Джонатан Крейг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 12, December, 1953

Victor Lang was shaking and trying to control it. His nose and mouth were pinched and gray. “You have no proof, Jordan.”

“All the proof we need,” I said. “You think we can’t wash that red dye out of your beard and hair? And how about the key you took from Eddie’s pocket so you could search his room in case he left some memento to link you with the crime? You were there when I arrived and you hid in the closet. I owe you one for that clout you gave me.”

He stepped back, his lips working.

“You were in a sweat,” I said, “and that’s why you came back here to the hotel again. You had to be sure Eddie hadn’t left anything with Gladys. When you learned she had a picture you were scared she might recognize you. So you decided to swing the stick again. And it was all for nothing, Lang. She had no picture. It was a plant. You think we have no proof, mister? We have enough proof to strap you in the chair.”

He broke. His eyes raced wildly around the room and he lunged at the door. I caught him behind the ear with his own walking stick and knocked him sprawling against the wall. I was ready to deliver an encore when Gladys cried out: “No, Scott, please...”

She was right, of course. I was neither his jury nor his executioner. The tightness ebbed out of me.

“Okay,” I said. “Call Headquarters, will you, honey?”

Victor Lang was watching me with bankrupt eyes as I took out his ten thousand dollar check and tore it up. I felt very sad. And then I saw Gladys. I saw the admiration and the promise in her face.

I didn’t feel sad any more.

“Okay,” the cop said. “You’re in trouble. But maybe you can buy your way out...”

Detective Sergeant Carl Streeter’s home on Ashland Avenue was modest. So were the dark gray suits he always wore, and the four-year-old Plymouth he drove. But in various lock boxes around the city he had accumulated nearly fifty thousand dollars.

He was thinking about the money now as he watched his daughter Jeannie clear away the dinner dishes. He never tired of watching her. She had just turned sixteen, but she was already beautiful, and lately she had begun to develop the infinitely feminine movements and mannerisms he had once found so irresistible in her mother.

The thought of his wife soured the moment, and he frowned. It had been wonderful, having Barbara away for a few weeks. But she’d be back from the seashore next Monday, and then the nagging and bickering and general unpleasantness would start up again. It didn’t seem possible, he reminded himself for probably the ten thousandth time, that anyone who had once been almost as slim and lovely as Jeannie could have grown into two hundred pounds of shapeless, complaining blubber.

“More coffee, Dad?” Jeannie asked.

He pushed his chair back from the table and got up. “No,” he said. “I guess I’d better get going if I want to get down to the precinct by seven.”

“Seven? But I thought your shift didn’t start till eight.”

“It doesn’t. There are a couple things I want to take care of down there, though.”

“When will you be home?”

“Depends. Not until three or four, anyhow. We’re a little short-handed.”

“You put in too many hours, Dad.”

“Maybe,” he said. He grinned at her and walked out to the front hall to get his hat. Just another few months, he thought. Six months at the outside, and I’ll have enough to put Jeannie in a damned good college, ditch Barbara and her lard, and tell the Chief to go to hell.

Sally Creighton was waiting for him in the Inferno Bar. She pushed a folded piece of paper across the table as he sat down facing her.

“How’s the Eighteenth Precinct’s one and only policewoman?” Streeter asked.

Sally looked at him narrowly. “Never mind the amenities. Here’s the list we got off that girl last night.”

He put the list into his pocket without looking at it. “Did you check them?”

“Don’t I always? Only two of them might be good for any money. I marked them. One’s a dentist, and the other guy runs a bar and grill over on Summit.” She lifted her beer and sipped at it, studying him over the rim of the glass. “There’ve been a few changes made, Carl.” Her bony, angular face was set in hard lines.

“Like what?”

“From now on I’m getting fifty per cent.”

“We’ve been over that before.”

“And this is the last time. Fifty per cent, Carl. Starting as of now.”

He laughed shortly. “I do the dirty work, and take the chances — and you come in for half, eh?”

“Either that, or I cut out.” She put a quarter next to her glass and stood up. “Think it over, Sergeant. You aren’t the only bruiser around the Eighteenth that can shake a guy down. Start making with the fifty per cent, or I’ll find another partner.” She moved toward the door with a long, almost mannish stride.

Streeter spread his fingers flat against the table top, fighting back the anger that he knew would get him nowhere. For almost a full minute he stared at the broken, scarred knuckles of his hands. By God, he thought, if it’s the last thing I ever do I’ll knock about ten of that woman’s yellow teeth down into her belly.

Hell, he’d taught her the racket in the first place. He’d shown her how to scare hell out of those under-age chippies until they thought they were going to spend the rest of their lives in jail if they didn’t play ball. Why, he’d even had to educate Sally in the ways of keeping those girls away from the juvenile authorities until she’d had a chance to drain them.

He closed his right fist and clenched it until the knuckles stood up like serrated knobs of solid white bone. Damn that Sally, anyhow; she was getting too greedy. Fifty per cent!

He got up slowly and moved toward the door.

Twenty minutes later, after he had checked in at the precinct and been assigned a cruiser, he pulled up in a No Parking zone and took out the list Sally had given him. His anger had subsided a little now. Actually, he realized, no cop had ever been in a better spot. His first real break with the Department had been when they had organized the Morals Squad and assigned him to it as a roving detective. The second break had occurred when Sally Creighton was transferred to the Eighteenth. He hadn’t talked to her more than ten minutes that first day before he’d realized that he had found the right person to work into his ideas.

In three years, working alone every night as he did, he had loaded his safe deposit boxes with almost fifty thousand dollars.

He lit a cigarette and glanced at the list. Of the two names Sally had marked, the man who owned the bar and grill was the best bet. The other, the dentist, lived on the far side of town; and besides, Streeter had found it was always best to brace a man at his place of business. There was a tremendous psychological factor working on his side when he did that, and especially if the guy happened to be a professional man. He memorized the address of the bar and grill and eased the cruiser away from the curb.

It was too late for the short-order dinner crowd and too early for the beer drinkers, and Streeter had the long bar entirely to himself.

The bartender came up, a thin, blond man in his middle thirties.

Streeter ordered beer, and when the blond man brought it to him he said, “I’m looking for Johnny Cabe.”

The bartender smiled. “That’s me. What can I do for you?”

“Quite a bit, maybe,” Streeter said. “It all depends.”

Some of the bartender’s smile went away. “I don’t follow you.”