Page 54

By Jeffrey Csatari/

New York World-Telegram

ATLANTA, Mar. 5th—Two more people died to day from injuries suffered in an explosion Sunday night at the Atlanta Terminal Station here and in another explosion earlier at Florida’s Jacksonville Terminal.

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Today’s deaths bring the total dead from both blasts to 10. Another 32 people were injured; 4 remain hospitalized.

While some witnesses have called the two explosions at the train stations “highly suspicious,” local and federal officials investigating the incidents say that there is nothing to link them except simple coincidence.

“There is no connection between the blasts,” said Christopher Gilman, Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta office of the F.B.I. “End of story.”

An official close to the investigation in Jacksonville, who asked not to be iden tified, aid: “It’s looking like a faulty gas line to a heater in the men’s room was responsible, but we’re unable to confirm that at this time.”

When asked about the report of a Ger man pistol being found at the scene of the Atlanta Terminal Station explosion, Gilman said, “We have no other comment.”

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The cabbie accelerated heavily down Broadway, honking the horn steadily, and Canidy looked up from the paper to find that the driver was trying to make it through the light at Seventeenth Street before it turned red.

After another ten minutes of such mindless driving—and countless near collisions along the meandering route—the driver turned off of Fulton onto South Street, passed the fish market, and came to a sudden stop with a squeal of brakes and screech of tires.

A New York City traffic cop had South Street blocked off, his patrol car parked at an angle, the fender-mounted emergency lights flashing red.

“What is it?” Canidy asked the cabbie.

“Dunno,” he said, his head out the window, straining to see past the cop.

Canidy could see only traffic backed up and some cops getting out wooden barricades with orange and black stripes and starting to assemble them.

He looked at the street addresses just out of his window and realized he was only a half block shy of the address Gurfein had given him for Meyer’s Hotel, where Joe “Socks” Lanza kept a regular room to conduct business away from the fish market nearby.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a bill to pay the fare, said, “Here you go,” and grabbed his attaché case, then slid out of the backseat.

He made his way along the sidewalk, past the line of cars stopped by the police car and around one of the cops who was just now erecting a barricade on the sidewalk.

“Hey, buddy!” the cop called. “You can’t—”

Pretending he didn’t hear him, Canidy kept walking toward 117 South Street.

A moment later, he heard the cop mutter, “Awfuckit.” Ahead, at Meyer’s Hotel—a shabby establishment four stories high with maybe thirty rooms, half of which were at any one time being used by the mob—Canidy saw a small half circle of cops gathered at the entrance of the building. They were looking at something slumped against the building.

Canidy looked closer.

Not something. Someone.

He knew what the body of a dead man looked like.

As Canidy approached the building, he saw that a burly guy in a leather cap and wearing the outfit of a fishmonger—flannel shirt, greasy overalls, knee-high rubber boots—was leaning against the wall.

The fishmonger stepped forward and blocked his path.

“Nobody goes in,” the huge guy said.

He was six-two, two-fifty—at least—and Canidy found himself having to look up at him.