Vice Cop

by Deming, Richard

  Climbing out of the car again, I re-entered the building and took the elevator to the basement. Checking my gun at the felony booking desk, I had myself let into the women’s section of the jail.

  Sharon looked much better than she had that morning. Although her expression was glum, the dark circles were gone from around her eyes and she again looked five years younger than her actual age instead of five years older.

  “Had some sleep?” I inquired.

  “Most of the day,” she said. “There isn’t much else to do.”

  “Have you been able to remember anything yet?”

  She shook her head. “It’s hopeless, Matt. It’s all just a blank.”

  “Hear from your lawyer again?”

  “He was in about an hour ago,” she said. “The D.A. refused to reduce the charge. I have a preliminary hearing scheduled for tomorrow morning, and Max says I’ll probably be remanded here until the grand jury acts on my case next week. If I’m indicted, I’ll be transferred to the county jail until the trial. There isn’t any chance of getting out on bond.”

  “I didn’t figure there would be,” I said. “Have you ever been hypnotized, Sharon?”

  She gave me a surprised look. “No. Why?”

  “Just wondered. Would you be willing to be?”

  “Whatever for?” she asked in a puzzled voice.

  “To bring back your memory. I’ve read that sometimes it can be done under hypnosis.”

  She looked at me wide-eyed.

  “Of course there’s the chance that you’ll remember you did kill Isobel,” I said. “Are you willing to take that chance?”

  She didn’t even hesitate. “It would relieve me just to know for sure,” she said fervently. “I’ll do whatever you say, Matt.”

  “Then I’ll see if I can line up a competent psychiatrist who uses hypnotism,” I told her. “I won’t be able just to bring him in here, though. If Homicide got wind of it, they’d blow their lids. When matters are arranged, I’ll throw it in your lawyer’s lap. He’ll have to talk Lieutenant Wynn into permitting the experiment with Homicide officers as witnesses.”

  Sharon looked a little frightened. “If it turned out that I killed her after all, I wouldn’t have a chance then, would I? They’d hear my confession.”

  “That’s right,” I agreed. “Willing to take that risk?”

  She nodded with determination. “I said I’d do anything you say.”

  “Okay,” I said “I’ll let you know when and if I can arrange anything.”

  Upstairs again I went to the pay phone in the lobby and looked in the yellow section of the book for physicians. There were fourteen listed who specialized in psychoanalysis. I started dropping dimes and calling them in order.

  By now it was five-thirty, a bad time to try to reach doctors. The first three I tried had left for the day. The next two said they didn’t employ hypnosis as a form of therapy. The following three were also gone from their offices.

  With number nine, I finally clicked. His name was Dr. Myron Quigley and he had an office in the Medical Building, which meant he was a top-price man, if nothing else. He said he had used hypnosis extensively in the treatment of disturbed patients. When I explained that I was a police officer and wanted to consult him about a murder case, he told me to come to his office at six forty-five P.M.

  That gave me just time to catch some dinner first. Promptly at six forty-five I arrived at Dr. Quigley’s office. Apparently he had evening office hours because there were a couple of patients already waiting. The nurse was expecting me and told me to go right on in.

  Dr. Myron Quigley was a round little man with iron-gray hair and twinkling black eyes. He bounced up from his desk when I came in and greeted me cordially.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to rush you a little, Sergeant,” he said in a deep but pleasant voice. “I have a seven P.M. appointment and I don’t like to keep patients waiting. It’s bad therapy. I hustled through dinner to work you in early. So if you’ll explain as quickly as possible just what you want, it will be helpful. If it’s going to take more time than the fifteen minutes I’ve allotted now, we’ll make a later appointment. Perhaps lunch tomorrow, where we can discuss things at leisure.”

  “I have a luncheon appointment with a reefer pusher tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t think it will take much time to decide whether or not you can help me. Have you read the news account of Isobel Whittier’s murder?”

