“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.”