The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

Originally published in Manhunt, May 1954.

Chapter 1

After ten years as a vice-squad cop, I not only know every place in St. Louis where professional hustlers hang out, I also know all the bars where amateurs go looking for men. The Jefferson is neither sort of place.

It was a little surprising in that sedate atmosphere to have a lovely blonde slide onto the bar stool next to me and throw an inviting smile in my direction before turning her attention to the bartender. It was even more surprising when after that unmistakably inviting smile, she concentrated on ordering a drink and ignored my curious examination of her.

After a moment I decided she must have momentarily mistaken me for someone else. Wishful thinking, I told myself. Now I was beginning to imagine beautiful blondes were passing at me. Ruefully I turned from the girl to examine my reflection in the bar mirror.

Look at you, I told myself. Thirty-two, and you look forty. Why would any woman pass at you?

Dispassionately I studied the lines of disillusionment deeply etched into my face, physical evidence of the spiritual scars I had accumulated during ten years of constant association with the seamy side of life. Why did the muck a cop encountered leave scars on some and roll off the backs of others without leaving a trace, I wondered? Why was I a misanthrope at thirty-two while my partner, Jud Harrison, remained as cheerfully full of high spirits after ten years on the vice squad as he had been as a rookie?

My gaze flicked from my own reflection to that of the girl next to me, meeting her eyes in the mirror. To my surprise her lips curled in a slight smile.

“Admiring yourself?” she asked softly.

I turned from her reflection to the girl herself. She was about twenty-five, I guessed, and as sleek and beautiful as a new Cadillac. From her dress and the diamond brooch at her throat I judged she was equally expensive too.

If she was on the make, why had she picked me, I wondered? On the other side of her sat a smoothly handsome man whose perfectly tailored Palm Beach made my shapeless seersucker suit look like a sack. And dotted along the bar were a half dozen other men who were not only better looking than I, but obviously had more money.

Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I said, “Criticizing myself. I was trying to make up my mind whether to drink myself to death, or just go home and cut my throat.”

The girl moved her eyes sidewise at me. “Come on now. It can’t be that bad.”

Producing a package of cigarettes, I offered her one, but she shook her head.

“Buy you a drink?”

With the same slight smile she had thrown to me in the mirror she indicated the still nearly full highball before her. Running out of conversational subjects, I lapsed into silence.

“We can talk, though,” the girl said. “I’m not a bad listener. Why so down in the mouth? Fight with your wife?”

I shook my head. “I don’t own one. It’s nothing specific. I guess I’m usually down in the mouth.”

“Business troubles?”

I considered. “Maybe you could call it that. Not financial troubles. I’m a cop. Every once in a while I get disgusted with humanity and more disgusted with myself.”

She looked up at me interestedly. “A policeman? I might have guessed that.”

When I raised an eyebrow inquiringly, she said, “You look so strong. And you seem to have that quiet air of authority policemen are supposed to have.”

The girl actually sounded like she admired me, I thought with mild surprise. For a moment I felt a tug of suspicion, but when I studied her guileless face it died away and was replaced by an unaccustomed feeling of expansiveness. I have never been much of a ladies’ man, and it gave me a strangely pleasant feeling to find I could impress a woman as beautiful as this one.

She was no casual barfly, throwing out a line to the first man she encountered in an attempt to make a pickup, I decided. With her looks and her obviously expensive dress, she could get all the men she wanted without cruising the bars. I decided she must be a guest at the hotel, and was merely being friendly.

Noticing her glass was now nearly empty, I asked, “Can I buy you a drink now?”

“All right,” she said agreeably.

Her name was Jacqueline Crosby, she told me over the drink, and she was a dress designer from Chicago. She was in town for two weeks as her company’s representative at the national fashion show. In return I informed her my name was Sam Card and I was a sergeant on the St. Louis morality squad.

By two highballs later we were old friends. Usually alcohol only succeeds in making me more morose, but to my surprise I found that drinking with Jacqueline was making me increasingly cheerful. By eleven o’clock, when she suggested that she had better get to bed because she had to rise early, I was behaving as light-heartedly as though I were my moon-faced partner, Jud Harrison, instead of the morality squad’s eternal sourpuss.

“I live right here at the hotel,” she added. “If you want to take me up to my room, I’ll mix you a nightcap in return for the drinks you bought me.”

