Vice Cop Page 17

  He looked off into the distance. “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” he said in a remote voice, almost as though talking to himself. “I knew where Isobel was and what she was doing. I followed them upstairs and heard them whisper to each other. When she came out of her room naked to sneak across the hall, I intended to strangle her. I was waiting in front of her door when Sharon came along. When Sharon began to feel her way along the wall, I retreated before her. When I felt the door next to Isobel’s room, I opened it and backed in, hoping Sharon would go on by. But she came right in after me and bumped into me. I used the letter opener because she put it into my hand, but I would have killed Isobel anyway.”

  “She wasn’t on the bed when you killed her, huh?”

  “She was coming out of her room to go to Farrell. I was waiting in front of her door. Afterward I picked her up and arranged her on the bed and wiped my prints from the handle.”

  I reached into my pocket and flipped off the switch. “I guess that does it,” I said.

  I walked the rest of the way to the door, opened it and let him see Lieutenant Wynn and Hank Carter standing in the hall.

  “He bit,” I said to Wynn. “I have a complete recording of his confession.”

  Joe Greco turned a dull red. “You lousy cop!” he spat at me.

  It was nine-thirty P.M. when I got to headquarters. I made it just in time. As I entered the lobby, Martin Manners and Sharon got off the elevator from the basement. I met them halfway across the room.

  Sharon gave me a joyful smile and Manners, said, “Sharon told me everything you did for her, Rudd. We certainly appreciate it.”

  I made a self-depreciating sound. “Where you bound now?” I asked Sharon.

  “Home,” she said. “Why?”

  “I thought I might buy you a victory drink.”

  She looked at her father. “Would you mind, Dad?”

  “I don’t blame you for wanting to celebrate,” he said. “And I can’t think of a more appropriate person to celebrate with than the sergeant. Go ahead. I’ll take your stuff home.” He hefted the small overnight bag he was carrying.

  Fifteen minutes later, seated in a booth at a cocktail lounge, I asked Sharon, “Would you rather celebrate with Farrell tonight?”

  She made a little face. “I woke up in jail, Matt. I had time to do a lot of thinking. The only emotion I can work up over Howard now is wonderment at what I ever saw in him. He really isn’t much of a man.”

  We sipped our drinks in silence for a time. Then I said, “I suppose Isobel’s group will reorganize under some other leader when things quiet down.”

  She made another face. “I did some thinking about that too, Matt. You can’t undo what you’ve done in the past, but you can change your future behavior. I’m through with that kind of thing permanently. From now on I’m going to be the most monogamous woman in town.”

  “Oh?” I said. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Dont be coy,” she said. “Do you have any whisky at your place?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, and started to get out of the booth.

  She laughed aloud and I looked at her. “Whats’ so funny?” I inquired.

  “You don’t have to be that eager. You might at least let me finish my drink.”

  I felt myself turn a little red. I sat down and impatiently waited for her to finish her drink.

  END

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  She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow

  CHAPTER I

  THE ATTRACTIVE BLOND SECRETARY looked up from her typewriter as the office door opened. A tall, thin man with an expressionless face glanced about the room, then nodded to someone out of sight to one side of the doorway. The thin man moved into the room, followed by a pale, powerfully built man with graying hair.

  Beyond the flick of a glance he had given her when he first opened the door, the thin man paid the blonde no attention, moving directly to the door beyond her marked: PRIVATE. Opening this door, he glanced in and gave the pale man another nod.

  The pale man threw the secretary a friendly smile as he passed, but he didn’t speak either. Both men entered the private office and the door closed behind them.

  Stella Parsons had become used to the silent, unannounced visits of the pair during the six weeks she had worked as Carl Vegas’ private secretary. The attorney had a number of similarly secretive clients whom he never introduced to her, whom he always saw alone, and on whom no records whatever seemed to be kept. Most of these clients were mere faces to which she could attach no names, but she knew from recent news photos who the pale man was. He was Whitey Cord, Chicago’s top racketeer, currently in the news because the Federal Narcotics Bureau of Internal Revenue were simultaneously attempting to obtain indictments against him. The thin man who always accompanied him she assumed to be Cord’s bodyguard.

  It had become increasingly apparent to Stella during the six weeks since she had entered the office fresh out of secretarial school that her employer was the prime legal adviser for the Chicago underworld. The knowledge upset her enough to make her consider resigning, but it was only a consideration. Her salary was far higher than she had ever expected to get on her first job, and the work was both pleasant and interesting. Rationalizing that racketeers were as entitled to legal advice as anyone else, she stayed on and attempted to ignore the comings and goings of the mysterious group of clients about whose business her employer never spoke.

  Beyond the door of the private office a voice was suddenly raised in anger. There came the distinct sound of a palm slapping flesh, then the door was jerked open and the powerfully built Whitey Cord strode out without waiting for his bodyguard to check the outer room first. The thin man scurried after him and managed to reach the hall door ahead of his employer.

  As the bodyguard checked the outer hall, Cord had a change of mind. Wheeling, he strode back to the still-open door of the private office.

