was off, the engine made quite a racket—needed a valve clearance check. The rooming house was an ancient three-story affair and we promptly scared the night lights out of the old couple who ran it and most of their roomers, who were just coming in from their Saturday night elbow-bending.
The couple vaguely remembered Andersun—he'd lived there for about a month, paid promptly. They said he was a quiet fellow, didn't drink or raise any hell. No, he didn't seem to work, but he wasn't worrying about money either. Sometimes he carried a camera around. No, they couldn't recall any visitors he had except a tall handsome man who had also roomed there for a week. His name was Smith—they thought. He and Andersun were friends, moved in at the same time, but Smith only stayed a few days, although sometimes he came around to see Andersun. The couple kept sloppy records, didn't even have a record of when Andersun and Smith roomed there, the exact date, or Smith's first name. Andersun had moved months ago, left no forwarding address, and they'd never seen him since.
The letdown was pretty bad. We took them and some of the steady roomers back to the station. We also picked up Jimmy, the bartender, and Franzino got Louise out of the cooler. I had a chance to tell her how sorry I was, and what she told me I can't print. They all spent the rest of the night beefing about losing sleep and looking at pictures sent up from the rogues' gallery downtown. But we came up with a blank.
At four in the morning, over containers of bad coffee, Franzino asked me, “Got any more ideas, bright boy?”
“Why the sarcasm, Barney's been batting 1000 per cent,” Al said.
“Who said I was being sarcastic?”
I asked, “Can we get the State Department in Washington to send us the passport application?”
“Already wired them. FBI is in the case now. They'll be here in the morning. We'll have to shake down the Andersun family again —why the hell should this Brown get a passport as Andersun? Maybe he's a relative, or ...?”
“At least we know why the real Andersun was killed,” I said.
“Do we?” Al asked.
“Look, for some reason Brown gets a passport under Andersun's name. Then Brown reads in the papers about the kid winning the cash, heading for Paris. Meaning the real Andersun would need a passport, find out about Brown getting one in his name—so Andersun is knocked off.”
“Too simple. For all we know there can still be two Andersuns, or maybe Brown and this other Andersun are the same guy, or again, Brown and our Andersun may have been working together,” Al said, and in the early morning his voice was so hoarse it was a continuous whisper. “Still a lot of ifs we know strictly from nothing about. Like we haven't any idea how Turner fits into this.”
Franzino yawned. “First thing we do is grab some shut-eye, see what those FBI glamour boys come up with in the morning. We might as well use the cots upstairs.”
We finished our coffee and trooped upstairs and stretched out on some cots. The coffee, or the excitement, kept me awake. When I heard Al move, I asked, “Got any sodas in your car?”
“Yeah, got some cans of grape.”
“With gin or rum? I need a shot.” I sat up and put on my shoes.”
“Certainly never appreciated your talents, Barney. A comedian, too. Find the cans in the trunk—here's the keys.”
Dawn was starting to lighten the sky as I drank two warm grape sodas spiked with gin. I went back upstairs, hit the cot, and the next thing I knew it was bright sunlight, and I was alone.
I checked my wallet, found the can and washed my mouth out, ran cold water over my face. It was ten o'clock and Al and Franzino were downstairs, belching from a heavy breakfast. Nobody from Washington had shown up. I went out and ate, called Ruthie, who was bubbling over, having a big time. I told her I'd call back in a few hours and Betsy got on the phone and asked what Ruthie ate, and I heard the kid say, “I told you, Betsy, anything you eat. My goodness, what do you think, I still go for those sloppy baby foods?”
I was a little worried—Betsy was bubbling too.
A guy from the Passport Division of the State Department and two FBI men finally arrived, all of them dressed in natty banker's gray suits, white shirts and dark ties—like it was a uniform. They had the passport application, the duplicate picture.
According to the application, Andersun was five feet, six inches, had red hair and brown eyes. There weren't any “distinguishing marks or features,” and the purpose of his trip was “Travel.” One Irving Spear of a Bronx address had sworn on the application that he had known Franklin Andersun for ten years. Franzino had the address checked—it turned out to be another rooming house and “Irving Spear” had lived there months ago. Nobody knew anything about him except he was tall and “well spoken,” and now and then drank in his room.
