Writers Galore

Book Manuscript

Mystery

     This is a 95K word mystery/thriller about a railroad cop who wants to abandon his troublesome career but is compelled to reconsider when a bizarre murder occurs on railroad property during his shift. He must save face and solve the crime. BEN MROZ, protagonist, is a Polish railroad cop ("dick," or "bull") whose duty is to protect railroad property from theft and vandalism. It's summer, 1932, and thousands of hobos are "riding the drags," in search of a better life. Prohibition is still in force. In attempting to solve the crime, BEN MROZ will have to deal with unscrupulous, self-serving con men, dirty cops, gangsters and "loose women," as well as the racial and sexual stereotypes of the times.

     Davy Katz's story was not all there. He wrote with a soft pencil in a tiny scrawl, which made his entries in the school composition book difficult to read, especially since his pencil seemed to get more blunt with each succeeding line. Still, the words were legible. It appeared he enjoyed writing down all the juicy details. But then his story just stops. Pages had been ripped out of the composition book -- in a hurry it looked like. If someone needed to conceal Davy's story, why not take all the pages? Why not just take the whole composition book and leave nothing behind?

     This in fact, is as much as they found of Davy Katz' narrative:

June 26, 1932 (Sunday)

To begin with, I must have been the only one there to report this to the yardmaster, and then I'm sure he went and told the railroad cops, maybe even city cops, of which I know a few. See, I like to go fishing in the reservore (I'm sure I didn't spell that right) in the Buffalo yard of the Delaware Lackawanna Railroad. They don't allow too many in there, but I got permission from the superintendent who is a cousin of my aunt Rozie. You got to have some controls, or everybody and his brother would just bunch around the water, get their lines tangled up, and nobody would have any fun. Anyway, I went there early today -- 7:30, 8:00 o'clock, maybe. Sometimes I go on Saturdays also, but I'm sure glad I went today. Well, not glad in one sense. I brought my old bamboo pole, a good few feet of line, some fresh worms, a cigar box with my hooks and stuff in it, and a bucket for all the damn fish I was going to catch. I don't have a car, so I walked to the west end of the Yard where the ground slopes up to a row of poplar trees. The Yard and reservore seem to hide up there behind the trees and the thick grass and the weeds. The reservore is a triangular shaped body of water sandwiched between the Lackawanna's mainline to the south and the Black Rock line on the north. Jeez, it was a nice day! A big bright sun was poking sharp shadows over and around the cars and locomotives that were stashed along a whole mess of tracks off to the east toward Harlem Ave. I could hear the banging from cars being cut and humped, as well as an engine or two hissing and puffing like they was a tired old man. Plus, you can always hear them steam whistles tootin' away. Music to your ears I always thought. It was cool down there this morning, so I was glad I wore a heavier shirt. I figured to fish for a couple of hours, then head over to Billy's place. (Everybody knows where Billy's club is - Prohibition or no Prohibition!) I walked down to the southwest corner of the reservore, my favorite spot because I knew they'd be biting there. It was just me at the time, going on 8:00 o'clock or so. I would have got there earlier, but Billy had me running errands from the Club all hours last night and I didn't hit the sack till after midnight. Everything went fine -- for a while. I baited my hook, threw my line out several times in different places and nothin' was happening. It was pretty quiet and cool there. But I was getting bored. Nothing happening. I was just about to say "screw it," when I threw out my line one last time and felt some resistance when I tried to reel her in. It was like she had got caught on something. I pulled and pulled on the line, knowing it was no damn fish on the end of it. I put my pole down on the sandy dirt near the water's edge, took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants and walked a ways into the cold water. Then I picked up the pole and yanked on the line a few times. About 12 feet ahead of me in the water I saw it, a grayish-brown shape down in the water with its arms and legs and thick black hair all splayed out like it wanted to fly or something. I was scared shitless and glad that I couldn't see the face. I would hate to see its face, for Chrissake! Somehow I was able to reel in my line. Then I grubbed around in the slop at the water's edge trying to get my shoes back on so's I could get the hell out of there. The shape, the thing, had drifted a bit. It was a god-damned body for sure,. face downwards, dark clothes, bare feet, jet-black hair fanning out in the water. Not too many people around here have hair like that, I was thinking. Jeez -- where to go? Who should I tell this to? The yardmaster, of course. He could tell the railroad cops and they'd probably haul the body to the morgue or someplace. Anyway I got out of there fast and trotted over to the yardmaster's office between the two main sections of tracks in the yard. I made it