J. J. White

My name is Rodney Mackenzie.  For as far back as I can remember though, I’ve been called Mac.

I grew up on the south side of Chicago and anybody from there will tell you that you won’t last long with a name like Rodney.  My parents died from the Spanish flu in 1919; at least that’s what people tell me.  I was only a year old at the time.  I stayed with my aunt and uncle until I was old enough to be on my own.  In my case that was 13-years-old.  But you can’t say I was raised by them.  I was raised on the streets.  When I was twelve, I was a runner for the Irish gangs.  Sometimes I drove the liquor to the joints; other times I’d watch for the cops when we hijacked trucks.  I worked for other gangs too, like the Jews and the Italians.  I was collecting numbers money for the Italians when I got busted in ’43.  I’d been lucky before that and never served no time, but, according to my lawyer I could get ten years in Joliet for this bust.

The judge gave me a choice, since it was my first offense.  I could either spend ten in Joliet or enlist in the Army.  Up until that time, the mob kept me out of the draft, but even they couldn’t keep me out of jail.

Either way it stunk.  I’ve never been good with any kind of authority.  If I went to Joliet for ten years, eventually somebody would get me because of my big mouth.  I’d probably get killed in the Army too, but at least I had a chance.  I knew the war couldn’t last much longer.  In a couple of years, if I was lucky, I’d be back on the streets in Chicago working for the boys again. It wasn’t a tough decision.  I enlisted three days after my hearing and four months later I was on a ship to England just in time for D-Day.

I landed with the 175^th infantry at Omaha Beach on the Normandy coast.  That was the worst beachhead to land on, and it was tough.  Most of the guys got shot up by the Krauts as soon as they left the LSTs.  The day we landed I still had my corporal stripes, but they pulled those off right after I had a fight with some asshole quartermaster staff sergeant.  If we weren’t in the middle of a battle, the lieutenant said he would have had me court-martialed.

A couple of days after the landing we fought our way from hedgerow to hedgerow, flushing out Kraut machine gunners and snipers.  After a week we lost over half our platoon and gained about two miles of French farmland.

We were holed up in a bombed out farmhouse when I first met Private Chip Polanski.  I’m a pretty damn good poker player and that night I took four GIs for about two hundred bucks.  One of those GI’s was Polanski. You didn’t need to be a genius to see he couldn’t play poker worth a damn.

Polanski was a new replacement in our platoon, and he was the only guy in the room that called me Mac.  All the other guys called me old man because I was twenty-six. I went outside the farmhouse to have a smoke and take a pee when Polanski caught up with me.

“Mac,” he said.  “Mind if I smoke with you.”

“I don’t care what you do Polanski,” I said.  “This is my last one though.”  I shoved the pack of Luckys at him.

 “I got my own Mac,” he lit up using my cigarette. “I came out here to talk to ask you a favor and to see if you’d be interested in making a lot of dough real quick.”

“How much is a lot?” I said.

“Ten grand,” he said.

“I’m listening.”

“Mac, I watched you in that game tonight.  Word is from the other guys, that you’ve been winning a lot of dough.”

“I don’t lend money, Polanski, if that’s what this is about.”

“No I don’t want to borrow any money, Mac.  And call me Chip, ok?  Polanski was my old man’s name.  Listen.  I’m going to tell you something that’s between me and you.  OK?”

“Yeah, OK, what’s that?’

“You ever hear about the payroll heist in Dearborn”.

“The Ford factory job,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s it.  Four guys robbed the armored car on its way to the factory with two hundred grand in cash from the back of the truck.”

“I read about it,” I said. “The Feds caught ‘em, I heard.”

“No,” Polanski said.  “They caught two guys.  Two guys are still loose.”

“Yeah, well what’s that got to do with you and me?”

“Mac … I’m one of the guys still on the loose.”

“No shit. If you got all that money, why are you here getting your ass blown off?”

“I got drafted, but can’t you see Mac, its perfect.  I get to lay low for two or three years and when the war’s over, I go back and get my share.  Fifty grand!”

