Flanagan's Run Read online

  “I see,” said Flanagan. “I see now what we’re talking about. Either you play ball with those Olympic assholes or you stay with me.” He took another swig from his glass before placing it on the table in front of him. “You know damn well I can’t raise fifty grand, Mike. Not just like that. How long can you give me?”

  Poliakoff scowled and bared his teeth. “I can give ya two weeks more, then I pull my boys out. Try to see it my way, Charles. The Olympics is forever – but nobody knows if you can even get your guys to New York. Not even you. So if I stick with you I gamble. If I go with the Olympics then it’s hot coffee all the way for me from now on.”

  Flanagan rose, shaking his head. “You know, Mike, back on Fulton Street Wharf we were rich. Those days, a guy gave his word to a buddy, he kept it. I didn’t know it then, but I do now. We were rich.”

  Poliakoff bowed his head, looking down, and mopped his brow. He looked up and forced a thin smile, which froze as he caught Flanagan’s eyes.

  “No hard feelings, Charles,” he mumbled, extending a moist hand.

  Flanagan ignored the outstretched hand, gulped down what little remained of his drink and returned the glass to the table.

  He leant forward till his face was close to that of Poliakoff.

  “You asshole,” he hissed. “I shoulda let you drown back in Brooklyn.” He pushed on the table abruptly and got to his feet, scattering the glasses across the table-top. Without looking back he strode through the speakeasy and ascended the stairs, out into the afternoon sunlight. As he stumbled blindly out of the Green Davison Hotel there was a tap on his left shoulder. He had taken a couple of extra steps before he reacted, turning to see behind him a burly figure waiting patiently at the hotel door.

  “Ernest Bullard,” said the man. “Just happened to be in Kansas City. You look a little down, Mr Flanagan. Perhaps I can be of some help. Let’s you and me have a drink.”

  For a moment Flanagan had difficulty in gathering his wits. Then he pulled himself together.

  “Yes, I remember,” he said. “Bullard. Can’t remember your paper, though. I’m afraid you may have wasted your time trailing me to Kansas City. All the news is back apiece in Colorado.”

  Bullard smiled.

  “I know that,” he said, gently guiding Flanagan along the crowded sunlit street. He pointed to a barber’s striped pole about a hundred yards ahead.

  “Mulligan’s,” he said.

  Ten minutes later Bullard and a sullen, depressed Charles C. Flanagan sat in an alcove in the bowels of Mulligan’s speakeasy. Mulligan’s was as unlike the Green Davison Hotel as it was possible to imagine. With its sawdust-covered floors and rough splintered wooden tables, it was a place for serious drinkers. Flanagan loosened his tie, soberly sipped a glass of iced water and looked across the table at Bullard. The plainly-dressed agent exuded an air of strength and confidence, and Flanagan, against his will, felt the better for his company.

  “Scotch on the rocks for my guest, and orange juice for me,” said Bullard, taking off his hat and placing it on the seat beside him. “Better make it a double for Mr Flanagan,” he said, smiling.

  The waiter returned a few minutes later with the drinks. Flanagan swallowed his in a single gulp and Bullard at once signalled for another.

  “Shoot,” said Flanagan. “Surprise me.”

  Bullard looked the Irishman in the eye and smiled.

  “Let me hazard a guess what Mr Poliakoff said to you back there,” he said, sitting back.

  “Who the hell are you, anyway? The Wizard of Oz?” asked Flanagan, making a weak attempt at a scowl.

  Bullard smiled. “No. But it just happens to be my business to know such things. First let me level with you. My name is Bullard, but I’m no reporter. I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “The FBI?” exploded Flanagan. “Who we got running in the race? Baby-face Nelson?”

  Bullard grinned. “No. Though we do have information that a homicide suspect is in the Trans-America.” He paused to let the information sink in.

  “The real reason for my presence is that someone up top thinks that the Trans-America may be a breeding ground for industrial unrest. You know what I mean – communists, anarchists.”

  Flanagan shook his head. “You’re on the wrong track there,” he said. “If it’s anything at all the Trans-America’s one helluva piece of capitalist get up and go. It’s about as communist as Mom’s apple pie.”