there lickety-split and pounded up the stairs to the second floor. I stood by an open door with a glass panel on it. "M. Schultz," it said on the glass,"Yardmaster." Nobody was in sight, not a soul, so I started shouting, "Hey! Anybody here?" There's a body in the reservoir (I looked up the spelling finally)-- Hello! Mr. Schultz. Mr. Schultz!" I stopped shouting and waited, kind of shaking like and thinking maybe nobody was working there today -- which didn't make much sense because the office door was open and I seen a coffee pot on an old wood stove in the corner of the room, and could hear some dame singing "Am I Blue" from a radio nearby. I heard a toilet flush and somebody muttering something about somebody disturbing the peace ,and a string of four letter words I wouldn't want to write down here. "Who the hell are you?" Schultz grumbled, emerging from the john and zipping up his fly. He wore wide black suspenders which he snapped before waddling over to the leather chair behind his desk. He had his hands on his hips as he stared at me like a bulldog, pissed because I had snatched away his bone or something. The nasty looking scar over his right eye didn't help either. "D..David Katz, "I stuttered. "What you want? It's supposed to be quiet around here on Sundays, for Chrissake." "There's . . there's . . " I could hardly get it out. ". . .a a body . . " "A what?" "A body, damnit, a body -- in the reservoir." I said it three times maybe before he caught on that I was not joshing him. He just sat there peering over the top of his glasses. He removed the glasses and got up from his chair wearing a most terrifying look on that bulldog face. He grabbed me by the arm, lifted his hat from a hook near the door and told me to show him exactly where this so-called body was. Which I did, even though I hated the thought of being marched over to the reservoir by a guy that weighed twice as much as myself. What if the thing was gone? Drifted away maybe from the spot where I first saw it, or sunk deeper into the water, or even taken away by somebody in order to remove evidence. Jeez, this whole thing was making me sicker and sicker. Anyway we trooped over to the reservoir with Schultz holding my arm the whole way and muttering another round of four letterers. "Nobody has ever drowned in that damned reservoir .You know what I think, Katzy, you little shit, I think you had your ugly face in the sauce last night and that instead of pink elephants, you're seeing bodies -- am I right? Come on, I'm right about that, ain't I?" He squeezed my arm tighter. Yeah, I'd had a few. But whoever reads this has got to know that I ain't bullshitting anybody. Hey, the proof was right there in the water, for Chrissake. After I led Shultz to the spot where I first saw it, we discovered the thing had drifted a little. And then the strangest thing -- which caught me a shiver right up to the top of my noggin. The body was now facing upwards and we could see its face. Eyes wide open staring at nothing and the skin of its face, death-white like wall-paper paste. Plus I figured the guy as a dandy or something sporting that small, jet-black mustache, like you'd see on Douglas Fairbanks. The thing that really gave me the creeps though was the way his mouth was open flashing teeth, and what you'd think was a smile or a grin or something but you knew he wasn't laughing. I knew in my gut that he just didn't fall in the reservoir by accident or try to do himself in. I just knew it. "Look here, Katz," Schultz said. "You stay here, keep an eye on things, you hear? I got to go and phone this in." Suddenly his attitude did a complete switcheroo. Now we were instead of I was the guy that messed up his quiet Sunday morning. I said nothing, just stood there with my mouth open thinking now that I had done enough and maybe should just get the hell out of there. I was sure the railroad dicks would be all over me asking questions and taking down my statement etc. and then I'd end up testifying in court maybe -- just a whole shitload of trouble which I didn't need. But I stayed there and didn't look at the body again. Schultz wasn't gone long, thank goodness. He said a few railroad cops were on their way and would want to ask me some questions so I had better stick around. I begged him to let me run home first. I had to go to the bathroom and I was starved. And anyway what more could I say beyond what Schultz now knew? He finally said I could go but first jotted down my name and address on a little pad he had pulled from a shirt pocket. I hate to say this, but I gave Schultz the wrong address. You'll understand why in a minute. "You better drag your ass over to Captain Sullivan's office as soon as you can, Katzy, 'cause if you don't --" He swiped a pudgy index finger across his throat so's I'd be sure to catch his drift. So I got out of there before he could change his mind and got home about ten o'clock, I'd say. I made some coffee. Oh, I almost forgot . . . I guess I was so full of the heebie-jeebies. Somebody stole my fishing gear. Or that's what it looked like. Like I said, I just wanted to get away from that reservoir and didn't really think to bring my stuff with me. But now, thinking back, I don't remember seeing it. It was gone. Jeez. . . that'd be something to tell Captain Sullivan about as well.

