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DARKEST BY-WILLIAM R ^fx:(;i:VEHN

HoyR
COPYRIGHT I 9 5 S BY WILLIAM P. « C GIVERM

Retnick could have had love or money^ but he chose vengeance—

vengeance on the men who'd framed him for a waterfront murder
BEGINNING A NEW THREEPART SERIAL

S
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TEVE RETNICK'S release from Sing Sing
caused only a brief and seemingly casual stir
of interest in the file room of the Thirty-first
Detective Squad. Three men were present when
Sergeant Miles Kleyburg, after a glance at his
desk calendar, said, "Today's the day. You think
he'll come back here?"
Lieutenant Neville stood in the doorway of his
private office packing a short black pipe. "You're
talking about Steve," he said, and walked to the
wide, dirt-streaked windows that overlooked the
river. Lighting his pipe, he stared without enthusi-
asm at the cold, gray view. Gulls stood out brightly
against the swollen, soot-dark river.
"I don't know about Steve," Lieutenant Neville
went on. "He'll want to know about Ragoni. I
hope—" Shrugging, he said, "He'll do what he
wants."
"I'll be glad to see him," Kleyburg said.
Neville glanced at him. "I will too," he said, and
went back to his office.
The third man in the room, a detective named
Connors, stretched and got to his feet. He was a
tall young man with even features and wavy blond
hair. Except for excellent clothes, there was noth-
ing distinctive about his appearance. "I'm going
out for a few minutes," he said cas\ially.
Sergeant Kleyburg, a heavily built man with
thin white hair and horn-rimmed glasses, nodded
briefly. There was no expression at all on his
tired, solid face.
Connors went downstairs and crossed the mean
slum street to a small candy store. He walked back
to the telephone booth and dialed a number. When
a voice answered, he said, "Mr. Amato? I just
thought I'd remind you. Steve Retnick is out to-
day." Listening then, he smiled faintly. "Sure,"
he said, "I'll find him. I'll take care of it."
Outside, a cold wind swept down the cross-tovra
block. Connors turned up his collar and hurried
toward the station.
But Steve Retnick didn't return that day or the
next. And along the waterfront and in certain
police stations there were men who waited un-
easily for him.
man; he was called Hammy, and before showing up
on the waterfront he had made his living as a spar-
ring partner, a punching bag for fighters who had
some brains as well as bulk. Retnick wasn't inter-
ested in him, so he turned and walked slowly to
the bar.
Tim Moran looked up from a glass he was pol-
ishing and a surprised smile spread slowly over his
small red face. "Steve! Welcome back, boy. You've
not changed at all."
This was almost true; the five years in jail hadn't
marked him physically. The planes of his dark face
were sharp and hard. There was no gray in his
close-cut black hair, and his body was tough and
flexible. But there were changes. . . .
"Five years older," Retnick said, pushing his hat
a bit higher on his forehead.
Moran looked into his eyes then and saw the
change in the man. He said uneasily, "Well, let's
celebrate, Steve. What'll it be?"
"Nothing," Retnick said. "I'm looking for
Frank Ragoni."
"Steve, I haven't seen him for a week.'"
"Have you heard any talk about where he
might be?"
"Not a word. I'd like to help. I know you were
good friends, but . . ." He shrugged.
"A week ago, Ragoni finished his shift at mid-
night," Retnick said. "He was working at Pier
Five, in the hold of a North Star Lines ship that
ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK McCARTHY
night. He never got home. I've talked to his wife.
She says he was in a good mood when he left
for work."
"Why should he up and disappear?" Moran said.
The big man in the camel's-hair coat rapped on
the bar. "What do I have to do for a drink?"
Moran smiled quickly. "What'll it be?"
"Whisky all round," Hammy said, staring at
Retnick. "Give your friend one too. He looks
like he could use it."
W HEN the drink was set before him, Retnick
studied it for a moment. The room was silent,
and then Retnick finally lifted the glass and nodded
to Hammy. "Thanks," he said, and the curious
little interval of tension dissolved. Hammy began
talking to the dock workers again, and Moran
leaned closer to Retnick.
"Watch yourself with Hammy, Steve," he said.
"He's mean."
"Who's he working for?"
"Nick Amato."
"I picked up that drink too fast," Retnick said.
"Is Amato still riding high?"
"The men in his local stick behind him."
"Do they have a choice?"
Moran began to polish the shining surface of the
bar. "I sell beer, Steve. To anybody who wants it.
I don't take sides in union politics. You know
how it is." {Continued on page 41)

I T WAS eight fifteen the following night when

Retnick walked into Tim Moran's saloon on
Twelfth Avenue. He stopped just inside the door,
a tall, wide-shouldered man who wore a cheap suit
and a felt hat. His face was expressionless as he
glanced around, but his eyes were cold and sharp
under the brim of his hat.
The place wasn't crowded at that hour. Two
dock workers sat at the end of the bar, red-faced
men in caps and bulky jackets, and standing be-
tween them a huge fat man whose round, childish
face was slightly flushed with liquor. He wore an
expensive camel's-hair coat. Retnick knew the big

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"I didn't want a divorce,"
Marcia said. "I wanted to
wait for you." Retnick said
evenly, "And did you wait?

