Chase The Rabbit: Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series Book #1 Read online

  Chase The Rabbit

  Copyright© 2015 by Steven M. Thomas

  Published by Drummer Dancer Publications

  All rights reserved

  Proofreader: Diane Svoboda

  Cover design: Traci Hilton and Haans Peterson

  Cover painting: Tracy Ostmann Haschke

  Logo: Haans Peterson

  Foreword: Nick Russell

  Acknowledgements: Steve Shelburg, Kevin I. Smith, Cleve Sylcox, George Wier

  Other books in this series: Rabbits Never Die, The Hollywood Murders, Aloha, Lugosi!, Goodbye Harlow Nights

  To receive the author’s acclaimed autobiography, I Was A Drummer She Was A Dancer at no charge, send a request to [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction - names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without the written permission of the publisher, expect where permitted by law.

  Drummer Dancer Publications

  Foreword by New York Times Best Selling Author, Nick Russell

  From the barrooms of New York City, to the movie studios of Hollywood, Steven M. Thomas has crafted a tale of intrigue that captures the early 1930’s as freelance writer Gretch “Bay” Bayonne attempts to unravel the mystery of why a dedicated family man would abandon his life for no apparent reason. Along the way he encounters movies stars, Nazis, and newspaper tycoons, and barters a banana for a mysterious gold key stolen by a runaway monkey on a walkway atop the magnificent dirigible Graf Zeppelin. This first book in the Bay series is sure to grab readers from the first page and will and will not let go until the last!

  The following story is taken from old manuscripts dated 1932, which I found in an antique trunk I purchased at an estate sale in New Jersey last year.

  One of the notes said, “I was told never to write about this. But what happened changed the lives of everyone on the planet.”-Steven M. Thomas

  CHASE THE RABBIT

  Chapter One

  Yes, this is an odd way to make a living my friends, but we live in strange times. The roaring twenties fizzled out like a bad firecracker on a rainy summer day. It all happened in 1932. Nothing would be the same for anyone after 1932.

  My name is Gretch Bayonne, but everyone calls me Bay. I write stories. No, I am not a reporter. I could never hold down a real job, so I freelance for magazines, newspapers, and anyone willing to pay me to chase the rabbit. It’s easier for me that way. Just give me an assignment and I will grab it by the throat and shake a story out of it.

  I haven’t had an original idea since I was thirteen and wondered how long it would take for a Packard to float down the Hudson River before it sank with me and my buddy Hobbs in it. It turned out the answer was all the way to Hoboken. And by then the cops were waiting for us.

  We didn’t get out of the home for boys that much, but when we did, well, all hell could break loose. We’d been stuck there for a long time and figured why not go out and borrow an automobile and drive in into the river? What could they do to me? I was already in an institution. And it might make for a good story. That day reminded me of how I got there in the first place, four years earlier.

  I came home from school as usual, when I was nine years old, expecting to find my Mother in the kitchen making raisin bread for my after school snack. Instead, my mother met me in the living room looking concerned.

  “I have something important to tell you,” she said. “Your Father and I are going away for a while, so you will be staying at The Hoboken School for Boys, but we will return in two months time if all goes well.”

  “Why, Mommy?” I asked.

  She explained that they were going to England to retrieve her sister Tina and bring her back to live with us in Hoboken. I didn’t understand that there was a war going on.

  My mother was from Lowestoft, England but had left there at a very young age when she met my Father who was there on business.

  “Why can’t I go with you?” I asked.

  “You have to stay in school,” she said. “Remember, Gretch, your education is very important. You keep writing your stories, and we will be back in no time. I want you to write a story a week. Remember, use your imagination, son! You are a writer! And someday, you will make your

  living that way. And when we return, you will finally get to meet your Auntie Tina!”

  I didn’t find out until many years later that the Germans had been bombing England. The Great War was going on. and Lowestoft was feeling the brunt of it. I would never see my parents again.

  ***

  On November 28, 1916, the German warship, Zeppelin LZ61 was shot down just off the coast of Lowestoft, England. It crashed on the boat that was carrying my parents and Auntie Tina. My stay at the school for boys would become indefinite. It would be my home until I left at the age of sixteen in 1923.

  I was picked on at the home a lot. Most of the other kids were there because their parents couldn’t control them. But there were others, like me and Hobbs, who were orphans and lost in the system with no place else to go. These were damned rough kids. We lived, ate and played together twenty-four hours a day.

  Most of the children were particularly fond of recess time. When they let us go outside to play, a game of stickball usually ensued. I wasn’t as thrilled about that as the rest of them were. My mother had always told me “playing ball is fine, son, but your talent lies in your writing. Sports are just games. It may be fun, but it will not make you a living.” I was small for my age, I knew where my talents lay, and it certainly wasn’t in sports. Hobbs and I were always the last to be picked for teams, and we would almost always strike out.

  At lunch after such a game, one of the bigger kids named Joe Bob started in on me. He had been teasing and harassing me for months.