     Ben Mroz was not thrilled to be hanging around the Elmwood Music Hall on a warm Sunday morning in July, Centennial or no Centennial. Celebrating the city of Buffalo's first hundred years was one thing but he'd have to sit through a bunch of speeches, starting with the mayor's. "We stand at the threshold of another great 100 years," or, "A new era dawns in this great city on the Lake, anno domini, nineteen hundred and thirty-two," might be his opening line. Of course, sooner or later somebody would strike up the band and he would thrill to "The Star Spangled Banner," "My Country 'Tis of Thee," "The Washington Post March," or other Sousa greats. Good old rousing American music.

     From where he stood in the foyer, Ben could see a huge harp on the stage along with a few dignitaries and orchestra members fiddling with their instruments. He imagined his father up there sawing on a cello just as he did in the Warsaw Symphony before the war. Ben didn't think much about his father, only the music, and a brief period when he himself tried to play the instrument to please his father. What Ben Mroz really wanted to see here in the Elmwood Music Hall was not the mayor or the city big shots, or the orchestra, or the flags. He wanted to see his niece Julie come marching into the Hall with her first grade class from St. Bernard's. She'd be wearing her First Communion dress, which his sister Liz told him she had dolled up with red, white and blue piping along the hem and sleeves. She also added a little cape with blue stars on it. Ben adored Julie. She would be the closest he could come to having a daughter of his own, at least for a while.

     It bothered him about Julie's father. When Liz asked Ben to come see Julie "all dolled up," he said, "What about her father, what about Don?" "I shouldn't tell you this, Ben, I think he's in Chicago, or on his way there, 'by train,' he said. Yeah, first class. Said he would try to find a job and send me some money. Jesus." Of course he'd come to see Julie at the Hall. And afterward, after the ceremonies and speeches and the band music, he and Liz and Julie would go get ice cream cones, then maybe hang around the park, do the swings and slides until they got hungry, then go to Liz' back yard on Stevenson to cook hot-dogs. God, that sounded good the more he thought about it. He could put the grime and monotony of the Lackawanna Yard far behind, at least for today. In fact there was no need at all to think about his job today, none at all.

     More people filtered into the Hall and were taking seats as near to the stage as possible. Ben thought he'd wait till the last minute before going in to make sure Julie and Liz saw him there. It was mid-morning and already he felt it getting sticky, close. They had opened all the windows and had several huge fans at strategic spots around the Hall. The kids would stand close to a fan and giggle as the constant gust of air splayed out their hair and blew the girls' dresses up around their shoulders. Mothers shrieked and grabbed them to go find seats.

     Ben loosened his tie and was fanning himself with his flat- topped straw hat. He saw mayor Roesch climbing up on stage in front of the orchestra with a sheaf of notes in his hand. While he liked the Republican mayor to a degree, John J. Roesch didn't have half the moxie of Frank Schwab whom he unseated in '29. Ben shook his head thinking about it. Schwab had been in the liquor business before Prohibition, was elected mayor in '21 when Ben was a city cop. People thought he'd go easy on the speak-easies. But Schwab had taken an oath of office to maintain the law of the land and even though he himself was against Prohibition, by damn, he felt he had to enforce it. And he did, in his own way - a raid here, a raid there; a photo or two in the Courier Express showing the mayor pouring perfectly good booze into the city sewers. Disgusting. One of the things Ben had always liked about Buffalo, however, was that the city had never really supported Prohibition in a way that the temperance leagues would have preferred. Finding someplace to throw down a shot and a beer was as easy as walking out your front door.

     Still no Liz and Julie yet. His sister had said Julie would be with her first grade class from St. Bernard's and kids from other schools but she was not sure exactly when they'd march in, probably after everyone was seated.

     "Hey, Ben, how 'bout we can some of this heat and save it for winter," a voice from behind him said.

     Ben paused from fanning himself and turned. It was Harold Todd, a young car knocker on the Lackawanna. He was a short, wiry looking man, dressed almost like Ben, except for the suspenders, and was carrying his straw hat. A quiet-looking, round-faced and pretty little woman stood at his side -- obviously pregnant.

     "Harold," Ben said. He knew a lot of the trainmen and track workers, a few were always friendly. A lot of them had no use for the "bulls." Harold was one of the friendly ones. He and Ben would pass each other in the yards regularly and would meet occasionally at one of the "clubs," for a cold beer. Harold introduced his wife, Kitty, who smiled and reached out to shake Ben's hand. Ben asked when the baby was due and the three stood in the foyer chatting as more and more people filed into the Music Hall.

     "I'm waiting to see my niece Julie," Ben said. "I wish she'd get here."

     "Anything going on in the yard these days, Ben?" Harold asked." I see you and your boys collaring those bums - almost every day."

