Re: ST ch 2 Federal kiddies that nobody’s ever heard of

[Joseph Tracy]

RL says"Sounds a little “ICE-Y” to me."

JT sounds real damned ICE-y to me, and not a single scoop of sweet cream.

RL. . . that line—"Federal kiddies that nobody’s ever heard of”—is pure 
gold.

We are witnessing the formation of a shadow state within the Federal 
government,
law enforcement officers that, as we will see, either ignore the 4^th 
  amendment, or
legally skate around it.

JT Not just the 4th amendment, but  a violation of the separation of law 
enforcement powers between the Federal and state governments, which, 
come to think of it, Prohibition could be seen that way, though I don't 
know what the court arguments were on that, if any.

Another explosive incident that introduced exhaustive new police powers 
in a bill that just happened to be sitting around and way too big for 
anyone in congress to read, or question in regards to the constitution, 
might be summoned to mind for some... hint... think emergency call to 
summon police or ambulance.
When the Feds jump in after these incidents is it to find out who did it 
or to prevent that?

RL Hoagie points his finger to the most likely suspect, Bruno Airmont, the
Al Capone of Cheez, because why not?

It boils down to the eternal struggle between the workers and their 
masters,
as witnessed in our previous episode, “Against the Day”:

. . A two-price system is what they call it. Now we got syndicates
of Bolshevik farmers looking to make it all one price, meaning the
cost per scoop of ice cream goes up 70, 80 percent, next thing
we’re looking at a dime cone, the banana split you thought you
wanted goes up to 30, 40, 50 cents, no end in sight. Who’s got
money like that to spend?” . . .

JT: There seems to be a major flaw in the logic here, maybe deliberate. 
How would blowing up an REO speed wagon of either booze or fish warn 
those farmers who want better prices for their milk?  Where's the dairy? 
Why Stuffy?

Is there a suggestion here that the Al Capone of Cheese, who at some 
point befriended the actual Al Capone may be an early money laundering 
business for the Mob Outfit( this might explain how despite his legal 
problems and the depression Bruno A. retains high income and power) ? 
And that Stuffy as a freelancer, possibly not giving a proper cut to the 
Al Capone of Al Capones, and somehow quickly in touch with an 
independent non-belligerant submarine represents  the populists/wobblies 
etc. in the turf battles that are ongoing. His girlfriend points to him 
having more going on than at first met the not so private eye.  Airmont 
also seems to represent the plutocratic class with mob type muscle  in 
the anti reform, anti-Roosevelt  coalition that seems to be forming in 
this alternative history that so closely resembles past european and 
current US trends.



