Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 24, No. 9 — January, 1942)
Bail Bait
by Robert Reeves
Jimmy Legg was guilty as hell — and there were witnesses to prove it. So — why did the worthy Judge Reynolds dismiss the D.A.’s case against the little cracksman? The answer was a surprise even to the shockproof Cellini — paid real dough for the first time in his checkered career to explain why Justice was deaf and dumb as well as stone blind.
Chapter One
Justice For Sale
He checked a curved wrist watch that you knew he couldn’t have come by honestly and found that it was just two minutes short of nine in the morning. Chewing away at the toothpick between his thin, slitted lips, he entered the Hall of Justice.
His colorless eyes surveyed the signs and arrows on the walls of the vaulted vestibule. Coroner, Traffic, Small Claims, Bail — there were dozens. He read them all and when he didn’t find what he wanted he walked over to the elevator starter.
“Reynolds.” He spoke the word without moving the toothpick.
“Huh?” asked the starter.
“Reynolds,” he repeated. “Where do I find the guy?”
“Oh, you mean Judge Reynolds.”
“I know what I mean. Where do I find him?”
The starter named a floor and office number and he entered a waiting elevator. Other passengers pushed in, crowding him to the back. A big man, well-cushioned with fat, squeezed him to the wall but suddenly stiffened. The fat man wasn’t sure, but he thought he felt something hard and unyielding — something like a gun — over the other one’s chest. The fat man swung around to find himself looking into the colorless eyes. The fat man swallowed heavily, said nothing, and got off at the first stop.
He left the elevator four stops later and walked down the hall till he found the door he wanted. He pushed through without knocking. An elderly man sat alone behind a desk, robed in judicial black.
He spat out the toothpick and asked: “You Reynolds?”
“Yes,” replied the jurist. “What can I do for you?”
“Plenty. My handle is Manny Simms.”
“Yes?”
Manny Simms reached into his breast pocket and tossed an envelope onto the glass top. “Look at that first, Reynolds.”
The judge removed a rubber band from the envelope and emptied its contents on the blotter. It was a packet of twenty-dollar bills.
“Count them, Reynolds.”
The judge frowned. “Mr. Simms, I want to be certain before I do something about it. Are you trying to bribe me?”
Simms ignored the question. “There’s fifty slices of that lettuce there — just one grand — and you can buy a lot of gavels with that. You got a case coming up in your court this morning. A guy called Jimmy Legg.” Manny Simms shoved another toothpick into his face before continuing. “That grand, Reynolds, is to let Jimmy Legg go.”
An hour later, at precisely ten o’clock, Judge Reynolds left his chambers, crossed the hall, and passed through a door that gave into the rear of Magistrate’s Court, Division Six.
The bailiff saw him coming and intoned: “Los Angeles County Magistrate’s Court Division Six the Honorable Frank Reynolds presiding rise please sit down please thank you quiet everybody.”
The crowd in the courtroom made a half-hearted gesture toward standing up as His Honor entered with dignified steps and sat behind the massive, elevated desk.
Reynolds fitted pince-nez to his razorback nose and thumbed through the mound of papers before him. They concerned the cases that were scheduled for hearing that day. He read the first sheet carefully, scanned through several of the following, then nodded to the clerk.
The clerk called the first case. A henpecked husband had gone berserk and forced his mother-in-law to eat his marriage certificate and had then proceeded to beat her with a telephone. The husband pled not guilty and Reynolds remanded him for trial. The second, third, and fourth cases were disposed of with equal rapidity. It was hardly ten twenty by the clock when the case of James Legg was called.
Jimmy Legg stood up and gazed at His Honor with all the doe-eyed innocence that a two-time loser can muster. Beside him stood Howard Garrett, one of the better mouthpieces, a comforting hand on his client’s shoulder. Garrett gave the impression that this thing would make the Dreyfus case look like a traffic violation. A young, pimply-faced deputy district attorney rose for the state. He had Jimmy Legg dead to rights and he sounded very bored.
Legg, it seemed, had jimmied his way into the Lansing Investment Company, at the Tower Building, two nights before and had souped open the office safe. The janitor of the building heard the detonation and rushed up to be sapped for his pains. Legg made good his escape after slugging a screaming stenographer who was returning for some papers she’d forgotten.
Through a thumbprint on the outside door jamb of the Lansing offices, the police were able to identify Legg and haul him in two days later. Both janitor and stenographer picked Jimmy Legg out of a lineup as the man who had assaulted them. The deputy D. A. concluded the bare recital by asking for an early trial.
Judge Reynolds regarded the accused. It was an open and shut case but Legg looked jaunty and confident. Howard Garrett, his attorney, pled not guilty. Legg was a victim of circumstances, the lawyer nearly sobbed. That thumbprint was on the door because Legg had gone up earlier that day to invest some money. As for the identification by janitor and stenographer — who knew what sinister forces were behind this whole thing?
Judge Reynolds asked several perfunctory questions. He didn’t seem very interested in the replies but seemed, rather, to be debating something within himself. Finally, he buried his nose in the papers before him and said in a low voice: “Insufficient evidence for trial. Release the accused.”
The deputy laughed. His Honor was some joker!
“I was not aware of my reputation for wit,” flared Judge Reynolds. “I said there was insufficient evidence to waste the taxpayers’ money on a trial.”
The pimples on the deputy’s face reddened. “Insufficient—”
“Enough of this,” snapped His Honor. “Next case.”
A hiss of shocked astonishment passed over the courtroom. The deputy sat down weakly, staring at the judge in dumbfounded wonder. Even James Legg could hardly believe his good fortune and stood without moving till Garrett grabbed him by the arm and hustled him out.
More cases were called. White-faced, his hands clenched tensely, Reynolds handed down his decisions. It was some thirty minutes later when he rapped for silence and said: “Clerk, what time is it?”
The clerk checked. “Five minutes past eleven, Your Honor.”
“In that case I should like to interrupt these proceedings to explain my behavior in freeing James Legg who should patently have been held for trial.”
The pimple-faced deputy D. A. swore softly under his breath. A couple of reporters sat up straight, their noses twitching at the scent of a headline.
“This morning at nine,” continued the judge, “I received a visitor in my chambers. He introduced himself as one Manny Simms, and offered to bribe me if I freed James Legg. Naturally, I refused and sent out an alarm but he escaped. When I later entered court I found this paper on my bench. Clerk, read it aloud.”
The judge passed it down. The clerk’s voice sounded strange in the hushed room as he read aloud the scrawled writing. “I’m hiding under your desk and I’ve got a rod on your belly so you better not move from the desk. Do as I tell you. Let Jimmy Legg go and give him a half-hour start. Not a second less if you want to live.” The clerk looked up. “It is signed, Manny Simms.”