Vanity Row

by W. R. Burnett

  W. R. Burnett

  Vanity Row

  When Frank Hobart, nationally known lawyer, millionaire, and Administration favorite, was shot down in the street, it was Captain Roy Hargis-the Hangman, the Administration's private gunman-who was called in to keep the public from discovering Hobart's connection with the out-of-town wire services and to find a sitting duck to take the rap. He thought that he had one when Joe Sert put the finger on Ilona Vance, but what happened next was only to prove how dangerous a beautiful woman can be even to a tough, ruthless, unscrupulous, and unemotional cop used to walking a highwire with no net beneath him.

  Here is another swift, tense, spellbinding story of big-city corruption by an author who knows his way around the dark byways of crime and the criminal mind and who knows how to tell a story of suspense and action and make it utterly convincing.

  ***

  From Kirkus Reviews

  Not the big bang of but still a knowing reflection of off color lives as the vanity row of a midwestern city, where deals and money and influence and girls are hustled, witnesses the killing of a once prominent lawyer. And Roy Hargis, police chief, who conducts the investigation, resists the needle of the press and the politices, but for a man who had always had a system with women (leave 'em) cannot resist his attraction to Ilona Vance, the dead man's girl. But the ugly evidence against the beautiful Ilona piles up in the face of her denials; of the fight with her lover, who had taken back his minks-and pearls; of the gun which bears her fingerprints and dates her back to another man and another murder; until her confession, to Hargis, and the validity of his belief in her makes him willing to bargain his job in exchange for a short sentence… A tight narrative which airs a subterranean world of corruption and protection, of the rise to power and its sudden recession, of driving ambition and only the occasional loyalty, in which the passion of a man-for a woman-proves more powerful.

  For

  Butch, Jimmie

  and

  Whitney

  All, all, of a piece throughout:

  Thy Chase had a Beast in View;

  Thy Wars brought nothing about;

  Thy Lovers were all untrue.

  'Tis well an Old Age is out,

  And time to begin a New.

  -DRYDEN

  1

  The newspapers all said that heavy thunderstorms were general over the whole Midwest, from the Great Lakes on the north to the Ohio River on the south, and from the Pennsylvania border on the east to the Kansas steppes on the west. But so far no storm had appeared over the big city by the wide, slow-moving river. Yet there was storminess in the air, a feeling of oppression and unquietness, the night sky was low and black, reflecting the sullen red glow of the city lights, and a fine rain, hardly more than a mist, was blowing in waves between the wet, shining facades of the big buildings downtown.

  The Civic Center clock struck one-eleven-thirty-the sound of the chime vibrating in the heavy, damp air; then the huge minute hand on the big illuminated dial took up its labored journey toward midnight. It was a Monday. The city was almost deserted. The river flowed southward, black and silent, under its mammoth, many-arched bridges, empty of traffic.

  Rosey, the little Italian newsboy, wearing a black rubber poncho and cursing the weather, was trying to make up his mind to go home and the hell with it!

  But he had his regular customers to think about. Guys who ducked out of side-street hotels every night to get the late editions of the morning papers: complete race results, baseball scores. Some of them were gamblers, careless with money, and would often hand him a quarter or even four-bits and say: "Keep it, bud." Rosey had a good corner, protection, everything. Right down the street from him burned the green lights of the Downtown Police Station, and all the big, beefy coppers knew Rosey, and liked him. Rosey was a tough little kid, and would fight at the drop of a hat. He was fourteen, small for his age, but wiry and strong. Some of the cops liked to needle him just to see him flare up. He'd fight a cop even, if necessary.

  Rosey lit a stogie somebody had given him and stood in the huge, arched doorway of the Farmers and Drovers Bank, puffing slowly and staring out at the empty street and blowing mist with melancholy eyes, dark as ripe olives. He had stacked his newspapers in the doorway to keep them dry, and after a moment he sat down on one of the stacks and waited for customers. Monday night was usually murder downtown, anyway-and now with this frigging weather…!

