Three Strikes You're Dead

Chapter 11

As the Lake Street El rattled and swayed eastward from Oak Park through the spring darkness toward the twinkling lights of the Loop skyscrapers, I took stock of the Martindale situation.

Scenario Number One (the Police and Newspaper Theory): The crime syndicate had Lloyd Martindale killed to eliminate him from the mayoral picture, fearing that if elected, he would mount a drive to shut down every form of vice racier than church bingo. The major flaw in this theory was that even in the unlikely event that Martindale had got himself elected, he would never have been able to slice through enough layers of institutionalized corruption — including police, aldermen, ward heelers, and Satan knows who else — to accomplish much, if anything. To me a second although less-compelling flaw was Al Capone’s insistence, relayed to me from Alcatraz none too gently by his presumed loyalists, that the mob was clean on the Martindale hit. When I had seen him in Atlanta, Capone had told me the same thing about the Lingle killing, and I didn’t buy that for an instant; but in this situation, Capone seemed to have little to gain by lying. And as far as I could tell, the syndicate also had little to gain from Martindale’s death. In fact, if anything, increased attention and public outcry were being aimed at them because of the murder. And the last thing the businesslike Frank Nitti wanted for the organization he now ruled was the klieg light of notoriety.

Scenario Number Two (the erstwhile Malek Theory): The Democratic Party was behind the murder. Other than Kilkenny’s praise for him and my own instincts, I didn’t know enough about Dick Daley to trust him completely, but Steel Trap Bascomb already had begun to confirm Daley’s information regarding Martindale and his apparent sexual penchant for children.

Okay, I was never really strong on my theory, anyway. Like the syndicate, the Democrats didn’t have a lot to gain by knocking Martindale off. They figured to win City Hall again in ’39, and by killing the reformer they would run the risk of turning him into a martyr, not to mention possibly stampeding an outraged electorate toward the eventual Republican candidate.

Scenario Number Three (the New Malek Theory, with an assist by Dick Daley): Martindale’s past sins had come home to roost, with fatal results. The more I thought about this one, the more it made sense, although... where to begin? Daley had told me that no arrest records existed on Martindale, and therefore no victims’ names, no dates, no places. I was ready to take that on faith, given that the Democrats’ investigator in all likelihood had researched it thoroughly. And what little I’d seen of State Representative Daley was enough to persuade me that I’d never get him to reveal the investigator’s identity.

I briefly toyed with going to Fergus Fahey to see what he could — or would — dredge up from contacts within the department, but I nixed the idea as fast as I’d gotten it. For one thing, some twenty-five years ago the elder Martindale apparently bought off some number of police, among others. And Fahey, although essentially honest, was above all loyal to the force and would never feed me anything that would reflect badly on it. Also, this was shaping up as my story and nobody else’s, and I didn’t want to risk letting other reporters get their long noses under the tent, which might well happen if word got around to the current crop of reporters that Martindale had a sordid past.

As my train clattered above the Loop streets and I rose to exit and change for a northbound car on Clark Street, I was forced to conclude that at least now I would have to bide my time and hope that, with prodding from his daughter, Steel Trap Bascomb’s memory would revive. That happened sooner than I expected.

Three days after my visit to Oak Park, I was in the Headquarters pressroom firing up a Lucky just after lunch when I got a call from Catherine Reed.

“Steve?” She pronounced the name as though still unsure that she should be so familiar.

“Hello, Catherine,” I replied, placing the conversation solidly on a first-name basis. “How’s your father?”

“Well... that’s why I’m phoning. The last couple of days, I’ve been asking him things about... what we discussed the other night. And he’s remembered some more, quite a bit more, in fact.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I answered, keeping my voice low and cupping the mouthpiece.

“Yes. I thought you would be. I also thought you might like to come to dinner. You can either talk to Daddy about it when you come or... if he’s having one of his bad times, I’ve, well, I’ve been taking some notes.”

“That’s a very nice offer. When did you have in mind?”

She paused, and I could hear her inhale. “Well, I know that you’re probably very busy, but I was thinking that maybe tonight... that is, if...”

