Death Sentence

3

He racked the Pontiac into its stall in the underground garage. The attendant was in uniform and armed with a revolver in a holster; Paul greeted him and took the elevator straight up to his floor, the seventeenth.

It was a high-rise, 501 Lake Shore Drive, an apartment tower at the T-end of Grand Avenue. Spalter had tried to steer him to a suburban real-estate agent but Paul had spent his life in apartments except for one brief attempt to live in a house and in the end he had found Number 501 in a classified ad in the real-estate section of the Sunday Tribune and he’d taken the apartment the same afternoon.

The steel door had the ordinary slip lock and a dead bolt above. He had to use two keys to let himself in. Behind him closed-circuit TV eyes guarded the corridor. He shut the door and turned both locks before he switched on the lamps and put down his parcel on the coffee table.

He had taken it furnished on a sublet; he wasn’t sure how long he’d stay. The furniture was functional and as characterless as that of a hotel room; the lease tenant was an English instructor at the Univeristy of Chicago who was spending a sabbatical in London and who evidently was indifferent to the style of his physical surroundings; the only feature that suggested anything about its previous occupant was the long wall of floor-to-ceiling bookcases, most of them empty now. There were a living room and a bedroom and the kitchenette alcove. The windows looked out on the Loop and that meant it was a less expensive flat than the ones across the hall which commanded views of Lake Michigan and the Navy Pier. Nevertheless this was the Gold Coast and the rent was high by any standards except those of New York.

He drew the blinds before he took out the two guns and put them on the coffee table; then he hung his topcoat in the hall closet and made himself a drink from the refrigerator before he sat down and opened the parcel, got out the cleaning kit and unloaded the Centennial and performed the routine that had become mindless habit in his New York apartment. In an obscure way it made him feel at home in this room for the first time. He broke the revolver’s cylinder open to the side, threaded a cloth patch through the needle’s eye at the tip of the ramrod, dipped it in solvent until it was soaking and then ran it through the open barrel of the revolver. It came out stained with black gunpowder residue and he had to soak several patches and run them through before one came out clean. He swabbed all five chambers of the cylinder and then ran an oil-soaked patch through the clean orifices to coat them and protect them from corrosion. He oiled the mechanism with the needle-point oilcan and put the kit back together, loaded the revolver and then mopped up the table’s glass top.

He’d be safe carrying the guns on his person for a few days; after that they’d start looking for him and he’d have to find a place away from the apartment to hide them when he wasn’t carrying. He had a place in mind for that.

He finished the drink, switched off the lights and opened the blinds; and sat on the couch looking out across the midnight lights of Chicago. He was favorably impressed by the city; but this was where he’d perform the duties of his mission of retribution.

Spalter had met him at O’Hare Airport Saturday morning. There’d been the desultory commonplaces of introductions and small talk: “I think, you’re going to like it here.” Spalter had checked him into the Continental Plaza and then, even though it was Saturday, had taken him by taxi down into the Loop to show him the downtown district and the office where Paul would work. It was Paul’s first contact with the strident self-consciousness of Chicago and it had been several days before he’d understood that Spalter was not unusual: neither a Chamber of Commerce crank nor a conventioneering loudmouth. Chicago’s boosterism was built-in standard equipment. When they realized you were from out of town they launched into their rehearsed litanies: this was the tallest building in the world; that was the biggest post office in the world; there was the busiest airport in the world. They were as insistent and oblivious as Texans.

Spalter was a clever administrator in his forties, not more than ten pounds heavier than he’d been at half that age when he’d spent two seasons as a halfback at North-western: big and bulky but religious about keeping in shape. His good-natured personality probably concealed a certain amount of cold-blooded pragmatism because it took more than sheer charm to achieve an executive vice-presidency with an accounting firm the size of Childress Associates. There wasn’t much doubt he had stabbed a few backs.

Saturday morning Spalter had taken him down State Street past the shops and department stores through gaudy decorations and thronging pre-Christmas shoppers. The narrow monolithic canyons of the Loop reminded Paul of the Wall Street financial district: nearly every building seemed to be a bank. Traffic crawled under the noisy El tracks.

The office was in a building at 313 Monroe near Wacker in the heart of the Loop. The building might have been designed in the 1920s by an enthusiast who had understood more history than architecture: its façade was a tribute to at least three classic styles. The ninth-floor offices were deserted for the weekend but Spalter had shown him dutifully from the boardroom and the chairman’s corner suite through computer rooms and mailroom and Spalter’s own sanctum and finally a well-appointed office which already had Paul’s name in gilt on the door.