“OK, let’s say you’re telling the truth, Polanski.  How’s that going to make ten grand for me?”

“Because, I’m broke right now Mac, and you’ve got the cash that I need right now.”

“You don’t need no cash out here,” I said.  “It don’t do you any good with a Kraut bullet in your ass.”

“No that’s not what I mean.  Here’s the skinny.  I lost my money playing poker.  Not just my money, but money I don’t have.  I owe three or four guys about five hundred each.  Any money owed me by Uncle Sam goes right to them unless I get lucky and they get killed or something.  I’ve got my mother living by herself in Brooklyn.  When I left her, she didn’t have anyone to support her any more.  I need to send her some cash real bad, but I’m broke.

“Listen Mac.  You’ve got plenty of cash.  You send her a hundred bucks now and fifty a month until we get out of here and I’ll give you ten grand when I get my cut of the heist.”

“How do I know you ain’t lying?” I said.  “You got any proof?”

“Right here,” he said.  “Here’s my proof.”  He pulled his dog tag chain out from inside his shirt and held it out in front of me. On the end of the chain he had a dog tag and a key with the number twenty-four imprinted on it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a locker key for an upstairs locker at the Brooklyn Bridge train station.  There’s fifty grand stuffed in a duffle bag in that locker.  You keep sending money to my mom and when we get out of here, you come with me to Brooklyn and I give you ten grand.”

“Why don’t you just have your partner send money to your mother?” I said.  “He’s got fifty grand doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, but he’s in prison on an assault charge.  He’ll be out in two years.  I don’t know where he put his cut.”

This sounded just stupid enough to be legit.  The worst thing that could happen to me would be that I’m out a C note.  If he cut out on me, I still had the old lady’s address in Brooklyn.

“OK, Chip.  I want to know every detail about the heist, including names, how you pulled it off and how you got the money to that train locker.”

For the next couple of days Polanski detailed the whole job.  From what I read in the papers, his facts were checking out.  Before we pulled out, I mailed one hundred bucks to the address Polanski wrote down on a can label.  If things go right, I’m out in two years and make ten grand for my trouble.

A month later we were pounded by Kraut 88’s near the Belgium border.  Just after midnight our platoon holed up in foxholes and bomb craters.

I snuck out of my hole to take a quick crap when the Krauts laid out a quick barrage.  I ran like hell, my pants still around my ankles.  I jumped in the first hole I found.  The shelling stopped after ten or fifteen minutes and I checked out my other two bunker buddies.

I flicked my lighter in the face of the guy nearest me.

“Polanski,” I said.

“Mac … How ya doing Mac?  I haven’t seen you since that farmhouse in St. Lo.  What you doing out there?”

“I was taking a crap.  Finished just in time.  Who’s that?”

The soldier next to Polanski threw down his cigarette.  “Hank Watson, 116^th RCT. You know Polanski, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Mackenzie, 175^th.”  I shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you Mac.  That crap sounds pretty good to me.  Save me a spot boys.”

The sergeant peeked over the crater and climbed out the side.

“Mac, my mom got that money you sent.  I got her letter today.  You saved her life buddy.  Thanks.”

“No problem Polanski.  Just make sure I’m with you at that train station when you pull out that fifty grand.  Where’s the key, by the way?”

Polanski pulled loose the chain from his neck.  The key was still attached along with his dog tag. Sergeant Watson crawled back in the hole.  I pressed my finger to my lips for Polanski to keep quiet.  I didn’t need no more GIs knowing about that money.

We sat in the hole for a couple of hours making small talk about our outfits and the war.  Around three, a GI ran from hole to hole saying we’re pulling out in a half hour.  No more than two minutes later the Krauts opened up with their big guns again.

I watched Polanski pull his helmet down and crouch lower in the foxhole.  The key and dog tag hung loose around his neck.  I could read the imprinted number on the key every time a shell hit nearby.  I thought a lot about that fifty grand.  I thought about it stuffed in that locker, just waiting for somebody to collect it.  Another shell landed close, too close.  Polanski and Watson hunkered down even lower in the hole.

