Savage Streets

by William P. McGivern

  The phone began to ring and Ward picked up the receiver. He listened for a moment, and then said, “My name is Sam Ward, I’m a friend of the Norton family. But I’m sure you realize Mrs. Norton is in no condition...” He paused and raised a hand for attention; it was an unnecessary gesture because everyone was watching him closely. “Well, I don’t have any comment for the newspapers,” Ward said. “There’s always a hundred dollars’ worth of gossip for every dollar’s worth of fact in a case like this. You can tell me what you’ve heard, but don’t expect me to confirm or deny it.”

  Farrell stared over the heads of the group. In the windows that faced the quiet street he saw a reflection of Chicky’s small blonde head and a stretch of the smooth gray carpeting that covered the living room floor. Outside the darkness was defined in precise rectangles by the yellow beams of street lights.

  Ward said explosively, “Goddammit, this is the filthiest thing I’ve heard in all my life. What do you mean calling here? You ought to be ashamed to repeat that kind of thing.”

  Farrell turned wearily toward the phone. Ward’s face was flushed and his free hand had tightened into a lumpy fist. “No, I’m not going to calm down and listen,” he said. “I don’t want the filthy details. But I’ll tell you this much: Wayne Norton was one of the finest men in this neighborhood, and we won’t stand by and see his name dragged through the dirt. You print that story, and you’ll wake up in a blizzard of law suits.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Farrell said.

  Ward pushed the phone at Farrell. “Gladly. You’ve got a stronger stomach than I have. See what your little pets are up to now.”

  Farrell put the phone to his lips. “This is John Farrell,” he said.

  “Well, we meet again, so to speak. Lynn Wiley, Mr. Farrell. I talked to you earlier at the bar in Hayrack. Remember?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I understand Mr. Ward’s feelings,” Wiley said. “Reporters work in sensitive areas at times, but we don’t pick and choose the jobs. We just follow the news. You might explain that to him.”

  “All right.” Ward had taken Malleck and Detweiller into the dining room, and Grace was moving swiftly to join them, a tall black cylinder of tension and curiosity. Chicky Detweiller remained seated on the couch.

  “Here it is,” Wiley said. “A teen-ager named Cleo Soltis walked into the station a while ago. She had a bomb to drop. Her story is that some men from the Faircrest development broke into a clubhouse on Matt Street a couple of nights ago. She claims that her boy friend, whose name is Jerry Leuth, was knocked unconscious, and that...” Wiley hesitated, then said: “This is her unsupported story, Mr. Farrell, and I’m merely quoting her. She claims Wayne Norton raped her, which — according to her, again — is why this boy Duke gave Norton a hiding.” Wiley paused again, and Farrell heard his soft, slow breathing. “Well?” Wiley said.

  “Well what?”

  “What do you think of her story?”

  Farrell said: “What do you think of it?”

  “Ping-pong, eh?” Wiley said, and laughed. “Well, if the story’s true, it’s got everything. Violence, drama, sex, the works. But seriously, I’m sticking my neck out calling you. The girl’s inside with Lieutenant Jameson, and they’ve sent a car out for her father and mother. We’re not supposed to know anything about this yet, but the House Sergeant gave me the tip.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “Frankly, no. Girls who yell rape a few days after the fact aren’t very convincing. It’s not the kind of tiling that would slip your mind. My guess is, she’s trying to create sympathy for Duke, you know, provide him with a noble motivation for banging Norton around. But with Norton dead I can’t imagine anyone taking the story seriously. In all the years I’ve covered police I never heard of a dead man convicted for rape.”

  “Then why did you call here?”

  “I thought I might be able to break the news a bit more gently than the cops.”

  “That’s bull,” Farrell said. “Why did you call?”

  “Well, there might have been something to it.”

  “There’s always hope, eh?”

  “You know nothing about this, then? How about a quote? Was he one of the finest men you ever knew? Credit to the community? Et cetera, et cetera?” Wiley’s voice had gone up to an insistent pitch, the patina of polite gravity cracking with excitement. Farrell replaced the phone without answering and sat on the arm of the sofa.