“Catherine, it just so happens that tonight would suit me fine, if you don’t mind eating until after 6:30, which as you know is the earliest I could probably get there, although I’ll shoot for 6:15.”

The three of us sat at the thick-legged mahogany dining room table tying into Catherine’s Yankee pot roast. Steel Trap’s mind might have slipped, but it was nice to see that his appetite hadn’t, and there was nothing wrong with his table manners either. At Catherine’s whispered suggestion when I arrived, I held off asking the old reporter any questions until after we’d finished dinner.

“He doesn’t like to talk while he’s eating nowadays,” she said as she hung my raincoat in the hall closet, “and yet in the old days, he’d chatter about work all the way through dinner, practically nonstop. Now it’s as if there isn’t room in his mind to do both at once.”

I handed her the small bouquet of carnations that I had picked up at a florist in the Loop and told her I liked her dress, a pink number that looked to be the same style as the blue one she had worn on my earlier visit. She lowered her eyes, thanking me softly for both the flowers and the compliment as I pondered whether she was coquettish or just shy. I settled on the latter, maybe because that’s the way I wanted it to be.

Steel Trap had acknowledged me with a muttered “Howyadoin?” and a vague wave as we began eating. Catherine was right about her father’s table conversation — it was nonexistent. She held up her end though, asking me about current news stories in Chicago, including the kidnapping of a car full of socialites in front of the Drake Towers, where they were robbed of money and jewelry and released unharmed, and of the fistfight between two drunken police sergeants in a North Side precinct house that spilled out into the street and drew a crowd of cheering neighbors (formal investigation pending).

I put color and detail into my commentary about these and a couple of other newsy, crime-related events, and although Steel Trap made no comments, he nodded several times as he ate and seemed to follow the conversation with interest.

I got gladder by the minute that Catherine had been taking notes on her father’s recollections the last few days, as I now despaired of getting anything substantial from the man face-to-face. But he fooled me.

After dinner, we retired to the sitting room, with Steel Trap dropping into the stuffed chair he had occupied when I saw him three days ago. Also as before, I drew up the chair opposite as Catherine came in with coffee for each of us. She then nodded in my direction, which I took to be a cue to start in on him.

“Well, Steel Trap,” I said after taking a sip, “have you been thinking about Lloyd Martindale?”

He made a sort of snorting noise and threw up his arms, almost knocking his coffee cup off the end table. “Goddamn pervert!”

“Sure sounds like it,” I said as Catherine rose from her chair and slipped around behind me to move the endangered cup farther from his elbow. “Did you ever report on what he did?”

Another snort, or whatever it was. “Huh! Tried, but that rich prick father put the lid on. Payoffs, payoffs, all over.”

“Did the Martindales try to buy you off?”

That drew a wheezing laugh. “Nah, didn’t hafta, Chrissake. Got to the bosses.”

“Your bosses?”

“Everybody’s bosses. Cops... editors... everybody. Lotsa dough. Lots. Spread around.”

“Uh-huh. Do you know how many children Martindale messed around with?”

The tongue clicking began. He drank coffee, set the cup down deliberately, and sat back, lacing his hands over his stomach. “Ask him again,” Catherine prompted.

“Steel Trap, stay with me on this. Do you know how many children Martindale did things to?”

More clicking as he came forward in his chair. “Two, maybe more. Two, yeah, two.”

“Do you know who they were?”

“Two, ’least two.” He leaned back again, nodding slowly.

“Boy or girls, Steel Trap?” I persisted.

“Both. Yeah, both.”

I turned to Catherine. “Am I losing him?” I asked.

“I think you should keep trying,” she urged. “Actually, you’re doing at least as well as I did over more than two days. He responds to you.”

If this was what she called responding, I began to realize just how difficult her life with the old guy must be. “Do you remember who those children were?” I asked him, spacing the words and giving each equal stress, as though I were talking to a four-year-old.

“Girl nex’ door,” he slurred. “Little girl.”

“Next door to Martindale?”

He nodded — at least it seemed like a nod — and drank more coffee. “Nex’ door. Bastard.”

“Do you remember the girl’s name?”

He shook his head and closed his eyes.

“And was there a boy?”

Steel Trap kept his eyes closed but started making that clicking noise again with his tongue. “Yeah, a boy. Older’n the girl.”

