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He mashed the starter pedal again.

Still nothing.

He stuck his head out of the window, looking around the open hood, but he couldn’t see Bayer.

“Now, what the hell?” Koch muttered.

As he got out of the truck, he heard Bayer call, “Richard!”

He turned and saw Bayer putting their two duffel bags into the backseat of a 1940 Ford sedan, then getting behind the wheel.

Koch went to the passenger’s door, got in, and Bayer calmly eased away as police cars and fire trucks, sirens wailing, began arriving.

Koch gave Bayer directions on how to take Bay Street east, back to Main, where he could make a left turn to drive north on U.S. 1.

[ FOUR ]

Penn Station

New York City, New York

1130 6 March 1943

As the Washington–Baltimore–New York commuter train rolled into Pennsylvania Station in midtown Manhattan, its brakes making a long, high-pitched squeal, Major Richard Canidy, United States Army Air Forces, prepared to put the sheet of paper that he had been reading back in its brown accordion folder. Murray Gurfein had given the f

older to him when Gurfein had dropped him off earlier that morning at Union Station in Washington, D.C.

The folder was fat, packed with a three-inch-thick stack of research that represented the highlights of Gurfein’s background check of Charles “Lucky” Luciano. As Canidy glanced at the last sheet of paper, he found its contents curious though not necessarily surprising:

* * *

New York Department of Corrections

Great Meadow Prison

Comstock (Washington County), New York

Medical Evaluation of:

LUCIANO, CHARLES

Inmate #92168

The inmate noted above, a White Male, Age 44, has been examined by this physician and the following conditions have been found:

HEAD: Normal. Scalp clean.

EYES: Normal, corrected. Vision, right, 90 percent. Vision, left, 90 percent.

NOSE: Clear.

MOUTH: Teeth good, tonsils not visible.

NECK: Normal, with notable scar. Thyroid normal.

EARS: Hearing 36/36 both ears.

CHEST: Normal. Lungs clear.