Black Mask

March 9, 1939

"Buchanan! Where ya been?"

Nick Buchanan opened the metal grate to the elevator that took him up to the Homicide floor of the New York Police Department. The sound of Matt Ryan's voice carried over the rusty creak of that old elevator. Nick dealt with the thing fifty times a day and whenever he heard that damn sound, he couldn't help but wonder if it had been greased a single time since Coolidge was in office.

The elevator door was put out of his mind as he crossed the bullpen to his desk beside Matt's. They'd been partners on the job for almost a year now and they were still getting used to each other. Matt had a tendency to talk a lot and need a lot of validation. Nick had been around the block a little more. He appreciated quiet more than Matt seemed to have patience for. Though Nick's stoic nature was probably as annoying to Matt as Matt's expressiveness was to Nick.

"What did I miss?" Nick asked, coming over to look at the pages of messages as he took off his hat and dropped it down on the desk.

"Captain wants to see you in his office," Matt said.

Nick frowned. He'd been hoping to take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves and dig into some work after the walk he'd taken to clear his head. Or at least, that's what he'd told Matt. Nick wouldn't tell Matt that he just had to get away from the sound of Matt's voice for a little while.

But getting back to work wasn't in the cards just now. Captain Wolfe wanted to see Nick, and that was unusual. Better go see to it.

Without a word, Nick walked away from his desk to the captain's office. The blinds were drawn on the window looking out to the bullpen, which was unusual. Nick knocked on the door. Wolfe opened it half a second later.

"Come in, Buchanan. Someone here wants to talk to you," Wolfe said.

Nick stepped inside the small office as Wolfe closed the door behind him. There was a man sitting at the desk wearing a black suit and looking a little sinister. The man stood and turned to greet Nick.

"Good to meet you, Detective Buchanan. Special Agent Al Supomo, FBI."

It took everything in him for Nick to keep from looking too surprised as he shook the agent's hand. FBI was big time. The NYPD was big time, too, especially Homicide. But the Feds were a whole different story.

"Take a seat, Detective," Supomo said. "I'm here to invite you to join an operation."

"Invite me?"

Supomo smirked. "Recruit you. You can say no. But you shouldn't."

"It's a good opportunity, Buchanan," Wolfe advised, now seated behind his own desk and looking between the two men sitting before him.

"What's the operation?" Nick asked.

That made Supomo's smirk grow. "You'll get the details at my office tomorrow. Nine sharp. But you'll have to make some arrangements today. Your captain'll give you time off to settle things before you come by in the morning."

This was all moving a little fast for Nick's taste. "What am I making arrangements for?"

"We know you don't have any family, Detective Buchanan. Tell your friends you're going out of town—which is true—and they won't be able to contact you for about six months. Which is also true. The Bureau will take care of your rent, but maybe find someone to water your plants and give your dog to the pound."

"I don't have a dog."

"One less thing to deal with," Supomo said with a shrug. He stood up and pulled a card out of his inside jacket pocket. "Tomorrow at nine," he said again, handing the card to Nick. And with that, Supomo left the room.

Nick looked down at the card. The FBI building was in Lower Manhattan. A couple blocks from Central Booking. It was going to be a pain in the ass to get from his apartment in Midtown all the way down there by nine in the morning.

"It'll be good for you, Nick," Wolfe said gently.

Nick looked at his captain curiously. "What is all this?"

"The Feds do things differently. But you're gonna get a lot of experience, and your spot on the squad will be waiting for you when you get back. You can't tell anyone you're going undercover with the FBI, so I'll be the only one who knows that. I'll tell Detective Ryan and everyone else that you're doing a training up in Albany."

"What's the undercover assignment?" Nick asked curiously. This was the first time that undercover had been mentioned.

"You'll find out tomorrow. I was just told that you were being recruited for an undercover operation with the FBI. That's all I know and all I'm gonna know. The rest is for you," Wolfe said.

Nick looked back down at the card in his hand. He'd find out the rest tomorrow.

"Go home and make whatever arrangements you need. And we'll see you when you come back," Wolfe told him.

"But what about my open cases?" Nick protested. He did not like things being left unfinished.

"Ryan will work some and the rest will be reassigned. Don't worry about that."

Nick frowned. He would worry about it, actually. But he probably had a lot more to deal with at this point. Undercover with the FBI was a hell of a thing. Best get ready for it. As much as he could.