Her tone conveyed the barest suggestion of promise that the invitation could mean more than a nightcap. Momentarily it brought my feet back to earth as I again wondered what motive so beautiful a woman could have in scraping acquaintance with a mere cop. Then I decided that questioning motives was probably one of the reasons I had missed many of the pleasures in life, and rose to follow her without a care in the world.

Jacqueline had a suite, not just a room, I discovered when she keyed open her door and I followed her into a large sitting room. She left me there while she went on into the bedroom, and I could hear her phoning down for ice.

Then she called, “Get the door when the boy brings ice, will you, Sam? I want to change into something more comfortable.”

That did it. Up till then my opinion of Jacqueline had been swaying back and forth between regarding her merely as an impersonally friendly female and a woman on the make. But the corny line about getting into something more comfortable crystallized it. I was now suddenly sure that from the moment she sat down on the bar stool next to me, she had intended me to bring her to her suite and make love to her.

With a mixture of mounting anticipation and puzzlement I wondered if after a lifetime of being ignored by women, I had suddenly become irresistible. Walking over to a wall mirror, I studied my lace again, but it didn’t look any more like the answer to a maiden’s prayers than it had in the bar mirror downstairs.

A knock came at the door, I opened it and traded the white-coated boy in the hall a quarter for a bowl of ice. I had barely closed the door behind him when Jacqueline came from the bedroom.

More comfortable, she had said, and she had changed into about as comfortable a garment as you can imagine short of bare skin. She wore a lace negligee so filmy it was all but transparent. And beneath it there was nothing but the pink and white of her flesh. She wore nothing else.

She was even barefoot.

I watched in astonishment as she removed a bottle, siphon and two glasses from a small liquor cabinet and mixed two highballs. If there had been any lingering doubts in my mind as to what she wanted of me, that negligee would have halted them.

But why so lovely a woman would have picked me out of all the men in the Jefferson bar, I could not imagine.

The thought occurred to me that perhaps I was intended to be the victim of a badger game, but I instantly discarded it as inconceivable the girl would be stupid enough to attempt that stunt on a man she knew to be a cop.

When she neared to within two feet of me in order to hand me my drink, and the bright light of the lamp next to me penetrated her thin garment to expose her firm pink-tipped breasts as clearly as though she were naked, I stopped worrying about her motives. Setting down my glass on the mantel without tasting it, I removed hers from her hand, set it next to mine, and took hold of her.

Chapter 2

Approximately an hour later I discovered the reason for Jacqueline’s concentrated play for me. We were back in the sitting room by then, and I had dumped the tepid contents of our highball glasses and mixed two fresh drinks. Jacqueline sat on the sofa watching me mix them, her bare feet tucked up under her and the flimsy negligee wrapped around her so tightly it outlined her figure like a coating of cellophane.

When I passed over her drink, she patted the place next to her on the sofa in indication for me to sit down. I shook my head and looked at her without smiling.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what, Sam?”

“Why everything? Why did you bring me up here? What do you want?”

Her smooth forehead puckered in a frown. “You mean you think there’s an angle?”

“I don’t think I’m irresistible,” I told her. “For thirty-two years women hardly give me a second glance. Then the most beautiful woman I ever saw takes one look at me and goes completely overboard. Forgive my cynicism, but I’m not exactly a dunce. There has to be an angle.”

“Maybe you’re just being modest.”

“All right,” I said. “I’m irresistible.”

I chained my drink in one swallow and set down the empty glass.

“I’ll phone you tomorrow,” I said, and started toward the door.

“Wait, Sam!”

When I stopped and turned, she said softly, “Aren’t you even going to kiss me goodnight?”

“Sure. After you tell me the angle.”

She sighed. “You make it very difficult, Sam. You make me feel like... like some kind of prostitute. Like I’m trading myself for a favor. And it isn’t that way at all. I could have just asked the favor without ever leaving the bar.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said.

My voice sounded weary in my own ears. One more scar to add to my collection. Even though I had known it all along, hearing her admit it was not solely my personal attraction which made her throw herself at me did something to my ego. I suddenly experienced the vaguely unclean feeling I imagine a man gets when he hands a pro her fee.

Then the explanation spilled out of her in a rush, as though she wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

“I knew who you were before I sat next to you downstairs,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you since yesterday. Only I didn’t want to contact you at headquarters. I had a friend with a connection downtown get me your home address, and I talked to your landlady on the phone. She told me you frequently spent off-duty time at the Jefferson bar, so today I checked in here to watch for you. I had been staying at the Statler, you see. I had a waiter point you out, and then I deliberately struck up an acquaintance.”

