Passion's Wicked Torment

by Melissa Hepburne

  Rogers slapped him on the shoulder. “All right. Will do. As for you, I don’t guess you want the department to arrange for you to be sprung.”

  “No. Better let me call down my own shyster and have him arrange it. If I get off too easily, it’ll look bad.”

  Rogers nodded. “Right. And don’t worry about that cop, Lieutenant Shaeffer, talking about you having a visitor from Washington. I’ll talk to him.” He tossed his pack of cigarettes to Hunter to keep and started to leave. “Call us when you need us. And to report! I get irritable when my field agents don’t report on schedule.”

  “Poor Rogers,” said Hunter. “Having to get all irritable and edgy. It’s a rough life.” He grinned. After Rogers left, Hunter poured himself a mug of coffee and sipped at it absently. He wondered what Kristin would do now. Who would she turn to? That would answer a lot of questions about her, finding out that one piece of information.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ironman Mike Gianelli was stunned when his man Riggio told him who was calling. “Kristin Seagrave?” Ironman repeated, frowning in puzzlement. “Hunter’s dame? What does she want with me?”

  Riggio shrugged and spoke into the phone. “What do you want with him?” He listened for a minute, his sadeyed, deeply lined face impassive. Then he said to Ironman, “She’s in jail. She wants you to spring her.”

  Ironman frowned even more. He wondered how she had managed to escape from Rooney. Jail was certainly an improvement for her over Rooney’s whore ship. He also wondered why she was calling him for help, instead of Hunter. Reluctantly, he took the phone. He had misgivings, but he was curious.

  “Yeah?” he said into the receiver. “Ironman Gianelli here.”

  “Ain’t we formal,” muttered Riggio, penciling in a number on his scratch sheet.

  Ironman listened to Kristin explain her situation. He asked her questions and listened intently to her answers. At the end of the conversation he told her not to worry, he’d see that she was taken care of. Then he hung up. He grimaced as he leaned back in the plush leather swivel chair behind his desk. “That’s strange,” he said.

  “Dames is always strange,” said Riggio, not looking up from his scratch sheet. He was seated on the edge of his boss’s desk. He was a wiry, lanky man with a thin Brooklyn face and thinning hair.

  “You know how she managed to get away from Rooney’s boat? Hunter helped her.”

  “Well, you been wondering where he’s been these past few days. Now you know.”

  “He and the girl were arrested a couple days ago. Hunter got sprung this morning. Instead of having his shyster spring her too, though, he told her to kiss off and left. That’s why she’s calling me.”

  “And here I thought it was your charmin’ personality.”

  Ironman ignored the sarcasm. He seemed lost in thought. “You know what else she said? She doesn’t want me to have her delivered over to Hunter’s club after she’s sprung. She wants to be taken right. . . . here.” He adjusted his tie and nodded in affirmation of the significance of this.

  Riggio whistled, impressed by the significance. “Why you think that is, boss?”

  Ironman said nothing, and after a minute, Riggio returned to filling out his scratch sheet, penciling in the bets he planned to make at the horse races. He was used to being ignored. Ironman leaned farther back, put his feet up on the desk and began wondering about the question. Why did the girl want to come here?

  Ironman Gianelli was not a dumb man, though he sometimes made it appear that he was when it was to his advantage. He controlled a good portion of the most profitable underworld activities in Chicago. He had worked his way up from being a subordinate to another gangster—Paul “the Gunner” Rasmusson—to eventually controlling all of Rasmusson’s activities, and more. The means by which he had accomplished all this was simple: He had killed the notorious Paul Rasmusson. Then he killed the only other subordinate who could compete with him in inheriting Rasmusson’s organization. For six years now he had had an iron grip on his territory in Chicago. He was recognized as the nation’s foremost gangster, though the authorities could prove nothing against him.

  There were many reasons for his success, but one main one was that he chose his own assistants very carefully. He wanted them to be tough enough to get their jobs done, but not so tough as to think about doing what he himself had done: killing the boss and taking his place.

