Passion's Wicked Torment

by Melissa Hepburne

  Well, he thought, none of that mattered now. He couldn’t let himself love her any longer, now that he knew the truth. And the truth was obvious. He had realized it in a flash when she began asking him those questions about abducting people off the streets. God, how obvious she was! And how blind he had been! Well, now he knew the truth: She was working for Ironman. She had been working for him all along. And all those times she had made love to Hunter, it wasn’t because she wanted—oh, no!—it was because that had been her job. The facts were clear enough. She had been planted by Ironman to see if Hunter was familiar with the abduction of that reporter, Chad Fleming.

  God, it hurt to realize this! But Hunter was through lying to himself. Her love had been false, and that’s all there was to it.

  The door opened, and a uniformed police lieutenant came in. He carried a pot of black coffee in one hand, two mugs in the other. He kicked the door shut, walked over to the chair next to the cot and sat down. He filled the two mugs with black coffee and held one out to Hunter.

  “How’s the arm?” he asked.

  “I’ll live.” Hunter sat back down on the cot, careful of his arm that was bandaged and in a sling. He took the coffee and sipped it, grimacing at the satisfyingly strong, bitter taste.

  The lieutenant was named Shaeffer. He opened the collar of his uniform coat, pushed his hat back casually on his head and tilted the chair back on its rear legs till the back touched the wall. “I checked your record, Hunter. You’re one strange bird, you know that?”

  Hunter grunted. “Did you make that call I told you about?”

  “To that man Rogers in Washington? Yeah. I still don’t know what agency he was with. The number’s not listed, and I can’t find out who this Rogers fellow is. But I’m working on it.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “A fancy shyster lawyer? Is that who he is? You’re calling down some fancy Dan barrister to spring you on a habeas corpus?”

  “Maybe.”

  Lieutenant Shaeffer shrugged and opened up the file that had been tucked under his arm. He began reading it, raising pages that were stapled into it. “Says here you’re one of the most famous hoods in Chicago. Gambling. Numbers. Bootlegging Protection.” He laughed. “That’s a good one, protection. Looks like you got some protection of your own. Otherwise I don’t see how you could have operated so openly without being run in.”

  Hunter said nothing.

  “All right, Hunter, here’s what I don’t get. Your war record’s in here too. You were a pretty straight and narrow guy. Major in the Air Corps. Decorated repeatedly for bravery and valor. The Distinguished Service Cross, no less. Now, that’s something I got a lot of respect for. I know it don’t come easy.” He leafed through a few more pages. “The French awarded you the Croix de guerre. You were wounded in action on three separate occasions.” He looked up puzzled. “So what’s a hero like you doing on the wrong side of the law?”

  “Making a living, Lieutenant. Just like any other average citizen.”

  “It don’t make sense. After the war you come home, do some stunt flying for a while, some bush piloting. Then you start running booze when the Volstead Prohibition Act passes. After that you disappear for a year, and no one knows where you are or what happened to you. Then you suddenly turn up in Chicago, working for Ironman.” He turned his palm up in a questioning gesture. “I don’t mean to be critical. I just don’t understand it.”

  “What happened to the girl I was brought in with?” “Kristin Smith. Or Jones. Or whatever false name it was she gave at the desk. For some reason she’s got a stake in not letting anybody know who she really is. We’ve got her held over for interrogation. We’ll figure out sooner or later what the hell you two were doing floating around in the harbor, you wounded, she half-naked. It may take some time. It may take some unpleasantness for the lady. Unless, of course, you want to save us the trouble, and her the discomfort? A few simple answers to some simple questions, maybe?”

  Hunter shrugged. “You can’t hold us for very long. You’ve got no evidence that we broke any laws. You’re on a fishing expedition, and you know it.” Hunter did not intend to say anything further until he talked to Rogers. He lay back down and closed his eyes. The lieutenant did not take the hint and leave. He stayed in the room, watching him. After what seemed like a quarter-hour, the door opened, and another man walked in. He had a deep, gravelly voice. “Lieutenant, your captain would like to speak to you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Rogers is the name. Federal Crime Task Force. I came all the way from Washington to talk to that big, bad man you got lying there.”