I grabbed the top of the foxhole with both hands and pulled myself out.  I pulled the pin out of a grenade, held the safety lever, and waited for the next shell.  It landed thirty feet away. The concussion nearly knocked me back in the foxhole.  I threw the grenade into the hole that had been our cover for the last five hours.  I rolled away and covered my ears.  The grenade blew with a low thump and a blinding flash.  Polanski’s helmet, canteen, and shovelfuls of dirt landed on my back.  With one small grenade I just made an extra forty thousand.

It took me some time to find the locker key.  The grenade nearly blew Polanski’s head off.  For a moment I thought the explosion might have blown the key from around his neck, but it just twisted around and hung down from what was left of his back.

I guess he thought he could trust me.  Too bad for him.  If he’d known what I do to make money in Chicago he would have stayed the hell away from me.  He’s just another sucker that deserved what he got.

The locker key stayed with me through Bastogne, the Bulge, and finally Berlin.

I got lucky when my ship for home docked in New York.  A subway ride to Brooklyn, a taxi ride to the Brooklyn Bridge train station and fifty big ones to split with nobody but Mac Mackenzie.

There was only one problem.  There wasn’t no locker 24 in the train station.  There wasn’t no lockers at all.  I tried to remember which train station Polanski said the locker was in.  I was sure that son of a bitch said Brooklyn.  I know he did. The old lady might know.  I still had the address.  The old broad should know what train station her Chip was talking about.  I know how to get stuff from old broads.  I worked old women over for numbers money every day in Chicago.  Piece of cake.

I needed a cold beer before heading to old lady Polanski’s house.  I fingered the key, rubbing the 24.  Where’d you stash that money Chip?

Nick’s bar had what I needed, a cold one.  I thought by now, I’d be having champagne in a hotel instead of drinking beer in a dive.  The joint was full of hookers and soldiers.

“Mac! Mac over here!”

Sgt. Pete Wheeler waved his hat from the end of the bar. 

“How you doing Pete?  You come in on the ship this morning?”

“Yeah I sure did, Mac.  Hey buddy, what are you doing hanging around here?  I thought you’re a Chicago boy.  You gonna be here long?”

“No, Pete.  I’m just dropping some stuff off for a kid in my outfit.  He took one in Belgium and his mother’s in Brooklyn.”

“Oh yeah, who’s that Pete?  Somebody I’d know?”

“Naw,” I said fingering the key in my pocket.  “A kid named Polanski.”

“Chip Polanski?” Wheeler asked.

“Yeah, that’s right Pete.  Chip Polanski.  How’d you know him?”

“Polanski was in the 16^th RCT with me for a year.  He went AWOL when the brass caught wind of the scam he was pulling.  He’s lucky he’s dead.  I know about twenty guys that would’ve liked to kill the guy themselves.”

“What do you mean, scam?” I asked.  Even though I had a pretty good idea what he was going to tell me.

“It was a great scam,” he said. “He’d pal it up with a GI and convince the guy that he was part of that Ford factory robbery in ’42.  He’d tell 'em he had money stashed away and if they would just send fifty or a hundred bucks to his widowed mom, he’d split some of the cash with ‘em after the war.  The sad sack would mail money to Chip’s poor old widow mom and the next mail call Chip would show the guy a letter from his mom thanking the bum for the hundred bucks.”

“Chip had three different letters he would show the guy.  One said a hundred; the other two were for fifty or twenty-five, depending on how much he got the guy to send.

“There wasn’t no widow mom at home though.  His girlfriend in Brooklyn was picking the mail up at a post office box.  They were clearing a grand a month.  It worked like a charm.”

“So there wasn’t no heist money?” I said.

“Nope, he made it up.  It was a good scam while it lasted.  Too bad the Krauts kept him from seeing any of the dough.”

I took the key out of my pocket and threw it in the trashcan behind the bar.  I don’t feel so bad now about killing the son of a bitch.  It’s too bad about that guy Watson, though.  He just picked the wrong foxhole that night.