It was late in the afternoon when Jennifer Mapplethorpe finally made it back to her office. All she wanted to do was shut the door and send Miss Hatzic home for the day before pouring a big glass of gin for herself. Or maybe whiskey. God it was good to be out of Prohibition.

But when she finally made it up to the third floor of her shabby Harlem office building—one so old that the Italian super just warded against the evil eye whenever Jen or anyone else mentioned an elevator—the plans of an evening by herself with a drink were quickly dashed.

Karen Hatzic, Jen's secretary, looked at her with slightly frightened eyes. "Miss Mapplethorpe, there's a man in your office and he wouldn't give his name and he wouldn't leave. He insisted he wait in there and not be disturbed."

"That's alright, Miss Hatzic. I'll take care of it. Why don't you wait around till four in case there's trouble and you have to call the cops, but if nothing happens, you can go home then, alright?" Jen told her gently.

Miss Hatzic just nodded. Jen had problems like this sometimes. That's what came from being advertised in the phone book and having a door that said "Mapplethorpe, Private Investigator" painted in gold lettering with a big cartoon eye under her name. It was usually only after walking through that door that people realized that Jennifer was a woman. Most of the potential clients left after that, but some either already knew about her or else were intrigued by a female private eye. More often than not, she got hired by men wanting to catch their wives stepping out on them and wanted a woman to think like a woman and catch the unfaithful hussies out. Those were the easy cases. The boring cases. The good ones were missing persons.

Hopefully whoever was holed up in Jen's office now was going to give her something good. Something worth ruining the evening she'd had planned for herself.

Well, no time like the present to figure it out. Jen took off her coat to hang on the rack by the door. A man's hat and coat were already hanging there. Intrigued, Jen squared her shoulders to march into her office behind the closed door to the right of Miss Hatzic's desk.

"Good afternoon, sir, I'm sorry to keep you waiting," Jen said politely.

The man stood up to shake her hand. "I hope Mr. Jones wasn't too upset when you told him about his wife's affair."

Jen was taken aback by that. She'd just gotten back from meeting William Jones in the lounge at the Waldorf-Astoria to inform him that his wife had indeed been as unfaithful as he'd feared. She delivered the proof—photos she developed in the dinky little darkroom at her apartment—and declined his offer to buy her a drink. As a rule, Jen didn't drink on the job, nor did she drink with clients.

"Miss Mapplethorpe, I'll get right to the point. My name is Al Supomo, and I'm a special agent with the FBI."

Her eyes went wide at that, but she tried to keep cool. She sat down behind her desk and gestured for him to sit back down. "What can I do for you, Special Agent Supomo?"

"What would you say to spending six months undercover on an FBI operation?" he offered.

"I'd say you were nuts if you thought I would abandon my clients and their cases for that amount of time," Jen answered bluntly.

He chuckled in amusement. "Your open cases aren't important. And any fees you lose in six months will be more than compensated by the Bureau for your services to your country."

The patriotism angle almost won her over, but she hesitated. "You don't know how much I could make in six months."

"I can guarantee that one month with us will be double what you earned in January."

Now that got her attention. Jen wasn't a greedy woman, and she wasn't as materialistic as some women. All she asked was enough money to get by without living from hand to mouth. The lean years at the height of the Depression taught her some tough lessons. She wasn't ever gonna live like that again if she could help it. And January had been a very lucrative month. If she could make double that each month for six whole months, she might be able to finally make some real changes to her life. An intriguing prospect.

"A six-month commitment, using your skills to help my team," Supomo continued. "That's all it is."

"What's the operation?" Jen asked.

Supomo smiled, knowing he'd roped her. "Come by my office tomorrow at nine, and you'll get everything you need." He took a card out of his inside jacket pocket and slid it across the desk to her. "You'll have to tell Miss Hatzic that you'll be out of town on a job and won't be able to contact you. We'll take care of her paycheck and the rent on your apartment and office."

"What about my cat?"

"You'll have to give him to a neighbor or something."

Jen didn't like that at all. But what else could she do? This opportunity was too good to pass up. "Okay. I'll see you tomorrow morning," she said, standing up to shake his hand again.

"Looking forward to it, Miss Mapplethorpe," Supomo said. With that, he turned and left."

When the door closed behind him, Jen looked down at the card. It was gonna be a pain in the ass to get to Lower Manhattan at that time of day.