  “You going to supersede our jurisdiction, is that it?” There was a hint of bitterness to the lieutenant’s voice. No policeman liked making an arrest, only to have the case taken out of his hands by a higher-up, especially by a higher-up from a totally different government agency.

  “Right now I only want to talk to him.”

  Hunter opened his eyes and looked at the two men. He watched Lieutenant Shaeffer shrug, stand up and leave, taking the file with him. The door closed after him.

  Rogers was a thin man with a long face and slightly protruding eyes. He wore thick spectacles and looked like a college professor, an image that did not fit with his deep voice. He set his briefcase down on the table, came up to Hunter and stood over him, his hands on his hips.

  “Damn it, Dallas, what the hell have you gotten yourself into this time? You missed your last two reporting periods. The old man was sure your cover had been blown, and we’d find you on the bottom of Lake Michigan with cement overshoes.”

  “No such luck for you guys. I’m still on the payroll. But it was close. You know that girl I was brought in with?”

  “Yeah?”

  Hunter hesitated. He did not want to tell Rogers the whole story. He felt foolish enough for ever believing she was somehow an innocent, misguided young woman. He felt foolish for falling in love with her. No, he wouldn’t tell Rogers about that. But he certainly would tell him what he’d learned about her last night from her questions during sex. “She was planted by Ironman,” Hunter reported. “I’m almost sure of it. He probably suspects I’m federal but doesn’t know for sure.”

  “What makes you think so?” Rogers offered Hunter a pack of Chesterfields with several cigarettes tapped forward. Hunter took one and let Rogers light it for him.

  “She started asking me questions about things like abducting reporters off the street. She wasn’t very subtle about it. She wanted to find out what I knew about Chad Fleming. She was watching me to see if I reacted to her mentioning that bit about abducting reporters. No one but a federal agent would know about Fleming’s being abducted.”

  “Fleming,” said Rogers thoughtfully. “He’s the one who stumbled onto your identity while researching a story, isn’t he?”

  “That’s the one. Then he disappeared. I’m almost sure it was Ironman who took him out. I had an appointment to meet with him the day he disappeared. He never showed. I think Ironman took him out and maybe made him talk.”

  “That doesn’t make sense, Dallas. If he talked, you wouldn’t be around right now to wonder about it. Ironman isn’t what you’d call squeamish about the use of force. And he’s got no liking for T-men.”

  Hunter dragged deeply on the cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs for a long, satisfying moment before letting it out. “Well, maybe Fleming didn’t point me out as being the infiltrator. Maybe Ironman’s just grasping at straws, having the girl mention the incident to me to see how I react. To see if I look like I know what she’s talking about. Ironman is sure desperate enough to try something like that. He knows we’ve got an infiltrator in his organization, and it’s driving him nuts trying to figure out who it is. You know, he doesn’t even let his accountant do the main ledger anymore? He’s afraid to let any one man have access to all that incriminating evidence. So now he does it himself.”

  “We’ve got him spooked, all right,” agreed Rog
ers. “But driving him nuts isn’t what we want. We want evidence. Enough evidence to put the bastard away for a long, long time. And so far you haven’t given us enough—”

  “Damn it!” Hunter exploded, not even listening to what Rogers was talking about. “She must be working for Ironman. How else could she know about Fleming’s being abducted? No one knows about that but the people who did it, meaning Ironman and the people close to him.” He looked at Rogers with a frowning, questioning look. “That’s right, isn’t it? No one else knows about it?”

  Roger nodded. “We quashed the investigation into the abduction like a sledge hammer on a grapefruit. No one got any information out of that investigation. We sent orders down to have the Chicago cops cease and desist immediately, and they did just that. We couldn’t have them snooping around while a federal agent was undercover on the case. They might have turned up information on you. And the more people who know about you, the greater the risk of your cover being blown.”

