DAWN OF BETRAYAL
by Max Grant
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Copyright 2012 Max Grant
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America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. - Joseph Stalin
Table of Contents
Dawn of Betrayal
Coming Soon in 2012: Decade of Betrayal
About the Author
Dawn of Betrayal
April 1948
It was a little past mid-morning when I stepped off the overnight coach into the blinding glare of downtown Tampa. I sidled over to the driver as he finished unloading and handing off the baggage. He looked like he was pondering where he would go to find some badly needed daytime sleep. I slipped him a fin for getting me all the way here from Dallas in one piece, the sprung seat cushions being none of his doing. He nodded and pocketed the bill, cast me a weary smile, and croaked, “Thanks, bub” before shuffling off to check in with the dispatch office.
I grabbed my bag from the curb and elbowed my way into the stage depot for a look-see. What a sight for sore eyes. Like worthless clinkers collecting at the bottom of a coal bin, they all ended up somewhere in the Sunshine State: gutless punks, two-bit grifters, shifty-eyed fugitives, grinning con men, raving commie loons, and every other brand of tramp, thug, creep, and moron. And at the bottom of the heap, the pimps, the fairies, the drag queens, hollow-eyed junkies and hopped-up snowbirds, assorted kinksters, and all the other refuse tossed back from Hell. As in every town these days, serving this crew would be the usual penny-ante shysters, loan sharks, union goons, crooked cops, bar wenches, burlesque queens, and whores: human slag, the seemingly unavoidable waste products of the industry of life.
Then there were the locals, running the gamut from 300-pound, slit-eyed, pig-faced cretins to dried-up, toothless, simian bone bags. An old Negro ambled noiselessly through the place, avoiding eye contact. There were people here of every hue and stripe that’d left their shacks in the country for the rootless existence of the slums and shantytowns in these burgeoning new Florida cities.
But who knew? Maybe every last one of these carcasses held the soul of a saint, all good folk taking a rest between random acts of generosity and charity. Right. Half of them looked like they’d slit your throat for a nickel when no one was looking. Maybe I’d been alive too long; weary from the trail that had led me to this place. I’d been less than happy with the general state of humanity since I’d stumbled onto this case more than half a year past.
But I wasn’t interested in the normal brand of low-life. I was on the trail of the lowest of them all, the traitor, the Quisling, the low-down dirty gutter rat that would sell out his countrymen for the cheap pay-off from a bloody tyrant. And when I found them, they were going to answer to the people for their crimes before swinging from a rope, or maybe strangling in the gas house, depending on which jurisdiction got the privilege.
* * *
I was slowly picking my way through the depot when I spotted her. Facing the far wall, her sidelong glance caught mine and held it as I moved through the waiting hall to the row of telephone booths near the entrance. She looked fresh off the banana boat, but her eyes revealed the worldliness of someone who had done plenty and seen more.
Her name was Veronica Elena Cruz, I’d been told. She was a petite girl, luxuriously constructed nonetheless. She was wearing a tight summer dress in tropical pattern, simply cut, that set off an abundance of nicely complected fawn-colored skin. Briefly she turned to face me fully, and she was stunning. Her face had perfectly proportioned fine features, very slightly bronzed from the sun, and sporting only a touch of rouge. Her generous mouth carried an easy smile, and her dark eyes were sparkling with life and good humor. She had half her shimmering black hair piled on top of her head, the other half hanging appealingly about her shoulders.
Her eyes swept me again as she turned to rise and head in the direction I had come. I gave her an imperceptible nod and passed through the double glass doors without a backward glance. The glare given off from the street hit me right between the eyes. As I turned toward the sidewalk I nearly ran into a nattily attired bum wobbling outside the doorway. He gave me the eager eye and I fished out two bits and passed them over to help fund his bottle cap collection.