“Was he a neighbor, too?” I prompted. His eyes stayed closed, but there was no more tongue noise, just deep, slow breathing. “What do you think now?” I asked Catherine, who had risen silently and was standing next to my chair.

“He’s tired. But all in all you caught him at a good time. For some reason, he talks more after dinner than at any other time of the day — if he’s not listening to the radio, that is. I know it probably didn’t seem like much to you, but for him, this is talkative, believe me. If you want to go into the front room, I can give you what Daddy has said to me the last few days.”

We carried our coffee cups into the living room, leaving Steel Trap with whatever dreams he was able to enjoy in a mind that was all but used up.

“All right,” Catherine said, clearing her throat as she sat next to me on the davenport and opened a small spiral notebook. “Daddy mentioned the little girl to me, too, and he told me she lived next door to the Martindales, which you also just heard. I asked what her name was, and he said something like ‘Kiki;’ he repeated it two or three times. But he couldn’t remember, or didn’t know, a last name.”

“Did he recall who the boy was?”

She nodded, studying a page in her notebook. “It was ‘Chess’ or something like that, but again, no last name.”

“Did he say where Martindale lived in those days?”

“No. I asked him that, too, but got no response at all from him. I tried three or four times.”

“That’s okay. Seems like I read in his obit that he grew up down in Beverly Hills, which would figure, given that it’s the nicest area out south, and his father had that big mill down in South Chicago. Anyway, I can find that out easily enough.”

“Steve, I’m truly amazed that Daddy could remember all that he did about an event that so many people were trying to hush up.”

“I’m not amazed at all. From everything I know or have heard about him, your father was one hell of a reporter, one hell of a digger. And he had great sources all over town: cops at every level, from patrolmen right on up to the commissioner, as well as probably aldermen, judges, bailiffs, bondsmen, and so on. In a situation like Martindale’s, no matter how much his old man tried to keep the lid on, there were bound to be more leaks than a rusty bucket — and your father likely would have found them all. Although he probably paid for a few drinks now and then and laid on a few bucks in the right places to help those leaks get bigger.”

“Do you really mean Daddy would have done that — pay people, I mean?” She looked doubtful.

I raised my shoulders and let them drop. “Just about everybody else did, and just about everybody still does. Why not?”

Now it was Catherine’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know. I just suppose I always thought all you reporters were somehow...”

“Above greasing a few palms or maybe wetting a few whistles to get some information?”

She colored slightly. “Well, Daddy never mentioned anything like that. I guess I just never realized how things really worked in his world.”

“He probably wouldn’t have mentioned it,” I said gently. “It’s not something any of us like to go around bragging about. But on occasion, it’s the only way to loosen tongues and get the story.”

“Oh, I know you’re right,” she sighed, closing the notebook and resting a palm on it. “I didn’t mean to go sounding like some sort of prude. It’s just that I’ve always sort of idealized Daddy.”

“And with good reason, Catherine. To repeat what I told you when I came here the other night, from all I’ve heard and from what little I’ve seen first-hand, your father was the classic reporter — tough, fair, honest, and accurate to a fault.” I might have been laying it on a little thick, but there was enough truth in what I said about Steel Trap Bascomb to keep me from feeling like a liar.

“And look at him now, poor man,” she whispered, inclining her head in the direction of the sitting room. “He can barely speak a complete sentence, let alone remember what happened yesterday. Or even an hour ago.”

“Has he had a stroke?”

“No, Steve, not according to the doctors. They’ve told me there’s nothing very physically wrong with him, other than old age and its usual ailments. Daddy’s seventy-one, which isn’t young, but they say his heart’s still strong, and his other organs seem to be in good shape, too. And he was never that much of a drinker, unlike a lot of the men he worked with. For him, it was just a bootleg beer now and then.”

“Well, he sure hasn’t lost his appetite,” I observed.

“Oh, no, he eats as much as he ever did. And we take a walk together around the neighborhood most days, which really isn’t difficult for him — he enjoys it. It’s just that he’s senile, and the doctors say there’s nothing that can be done about that.” She put her palms to her mouth and shook her head in a gesture of helplessness.

