The James Michael Ullman Crime Novel

by James Michael Ullman

  “Well, that’s a novelty.” I chuckled. “The exploitation idea. When I was front-page news a few months ago, every opportunist in town was trying to cash in on my name. But your candor, at least, is a refreshing change.”

  “I can imagine. Here’s my angle. My dad is one of the old-timers around here. Just as Lorene’s father is. I grew up on this block. Lorene went steady with me, in fact, during my senior year in high school. She was a sophomore. But I’m not like Lorene. All she’s ever wanted was to run away.”

  “I know.”

  “Me, I plan to stick it out. Not that I think anyone will ever work a miracle and bring back the good old days. But a lot of decent people still live around Clay Street—old residents like my dad, and new residents whose only crime is they’re poor and ignorant. At the very least, they deserve a fair shake from City Hall. But they’re not getting it. Hiram Schell is ward committeeman for the majority party, the mayor’s party. Schell has an alliance with Phil Amber. Schell picks the police captain for the Clay Street Precinct. That’s because the city still uses the district system. Each district police commander rules his own empire. The system is tailor-made for political interference. As a result, the cops down here are more concerned with preserving order in Amber’s joints than with helping people who need help. Schell’s influence with the mayor stems from the fact he can deliver this ward with fantastic majorities every election day. And in addition to keeping Clay Street wide open, Schell blocks all proposals for urban renewal in this ward. Amber is afraid that might not be good for business. Even so, we could beat the Amber-Schell alliance if the ward had one dominant minority group that would vote in a block against them. But as it is, our ward is a mixture of old white residents, Mexicans, Negroes, Puerto Ricans, hill people, and some Bohemians and intellectuals. Everybody hates everybody else. Schell plays one group off against the other and then bribes influentials in each group to become his precinct captains.”

  “What’s all this got to do with me?”

  “There’s an election in November. We think you can help us.”

  “You’re out to capture the ward from Hiram Schell?”

  “Christ, no. We could never oust Schell’s alderman from this ward. Schell’s organization will fall apart when he dies. But so long as he’s alive, he’s got this ward all locked up. The group I’m with—we’re out to clobber the mayor.”

  Ordway guessed at the question forming in my mind. He glanced around his shabby office and permitted himself a faint smile.

  “I’m sorry I can’t make my proposition in more impressive surroundings. I just passed the bar a year or so ago. I had to help my father with the drugstore days and attend law school nights. That took me longer than most because I’m not such a hot student and I had to quit for a while when my wife was sick. But when I was in law school, one of my instructors, a man with a nice corporate practice uptown, got me a job as a part-time investigator for the Clean Government League. You familiar with it?”

  “No”

  “Well, it’s what the newspapers call a watchdog’ group. It’s privately supported by contributions from merchants and businessmen. The CGL checks to see that tax money is spent the way it’s supposed to be spent. That’s what merchants and businessmen are mainly after—lower taxes. The CGL sends snoopers to follow city work crews around to see if they do a day’s work for a day’s pay, all that crap. They send representatives to howl at every public budget hearing. But recently the CGL has developed an interest in the influence of Syndicate crime on City Hall. Specifically, Phil Amber’s influence on the mayor, through Hiram Schell. The CGL hired me to hang around Amber’s joints, note any flagrant law violations and report ’em. Then the CGL would make the reports public and demand to know why the police weren’t enforcing the law.”

  “I can’t say,” I observed, “your reports seem to have done much good.”

  “We really didn’t expect ’em to. Mainly, we were giving the mayor a message. Letting him know the business community in this city is fed up with Clay Street’s running wide open. There are still some big businessmen here who want a wide-open strip—they say it’s good for drawing conventions and so on. But the majority has decided a thorough cleanup on Clay Street is long overdue. They also want to tear down a portion of this neighborhood for urban renewal and condemn a big strip for an east-west expressway. Through the mayor, Schell is blocking all that. But if the mayor and his party lose in November, Schell won’t be able to block it any more. Schell won’t be able to name the district police captain, either. The opposition candidate has pledged to bring in a new police commissioner, end the district system, and reorganize the force into a modern, centralized department. After which a cleanup of Clay Street will be one of the first orders of business.”