When she paused to get her breath, I asked, “Why?”

“The day before yesterday you arrested a girl named Minnie Joy for soliciting. At least, that’s the name she’s booked under. It isn’t her real name.”

“What is her real name?”

“Minerva Crosby,” Jacqueline said in a low voice. “She’s my older sister.”

I looked at her in astonishment. “Your sister is a hustler?”

She blushed clear down to her shoulders. “She ran away ten years ago,” she said breathlessly. “Our parents are dead and she couldn’t get along with the uncle who raised us. My uncle didn’t know it, but I’ve been corresponding with her ever since she ran away. She used to write me that she was a model, and it wasn’t until I came to St. Louis for this fashion show and looked her up that I discovered what she really was. And then before I could do anything about it, you arrested her. I want to help her, Sam. I want to take her back to Chicago with me and get her a decent job. But first I want to get her out of this jam.”

For a long while I merely regarded her curiously. Then I asked, “How?”

“Her case is set for the day after tomorrow. You’ll have to testify as the arresting officer. Couldn’t you say... I mean couldn’t you somehow fix it...?”

When her voice trailed off, I said dryly, “You mean give false evidence?”

“Well, it isn’t as though Min were a bad girl,” she said defensively. “She just hasn’t had the breaks.”

“This is her third tumble,” I said in the same dry voice. “There’s lots of work available for women her age these days, and there isn’t a reason in the world she has to make her living the way she does. I’m sorry she’s your sister, but she’s a chronic and hopeless delinquent.”

“I can pay you,” she said eagerly. Jumping from the sofa, she crossed to where she had thrown her purse onto a chair, unclasped it and withdrew a roll as thick as my wrist.

“I’m willing to give you five hundred dollars to get Min off,” she said, peeling fifty-dollar bills off the roll as she advanced on me. “Here.” She attempted to thrust them into my hand. The negligee she had forgotten about, and it hung wide open. Not that it made much difference, since it failed to conceal anything anyway.

A little roughly, I pushed her away. “Look, baby, if you want to help your sister, don’t go around trying to bribe cops. Show up in court and tell the judge your plans for rehabilitation. Maybe he’ll parole her to your custody.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. It would ruin me in the fashion field if anyone discovered my sister was a... was a... that kind of woman. Please take the money.”

In a definite tone I said, “I’m not a smart cop, Jacqueline, and maybe I’m not such a hot lover, but I’ve got one attribute I intend to hang onto. I’m an honest cop. I don’t take bribes and I wouldn’t lie in court to save my own mother from the gas chamber. Let’s drop the subject.”

She stood looking up at me, the bunched mass of fifties in one hand and the rest of the roll in the other. Her breasts rose and fell with her strained breathing.

“Now I’ll kiss you goodnight,” I said.

Without touching her with my hands, I leaned forward and planted a paternal kiss on her forehead. She was still standing there motionless when I slammed the door behind me.

Minnie Joy’s case wasn’t scheduled until the day after, but the next morning I had to be in police court to testify in another case. My partner, Jud Harrison, had a case that morning too, so after I finished my own business, I waited for him.

Jud was not only my partner, but my best friend. We were rookies together, made plain-clothes at the same time and worked together right on down the line. I don’t make friends easily; in fact, I know I have a reputation in the department as a kind of hard guy to get along with.

But Jud and I were buddies. We made a strange combination: I’m rather morose and withdrawn and Jud’s as jolly as a department-store Santa Claus, but perhaps the reason we hit it off so well was that we complemented each other. We were as close as brothers.

Jud’s case was a second offender booked under the name of Jean Darling. Rather boredly I listened to his testimony that the woman had approached him at the corner of Sixth and Locust and asked if he was interested in a little fun, whereupon he had arrested her for soliciting. She was represented by an attorney, and with only half my attention I was conscious that the lawyer was cross-examining Jud.

My attention perked up when Jud’s moonlike face grew embarrassed as he admitted the woman had not asked for money. He started to explain that he had jumped the gun before she could ask because he recognized her as a previous offender, but the defense lawyer cut him off. Brusquely the judge dismissed the charge for lack of evidence.

As we crossed the street together from the Municipal Courts Building to headquarters, I said, “How come an old hand like you loused up a case? You might have known that one wouldn’t stand up.”

