King of Valley Junction
Chapter 13
Stolen Cop Cars
Mickey smiled when he saw the old man humping down the sidewalk in the blustery snow. The thermometer on the outside of the window read 4 degrees, and the wind had to be whipping at twenty to thirty miles per hour. It didn’t bother him in the least as he plodded along South East 14th Street. Mickey couldn’t ever remember the old man not showing up. Honestly, he had never seen him run either. The cold air rushed into the front door of Windy City Pizza on Des Moines’ south side when Mickey unlocked the front door and let The Geek in. “Good Morning, Pops. It is cold as hell out there. Why don’t you take a car?” Mickey asked. The Geek just smiled and winked at him. The cold winters reminded him he was still alive and capable of enduring the harshest Iowa could deliver. For the old man, it was as close as he could get to sharing the conditions the troops were facing in Europe. If the troops had to face harsh conditions fighting Nazis, he would face any condition to keep the pizzeria open as long as it was still standing and he was still moving.
The wink was enough for Mickey. People in Des Moines loved the pizza. It was cheap, full of calories, and delicious. He felt honored; after all these years, the old man finally allowed his twenty-three-year-old protégé to open and close the place. Mickey hired the part-time workers and paid them. Most were Italians needing a few extra bucks or working to pay off a debt. None were informed of the details of their operation nor shown how to make the sauce or the dough from scratch. They usually chopped firewood for the ovens and did other physically demanding work for The Geek. Mickey made the cash deposits at the bank, the sauce and dough from scratch, and established a relationship with Spaghetti Mafretti over the telephone to order cans of San Marzano tomatoes, olive oil, and sausages delivered from Italy, minus the drugs. The Geek wanted no part of the cocaine or heroin trade. It not only ruined men, it ruined their families and communities. That was before the war, however. The war had put an end to the imports, and the taste of the pizza was not the same as it was before the war. The canned tomatoes were now American-grown, and the olive oil was now substituting vegetable oil. The durum wheat flour was even supplanted by ordinary baking flour. Still, it was better than any other pizza in the city.
Mickey and The Geek had the upstairs storage reconfigured to include a bedroom and bathroom with a new shower. Mickey had lived in the house on the car lot since Tony went into the Navy. The Geek still lived in the house on the car lot they grew up in. He was the hardest negotiator any potential customer had ever known. It was impossible to haggle with him or ask much in the way of details about the cars because he couldn’t speak. He would scribble down a price on his notebook and show it to the prospective customer. Any questions were usually answered with a simple question mark indicating he didn’t know. It surprisingly worked as most customers hated negotiating over used car prices. The old man was hoping Mickey would eventually find a girl and would have a little privacy for entertaining after hours. He was not going to be around forever, and to keep the pizzeria open and profitable, the future meant he would also be married to the business model.
“Yesterday’s newspaper is on your desk. The kid showed up late, and it ended up getting buried in the snow. I read a few pages. The cops found their car.” Mickey said, and the old man smiled. He walked up to the chalkboard behind the counter and scribbled ‘Imagine that!’
It was a daring heist, similar to their first one last summer. It began with an Irish patrolman, Paddy McNeely. McNeely was a cop on the Des Moines Police force and made it a habit of citing Italian Americans on the south side of town. The Irish were not participating in the war, and many Americans hated the Irish for it. The Italians were corrupt gangsters and enemies of America, as McNeely saw it. He referred to them strictly as “dagos,” “guineas,” or “Wops,” to their faces. He wanted them all rounded up and deported back to Chicago, New York, or Italy, as far as he was concerned. When the officer pulled over a car in the parking lot of Windy City Pizza to perform a vehicle inspection on a regular customer, that was too much for The Geek. It was harassment. The following day, the old man and Mickey hatched a plan. They ran an advertisement in The Tribune: “In honor of your commitment to the city of Des Moines, Windy City Pizza is offering free slices to all Des Moines police officers while on duty. Thank you for all you do!” Mickey then reversed the handle on the bathroom door in the pizzeria. This allowed the door to be locked from the outside only.
The advertisement worked wonderfully, and half a dozen cops came in inquiring about the free slice on the first day. Word got back to the department, and soon almost all the cops working the south side would stop in on duty for a freebie. Eventually, McNeely put his personal feelings for Italians aside and came in one night shift hoping to take advantage of the offer. He ordered his free slice and a Coca-Cola, then went into the bathroom while Mickey placed the slice in the oven. As soon as the door was closed behind him, The Geek and Mickey sprung into action. The old man removed his keys from his pocket and quietly locked the door, trapping McNeely inside while he was relieving himself. He walked quickly to his office and pulled out a thin piece of metal with a hook shape cut into one end from his desk. He threw the keys to Mickey and walked out to the dark parking lot. He slipped the thin piece of metal between the window and the driver’s side door and sprung the lock, opening the car door of the cruiser, a 1941 Ford Super Deluxe.