On 5/31/26 7:46 PM, Robin Landseadel wrote:
> The crime scene, turns out, is in District 2, down the
> south side. You can still smell it . . .
> ST pg. 12
>
> Apropos of nothing, when JFK was shot, I was in the third grade. We 
> were all sent
> home early. Turned on the TV. After a bit, the power supply of the TV 
> blew up,
> transformers and caps emitting toxic fumes, the stench hung in the air 
> for weeks.
> We replaced the TV with another, equally decrepit TV. That one had the 
> transformers
> and caps blow up right after Jack Ruby was shot in front of us, dead 
> and on the air.
> Signs and signals. I’ve never smelled that smell again but it is 
> retained in the memory
> like a toxic madeleine.  G-d works in mysterious ways . . .
>
> . . . In the middle of a big scorch mark sits what’s left of
> Stuffy’s Speed Wagon, blackened fragments scattered
> across the pavement, dozens of detectives walking
> around aimless yet thoughtful, including a few from
> the bomb squad . . .
> ST pg. 12
>
> This is what one would call a major event in a town that’s 
> comparatively sleepy:
>
> . . . anybody needing an excuse to get out of town
> in a hurry comes breezing up here to Milwaukee,
> where it seldom gets more serious than somebody
> stole somebody’s fish . . .
> ST pg.1
> Something must be happening, seeing as the “happiness twins” rolled 
> into town on the
> North Shore Line just before the explosion and rolled out a few hours 
> later on the same.
>
> “Hicks, don’t tell me you too? Criminy,
> they’re all comin outa th’ millwork for this one.”
>
> “Me and who else?”
>
> “Federal kiddies that nobody’s ever heard of.”
> ST pg. 12
> From my Magic Eye POV:
>
> Pynchon, JFK and the CIA: Magic Eye Views of The Crying of Lot 49 | 
> Pynchon Notes <https://pynchonnotes.openlibhums.org/article/id/2621/>
>
> . . . that line—"Federal kiddies that nobody’s ever heard of”—is pure 
> gold.
>
> We are witnessing the formation of a shadow state within the Federal 
> government,
> law enforcement officers that, as we will see, either ignore the 4^th 
>  amendment, or
> legally skate around it.
>
> . . . “Not the prohis.”
>
>  “They look more like bootleggers, except the suits are cheaper.”. . .
> ST pg.  12
>
> Another tell; these new Federal agents are hard for the local crew to 
> identify seeing
> as these are the new breed, wearing no clear IDs.
>
> Sounds a little “ICE-Y” to me.
>
> . . . Skeet, tagging along, spots a ball bearing among the
> wreckage, slides it into his pocket.
>
> “What do you want that for, could be evidence.”
>
> “Steelies. These can bring up to a dime apiece. Chicago
> Latin kids, they’ll pay top dollar for anything. Why, you
> thought it was something sentimental?” . . .
> ST pg. 12
>
> Gotta wonder what that li’l scamp Skeet will be doing in Hollywood.
>
> The district station house has the Gothic look and vibes of the 
> Federal Building.
> Various law enforcement officers discuss—though it sounds more like 
> gossip—the
> bombing of Stuffy’s  “li’l tramp freighter of the streets”. Some say 
> the bomb was
> an IMOPIO—“Infernal Machine Of Presumed Italian Origin.”—on account of
> pineapples being their thing. Naturally this discussion gets deep into 
> the
> weeds:
>
> . . . “There’s the problem,” a bomb squad old-timer nods,
> “mode of delivery. Typical Italo whizbang tends to be
> absentee, time-delayed, slow-dripping acid, two-dollar
> Ingersoll slow-dripping acid, wired into the ignition, but
> seldom if ever rolled down the street by hand like it’s
> Bensinger’s Recreation out here or somethin, which any
> li’l pebble can throw your shot off, ain’t it, not the usual
> leaf-and-a-half special, capeesh, wanna roll it under a
> truck, has to be some local genius who can read this
> pavement like a golf green.” . . .
> ST pg. 13
>
> A " two-dollar Ingersoll slow-dripping acid" is a fountain pen of the 
> era, so I suppose it's part
> of a jury-rigged IED:
>
> . . . Ingersoll appears to have survived well into the Great Depression,
> but not all the way through. In an effort to modernize its product,
> the company began offering Bakelite lever-fillers at some point near
> the end of its life. These pens were identical to the Bakelite 
> twist-filler
> except that they lacked the latter’s cap band and, of course, filled
> differently. It was apparently not enough, and the Chas. H. Ingersoll
> Dollar Pen Company disappeared at some point in the mid-1930s.
> The last record I have found that mentions Ingersoll indicates that
> 14 shares of the company’s preferred stock were held by the
> Winchester Repeating Arms Company in November 1934.
> The Ingersoll Dollar Pen • RichardsPens.com 
> <https://richardspens.com/ref/profiles/ingersoll.htm>
> Bensinger's Recreation is a bowling alley:
>
> *1927*    THE ORIENTAL THEATER AND BENSINGER'S RECREATION
> ARE BUILT ON THE SITE OF THE FORMER FARWELL STATION, A
> HORSE, MULE AND STREETCAR BARN.
> *1929*    GREAT DEPRESSION BEGINS. SURPRISINGLY, IT DEALS
> FATAL BLOWS TO NEITHER THE THEATER OR BENSINGER'S. . .
> *1933 *   PROHIBITION ENDS. AMERICANS CAN LEGALLY ENJOY
> ALCOHOL AGAIN. CLUB SILVER OPENS INSIDE BENSINGER'S.
> History | Landmark Lanes <https://www.landmarklanes.com/history>
>
> As far as I can tell, “leaf-and-a-half” is in reference to a style of 
> entryway doors:
>
> . . . Leaf and a half doors represent a practical and aesthetically
> pleasing solution for entrances requiring a wider clear opening