  There were three main lieutenants working for him, one for each major area of his operation. Of the three, Dallas Hunter, head of gambling, was the brightest. This bothered Ironman. He distrusted brains. But Hunter had several advantages going for him, like being very polished and a good administrator. These were necessary traits in the manager of a successful casino. You almost had to be as much of a diplomat and good businessman as any ordinary, law-abiding businessman.

  Hunter was tough, too, but not vicious like some of the others. He had been highly recommended to Ironman by other gangsters whom Hunter had dealt with when he had been a bootlegger, and Ironman had personally dealt with him at that time too. The man was resourceful, daring, and he had a sense of style. In the year that he had been working for Ironman, there had been no problems at all.

  Until now.

  Ironman pulled open a drawer of his desk and withdrew a long thick cigar from a box within. He lit it and puffed on it thoughtfully. Hunter had disobeyed his orders. It was the first time as far as Ironman could tell. He had gone to rescue the girl, even though Ironman had told him not to. So what was Ironman going to do about it? Probably nothing. It only meant that Hunter was a sap for a beautiful dame. Well, not just any dame, but this particular one. Ironman had to admit that she really was something special.

  But now—and here was the part that made him wary and distrustful—now he was giving up his interest in the girl. And after he’d gone to all that trouble to rescue her. Why? Ironman sensed something very fishy, and he made up his mind to find out what the truth of the situation was. He also wanted to know why the girl was interested in himself all of a sudden.

  Ironman didn’t deceive himself about his attractiveness to the opposite sex. He wasn’t very attractive to them, and that was all there was to it. He didn’t kid himself. But on the telephone this Kristin dame had hinted around that she was interested in staying with Ironman for a while, instead of going back to Hunter. Was it the power he wielded that attracted her? His wealth? Or maybe he had just misread her intentions, imagined the wrong thing?

  He’d find out. soon enough. He grinned. He had always had a fondness for the ladies. That was one of the reasons he had gone into a life of crime. Even as a kid he knew he’d never be able to have beautiful dames by his looks alone. He needed money, power, position. So he went after it. But now, getting it, he still only got floozies and the kind of dames that turned out to be molls. They weren’t a very classy bunch. This Kristin Seagrave, though, was of a different mold entirely. Ironman had seen that right from the start.

  “Hey, Riggo.”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Have our shyster contact his associate in New York and get this girl sprung. And have Teal take a train down and meet her at the lockup and escort her back here.”

  “What’s the matter, you don’t think she can find her own way?”

  “Well. . . Ironman hesitated. “There’s still Rooney’s bunch to worry about. Teal can be her protection.” This was only a very minor concern though. Rooney probably had no idea where she was, or thought she was still on his associate’s ship. The real reason, Ironman admitted to himself, since he was not a man who was afraid to face the facts, was this: He didn’t want to take any chances with the girl not coming. He wanted her. And it looked like he would have her. He smiled a crooked smile as he tapped the cigar ash into his carved ivory ashtray.

  Kristin sat in the luxury of a private, first-class cabin on the train and gazed at the man sitting across from her. The man, Arthur Teal, was reading a copy of Life magazine. On the cover was a cartoon caricatu
re by John Held, Jr., of a flapper doing the Charleston, the newest dance craze. Teal was smiling at what he was reading, but it was a weasel’s smile. The man looked tough, sly and savage.

  Kristin looked out the window at the industrial area they were passing through. A factory loomed off in the distance. Then suddenly they were past, and it receded quickly in the distance. The train jolted her about in the seat and made a metallic clanging noise as it sped along the rails.

  Teal glanced up at her from his magazine. “We’re almost there. We’ll be pulling into Grand Central Station in a few minutes. Bet you’ll be glad to get back to the big city after spending all those days in that lockup.”

  “I’ll be glad.” She did not expand on this, and Teal, sensing that she was no more in the mood to talk now than she had been earlier, did not push. He returned to his magazine.