  “No shyster dumps me when the going gets hot,” he spat at the man inside. “Feds or no Feds, you get me out of this or you won’t be around to handle any clients.”

  Carl Vegas’ voice, so thick Stella hardly recognized it, said from within the room, “Get out, you cheap punk. Make a pass at me and enough evidence will be in the D.A.’s hands in twenty-four hours to put you in the hot seat.”

  The gray-haired racketeer’s eyes narrowed. “Evidence about what?”

  “Otis Taylor, you stupid jerk. You can count on it that if anything happens to me, the D.A. will get a deposition in the mail the next day.”

  Whitey Cord stared into the room for a moment more, then did an about-face and marched to the hall door being held open by his bodyguard. When he had passed through, the bodyguard pulled it closed from the outside.

  The buzzer on Stella’s desk sounded.

  Grabbing up her steno pad, Stella went to the door of the inner office and gave her employer an inquiring look. Carl Vegas was a plump, florid man in his late forties. At the moment his complexion was redder than ever, particularly on the left side of his face, which bore the scarlet imprint of a hand. His eyes were blazing and he spoke with the gutturalness of suppressed rage.

  “Lock the outer door,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Stella said obediently, turning and crossing the room to perform the chore.

  When she returned to the inner office, the attorney growled, “Close the door and sit down.”

  Pushing the door closed, Stella seated herself on a chair before the desk, crossed her trim legs and held a pencil poised over her notebook. Her employer studied her broodingly for a few moments, obviously letting his rage subside before speaking. Gradually his color returned to normal, except for the scarlet imprint of the hand on his left cheek.

  Finally he said in his usual voice, “Remember our conversation the day I hired you, Stella?”

  “Yes, sir. You mean about clients’ affairs being confidential, and I was never to discuss cases we handled with anyone?”

  The lawyer n
odded. “One of the reasons I picked you over other applicants was that you lived alone and had no relatives. The fewer close associates a secretary has, the better I like it. You told me you had no steady boy friend. Is that still the case?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, a trifle ruefully.

  “Hmm. You’re young and good-looking enough to attract the boys. How does it happen you haven’t caught one?”

  She colored slightly. “It’s hard for a lone girl to meet men in a big city unless she goes alone to bars. I won’t settle for that.”

  He nodded approvingly. “You have a lot of time to find the right man. How old are you? About twenty-two?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Hmm. Coming here to school from that small town—Benton, wasn’t it?—you wouldn’t have any local contacts. I don’t suppose many young men attended your secretarial school?”

  “None,” she said, even more ruefully.

  “Well, one will come along eventually. Meantime there’s a certain advantage to me that you don’t have anyone close enough to confide in.”

  At the time he hired her, Stella had been both surprised and gratified to be picked over several more experienced applicants. She had assumed that her excellent recommendation from the secretarial school was responsible, but now she realized the prime reason had been her relative social isolation.

  Though she was a bit shy, Stella was attractive, friendly and intelligent enough to win popularity anywhere. The fact that she was virtually friendless wasn’t due to any personality defect. Since the age of sixteen she literally hadn’t had the time to form social contacts, and now that she had time, she didn’t quite know how to go about it.

  Even after more than seven months in Chicago, she knew no one in her own age group aside from the girls she had met at secretarial school, and these—again because of the pressure of time—had never developed into more than classroom acquaintances.

  Through a combination of circumstances she had no close associates anywhere else either. Orphaned at sixteen, she had been uprooted from her childhood friends in St. Louis and sent to live with an elderly uncle on a small farm in southern Illinois. Uncle Rufus, who didn’t believe in education for women, wanted her to quit school. Only by getting an after-school job in a dime store at nearby Benton so that she could pay for her keep was she able to talk him into letting her finish high school.

  After high school Stella got a clerical job with the Farm Bureau and simultaneously her Uncle Rufus had the first of a series of strokes which kept him frequently bedridden, and periodically sent him to the hospital during the next four years. So again there was no time for social frivolities. As a practical nurse was financially out of the question, Stella drove straight back to the farm after work every day to care for her invalid uncle.

  The farm had been mortgaged to the hilt to meet medical expenses, and when Uncle Rufus died, funeral costs took the rest of the little money that was left. When the estate was settled, Stella, as sole heir, received three hundred and fifty dollars.

  While she had many acquaintances in and around Benton, she had no close friends to hold her there, and she headed for Chicago, got a night switchboard job at a hotel and enrolled in a six-month secretarial course.

  Again, until she finished school at the top of her class and was hired by Carl Vegas, she had been too busy for social life. Now, at twenty-three, she had, for the first time since she was a teen-ager, time for a little social activity. But alone and practically friendless in a strange city, she hadn’t yet figured out how to go about making friends. Despite her rather joyless past few years, she wasn’t in the least bitter about what she had missed.

  As a matter of fact, she looked forward with a kind of cheerful thankfulness to finally being able to have some fun out of life, and as yet her optimism was only slightly strained because no fun had developed after six whole weeks of free evenings.

  Carl Vegas had drawn from her all this background during her first job interview. At the time she had taken it for mere friendly interest, but now she realized that one of the qualifications he had been looking for was complete isolation from everyone.