  Bullard nodded. “You don’t have to sell me a bill of goods,” he said. “But let’s get back to your meeting back there with Poliakoff. I suggest that he told you that he wanted his fifty grand now. He knows full well that you can’t pay. Even if you did cough up he’d soon find some other reason for pulling his staff out.”

  “He said it was on account of the Los Angeles Olympic contract,” said Flanagan, gloomily.

  Bullard sipped his fruit juice. “Yes,” he said: “That’s true. But it’s only part of the truth. You see, your Mr Poliakoff has political ambitions – wants to stand for mayor here. If he dumps you he’ll get the necessary political support. You can lay short odds on that.”

  “But why?” asked Flanagan. “Who’s behind it all?”

  Bullard’s lips puckered. “Perhaps it might help if I tell you a little fairy story,” he said.

  “Jesus,” said Flanagan, scowling. “Now you’re Hans Christian Andersen.”

  “The year is 1912,” said Bullard, disregarding his companion’s look. “I was running good at college – ran one fifty-nine indoors for half a mile. But my college had no interest in the AAU indoor championships in New York, and they wouldn’t grub-stake me. So I bummed and grafted my way to New York, got there a couple of days before the meet. I had lost about ten pounds in weight and was in pretty bad shape.

  “I turned up at the Garden the night before and met up with one of the officials, a bright young guy from the YMCA who was helping the AAU run the meet. I told him where I’d come from, what I’d done. He took me out and gave me the biggest porterhouse steak I’d ever seen. Then he slipped me a five spot for a hotel.”

  “And did you win?” asked Flanagan.

  “No,” said Bullard. “I came third. But I ran one fifty-six point eight – best I ever ran, indoors or out.”

  “Great,” said Flanagan. “But why are you telling me all this?”

  “That guy who gave me the five spot was you,” said Bullard.

  “Jesus, now I remember,” said Flanagan, shaking his head in disbelief. “You must have been twenty pounds lighter then.”

  Bullard looked down at his stomach and grinned. “Don’t let’s get too personal,” he said. “Now let me tell you another fairy story,” he added. “A year later, in 1913, a college boy called Martin La Verne is making all the front pages in the East Coast papers. He’s running miles in four sixteen, four eighteen easy. He’s good-looking, rich, and he goes to Harvard. So one of the AAU bigwigs decides young La Verne should try to beat the world record for the mile. You know, they even started talking about a four-minute mile.”

  “The four-minute mile,” said Flanagan derisively. “Might as well talk about the seven-foot high jump.”

  “You know that, I know that,” said Bullard. “But you know how it goes; newspaper talk. It sells papers. So it’s all a fix. They decide to run it on a straight boardwalk track at Atlantic City.”

  “I know that track,” said Flanagan. “The goddam wind blows in straight off the sea.”

  “You got it,” said Bullard. “A straight, wind-assisted mile. Flanagan, those guys didn’t care how they got their record. So they set it all up. I have to take them poodling through the first quarter in around sixty-two seconds, then go through the half to around two minutes five, then peel off and leave the rest to La Verne.”

  “Had you ever run a mile before?” asked Flanagan.

  “Yes, in relays, around four twenty-four,” said Bullard, sipping his drink. “But I had never really hurt myself, never really found out ho
w fast I could run.”

  “So what happened?” said Flanagan.

  “Well, there we all are in Atlantic City, and there’s something like a forty-mile-an-hour gale coming behind us right off the sea. We have half a dozen real milers and half a dozen hares like me. Bang goes the gun and I stroll off, feeling real good. The quarter is sixty-one point five seconds and I’m running sharp and tall. Jesus, the wind is just about carrying us along. At the half mile it’s two minutes three and I’m still hardly breathing.”

  “So you peel off,” said Flanagan, downing his drink. “You’d done your piece.”

  “No,” said Bullard. “I figure I’m feeling good, so I’ll pull La Verne through the three-quarter mark and then bug off. We get to the three-quarter and I hear them shout out three minutes seven seconds. Well, my legs are beginning to go and I’m tiring now, but I look around and there’s only La Verne a couple of yards behind me – all the other guys are twenty yards or more back. I wait for him to take the lead, but now he’s breathing real heavy too. So I keep chugging along and hit the mile tape in four fourteen – just outside the world record.”

  “And where was our Mr La Verne?” asked Flanagan.