“You’ll like it, Paul. We’re go-getters here — it’s our inferiority complex. We’re competing with the New York hotshots and we know we’ve got to be ahead of them just to stay even. Keeps us on our toes, let me tell you.”

Spalter had signed them out under the eye of the lobby guard and walked Paul down Monroe to the University Club. It reminded Paul of the Harvard Club in New York: primly old-fashioned with forced humorless masculinity.

Spalter chose a pair of armchairs and ordered drinks. “We were doing some audit work for a plastics plant on the South Side. They had an unannounced sit-down strike and the manager out there didn’t know what the hell to do — he had a rush order to bring in on a penalty contract. He and Childress were having lunch in the club here and the plant manager was moaning about the strike. Our esteemed chairman of the board proved what executive genius is all about, that day.”

“How?”

“Childress told the manager what to do. The manager walked into the factory and told the strikers as long as they were on a sit-in they might as well make themselves comfortable. He brought in bourbon and beer by the case. When the strikers were pretty well stewed he sent in a busload of professional ladies to entertain them. They were having the time of their lives in there, and then the manager brought the men’s wives in to see what was going on. Well the strike was called off in less than an hour.”

Paul joined his laughter and Spalter sat back and covered his evident hesitation by turning his drink to catch the light, examining it. Paul said, “I’m looking forward to it — working for a firm with a sense of humor.”

“There’s enough laughs, most of the time.Childress is a born practical joker though — you want to watch out for a while until you catch onto his style. It’s nothing crude — he won’t put exploding cigars in your desk humidor, nothing like that. He saves the nasty pranks for people on his hate list. The manager of our building gave us some trouble a couple of years ago and Childress got beautiful revenge. You know all those bulk-rate catalogues and magazine subscription blurbs, the stuff you’re overwhelmed with when you get on mailing lists? Well Childress filled out dozens of the damn things in the name of the building manager. The poor guy was buried in’ magazines and mail-order junk he hadn’t ordered. I think he almost went to court on two or three of them. Took him months to get it sorted out — he was a complete wreck.”

Paul had met John V. Childress only once, when the chairman was visiting New York. Ives, the senior partner of Paul’s firm of CPA’s in New York, had been very understanding about Paul’s need to get away. Ives had introduced Paul to John Childress and used his influence to obtain the Chicago position for Paul. In his brusque way Ives was the kindest of men; Paul was immodest enough to know he’d been valuable to the firm and Ives hadn’t wanted to lose him. But Paul had been insistent. Esther’s death had overwhelmed him, the reminders in New York were too much for him: he had to make a fresh start in new surroundings. When Carol had died it had been the final straw.

Spalter sipped his scotch. “It’s not always fun and games working for Childress. He works our asses off.”

“That’s the way I like it.”

“I’ve heard that about you. I think you’re going to fit in just fine, Paul — and what’s more important to you, I think we’re going to fit in just fine with you.”

Spalter was a bit of a bullshit artist but Paul rather liked him. He made a gesture with his drink.

“Christmas coming up fast,” Spalter said. “We won’t really be getting back into gear until after the first of the year. Childress and I both think it might be a good idea if you spent your first couple of weeks just relaxing, getting to know Chicago a bit before you plunge into the office routine. After the holidays there’ll be a pile-up of income-tax work and you may not have too much time for familiarization. Anyhow, take the holidays off, find yourself a house, get settled in, get to know our town a bit. There’ll probably be several Christmas and New Year’s parties — I’ll keep you posted. You can report in to work on Monday the sixth. How’s that sound?”

It gave him more than two weeks; he agreed to it with suitable gratitude.

Spalter sat forward, elbows on knees. “Stop me if I’m out of line. But naturally we’ve heard a little about why you decided to move here. Do you mind talking about it?”

“Not any more. But why go into it?”

“The place is full of rumors. I think you can understand that. It’d be a good idea if we could put a lid on the gossip before people start looking at you as if you’ve got two heads.”

“What gossip?”

“For instance they’re saying you went to pieces.”

Paul managed to smile.

“You don’t look to me like a man who’s gone to pieces.”

“It’s a dreary story. All too commonplace.”

“Your wife was mugged, I gather.”

“My wife and my daughter. They were attacked in our apartment. My wife died in the hospital. My daughter died two months later.”