  “You think you can beat the mayor?”

  Ordway pulled a pipe from his pocket. Thoughtfully he lit it. “For the first time in years, the minority party has a fighting chance. The candidate couldn’t be better. He’s a young, self-made industrialist with a national reputation. His firm never had any labor trouble. He has a solid war record, a wife, and four children. He’s a persuasive speaker and he looks good on television. More important, he and his friends—people like the directors of the CGL—have passed the hat and come up with a whopping big campaign fund. Were going all-out this time, building organizations in every ward where the mayor’s party doesn’t have a stranglehold. And when the campaign gets under way, we’re going to hit hard on Clay Street and the Syndicate crime issue.”

  I stubbed the cigarette out. Ordway’s political science lecture had been enlightening, but I was anxious to get back to my apartment. In a few hours, by paying someone two thousand dollars, I might finally learn what had happened to my brother.

  “Exactly what is your proposition?”

  “I’m retained on the CGL’s legal staff now,” Ordway said, “and while the CGL itself is nonpartisan supposedly, most of our directors are backing the minority candidate for mayor. I’m very close to the people running the campaign. Our plan is to put conditions on Clay Street under a constant glare of publicity from the middle of September right up through election day. The publisher of the Beacon and its sister paper, the Express, will give us full cooperation. The Journal doesn’t like us much, but they won’t be able to ignore us either.”

  “The press,” I said, “doesn’t care about me any more. I’m old stuff. I could stand on my head at Clay and Jackson and I wouldn’t get a line.”

  “That’s true now,” Ordway replied. “But it might not be true if you learned what happened to your brother between now and October. And our proposition assumes that you will have found your brother by then—or will have decided to quit your search entirely. We realize that your search for your brother is your main consideration. If you’re still looking for him in October, we won’t hamper you by trying to involve you in a political campaign.”

  “All right. Suppose I do find Ed. Tomorrow, next week, or next month.”

  “In that case, we’d like you to consider sitting down with a team of reporters from the Beacon. The publisher is a CGL director and he’s assured me he’ll go along. We’re not asking that you give the Beacon an exclusive story on how you found your brother, or looked for him. All we’re asking is that you tell those reporters what you’ve seen on Clay Street—the wide-open vice, the poverty, the misery, everything. Tell it honestly—every rotten sight, sound, and smell. Then the Beacon will print a series of front-page articles in October giving your impressions of conditions in Hiram Schell’s ward.”

  I shook my head. “I think you’re nuts.”

  “Oh, we don’t think your articles will win the election for us. But a series by you, running in the Beacon at the same time we hit Schell and the mayor with our other material, would be a big help.”

  “You’re asking quite a bit from me. What would I get in return?”

  “Fi
rst, the knowledge that you were doing the right thing. Second, I won’t insult you by pointing out that the Beacon will pay you for the articles. And third, were offering all the help we can give in your search. Let me emphasize also that were not asking that you agree now to write the articles. We ask only that you agree to take our request seriously. If and when you find your brother, then you can make your final decision.”

  “How can the CGL help me find Ed?”

  “Admittedly there’s not much we can do. But the CGL’s people do circulate around town quite a bit. I understand you’re looking for your brother’s ring. If you could give me some copies of the design, I could circulate them to every CGL investigator. They might be able to pick up something.”

  It was a thought. A whole new troop of cavalry in my army.

  “What’s more, our directors are men of considerable influence. Circumstances could arise where you’d want influence on your side, if you follow me.”

  “I do. Ordway, give me a few days to sleep on this.”

  “Certainly.”

  I rose. “By the way, it’s probably a good thing Phil Amber never learned you were snooping in his clip joints for the CGL. That could be dangerous work.”