“Just a bad day, I guess,” he muttered, still slightly red in the face.

But a moment later he was his usual breezy self. “What you got planned for tonight, Gloomy? Anything special?”

“No. Why?”

“Let’s do a little celebrating. Dinner at the Statler, a few drinks and a couple of floor shows.”

“Two days before pay day? You must be nuts.”

“On me, I mean,” he said. “It’s an invitation, Sad-eyes.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Your rich uncle die?”

“I hit a horse,” he said jubilantly.

Producing his wallet, he opened it to show me a stack of bills.

“Fifty on the nose at ten to one,” he chortled. “Five hundred solid iron men.”

Chapter 3

When we checked in at room 404, where the morality squad hangs out, Lieutenant Boxer told us he had a character in the show-up room he wanted us to look at.

The man he wanted us to look over was a lank, sallow-faced individual of about forty, clad in a perfectly tailored gabardine suit which must have cost him as much as I earn in a month. From the lighted front of the room he peered out at his shadowy audience with an expression of amused contempt on his face.

“Who is he?” I asked.

Lieutenant Boxer said in a quiet voice, “Monk Cartelli.”

“The Chicago hood?” Jud and I asked in surprised chorus. Then, by himself, Jud inquired uneasily, “What’s he doing in town?”

“We’ve got a stoolie tip that the syndicate is trying to muscle in on St. Louis, and Monk is the advance man,” the lieutenant said. “The chief ordered him brought in for everybody to look over so we can stop him cold before he starts. We can’t hold him on anything because he hasn’t yet done anything we know about, and the chief doesn’t want to order him out of town because he’s afraid the syndicate would just substitute some other organizer we don’t know. He wants him turned loose, then hemmed in so closely he can’t make a move we don’t know about. He thinks if we can convince the syndicate it’s hopeless, they’ll give St. Louis up as a bad job.”

I said, “I get around, and I haven’t heard any whispers of syndicate activity.”

“They’re not beating a brass drum,” Lieutenant Boxer told me. “Apparently it’s a very quiet operation. Our stoolie tip says they’re just feeling around to start, sounding out sentiment among local racketeers, seeing how a few picked political candidates respond to offers of campaign contributions, maybe trying to buy a few cops here and there just to see if St. Louis cops can be bought. Incidentally, that’s one of the things the chief wants every man on the force to watch for. Any strangers who feel you out to see if you’re willing to do some minor favor for a fee, play along until you get the whole pitch, then let me know at once. We’re not at all sure how this bunch operates, so be on your toes for anything at all out of the way. And report it the minute you get it.”

“Yes, sir,” we both said.

Later, as both Jud and I sat at our desks catching up on reports, the lieutenant’s words kept going through my mind. “Be on your toes for anything at all out of the way,” he had said. Jacqueline Crosby’s offer of five hundred dollars to change my testimony against her sister was certainly out of the way, but I could hardly reconcile it with syndicate operations.

It had not even occurred to me to report her offer as a bribe attempt. Ordinarily if I were offered a bribe, I wouldn’t even bother to refuse it. I would simply drop my arm on the briber’s shoulder, march him off to headquarters and enter a charge of attempted bribery. But Jacqueline’s offer came under rather peculiar circumstances. I incline to interpret the law rather rigidly, but even to my mind it would be sticking a little too close to the letter of the law to haul in a woman on a bribery charge because in an hysterical moment she went overboard to get her sister out of a jam.

Then too, I would have had to be a little less than human to arrest Jacqueline for offering me money to fix a minor charge only minutes after she had been in my arms.

But the more I thought about it, the more clearly it dawned on me that Jacqueline Crosby had gone about offering her bribe in the only way that was absolutely safe for her if the bribe was refused. I wondered if she had deliberately planned it that way, knowing that no cop, regardless of how strict a sense of duty he had, would take any more drastic action than turning her down after the intimate hour we had spent together.

Abruptly I shoved aside my reports, muttered something unintelligible to Jud’s question as to where I was going, and went up the hall to room 406.

The card on Minnie Joy gave her birth date as 1920 and the place of birth as Blytheville, Arkansas. That proved nothing, of course, as the data would have been taken from Minnie herself, and she might have lied for any number of reasons. On the other hand, criminals who change their names seldom bother to fake such statistics as place of birth. If Jacqueline Crosby was from Chicago, as she said, it was still possible that she had an older sister born in Blytheville, Arkansas, but I began to worry about it a little.

