“We hope,” Lewis said, “that within three months you can get enough evidence to break this thing wide open.”
It was agreed that as a “cover” Fleishman would tell anyone who was curious that after leaving the Navy he had found a job as bookkeeper for a large New York State gambling syndicate but the syndicate had been broken up by police, forcing him to find another job. The story sounded reasonable enough, because the newspapers had carried stories that summer of a big gambling combine which had been smashed by New York State police.
At the close of the conference, Lewis gave Fleishman a final bit of advice: “If you ever think they are suspicious of you, get to a safe place fast—and call me.”
Within a few days, Fleishman and his wife were settled in a modest apartment on Van Dyke Street not far from Detroit’s main downtown section. And on September 22, 1928, Fleishman reported for duty at the Customs Patrol headquarters at the foot of DuBois Street on the Detroit River. The Patrol offices were in an old wooden building enclosed by a high wire fence. There was an adjoining garage and a slip for the patrol boats alongside a boat repair shop. In addition to the office, there was a squad room for the patrolmen, where each of them had a locker.
During his first week on the job, Fleishman knew he was being watched with suspicion. He was never given an assignment with any of the night patrols. Each morning he was assigned to headquarters duty—which meant sweeping out the offices, tending the coal fires, carrying out ashes, filling cars with gas and oil, and sprinkling water on the sand pile in the front yard to prevent the sand from blowing into the offices.
At odd moments, Fleishman sat around watching the older men shoot craps in the locker room and joining in their talk. Slowly the wall of suspicion began to crumble, and during the second week he was assigned to a 12 midnight to 8 A.M. patrol with a senior officer named Raleigh Hampshire, a big, flabby man who looked as though he slept in his uniform.
In the first hours of the night they drove aimlessly along Woodward Avenue, parking occasionally to get a cup of coffee at an all-night restaurant, or just to sit and watch the traffic. From time to time, Hampshire questioned Fleishman about his background. Fleishman told him of his years in the Navy and his experiences in strange ports of the world. He even confided to Hampshire that he had been a bookkeeper for the New York State gambling syndicate—but this job had blown up when the police smashed the operation.
“Maybe you heard about it,” Fleishman said. “It was in all the papers.”
Hampshire obviously was impressed. “Yeah,” he said, “I read about that.”
This conversation apparently resolved any doubts that Hampshire had about his companion. After a time he said, “Let’s go see what we can find.” He wheeled the car from the curb and drove to a residential area which Fleishman later learned was the Lake St. Clair section, a respectable neighborhood of attractive homes.