  “Oh, Amber found out about it,” Ordway said casually. “He learns everything. Of course at the time I thought I had him by the balls. If he did anything to me then, the newspapers would have murdered him, and Clay Street, too. I told him that to his face and he took it. But a year later—after I left the CGL to cram for the bar exam—a street gang caught me and my wife when we were walking home late from the drugstore. Teenagers. They fractured my skull and broke three of my ribs. My wife, they broke her arm and were dragging her by the ankles into an alley when, thank God, a squad car rounded the corner. I could never prove it, but I know Phil Amber arranged it. The next morning, for the first time in his life, Phil Amber walked into my fathers drugstore. He bought a stick of gum with a dollar bill, told my father to keep the change, and walked out laughing. That, Mr. Kolchak, is the kind of man Phil Amber is.”

  I rode a bus to The Cave, a tavern several miles from Clay Street in a workingman’s neighborhood where it was unlikely I would be recognized. I carried the shoe box under my arm. Despite the muggy heat, I wore a faded sports jacket to cover the shoulder holster.

  I was the only passenger off at the 18th Street intersection. I watched the bus rumble away. I turned around and walked four doors to the tavern, which was adjoined on one side by a Polish delicatessen and on the other by a real-estate office owned by two Bohemians. My stomach was hollow and acid. I’d planned to nap and then grab a quick supper in my apartment, but I’d been too nervous to either sleep or eat.

  The Cave’s interior was packed. No doubt most of the patrons worked in the row of factories stretching for blocks in both directions on the south side of 18th Street. I elbowed to the end of the stand-up bar and ordered a glass of beer. It was 7:52 p.m. The bartender didn’t give me a second glance. I sipped and waited, listening to a babble of voices and the blare of a television set.

  At 8 p.m. precisely, during a commercial for “Route 66,” a telephone rang in a corner booth. A man seated at a table nearby got up and answered it. He stuck his head out the booth and hollered, “Anybody here named Kolchak?”

  I set the beer down and pushed through the mob. “That’s me.”

  The man shrugged and returned to his table. My name seemed of no apparent interest to anyone. I slipped into the booth and closed the door. I rested the shoe box on the shelf and reached for the dangling earpiece.

  “This is Kolchak.”

  “You got the money in that box under your arm? The one you carried when you got off the bus?”

  The voice was low, hoarse, male, and obviously disguised. “I do. But how do I know I’m buying two thousand dollars’ worth of information?”

  “You got the credit card, didn’t you?”

  “Sure, but…”

  “We’ll give you more. Take my word for it. But quit crapping around and do like I tell you or the deal’s off. Hang up and walk outside. A bus marked Brentwood will be along in about five minutes. Get on that bus and ride to Mitchell Street. Get off at Mitchell and walk four blocks west to a tavern called Jimmy’s. Well get in touch with you again there.”

  The man hung up.

  Except for two old ladies and a sleepy teenager, the Brentwood bus was empty. I dropped coins into the box and sat down behind the driver.

  “Let me know,” I said, “when we get to Mitchell Street.”

  “You sure that’s where you want to get off?” the driver asked. “On this route, we intersect Mitchell just beyond the industrial district. There’s hardly anything there but warehouses and the old air force plant that closed after the war.

  Maybe you want the bus marked Harrison. That intersects Mitchell just before you reach the big shopping center…”

  “No, this is the right bus.”

  We joggled along on 18th for perhaps two miles. Then the bus turned left and hummed down an empty road bounded on both sides by industrial facilities. Beyond the industrial district we hit a dark stretch of warehouses and old loft buildings.

  The driver braked.

  “This is it.”

  “Thanks.”

  I climbed down. The door shut. I watched, standing under a single street light, as the taillights faded away. Ahead of me to the west, an immense, deserted complex of buildings loomed on both sides of the street. The old air force plant, no doubt. It covered the equivalent of two city blocks. Far beyond the plant, a tiny neon sign flickered, the only hint of human habitation in this area. That, I presumed, would be Jimmy’s.