  “Hey, Gretch, way to go striking out at the game!” he taunted. “You shouldn’t even play! You should stay inside like a baby!”

  The other kids looked on, snickering and shaking their heads. Something inside of me snapped. I finally decided, right then and there, that this kid had to be stopped, or this would go on forever. An idea instantly came to me.

  “You know something, Joe Bob?” I asked. The kids all gasped that I would even talk back to this big bully.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You are a lot bigger than I am, right?” I said.

  “You’re danged right I am, and I’m gonna kick your ass!”

  “Well,” I said, “since you are so much bigger than me, you probably need this food more than I do!”

  I smashed my metal tray of food directly into his face, roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans and all! The food went flying and the tray bent nearly in half around his head as he fell straight backwards onto the concrete floor. The room erupted in cheers and laughter.

  I still had my juice on the table, so I picked the cup up and raised it above my head and shouted, “But the juice is mine!”

  The kids all started whistling and applauding as I exited the room, Joe Bob still lying on the floor in utter shock and disbelief. After that, Joe Bob was my friend. He became my bodyguard and from then on, no one ever messed with me again.

  Another friend I made at the home was Mr. Pebbles, the janitor. He was a wise old man who took a liking to me right away. He managed to get me a typewriter and encour
aged me to write. I wrote short stories, and Mr. Pebbles wanted copies of every one of them. So I had to learn how to use carbon paper and type extra hard.

  Every Friday afternoon he would find me in my room and ask, “Well, what did you write about this week?” No one else seemed to care about my writings except Mr. Pebbles. I would show them to my teachers at the home and they would say, “That’s very nice, Gretch, but that is not part of your assignment.” They didn’t even bother to read them.

  One day Mr. Pebbles brought me a copy of Reader’s Weekly. I had read many issues and was puzzled why he would bring me the latest copy. I can get that in the library, I thought.

  “Look on page 37,” he said.

  The issue contained one of my short stories! Mr. Pebbles had been submitting my stories to various publications. For the first time, at age ten, I saw one of my stories in print. And my byline. Gretch Bayonne. My heart sank. I was filled with all sorts of emotions. Joy, disbelief, wonderment.

  Then he showed me a copy of Stern magazine. Another of my articles was in it. There were eight magazines in all. Eight stories I had written in the last three months or so. My writing career had begun.

  It went on that way for the next five years. I would write, and Mr. Pebbles would submit. By the time I left the home for boys, I’d had over one hundred articles published in dozens of magazines.

  On my last day at the home, Mr. Pebbles gave me a savings account book. He had opened the account for me and had been depositing checks from my writings that whole time, unbeknownst to me. I had $214 in savings and dozens of offers for jobs at various newspapers and magazines.

  “My advice, Bay,” he said, “would be not to take any of these job offers.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “I will need a job, an income. My mother said…”

  “Because,” he interrupted, “I have been practically giving your work away all these years. I’ve only been getting you an average of $2 per story. Now that you have proven yourself, you can command much more than that. Ten, twelve dollars per story! You can earn two thousand dollars a year, maybe more! But if you accept a position at one publication, you will be under contract to them solely and will make much less. No one will own you. You can work for all of them! And with the reputation you have well earned, they will compete for your articles!”

  “I understand” I said.

  “William Randolph Hearst himself will want you to work for his papers, but Bay, do not do it! Do not trust anyone. They do not have your best interest at heart. Remain your own man,” he said, holding his index finger up and looking me straight in the eye. And, never stop chasing the rabbit.”

  ***

  I moved into an apartment in Hoboken and continued writing stories. It was much easier than I expected. Now I could actually go out and experience real stories instead of having to make everything up like I’d been doing as a child. I quickly developed a style that I called “half and half.” Half was truth and the other half, I made up. It was less work that way. And I didn’t have to chase them. The stories came to me!

  I would get one or two word “assignments” from magazines. They would be things like, “Write story on Prohibition!” or “Write story on Nazi Party!” Things like that. Sometimes the requests would just say, “Write story!” “That’s just brilliant,” I would respond. “Thanks for the lead!”

  I was ripping through my mail one day and got a request from the editor of SIR! magazine. “Write story on flirty women!” I liked the idea. Lord knows I’d had experience in that department. So on April 14, 1932, the article appeared in the magazine.

  Things can get pretty weird when a woman starts flirting. Of all the damned writing assignments in the world, this was the one I was sent on by Stan, the gray bearded bastard editor of SIR! magazine. He was still pissed at me for mucking up my last article and cashing the check anyway. It was an easy $14 so I had to make good on this one. So I found myself in The Blue Gill Bar at 11:55 PM, pounding shots of whiskey with beer and chasing the crazy story. It was a seedy little place, so I figured I would strike gold and be home in time to slam out a thousand words on the Hermes before the coppers started running people off the sidewalks of dismay. All I had to do was wait for a lady to start flirting with me, and the story would write itself. My angle was simple. Women flirt for two reasons. Number one, to get something, and number two, to entertain themselves and boost their own egos. That’s about it. But that is not a thousand words, so I had to milk it for something else. To no small amazement, that something else walked into the Blue Gill that night and plopped herself down on the bar stool next to me. A pretty dame of at least 40, Betty was dressed in black, with blonde hair and attitude from shoulder to wrist.