  A huge truck towing a trailer as long as itself pulled up at the traffic-light, backfiring loudly in the dampness. The driver leaned out of the window and called to Rosey. He was as high up as the engineer of a locomotive. Rosey grabbed an armful of papers, ran out to the truck, and stood looking up with a sort of awe. Jeez, what must it be like to drive a monster like that all through the night!

  "Racing Form, kid," called the tough-faced driver, "and a World. Did the Yanks win?"

  Rosey handed up the papers, standing on tiptoes, and the driver tossed down the money. "Yeah," said Rosey. "DiMag hit a homerun in the seventh."

  "Hell," said the driver. "Them Yanks! I got a big bet on Cleveland to win the pennant. Nice odds, too. Why don't them Yanks drop dead?"

  "What you got in that truck?"

  "Groceries, for Christ's sake. Tons of 'em. Why?"

  "You driving all night?"

  "Yeah. Toledo. Highway 81. It'll be a rough go tonight. Why?"

  "I don't know," said Rosey. "I was just thinking… I'd like to drive one of them things all night."

  The light changed with a sad, off-key clanging.

  "Go get your head examined, boy," cried the truck-driver as he drove off, the truck backfiring with startling explosiveness.

  The mist was turning to real rain now, a soft rain which fell straight down soundlessly, blurring the boulevard lights and turning the wide, plaza-like streets of this part of town to lakes of black patent-leather.

  Rosey hurried back to the doorway, thinking about the tough-looking truck driver wheeling that gigantic crate northward through the night. Nice to think about. Rosey liked the night. He liked to stay up till the sun peeped over the roofs. Broad day bored him. As he turned to push his stacks of newspapers back further into the doorway away from the rain, he could still hear the truck far down the empty boulevard, backfiring heavily, the sound gradually diminishing with distance. And then suddenly the backfiring sounded loud again: once, twice, three times; almost as if it was just across the plaza, and Rosey turned in surprise. How could that be?

  A dark sedan had turned the corner far across the plaza and was roaring off into the darkness of a side-street. Rosey saw a man standing on the corner. Where in hell had he come from? Rosey stared. Suddenly the man seemed to be overcome by a seizure of some kind; he reeled about, grabbing his chest, then he took several steps out into the street, and finally fell heavily on his face.

  "Jesus!" cried Rosey, looking about him in bewilderment. What went here!

  Rosey was a great little guy for minding his own business. It paid. But this was too much. He couldn't let that poor bastard lay out there in the street. A car might turn the corner suddenly and…

  "Wow!" cried Rosey, starting to run across the shining plaza, snapping his fingers as his thoughts cleared. "That wasn't no backfiring-that last. Somebody blasted this poor guy."

  ***

  Rosey couldn't understand all the excitement at Downtown. Guys got killed practically every day. But all the big cops-his pals-were acting hysterical, almost like girls, for God's sake!

  "Look, Coonan," he said to a big Irish plainclothes man. "I told you all I seen. My papers are down there at the corner. I'll get robbed."

  "Don't bother me, midget," said Coonan, and although he was one of the biggest kidders on the force, this time, Rosey could see he wasn'
t kidding.

  "What's the idea keeping me here?" Rosey shouted, waving his arms. "Did I do something wrong? A favor's all I done. Now look!"

  Nobody paid any attention to him. Phones rang all over the place. What an uproar! Rosey had an idea and looked about him for Mike Antonnelli, the wop dick. A good Sicilian, maybe he'd be a pal to another good Sicilian. He found him at last in a corner of the big room, sitting with his chair tipped back, holding a receiver to his ear with his neck and shoulder while he unwrapped a package of gum.

  "Mike," Rosey began, but the dick waved him away and talked into the phone. "All right. All right. Goddam it, keep trying. I don't know. I don't know. What are you supposed to be getting paid for?" He banged up the receiver. "Mike, listen. My papers…"

  Mike looked at him wearily, hardly seeing him. "Rosey, go pick yourself out a chair and plant your ass in it. Stop bothering everybody."

  Rosey bit his thumb at Mike. "I shoulda let the son of a bitch lay there. He was dead. But no-I gotta be a big hero."