“Well, it’s good that he’s got you to look after him.”

“I really don’t mind it,” she said, sitting up straight. “Are you terribly disappointed that you didn’t learn more from him tonight?”

Now I did lie. “Not at all, no. I’ve got a few things to go on now — it’s a real good start,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel.

“Steve, I realize that I don’t know you very well, so maybe I’m being presumptuous, but I want to ask you something.”

“You don’t strike me as the presumptuous type. By all means, ask.”

She sucked on her lower lip and did the looking-around-the-room routine. “You seem to be very sure that Lloyd Martindale was not murdered by the crime syndicate, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. I’m more than sure, I’m positive. But I think you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I guess I did, but that’s not really my question,” she said. “What I wonder is, why are you so intent on finding out who really did kill Martindale? Why not just let it go? What’s the harm in letting the world think that the syndicate really was behind the murder? Heaven knows, they’ve committed enough others that they’ve gotten away with.”

I leaned forward and gently laid a hand on her arm. “This could be a big story. So far, it’s my story, nobody else’s, and I intend to keep it that way. Catherine, these last few years have not been all that good for me, either in my personal life or on the job. That’s a tale I won’t bore you with, other than to say that I’m the cause of most of my own problems. But now, I may have a chance to come back in a big way.”

“At whose expense?”

“How do you mean?”

“You think one of those children — of course they wouldn’t be children any more — that Martindale messed with may have killed him, don’t you?”

“Well... I believe there’s a good chance.”

Now she squeezed my arm. “Assuming that’s true, don’t you think that he, or maybe she, has suffered enough through the years?”

“Murder is murder,” I said, realizing as soon as the words were out just how pompous I must have sounded.

“Once something... something like that... happens to a person, it changes everything about how they think and feel... and, well, almost everything about them,” she said haltingly, her eyes down. “I know.”

“Catherine, what are you telling me?”

She wouldn’t look at me. “Right here... in this house.”

“My God. You mean...” I gestured toward the sitting room, where Steel Trap presumably slumbered.

“Oh, no Steve, no! Not Daddy. Don’t think that for a moment. It was my uncle, Daddy’s older brother, who...” She proceeded to haltingly tell me how, when she was in grade school and her parents took camping trips to Wisconsin, her bachelor uncle would move into the house to watch after her. Except that what he did was far more than watch after her.

“Did you ever tell your parents?” I asked after she had stumbled through her tale of horror.

“Lord, no, I couldn’t have! Daddy and Mother both thought Uncle Paul was a wonderful person. It would have broken their hearts.”

“To say nothing of what it did to you. How long did this go on? Or would you rather not say any more?”

She took two deep breaths. “No — it’s all right. It was years before I got over it, if I ever really have. I never told my husband, of course, but he knew that something was wrong with me because I was never very good at... you know what I mean.”

“I think so.”

“That was a big part of why our marriage went to pieces in such a short time, less than three years.”

“And what about Uncle Paul?”

“Oh — yes. He was killed in an automobile accident out near Rock Island when I was eleven. His car stalled on a railroad crossing and was hit by a train. And I was glad, really glad — almost deliriously happy, as awful as that sounds.”

“No, it sounds like a perfectly normal reaction to me.”

“I appreciate your saying that, Steve. Not everybody would — the principle of Christian forgiveness and all. I’ll never forget the funeral. I couldn’t bear to even look at him in the casket. My mother kept saying, ‘Oh, Catherine, your poor uncle. Dying so young. He was so fond of you, he loved you so much.’ It was all I could do to keep from running screaming from the mortuary.”

“And your parents never knew?”

“Never, ever. And neither did anybody else until now. Except a priest. And do you know what he said to me back then? He said ‘To forgive is divine.’ That’s all — nothing else. ‘To forgive is divine.’ How I detest that phrase. Well, I didn’t forgive, Steve. I couldn’t. And I can’t even today.”

“Why should you have to? From my point of view, some things are beyond forgiveness, no matter what any church says. And what happened to you was one of those things.”

“And do you know something else?” she said, anger evident for the first time in her voice. “If my uncle had lived much longer, I truly believe I might have killed him. What do you think would have happened to me then?”

I had no answer.