The Fishing Expedition

Game Date: Wednesday-Saturday, 16-19 April 1947
Date Played: 13 December 2003

Nate takes Kurt Harris fishing Wednesday and Thursday at $60 a day. Kurt is a large thug who seems more interested in scanning the shore with his binoculars that catching fish. At the end of each day, he meets with another large man before both climb into a rented car and drive off. The second guy has a long scar down his cheek and wears a tattoo of an anchor with a scroll wrapped around it. Nate figures the second man for an ex-navy guy. Nate knows that there's something going on and that the guy is up to something that's probably illegal. But he thinks that if he gets involved, he may get arrested, hurt or worse. Better not to ask questions, he figures.

Thursday night, Benny is having dinner and a night out with Norma, who has been chasing him for a couple of weeks now, at the Stardust Room of the Astor Hotel, downtown Los Angeles. Very classy. Norma is beaming, over the moon that her attentions are being returned. The mood is broken by the appearance at the table of one of Benny's 'business acquaintances', Ray Doyle, a weasel who can put his hands to pretty much anything for a price. Someone after him, he says. Benny shoos Norma to the ladies room and asks Ray about what he could have done to prompt this.

Yesterday, says Ray, two of Giuliani's thugs were gunned down outside Union Station. One wasn't quite dead and, before he died, he slipped Ray a piece of paper. Ever since then, Ray is certain he's being followed by a big bruiser with a scarred cheek and an anchor tattoo. Could Benny hide him? The paper is obviously important, Ray says he could go 50-50 with Benny on whatever they make out of it. Ray cant see any value in the paper but he knows he's not real bright and that Benny is so smart, he knows everything. He'll know what the paper means.

Benny sighs and looks at the paper. It's the page of a shipping manifests from the USS Missouri on its return to the LA Naval Yards after the end of World War II. It lists an "Imperial Treasury Strongbox (1)" received and then counted as missing two months later. The signature next to the notation is CPO Richard Press. Maybe it is worth something after all. Benny offers ray the use of his house for the night because he figures he wont be needing it. Ray thanks Benny and leaves. When Norma gets back, he whisks her off to the Blue Parrot for a night of big bands and dancing, so that he can make good with Vinnie Giuliani.

Giuliani is certain that it was Rocco's men who gunned down his. Giuliani's men were waiting to give a couple of out-of-towners some information they paid Giuliani to dig up on a cache of valuables. Giuliani is expecting 10% of anything that the out-of-towners found. He expects it will come to nothing but he doesn't have the people to pursue the opportunity at the moment -- other matters are occupying his time. He's happy for Benny to follow up on the paper and the out-of-towners as long as Benny makes no trouble for Giuliani and that the deal for 10% still stands.

After a phone call from Benny, Jack sits in his car outside Benny's house Thursday night watching another man, a big bruiser, who is watching the house. When the guy starts across the road and down the side of the house, Jack runs around the block and down the back lane. From the other side of the fence, he watches the palooka, as quietly as possible, break a windows near the back door and reach in to unlock it. Jack jumps the fence and sneak up to the guy. He puts his pistol to the guy's head. Jack asks the guy what he's doing. Trying to recover something stolen from him, the guy answers. The moonlight highlights the scar on the palooka's cheek and his anchor tattoo. The guy's name is Mosley and he's surprised to learn Jack knows all about the paper and what's on it. Jack tells Mosley that the piece of paper he's after will be in a locker at Union Station and that he's to pick up the key to the locker from Galloway, Ryan and Associates at 5.00pm tomorrow. After the strongbox has been recovered, Mosley is to place 10% of the proceeds in the same locker and return the key to the private detective agency. Jack pokes Mosley with his pistol and says that he'll know if he's being double crossed just like he knew Mosley was after the piece of paper. Jack backs away and disappears into the night.

Friday morning, Jack is in the office early, still shaking from his close encounter last night. He downs a couple of scotches and fails entirely to pick up on the hints Dolores drops about today being special and requiring a cake. Her bottom lips trembles when Jack suggests she has work to do. Benny arrives to say that Ray called him earlier saying that the guy following him is now playing mind-games with him. The window by the back door had been broken and two dollars left on the window sill. At this, Jack perks up. The palooka is afraid of me, he laughs. Soon after, Nate arrives with the tale of his strange client who does no fishing and meets with a thug at the end of the day. The thug's name is Mosley, says Jack. All three compare notes. The name on the shipping manifest, CPO Richard Press, is familiar to Nate -- he served on the Indianapolis and ran a q-stores smuggling racket on the side. He was transferred off the ship before its final mission.