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30
IKE'S
^^ta^Qmeff By ALFRED M. LANSING
His favorite dry fly is au obscure design called a
and Lot. He never walks downstream,
Lore? Ike has plentv of it—and
I T IS 1,710 miles from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave-
nue in Washington, D.C., to a certain log cabin
just outside the little town of Fraser, Colorado.
That's a long distance. Yet tacked to the door of
the Colorado cabin is a sign which has a direct
bearing (particularly in the spring of the year) on
the occupant of the Washington address, who is
Dwight D. Eisenhower. The sign reads:
"Warning! Fishing Fever. Caution—Conta-
gious—Dangerous. Symptoms: Extended spring
fever; patient lapses into long periods of blank ex-
pression. Becomes allergic to work. Spends most
time looking at maps, fishing-tackle catalogs and
checking tackle box."
Make no mistake. Fishing Fever, the ailment
that strikes down 43,000,000 Americans every
spring, doesn't bypass the White House by any
means. And while the President can't afford to
suffer a real attack (nobody can be "allergic to
work" in the White House) he still gets twinges.
When that happens, it's a pretty good bet he's
dreaming about that little log cabin with the quar-
antine sign on it, which he has visited the last three
summers.
The cabin is on the Byers Peak Ranch, which is
Ike's favorite fishing spot. Here the holder of Colo-
rado's nonresident fishing license No. 1 can find
the kind of angling he likes best—dry-fly fishing for
scrappy, medium-sized trout. Here, in relative se-
clusion, he has as much chance as he ever gets to be
just another citizen engaging in his favorite sport.
And here he is in the company of his old fishing
buddy. Aksel Nielsen, a round-faced, irrepressible,
fifty-four-year-old mortgage banker (10 years
younger than the President) who introduced Ike to
dry-fly fishing back in the thirties.
Ike's day at the camp usually starts at 6:00 A.M.
After breakfast the President may decide to work
on one of his paintings for a while; or he may fid-
dle around the kitchen preparing some special dish;
or he may dig out his .22-caliber pistol, and shoot a
few rounds of target practice at a bull's-eye at-
tached to a nearby stump.
But there's also an excellent chance he'll look
out the kitchen window and decide that little St.
Louis Creek, bubbling down from the snowy
heights of Byers Peak, is just too inviting to resist.
If so, the President will go over to the closet, pull
on his hip boots, gather up the rest of his equipment
and head for the stream. Nine times out of ten.
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or alonf> tin : ' * * * % •
he makes it work
"• . :m^-*
-••J''
Aksel ("In all my life, nobody ever called me Mr.
Nielsen") will be right there with him.
Occasionally, the President will travel the quar-
ter-of-a-mile distance to the creek on foot, but more
often he'll climb into the ranch jeep and drive over.
Such an act would seem to be simple enough—but
not when you're the President of the United States.
The Secret Service men must go into immediate
action. Usually there are 12 agents assigned to the
ranch (although under special circumstances there
may be 32 or more), and they live at a nearby lum-
ber camp and work in three shifts—four men on
duty at a time, very inconspicuously. When Ike
drives to the creek, however, they have to scurry.
Somehow, they manage to keep one step ahead of
him; they're always at the creek before he is.
Even with waders, stepping into that cold stream
is a shocker. Aksel, who owns the ranch jointly
with Carl A. Norgren, a Denver oiling equipment
inventor and manufacturer, claims it's one of the
coldest creeks in Colorado. About three miles of
the stream are within the borders of the ranch's
3,800 acres.
The creek has an average depth of only about
six inches, which makes it ideal for small or me-
dium trout—say seven to 12 inches, Ike's favorite
size. Last year, the sportsmen's dubs of Colorado,
as a gesture of good will toward the President, had
the stream stocked with fish. They thought they
were doing Ike a special favor by dumping in nice,
big 15-inch native rainbows. But the fish were too
big for the stream; they just lay on the bottom, dis-
appointingly inactive. Ike had to use all his an-
gling talents to get them to respond to a fly.
Even under ordinary circumstances, it's not easy
to hook into a creelful in St. Louis Creek. In the
years Ike and Aksel have fished there, they have
rarely taken the legal limit of 10 fish in one day.
The President is no tyro angler. He knows what
he's doing. One indication is the way he sizes up
the elements on his way to the creek: the time of
day, the brightness of the sky, the speed and direc-
tion of the wind, anything that might affect the
fishing. Once the icy stream is swirling around his
ankles, the President studies the water, making a
President Eisenhower during a fishing trip in
Colorado. When the fish are biting well, he
has been known to lose all track of the time
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