The Spycatcher Caper Read online

  The Spycatcher Caper

  Dick DeWitt Mysteries, Book 3

  Robert Muccigrosso

  Copyright (C) 2017 Robert Muccigrosso

  Layout design and Copyright (C) 2017 by Creativia

  Published 2017 by Creativia

  Cover art by Cover Mint

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Disclaimer

  Books by the Author

  Acknowledgments

  My love and gratitude go to my wife, Maxine, who read the manuscript, offered valuable suggestions, and provided the nourishing surroundings that have made work possible. I also once more wish to thank Mitchell Phillips and Rosalie Bruce for their ongoing friendship and support. Rosalie deserves my special gratitude for the technical assistance that helped to shape the manuscript into a book.

  Finally, my thanks go to PhilipsInc for providing the cover for this book.

  For Maxine

  and

  In memory of my parents, Egidia and Henry Muccigrosso

  Chapter 1

  I'm proud to serve my country and can't wait to kill some lousy Krauts and Nips and whoever else is lousy.”

  Standing tall (although he was not of noteworthy height) before the Selective Service System draft board, the gumshoe wanted the board's members to know that when duty called, as it was now loudly doing, he was all ears. He was all courage. He was all-American. He was the real thing. He was… And the fact that he had failed to respond to the initial three letters the board had sent was clearly due to a misunderstanding.

  The weary retired major who chaired the board cut him short. “Yes, Mr. DeWitt, you've shown us your good faith. And now it's time that you show your good faith and fighting spirit to the military. As soon as you pass your physical examination, you'll shortly be receiving orders as to where and when to report. And by the way,” the colonel smiled, “I think we can forget the little mix-up that could have sent you to prison at Fort Leavenworth.” DeWitt thanked him, saluted nervously and needlessly, and left the room without looking back. “That was a close one,” he told himself. “I could have spent my life in a military shithole prison. Now

  all I got to worry about is keeping my life until this shit war ends.”

  What the private eye had told the board was true. Well, mostly. Well, a little. He did hate his country's enemies and he had been prepared to fight the war–but looking on from the sidelines. After all, every fighting man, he reasoned, needed cheerleaders to boost his morale.

  The war had been raging for more than a year after Pearl Harbor when Dick DeWitt, who had been a private investigator for nearly twenty years, had received the notice from his draft board to report for a physical examination. This surprised him. Though without wife or child, he was in his early forties, too old, he figured, to sling an M-16 over his left shoulder and hunt for the nation's enemies. The unpleasant news demanded a shot of Jack Daniel's, and then a second and a third, after which he stumbled into bed and bid the problem good night until the morning.

  Five days intervened before his scheduled physical, and DeWitt spent much of his time and thought (detractors had long snickered that he had little of the latter) working on how he could beat the system. Appearance, he reckoned, counted, and so he deprived himself of shaving, bathing, and changing underwear, arriving at the large physical examination center to the disgusted looks and disbelief of both fellow examinees and examiners. “Hey, pal, you know how bad you stink?” asked one young fellow sporting a pronounced Brooklyn accent. DeWitt made strange noises in response, not because he failed to have understood the question but due to his plan to display a speech impediment to the examiners.

  “Next,” yelled a tough-looking soldier whose three stripes denoted the rank of sergeant. “Yeah, you, stinky. Haul your smelly ass over to Table 3, and be quick about it.”

  DeWitt dutifully limped to Table 3 and commenced to mumble incoherently. The doctor stared and then announced to the physician at the adjoining table, “I've got a live one here, John. Do you want him?” John apparently did not, since he shook his head and clamped two fingers to his nostrils.

  “All right, Mr… He leafed through a few sheets of typewritten pages. “All right, Mr. DeWhite, I'd like for you to tell me about any maladies, conditions, or problems you may have that would keep you from the company of Uncle Sam's forces.”

  “Speak up, Mr. DeWhite, I can't understand what you're saying.”

  After thirty seconds or so of DeWitt's mumbling, the doctor, annoyed but finding it difficult to suppress a smile, ordered the private eye to write down what he was trying to convey.

  DeWitt considered shrugging his shoulders as if to indicate that he was illiterate but feared that the ploy might be pushing it too far. Instead, he scribbled a list of encumbrances that might have brought tears to the eyes of the compassionate, of whom, he hoped, the doctor sitting across the table was one. DeWitt first listed flat feet and hoped that the bedroom slippers he was wearing would provide sufficient proof. Then there was his left knee, which he claimed he had severely injured while saving a young woman from the clutches of a sex fiend. (DeWitt, in fact, had injured his knee—but not too severely—while jumping out of a second-story window to avoid the return of an unsuspecting husband.) Hemorrhoids, he added, kept him from sitting for more than a quarter of an hour. If he sat longer, he farted uncontrollably. Finally, there was the matter of the index finger, or, rather, both of them. As a private detective, he had badly injured them when a notorious jewel thief, whom he had caught in the act, viciously slammed the door of a safe on those precious digits need to fire a rifle. (In truth, the only time he had injured his index fingers came as he was trying to unhook the bra of his secretary Dotty, who fell heavily backward on him.)