There was no indication on the card that Minnie Joy was an alias, but again that meant nothing. Few prostitutes went under their own names.

Actually there was nothing in the record which tended to substantiate the blonde Jacqueline’s claim that Minnie Joy was her older sister, but there was nothing there to disprove the claim either.

I studied Minnie’s picture, summoned up a mental image of the woman herself, and decided there was no family resemblance between the two women at all.

I went back to room 404 and had a confidential talk with Lieutenant Boxer. When the head of the morality squad had heard my story and my interpretation of what the story meant, he took me up to the fifth floor for a private session with the chief.

The chief listened without interruption until I had finished.

Then he said, “You think this woman may have been a syndicate plant, eh, Card? I don’t quite get it. Why all the elaborate preliminaries? If they just wanted to sound you out to discover whether you’d be susceptible to bribes when they got ready to go into operation, why couldn’t she just have hinted around at the bar without dragging you off to her room? I can’t quite see your theory that she wanted to create a situation where it wouldn’t occur to you to arrest her. The way you describe it, she finally made the offer, baldly laying it on the line and even trying to thrust the money into your hand, she laid herself wide open to a bribery charge in case you weren’t as chivalrous as she hoped. She could have hinted around at the bar just enough to find out how you stood without actually making it definite enough to get herself in trouble.”

That hadn’t occurred to me, which is probably why I’m a sergeant instead of chief of police.

Rather foolishly I said, “I don’t know, sir.”

“Think you could still take her up on her offer without rousing her suspicion?” he asked.

“I could try.”

“What is this case she wanted you to fix?”

“Solicitation. An old pro. This is her third fall.”

“Probably sixty days, eh? Ninety at the most. Well, she’s going to get a break. Go along with this Crosby woman all the way. Accept the money and change your testimony in court just enough to get the charge dismissed. Can you do that without making it obvious?”

“Sure, Chief.”

“Then we’ll sit back and see what happens. If the woman is actually what she claims, there’s no particular harm done. Maybe she can rehabilitate her sister, and we’ll figure out some way to return her five hundred dollars. But if she’s working with the syndicate, you ought to hear from her again. Keep Lieutenant Boxer informed of developments. All right. That’s all, Sergeant.”

I left with Lieutenant Boxer.

When we got back to room 404 Jud Harrison watched curiously as I called the Jefferson and asked for Miss Jacqueline Crosby’s suite.

When he raised an eyebrow at me, I merely shook my head.

After a moment Jacqueline answered, but she didn’t sound very enthusiastic when she discovered who was calling.

“Any chance of seeing you again?” I asked.

Her laugh was a trifle brittle. “After the way we parted? I don’t believe so, Sergeant.”

“Last night it was Sam,” I said. “I’ve been thinking things over, and maybe we can get together on that deal after all.”

She said cautiously, “What made you change your mind?”

“Last night I was sore,” I said. “I wasn’t even thinking about the deal. All I could think of was that I thought I was making a big conquest, then all of a sudden you told me the whole thing happened because you wanted a favor. I guess my ego was hurt. Today I’m over the hurt.”

“I see.” There was a lengthy silence as she thought things over. Finally she said in a more friendly voice, “When do you want to see me, Sam?”

By the wall clock I saw it was only eleven-thirty. “How about before lunch? I’m only a couple of blocks from there. I’ll stop by now if it’s O.K.”

“I’ll be waiting,” she said softly.

When I hung up, Jud said, “We going somewhere?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We can grab some lunch after I make this stop, then make our rounds instead of coming back to the office.”

Chapter 4

Jacqueline was wearing a red hostess gown this time. Though it was not transparent, in its own way it was just as revealing as last night’s negligee. It was cut low enough to expose the cleft between her round breasts, and the upper part fitted like a coat of paint down to below her hips. From there on down it flared outward in multiple pleats, which effectively concealed her lovely legs. She met me at the door with a kiss, then leaned backward to look up into my face, which movement simultaneously happened to thrust forward the zipper clasp between her breasts so that I couldn’t fail to see it. The zipper, I noted, ran clear down the front of her gown to her ankles, but I managed to resist the obvious invitation.

“My partner’s waiting for me downstairs,” I said. “I can’t stay.”

She looked a little disappointed.

“About your sister,” I suggested.

“Minnie Joy? Will you really help her, Sam?”