  “A few yards back. He ran four minutes sixteen point five seconds,” said Bullard. “But wait, the story isn’t over yet, not by a long chalk. So we all get taken by limousine to the City Hall for the big prize ceremony. You know, the usual bit – the mayor, the congressman, the pink champagne. And they’ve got a silver cup you could live in. Next thing, one of the AAU officials takes me into a side room for expenses and slips me twenty bucks. When I get out they’ve given the cup to La Verne!”

  “And what the hell did you get?” asked Flanagan.

  “A dime store medal saying, ‘Atlantic City Boardwalk Pacemaker 1913’,” said Bullard, bitterly.

  Flanagan whistled. “What sort of crook would do a thing like that?” he asked.

  “Only a gentleman of the AAU by the name of Martin P. Toffler,” said Bullard.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “Okay,” said Flanagan. “So we’ve had your two fairy stories, and I’m ready to be tucked in. Where does that take us?”

  “To Poliakoff, to Kansas City,” continued Bullard. “Flanagan, you’ve lived out of the top of your head since way before I met you at the Garden, but as far as our records go you’ve never done anything crooked. All the same, it’s none of the FBI’s concern if the Trans-America stops in its tracks and everyone packs up his bags and goes home. So even if Toffler’s leaning on Poliakoff with an offer of an Olympic contract – well, that’s business. On the other hand, if I can find a direct link between Toffler and that Las Vegas assault that’s a horse of a very different colour. Incitement to assault.”

  Flanagan held up his glass as the drinks arrived and shook his head. “You’d best let me get another one of these,” he said wearily. “I can’t take all this in. Why should a big shot like Toffler be trying to stop me?” He turned to signal to the barman.

  “I don’t know, but I’ll try to make an intelligent guess,” said Bullard. “The last time the USA had the Olympics, in St Louis in 1904, it was a goddam farce. It lasted three months and hardly any of the athletes came from outside the USA. The whole meet was linked up with the St Louis World Fair and they even spiced things up with an Anthropological Games.”

  “Yeah,” laughed Flanagan, “I remember. They brought a bunch of savages from all over the world, didn’t they?”

  “Most of those ‘savages’ came from the World’s Fair,” corrected Bullard.

  “Yeah, I knew a midget called Charlie Satz who blacked up and competed as a pygmy,” mused Flanagan. “Entered the shot-put. Only got it just beyond his left foot.”

  His companion smiled. “They had mud-throwing competitions, pole climbing for speed; it was a crazy carnival,” said Bullard. “Well, this time they want to do it right, put the USA on the map as a sports nation. But one big cloud has just appeared on the horizon.”

  “What?” asked Flanagan.

  “You,” said Bullard. “If you hit pay-dirt with the Trans-America, Nurmi, Zabala and all the world’s top distance-runners will be falling over themselves to compete for you in 1932 – in Olympic year. And every American runner from five thousand metres up will be with you. Let’s face it, Flanagan, no athlete has any objection to earning an honest buck, certainly not Nurmi. The Trans-America can kick the Los Angeles Olympics straight in the teeth.”

  “And that’s where Toffler comes in?” said Flanagan, leaning over the table towards Bullard.

  “Exactly. He’s put his reputation right on the line on the Los Angeles Olympics. He wants to be the next International Olympic Committee chairman – sit at high table with all the Olympic top brass. If the Olympics goes down the Swannee, so does Toffler.”

  “So what’s his programme?”

  “I can only guess,” said Bullard. “This Poliakoff business, I would put that directly at his door. The towns that are pulling out, I reckon it’s maybe fifty-fifty. He’s leaning on a few people who owe him favours – he’s a big Republican – and for the rest it’s a sort of domino process.”

  Flanagan bit his lip. “The trouble is, we’ve got to keep moving. You see, Bullard, it’s like an army, and it costs the same amount to keep them on their feet doing nothing as it does to keep them on the move. Second, some of these towns we’re scheduled to get to want us on certain days – the day before or the day after’s no damn good.”

  “You got any political pull?” asked Bullard.

  “Maybe,” said Flanagan thoughtfully.

  “Well, use it – and quick. Buy yourself some time.”