  The lawyer said, “I want you to take a statement, Stella. I’m sure it isn’t necessary, but I want to impress on you that you are never to mention to anyone what I’m about to dictate.”

  “Of course I won’t, Mr. Vegas.”

  “Okay. This is to be in affidavit form. Usual heading and preamble. Body of statement as follows:

  “At seven p.m. on October 27th last, a police informer named Otis (Lips) Taylor was killed by gunfire in the washroom of Tony’s Tavern on State Street. No witnesses to the crime could be located, and the case is listed by police as an unsolved homicide. The facts of the case are these:

  “Otis Taylor had promised the office of the Cook County District Attorney some evidence proving that a certain Gerald (Whitey) Cord was the organizer and operator of Chicago’s wholesale narcotics racket. This evidence was in the form of photographs and a recording tape of meetings between Cord and certain international Syndicate officials whose names it is not necessary to mention here because the evidence has since been destroyed.

  “Taylor sent word to the district attorney that he would take the evidence in a small suitcase to the washroom of Tony’s Tavern at seven p.m. on October 27th and there deliver it to a representative of the district attorney in return for a specified financial consideration. Unknown to Taylor, the friend by whom he sent this message was a plant of Gerald Cord’s, and the message was delivered to Cord instead.

  “At six forty-five on the evening in question, Otis Taylor entered Tony’s Tavern and went straight to the washroom. This is a matter of police record. It is also in the police record that no one but the proprietor, Anthony Marzulla, was in the place at the time, and that he went down to the basement to tap a beer keg as Taylor entered the washroom. Marzulla stated that he heard the shots, but by the time he got upstairs the killer had fled and the only person present was the deceased, Taylor. Marzulla’s testimony was untrue.

  “What actually happened was that Marzulla entered the washroom to change the roller towel an instant ahead of Taylor. Gerald Cord and his bodyguard, George (the Finger) Mott, both well known to the proprietor, were waiting there, having entered by the back door without Marzulla seeing them.

  “When Taylor came in behind the proprietor, both Cord and Mott covered him with guns. Cord ordered Marzulla to leave the washroom and forget what he had seen. The proprietor complied, but as he was leaving the washroom, he heard Cord say to Mott, ‘This is my pigeon. I want to burn him personally.’

  “A moment later there were four shots. When Cord and Mott stepped from the washroom immediately afterward, Cord was carrying the suitcase and still held a smoking gun. He put it away and both men walked from the place by the front door.

  “Two customers at the bar, never mentioned by Marzulla in his statement to police, also saw the killer and his companion and saw Gerald Cord pocket the smoking gun. Both immediately left the place and were never questioned by police. Their names are Rodney Stewart and Henry Norse.”

  Vegas paused for a moment, then said, “Both those men are listed in the phone book, Stella. Look them up and include their addresses.” He continued, “I know the details of this crime because fifteen minutes after the murder Gerald Cord and George Mott came to my home, explained exactly what had happened and asked my advice. Cord, who had known Tony Marzulla for years, said that the tavern proprietor would not talk, but he was concerned about the two customers. I advised him to get the names of the customers from Marzulla and give them to me. I promised to contact the men and learn their intentions.

  “Cord phoned Marzulla, but as the police were at the tavern by then, could not state what he wanted. He merely left word for Marzulla to phone me when he could. About an hour later the tavern proprietor phoned and I got the customers’ names and addresses from him. I visited both men at their homes that same evening. Introducing myself
only as a friend of Tony Marzulla, I said the tavern-keeper had sent me to find out what they intended doing about the affair they had witnessed at his tavern.

  “Both stated that they wanted no involvement and hoped Marzulla would not mention them to the police. Both hedged when I asked if they recognized the killer, but I was reasonably certain they knew it was Whitey Cord. However, since I was satisfied that neither intended going to the police, I informed Cord that he needn’t worry about them.

  “My evaluation of both men, based on many years of questioning witnesses, is that while they will never go to the police voluntarily, they would readily admit what they had seen if questioned by police. They haven’t been questioned to date simply because the police don’t know of their existence. It is also my belief that Marzulla would testify if confronted by the above-mentioned two witnesses, and that a conviction for murder could be obtained against Gerald Cord by the combined testimony of all three.”

  The lawyer paused again, then said curtly, “Type that for my signature in one copy only and destroy your shorthand notes. When it’s finished, bring in your seal and I’ll have you notarize it. Also address an envelope to the Cook County District Attorney.”

  Stella was trembling slightly when she rose. She left the office without a word, carefully closed the door behind her and stood staring into space for some time.

  The statement she had just taken down in shorthand left her dazed and frightened. She had known, or at least suspected, that her employer counseled known criminals, but the knowledge that he was so deeply involved in their criminal activities shocked her beyond words. She supposed that the principle of privileged communication left Carl Vegas legally in the clear for not reporting Whitey Cord’s admission of guilt to the police, but didn’t his calling on the witnesses and making sure of their silence make him an accessory? Certainly lawyers weren’t expected to go to that extent to protect clients’ interests.