The Geek had stolen so many cars as a youngster that he could almost hot-wire the Ford with his eyes closed. He quickly connected the battery line to the ignition coil, and the car fired up. He drove the car directly to his car lot with the lights off and closed the garage door behind him. When the cop beat on the door to get out, Mickey played stupid, not understanding how someone could put the doorknob on backwards. Mickey offered McNeely an extra slice for his trouble, trying to buy time. A disgruntled McNeely sat down at a table and ate both slices as he stared at the old picture of Capone and The Geek posing with the Cadillac. It was almost twenty minutes before he even realized his cruiser was stolen. He was furious. He was going to be the laughingstock of the entire department if they even allowed him to keep his job. McNeely was forced to walk back into the pizzeria and use their phone to call for a ride back to the station. The Des Moines Police Department was furious with the theft. When the detective came to investigate the following morning, he realized The Geek still had not yet learned to speak but laughed at him. The doorknob had already been turned around correctly, casting further doubt on McNeely’s story. The Irishman was never seen on the south side again.
The police radio, searchlight, and siren were removed from the Super Deluxe. The serial number plate on the inside of the door was replaced with one from another Ford on the lot. The car was then sanded down and repainted in Florentine Blue, the most popular color. It then sat in the garage under a tarp for a few months while the police investigation went nowhere and eventually ended in an insurance claim. Meanwhile, The Geek combed the obituaries in The Tribune for days until he found what he wanted: a deceased bachelor from out of town who died in Iowa. Eventually, a name appeared meeting the description, and The Geek registered the car with a salvage title. He supposedly purchased the vehicle from the deceased, thus eliminating any link back to himself and the car without a serial number. Mickey then drove him all over town like the old mobsters used to do.
The same stunt was pulled at the annual Des Moines Police Department’s Christmas dinner the following year at the Governor’s mansion, Terrace Hill. The new governor, Robert Blue, was a Republican, and the Italians were behind the loser, a Democrat, Richard Mitchell. The new governor honored the police for endorsing him by having the state pick up the tab for the entire dinner and drinks. Once the majority of police were seated, Mickey called in a gas station robbery in progress from a payphone across the street on Grand Ave. When they saw the cop car that was posted up outside Terrace Hill drive by with its siren blaring, Mickey and The Geek walked over to the closest cop car parked in the street. The Geek placed the metal strip in between the glass and the driver’s side door, easily accessing the interior of the cruiser. A few moments later, he hot-wired it, and the car started. Mickey jumped in the back seat, and The Geek put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb, laughing. He drove directly to the car lot in the dark again without raising suspicion. He turned the lights off on the car and pulled it into the garage beside the other, still under the tarp. The snow that night perfectly covered up the tracks leading into the garage. The following morning, the police department placed an article in the paper declaring whoever stole the car needed to return it or would face time in prison. It mentioned nothing about the first car being stolen. The shame of two police cruisers being stolen would require heads to roll over the incompetence. Still, the entire city laughed at the stunt.
The Geek and Mickey’s day always started with reading The Tribune. They were keen on news and information, especially about the war. It had been months since they heard from Anthony. Both were concerned the special branch of the service he was in meant he could be killed on an obscure mission in a far-off country and the government would never even acknowledge it. The war section of the newspaper was a geography lesson each day for its readers. While the Allies were bombing Dresden, Germany, President Roosevelt was meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, somewhere in the Black Sea called Yalta. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Europe after the war. The Geek took this as a good sign. If they were losing the war, there would be no need for the meeting.
In every issue, there were reports of large numbers of casualties from battles in places never heard of around the globe. The 34th Infantry was north of Rome in the Po Valley, chasing the remaining Nazis back to Germany. Rome and the Vatican had escaped major damage from the Nazi occupation, but the rest of Italy lay in shambles, a story detailed. Deep down, when the war was over, The Geek wanted to return to Genoa to see the land of his Fratello ancestors. In the Pacific, the Americans landed on an island he had never heard of: Iwo Jima. It seemed, however, that the Pacific theater too was finally turning in the Allies’ favor. The Japanese were losing ships and strategic islands one by one as the US Navy encircled them in the Pacific. The Tribune continued reporting the story of the Bataan Death March that detailed how thousands of Americans were beaten, tortured, and killed when they were forced to march across the Philippine jungle for days over a year ago. The news had been withheld from the American public, as the government knew it would be difficult to digest for anyone with a son somewhere in the Pacific.