  I started down the narrow street, walking at a normal pace, the shoe box cradled under my right arm. As I neared the middle of the block, shadows encompassed me. At an alley I stumbled, barely righting myself.

  The more I thought about my situation, the less I liked it. The people I was dealing with had been almost childish in their approach. The mysterious note in my mailbox. The telephone call to The Cave, telling me to get on a bus and ride to another tavern. If I had chosen to alert the police, Van Doyle would have had no difficulty at all covering me this far. He would have tapped every phone in The Cave; he would have filled The Cave with plain-clothes men; he would have overheard the call and sent squads to quietly cover the intersection at Mitchell before my bus arrived; and he would have infiltrated Jimmy’s with more plainclothes men before I got there.

  If the man planning the arrangements had been stupid enough to fail to anticipate those contingencies, he could also be stupid enough to think he could take two thousand dollars from me without giving any information in return.

  I tightened my grip on the shoe box and balled my left fist.

  Even so, I was not entirely prepared when the blow came.

  My first warning was a slight scraping sound behind my right shoulder. As I tumbled to my left, a heavy object crashed against the side of my head. The blow blinded me momentarily but I managed to roll over, brimming with contempt for the crudity of the attack, and with rage for the weeks of frustrating effort that now found me wallowing in a gutter.

  I opened my eyes. A big man stood over me, his arm raised. Behind him, I caught a glimpse of another man. Both had been hiding in a doorway, waiting for me to reach them As I had rolled I had pulled my revolver from its holster. I pointed it vaguely in the direction of the big man and squeezed the trigger. There was no time to aim properly. I had no idea where the bullet would go. At this range, I figured I ought to hit the man somewhere.

  The gun’s report echoed and re-echoed along the narrow street. The big man howled and dropped his weapon. He staggered backward. I wouldn’t have to worry about him for a while.

  The man behind him scurried away. I kneeled, grasping the revolver with both hands. I cocked the gun, I fired, I cocked it again, I
fired again.

  My target disappeared around a corner. I had an impression of a small, crablike, and very frightened man. Naturally, my last two shots had missed. Even with a target gun I am a poor pistol shot, and aiming at a moving target with my short-barreled revolver, I had probably sent both bullets heading for the moon.

  The man I had hit put his right hand over his left shoulder. He sat down on the curb. It was too dark to see his face. Surprisingly, nobody had rushed out to investigate from Jimmy’s down the street. Nobody appeared from any other direction, either.

  I pointed the gun at my captive. I cocked it again.

  “You make one wrong move,” I said quietly, “and I’ll kill you.”

  “Sure enough.”

  The voice, high and in pain, certainly did not belong to the man I had talked to on the telephone. This voice was edged with an unmistakable hill-country drawl.

  “What did you hit me with?”

  “A sock. Full of sand.”

  “How long were you waiting here?”

  “Half an hour, mebbe. My buddy, he came here a few minutes ago, on the Brentwood bus before yours.”

  “Get up. Walk ahead of me to the street light. I want a better look at you.”

  “You bet. I don’t fool with a man with a gun. I don’t like guns, mister. They scare me. If I knew you had a gun, I’d never had got mixed up in this.”

  Moaning, the man rose. He moved slowly toward the street light, dragging his feet. I picked up the shoe box with my left hand and followed. He was 6‘3“, at least, and he wore rags. He weighed an easy 220.

  Under the street light, I ordered him to stop.

  “Now turn around.”

  He did so. I gazed into the face of Clay Street. His eyes were sunken, glassy, and lined with black. He needed a shave. His jaw hung half open. A bum, an alcoholic, and probably, a mental defective.

  “What,” I asked, “do you know about my brother?”

  “Your brother?” The big man appeared sincerely perplexed. “Mister, how could I know anything about your brother? I don’t even know who you are.”