  He nodded, his face expressing interest. “They’ve arrested the young Manners girl. I know her father well.”

  “Then I won’t go into the details of the murder.” Briefly I explained that Sharon had been out on her feet from a mixture of liquor, aphrodisiac-spiked wine and marijuana, and couldn’t recall a thing that had happened.

  “I’ve read a bit about hypnosis,” I concluded. “Would it be possible to make her remember by putting her into a hypnotic state?”

  Putting the tips of his fingers together, he pursed his lips. “I’m afraid under the circumstances you describe, it would probably be a lost cause.”

  “Why?” I inquired.

  “Hypnosis has been used on many, many occasions to restore memory, Sergeant. In cases of amnesia, for instance. Or to bring back memories of childhood. But in such cases the patient knew what was going on at the time, and something later destroyed his conscious awareness of it. A sudden shock, for instance, might create a mental block, causing a surface loss of memory, but still leaving a recollection of what happened buried in his subconscious. I’m trying to use lay terms instead of psychological jargon as much as possible. Do you follow me?”

  “So far,” I said.

  “Well, your case is a different matter than the type I’ve described. When a person is deeply under the influence of alcohol or drugs, awareness of what is going on around him is often almost completely destroyed. There is nothing in the subconscious to expose, because there was nothing absorbed by the conscious mind in the first place. I know of no case where hypnosis was successful in making a blanked-out drunk recall what he had done. There may have been such cases, but I haven’t heard of any.”

  “Then you think it wouldn’t work?” I said, disappointed.

  “I’m relatively certain that a simple probing into the subconscious wouldn’t get us anywhere. The patient would recall only what she had been aware was happening at the time. You could hardly expect her to remember what occurred around her when, for all practical purposes, she was asleep. But there is a remote chance that placing the patient under hypnosis and ordering her to re-enact the entire evening might give us some hints of what happened. While her subconscious wouldn’t recall what others did around her, it would recall her own bodily movements. If she actually stabbed the Whittier woman, for instance, she might re-enact the murder under hypnosis by making the same stabbing motion again.”

  I brightened a little. “Would you be willing to try to have her re-enact the evening. Doctor?”

  “If proper circumstances can be arranged. The experiment would have to take place at the original location, with either the same weapon or a prop similar to it. Did I understand you to say the girl stripped prior to picking up the weapon?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “Then she would have to wear the same clothing she wore last night. The more accurate the reconstruction of detail, the better chance there would be of success. Of course there is only a remote chance in any event. I don’t want to buoy up your hopes too much.”

  “I understand,” I said. “When could you do it?”

  He glanced at his watch. “I don’t have office hours Friday afternoons. I’d be available tomorrow.”

  I stood up. “I’ll have the girl’s lawyer get in touch with you in the morning, Doctor. His name is Max Fuller. Thanks for your time.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. “I’m always glad to cooperate with the police.”

  Outside I mulled over the conversation without much satisfaction. Dr. Myron Quigley certain
ly hadn’t been very encouraging. We would try him, I decided, but I thought I had better come up with some other idea too, if I ever expected to get Sharon off the hook.

  CHAPTER XX

  HEADING FOR the nearest drugstore, I looked up Max Fuller’s number in the phone book. The lawyer had both an office and a residence number listed. I tried his home.

  Luckily he was in. I explained who I was and described my session with Dr. Quigley. Max Fuller was more enthusiastic than I was about the project.

  “Do you suppose I could get in touch with Lieutenant Wynn tonight?” he asked.

  I said, “He’s on the night watch.”

  “Then I’ll call him at headquarters right now, Sergeant. I’m sure I can get him to agree.”

  “You don’t know Wynn very well, do you?” I said dubiously.

  “You don’t know me very well,” he said in a confident tone. “A situation such as this is perfect for bringing pressure. If he refuses to allow the experiment, I’ll simply threaten to use his refusal as a defense measure in court. No policeman likes to have to explain on the stand why some reasonable avenue of investigation was deliberately ignored.”