“As a result of the attack?”

“Indirectly.” He didn’t elaborate. Carol had been institutionalized: catatonic withdrawal. In her mind she had fled from recollections too horrible to face. She’d become a vegetable. He’d watched her retreat: the steady terrible escape from reality until she’d collapsed into the final trance, unable to talk or see or hear or feed herself. Death had been, perhaps, an accident: she had choked on her own tongue and had been dead nearly half an hour before the nurse discovered it.

“Did they apprehend the muggers?”

“No.”

“Christ.”

Paul drained his glass and set it down gently. “Esther and Carol didn’t have any money with them, you see. Three or four dollars, that was all. The muggers got mad at them because they didn’t have money.”

“Jesus.”

Paul met his eyes. “They gave them terrible beatings.”

Spalter looked away. “I’m—”

“No. Maybe I’m the one who should apologize. I told it to you that way for a reason.”

“To prove that you can face it — that you haven’t gone around the bend.”

“That’s right. There are things you have no control over. To me it’s as if they were both killed by an earthquake or an unexpected cancer. It’s in the past. I’ve got my grief but we’ve all got sorrows to live with. Either we carry on or we throw in the towel. I’m not the suicide type. Do you go to the movies?”

“Now and then,” Spalter said indifferently.

“I’m a Western nut. The rituals are relaxing, I find. In every other Western there’s a line — ‘You play the cards you’re dealt.’”

“And that’s what you’re doing.”

“There’s really not much choice,” Paul lied.

Spalter brooded into his empty glass. The waiter brought fresh drinks and Spalter signed the chit. “My daughter’s boy friend lives on Howard Street. I guess you wouldn’t know the area. Anyway a few months ago the city in its wisdom put up no-parking signs there, and Chet had to find overnight parking on the side streets after that. Within a month his car had been stripped twice. Recently the council passed an ordinance to repeal the no-parking restrictions out there, but what the hell kind of solution to a problem is that? I suppose our troubles won’t come as any surprise to you but I’d be kidding if I said we didn’t have a hell of a crime problem in Chicago. A thousand murders — most of them never solved. It’s no promised land.”

Paul didn’t want to be drawn into speculations about the Crime Problem. The best way to avoid being betrayed by a slip of the tongue was to say nothing at all.

Spalter talked on. He darted from topic to topic and sometimes there were no discernible connectives. He wasn’t a stream-of-consciousness talker; he was being dutifully — and good-naturedly — helpful, telling Paul things he thought a newcomer ought to know. Paul was grateful when the subject moved away from crime.

He tried to put some show of interest on his face; he was finding it hard to keep his attention on Spalter’s pointers about the firm’s internal politics. There was useful data in Spalter’s anecdotes about office feuds and jealousies, his throwaway character sketches, his quick run-down on the companies for which Childress Associates regularly did audits. It would be important for Paul to familiarize himself with these oddments. He intended to do good work at Childress: he’d always taken pride in his abilities but now there was something else — he couldn’t risk drawing attention to himself by displaying any sudden deterioration in the professional capabilities for which he was known. It would require more effort than before because the job was no longer the center of his life; now it was merely a source of income and a camouflage for the appeasement of his private demons.

After lunch they had left the club and Spalter, burly in his topcoat, had ridden with Paul as far as the hotel. Paul had declined Spalter’s dinner invitation, pleading tiredness after his flight. When Spalter was gone he had crossed the street and prowled the arcade of the John Hancock complex until he found a magazine shop where he bought Chicago maps and guidebooks and all three local newspapers and a New York Times which had a page 40 column about the police department’s continuing unsuccessful search for the vigilante who had used the same revolver, according to ballistics reports, to kill seventeen people in the streets of New York over a five-week span. Of the seventeen victims of his retributive vengeance, fourteen had criminal records and two others had been found dead with stolen property on or near their bodies. It was possible he had saved a score of innocent lives.

In his hotel room he had found a printed card from the management:

We urge your use of the Safety Deposit Vaults available at no charge at the Front Office. Please DO NOT leave furs, jewelry, cameras, money or ANY VALUABLES in your room. Illinois State laws relieve the hotel from liability for loss, excepting when valuables have been properly placed in a safety deposit vault... Please use the DOUBLE LOCKS on your guest room door. We wish you a most enjoyable stay.

That night he’d slept with his wallet inside his pillowcase.