  “What is it?” Chicky said, looking up at him. “New trouble?”

  “Not new, just more of the same.”

  Ward strode into the living room and said to Farrell: “What do you think of it? They’re not content he’s dead. They want to put wreaths of garbage on his grave.”

  Malleck sat down slowly in the straight-backed chair and looked at Farrell. “I hope this gives you an idea of what we’re up against,” he said. “Like Ward says, they’re not content with murder. They want to wreck his name and shame his wife, put a mark on that boy that will stand out like a brand the rest of his life. I just hope I don’t hear any more from you about saving this scum, Mr. Farrell. I just hope you’ve got enough sense and decency to shut up about this.”

  “What is it?” Chicky Detweiller said. “What’s happened?”

  Ward swore and said: “Some little whore, I forget her name, Cleo Soltick or something like that, a Hunky probably, from a long illustrious line of coal heavers and janitors. Well, she’s spreading a story that Wayne raped her.”

  Farrell rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. Grace Ward said shrilly, “They’ll stop at nothing. They should all be kept in cages like animals, if you ask me.”

  Chicky Detweiller murmured, “But it’s just so preposterous, who would possibly believe it?”

  “Nobody,” Malleck said. “It’s a lie, a filthy, rotten lie.”

  “The girl is telling the truth,” Farrell said bitterly. “The little Hunky from the illustrious line of coal heavers is speaking the Gospel. So it’s back to the conference table, ladies and gentlemen, you need another angle, another approach, another bagful of lies.”

  A silence settled deeply in the room, and it seemed to Farrell that the faces staring up at him were marked with a curious similarity; it was a marine look, he thought, a fishy look of pallor and open mouths and bulging eyes. But a nervous stir suddenly dissolved the silence, and the expressions of communal shock and incredulity dissolved with it.

  “What’s that?” Ward said in a soft, careful voice. “What did you say, John?”

  “Just that she’s telling the truth.”

  “What are you trying to do?” Malleck said. “What are you trying to pull here?”

  “Well, if you ask me,” Detweiller said angrily, “I think...”

  “Keep quiet,” Ward said, gesturing impatiently with his cigarette and dismissing Detweiller’s comment as if it were a digression in a business meeting. “Go on, John,” he said. “Let’s have the rest of it. I’m damned curious to know what’s behind all this.”

  “Norton told me what happened,” Farrell said wearily. He sat on the arm of the sofa, lit a cigarette and tossed the match toward an ashtray. “It was the night we went to the Chiefs’ clubhouse. Norton was holding the girl during the fight. He stayed behind when the rest of us left. He lost his head and raped her. Tonight he called her with the hope of making amends somehow, of straightening things out. She told him to meet her in Raynes Park. She didn’t tell him Duke would be there.”

  There was another deep silence in the room, an underwater stillness. Then Malleck said: “When did he tell you this?”

  “Tonight.”

  “After he’d been beaten up?”

  “Yes. While Detweiller was getting you.”

  “He confided in you, eh?” Malleck said slowly. “After you’d refused to help him, after you turned your back on him. After all that you become his bosom buddy, the one guy in the world he feels he can trust with this confession.”

&nb
sp; “It wasn’t like that,” Farrell said. “I asked him what happened. When the story fell apart, he did too.”

  “You mean you land of beat this thing out of him?”

  “He told me what happened, that’s all.”

  Detweiller was frowning and rubbing a hand along his jaw. “Then you knew this all along, eh, John? While we’re talking about ifs and ands and buts you had the real story. Why in hell didn’t you speak up?”

  “I hoped I wouldn’t have to.”

  “Well, this puts a funny light on tilings,” Detweiller said. He drank the few remaining drops from his drink and set the glass on the coffee table. “I mean, I’ve got no brief for Duke, but he probably did feel that he had a right to go after Wayne. It’s a normal impulse, I suppose, if...” The words dribbled away as he became aware that Malleck was staring at him.

  “I don’t think Farrell’s got the real story,” Malleck said, and got slowly to his feet. “I think he’s lying.”