  “Well, I wish you luck,” I told him. “One thing, though. Don’t let Wynn know this idea came from me. He’ll cooperate better if he thinks it’s your brain child.”

  “Don’t you want the credit?”

  “I wouldn’t get any,” I told him. “I’d be advised to mind my own business. Let’s do it my way, huh?”

  “As you wish,” he said agreeably. “Thanks for the suggestion, Sergeant.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  It had been a long day and I hadn’t had much sleep the night before. I drove home, took a hot shower and went to bed. I was asleep by eight-fifteen.

  A ringing noise awakened me. I reached out in the darkness and pushed down the button of my alarm clock. The ringing sounded again. I picked up my bedside phone and listened to the dial tone. A third ring pealed.

  Hanging up the phone, I switched on my bed lamp. It was the doorbell ringing. I have the old-fashioned kind that rings instead of buzzing or chiming.

  My alarm clock said three-thirty, and I knew I hadn’t slept clear through into the afternoon because it was still dark out. I concluded it was three-thirty A.M. Pulling a robe over my pajamas, I grumbled my way to the door, switching on a lamp in the front room as I went past it. The bell rang again while I was en route, which made me mad enough to jerk the door wide open. Then I tried to close it again, but I wasn’t fast enough.

  It hadn’t occurred to me to answer the door with a gun in my hand. Usually I don’t need one when people call, even in the middle of the night. My .38 Detective Special was in its holster on top of my dresser.

  My callers had theirs in their hands. The tall, skinny guy who was first caught the door on his shoulder when I tried to slam it and bulled his way inside, bruising my chest with his gun muzzle and stepping on my bare toes as he advanced. He had feet bigger than Satchel Paige’s.

  I backed up and did a little dance until my toes stopped aching.

  A short, barrel-chested man with a heavy face slashed by a broad grin followed the skinny one inside and carefully closed the door behind him. He grinned at me chummily.

  “What the hell’s the idea?” I demanded.

  Skinny had a long, sad face and a long, black automatic. It looked like a World War I Luger. He used it to gesture me toward the bedroom. The shorter man stepped around me to go first. Spotting my .38 on the dresser, he broke it, emptied the shells into the wastebasket alongside the dresser and shoved it back into its holster.

  “Get your clothes on,” the skinny man said in a sad voice.

  “What the hell for?” I inquired. “I plan to go back to bed.”

  “You’ll go there dead if. you don’t get your clothes on,” he said, pushing the safety off his Luger.

  I frowned at him. “Do you guys know I’m a cop?”

  “We know who you are,” he assured me sadly. “You’ve got three seconds to start dressing.”

  He sounded as though he meant it. I started dressing.

  “You won’t need a tie,” the barrel-chested man said, grinning at me. “It ain’t formal.”

  He hadn’t stopped grinning once, but it didn’t mean he was good humored. I decided it was his perpetual expression.

  I omitted the tie, leaving my shirt open at the throat. After shrugging into my suit coat, I waited for further instructions.

  “After you,” Skinny said.

  The grinner went first. He was carrying a .38 snub-nosed revolver similar to mine. He put it into his pocket when he got to the front door, cracked open the door and peeped out. Apparently all was clear, for he opened the door the rest of the way and stepped into the hall. I followed and Skinny brought up the rear.

  My apartment is on the second floor. We went down the steps in single file, the barrel-chested man first, me in the middle, the skinny man last. We met no one in the building and no one was on the street. There was a dark blue Buick sedan parked in front a few feet beyond the building entrance. As we approached it from the rear, I noticed it bore local license plates.

  Since these boys were obviously pros, there wasn’t much point in memorizing the license number, because it was certain to be a hot car lifted specifically for this job. But I memorized it anyway. I didn’t have anything else to occupy my mind at the moment.