  Mike studied him sadly. Mike was chewing gum now and his jaws moved slowly sideways like a cow with a cud.

  "I was figuring you might give me a break," mumbled Rosey, fighting mad. "But no-you gotta act like an Irishman!"

  Mike ignored him, picked up the phone and began to dial a number, but he stopped dialling suddenly, slammed down the receiver, and stood up as a big grayhaired man in business clothes entered hurriedly, his hat wet from the rain. It was Captain Shellenbarger, the boss of Downtown.

  There was loud conversation and then a wave of excitement passed over the room. Rosey felt nervous as the crowd of dicks parted and he saw the big, hard-faced captain looking at him. His hand shaking slightly, Rosey relit his stogie, stuck it into his mouth, and stood staring defiantly at the captain.

  "Mike," called Shellenbarger, "take the kid over to the City Building. Captain Hargis's office. Wait there."

  There were faint whistles of concern and amazement.

  "Yes, sir," said Mike; then he turned to Rosey. "Come on, Gyp-the-Blood."

  But Rosey got mulish and tried to make a complaint to the captain, who said nothing, but merely stared grimly, and in a moment reached out, took the stogie from Rosey's lips, and threw it on the floor.

  Rosey flared up at once. "What's the idea, you big bastard?"

  Someone laughed inadvertently, then there was a deep silence as the captain threw an irritated look about the room.

  Cursing under his breath, Mike took Rosey by the arm and hustled him out through the door.

  "This is going to cost somebody," Rosey cried over his shoulder. "I'm gonna sue the city."

  The door closed. The captain looked about him mildly, then sat down and took out a cigar. Four dicks sprang forward: two with lighters, two with matches. The captain let one of them light his cigar, then he puffed on it slowly, sighing.

  "Well, boys," he said, "you can all relax. Go back to your gin rummy, or canasta. The Administration took this one away from us. It is now Hargis' baby."

  "The Hangman," said Coonan.

  "Yeah," said Delahanty. "You fellows know that fat guy, Wesson-the political reporter down at the Hall? He wrote a song about Hargis called 'The Hangman Has No Friends.' "

  There was a short, curt laugh, then one of the dicks said: "Well, this is a big one. I guess they want to grab the credit."

  The captain looked about him, smiling slightly. "Maybe, maybe," he said, and though he spoke rather noncommittally, there was a note in his voice giving his men a clue that it was perhaps not a mere question of credit-grabbing but something more serious.

  The dicks glanced at each other eagerly. As soon as the captain left they intended to talk this one out. They'd had many cases pulled away from them by the

  Hall and handed to Hargis, but heretofore, it had always been done after they'd flopped-according to the Hall. This case was hardly half an hour old!

  The captain got up slowly and put on his hat. "I'll be home if you want me, Coonan. But I don't know what you'd want me for."

  The captain went out, Delahanty holding the door for him.

  "It's a rough deal," said Coonan, shaking his head sympathetically.

  2

  It was misting rain at Half Moon Beach, too, and things looked pretty dismal. Of course, things always looked pretty dismal at a summer resort after the first of September. The season was over, most of the cottages were empty, many of the concessionaires had shut up shop, but a few reluctant souls always tried to preserve summer by staying on, and at the big dance-hall on the pier a bored and listless orchestra was playing a waltz for twenty or thirty couples, the vast hall echoing like an empty train-shed.

  Joe Boley, born Joseph Boleslavski, Captain Hargis's driver and right-hand man, was sitting in a rocking-chair on the screened-in porch of the cottage looking sadly off across the lake and listening to the dance music which had a blurred and plaintive sound. Everything looked or sounded blurred in the misty, heavy air. Snake-like reflections from the dance-hall lights seemed to swim toward him over the black water. And the boulevard lights along the pier looked like giant dandelions, and appeared to sway. It was a sad, desolate night and Boley felt like hanging himself. And for what reason? No reason. He was in good health, had a little money, and a fair job. No reason at all.