  “I do, too,” Grace Ward said. She spoke with desperate vehemence. “It’s an impossible story. Wayne wasn’t that sort of man. I can’t imagine what reason you have for blackening his name this way.”

  “Just a minute now,” Ward said, patting her shoulder absently. “Easy does it.” He smiled at Farrell, but he was apparently controlling himself with an effort; a pulse was swelling and falling rapidly in his left temple, and the smile didn’t soften the lines of tension around his mouth. “John, we’re men with a certain amount of experience in the world, and we should be able to look at this matter reasonably. Now let’s assume this thing happened just as you say. Let’s accept as a fact that Norton confessed to raping this girl. Are you morally certain that Norton would be a reliable witness against himself? As I say, we’re men of a certain amount of experience. But Norton was different. He was an innocent and naive sort of guy, which was to his credit. Totally wrapped up in his home and family. He was in a kind of backwater at his bank, not very close to the meanness and bitchiness in the world. What I’m getting at is this: in spite of his confession, are you sure he raped this girl? After all, she’s a tough little cookie. You can be sure it wasn’t her first time, start with that. Can you be sure she didn’t make it happen? Leading him on with a lot of tricks, and then persuading him that she had been a, well, unwilling partner to the whole thing?”

  “No, I can’t be sure,” Farrell said. “But it’s not my job to judge his or her motives.”

  “One other thing then,” Ward said quietly. “Norton was close to a state of shock from a brutal beating. And probably half out of his mind from a mistaken sense of guilt. Supposing under those circumstances he’d blurted out that he’d embezzled funds from his bank. Or had been having an affair with your wife. Would you accept these fantasies as Gospel? Or would you consider his condition before making any judgment?”

  They were not new arguments to Farrell; he had used them all himself.

  Ward watched him for a few seconds in silence, and then said: “You’re going to the police, eh? And tell them what Norton told you?”

  “Yes,” Farrell said.

  “Oh, no, you’re not,” Malleck said, his arms swinging out from his sides. “You got to come through me, and you aren’t man enough for that.”

  “Now hold it!” Ward said sharply. “I’m not through. You’re determined to go to the police, then, John. You feel it’s your duty to support this girl’s story and provide a loophole for the hoodlum who murdered Norton? Is that your position? I’d advise you to think carefully before you answer.”

  “I’m going to tell the truth.”

  “We can’t stop you, of course,” Ward said.

  “Maybe you can’t, but I can,” Malleck said.

  “If you did stop him, you’d be doing him a favor,” Ward said quietly.

  No one spoke for an instant; and when Ward struck a match the sound seemed to rip through the close fabric of silence.

  “What do you mean?” Malleck said slowly.

  “John, you’d better listen to me before you leave,” Ward said, standing up and buttoning his coat with his free hand. Then with his shoulders hunched forward and his face set in hard, purposeful lines, he said without heat or bluster; “I told you I intended to fight for what’s important to me. I wasn’t just making conversation, as I’m going to show you.” There was no hint of threat in his voice; he might have been reading the minutes of a routine meeting. “First of all, no one here believes your story. Malleck doesn’t, Grace and I don’t, and neither do the Detweillers. We don’t believe for a second that Norton made the confession you claim he made. And the police won’t believe you either. So I’m not concerned about whatever pipe dreams you tell them. For your own good — which I’m frankly not much interested in — you’d be wiser not to take that story to the cops. You won’t hurt us, you’ll just hurt yourself.”

  Everyone was watching Ward as he spoke, and it seemed to Farrell that they were hungrily absorbing warmth and reassurance from his air of casual, almost contemptuous confidence.

  “First of all, it’s your unsupported statement that you left that clubhouse before Norton,” Ward said. He waited until he saw that Farrell understood what he meant, and then he smiled faintly. “Don’t look so startled. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. Secondly, it’s your unsupported statement that Norton confessed to raping that girl. There are no other witnesses. It’s your testimony, yours alone, that will smash his reputation, and turn his memory into something shameful and dirty. So why are you doing it? Why are you supporting this little whore’s preposterous charge? Let me tell you this: anyone with an ounce of brains won’t have to look far for the answer.”