We all stared at the picture of Andersun—or Brown—the usual startled-looking passport photo of a young man with thick hair, quiet eyes, and a wide nose. The State Department said the passport had never been used, which meant Brown was still in the U.S.A.
The application was too old and smudged for fingerprints. All we really had was a sample of Brown's handwriting, and his picture. It was something, but it still added up to zero.
The State Department and the FBI said they thought it had the looks of a passport ring, and when Franzino asked what that meant, the State Department man said, “There are criminals here—but mostly of the international variety—who are stateless and want to travel. Other criminals, experts, can alter a passport once they have the seal, the actual paper. Depending upon the person who needs a passport, an altered one can bring as high as twenty thousand dollars. They probably were paying Andersun for the use of his name, but why this—uh— Mr. Brown's picture was used... well, I don't get the connection.”
Al asked questions about passports, whether Turner ever had taken one out, and the Washington man said he would check.
A simple idea began to take shape in my simple noggin. The word “simple” was the key to everything... the names Brown, Smith, and the bartender said Brown's first name had been something like Tom or Dick or Harry. It wasn't any accident that Brown hung around an ordinary two-bit bar like the Grand Cafe, got into conversation with fellows who had simple lives, like Andersun, Irving Spear.
I asked the State Department man, “While you're checking on Turner, see if a passport has been issued to an Irving Spear and to a man named Smith —his picture will look like Spear's.”
“Spear—that's Andersun's sister's boy friend,” Franzino put in.
“I can check by phone,” the State Department man said. “What's the angle?”
“Let's check first—I'm not sure it is an angle—yet.”
“I don't like playing quiz games on a Sunday,” the State Department man said. “What's on your mind?”
“If this is a passport ring, then there should be one in the name of Spear, because a fellow named Smith talked to him once in the bar. You see, this Brown got into a beer argument with Andersun about the block, the old neighborhood. Claimed he'd been born there. That's the can opener for us.”
I collected an assortment of blank looks. Al Swan smiled at everybody, said, “Slow, Barney boy. Explain it to us again—in small words.”
“Way I see it,” I said, wondering if I was making a fool of myself, “is Brown learned from all this small talk where and when Franklin Andersun was born, name of his folks. Brown then gets a birth certificate as Franklin Andersun; do that by mail once he has the information, then rents a room under the name of Andersun. His buddy, Smith, is doing the same thing with the info he picked up in the bar from Irving Spear. With a birth certificate, a couple of lousy pictures—his nose, for example, looks out of shape, probably stuffed with cotton, and everybody said his hair was too red, so that was a dye job. Okay, with the birth certificate, the pictures, and Smith as a friend and witness under the name of Spear, Brown plunks down ten bucks, makes out a passport application, and in due time gets the passport, via registered mail, at his room. At a different address, with Brown as his witness, Smith gets a passport in the name of Irving Spear. The lads then chuck their rooms, dye their hair another shade, find a new bar, and start all over again.” I smiled at one and all, as if I'd explained everything.
Franzino broke the silence with, “Wouldn't they be recognized when applying for a passport the second time?”
The State Department man shook his well-brushed head.
“We have two offices in New York City, others in Washington, Philadelphia, all over the country. Be simple and comparatively safe for them to try this five or six times, meaning they end up with a dozen passports, besides their own. Let me call Washington, check on Turner, Smith, and Spear.”
We were sitting around the office of the detective squad, and the State Department man left to make the call as Al said, “Racket sounds too simple.”
Franzino ran a finger along the beard stubble on his lean jaw. “Simple rackets are always the ones that work.”
“If Andersun was in on a big deal like this, we'd have found some trace of it,” Al said.
One of the FBI's asked, “And if this Brown has the passport, why should he kill Andersun months later?”
Before I could answer, Franzino said, “The thing is, Andersun wasn't in on any deal. The lead we've overlooked was the story in the papers about Andersun planning to use the prize money for a trip to Paris, which meant...”
“Why Brown and Smith operated in bars like the Grand Cafe,” I cut in, determined to at least explain my own idea, “was because there was little chance of any of the boys in the bar ever taking a trip out of the country. Once Andersun applied for a passport, the State Department would investigate, and the whole deal would be cooked. They had to stop the real Andersun, and they did it with a bullet.”
The State Department
