanese back in the Pacific and prepare for the inevitable, a ground invasion of the island of Japan.

  In New York City, the population was still feeling the effects of the overseas war. Since early 1942, there had been strict curfews as well as blackout restrictions in place. After sunset every evening, Manhattan and its surrounding boroughs (along with every other city and town along the Eastern seaboard facing the Atlantic Ocean) were required to keep all lights off. Windows, bulbs, signs, and any other form of illumination was turned off or painted black so as to not be a potential target to any German U-boats or long-range bombers. Times Square, the entire Great White Way, skyscrapers like the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, and even the Statue of Liberty and her magnificent torch were all dark.

  After sunset, vehicles had to use specially modified hoods attached to their headlights or slits called “eyelids” so their lights would only illuminate the street. Traffic lights wore similar coverings so only a small sliver of red or green could be seen. Streetlights had been turned off or their intensity lessened, and streetlamps had the tops of their globes painted black so their light would not be seen from above. Night games at Yankee Stadium or Ebbets Field were now prohibited, and even some observation areas atop skyscrapers like the Woolworth Building were closed due to their views of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.