The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of an Old Dead Guy, Part 2 of 6

Mickey Malloy is tackling this odd murder in the Big Apple the same way he does any other: from the bottom up. And only crime beat reporter Eric Reed has the fetid roadmap to New York’s underbelly.

Until Only Roaches Remain is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 2 of The Case of an Old Dead Guy. If you’d like to avoid spoilers, read Part 1 first.

Content warnings: Mild swearing, alcohol use, tobacco use, death, gore.

THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 7, 1943
MARTIN QUINN'S BAR AND GRILLE
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

“Reed,” the reporter said, extending an ignored hand to Mickey, who was wholly engrossed in his medium-rare porterhouse.

“Not as much as I should,” Mick grumbled around a mouthful of steak, not looking up from his plate.

“I mean, that's my name,” the reporter said, slowly taking his offered handshake off the table.

“Sure,” Mickey replied. The two sat in the dark, empty bar in silence for a few more minutes while the official wolfed down his late dinner. Finally the big man finished his meal, letting his fork and knife clatter lifeless to his plate. He shifted back in the creaking booth, threw back a shot of warm bourbon, and slammed the glass down onto the table, making the concerned reporter before him jump in his seat. Mickey smirked at the younger man's discomfort. He and journalists had never gotten along.

“Eric Reed,” he finally said, “New York Post, crime beat.”

“Yes. Yes, sir,” Reed said, surprised by Mick's sudden interest. The reporter was slouching in his seat, wringing his hands endlessly under Mickey's glare, but the seasoned detective could tell that this submissive, nervous schtick was just that: an act.

Reed was big, not near as big as Mick but built like a boxer under his wrinkled shirt and tie. He'd pulled the brim of his press-ticketed hat low over his thick brow, leaving his calculating amber eyes in shadow. Even Reed's undulating, ink-stained hands, though dancing with distracting motion, hid coiled-steel strength. There was a hardness to this man that he didn't want to let any kind of cop in on. Mickey liked him as much as he could like any reporter, but the man was smart, wary, and connected, just the kind of guide he needed to navigate the concrete grottoes of Gotham.

“You know the wops?” Mick asked, though he already knew the answer. You couldn't write an inch of a column on New York crime without an Italian popping up.

“I have a couple contacts,” Reed answered carefully. He removed his hat and flattened his blond hair against his scalp. He was in his early thirties, too young to have seen Mick's war, but by the way he concealed his true self Mickey could tell that he'd seen something.

“You're going to take me to 'em,” Mick ordered.

“What for?”

“Just to talk.”

“About?”

“That's my business, paperboy. They talk, they walk. They don't, they won't.”

“These sources pay my bills,” Reed said. “Why would I bring you to them to work them over?”

“Because you're a patriot, and one of these dago hitters is responsible for the death of a great American on the Führer's orders.” Mickey lifted the empty tumbler, searching the room for their waitress while Reed ruminated.

“I just report the news,” Reed mumbled.

“Sounds like an excuse,” Mick shot back. “I bet you're tired of just observing, looking at the carcasses these jackals leave behind.”

Reed clammed up, but Mickey could tell he had hit a nerve. He pulled a piece of paper out of his coat pocket. Keaton had scribbled down some notes on Reed so Mickey'd know who he was dealing with. He read what he needed and slipped the paper back into his pocket.

“A cop family, that is 'til your pop got whacked.”

Reed went rigid in his seat, suddenly heated, but Mickey kept talking:

“Town like this? He was probably in on the take, got clipped for it. Or he wasn’t, and got the same result. So you become a reporter, hewing scrimshaw into pulp to change the system from outside. How's that working out?”

Reed glared across the small table, his face red as iron in the forge. A fresh glass of bourbon appeared and Mickey drained it while Reed practically glowed incandescent.

“You're doing it all wrong. Help me, help your country, help yourself.” Mick leaned back in his chair, waiting on Reed's response.

“You don't have any idea how I do things,” the reporter growled.