I headed on up Marion, crossing at the signal to the opposite corner. Cooling my heels at the window of an old book store, it was only a couple of minutes before I saw Miss Cruz bustle out of the depot and head east along Madison.
Following along leisurely on the other side of the street I caught her eye as she turned into the Five & Dime one block up. A quick glance through the plate glass showed the back of her at the far stool of the lunch counter. I wandered over in that direction and took a lingering gander at the posted specials before taking up the stool between her and a pair of portly matrons on a shopping break.
Nodding to the pair to my right, I grabbed a menu from the rack and buried my face in it for a few seconds before deciding that I was too hungry to waste it on the hash they were slinging in this place. A coffee would hold me over until I could find a proper chophouse and a square meal.
Turning to Miss Cruz I flashed her my best wolf’s leer just as the waitress sauntered over to break it up. Miss Cruz placed her order for the American cheese sandwich and a pop, and I asked for a cup of joe. We tossed around some introductory banter for the benefit of the audience while awaiting the refreshments.
The service was swift. Veronica munched on her sandwich for a few minutes while the ladies next to me paid their bill and filed on out of there. Talking to her plate she said, “Raymond, I called Mack before I left the depot and told him you’d arrived. He said everything was OK at the ranch. And your secretary, Yuki, is holding tight at your office.”
“There’s a meet scheduled for tomorrow evening in Ybor City.” She slid a small card across the counter in front of me. It was blank except for a street address. “The party I expect you’re interested in is a tallish grey-haired gent.”
Veronica, a field agent with the local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, filled me in on what she knew about this bunch and their meeting location. She’d suggested I should be on the lookout for a distinguished looking specimen that had surfaced a few weeks ago and seemed to be of some importance. His name and location had not been identified, but the Ybor City address was well known. The trash from that place had been thoroughly rifled, and there was a membership list. Moreover, the fellow was known to travel with some fancy type, a driver or houseboy or worse.
* * *
Out on the street I hailed a passing cab and asked for delivery to the nearest U-drive outfit. The cabbie motored uptown and deposited me near the train station in front of an unremarkable business establishment called Sunshine Rent-a-Car. The office was a small affair, mostly plate glass along the front, set back on the lot and raised up a few steps from grade. I cast an eye over the merchandise and climbed through the glass double doors, having in mind one of the newer jobs with a full-size trunk, a Dodge Custom coupe that appeared to fit the bill. I took a few minutes to check its road worthiness. The clerk signed me up for a week’s rental and I went away from there.
The Seminole Lodge was conveniently located two blocks over, but I kept motoring in the direction of the downtown area and killed the early part of the afternoon there. I checked into my room before dinnertime and inquired at the desk for a nearby chophouse. The clerk squeaked out some directions and I wandered over a couple of blocks and dined at the Beef ‘n’ Bone on 8th Street where I gobbled down a Porterhouse, chasing it with a Caesar salad and a fat slice of Key lime pie. Feeling substantially better,
I walked back to the hotel, fetched the heap out of the garage, and pointed it toward Ybor City.
Once there I cruised up 21st Street, turned left on Palm, and made a quick pass by the address Veronica had supplied. It was an older two-story structure, covered in aging white clapboard, with a sign over the double doors inscribing something about International and Ladies and Garment Workers. The long-winded moniker conjured up a distinctly unpleasant image of a garlic-chewing, slack-jawed old fishwife with one eye on a missed stitch and the other on the clock.
Tossing that image from my mind I continued on to the plaza and nosed into a parking slot. It was still early so I took a late afternoon stroll through the plaza and along some of the side streets. I spent an hour touring the old Fuera Cigar Factory, still going strong on the second swing shift.
The sun was getting low in the sky when I decided to take a closer look at the address. I pulled up 20th Street and took the alley that passed behind the building. If I had the right place there was a single exit door out the back, but no windows. The building was set a short distance in from the alley to leave some space for the trashcans. Veronica’d told me that her crew tossed the trash on a regular basis so I kept on riding and got out of there.
