Anything But Saintly

Chapter 6

The standard procedure used in police drives against call girls is pretty simple. A cop registers in a hotel room and asks the bellhop to send him a woman. When she arrives, he asks the fee, pays it and makes the arrest as soon as she accepts the money.

During dinner, Carl and I discussed tactics and decided to start with the Grove Hotel. We checked in a little after eight P.M., registering separately and acting as though we were unacquainted.

We registered under our own names, but I listed Houston as my home town and Carl listed Chicago. I was assigned room 426 and Carl drew 614. Both of us had brought along suitcases as stage props. We went up on the same elevator, with different bellhops carrying our respective bags, not speaking or looking at each other.

When my bellhop had set down my suitcase inside my room and stood waiting for a tip, I said, “What’s the woman situation in this town, buddy?”

He raised his eyebrows. “There’s no shortage.”

“I mean pros,” I said. “Is it possible for a fellow to get a cozy roommate?”

“Sure,” he said with a grin, “but it runs kind of steep.”

“Like what?”

“Fifty bucks for all night.”

“Hmm. Is it worth it?”

“We furnish only top shelf. Young and built like this.” He drew a curvaceous figure in the air with his hands. “It’ll take about forty-five minutes to get a girl here. We don’t stock them in the hotel.”

“I guess I can hold out for that long,” I said. “Send one around. And send room service up with some ice and soda.” I gave him a dollar tip.

When he left, I turned on the room’s TV set, then took off my coat and tie and hung them in the closet. The tail end of a western was playing on TV. I got a bottle of bourbon from my suitcase and set it on the dresser.

The phone rang.

Picking it up, I said, “Hello.”

“All alone?” Carl’s voice asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ve got one on the way. How about you?”

“Ditto.”

“If she’s nice, do I put the arm on her as soon as she accepts the money, or after the carnal act?”

“Read your regulations,” I told him.

“I have,” he said in a mournful tone. “What a lousy way to make a living.”

“See you at the booking desk,” I said, and hung up.

There was a rap at the door. It was a white-coated boy from room service with a tray containing a bottle of soda, an ice bucket and a couple of glasses. I signed the check, parted with another buck and he went away again.

I mixed myself a highball and sat down to watch television while I was waiting. The eight-thirty news was just coming on.

The national and international news came first. Then, after a commercial, the newscaster got around to local news.

The first item was: “A local young woman was murdered today by an unknown assailant. Katherine Desmond, age twenty-four, of 125 Ormond Place, was discovered dead in the apartment she shared with another girl when her apartment-mate returned from a shopping trip at three P.M.”

The newscaster’s face faded out as another camera focused on the picture of a pretty young brunette. The voice went on: “The young victim had been severely beaten and then strangled. Police have ruled out robbery as a motive, as the victim’s purse containing more than two hundred dollars lay in plain sight on a dresser in the bedroom where the body was found. There was no evidence of criminal assault, but the police theorize the crime was committed by a psychopath. Delores Fermer, the apartment-mate, said that both she and Miss Desmond were actresses by profession. Further developments in the case will be reported on the nine-thirty news.”

The girl’s picture disappeared and the newscaster’s face returned to the screen. As he went on with other local items, I wondered idly where two young girls found acting jobs in a city where there was no legitimate stage and no movie or television production companies.

Then it occurred to me that “actress” was the common profession given by prostitutes when their names appear in the news. They don’t want to say “whore,” and most other job designations involve explaining where they work. Since an actress can always be “temporarily at liberty,” it’s a convenient way for prostitutes to explain how they make a living. The Actor’s Guild hates them for it, but there’s no law against claiming you’re an actress, even if your total stage experience consists of a walk-on part in a grammar-school play when you were eight years old.

I was taking a sip of my drink when another thought struck me. Katherine Desmond had been the murder victim’s name. Kitty was a common nickname for Katherine. Harold Warner’s Kitty had been a pretty brunette, just like the girl whose picture had appeared on the television screen. And the ages matched. A cold chill ran along my spine.

Getting up, I set my drink on the dresser, picked up the phone and asked the switchboard operator for an outside line. When I got it, I dialed Homicide.

A sad voice said in my ear, “Homicide, Sergeant Carter.”

Hank Carter always sounded sad, because he had to work with Lieutenant Robert Wynn, and that was enough to sadden anyone. Wynn is the most irascible, regulation-conscious man on the force.