“Then show me.”

“I don’t even know you, and I’m not letting some fed step on my toes because he says so. This is my job. This is transactional, pal.”

The hand-wringing had stopped. There was a pen in Reed’s right hand and a notepad in his left. Mick felt his jaw lock in place. Reed continued:

“You just said that Hitler had an American civilian assassinated on American soil. Since you’re talking to me, it stands to reason that the cops, on the take or otherwise, don’t have a sniff of a fart about what to do next.”

“That’s not how I operate,” Mick grunted.

“How you operate is that you try to intimidate me into coughing up contacts I’ve cultivated over years, without giving me so much as your name,” Reed said. He gave up his act altogether and puffed up in his seat, crossing his arms and locking eyes with the bull across the table. “This is a two-way street, pal. You help me, I help you. I don’t owe you quid ‘til I get my quo.”

“That… that’s fair,” Malloy admitted. “The name’s Mickey. Malloy. I work for the Bureau of Investigation.”

“Badge.”

“How’s this?” Mick asked. He bounced a lookalike Bureau shield off the tabletop. Reed snatched it up and examined it in the light.

“Pretty good work,” he said.

“‘Good work?’” Mick scoffed.

“Almost looks real,” Reed replied. He slid it back across the table.

“How can you tell?” Mick asked. He scooped up and eyeballed it, looking for flaws.

“You just told me,” Reed said with an insufferable smirk.

“Okay, wise guy,” Mick grunted. He pocketed the badge.

“So who are you? Some low-rent button man looking to track down a mark?”

“If I was, would I let you leave this table?”

“Fair enough,” Reed countered. “What you got is ‘private dick’ written all over you.”

“Okay, brass tacks, that’s how you want it,” Mick grumbled. Sometimes it worked best to simply present someone with the lie they expected. “There’s a old dead guy in a hotel room a few blocks from here and his friends are paying me good money to find out who chilled him. They want me to turn over every stone the cops won’t.”

“Am I going to get a story out of this?” Reed asked.

“Might could,” Mick replied. “If you run it by me. The folks paying my bills are camera-shy. I’ll get you a cut, though.”

“I already have a job, Mister Malloy, and black ink gets me a lot further than green.”

“So the patriot tack didn’t work, and you don’t want cash…”

“What I need is to land above the fold, or contacts that’ll get me there,” Reed replied. “A guy who saunters into town with a fake F.B.I. badge and my boss’ direct line could be the exact kind of contact I need.”

“Not a chance, buddy,” Mick grunted. “I got your vitals, kid. Your dad was a cop. Most folks want to see someone get theirs’ for killing a guy.”

“You know who my dad was, so you got to know what happened to him. Then you’re gonna go and tell me that?”

“Hey, just asking,” Mick grumbled.

“So you drag me over here, make me watch you eat a steak, demand my help, dredge up stale shit, and don’t offer anything in return?”

“That’s it, in a nutshell,” Mick said. “All I got for you in trouble. The best way to dodge most of it is to loose me in the right direction.”

“I can handle trouble, pal,” Reed snarled. “If you think I’m doing anything for you, you got another thing coming.”

“So no help catching a murderer?”

“This is New York City, not some podunk little gutter town. Murders happen every day here, and murderers get away with it. You got good cause to think it’s mob connected? Then there’s a good chance it’s going to stay gotten away with, even if you find your guy.”

“Tampa.”

“What’s that?”

“I am from Tampa, I ain’t some hayseed to jerk around, kid,” Mick said. He wasn’t going to get anywhere playing nice. He had to do what he always did: kick in the hornets’ nest and mix it up. He threw a couple bucks from his per diem on the table and lurched out of the booth. He looked down at the byliner, still seated: “You got backbone, I’ll give you that.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Reed asked him.

“Straight to the source, head first and full speed.”

THURSDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 15, 1942
HUDSON VISTAS CONDOMINIUMS
HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY

“Were you followed?” Patricio Anastasio hissed as he shut the apartment door behind Eric Reed. It was the first question these guys always asked.

