“My partner’s waiting for me downstairs,” I said. “I can’t stay.”
She looked a little disappointed.
“About your sister,” I suggested.
“Minnie Joy? Will you really help her, Sam?”
I said I would do what I could. She was across to her purse and had that thick roll in her hands again almost before I got the words out.
Just to see what would happen, I said, “You don’t have to pay me, Jacqueline. I want to do it just for you.”
“No, Sam. It’s worth it to me. And you will be taking a risk, won’t you? I mean giving false testimony. You ought to have something for that. Take this five hundred. I can afford it.”
I let her stuff the money in my pocket.
“I’ll call you,” I said. “Not tonight, because I’ve got a date with my partner to celebrate a fast horse. Maybe tomorrow.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be free,” she said dubiously. “There are so many evening events connected with this fashion show. Better wait until I can call you at work.”
At the door she gave me a passionate goodbye kiss.
When I rejoined Jud in the hotel lobby, he asked, “What’s the pitch, Sam? Don’t tell me some chippie is trying to operate out of an exclusive joint like this.”
“Hardly,” I told him. “I was just making a personal call. Blonde I met last night.”
“I met a blonde night before last,” he said reminiscently. “Wait till you meet her. She’ll make that gloomy face of yours light up like a neon sign.”
The rest of that day was routine. We followed up a couple of tips on new houses that were supposed to be trying to open up, but drew blanks on both investigations. Late in the afternoon we cruised the bars along Sixth Street, Jud taking one side of the street and I taking the other. In one a girl of about sixteen made a pass at me, but she wasn’t a professional. Apparently she was just a kid looking for a little excitement, and after scaring the pants off her with a lecture, I let her go. Fortunately for the bar, she had only been drinking Coke, so all the bar keep got was a few harsh words about letting minors hang around his place.
Jud didn’t run into anything.
“We’ve got a pretty clean town for a city our size,” Jud remarked as we checked in at 404 just before going off duty. “I’d hate to see the syndicate get a hand hold on St. Louis and do to it what they’ve done to some other places.”
I told him to wait for me while I had a conference with Lieutenant Boxer. From across the room he watched curiously as I handed the lieutenant the money I had received from Jacqueline and gave him a brief report of what had happened.
When I joined Jud again, he asked, “What’s all this secret business between you and the head?”
“A little undercover work I’m doing,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
But the opportunity never came up. Jud took me to the Statler for dinner, on the way to the dining room stopping at the desk and asking to speak to a Miss Maurine Hahn. He looked both disappointed and puzzled when the clerk informed him the woman had checked out the day before without leaving a forwarding address.
“Your blonde?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He gave a small shrug. “Well, I guess she isn’t the only blonde in the world.”
Then we ran into a man from the circuit attorney’s office Jud knew, and with his usual exuberance Jud talked him into joining our party. After dinner we hit a couple of clubs, Jud insisting on picking up all the checks because of his lucky horse hit, and by the time the bars closed at one-thirty we had added a reporter friend of Jud’s and two stray brunettes the reporter knew. Alone I can cruise from bar to bar all night without having anyone but an occasional hustler so much as speak to me, but when Jud celebrates he always accumulates a retinue before the evening is over.
In the general confusion I never did get around to telling him what I had been doing for Lieutenant Boxer.
The next morning in police court I put on my little act for Minnie Joy. Since she had no defense attorney, I spoke to the judge before trial and told him that for reasons of policy connected with another case, the morality squad wanted to quash the charge against Minnie.
“Lieutenant Boxer approve this?” he wanted to know.
“It’s his idea.”
“All right,” he said, and dismissed the case.
Minnie was so surprised, an attendant had to start her toward the door before she realized she was free. Apparently she had no inkling of Jacqueline’s efforts on her behalf.
That evening, disregarding the blonde Jacqueline’s instructions to wait until I heard from her, I phoned the Jefferson.
Miss Jacqueline Crosby had checked out without leaving a forwarding address, the desk informed me.
Two days later she phoned me at headquarters.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“A friend loaned me an apartment,” she said, “so I moved from the hotel. Thanks for what you did for Minnie.”
“Don’t mention it. You made it worthwhile.”
“Busy tonight?”
“No.”
She reeled off an address on Lindell just west of Grand Avenue. “Apartment 3-C. Come about eight and we’ll spend a quiet evening at home.”
Her soft voice was so loaded with promise, I very nearly decided to play it straight and forget reporting this development to the head of the morality squad. But after ten years of practice, it’s a little difficult to go against routine. Dutifully I went over to Lieutenant Boxer’s desk and told him about the phone call.
His eyes narrowed when I mentioned the address. “Interesting,” he said. “You knew the chief was having Monk Cartelli covered, didn’t you?”
“You mentioned he intended to.”
“Well, for your information, the address for your date with your beautiful blonde is the same apartment where Cartelli is holed up.”
In a way this made me even more eager to keep the date, but not for the same reason. It effectively killed any romantic aspirations I had developed because of the promise in Jacqueline’s tone.
I suppose the normal thing for a man to do who has an assignation with a lovely blonde is to adjust his necktie a final time just before he rings the doorbell. Instead I loosened my Detective Special in its holster.
Jacqueline opened the door. For a change she was attired merely in an ordinary dress, and not a particularly sexy one at that. She didn’t offer to kiss me either. However, she gave me an intimate smile as she held the door wide for me to enter.
I wasn’t particularly surprised to find three other men in the room, but I managed to simulate surprise.
I looked from Monk Cartelli, who stood with his back to an artificial fireplace, to the two mugs who sat side by side on the sofa. Both were strangers to me, one long and thin and the other squat and chunky, but they had two things in common. Each had the deadpan expression of the professional killer.
The other thing they had in common was the .45 caliber automatic each leveled at my belt buckle. “What’s the gag?” I asked Jacqueline.
“No gag,” Monk Cartelli smoothly answered for her. “Don’t let the guns worry you. They’re just insurance that you stay quiet until you hear what I have to say. We won’t even inconvenience you by disarming you, Sergeant. Just back against the wall there and keep your arms at your sides.”
With my eyes on the nonchalantly-held .45’s, I did as ordered. Then we waited nearly ten minutes in complete silence. Once, when I started to ask what we were waiting for, Monk silenced me with an imperious gesture. All this time the two hoods watched me unblinkingly, and Jacqueline sat with her hands quietly folded in her lap, apparently perfectly at ease, though her gaze avoided mine.