A couple of blocks west appeared an establishment called the Tropicana. Thirsty, I pulled into the curb and dropped in for a snort. The frosty rum concoctions the barkeep was working on looked mildly tempting, but I stayed with the tried and true: bourbon whiskey on ice. I put down a couple of those and ordered a plate of fried bananas to get me through the rest of the evening. Back at the hotel I made a few calls west and turned in early.
The chamber girl had made her third appearance the next morning before I coaxed myself out of the sack. Then, not thinking of anything better to do, I drove on down to Larson Fish Camp off the Yacht Basin in Old Tampa Bay. There I rented some fishing gear and a rowboat, and spent the next few hours wandering about the shoreline off of Ballast Point. By noon all I was catching was a sunburn, so I packed it in an hour later and headed downtown for some chow. The Cattlemen’s Club offered a thick-cut prime rib, and I lingered over a second dinner salad and dessert while the afternoon played out.
Back in Ybor City that evening I parked down the street from the union hall and meandered up the sidewalk until I found a bookstore nearly opposite that was open late. Wandering in I browsed around for a while and eventually picked up a thick tome on Florida bay fishing. Book in hand, I staked out a spot at the end of the counter in front of the window. It wasn’t too long before the proprietor was casting me the eyeball and acting a little testy. I slapped a fin down on the counter and kept reading.
Shortly after sundown the double doors opened and the first of the evening’s participants arrived. A little later a long, low, black Caddy sedan pulled up in front and dropped the tall grey-haired specimen at the door. I got a gander of the driver as he pulled away. He was a rat-faced mug with unkempt black greasy hair. He looked a little nervous as he glanced in the rear-view and hunched over the wheel.
I plopped down another buck and some coin for the book and walked out. A bright neon sign at the end of the block advertised liquor so I padded over there and grabbed a pint of Indian Hill. I had no idea how long this meet was going to take and I’d missed an opportunity to pin a tail on the slick weasel. Back to the U-rent car I cruised the block a few times until some elderly matron freed up a spot opposite the bookstore. I read until it was to dark to see, then tossed down a few gulps while keeping an eye on the rear-view for the Caddy.
* * *
The meet didn’t break up until after eleven. The old gent was the first one out, and the Caddy showed out of nowhere to scoop him up. I tailed them all the way through Tampa, around the Bay and across St. Petersburg. I was starting to hope they weren’t heading for Sarasota or points beyond as I’d already used up better than half a tank of gas. But they soon turned west on Pasadena Avenue and wheeled toward South Pas and the Gulf.
The traffic had thinned out by the time we came up on the Corey Causeway connecting Long Key to the peninsula. I dropped back a little and turned into the parking lot of the roadhouse on the island side of the bridge, waiting half a minute before crossing the lot and heading southbound on Gulf Boulevard.
The Caddy’s tail lights veered left in the distance, and a short time later I followed them onto Passe-a-Grille Way, the bayside thoroughfare that paralleled Gulf Boulevard along the lower length of the barrier island. To the west the fabled Don Cesar on the gulf shore was lit up in pink with construction lights. Just that morning I’d read a feature in the local fish wrap describing how it was being converted back to a luxury hotel from its recent service as a veteran’s hospital.
The driver was just closing the garage door on the Caddy when I cruised by at a brisk clip. I took a long look at the residence and continued on a short distance to the end of the island. There was a little hole-in-the-wall down there that looked open for business, so I swung the flivver around and parked against the seawall. A sign painted over the open door read: The Pelican’s Roost. It shared a small clapboard building with a tiny shop called Land’s End Bait and Tackle.
Looking out over the bay, the water maintained a polished obsidian surface in the calm night. Mirror perfect, its surface reflected lights from the residences lining the peninsula shore. I stood on the seawall for a moment gazing out over the tranquil scene. This was a pretty peaceful place, between hurricanes. Spring had already sprung in this corner of the world and the sidewalk in front of the bar was littered with purple jacaranda blossoms. A white cactus flower the size of a dinner plate stared at me from an impossibly scrawny spiked branch poking out of an earthen pot.