  Hunter sighed and dropped the stub of his cigarette into the bottom of the coffee mug. The cigarette hissed out in the half-inch of cold coffee. Hunter knew the cops wouldn’t have continued the investigation, not when orders came down from the Treasury Department to stop it. The Treasury Department wielded a lot of power. It’s Alcoholic Beverages Commission was the main agency empowered by Congress to enforce the prohibition statutes.

  “So we’ve got questions and no answers,” said Hunter dismally. “That’s about par for the course. That’s the way it’s been ever since I started working for you guys. Well, the only thing to do now is to just go back and keep up my investigation. And hope my cover hasn’t been blown.”

  “That’s a big risk, considering that you think they’re suspicious about you.” Rogers frowned down at his shoes. Then he looked up and said, “If you do continue, I want you to take on a secondary mission: Find out what happened to Chad Fleming. If he’s still alive, let’s affect a rescue operation. But I’ll tell you this, Dallas. My personal feeling is that you should abandon the entire operation. It’s becoming riskier than I ever thought it would, now that they may be on to you.”

  “If I abandon it, Ironman will go free, and I’ll have wasted the entire year I’ve been undercover. We’ve got nothing on him strong enough to stick in court. Nothing firsthand except the small stuff, which won’t cost him more than a year or two in Sing Sing. If I stay with it a bit longer, I may turn up something that’ll put him out of commission for good.”

  “Yeah,” said Rogers harshly. “Unless he puts you out of commission first. Which is beginning to look likely.”

  “Look! If you’re so concerned about my health and welfare, why didn’t you just leave me alone with what I was doing, instead of recruiting me as a damn federal agent? I was perfectly happy running Canadian whiskey in from Quebec to the mainland.”

  Rogers shrugged and handed Hunter the new portfolio of mug shots from his briefcase. Each time they got together, Hunter was required to go through the recent mug shots to see if he could match them up with members of Ironman’s gang, who often went under false names.

  As Hunter quickly leafed through the mug book, Rogers watched him with awe and fascination—and respect. He recalled the first time he had met him. It had been during a windy night at a secret coastal rendezvous point. Hunter was delivering a shipment of bootleg whiskey he had transported from Ana Pris Island. Rogers had his men surround the rendezvous point, and when Hunter docked and unloaded, he sprang his trap.

  Hunter had been an independent bootlegger then, working only for himself. He had had three hired hands working under him, and the trawler he used had been rented, not owned. After the hired hands had been handcuffed and taken away, Rogers sat Hunter down on a rock and offered him a cigarette. It had been just the two of them; Roger’s men were off cataloging the confiscated shipment of liquor, out of hearing range. Hunter’s wrists were handcuffed. He was wearing an old, leather aviator’s jacket and visored military hat. He was angry as hell too.

  “Damn it,” he had cursed, dragging on the cigarette, “why didn’t you at least arrest us when we just docked? Why did you have to wait two hours while we unloaded the stuff. That was damn hard work! And for nothing.” “You should be worrying about spending the next few years in prison,” Rogers suggested. “Not about how hard you worked unloading your booze.”

  “Yeah, you should talk, T-man. You worked real hard springing your trap here. I can see you’re sweating like a dog.”

  Rogers smiled at the sarcasm. “Matter of fact, Mr. Hunter, I did work pretty hard at setting it up. I’ve been keeping tabs on you for several months now.” Hunter was surprised. First, that Rogers knew his name; and second, that he had been keeping track of his activities. “If you’ve been on to me for months, why haven’t you busted me before?”

  “Ironman Gianelli didn’t invite you to join his organization before.”

  “You know about that too, huh?” Hunter said.

  Rogers looked toward the crates of liquor, which were being cataloged by his men under the blazing arc lights. The surrounding sky and coast were black under the pall of night. Mosquitoes flitted around under the glare of the arc lights, fighting the strong wind. “Mr. Hunter, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  “Sorry, pal, you’re not my type.”