I said I would do what I could. She was across to her purse and had that thick roll in her hands again almost before I got the words out.

Just to see what would happen, I said, “You don’t have to pay me, Jacqueline. I want to do it just for you.”

“No, Sam. It’s worth it to me. And you will be taking a risk, won’t you? I mean giving false testimony. You ought to have something for that. Take this five hundred. I can afford it.”

I let her stuff the money in my pocket.

“I’ll call you,” I said. “Not tonight, because I’ve got a date with my partner to celebrate a fast horse. Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be free,” she said dubiously. “There are so many evening events connected with this fashion show. Better wait until I can call you at work.”

At the door she gave me a passionate goodbye kiss.

When I rejoined Jud in the hotel lobby, he asked, “What’s the pitch, Sam? Don’t tell me some chippie is trying to operate out of an exclusive joint like this.”

“Hardly,” I told him. “I was just making a personal call. Blonde I met last night.”

“I met a blonde night before last,” he said reminiscently. “Wait till you meet her. She’ll make that gloomy face of yours light up like a neon sign.”

The rest of that day was routine. We followed up a couple of tips on new houses that were supposed to be trying to open up, but drew blanks on both investigations. Late in the afternoon we cruised the bars along Sixth Street, Jud taking one side of the street and I taking the other. In one a girl of about sixteen made a pass at me, but she wasn’t a professional. Apparently she was just a kid looking for a little excitement, and after scaring the pants off her with a lecture, I let her go. Fortunately for the bar, she had only been drinking Coke, so all the bar keep got was a few harsh words about letting minors hang around his place.

Jud didn’t run into anything.

“We’ve got a pretty clean town for a city our size,” Jud remarked as we checked in at 404 just before going off duty. “I’d hate to see the syndicate get a hand hold on St. Louis and do to it what they’ve done to some other places.”

I told him to wait for me while I had a conference with Lieutenant Boxer. From across the room he watched curiously as I handed the lieutenant the money I had received from Jacqueline and gave him a brief report of what had happened.

When I joined Jud again, he asked, “What’s all this secret business between you and the head?”

“A little undercover work I’m doing,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

But the opportunity never came up. Jud took me to the Statler for dinner, on the way to the dining room stopping at the desk and asking to speak to a Miss Maurine Hahn. He looked both disappointed and puzzled when the clerk informed him the woman had checked out the day before without leaving a forwarding address.

“Your blonde?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He gave a small shrug. “Well, I guess she isn’t the only blonde in the world.”

Then we ran into a man from the circuit attorney’s office Jud knew, and with his usual exuberance Jud talked him into joining our party. After dinner we hit a couple of clubs, Jud insisting on picking up all the checks because of his lucky horse hit, and by the time the bars closed at one-thirty we had added a reporter friend of Jud’s and two stray brunettes the reporter knew. Alone I can cruise from bar to bar all night without having anyone but an occasional hustler so much as speak to me, but when Jud celebrates he always accumulates a retinue before the evening is over.

In the general confusion I never did get around to telling him what I had been doing for Lieutenant Boxer.

The next morning in police court I put on my little act for Minnie Joy. Since she had no defense attorney, I spoke to the judge before trial and told him that for reasons of policy connected with another case, the morality squad wanted to quash the charge against Minnie.

“Lieutenant Boxer approve this?” he wanted to know.

“It’s his idea.”

“All right,” he said, and dismissed the case.

Minnie was so surprised, an attendant had to start her toward the door before she realized she was free. Apparently she had no inkling of Jacqueline’s efforts on her behalf.

That evening, disregarding the blonde Jacqueline’s instructions to wait until I heard from her, I phoned the Jefferson.

Miss Jacqueline Crosby had checked out without leaving a forwarding address, the desk informed me.

Two days later she phoned me at headquarters.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“A friend loaned me an apartment,” she said, “so I moved from the hotel. Thanks for what you did for Minnie.”

“Don’t mention it. You made it worthwhile.”

“Busy tonight?”

“No.”

She reeled off an address on Lindell just west of Grand Avenue. “Apartment 3-C. Come about eight and we’ll spend a quiet evening at home.”

Her soft voice was so loaded with promise, I very nearly decided to play it straight and forget reporting this development to the head of the morality squad. But after ten years of practice, it’s a little difficult to go against routine. Dutifully I went over to Lieutenant Boxer’s desk and told him about the phone call.