“Of course not,” Reed assured him.

“You sure?” Anastacio was staring through the peephole while doing up the six locks and chains on the door.

“First thing I learned in this business was how to get around without being seen,” Reed told him. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Anastasio turned around from the door with a snub-nosed Colt Detective Special revolver drawn and leveled at Reed’s gut.

“Don’t move,” he growled. He patted down Reed’s pockets, beltline, and socks. Reed stayed still: he wasn’t there officially, so he didn’t even have a pencil on him. Anastasio stepped back, satisfied.

“Speaking of business,” he said, the scars on his cheeks twisting as he spoke, “What’s a reporter doing with my name in the first place?”

“Hey, Pat, pal, let’s take it down a notch,” Reed said, his hands visible and still. “You wouldn’t shoot me in your living room, now would you?”

“Folks in this building would never call it in,” Anastasio said. “And don’t call me ‘Pat.’”

“So what should I call you?”

“‘Mud’ is as good a name as any.”

Reed looked around the small apartment. Kitchenette, living room, a bedroom and a bathroom branching off. The furniture was beat up, the floors scuffed, the rug dirty. The only things Anastasio maintained in the place were the radio and the liquor cabinet. It was a bachelor pad; they were alone.

“Mind if I sit?” Reed asked.

“No funny business,” Anastasio muttered, gesturing for one of the armchairs in the living room. Once Reed was seated, he turned around and poured himself a whiskey and water at the small bar. He didn’t offer his guest anything.

“I got to admit, your phone call got me curious,” Anastasio said after a sip of his drink.

“In what way?” Reed asked. He made sure to keep his hands in sight.

“Nobody knows about this place. Nobody. Fake name, pay the rent in cash, the works. So when I got a phone call here, for me, well, I had to figure out how you found me.”

“Nobody ratted on you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Nobody to rat, not on purpose at least.”

“I first got your name from a dead guy’s address book. Then I looked you up, your actual name. I found you easy enough, that’s my job, then I followed you around for a few days. Eventually, I tailed you to Hoboken. You dropped off a couple suits down the street, then I lost you. All I had to do was break into the dry cleaner, find your suits, steal your ticket, pay off a switchboard girl to look up your alias’ number, and here we are.”

“That’s a lot of padfooting.”

“The hardest part was the suits. You know how many gray pinstripe suits a New Jersey dry cleaner has at any given time? Took hours.”

“I bet. What’s all this for?”

“I need you to verify a date for me, then I’m out of your hair.”

“A date?”

“I’m thinking the wrong guy got fingered for something. I want you to verify his alibi.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Not a thing. And nothing for the wrongfully-accused, either. That dead guy I mentioned? That’s who I want to clear.”

“That’s a lot of work for a stiff. Who croaked?”

“Marcelo Episcopo.”

Anastasio’s face went pale. His hands trembled, sloshing his whiskey. He struggled to take a long sip before he spoke again.

“He got what was coming to him,” Anastasio grunted.

“Shot in the face while listening to Buck Rogers in his pyjamas with his kids?”

“Dead is dead. Marcelo Episcopo’s ancient history.”

“To some people, yeah,” Reed said. “But I think you already know which days I’m going to ask you about.”

“Between him and me, only three days count,” Anastasio replied.

“April the sixth, seventh, and eighth, nineteen-thirty-six,” Reed recited from memory.

“That’s them.”

“And Episcopo was present the whole time.”

“That sick piece of shit brought an ice chest and piss bucket along with his knives. He he worked on me for three whole days before he cut me loose,” Anastasio whispered. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. He set his glass down on the bar and clasped them together to keep them still.

“Yeah,” Reed said. He was barely listening. Anastasio lurched across the small living room and wrapped Reed’s shirt up in his fists, pulling the younger man an inch from from his scar-lined face.