  Looking at the list of afflictions, the doctor said that he

  sympathized with a man who had suffered such misfortunes, but that the man still would have to undergo a physical exam. “Go to the line over there, Mr. DeWhite. And by the way,” he added as DeWitt limped away, Dr. Goldfarb will give you a special exam. He's one of the city's most noted urologists. No one knows a prostate better than him.”

  The doctor had examined DeWitt with few comments and even less display of emotion. Not so Dr. Irving Goldfarb, who plunged right in, so to speak, and elicited a piercing yelp from his victim. “Come on now, soldier. That's no way to act. What are you going to do when the going gets really rough? Besides, you don't want me to do a slipshod exam on something as important as your prostate, do you?” DeWitt muttered something, but this time he was not acting.

  “Good news. Your prostrate is as soft as a baby's tushy,” Dr. Goldfarb pronounced, “now go down two tables to your right and let Dr. Grosshandler make sure you don't have a hernia.”

  DeWit
t walked gingerly to his next appointment. “I don't know if I have a hernia, Doc, but I get this sharp pain next to my nuts every time I try to lift anything that weighs more than two or three pounds. It's really awful.”

  “Well let me check you out. Drop your drawers, fellow. Hmm. No initial indication of hernia. No swelling at all. But let's make sure.” The doctor placed his hand on the right side of DeWitt's groin. “Okay, now cough for me.”

  “I can't, Doc. It hurts too much when I cough.”

  Grosshandler stared at him. “I think we can rule out a hernia. Sometimes the pain you describe stems not from a hernia but from a rare occlusion of certain vessels in the testicles. Here, I'm going to give them a slight twist so that your sperms can swim as nice as Esther Williams. There, that should serve to alleviate the discomfort you experience when you lift anything heavy”

  Startled examiners and examinees alike looked at the fortysomething man with his trousers and shorts around his ankles. Most wondered what had caused his screams. A few may have noticed Dr. Grosshandler wink at Dr. Goldfarb and the broad smile that the latter returned.

  The ordeal ended after slightly more than two hours with the promise that he would receive official notification of the exam's results within a few days. DeWitt, his prostate and testicles still calling out “Don't do that,” dressed, left the building, grabbed an uptown bus, settled into his apartment, thought of having a late morning Jack Daniel's, and acted on the thought.

  The letter arrived via special delivery several days later on a hot mid-July early morning. Still groggy from sleep and some libations from the previous evening, DeWitt tore open the envelope, read the letter, and reached for the back of an old kitchen chair to steady himself. “I-A! Holy Toledo! Holy shit!” How could this happen? he wondered. Me, with all my afflictions. Me, who's giving his all to protect women, children, and a few men from the evil that stalks our city. If I join the Army, who'll take care of all these people?

  DeWitt's concerns for humanity soon yielded to his concerns for saving his hide. The letter announced that he had fourteen days from the time of receipt to report to a New Jersey fort for induction. Failure to do so would constitute a criminal act and would be subject to the fullest rigors of the military code. “These guys aren't fooling around,” the private eye muttered. “Uncle Sam wants me bad.”

  His Uncle may have lusted after him, but the nephew didn't reciprocate. The only hots the latter had was for his own well-being and for a couple of broads who lived on the West Side. No, he reasoned, it's senseless for me to go to war when there's a war going on in our cities. Sure, Uncle Sam needs help, but so, too, do J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI starched-collared, pressed-pants agents and every other law enforcement officer here in the good old US of A. “I'm needed here!” With no one present in the kitchen to dispute his firm conclusion, the crime fighter turned to the thought of breakfast and perhaps brushing his teeth.

  Two slices of Wonder Bread smeared with mayonnaise, some rashers of slightly (but only slightly) moldy bacon, and a few dill pickles, washed down by a cup of Maxwell House put the gumshoe in a better frame of mind to deal with his predicament. Relying on his keen powers and experience, he deduced that he was in one hell of a pickle instead of being, as he not infrequently was, pickled. Two roads, both dark and dangerous, lay open: he could accept induction or he could refuse. Stark opposite courses with no smooth path in between. His emotions, instincts, and thoughts pulled and tugged, ending in snarls that a glass of Jack Daniel's failed to untangle.

  DeWitt told himself that he had little time to make the decision that one way or another would alter his life forever, perhaps even take that life. Maybe those who cared for him could offer wise counsel. Trouble was that few people did care for him. Talking it over with a man of the cloth seemed out of the question. He had rarely felt the stirrings of religion, and the last time he had attended church was with a cute librarian who said she could never offer her body to anyone who was not deeply religious. He had told her that he had been an altar boy, but when pressed, he said for a Southern Baptist congregation when he was in his mid-twenties. The librarian stuck to her books and failed to permit him to stick to her body.

  Why not turn to Mom? he asked himself. True they had an ambivalent relationship—he loved her, she loathed him—but mothers are mothers, and when the chips are down they can be counted on.

  Shortly after breakfast he decided to skip washing the dishes or brushing his teeth and went straight to the heart of the matter.

