He swiveled his chair, staring out of the window toward the bay, invisible in the darkness and the fog.
“But Tom’s had his share of grief lately. We’ve had his youngest boy in here three times in the past year, everything from car-stealing to the latest, which was armed robbery. He goes up for that next week. Tom believes it killed his wife. So from a close-knit family he was proud of — with reason; after all, he put three kids through college on a cop’s pay without being on the take once — to a dead wife and a criminal kid, all in a year—” He sighed. “Well, if he drinks...”
Reardon remained silent, bitter with himself for having reported the man. Captain Tower swiveled back, read the younger man’s thoughts in his face and shook his head.
“Jim, you were right, and don’t forget it. It would be no favor to Tom Bennett if he got into an accident, or had to use muscle making an arrest, and he smelled of booze. If it came out in court it would not only kill the case, but it could ruin him, too.” He leaned forward, picking up his cigar again. He glanced at his watch. “I’ll speak to him. He should be checking out around now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Tower dragged his phone closer and dialed an internal number. “Hello, garage? Is Sergeant Bennett there? He’s changing? Good. Tell him I’d like to see him before he leaves, will you? Thank you. What? Right.” He cupped the receiver, looking at Reardon. “Another call; Communications cut into the line. Stick around...” He leaned back in the chair, puffing on his cigar, and then sat more erect. “Hello? Yes, this is Captain Tower. What? What!”
He shot up in his chair, his large pockmarked jaw hardening as he listened to the voice at the other end of the line; the receiver was almost lost in his huge paw of a hand. The cigar was forgotten. Reardon frowned as he saw the captain’s knuckles whiten as he squeezed the instrument. The big man set the cigar aside in an ashtray and hastily dragged over a pad; he picked up his pencil again and started to scribble hurriedly, his eyes narrowed in concentration.
“Yes, I’m listening. I’ve got it — the Cranston. Where the hell is that? What? Oh, I know. Yes. When did it happen?” There was the sound of a voice audible as an excited buzzing coming from the receiver to Reardon. Captain Tower paused in his writing. “Right. Right. Yes. I don’t suppose you can tell yet if there are any signs of violence? I suppose not. Yes. Right. I’ll get someone over there right away; you boys stick around until he gets there and then go back into service. Yes. What? Ten minutes at the most. Yes.” He hung up and stared at Reardon blankly, his big hand still resting on the telephone.
Reardon looked at him. “What is it, Captain?”
The captain came out of his reverie, looking at the lieutenant as if seeing him for the first time that evening.
“Jim, what’s your general opinion of coincidence?”
“Coincidence?” Reardon didn’t treat the question lightly; Captain Tower, in one of his moods, rarely asked idle questions. “Well, Captain, a little of it goes a long way with me.”
“With me, too,” Captain Tower said, as if satisfied with the answer. “Still, they also say never look a gift horse in the mouth.”
He made no attempt to explain this cryptic remark; instead, he began clearing his desk again, placing the items there on the table behind him. This chore finished, he moved his chair back and raised the pane of glass once again. Reardon, alert and sleepiness completely forgotten, watched wordlessly as the captain fished out his list a second time and reached for his pencil. A second heavy line joined the first, crossing out another name on the list. The paper was replaced; the glass straightened neatly. The captain’s eyes came up, flat and cold.
“That’s right, Lieutenant. It looks like a long night for you.”
He swung around to replace the accouterments on his desk, and then paused, as if aware that time did not permit.
“About three minutes ago, according to the patrol car that was just passing at the time,” he went on somberly, and took a deep breath.
“What, sir?” Reardon had a good idea.
“Mr. Porfirio Falcone, alias Peter Gabriel, Alias Paul Garbonne — also called Pete the Pimp, a name not selected by him, needless to say...” His eyes came up, expressionless. “He took himself a dive. From his fancy apartment on the fifteenth floor of the Cranston Hotel, over on the other side of town...”
Chapter 5
Wednesday — 11:10 p.m.
The Syndicate does not exist; it is a figment of the imagination. And, even if it had existed, it never had made the slightest foothold in the San Francisco Bay area. Still, there were people like Porfirio Falcone to explain...
Porfirio — Pete — Falcone had controlled all the organized prostitution in the San Francisco Bay area for the nonexistent Syndicate for many years. He had had a well-methodized system of recruitment that dovetailed and co-operated with similar non-existent organizations throughout the western part of the country from St. Louis to the Coast, as well as the northern states of Mexico, and which was sufficiently well regulated to both satisfy the custom — if not the Customs — and to avoid undue paid competition. Porfirio — Pete — had had his informants and paid representatives in the Homes for the Unmarried; he had received valuable tips from friends and co-workers such as Jerry Capp, who knew when women of all sizes, shapes and colors were in dire need of funds; he had heard from Ray Martin when a girl was foolish enough to go over her head at one of the gambling clubs. While he remained good friends with John Sekara, however, he had consistently refused to use any of the girls Johnny managed to hook on drugs, or to whom Sekara acted as supplier. It was not that conscience ever bothered Pete; it was simply that girls on the habit had a tendency to hold out money such as tips from the organization, and in addition they were usually selfish in bed.
Still, with all these efficient and effective means of arranging talent, Pete Falcone was not beyond personally inducting a new girl into the profession if the opportunity arose. It was one of the many reasons he preferred the Hotel Cranston as his residence, for the bar there seemed to attract an unusually large number of single girls not unwilling to accept a drink or visit a gentleman’s apartment — or to be impressed both by the decor and the view. Not all of these encounters resulted in a new employee, of course — in fact, few of them did — but even the failures furnished an interesting evening’s entertainment.
This particular evening, Pete Falcone had been sure he had struck gold. The girl seated a few stools down from him, alone in the dim, intimate bar, was, to his experienced eye, the perfect candidate. She was obviously not a hooker. First of all, Pete could spot a professional a block away with his eyes blindfolded, and that went for the expensive call girls as well; in addition, the management of the Cranston was very strict about things of that nature, and more than one bartender had lost a lucrative job because he had tried to make it even better paying by introducing girls into the cocktail lounge.
Pete had studied her a moment and then moved in. She had the kind of beauty that he, personally, favored: long, dark brown hair that half covered her face; a bit too much make-up, but not so much as to distract; a lovely full figure, a bit large in the bust, but nothing nine tenths of all women wouldn’t trade a padded bra for. She seemed to him to be fairly tall, although it was difficult to discern this fact when she was sitting; nor could he tell the color of her eyes since she was wearing dark glasses, a not uncommon scene at the Cranston bar, although how anyone could tell what they were drinking under those conditions remained a mystery to Pete Falcone. She was dressed in an ankle-length evening gown, tight about the neck, with a string of pearls draping her full bosom, and long white gloves coming nearly to her elbows, and she had poise — a most important characteristic in one of Pete’s girls — because she neither accepted his first offer of a drink, nor did she immediately give him the cold shoulder. Rather, she allowed him to move over and sit next to her, and she listened to his tale of loneliness as if it actually merited listening to. It must be admitted, however, that Porfirio Falcone had used the tale enough times to polish it to perfection, nor was his delivery amateurish in the least.