  She was very attractive and introduced herself by saying, “Well, are you going to buy me a drink or stare at my chest?”

  “I guess I could do both,” I replied. “What are you drinking?”

  “Anything you want,” she said. She was turning it on, too. Batting her eyes at me like the winged mammals in the Lugosi movie. She touched my shoulder, laughed for no reason, and gestured me to light her Camel.

  “What is your name?” she asked, per the usual flirting-for-a-drink game.

  “My friends call me Bay,” I replied. And that’s when it hit me. Literally. Everything else is a black smoke screen with two lines of credits that keep playing over and over again like a bad movie theater when the projection goes nuts. When the picture focused, I found myself flat on my back in a hospital room, the smell of alcohol predominate. And not the good kind. I had been decked in the head by Betty’s crazy jealous boyfriend with a beer bottle three minutes after she sat down. And I didn’t even get to use a single pick up line. There was a note pinned to my hospital gown. It read,”Where the hell is my story? Signed, Stan-SIR! magazine.”

  I knew I had to get the hell out of that hospital in quick order. I couldn’t pay the bill, even if I wanted to. And I figured they didn’t know who I was since I never carry any ID. I ripped the IV needle out of my arm and blood splattered everywhere. I changed out of the hospital gown and back into my black suit and tie and stuck my head out of the room. Good, no nurses! Making my way down the hallway, I found a pay phone and slammed a coin in and dialed Hobbs’ number.

  “I need you!” I said. “Now!”

  I had known Hobbs since the Packard incident, and he had always been there for me. Hobbs was a misfit like me, but he was more grounded, and seemed to live a normal life-got married, had children, a good job. Despite all that, the second I called on him for anything, he was there like smoke on BBQ. He loved to be there whenever called upon, no matter which way my wind was blowing at the time. Unfortunately, he was often the recipient of smoke bellowing in his unsuspecting face. Yet he always came back for the pork steaks. He usually only got to the beans before the grease fire hit the fan. Yes, Hobbs was always there for me. He would scream in panic, but he was there. And he had a car. And it was a Packard. We sped off like the Keystone Cops and slid into traffic, me cursing the very angels who probably saved my life.

  I wrote the “Flirty Women” story in the car on the way from the hospital to my squat on Bemming Avenue. I jammed the handwritten manuscript into a beat up old envelope and quickly mailed it off to SIR! magazine.

  A dozen letters were laying on the floor below my mail slot in the front door. There were requests from the usual periodicals for more stories. Yank Magazine, The Spectator, Collier’s, Vanity Fair and so on.

  Hobbs was telling me the whole time that we should go back to the hospital so I could check out “officially.” Ignoring him, I began reading one letter from some dame named Patricia in NYC. She was a fan of my work, she said. And she was offering me two hundred dollars to chase the rabbit. She instructed me to contact the law firm of Hamilton & Shelberg to make arrangements to meet her. I didn’t like that idea at all, but it was a lot of money. I’d just taken a beer bottle to the head for $14 so how hard could this be? I sent Hobbs home and walked to th
e nearest pay phone.

  “Hamilton & Shelberg” the female voice answered.

  “Yes,” I said, “my name is Gretch Bayonne and I received a letter from one of your clients…”

  “Oh, yes sir, one moment, I will get Mr. Hamilton on the line.”

  Well, that was fast, I thought. She must have known what I was talking about.

  “Mr. Bay?” the man said.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “This is Mr. Hamilton. Our client would like you to meet her at a specific location, date and time. I can give you that information, but I have to tell you, she is very secretive and is insisting that you come alone and tell no one about this.”

  “What is this all about?” I asked. “I mean, I don’t understand why she wants to meet with me.”

  “She wants to retain your services,” he said. “That is all we know.”

  “My services? To do what?” I asked. “I’m a writer.”

  “Perhaps she wants you to write something, Mr. Bay. Would you like the information or should I tell her you are not interested?” he countered.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  “Very good, sir,” he said. “She wants you to meet her at 7:30 PM at Truser’s Restaurant on 46th Street in Manhattan.”

  “Okay,” I said, “and on what day?”

  “Tonight,” he replied.

  “Tonight?” I shot back. “I don’t think I can even get there by 7:30 PM!”

  “Well,” he said. “I would suggest you make every effort. She will have two hundred dollars in cash for you just for showing up.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  I had less than two hours to bathe, change clothes and make my way across the Hudson to Manhattan. As it turns out, two hundred dollars is a hell of a lot of motivation.

  Knowing what I know now, I should have turned it down flat.

  Chapter Two

  Somehow I made it to the restaurant on time. I was as nervous as a German Shepherd on grass cutting day. Truser’s was a fancy, expensive place. I was ten minutes early and it dawned on me that I had no idea who this Patricia lady was or how I would find her.