> than a standard single door, but not the full expanse of a double door 
> . . .
>
> Standard Leaf And A Half Door Sizes - Glass Door Ideas 
> <https://www.midotrust.com/>
>
> . . . “Or else precision-engineered, custom-built, self-correcting,
> maybe a li’l gyroscope inside.”
>
> “You got it. Which is why this caper’s got German storm
> kiddies written all over it.” . . .
> ST pg. 13
>
> Which is not out of the realm of possibility:
>
> In chapter 8 Hicks gets a note from Skeet.
>
> “Come on down the Viaduct, somebody there you might want to talk to.” 
> . . .
>
> . . . “Welcome to the clubhouse.” . . .
>
> Kiddie Ham operators, circa 1932. Meaning bleeding edge tech, thanks 
> to Gear that’s:
>
>  “Top-notch and 1929-compliant,” according to Skeet, “we steal only 
> from the best.”
>
> *A History of Amateur Radio License Changes*
> *1926*
> Spark gap transmitters made illegal on the ham bands
> *1927*
> The existing Amateur First Grade license is renamed the Amateur Class 
> license.
> The Federal Radio Commission created.
> *1928*
> The Radio Commission starts testing for “Amateur First Grade” licenses.
> *1932*
> The Amateur Class license class is renamed the Amateur First Class 
> license.
> *1934*
> Establishment of the FCC. License restructuring. Code requirement 
> increased
> to 13 wpm. Accurate logging required. Mobile or portable operation 
> required
> written notice to the FCC. . . .
>
> A History of Amateur Radio License Changes – Eastern Massachusetts 
> ARRL <https://ema.arrl.org/a-history-of-amateur-radio-license-changes/>
>
> Amateur Radio Service | Federal Communications Commission 
> <https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/amateur-radio-service> 
>
>
> And it turns out the smartest kid in the room, Drover, is intercepting 
> German
> (I. E. Nazi) intel.:
>
> A furious torrent of dots and dashes from a shortwave set
> back in a corner. “German naval code again,” explains a kid
> named Drover in a set of earphones who’s been monitoring,
> a very bright young science whiz who had to lie about his
> age to get into Shorewood High School and is currently
> sitting in on physics classes at Marquette, now and then
> getting in a round of speed chess with the professor,
> Árpád Élő, the top player in Milwaukee.
> ST pg. 53
>
> Someone offline mentioned how Drover is reminiscent of Grover Snodd, from
> “The Secret Integration”:
>
> Grover Snodd was a little older than Tim, and a boy genius.
> Within limits, anyway. A boy genius with flaws. His inventions,
> for example, didn't always work. And last year he'd had this
> racket, doing everybody's homework for them at a dime an
> assignment. But he'd given himself away too often. They knew
> somehow (they had a "curve," according to Grover, that told
> them how well everybody was supposed to do) that it was him
> behind all the 90s and 100s kids started getting. "You can't
> fight the law of averages," Grover said, "you can't fight the
> curve." So they went to work earnestly on his parents to talk
> them into transferring him. Someplace. Anyplace.
> The Secret Integration, pg 142. in “Slow Learner”.
>
> This person mentioned this because he sensed that Grover, in his way, 
> seemed to
> resemble the author, being as he’s maybe a little too smart for his 
> own good.
>
> . . . Why I adopted such a strategy of transfer is no longer
> clear to me. Displacing my personal experience off
> into other environments went back at least as far as
> "The Small Rain." Part of this was an unkind impatience
> with fiction I felt then to be "too autobiographical."
> Somewhere I had come up with the notion that one's
> personal life had nothing to do with fiction, when the
> truth, as everyone knows, is nearly the direct opposite.
> Moreover, contrary evidence was all around me, though
> I chose to ignore it, for in fact the fiction both published
> and unpublished that moved and pleased me then as
> now was precisely that which had been made luminous,
> undeniably authentic by having been found and taken
> up, always at a cost, from deeper, more shared levels of
> the life we all really live. I hate to think that I didn't,
> however defectively, understand this. Maybe the rent
> was just too high. In any case, stupid kid, I preferred
> fancy footwork instead . . .
> Slow Learner, pg. 21
>
> “Family are happier when I’m out of the house, any
> trouble I’m headed for I ought to be able to avoid if
> I’m as bright as everybody keeps telling me, don’t
> you think?”
> ST pg. 53
>
> You might be in trouble right now Drover.
>
> Back to the District Office:
>
> “Or how about, somebody’s going to some trouble to make
> it look Italian.”
>
> “Uh-oh, who let the deep thinker in?”
> ST pg. 13
> That’s pretty deep thinking, and you might be right on the mark and 
> right out of a job.
>
> “Federal kiddies that nobody’s ever heard of.”:
>
> Think upon the possibilities.
>
> Welcome to the wide world of paranoia, 1932 Milwaukee.
>
> We are wired up, on the radio, and ready for the future!
>
> . . . Talk unavoidably spiraling back through time to 1917 and
> the bomb that went off at Central Station, downtown . . .
> ST pg. 13
>
> NOVEMBER 24, 1917 BOMBING
> Prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, the single
> deadliest event in national law enforcement history occurred
> in Milwaukee on November 24, 1917, when nine officers and
> two citizens were killed in a bomb blast. The bomb exploded