Later, out on the water, Nate asks Harris what he's looking for and tells Harris that he knows about the shipping manifest. Recovering from his surprise, Harris tells Nate that loot was brought back from Japan after the war, stolen and hidden by Press and another sailor soon after. Harris says that fifteen months ago Press and his co-criminal got drunk in The Sailors' Arms, the merchant marine bar on the LA waterfront, and fell to arguing violently. One shouted "three fathoms off the point". The other shouted "no, four fathoms". Eventually, they pulled guns on each other and both fired, each killing the other.

Benny and Jack hide in jack's office, guns ready at 5.00pm. Mosley and Harris nervously enter and ask Dolores if there is an envelope for them. She hands it over and they leave.

That night, Nate drinks with Felix Dimetriades, a fellow survivor of the sinking of the Indianapolis who still serves in the Navy and is stationed in LA. Felix knows Press and hates the bastard. Although he was transferred off the Indianapolis before its final voyage, he told stories of surviving the five days in shark infested waters waiting to be rescued by a navy that didn't even know the ship was overdue. This angered the few survivors who remained in the Navy. Nate says that if he knew he would have killed Press himself. That's what Felix and some buddies were planning on doing but Press and his partner did themselves in before others could. Pity. Nate asks Felix to dig up some information. Did Press sign out a launch or other boat between the two dates mentioned on the manifest? In a few hours, after Nate has run some more people out to the Lucky Lady, Felix comes back with an answer. Press did indeed sign out a launch and returned it an hour and forty five minutes later late one night. Nate thanks him with the promise of bottles of rum shipped in from Mexico.

Nate, Jack and Benny gather in the office to compare notes. Press took a launch out for an hour and forty five minutes. Given the usual speed of the boat, this equates to three possible points of land where the treasure could be hidden. Since Press talked up his association with the USS Indianapolis, there is only one viable location -- Shark Point, named for the unusual rock formation which from the proper angle closely resembles a large shark.

Saturday Morning, Nate meets Harris as usual and suggests that Harris get Mosley and their diving gear and meet again at midday to find the treasure.

Earlier afternoon, sees Nate and the two fortune hunters on the ocean searching for the sunken strongbox. Mosley is suited up and dropped overboard. While Mosley walks search patterns on the sea floor, Harris bemoans getting involved in the whole mess and complains at the way more and more people have become involved. Nate and Harris work the air pump. After a few hours, Mosley tugs on the winch cable -- he's found something. Nate and Harris haul up both Mosley and a metal strongbox six feet (two metres) long and about a foot square (thirty centimetres) on the ends. After a quick celebratory dance, the crew heads back to Santa Monica pier.

As Nate is tying up to the pier, Mosley asks Harris to help him carry the strongbox. Nate, busy with ropes and such, hears Harris shout and Mosley gun him down. Nate dives in to the water and is only scratched by the bullets Mosley sends after him.

After giving his story to the police, Nate contacts Benny and Jack. The decide that the only sensible course of action for Mosley is to flee as fast as possible -- and this means by train.

Jack stakes out Union Station and, when he sees Mosley carrying a fishing rod case and his suitcase at the ticket window, follows Mosley onto the platform. Jack scoots along the platform and hides the pistol in his hand under the newspaper over his arm. He steps from behind a pillar in front of Mosley. 'Going somewhere?,' he asks, jamming the pistol in Mosley's stomach. Anything further is lost in the billow of steam from the locomotive, the scream of the whistle and the conductor yelling 'all aboard!'.

Later at the office, Jack drinks to still his shaking hands while Benny and Nate examine the fishing rod case. When Benny fetches a letter opener from the drawers in Dolores' desk, he notices birthday cards to her -- that's why she was so upset that they didn't have a cake. Women! They open the fishing rod case and draw out a ceremonial katana and wakazashi set with an engraved plaque proclaiming the set to be a gift from Emperor Hirohito to President Harry Truman. Almost before the significance of the find sinks in, Benny says he knows someone who will pay big time for it.

That night, Benny visits the Blue Parrot and requests an interview with Vinnie Giuliani. He offers to sell the sword set. Giuliani is obviously interested, drooling over the ceremonial swords, but says he cannot pay Benny's asking price -- his income has been hurt by both the developing war with Johnny Rocco and the Mayor's anti-corruption investigations. He offers instead a 'token' amount of cash and the promise that for the next year, if there is anything the Benny wants or needs done, Giuliani will see that Benny has it. Benny accepts Giuliani's offer and walks out onto the street whistling a happy tune.

Case closed.