Entering the Roost I paused for a moment to take in the ambience and the clientele. The barkeep was occupied with some locals up at the far end. I staked out a seat at the end of the bar near the door. After a minute he sauntered on over and took my order. He returned with a bourbon on the rocks and set it down along with a tall glass of ice water. Pausing a moment, he pulled a rag from his back pocket and started wiping down the bar beside me. I decided to try him out.
“I’ve been over to St. Pete all day and thought I’d just head out to Treasure Island and catch the sunset from the beach.”
“Yup,” he said. “It’s the same every night. Spectacular. Especially after a good thunder boomer’s moved through.”
“It is that. And down here this beach looks like snow in the moonlight. It seemed like a swell night to check out the coast route. There sure are a lot of fine houses along this street.”
“Yeah, most of the big homes down this end were built by old ship captains, robber barons, and whatever. They were built to last and they’ve lasted through plenty here. Back in the ’35 hurricane this whole island was underwater. Read where St. Pete had the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. Most everything washed away. But not those big houses. They’ll be there ‘til the Second Coming.”
“I noticed a tall distinguished-looking gent standing outside a few blocks up. Maybe he’s one of the old sea captains.”
“If it’s who I’m thinking of, he’s got the big red brick place with the wrap-around porch and the uneven gables up top.”
“Yeah, that’s the place. It’s a real eye catcher.”
“I don’t think that bird’s one of the old boys. He’s a strange one, a newcomer, been here less than a year. No one seems to know what his story is. And far as I know he’s got no one else up there except for a manservant and a chauffer. The old man don’t seem to mix, but the chauffer dropped by here a couple of times. He didn’t give the ladies no notice, but he seemed to have his eye on a couple of the fellows. That didn’t sit too well. We gave him the cold shoulder and he ain’t been back. “
Interesting. I jawboned with the young fellow for a few more moments before he wandered down the bar to check on his regulars. A couple of drinks later I paid up and got out of there. I drifted slowly up the street and ga
ve the old place a good once over, barely catching sight of the street number in shadow beside the front door. The house was as dark as a tomb and looked abandoned. I wondered if they still had the blackout curtains up that had been so popular in coastal communities during the war.
Up to the north end of the island I found a snazzy looking motor court called The Gulf Breeze. It was still fairly early and the desk clerk looked like an alert type so I asked him for directions to the county building over in St. Pete. He got me what I wanted. I found my room and cracked the outside door to let in the breeze. The gentle surf sounds lulled me straight to sleep.
* * *
The floor-to-ceiling drapes I’d left wide open so as to awake at dawn. The beach beckoned and I took a leisurely walk, then recalled the Penguin Diner down the boulevard near the causeway and breakfasted there.
A short time later I found the county building in downtown St. Pete where it was supposed to be. The county was just opening for business when I cruised on by so I stashed the rental in a garage down the next block. As I had hoped, there was a stationary store on my route back to the building. I wandered in looking for a cheap clipboard and a pad of paper.
The gal at the cash looked like she’d had a rough night, but she was cheerful nonetheless. She steered me toward a shelf that featured an assortment of shallow aluminum boxes, each with a clip on the outside. She showed me how one used the surface of the contraption for a clipboard while keeping ones product clean and dry inside. She pointed out the dual set of pen holders and the neat pocket, attached to the inside of the lid, designed expressly to hold a batch of my professional calling cards. I was wondering if the thing had been manufactured from war bird scrap.
Overall, she gave a good pitch about the enormous practicality of all this over a simple dime-store clipboard. I had to admire her capabilities for the job and was grateful I wasn’t in the market that day for an automobile. What the hell, it was Moe’s money anyway.