  The skinny man ordered me into the back seat and slipped in alongside me. The grinner climbed under the wheel. Skinny rested the butt of his gun on one knee with the muzzle aimed at my stomach. I noticed he hadn’t bothered to put the safety back on.

  As the car pulled away from the curb, I said, “You boys have names?”

  It was too dark to see the driver’s reflection in the rear-view mirror, but I was sure he was grinning when he said, “You can call him Slim, because nobody else ever does. You can call me Fat for the same reason.”

  At the corner he turned east off of Fifteenth onto Vermont Avenue.

  “You’re not local,” I said. “I know all the local faces.”

  The driver said, “We flew in from Chicago tonight. Just to see you.”

  I got it then, and the hair along the nape of my neck raised. When men with the professional manner of these two flew in from out of town, they came for only one reason: to make a quick kill and fly out again before the body was discovered. They were bigtime free-lance killers, available for any job providing the fee was right.

  The fee for killing a cop ought to be enormous, I thought. Most hired killers draw the line at cop-killing, because the mortality rate is so high. Other cops resent it.

  I said, “You boys are awfully brave. Didn’t I mention I was a cop?”

  “We heard you,” the man who nobody ever called Slim said in his sad voice. “You can shut up now.”

  I lapsed into silence in order to try to figure out who had hired them. A lot of people could have, because I had sent a lot of people to jail over the years, and some of them held grudges. It seemed more likely that it was someone with a recent grudge, however. The urgency shown by having them fly down from Chicago in the middle of the night suggested that it was very recent. I decided that one of my suspects in the Whittier case must have made the move. Apparently my continuing to pry into the case after Homicide had closed the book on it had someone upset.

  The most logical guess was Joe Greco, because he would have the contacts to get hold of hired killers. While not in the rackets himself, except in the more refined rackets of street-department and public housing graft, he had many political and business dealings with racketeers. Any of a dozen of his racketeer cronies could have steered him to the kill syndicate which operated out of Chicago. And within a couple of hours after making a long-distance phone call, Skinny and the grinner could have been boarding a plane for St. Cecilia.

  Then I decided that while Greco might be the most logical guess, he wasn’t necessarily the only logical one. How
did I know what contacts Howard Farrell and Ross Whittier had? In these modern days when the top racketeers dressed in ivy league clothes, used correct grammar and hid behind legitimate business fronts, a lot of them were accepted by Society with a capital S. I knew that some of St. Cecilia’s most successful thugs belonged to the Riverside Country Club. Maybe some of them were personal friends of Whittier or Farrell. Any one of them could put a friend in touch with the kill syndicate, because they themselves usually employed out-of-town talent when they wanted to dispose of a colleague.

  I said, “I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask who’s picking up the tab, would it?”

  “We couldn’t tell you even if we wanted to,” Skinny said sadly. “We never know.” We just get the assignment and carry it out. No hard feelings, Rudowski. With us it’s just a business.”

  “Rudowski?” I said. “You’ve got the wrong man. My name’s Rudd. Didn’t you see the card on my door?”

  “We saw it. We were informed you used that name, too. Besides, we got a detailed description of you. It mentioned your pretty big brown eyes. We’ve got the right man.”

  Up to now I had just been scared. But I’m touchy about my eyes. I started to get a little mad.

  Glancing out the window, I saw we were passing Sixth Street and still heading east. Presumably our destination was the river, or at least the dock area.

  “What’s down this way?” I inquired.

  “A skiff with some chains in it,” the driver said pleasantly. “We plan to be in South America before you’re found, Brown-eyes.”

  “My name is Rudd,” I said shortly. “Or Rudowski. Take your pick.”

  “Brown-eyes suits you better,” the skinny man said. “I bet the girls really go for those eyes.”

  We were crossing Fourth. I said, “You’re an awful stupid gun.”

  “Huh?” Skinny said.

  “I could take you easy, Stupid. You’ve got the safety on your gun.”

  He must have been stupid. Instead of just feeling for it with his thumb, he took his eyes off me to look down.