I said, “This is Matt Rudd, Hank. Who has the Katherine Desmond case down there?”

“Oh, hi, Matt. Anderson and Cole of the day trick took the squeal. Wynn and I have the follow-up.”

“Good. Have you viewed the body?”

“Me? What the hell for? Anderson and Cole saw it and it’s description is in the case record. Plus photographs both at the scene and on a slab. I see enough bodies without trooping down to the morgue to look at one that’s already been identified.”

“Then do me a favor. Look in the case record and see if she had any identifying marks.”

“I already have. I told you we’ve got the follow-up. She had a small heart-shaped tattoo on her left hip.”

My stomach suddenly felt as though I had swallowed a pound of lead. It gives you a sick feeling to think you might have caused a young woman’s death, even indirectly.

I asked, “What have you got on the case so far?”

“Nothing, except time of death. The M.E. placed that between eleven A.M. and four P.M., but we were able to narrow it down a little closer than that. Delores Fermer, the apartment-mate, says she was alive when she left the apartment about eleven-thirty. She returned at three and found her dead. The apartment-mate claims she had no enemies and no boy friends. We figure a psycho killed her. It wasn’t a sex job, though. She was fully clothed and her clothing wasn’t disturbed. She still had her panties on.”

“How’d the killer get in?”

“The Fenner girl says the door was unlocked when she got home. She says they seldom locked it in the daytime when one or the other was there. I guess he just walked in. He sure made a mess of her. Beat her half to death before he strangled her. She must have screamed bloody murder, but it’s only a four-unit apartment house and none of the other tenants happened to be home, so there was nobody to hear her.”

“Any fingerprints?”

“Just the two girls’. The Fenner girl said they never had company, so no odd prints were around. The only prints on the front doorknob were the Fenner girl’s. We figure that had been wiped clean by the killer when he left, and she put her’s there when she returned from shopping and discovered the body. What’s your interest in the case, Matt?”

I said, “I think maybe I was indirectly responsible for getting her killed.”

Carter was silent for a time. Presently he said, “Come again?”

“I’m about to hand you a real hot potato, Hank. Did you know the victim was a call girl?”

“We guessed she was some kind of hustler. The Fermer girl too. They always say they’re actresses, and the Fermer girl couldn’t name any shows either had ever worked in. Then too, never having any company was a sign. They get enough of men during working hours, so usually they live pretty quiet home lives. It all added up. What’s the hot potato?”

“She was one of Little Artie Nowak’s girls.”

He was silent again. Then he said, “So?”

“So last night she rolled a visiting fireman at the Leland. The guy came to headquarters with a beef. Lincoln and I called on Artie this morning and diplomatically suggested that that kind of stuff gave the city a bad name. Artie came up with the money like a little lamb and said he’d collect it from the girl. I figured he’d belt her around a little, but that’s a risk girls like that take when they violate the rules. It never even occurred to me he might kill her.”

There was a third period of silence. Finally he said, “Wow! That is a hot potato.”

“Not if you pin it on him. Even our beloved bald-headed commissioner doesn’t expect us to overlook murder.”

“Sure, if we can prove it,” Carter said sadly. “But if we stir Nowak up by pulling him in for questioning and it turns out he didn’t do it, Wynn and I can both head for the border.”

“You’d better move easy,” I advised him. “There’s a peculiar angle to this I’d better tell you about.”

“What?”

“Well, the minute I heard about the murder over the air, I decided Artie must have done it. But I had a confidential talk with Nick Bartkowiak today, and he’s concerned about Artie’s girls rolling customers. Seems it’s become a regular habit, and Nick thinks they’re doing it with Artie’s approval.”

In a surprised voice Carter said, “You’re close enough to Bartkowiak for him to unload his problems on you?”

“He was my childhood neighbor. Besides, he had an angle I won’t go into because it doesn’t have any bearing on the case. The point is, if Artie has been instructing his girls to roll customers, why would he kill one for following orders?”

“Maybe just because she got caught,” Carter said dubiously.

“That hardly seems likely. Seems more probable the girls have been rolling customers on their own, and Artie was as concerned about it as Bartkowiak. Maybe he just meant to beat the girl up as an object lesson, and things got out of hand.”

“I guess we’ll have to look him up,” Carter said reluctantly. “Wish us luck.”

“You’ve got my moral support,” I told him.

“Thanks,” he said morosely, and hung up.