> inside the assembly of the Central Police Station at Broadway
> and Oneida Street, now known as Wells Street.
> Police were not the intended target.
> The 20-pound bomb was discovered in a passageway between the
> Italian Evangelical Church located at 355 North Van Buren Street
> and the neighboring mission house by the 10-year old daughter of
> the church cleaning lady on Saturday morning. In the evening, a
> young man named Sam Mazzone, a member of the church and an
> unnamed man, brought the device to the police station.
> Station Keeper Henry Deckert took the device from the young men
> and brought it to the lieutenant’s office and then into the assembly.
>  A number of detectives who had just answered to roll call were in
> the room. Several of them were examining the infernal device when
> its hell and fury was unleashed.
> Of the ten officers who were in the police station assembly room
> at the time of the explosion, eight were killed and two were injured.
> The names of the eight men killed are: Detective Stephen H.
> Stecker, Detective Charles Seehawer, Detective David O’Brien,
> Detective Albert Templin, Detective Paul Weiler, Detective Fred W.
> Kaiser, Detective Frank Caswin and Station Keeper Henry Deckert.
> Injured were Detective Louis Hartman and Detective Herman Bergin.
>
> 1917 Bombing 
> <https://city.milwaukee.gov/police/About-MPD/Memorial-Page/1917-Bombing>
>
> “There are some words they don’t allow to be spoken”, as Elvis 
> Costello always sez.
>
> “Sure, Hicks, your Uncle Lefty must’ve told you the story a
> couple hundred times before, maybe to you it’s just cops,
> but there are things we can’t ever share with any civilian,
> whatever we hear downtown, whatever we don’t hear, it’s all
> a closed circle. We’re MPD. Ever since that fateful night it’s
> always the force are gonna have first call, before all others,
> forever. Does that include God? Maybe. Arguments on both
> sides.”
>
> “Just about to ask,” Hicks politely.
> ST pg. 14
> The first thing that came to mind when seeing the name Hoagie Hivnak 
> was Hoagy
> Carmichael, popular singer/songwriter/film actor with a long career 
> ahead of him.
> Had a notable spot or two in the first Bogie/Bacall feature “To Have 
> and Have
> Not”, adapted from a novel by three-fisted all-American author Ernest 
> Hemingway:
>
> https://youtu.be/HFgCJ6QRbQ8?si=PBRAmSfYU5epHDEr
>
> https://youtu.be/72vJU8IKwIM?si=_lMUe53lhP8ySu4Y
> "Hivnak" roughly translates from the Hungarian as "they call me".
>
> . . . Along with his soda-jerk career and a sideline in medicinal
> alcohol, Hoagie Hivnak runs unclassified ads you won’t always
> find in the Journal.
> ST pg. 14
> Good to know. Mild-mannered (mostly) Hoagie is selling booze and probably
> running a line in blackmail on the side of his soda-shop gig. Not to 
> get ahead
> of myself, but the potential for blackmail was part of what attracted 
> the Outfit
> to Hollywood ’round about the time Al Capone switched residences to 
> Georgia.
>
> Hoagie bribes the prohis with ice cream cones, waxes nostalgic about 
> the good
> old days when there was Cocaine in Coca-Cola:
>
> “Thirty years ago this was no place for kids, the words ‘soda fountain’
> would send mothers all over town into fits, worse than ‘opium den.’ ”
> Leapers and sleigh riders one end of the counter to the other lingering
> all day over house formulas with cocaine as the main ingredient, once
> a common sight in Milwaukee till the spoilsports at the Food and Drug
> brought the hammer down, like a preview of Prohibition, “and now it’s
> all this wholesome family trade. Talk about depression.”
>
> I fell your pain, brother.
>
> Hicks and Hoagie go through an old maneuver where Hicks pays Hoagie 
> for info;
> Hicks slips Hoagie $2, Hoagie effectively asports it. Makes me think 
> of this classic
> Police Squad scene:
>
> https://youtu.be/RyLuq_-lnso?si=I5Dtvm5_08NThNdW
> Hoagie initially gives the impression he don’t know much about 
> nothing, but he points out
> the fears in the profit-taking classes regarding potential 
> collectivism amongst the farmers.
> He also notes that, from available evidence, the explosive device is 
> not an IMOPIO:
>
> . . . You know the usual racial categories as well as me, but
> in this case that truck wasn’t hit with no goombah grenade.
> ST pg. 15
>
> Hoagie points his finger to the most likely suspect, Bruno Airmont, the
> Al Capone of Cheez, because why not?
>
> It boils down to the eternal struggle between the workers and their 
> masters,
> as witnessed in our previous episode, “Against the Day”:
>
> . . A two-price system is what they call it. Now we got syndicates
> of Bolshevik farmers looking to make it all one price, meaning the
> cost per scoop of ice cream goes up 70, 80 percent, next thing
> we’re looking at a dime cone, the banana split you thought you
> wanted goes up to 30, 40, 50 cents, no end in sight. Who’s got
> money like that to spend?” . . .
>
> I suppose one might say that Hoagie is giving Hicks “the scoop”.
>
> . . . Don’t believe me, talk to your pals up on Yankee Hill. Track
> down Bruno Airmont wherever he’s got to.” Bruno.
>
> “Seriously?”
>
> “Why do you think he skipped when he did? Maybe he heard somethin 
> rollin down the
> tracks we can’t yet. You’re the private investigator, laughing boy. Go 
> investigate.”
> ST pg. 15
>
> Seriously dude—if it was a bomb it would have blown up in your face by 
> now.