  But he was not too worried about his state of mind. He knew that he would not hang himself and that the feeling would pass. He lit a cigarette and sat thinking about how different he was from his boss, Roy Hargis. Smiling wanly, he tried to picture himself saying to Hargis: "Look, Roy. The music sounds sad across the water and the lights are all fuzzy, and I feel like hanging myself." He knew the look he'd get: one of mild contempt from narrow gray eyes without human warmth.

  Roy had everything all figured out. It was just a game and he knew how to beat it. He never seemed to feel sad, silly, happy, or anything else; not even sore. Annoyed, yes; and once in a while contemptuous or irritated. But were these true emotions at all? Boley didn't know.

  Yes, Roy had it all figured out. He was close-fisted to an extreme degree and had quite a lot of money in the bank for a guy in his position. Yet he was not naturally close-fisted: it was a system. And then he never paid for anything, except maybe his rent (he lived in one room in a cheap hotel), and his clothes; and even that was doubtful. Boley knew of three suits Sam Brod had made for him and given him… And like tonight. He was having himself a ball, and all for free. A fifty-dollar girl from the Front, and somebody else's cottage: an alderman's to be exact. One of the big percentage boys on the Front had no doubt provided the girl, and she was a beaut, too, and young and playful.

  Boley groaned to himself. After all, he had Myrt. But he was forced to admit that this party-girl of Roy's made Myrt look like something left over.

  The girls were a system, too! You had one every so often, then you forgot about sex. Women had no power over you. They couldn't browbeat you, get you in a jam, marry you. It was quite a system. "Yeah," Boley said to himself, "quite a system. But how do I get to playing it? I couldn't afford the five-buck ones once a week and as for dolls like that Kit in there-wow!"

  There had been a lot of talking and laughing earlier, but things had been quiet for quite a while. Boley rose and began to walk up and down the porch. It was really raining now; he could hear it hissing against the screen. The orchestra had stopped playing and far across the water, one by one, the lights of the dance-hall went out. He saw the headlights of cars swinging round as they left the pier.

  Yeah. System! System! But it took a tough-willed, coldhearted guy like Roy to play one. No use for him. "No use for you, Boley, old kid," he told himself. "You're a real hit-or-miss guy. And then you've got a heart."

  "Have I?" he wondered a moment later. "Or maybe I'm just mistaking not too much guts for a heart. Like Myrt. She irritates me. Why don't I give her the brush? Is it heart? Or am I scared of what Myrt might do?"

  Just as he shrugged, bewildered, the phone rang inside. Cursing,
Boley bolted through the doorway into the Hawaiian living-room and grabbed up the receiver. It had to be Lackey-he never sleeps day or night, Lackey, he never sleeps! But why would he call? Maybe some damned friend of the alderman's.

  "Hello. Hello."

  "Boley? It's me. Emmett. Sorry. Got to talk to Roy."

  "Take it easy, Lackey. Roy's busy."

  "I know, I know. But the City Hall's on fire, or almost. You know I wouldn't call if I didn't…"

  "Sure, sure."

  Emmett Lackey, Hargis's special investigator and stand-in, knew Hargis' habits as well as Boley did. One night a week Roy disappeared-to Half Moon Beach; to the Reservoir, or to the big town in the next county. Lackey never bothered him, though he envied him plenty. Poor old fumbling Lackey, six foot five and afraid of girls! Poor old silly, fumbling, bumbling Lackey.

  "Wait a minute," said Boley, then he put down the receiver and started back to the bedroom, but the bedroom door opened and Roy looked out.

  "Lackey-for God's sake?"

  "Yeah, Roy. Wants to talk to you."

  Roy stepped out into the Hawaiian living-room. He had on trousers and socks but no shirt. Although he was tall, slightly stooped and of linear build, he looked hard as iron in the half light; his narrow chest was not puny in the least and he had powerful biceps, thick strong wrists, and big hands.

  He hurried to the phone. Boley turned to listen, but just then the doll put her head around the door-jamb.

  "What's up, buster?" she called in a husky, low voice that sent a chill down Boley's spine.

  "Phone," Boley stammered. "For Roy… he…"

  The girl's long, thick blond hair was all tousled and she seemed to have nothing on. Boley turned his back on her.