  “Two weeks I got, before the food runs out,” said Flanagan. “Even if I can rustle up food, in a week I hit the first town that’s giving me trouble. So I only got a week before I start to bleed. Hell, I’m in deep enough as it is. Tomorrow morning I’ve got to be back in Burlington trying to talk Mayor Tweed into staying with the race. If I don’t I’m another ten grand in the hole.”

  “As I see it, you’ve only got one choice,” said Bullard. “Stop Toffler. I can’t say kill him, but stop him, somehow, or there’ll be no pay-day in New York.”

  Flanagan rose slowly to his feet and reached down to shake Bullard’s hand. He forced a smile. “Thanks,” he said. “That steak I bought you back at Madison Square Garden has sure paid off.” He lightly knuckled Bullard on the shoulder before wearily making his way through the crowded bar.

  Tomorrow morning he would travel back to Burlington to try to seal up another hole in the dam. He trudged slowly up the steps which took him from the depths of Mulligan’s speakeasy to the weak spring sunshine in the street above.

  That night he was on the train speeding back west towards Burlington, Colorado.

  Mayor Tweed, Mayor of Burlington, stretched a plump hand out across his desk as Flanagan approached him, and dropped back into his black leather chair.

  “Sit you down, Mr Flanagan,” he said. He pressed a buzzer on the right of his desk and his secretary entered the room. “Coffee for two,” he said. “Cream and sugar?” he asked next, turning his head towards his visitor.

  Flanagan nodded, letting his eyes wander round the sombre, oak-panelled room. He pulled the sleeve of his black pin-stripe suit over his white shirt cuff.

  “How many miles are your runners from Burlington now, Mr Flanagan?”

  “About two hundred. That’s four days’ running.”

  Tweed stood up and placed both hands behind his back.

  “Let me be frank with you, Mr Flanagan,” he said, repeating Flanagan’s surname as if to commit it to memory. “I have recently been in receipt of some disturbing reports about your Trans-America race. That nasty business in Las Vegas, for instance.”

  Flanagan started to reply, but Tweed stilled him with a short movement of his hand. He took out of a drawer a sheaf of press cuttings and placed them on the desk in front of him.

  “I have the re
ports here,” he said. “Some of the Vegas press seem to think your runners are Reds, some sort of Bolsheviks, Mr Flanagan. What’s your answer to that?”

  “Can I be frank with you, Mayor Tweed?” asked Flanagan. Tweed nodded. “Someone set us up in Las Vegas. They got ahead of us and riled up the IWW boys. I got wind of it and had my men wear IWW vests. It saved the race. That was all there was to it.”

  Tweed puckered his lips. “I’m inclined to believe you, Mr Flanagan. And let me tell you why. In the last month, considerable pressure – let me put it no higher than that – has been put upon me, and upon the mayors of other towns on your route, to renege on their commitments to your Trans-America race. All manner of reasons have been given, the main one being that the Trans-America would cause local labour troubles.”

  Flanagan again started to interrupt.

  “Please allow me to finish, Mr Flanagan. Two days ago I spoke to your assistant, Mr Willard Clay, telling him that it was unlikely that we would welcome the Trans-America in Burlington. Only a few hours later, I received a call from a Federal Bureau agent, a Mr Ernest Bullard. Agent Bullard was very enlightening. In any case, I owe Edgar Hoover a favour; his agents did a good job for me out here a year or so back.

  “And let me tell you something else, Mr Flanagan. I believe that your Miss Sheridan and Mr Morgan visited a children’s home back in Las Vegas. It didn’t make the front pages, but the news got to me all the same. And one of my brother Elks tells me that your Doc Cole gave a most entertaining talk back in Denver at our Elks luncheon. As a result, the long and short of it is that Burlington stays with the Trans-America.”

  Flanagan beamed and gulped down his coffee. The first breach in the dam had been sealed.

  Four hours later Flanagan got out of his car and stood on the hot roadside outside Agate, Colorado. It was one o’clock in the afternoon and his road gang was setting up evening camp for the approaching Trans-Americans. All looked well, but only Flanagan knew the tight-rope upon which the Trans-America was now trembling. He pushed back a lock of hair and stood, hands on hips, surveying the bustle of the camp in the field below the road. Thank God, he thought, those poor devils sweating towards him on the rutted road were innocent of that knowledge.