  Kristin was not at all glad that she was on her way to Ironman Gianelli. She knew his reputation. She knew her life with him, as his moll, would be difficult. But there was no choice. It was one of Ironman’s men who had abducted Chad, meaning Ironman himself had ordered it. So she had to arrange a situation with him like the one she had tried to arrange with Dallas. She had to win his trust and manage to be around him enough so that she could perhaps overhear something about Chad, or so she could question him discreetly.

  She knew she was ruining any hopes of a reconciliation with Dallas by going to Ironman. Dallas would now be convinced that she was exactly what she had presented herself as, and which he had for so long resisted believing: a thrill-seeking, greedy girl looking to advance herself. He would hate her. But of course, she thought ruefully, he hated her already. And she did not even know why.

  “Chicago!” bellowed the conductor passing through the corridor. “Now arriving, Chicago Central.”

  Kristin looked out the window as the train pulled into the enormous train depot that was the end of the line. She began bracing herself for what was to come. Becoming Ironman’s moll should be easier than becoming Hunter’s, she thought. She already had the experience of doing something like this once before. But it wasn’t easier. It was harder and more repulsive. And she felt uncomfortable as she and Teal disembarked from the train, then entered the private limousine Ironman had sent for her.

  The limo delivered her to the residential hotel Ironman lived at. Teal accompanied her in the elevator up to the penthouse suite, but when the elevator door was opened, Riggio was there. He quickly said to Teal, “Wait a minute. I’ll go back down with you.”

  Teal looked surprised. He had expected to be invited in. Riggio stepped inside and he said to Kristin, “Go right in. The boss is waiting for you.” He put his arm around Teal’s shoulder and started talking in jovial banter to soothe the affront of Teal’s not being invited inside. The elevator bell dinged, and then they were gone.

  Kristin looked through the open doorway to Ironman Gianelli’s suite, craning her neck forward. Ironman was nowhere in sight. Hesitantly, she entered. The living room was exceptionally plush. The carpet was thick white pile, the furniture was ultramodern Danish. The room was spacious and airy, a split-level affair with the area nearest the huge windows raised two steps above the entrance level. The only thing that detracted from the look of sophisticated luxury were the paintings on the walls. They were crass and gaudy. The man who had chosen them obviously had no taste.

  Ironman was still nowhere to be found. Kristin glanced briefly toward the darkened doorway that led into the master bedroom, but turned her eyes away quickly. If he was in there, with the lights out, she did not want to know about it.

  “Hey!” called Ironman’s gruff voice from the other direction. “Out here! Come on!”

  The veranda windows were open, Kristin saw. She walked through them, toward the sound of Ironman’s voice.

  “Grab yourself a drink. Sit down. Glad to see you.” Ironman gestured toward the bar out on the roof deck where he sat with a Bloody Mary in his hand. He wore a white silk robe belted at his waist. His hair was slicked back. He was lounging on a patio reclining chair, his feet up and crossed, exposing his hairy black legs from the knees down.

  Kristin was surprised to find him wearing the white silk robe. It was not the fact that he was dressed in a robe that surprised her, but that it was white silk as opposed to something coarser and more befitting his nature. On second thought, though, she understood. It fit in with his attempt to pass himself off as a sophisticated, fashionable man, which he was not. She thought of the way he usually dressed for business: pearl stickpin, silk tie, 200 dollar sharkskin suit with a fresh flower in the lapel. The man was a tough gangster who had pretensions toward being more than that.

  “I don’t want a drink, thank you,” Kristin said, ignoring the bar he had gestured toward. She stood only a few feet forward of the veranda windows she had come out of. She did not know if she should go to Ironman and sit down in the chair next to him, or just stand here. She felt awkward.

  Ironman took command of the situation, naturally, and she found that this helped put her at ease. He held up the ledger book he had open before him on his lap and grinned at her. “Look at this. Will you just look at this? Records. Records of receipts, payoffs, investments, percentages. You wouldn’t think a gangster would have to mess with this stuff, would you? But I’ll tell you,” he said, shaking his head, inviting her to laugh along with him at the absurdity of the situation, “being a crook these days is as much work as being an honest businessman.”