  “Here’s the proposition: You join us for a particular mission, and we won’t put you in Sing Sing for ten years of your life.”

  “You couldn’t get me for ten years. No judge would buy that.”

  “We’ve got connections. We could do it.”

  “What mission is it that’s so important to you?”

  “We want to put Ironman away.”

  Hunter laughed. “Lots of luck.” Ironman Gianelli was the most notorious criminal in the country even then, and he had several layers of people between himself and any operational acts to protect himself from prosecution. He never committed crimes personally. He only gave the orders, which were passed down to others, and then still others, before the crime was actually done. It was almost impossible to get clear evidence against him.

  “We want you to infiltrate his organization,” Rogers continued. “We’ve never had a better opportunity than this to get him. We can’t plant one of our own men in his organization; he’d investigate his background too closely. We tried once and ended up with a dead agent. With you, though, he knows your background. You’re a bona fide hood. A bootlegger. He’s bought from you for over a year. And he respects your talent enough to want you as part of his gang. That’s why he made you the offer.”

  “You didn’t know he’d make me the offer to come work for him,” Hunter said. “So why keep track of me for two months?”

  “Two reasons. First, we’ve been keeping track of several people who might be invited to join him. You just happen to be the one he asked. Second, someone very high up has been looking over your record and decided you were the ideal man for the job. This person is quite impressed with you. He said he was sure you’d take the assignment, if it were presented to you properly.”

  “Well, T-man, I guess you didn’t present it properly. Because the answer is no. I’m not interested. You can’t put me away for even two years. I’ve got a clean record.” He glanced away at the crates of his liquor, which were now being destroyed by the axes of Rogers’s federal agents. He looked back at Rogers. “And besides, I don’t like working for the government. I’m a believer in the free-enterprise system. I like being an independent operator making a dishonest living smuggling in honest booze.”

  Rogers nodded understandingly. “I didn’t expect you’d want to go along with it. Neither did my superior, the higher-up I mentioned to you. who liked your war record. He said I should bring you in to him and let him persuade you personally.”

  “Yeah? Who is this higher-up, anyway?”

  “A man who can’t stand the reputation of lawlessness this country is getting around the world, thanks to people like Ironman Gianelli. A man who i
s obsessed with putting a stop to the crime wave Ironman is such a key part of. If we can put Ironman away, it’ll be a clear sign to the world that criminals don’t have free reign in our society. And it’ll show the lower-level hoods that we mean business.”

  “You still didn’t tell me this higher-up’s name.” Rogers had been sitting on a boulder, near Hunter. He stood up, went to Hunter, and unlocked his handcuffs. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to him.”

  And he had done just that. Rogers remembered how astonished Hunter had been to find out exactly who it was that was so interested in having him become a Treasury Department agent, a T-man. He agreed to go along with the plan.

  Instead of continuing as an independent bootlegger who transported whiskey to Ironman’s speakeasies, Hunter accepted Ironman’s offer to come work for him. His first task was to show Ironman how to arrange his own network, so he could bring bootleg booze in himself and sell it to other speakeasies at a high profit. After that, Ironman made Hunter one of his major lieutenants, in charge of the Crimson Club. That casino provided a substantial part of Ironman’s illegal revenues.

  Now there was a chance they might be close to actually jailing Ironman. And it was all because of the man who had persuaded Hunter to take the assignment. ...

  “None of these mugs fit Ironman’s men,” Hunter said, interrupting Rogers’s recollection. Hunter handed the book back to him.

  “What do you want us to do about this Kristin girl?” Roger asked. “Detain her? The longer we keep her away from you, the less chance of her finding out anything and reporting back to Ironman.”

  “I want you to let her go. But don’t make it easy for her. Give her a hard time first. The thing is, I want to see who she calls for help. Who she runs to when she gets in a jam. That’ll tell me a lot about her.”