Anything But Saintly

Chapter 1

It was a hot, still, August day. Out in the suburbs it was probably sunny, but you couldn’t tell in town. St. Cecilia doesn’t have an anti-smoke ordinance, and the factories burn soft coal. When there is no breeze, the pall of smoke hanging over the city shuts out any sunlight there might be.

Carl Lincoln and I were playing gin in the squadroom. We’re both members of the Vice, Gambling and Narcotics Division, and at the moment we were working the prostitution detail out of the Vice Squad. We were supposed to be out trying to get picked up by streetwalkers, but had decided it was too hot and gritty a day for the girls to be working. This was only an excuse, of course. What we really meant was it was too hot and gritty a day for us to be working. It was so uncomfortable, we weren’t even up to the effort of keeping score. Instead of counting points, we were simply playing fifty cents to the low man, or a dollar for gin, and paying off after each hand.

A tall, lantern-jawed man of about forty came into the squadroom. He wore a two-hundred-dollar suit and an angry expression. Striding over to the table where we sat, he looked down at us belligerently.

Carl drew a card, spread his hand and said, “Gin.” Then he looked up at the man and said, “Yes, sir?”

The man said, “Is this where you come to report whores?”

We both regarded him thoughtfully. Carl scooped up the cards, tapped them together and slipped them into their box.

Finally I said, “This is the Vice Squad. I’m Sergeant Rudd and my partner here is Corporal Lincoln.”

Actually, my name is Mateusz Rudowski, but I go by the name of Mathew Rudd. I’m not ashamed of my real name and I’m proud of my Polish ancestry, but people always ask me to spell it when I introduce myself as Mateusz Rudowski. They just nod when I say Matt Rudd.

The lean man curtly nodded to both of us and said, “I’m Harold Warner, president of the Wallgood Tile Company of Houston. I’m up here for the annual Tile and Plastic Manufacturers’ Convention.”

Pointing to a chair, I said, “Sit down, Mr. Warner.”

Harold Warner pulled out a chair and sat erect with his hands on his knees. In a decisive voice he said, “I was rolled for five hundred dollars last night, gentlemen. I don’t know how you run this town, but it isn’t a very good advertisement to have your whores roll visiting convention delegates.”

Carl and I looked at each other. Clearing his throat, Carl said, “The police department doesn’t run St. Cecilia’s cat houses, mister. As a matter of fact, we try to put them out of business. We have very little control over the business ethics of those who manage to operate in spite of us.”

“I’m not suggesting that you set the standards for local whores,” Warner said impatiently. “I’m merely reporting a crime. It didn’t happen at a cat house anyway. It happened in my room.”

Carl’s expression suggested that he didn’t care much for Harold Warner. He said a little gruffly, “It’s a misdemeanor to patronize prostitutes in this town, mister. So I guess you’re confessing to a crime too.”

Warner raised his eyebrows. “Is that how you run things here? You protect your whores by threatening complainants?”

I said, “We don’t protect anybody. It is a misdemeanor to patronize a prostitute, but I never heard of it being enforced. You don’t have to worry about being booked for reporting a crime, Mr. Warner. Get a complaint form, Carl.”

Carl looked at me and I gazed back at him steadily. I didn’t feel any more liking for Harold Warner than he did, but I wasn’t about to let a visiting fireman walk out with a poor impression of our police department.

Carl got the silent order to pull in his horns. Rising, he went over to the supply cabinet against the wall and returned with a complaint form. Sitting down again, he wrote, “Harold Warner,” on the line where it said: “Name of complainant.”

The he asked mildly, “Local address?”

“The Hotel Leland. Room 318.”

Carl wrote that down and looked at me for the next question. I said, “Now just what happened, Mr. Warner?”

Warner said, “The girl came to my room about eleven-thirty last night. She said her name was Kitty, but she didn’t give a last name. She was about twenty-five, five feet four, around a hundred and fifteen pounds. She had dark hair and eyes, a very pretty face and was built like a Coca-Cola bottle. I gave her fifty dollars to spend the night.”

“Any distinguishing marks?”

“Yes, one. She had a small tattoo in the shape of a heart on her left hip.”

Carl said sourly, “You left the light on, huh?”

Warner looked at him with an expression suggesting that he didn’t find Carl any more charming than Carl found him. He said curtly, “I got my fifty dollars worth. It’s the five hundred I’m complaining about.” He turned back to me. “At four in the morning I woke to find her gone. I checked my wallet and found all my money gone too.”

I said, “This was around five hundred dollars?”

“Exactly five hundred. I counted it shortly before she arrived. I had nine fifties, three twenties, three tens and two fives.”

