James Benn: The White Ghost

“Your father and uncle among them,” Kaz said. I guess I’d told him the story before. Maybe a few times, now that I think about it.

“Yeah. Them and hundreds of other veterans who’d just returned home from France. Most of them Irish, since it was hard to find work when you spoke with a brogue and had a moniker from the auld sod. Dad would have been glad to get work in a factory or digging ditches, anything to put food on the table. Instead, he and Uncle Frank wound up bluecoats, and worked hard at it. Frank had made detective the year before, working vice out of the downtown headquarters.”

“What was your father’s assignment?” Kaz asked. This was territory I hadn’t covered before.

“He was warming a chair in the commissioner’s office,” I said. “Awaiting a transfer, learning administration and procedures, that sort of thing.” Dad had alluded to a payoff in order to land a plumb assignment like homicide, but I could never get any details out of him. I never even knew if he’d been assigned to the commissioner because he’d paid up or had refused to.

“It is hard to imagine your father as a police bureaucrat,” Kaz said, “after all you have told me about him.”

“It didn’t last long, not after the prohis showed up.”

“Pro-hee? What is that?”

“No, Pro-heez. Short for Prohibition agents, from the US Treasury Department,” I explained.

Kaz smiled as he sipped his tea. “You Americans do not like your words overly long, do you?”

“We’re too busy for big words, Lieutenant Kazimierz,” I said, drawing out his last name for as long as I could manage. “But since we’re grounded here, I’ll take my time. You’ve heard of Eliot Ness?”

“Yes, of course,” Kaz said. “The Untouchables. Chicago, Al Capone.” Kaz loved American gangster movies and especially slang associated with mobsters. Otherwise he was pretty much of an egghead. An armed and deadly egghead, that is.

“Same bunch. The Bureau of Prohibition sent a squad to Boston with orders to cooperate with visiting agents from the Canadian Royal Commission on Customs and Excise. Taxmen, just like the US Treasury boys. Since they were on our turf, someone had to be assigned to them.”

“Your father,” Kaz said. “Because he was the least senior detective. No one else wanted to be associated with the prohis.” I could tell Kaz liked the new slang.

“Yep. Local cops used the Prohibition laws when it suited them. If it would help to nab a mobster, fine. But no one wanted to bust open barrels of beer and keep honest folks from a little relaxation. But the Treasury men from the Bureau of Prohibition, they had a calling, all right.”

“They were simply upholding the law, Billy,” Kaz said.

“A ridiculous law that made gangsters rich and politicians more crooked than ever. But you’re right, the law is the law, and Dad was told to help the Canadians and the prohis any way he could. Since it was his first assignment, he figured he had to do a decent job if he wanted to make a name for himself.”

“Without overdoing things,” Kaz said. We both turned to look outside as the rain drumming on the metal roof lessened. It was still coming down heavily, but a sliver of light gleamed at the horizon.

“Now you get the picture,” I said. “He had to walk a tightrope. Especially when the Canadians explained what brought them to Boston.”

“Let me guess,” Kaz said, lowering his voice. “Joseph Kennedy.”

“On the money,” I said. “They were after him for unpaid liquor export taxes. They had his name on a few shipping documents, but had no conclusive evidence. The prohis had their eye on him as well, but had even less evidence.”

“But there was no Prohibition in Canada,” Kaz said. “Surely an American could be in the liquor business there.”

“Yeah, and he was. Kennedy owned a liquor distributor called the Silk Hat Cocktail Company out in Vancouver, British Columbia. They exported liquor overseas and paid the export tax. The excise agents said they suspected some of the ships never left port. Instead of steaming off to Mexico or Japan, the skipper would simply dock at another berth and unload directly onto trucks.”

“Which would then smuggle the alcohol across the border,” Kaz said, staying one step ahead.

“Right. Nice and clean. That way the books balanced. Then Kennedy got greedy, according to the Canadians. Their theory was that he’d set up operations on the East Coast, bringing in booze on small boats, skipping the fiction about legal exports.”

“What evidence did they have?” Kaz said.

“Not much at first. Kennedy did supply all the booze for his Harvard class’s tenth year reunion in 1922. Cases of the stuff. That brought him to the attention of the Treasury boys, but even they couldn’t go up against that kind of influence. Half the guys at that reunion had enough cash and clout to shut down any investigation. But when the Canadians came calling with a lead a few years later, it was a different story.”

“How so?”

“It was an open secret that toughs from Southie-the Gustin Gang-were bringing in booze from ships out in international waters.”

“Rumrunners, yes?” Kaz asked.

“That’s what they were called,” I said. “Small, fast boats that could be beached and unloaded easily. The Gustin Gang-named after the street where they hung out-distributed to speakeasies all over Boston. Then they decided there was an easier way to do business.”

“What?” Kaz asked.

I smiled, challenging him to figure it out.

“Easier than unloading from ships at sea,” he said, thinking out loud. “While still ending up with the liquor. Of course! Steal it from other gangs, yes?”

“I’ll make a cop of you yet, Kaz. Or a criminal. Hard to say which we are, in this business. Yeah, the Gustin boys started knocking off rival shipments. Worked great for a while, but then the other gangs began to fight back, and soon no one was getting their booze.”

“There must have been angry customers,” Kaz said.

“As well as angry mob bosses. The big guys, not street thugs like the Gustins.”

“Let me guess,” Kaz said. “Someone was eliminated.”

“Well, yeah, but how? The gangs had already been fighting, but no one had scored a knockout blow.”

“Hmmm,” Kaz said, drumming his fingers on the table. “I have it! A sit-down, yes? Is that not what a meeting among gangsters is called?”

“Yep. An Italian gang offered to arrange it. Frank Wallace and Dodo Walsh were offered safe passage to discuss a truce. They were gunned down as they walked in. That’s a Mafia truce. Hard to argue with it.”

“This is a fascinating story, Billy, but what does it have to do with the senior Boyle and Kennedy?”

I was about to get to that when an RAF officer came for us. The rain was pelting down, but the sky to the east was clearing, and that was where we were going. I was groggy from too much time in the air and not enough sleep, but I was aware enough to understand what that meant. The wide Pacific Ocean and a new enemy, one even more alien than the Germans. All of Europe could be swallowed up and vanish in the broad stretches of sea and sky conquered by the Japanese.

“To be continued,” I said.

The Sunderland was like a flying house. It came equipped with bunk beds, a galley, and indoor plumbing. Even with all the creature comforts, Kaz was not feeling his best as the plane wallowed in the swells waiting for takeoff. When the four powerful engines finally started up, the hull slamming against waves as we built up speed, he crawled into the sack and groaned for the next hour when he wasn’t swearing in Polish. I don’t speak Polish, but I know a curse when I hear it.