  Farrell shook his head. “You’ve really surprised me, Sam.”

  “Go to the police,” Ward said coldly. “They’ll put two and two together. And if they’re slow about it we’ll give them a nudge in the right direction.”

  Malleck suddenly caught Farrell’s arm in his big heavy hand. “I get it now,” he said slowly, and his face was shining with an almost exultant excitement. “You been lying from the start. It wasn’t Norton who raped that girl. It was you.”

  “I gave you a chance,” Ward said quietly. “I suggested we be reasonable. But you’re stuck, I see now. You’re turning your back on us because you’ve got to. Do you think I believed your big talk about duty and principle? Like hell. And neither will the cops. You’re trying to save those two sacks of human garbage because it’s the only way you can save yourself. You raped that girl and then talked her into pinning it on Norton. And what price did you pay? Simply to back up her story and save her precious little boy friend. It’s so obvious I’m surprised you tried to shove it down our throats.”

  Malleck shifted his grip to the lapel of Farrell’s coat. “Oh you bastard,” he said softly. “You miserable bastard. I’m going to give you something to take with you to the cops.” He drew his right fist back slowly, holding Farrell away from him with a straight left arm.

  Farrell welcomed the disgust and anger flowing through him. “Try it,” he said.

  But before Malleck could swing Detweiller grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away from Farrell. “Now let’s cut this out,” he said, in a high, anxious voice. “Fighting won’t help things.”

  Malleck turned on him furiously, slapping his hands aside with a chopping motion of his arm. “You rabbit,” he said. “You been trying to crawl over to his side all night.”

  “No, you’re wrong,” Detweiller said, backing away from the rage in Malleck’s eyes. “I’m with you — look, there’s nothing to be mad about.”

  Malleck struck him across the face with the back of his hand. “Don’t move, stand there,” he said. And as Detweiller stood helplessly before him, arms hanging limply at his sides, Malleck struck him again, using the palm of his hand this time, and the force of the blow knocked Detweiller back against the couch. He sat down abruptly and awkwardly, the marks of Malleck’s blows searing his gray face. Chicky put a hand on his arm but
he drew away from her, blinking his eyes rapidly.

  “I haven’t said anything tonight,” she murmured gently. “It was your chance. Why didn’t you take it?” Her eyes were grave and sad as she studied the shame in his face. She seemed unaware of the others in the room.

  “You didn’t go to New York to meet Ginny for the theater,” he said in a low, choking voice. “You went in to spend the night with Dick Baldwin, the fearless newshawk, the big deal.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Why did you go?”

  She said sadly, “You always ask the wrong question. Why don’t you ask why I came back?”

  “I was afraid to.”

  Malleck laughed softly and glanced at Farrell. “If you were thinking of him for help, there’s your answer.”

  Farrell picked up his hat and coat. He knew what would happen when they cut the foundation from under his story. But with that cold and sickening knowledge there was an ameliorating revulsion and anger. “I feel sorry for all of us,” he said slowly. “We’re responsible for what happened here. But you don’t have the guts to face it. It isn’t easy, God knows, but you’ll find some day it would have been easier to face it now than face yourselves in your mirrors the rest of your lives. Can’t you see what you’re doing? You’re conspiring in a he that may cost another life. And you’re doing it righteously, indignantly, because you’re home-owning, child-rearing, one-hundred-and-fifteen-percent solid citizens. The boy doesn’t deserve a break, you yell in righteous anger. Can’t you get it through your heads that it’s not our business to give him a break? We’re not judges. We’re souls in the eyes of God Almighty, an isolated and responsible human unit in the eyes of the law. We have no privileges, only rights. And he has rights too. That’s what you’re denying him — his rights under a system of living that you’d be the first to praise at the drop of a gavel at a Rotary luncheon. You can’t see what should be precious to you because you’re too damned busy counting your blessings and making sure that they’re not encroached on by anyone who doesn’t meet the requirements of your tidy little club.”