     "Yeah. It's pitiful. And what they do is dangerous. They don't realize how dangerous. They try to jump off moving trains and break arms and legs; they get caught between cars in the line when the train starts to move; just yesterday, some hobo down in Elmira fell under the wheels -- sorry, Kitty, didn't mean to be so unpleasant." She smiled.

     "The other thing is . . , " Ben continued (God, when was the last time he had a chance to talk about this stuff and have people actually listen?) ". . .so many of these bums are just kids, anywhere from twelve on up -- lookin' for something, they don't know what, going someplace they don't know where, and when they get there, they still got nothin' -- no food, no job. Nothin' except maybe getting roughed up by guys like me and spending the night in the hoosegow." "Look Ben . . ," Harold said, and paused. "I seen you in action a couple times. You're not like the other bulls. Yeah, those guys will beat the hell out of a tramp in the yard just as soon as look at him. I seen it happen many times. But I never seen you do that. You carry a stick, but I never seen you use it. That tells me something."

     Ben looked down at his polished black oxfords. "Well. . ," he said, unable to fill in the blank. Harold had touched on something. Once again been forced to start thinking about things that he had been putting off.

     Ben said goodbye to Harold and Kitty as they entered the hall and headed down the center aisle. He darted outside to look up and down the walkway in front of the Music Hall but could see only a few last minute stragglers. No Liz. No Julie.

     Ben re-entered the hall and by some miracle found a seat way off on the right aisle and climbed over the outstretched legs of several gray and white-haired ladies who sat gossiping and fanning themselves with their programs.

     Then he realized his mistake (he was always screwing something up). He was now situated way on the right side of the hall. Julie was sure to come marching up the center aisle! Damn. Well, he could stand up and see her. He could even march out of his seat, being careful not to trip over a lady's foot, and simply get close to the center aisle. He didn't need a seat anyway. Finally, he decided he had to stay put and hope for the best. He would not disturb the ladies again; they had given him enough dirty looks the first time.

     The band struck up a march. Patience, Ben Mroz. He craned his neck to the left towards the central aisle and saw a troop of boy scouts marching in with an assortment of flags, the American flag most prominent. They took a portion of reserved seats down in front, everything got quiet for a minute or so, and Mayor Roesch got up in front of the microphone with that sheaf of papers in his hand. He first introduced the priest, who was sitting next to the harp, and the priest gave a blessing on the proceedings.

     The mayor returned to the microphone. "Before giving my speech," he said "I just want to let you know that other fine groups in our great city will be marching into this wonderful Music Hall for your edification and entertainment. We have, for example. ." and he took his glasses from a shirt pocket to read from his papers, "girl scouts of Troop 109, the South Buffalo Tumblers, the South Park High mixed choir . . ." etc., etc., then finally that St.Bernard's first grade class would present a little pageant. At last, Ben thought. The mayor cleared his throat. "The city had come far in these last 100 years," he said. The new city hall was the finest in the country, our friendly neighbors across the Peace Bridge in Canada were most cooperative, and the huge grain business coninued to flourish. And let us not forget the railroads." "Many people may not be aware of the fact that the city of Buffalo is a major railroad center, second in the United States only to Chicago, an industry employing up to 20,000 people. And not only do we get jobs from our railroads, we get taxes. We get revenue. And so, my friends, we all benefit from that. Make no mistake, the railroads in Buffalo will be around a long, long time."

     Very positive, Ben thought. Stress the good things about the city. Thank God for railroads, eh Buffalo? There'd be no point in going into detail about the bread lines just down the street, or the people rummaging through garbage cans and sleeping under bridges, or kids stealing coal from open railroad hoppers to keep from freezing last winter. The mayor did, however, give himself a pat on the back for organizing his "Man-A-Block" program. It was a way of using unemployed people in a kind of clean-up and paint-up campaign to get the city ready for the Centennial and had even gotten national attention. Ben himself had volunteered to act as a "block captain" in the campaign. "Yes, they can call it a Depression out there, if they want to, but we here in Buffalo will take care of our own. Only when we have consumed our last dollar from the city coffers on this effort will we turn to President Hoover in Washington." Ben wondered if people remembered how the State of New York had to step in last fall and dump some money into those same coffers to avoid a breakdown in the local welfare agencies. Soon Hoover would have to fork over as well.

     When Mayor Roesch sat down, Ben found his stoic patience stretched to the limit. The other groups the Mayor had mentioned began their agonizingly slow march into the hall, down the center aisle, up the side aisles, back down the center aisle drawing stares and craned necks from parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends. A lull crept into the proceedings. Ben felt a sudden, strange sensation at the back of his head, entirely like someone staring at him with great urgency. He was compelled to turn around. The person was not only staring but gesticulating wildly with both hands, as though to pull Ben out of his seat.