  Kristin tried to smile, but her expression felt false and stiff. Ironman grinned at her. He motioned her forward. “Come on, doll, sit down. I won’t bite you.” When she came over and sat upright in the lounge chair adjacent to his, her legs over the edge, her feet touching the ground, Ironman took her hand and said, “You’re nervous, right? Don’t let it get to you. I’ll tell you a secret, doll. I am too.”

  “You?” she said, unable to contain her surprise. “Yeah.” He laughed. “Crazy, ain’t it? Ironman Gianelli, toughest hood in Chicago, feeling nervous about being with a dame. But you know, here’s how it is. You ain’t like other dames. I had other dames before, a dime a dozen. Most of the time, they don’t even wait to be flirted with; they just throw themselves at me. But them, they’re all floozies. You, doll, you’re different.” Kristin was surprised by his sincerity. It helped put her a bit more at ease, knowing that he was not savoring her embarrassment and nervousness. Also, it was nice that he was trying to put her at ease, as he obviously was attempting to do. It was as if it were important to him to make her feel as comfortable as he could.

  He tossed the heavy ledger book over to a patio table and ran his hand through his slicked-back hair. He smiled at her. And though the man was a wolf and a fox and a vulture, the smile was not at all unpleasant.

  “All right, doll. It’s time you and me talked business. The last time I saw you, you was being held by Rooney, and I was yelling at Dallas to stop trying to rescue you, to leave you to that bastard and just make his getaway with me. Next thing I know, you’re on the phone, making it sound like you want to stay with me. What’s the story? I’d have guessed you’d hate my guts after me wanting to leave you to Rooney like that.”

  “No,” she said. “I understood. I meant nothing to you then, so why should you have risked one of your keymen to try to save me?”

  He looked at her carefully. He seemed impressed. “That’s right. That’s just the way it was. But I didn’t expect you to see it that way too.”

  “I’m not dumb.”

  “That you’re not, doll.”

  Now it was her turn to look into his eyes and to make her pitch for his taking her on as his moll. “That’s why I want to be with you,” she said. “Because I’m not dumb. I know what I want out of life. And I know that you can give it to me.”

  “So can Dallas Hunter,” he said flatly. “Why come to me when you were with Dallas? Why didn’t you stay with him?” His expression was a curious blend. He did not want to ruin his chances of havi
ng her stay with him, as he knew he was risking doing. But at the same time, he had to ask this question so he knew where he stood. He wanted to know exactly what the situation was in every way that it might possibly affect him. He had not achieved his preeminent position by being soft on facing facts.

  “Dallas can’t give me what you can. He’s . . . he’s not on top. You’re on top.”

  “Is that it? Isn’t there more to it than that?”

  “No.”

  He took her hand and held it. Then, without warning, he began to squeeze it in his iron grip, hurting her. She tried to pull it away, but couldn’t. “You’re hurting me!” she cried.

  “Dallas didn’t bother having his lawyer spring you from that lockup. You two were on the outs before you decided to come to me. Now I want the truth. What caused the breakup? You don’t go risking your life to rescue a girl from a hood like Rooney, and then abandon her at the last minute without good reason. I want to know the truth.”

  “If you’ll let go of my hand, I’ll tell you!” Kristin was in agony.

  “You’ll tell me now.”

  “I won’t!” She glared fiercely into his eyes, wincing because of the pain.

  After an instant, Ironman relaxed his grip. The pain subsided. Kristin could see from his expression that he had great respect for what she had just done. She had held her ground against him. He liked that. The cheap floozies he was used to would never have defied him in such a manner.

  Now that her hand was free, she rubbed it. She couldn’t tell Ironman the truth. The truth was that she didn’t know why Dallas had become upset with her on the island after she had done nothing but ask him questions to see if he knew about Chad. Ironman wouldn’t believe she didn’t know why Dallas was so upset with her. She invented a believable sounding reason, which was not entirely a lie. “Dallas doesn’t think a girl like me should be involved with men like you and him. He says I’m not the moll type.”