“That’s five-fifty,” Carl said.

Warner gave him an irritated glance. “I gave the girl one of the fifties. That left exactly five hundred in the wallet. There was a little over a dollar in change lying on my dresser, but she didn’t bother with that.”

I asked, “How’d you get in contact with this girl?”

“Through one of the bellhops.”

“Know his name or number?”

Warner shook his head. “They all look alike to me. I phoned the desk about eleven P.M. and asked for a bellhop. When he showed, I asked if he could arrange for a woman. He said sure, and about a half-hour later Kitty showed up.”

I waited until Carl had this all written down, then asked, “Anything more you can tell us?”

After thinking for a moment, Warner said, “I guess that’s the whole story. You think you can locate this girl?”

“We’ll do our best. How long you expect to be in town?”

“Tonight and tomorrow night.”

I said, “If we find her at all, it should be by then. We’ll ring you at the hotel as soon as we learn anything.”

Carl pushed the complaint form before Warner and laid his pen next to it. “Just sign the bottom line, please.”

The man looked at him as though he thought Carl were nuts. “I’m not affixing my signature to anything, Sergeant.”

Carl frowned at him. “It’s Corporal, mister. And why not? We can’t prosecute this girl without a signed complaint.”

Warner took his hands off his knees and rose to his feet. “Who wants her prosecuted? I’m a married man, Corporal, and have considerable social position in Houston. You think I want my name in the paper as complainant against a common whore? All I want is my money back.”

Carl said, “The theft of five hundred dollars is grand larceny, and that’s a felony. Once you report a crime, it isn’t your decision as to whether or not the suspect will be prosecuted.”

“You mean you’d force me to testify in court?”

He was getting a bad opinion of us again. I poured oil by saying. “We won’t inconvenience you any more than necessary, Mr. Warner. We try to be co-operative with out-of-town visitors. If we find the girl, I think we can settle things quietly.”

He looked mollified. “That’s more like it. If one of your local businessmen got rolled by a whore in Houston, I’m sure the Houston police wouldn’t embarrass him by dragging him into court and making him publicly admit he’d paid her to go to bed with him. They’d just get his money back.”

“We’re just as friendly as the Houston police,” I assured him. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Of course, it really isn’t the money itself I’m concerned about,” he said. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

Carl made a grunting noise.

Warner glanced at him, then back at me, deciding to ignore Carl. “I know that’s a trite comment, but it happens to be true. I happen to be pretty well off, and five hundred dollars means very little to me. But I hate to be made a sucker. I feel much the same way about this as I do about nuisance suits.”

I said, “I don’t think I follow you.”

“My company pioneered in plastic wall and floor tiles,” he explained. “Any time a large company comes out with a new product or a new technique, you can depend on a few nuisance suits from crackpots who claim their ideas were stolen. The simplest way to dispose of these is to settle out of court for a few hundred dollars. But I’ve always refused to be cheated. I’ve always fought nuisance suits, even when the legal costs ran several times what out-of-court settlements would have cost. I feel the same way about this girl. It isn’t that I want the money back so much as that I don’t want her to have it. Can you understand that?”

“I guess,” I said doubtfully.

“It took a good deal of courage to come in here and make a report. I suppose most men in a circumstance such as this would quietly take the loss rather than embarrass themselves by admitting they patronized a whore.”

“We don’t get many such complaints,” I admitted. “But I imagine you aren’t the first one to get rolled.”

“Exactly,” he said. “I’m just the first one with guts enough to do something about it. You’ll phone me at the hotel then, Corporal, as soon as you find this woman?”

“Sergeant,” I said. “Yeah, we’ll phone you.”

When he had left, Carl said, “You certainly bent over backward to be nice to that creep. What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m bucking for lieutenant,” I said. “What would it get us to send him back to Houston with a grudge against the department? It doesn’t cost anything to be nice.”

“Now you’re sounding like Captain Spangler. You must be bucking for a promotion.”

Captain Maurice Spangler headed the Vice, Gambling and Narcotics Division. He was a good cop, but he was also a wily politician. You have to be to make captain in St. Cecilia. He was widely known in the department for his ability to pat the right backs and avoid stepping on the wrong toes.

I growled, “You’re bucking for a poke in the nose.”

Carl grinned at me. “That’s more like your old self. You owe me a dollar for that gin.”

Harold Warner’s interruption of the game had made me forget that, but I might have known Carl wouldn’t. He only forgets when I win. Drawing out my wallet, I tossed him a dollar bill and rose from my seat.

“Time to go to work,” I said. “Let’s roll over to the Hotel Leland.”