Hoover’s Men
ON MARCH 30, 1929, THREE WEEKS AFTER Al Smith’s Presidential inauguration, four gunmetal-gray Fords were parked on a New Jersey road. On the tonneau top of each was a large silver loop antenna.
There were fifteen men in all—some inside the cars in their shirtsleeves, earphones on their heads, the others sitting on the running boards or standing in stylish poses. All those outside wore dark blue or gray suits, hats, and dark ties with small checks on them. Each had a bulge under one of his armpits.
It was dusk. On the horizon, two giant aerials stood two hundred feet high, with a long wire connecting them. They were in silhouette and here and there they blotted out one of the early stars. Back to the east lay the airglow of Greater Manhattan.
Men in the cars switched on their worklights. Outside the first car Carmody uncrossed his arms, opened his pocket watch, noted the time on his clipboard. “Six fifty-two. Start your logs,” he said. Word passed down the line.
He reached in through the window, picked up the extra set of headphones next to Dalmas and listened in:
“This is station MAPA coming to you from Greater New Jersey with fifty thousand mighty watts of power. Now, to continue with The Darkies’ Hour for all our listeners over in Harlem, is Oran ‘Hot Lips’ Page with his rendition of ‘Blooey!’ featuring Floyd ‘Horsecollar’ Williams on the alto saxophone. . . .”
“Jesus,” said Dalmas, looking at his dials. “The station’s all over the band, blocking out everything from 750 to 1245. Nothin’ else is getting through nowhere this side of Virginia!”
Carmody made a note on his clipboard pages.
* * *
“The engineer—that’s Ma—said sorry we were off the air this afternoon for a few minutes but we blew out one of our heptodes, and you know how danged particular they can be. She says we’ll get the kinks out of our new transmitter real soon.
“Don’t forget—at 7:05 tonight, Madame Sosostris will be in to give the horoscopes and read the cards for all you listeners who’ve written her, enclosing your twenty-five-cents handling fee, in the past week. . . .”
* * *
“Start the wire recorders,” said Carmody.
* * *
“Remember to turn off your radio sets for five minutes just before 7:00 P.M. That’s four minutes from now. First, we’re going up to what, Ma?—two hundred and ninety thousand watts—in our continuin’ effort to contact the planet Mars, then we’ll be down to about three quarters of a watt with our antenna as a receiver in our brand-new effort to make friends with the souls of the departed.
“Here, to end our Negro music broadcast for this evening are Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong and Dwight ‘Ike’ Eisenhower with their instrumental ‘Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?’ Hang on, this one will really heat up your ballast tubes. . . .”
Some of the sweetest horn and clarinet music Dalmas had ever heard came out of the earphones. He swayed in time to the music. Carmody looked at him. “Geez. You don’t have to enjoy this stuff so much. We have a job to do.” He checked his pocket watch again.
He turned to Mallory. “I want precise readings on everything. I want recordings from all four machines. Mr. Hoover doesn’t want a judge throwing anything out on a technicality like with the KXR2Y thing. Understood?”
“Yeah, boss,” said Mallory from the third car.
“Let’s go, then,” said Carmody.
* * *
Just then the sky lit up blue and green in a crackling halo that flickered back and forth between the aerials on the horizon.
“Yikes!” yelled Dalmas, throwing the earphones off. The sound coming out of them could be heard fifty feet away.
“EARTH CALLING MARS! EARTH CALLING MARS! THIS IS STATION MAPA, MA AND PA, CALLING MARS. HOWDY TO ALL OUR MARTIAN LISTENERS. COME SEE US!
“EARTH CALLING MARS . . .”
* * *
They burst through the locked station door. Small reception room, desk piled high with torn envelopes and stacks of quarters, a glass wall for viewing into the studio, locked power room to one side. A clock on the wall that said 7:07. There was a small speaker box and intercom on the viewer window.
An old woman was sitting at a table at a big star-webbed carbon mike with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders and a crystal ball in front of her. An old man stood nearby holding a sheaf of papers in his hand.
“ . . . and a listener writes ‘Dear Madame Sosostris—’ ”
Carmody went to the intercom and pushed down the button. He held up his badge. “United States Government, Federal Radio Agency, Radio Police!” he said.
They both looked up.
“Cheese it, Pa! The Feds!” said the woman, throwing off her shawl. She ran to the racks of glowing and humming pentodes on the far wall, throwing her arms wide as if to hide them from sight.
“Go arrest some bootleggers, G-Man!” yelled Pa.
“Not my jurisdiction. And Prohibition ends May 1st. You’d know that if you were fulfilling your responsibilities to keep the public informed . . .” said Carmody.
“See, ladies and gentlemen in radioland,” yelled Pa into the microphone, “this is what happens to private enterprise in a totalitarian state! The airwaves belong to anybody! My great uncle invented radio—he did!—Marconi stole it from him in a swindle. Government interference! Orville Wright doesn’t have a pilot’s license! He invented flying. My family invented radio . . .”
“ . . . you are further charged with violation of nineteen sections of the Radio Act of 1929,” said Carmody, continuing to read from the warrant. “First charge, operating an unlicensed station broadcasting on the AM band, a public resource. Second, interfering with the broadcast of licensed operations—”
“See, Mr. and Mrs. Radio Listener, what putting one man in charge of broadcasting does! Ma! Crank it up all the way!” Ma twisted some knobs. The sky outside the radio station turned blue and green again. Carmody’s hair stood up, pushing his hat off his head. His arms tingled.
“SOS!” yelled Pa. “SOS! Help! Help! This is station MAPA. Get your guns! Meet us at the station! Show these Fascists we won’t put up with—”
“We’ll add sending a false distress call over the airwaves, incitement to riot, and breach of the peace,” said Carmody, penciling on his notes, “having astrologers, clairvoyants, and mediums in contravention of the Radio Act of 1929 . . .”
The first of the axes went through the studio door.
“ . . . use of the airwaves for a lottery.” Carmody looked up. “Give yourselves up,” he said. He watched while Ma and Pa ran around inside the control room, piling the meager furniture against the battered door. “Very well. Resisting arrest by duly authorized Federal agents. Unlawful variation in broadcast power—”
“Squeak! Squeak! Help!” said Pa. Dalmas had bludgeoned his way into the shrieking power room and threw all the breaker switches. Ma and Pa turned into frantic blurs as all the needles dropped to zero. The sky outside went New Jersey dark and Carmody’s hair lay back down.
“Good,” he said, still reading into the intercom. “Advertising prohibited articles and products over the public airwaves. Broadcast of obscene and suggestive material. Use of . . .”
The door gave up.
“Book ’em, Dalmas,” he said.
* * *
END OF SAMPLE
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