  “Hi, Mom, this is your son, Dick.”

  “I was afraid so. Whatever you want make it snappy because I got to feed the gold fish.”

  “It's nice to hear your voice, Mom.”

  “Cut the crap, sonny boy. Why the hell are you wasting my time? The last time you phoned was to ask if I wanted another can opener for Christmas, and I told you where you could put it. You've given me the same stupid can opener every Christmas since I can remember. And I didn't even drop you on your head when you were a baby, though, Lord knows, I should have.”

  “Mom, I've got a problem.”

  “Well, who the hell doesn't? You think you're someone special?”

  “But this is really a big one, Mom. The Army wants to draft me… What's so funny, Mom?”

  “You know, sonny boy, you just handed me the biggest laugh I've had since your Uncle Jeremiah fell down his cellar steps, broke a leg, an arm, and a hip, and wound up in the hospital for a few months. He never was the same again. Lord, how we all did laugh.”

  “But, Mom, what should I do about the Army?

  “Well, I think you should join up with either the Nazis or the Japs. That way we'd be sure to win the war a lot sooner. That's my advice, sonny boy. Take it or leave it. Now I got to get to the goldfish. One last thing. Wherever you are next Christmas, don't send me another goddamned can opener or I'll find you and give that piece of junk a good shoving you know where.”

  The war hadn't diminished his mother's sense of humor, Dick thought, but it hadn't helped to resolve his problem, either. After lunch, he called his secretary Dotty, though it was a Saturday and she was at home rather than at their office. He knew that this would be a long shot, since his Gal Friday was Daffy Dotty on any given day of the week. Though she had worked for him for years and served him faithfully, he could not understand how, on the one hand, she could read great works of literature but on the other hand, have the intelligence that ranged between Stan Laurel and Mortimer Snerd. Nevertheless, he reasoned, a would-be draft inductee couldn't be choosy. And just maybe, Daffy Dotty could say something helpful for a change.

  “Hi, Dotty, it's Dick.”

  “Dick who?”

  Dotty's boss was tempted to say “Sorry, wrong number,” and slam the receiver down. Instead, he said, “This is Dick DeWitt, private investigator. May I please speak with Dorothy Krunchnik?”

  “Oh, Mr. D, it's you. Why didn't you say so in the first place? And why are you so formal? Haven't I always been “Dotty” to you?”

  You've always been a lot of things to me, Dick thought: occasionally competent secretary, source of more than occasional erections, but most of all, frequent pain in the butt.

  “Dotty, I'm sorry I'm bothering you at home on your day off.”

  “No bother, Mr. D. I was just rereading The Odyssey. It's slower going this time around, since I'm reading it in Greek… Hello? Mr. D? You still there?”

  “Yes, I'm still here. Now listen, Dotty, I've got a problem that maybe you can help me with. To come right to the point, the Army wants me to serve.”

  “Oh, Mr. D, that's funny. Doesn't the Army know that you don't know how to serve? Don't you remember the time you fixed your special soup for me on a paper plate and with a ladle? And on top of that, I wound up in the hospital with food poisoning. Oh no, Mr. D, you shouldn't serve in the Army.”

  It was another pain in the butt time, another occasion to wonder what he saw in this ditzy dame in the first place except for her oversiz
ed breasts and cute ass. “Dotty, just shut up for a minute and listen to me.” He patiently explained the situation in simplest terms possible. “Now what do you think I should do?”

  A substantial pause ensued. “Mr. D, I think you've got a real problem. I'm afraid you're going to lose either way, that's what I think.”

  Not able to strangle her, DeWitt wanted to fire her on the spot but managed to restrain himself. “Okay, Dotty, thanks.”

  “No, thank you for giving me the chance to help. By the way, shall I come into work on Monday, or will you have run away by that time? And what if you do run away and get caught and wind up in some dirty prison cell, or you do the right thing and help your country, though you might get wounded or even worse, should I keep watering the flowers in the office? Whatever you decide, Mr. D, I hope that I've cheered you up.”

  DeWitt had saved his best hope for sage advice for last: Phil (“Polish Phil”) Mazurki, a retired decorated policeman known for having collared numerous tough mugs but legendary for having been on the take. The gumshoe had not yet contacted his longtime friend, since the latter was visiting his cousin, Walter, who, though an Illinois state judge, was currently serving a five-year sentence in Joliet Prison for corruption. Phil, he knew, would return to his fancy apartment situated high atop the city's East River. Until then Dick would have to perform some thumb-twiddling.

  That evening, thumbs sore from repeated twiddling, he walked to The Slippery Elbow, a local purveyor of suds that for years had served as a home away from home. The Elbow had always attracted his kind of people and his kind of drinks. Sort of, because Gus the barman, when unwatched, watered his drinks as though they were flowers badly in need of rain.

  “Whatta you have, deadbeat?” Gus asked as soon as DeWitt entered the grimy premises. “You gonna pay for it or put it on the tab? This way I'll know if you're going to help put food on my kids' plates or let them go hungry.” DeWitt chuckled. Only Mom has a better sense of humor than old Gus.