His eyes narrowed when I mentioned the address. “Interesting,” he said. “You knew the chief was having Monk Cartelli covered, didn’t you?”

“You mentioned he intended to.”

“Well, for your information, the address for your date with your beautiful blonde is the same apartment where Cartelli is holed up.”

In a way this made me even more eager to keep the date, but not for the same reason. It effectively killed any romantic aspirations I had developed because of the promise in Jacqueline’s tone.

I suppose the normal thing for a man to do who has an assignation with a lovely blonde is to adjust his necktie a final time just before he rings the doorbell. Instead I loosened my Detective Special in its holster.

Jacqueline opened the door. For a change she was attired merely in an ordinary dress, and not a particularly sexy one at that. She didn’t offer to kiss me either. However, she gave me an intimate smile as she held the door wide for me to enter.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to find three other men in the room, but I managed to simulate surprise.

I looked from Monk Cartelli, who stood with his back to an artificial fireplace, to the two mugs who sat side by side on the sofa. Both were strangers to me, one long and thin and the other squat and chunky, but they had two things in common. Each had the deadpan expression of the professional killer.

The other thing they had in common was the .45 caliber automatic each leveled at my belt buckle. “What’s the gag?” I asked Jacqueline.

“No gag,” Monk Cartelli smoothly answered for her. “Don’t let the guns worry you. They’re just insurance that you stay quiet until you hear what I have to say. We won’t even inconvenience you by disarming you, Sergeant. Just back against the wall there and keep your arms at your sides.”

With my eyes on the nonchalantly-held .45’s, I did as ordered. Then we waited nearly ten minutes in complete silence. Once, when I started to ask what we were waiting for, Monk silenced me with an imperious gesture. All this time the two hoods watched me unblinkingly, and Jacqueline sat with her hands quietly folded in her lap, apparently perfectly at ease, though her gaze avoided mine.

Finally the door buzzer sounded. Jacqueline rose, went to the door and ushered in my partner, Jud Harrison.

Chapter 5

Just as I had, Jud gaped at the other occupants of the apartment in surprise, but his surprise seemed genuine. A sick feeling grew inside of me as I realized something that I suppose, in a way, I’d known unconsciously all along — that Jud’s five hundred dollars had not come from a horse bet.

“Is this your Maurine Hahn from the Statler?” I asked him cynically, nodding at Jacqueline.

His eyes flicked at the blonde, then back to me. “Yeah. What the devil you doing here, Sam?”

“The same thing you are, sucker. Only the name she gave me was Jacqueline Crosby and her supposed sister’s name was Minnie Joy. I suppose she told you that other hustler you got off in court the other day was her sister.”

Cartelli broke up further conversation by ordering Jud to stand against the wall next to me.

“I don’t want any violence, gentlemen,” he said. “As soon as you’ve listened to a couple of recordings and heard what I have to say, I’ll order my men to put up their guns. By that time I think you will have sufficiently come around to my point of view so that they won’t be necessary. Meantime I prefer to prevent argument by keeping you under control.”

Crossing to a small table containing a phonograph, Cartelli switched the machine on.

For a few seconds there was only a dull scratching sound, then what was unmistakably my voice said, “About your sister.”

“Minnie Joy?” Jacqueline’s voice said. “Will you really help her, Sam?”

Relentlessly the record continued to reel off the conversation which had taken place between me and the blonde in her hotel suite until it reached the point where Jacqueline said, “No, Sam. It’s worth it to me. And you will be taking a risk, won’t you? I mean giving false testimony. You ought to have something for that. Take this five hundred. I can afford it.”

Then Cartelli shut it off. Replacing the record with another, he turned on the machine again. This one played an almost identical scene, except that Jud’s voice was substituted for mine and the case the blonde was bribing him to fix involved a woman named Jean Darling instead of Minnie Joy.

When Monk Cartelli shut off the second record, there was a long silence in the room.

I broke it by asking without emotion, “How many other cops have you suckered into this deal?”

“No cops,” the syndicate organizer said smugly. “We netted a young assistant in the circuit attorney’s office, though, plus a young fellow in the coroner’s office. We aren’t rushing things. We’re just lining up a few people at a time.”

Next to me Jud said worriedly, “What is this deal, Sam?”

