"Who doesn't?"
"You didn't work death row."
"Hell no. My God, it was depressing enough on the main cellblocks."
"But you knew the guys who did?"
"Yeah. Knew everybody there. Big place, small staff-we all knew each other. Paid to. What's this about?"
I lighted up a smoke; took some in, let some out. "About ten years ago they gave Grant Kratch the hot squat."
"Couldn't happen to a nicer guy."
"How well did you know the bulls working that block?"
"Enough, I guess. What's this about, Mike?"
"Any rotten apples?"
He shrugged. "You know how it is. Prison pay stinks. So there's always guys willing to do favors."
"How about a big favor?"
"Don't follow…"
"I have a wild hair up my ass, Lou. You may need another beer to follow this…"
"Try me."
"Say a guy comes to visit Kratch, maybe the day before he's set to take the electric cure. This guy maybe comes in as Kratch's lawyer-might be he's in a beard and glasses and wig."
"I think I will have that beer…" Lou gulped the rest of his down and waved a waitress over. "I didn't know you were still readin' comic books, Mike."
"Hear me out. Say this guy has had plastic surgery and is now a ringer for Kratch-"
"This may take a boilermaker."
"So they switch clothes, and Kratch walks, and the ringer gets the juice."
Lou shook his head, laughed without humor. "It's a fairy tale, Mike. Who would do that? Who would take a guy's place in the hot seat?"
"Maybe somebody with cancer or some other incurable disease. Somebody who has family he wants taken care of. Remember that guy in Miami who popped Cermak for the Capone crowd? He had cancer of the stomach."
The old ex-prison guard was well into the second beer now. Maybe that was why he said, "Okay. So what you're saying is, could you pull that off with the help of the right bent screw?"
"That's what I'm saying. Was anybody working on death row at that time that could have been bought? And we're talking big money, Lou-Irish Sweepstakes money."
The beer froze halfway from the table to his face. Lou was a pale guy naturally, but he went paler.
"Shit," he said. "Conrad."
"Who?"
"Jack Conrad. He was only about fifty, but he took early retirement. The word was, he'd inherited dough. He went to Florida. Him and his wife and kids."
"He was crooked?"
"Everybody knew he was the guy selling booze and cigarettes to the inmates. Legend has it he snuck women in. Whether that's true or not, I can't tell you. But I can tell you something that'll curl your hair."
"Go, man."
He leaned forward. "Somebody murdered Conrad-maybe a year after he moved down there. Murdered him and his whole family. He had a nice-looking teenage daughter who got raped in the bargain. Real nasty shit, man."
I was smiling.
"Jesus, Mike-I tell you a horror story and you start grinning. What's wrong with you?"
"Maybe I know something you don't."
"Yeah, what?"
"That the story might have a happy ending."
Velda was in the client's chair again, but her legs weren't crossed-her feet were on the floor and her knees together. Prim as a schoolmarm.
"How did you know?" she asked. "I said it was a hunch."
She was pale as death, after hearing what Lou had shared with me.
"Arnold Veslo had a good-looking wife and child, a young boy," she said, reporting what she'd discovered. "Two weeks after Kratch was executed, Mrs. Veslo was found at home-raped and murdered. The boy's neck was snapped. No one was ever brought to justice. What kind of monster-"
"You know what kind."
She leaned in and tapped the fat file folder on my desk. "Like you asked, I checked our file on Veslo-it's mostly clippings, but there's a lot of them. And I put the key one on top."
I flipped the folder open, and they stared back at me, both of them-Arnold Veslo and Grant Kratch. Veslo in a chauffeur's cap and uniform, opening the car door for his employer, Kratch, who'd been brought in for questioning two weeks before I hauled his ass and the necessary evidence into the Fourth Precinct.
"You were right," she said, rapping a knuckle on the yellowed newsprint. "Veslo worked for Kratch. How did you know? What are you, psychic?"
"No. I'm not even smart. But I saw a murderer today, a living, breathing one, and I knew there had to be a way."
She shrugged. "So we bring Pat in, right? You lay it all out, and the investigation begins. If Grossman really is Kratch, then before his 'death,' Kratch had to find a way to transfer his estate into some kind of bank setup where his new identity could access it. That kind of thing can be traced. You can get this guy, Mike."
"Velda, we know for sure Kratch killed and raped thirty-seven women over a five-year period. Mostly prostitutes and runaways. You remember our clients' faces? The parents of the last girl?"
She swallowed and nodded.
"Well, it's a damn sure bet that he also killed that prison guard's family and Veslo's, and got his jollies with a couple more sexual assaults along the way. And do you really think that's his whole damn tally?"
"What do you mean, Mike?"
"I mean 'Grossman' has spent the last ten years doing more than selling insurance, you can damn well bet. Think about it-you just know there are missing women in unmarked graves all across the heartland."
"God," she said, ashen. "How many more has he killed?"
"No one but that sick bastard knows. But you can be sure of one thing, doll."
"What?"
"There won't be any more."
Back in my hotel room, I was still weighing exactly how I wanted to play this. I'd been seen here, and a few people knew I'd been asking about Grossman, so even if I handled this with care, I'd probably get hauled in for questioning.
And of course Captain Pat Chambers already knew the basics of the situation.
With my door open and me sitting in a chair with my back to the wall, I had a concealed view of the hallway. I wasn't even sure Kratch was in his room. I was considering going down there, and using the passkey I'd taken Spider up on, and just taking my chances confronting the bastard. I'd rigged self-defense pleas before.
Which was the problem. I was a repeat offender in that department, and the right judge could get frisky.
I was mulling this when the bellboy brought the cute little prostitute-because that's surely what she was-up to the door of 620. She had curly blond Annie hair and a sparkly blue minidress and looked about sixteen.
I could see Kratch, in a white terry-cloth Commodore robe, slip into the hall, give the bellboy a twenty, pat him on the shoulder, send him on his way, pat the prostitute on the bottom, and guide her in.
Knowing Kratch's sexual proclivities, I didn't feel I had much choice but to intervene. My.45 was tucked in the speed rig under my sport jacket, the passkey in my hand. It was about ten P.M. and traffic in the hall was scant-too late for people to be heading out, too early for them to be coming back.
So I stood by that door and listened. I could hear them in there talking. He was smooth, with a resonant baritone, very charming. She sounded young and a little high. Whether drugs or booze, I couldn't tell you.
Then it got quiet, and that worried me.
What the hell, I thought, and I used the passkey.
I got lucky-they were in the bathroom. The door was cracked and I could hear his smooth banter and her girlish giggling, a radio going, some middle-of-the-road station playing romantic strings, mixed with the bubbling rumble of a Jacuzzi.
I got the.45 out and helped myself to a real look around this time-this was a suite, a sprawl of luxury. There was a wet bar, and I could see where he'd made drinks for them. In back of the bar I found the pill bottle, and a sniff of a lipstick-kissed glass told me the bastard had slipped her a mickey.
That wasn't the most fun thing he had in store for her-I checked the three big suitcases, and one had clothes, and another had toys. You know the kind-handcuffs and whips and chains and assorted S &M goodies. Nothing was in the last big, oversize suitcase.