The old man was reviewing the business section of the paper when he noticed a picture of the new owner of the O’Connor Hotel standing out front of the establishment on 5th Street in West Des Moines. The article stated the new owner of the property was none other than the town’s mayor, Verne Poonrod. It was the barber he had visited before the holidays. He felt double-crossed by the Jew bastard. The Tribune carried a short report about the previous robbery and shooting of the owner, Hymen Cohen, not less than two weeks after the Jew and he agreed to selling him the place. It was going to be Windy City’s first venture into West Des Moines. It would be a place Anthony could run. He wanted each of the boys set up with their own location. This dream was now dashed, and he had a gut feeling the smiling mayor of West Des Moines was behind it.
“Ma…ma…ma…Mick!” The old man shouted to Mickey toiling away in the kitchen running the dough through the dough sheeter to thin out each ball of dough into the shape of future crusts before placing them into pre-greased pans.
“What do you need, Pops?” Mickey replied as he walked into his office. The old man was pointing at the picture of a smiling Verne Poonrod in front of the O’Connor Hotel.
“Hey, that is the barber from Valley Junction. It says he is the mayor?” Mickey read the small article. “I thought the Jew agreed to sell it to you?”
The old man nodded and grabbed his notebook and scribbled, ‘That son of a bitch. Guarantee the mayor had something to do with the Jew being killed too.’
“You think so?” Mickey asked as he read the old man’s note. The old man nodded confidently and began scribbling again and then showed it to Mickey. ‘Let’s dump the cop car off at his new place?’
Mickey laughed at the plan. “That is a great idea, Pops. Then we call the police anonymously and tell them where it is. That will teach him.”
The Geek nodded after Mickey read the old man’s note aloud. The old man flipped to the sports page and pointed at the Drake University and Simpson College basketball game. Mickey nodded. “Yeah, the shitbag referee. We can go talk to him after collections.”
The Geek confirmed the agenda with a single head nod.
There were several Des Moines Italians who borrowed from The Geek if the banks would not loan them money. He charged a flat 10% on the cash and was never screwed over by his people. The fact was, most thought The Geek was still connected to what was left of Capone’s Chicago’s original organization. The picture of them together with little Anthony still hung in the pizzeria after all. The basketball season was wrapping up and it was time for the referee, Archie Geezler, to pay up.
Geezler was a degenerate gambler who should have been sent to the front lines. Instead, the Army recruiters determined he was an unacceptable alcoholic degenerate incapable of service. In reality, Geezler always owed money to The Geek. Even though he pissed all his money away on booze and women, Geezler somehow always paid up and remained credible enough to officiate college basketball games. He owed close to $300 to The Geek and it was time to put him into play for a big one before the season ended, for a lot more than $300. To extinguish the debt, the referee would make crucial calls for Drake and against Simpson College, ensuring a Drake victory.
The following morning at 2am Mickey walked into the garage to find the old man had already taken the tarp off the cop car and was ready to go. The old man pointed at the cop car and then back at Mickey, indicating he wanted him to drive it. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and opened the door, demonstrating how it was opened without leaving fingerprints. He then rubbed the steering wheel down quickly. He handed the handkechief to Mickey and raised his eyebrows. It was his way of saying not to leave any fingerprints on the car by wiping everything down before he exited the vehicle. Mickey nodded, confirming, “I’ll get it, Pops. I will lead the way to Valley Junction. That way, if there are any cops that come up behind us, they will have to get in front of you before they get to me. We will go the back way down Army Post Road, then north on 63rd until we cross the river. Once we cross the river, take that first left in West Des Moines, Railroad Avenue. We take a right in the alleyway between 5th and 6th Street. I will park it there, take the keys, wipe it down, and jump in your car, and we get the hell out of there. Is that about right?”
The old man smiled. Mickey had grown into quite the young Italian hustler in his own right. If the plan failed and the Des Moines police captured Mickey it would be unfortunate. They would arrest him for stealing the car and want to throw the book at him. He had no criminal record and the first time offense could potentially be pled down to probation a short stint in jail with a good attorney. The old man pointed at Mickey’s gun under his coat and gestured for him to give it to him. Mickey nodded and understood. The gun involved in the commission of the crime would make it difficult for the crime to be plead down from a felony to a misdemeanor in the event he was caught with the stolen car.
The Geek opened up the garage bay doors, and the two pulled each car out onto the lot. Mickey pulled the doors closed, and The Geek and the blue Super Deluxe pulled behind Mickey in the cop car as they began their early morning journey to the O’Connor Hotel in Valley Junction. There was no traffic in the wee hours of the morning as the cars made their way toward Army Post Road. Mickey turned right down 63rd Street and headed straight to West Des Moines. Neither the West Des Moines police nor the Des Moines police often patrolled 63rd, which was technically the other half of 1st Street in West Des Moines. It was the border of their jurisdictions and there was little more than woods until the rail yard opened up on the other side of the Raccoon River. The simple plan was executed perfectly and they were safely back home in under an hour. The Geek and Mickey both fell asleep with smiles on their faces.