“We’ve been set up,” I told him in a cold voice. “I guess we both thought we were making an easy and safe five hundred. But it was a trap. Those records mailed to the police commissioner not only would get us bounced off the force, they’d land us in jail. The chief thought the syndicate might be feeling around to see who’d be susceptible to bribery, but apparently plans were a little more definite than that. Cartelli here is lining up cops and other officials in strategic spots who will have to take orders from the syndicate. We’re hooked, Jud. We might as well face it.”

Jud’s face was sweating. “Listen,” he said, “just because I agreed to get this blonde’s sister off the hook for a fee doesn’t mean I’m willing to play along with the syndicate.”

“Rather go to jail?” Cartelli asked idly.

Jud stared at him. The bitterness grew in me almost unbearably when I saw his face begin to go to pieces.

“What do you want of us?” I asked Cartelli harshly.

“Just your unquestioning future cooperation, for which you’ll be paid more than you ever earned before.”

“Why us?” I demanded. “We’re just a couple of unimportant cops. Why didn’t you pick on a few division heads?”

“We plan on both you men being division heads before we’re through, Sergeant. We’re just beginning to organize. When we have helped into office the officials we want, we’ll be in a position to dictate appointments and promotions in the police department. We plan long in advance, and we may not reach that point for several years. But when we do, we want men we know will cooperate. Both of you have everything to gain by being picked by the syndicate. A few years from now one of you will head the morality squad and the other will probably head one of the other squads. And what we pay you on the side will make your salaries look like peanuts.”

Jud’s expression gradually grew calmer as the syndicate organizer spoke. When Cartelli stopped, Jud looked at me questioningly, and the mixture of thoughtfulness and cupidity in his eyes made me even sicker than his panic a while before.

“You might as well tell your men to put their guns up,” I told Cartelli wearily.

Monk looked from me to Jud in an estimating way, then nodded to the two hoods, who obediently thrust their guns under their arms.

“I guess we’ll have to go along, won’t we, Sam?” Jud asked. “I mean, we haven’t much choice, have we?”

“You haven’t,” I told him. “But I happen to be a plant. The department knows all about the bribe I took.”

As I spoke I flashed my hand to my hip and came up with a cocked Detective Special.

“You’re all under arrest,” I said in a brittle voice.

Jud gaped at me. “You... you’re a department plant, Sam? But... but how about me?”

“You should have thought of that before you took a bribe, Jud.”

I said gently, “Get their guns.”

“Listen,” he said. “You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”

“You took an oath when you became a cop,” I told him. “The minute you violated that oath, you stopped being my friend and became a crooked cop. I’m sorry, Jud, but you’re going in too.”

His hand stole toward his hip.

“Hold it,” I advised him, shifting my gun in his direction.

With my attention momentarily on Jud, the two hoods decided to make a break. As their hands streaked toward their armpits, I started to swing back toward them.

Jud’s shoulder caught me in the hip and sent me sprawling.

All hell broke loose.

Both gunmen’s .45’s roared simultaneously and plaster spewed from the wall. I took my time with two shots and knocked the squat man back to the couch with my first. The second caught the taller gunman in the forehead and he dropped like a stone.

Monk Cartelli had crouched behind an overstuffed chair, and now a shot crashed from that direction. Jud, still on his feet, slammed back against the wall, slid to the floor and from a seated position sent five slugs at the chair. Cartelli jerked erect and pitched over on his back.

Slowly I climbed to my feet and surveyed the damage.

Both gunmen and Cartelli were dead. The blonde cowered in a corner, unharmed but green with fright. Ordering her to stay there, I looked at Jud.

He had taken Cartelli’s single shot squarely in the chest. He was done and he knew it. Even as I watched, blood began to dribble from the corner of his mouth.

“Sam,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Sam.” Then with an effort, “The record...”

Crossing to the phonograph, I lifted the record which proved my partner a dishonest cop, broke it in my hands into a dozen pieces and tossed the pieces out the third-floor window into the street.

“You can go out clean, Jud,” I said.

He was dead before I finished the sentence.

To the blonde I said harshly, “One charge of bribery is enough to take care of you. Would you like to mention my partner Jud to anybody, and get yourself an extra year?”

She shook her head, her eyes wide and terrified.

Then she said, “Sam, you liked me a lot that — that other, night. Can’t you — isn’t there some way you can give me a break?”

I looked at her for a long minute before replying. “Sure, babe, sure,” I said finally. “I can give you a break. I’ll take you down to the can just the way you are, instead of stopping first to kick your teeth down your throat.” Then I pushed her away from me and went to the phone.