“‘Yeah?’ Just ’yeah?’” Anastasio raged. “You stalk me down to dredge up Hell and it’s just ‘yeah?’”

Reed stood up, a couple inches taller than the mafioso, and stared him down.

“Something else happened on April the seventh, something they want to pin on Episcopo,” he answered.

“Who gives a shit? That twist tortured me for three days straight over something I didn’t do,” Anastasio snapped. Quicker than he could react, Reed brought his hands up between Anastasio’s arms, dislodged his grip, and shoved him back. The gangster stumbled and bounced off the opposite wall.

“I give a shit,” Reed said. “They pinned a murder on Marcelo Episcopo, but if he was with you the entire time, they got the wrong guy.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him to clip anybody. Who was the stiff?”

“Clarence Reed, a patrolman in the eighty-third precinct. Shot in the chest twice in an alley.”

“Reed…”

“My dad.”

“Jesus,” Anastasio considered. “First of all, Episcopo was a knife man. And he didn’t work in the open. And in thirty-six, we had the heat on. Even though the Families were at war with the DiCarlos, neither side would bump off a cop. Nothing like that was sanctioned back then.”

“You were at war, that’s why Episcopo tortured you.”

“The DiCarlos thought I was the one getting their trucks pinched,” Anastasio said. “Took Episcopo three days of peeling me like a side of beef to figure out that I had nothing to do with it. I was made, so he couldn’t kill me, but he did damn-near everything else, he was meticulous, and he took his time. If your dad got whacked on the seventh, it wasn’t Episcopo.”

“How’d the Families take it when you told them what happened?”

“They demanded payment. I got a piece. And they wanted blood, which the Dicks agreed to. That’s why we didn’t escalate that little war to bombs and machine guns. ‘Cause we had ‘em, believe me.”

“What blood?”

“You ever seen Skipper Guretti’s face?”

“I always wondered who got his nose,” Reed considered.

“It’s in a jar of formaldehyde somewhere around here,” Anastasio replied. He craned his neck and looked around, trying to spot the wayward snoot.

“You never thought Episcopo did it, did you?” Anastasio asked when he got bored of looking.

“There’s no way my dad would gotten shot in the chest by a gangster.”

“Oh really. Why’s that?”

“Still got that piece?”

Anstasio picked up his little pistol.

“Point it at me.”

The second the gun settled on Reed, he burst into motion. A smack and a twist was all it took to get the gun free, and a flip and snatch saw it land in his hand, its barrel dead-center on its former wielder.

“My dad was faster,” Reed replied. Anastasio’s jaw hung open. Reed flipped the pistol around and handed it back, grip-first. Anstasio took it back and pocketed it.

“A friend did it, then,” Anastasio surmised, reaching the same conclusion Reed had so long before. “You must have some idea.”

“I do,” Reed replied.

“Enlighten me.”

“Only one guy got three birds with one stone by plugging Episcopo,” Reed said.

“Three birds?”

“A payout from your bosses, a pat on the head from his bosses, and tying up the last loose end by pinning my dad’s murder on someone no one would object to,” Reed said counting them on his fingers. He saw Anastasio about to object to the insinuation that his organization would pay for a killing and stopped him right there. “I found the money, it’s a fact, not an opinion.”

“Fair enough. So you think this guy’s on our payroll.”

“I know he is, or was, but I think he killed my dad to save his own neck, not yours."

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to bring him to justice, along with anyone who gets in my way.”

“‘Justice,’ huh?”

“Yeah,” Reed said. He reached inside his coat, making Anastasio flinch, even though he was the one holding the gun. Reed pulled out the press ticket that he usually kept in his hatband. He waggled the heavy cardstock, mimicking the thunder of an incoming storm. “But I’m going to do it the right way.”

“Your guy killed two folks and got away with it, a cop and a made man, no less. That takes a village. A lot of powerful people might object to ‘justice.’”

“Then they’ll be next.”

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Copyright © 2024 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Bruce Connors.

The Case of an Old Dead Guy is complete.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.