by Bill Granger
“Fuck, no. I’ll handle the little Kraut bastard.”
“Take it easy, Mario.”
“Yeah.” He finally threw the empty coffee cup in the wastebasket. “Two points. You know, Davis had really prepped that case. We even had three witnesses—”
“And they all scattered—”
“Because de big judge, he granted de big lawyer, Rev. Peebles, six fucking continuances.” “Rev. Peebles” was Mario’s name for Thomas Peebles, a prominent defense lawyer who specialized in criminal gang cases. Geoffrey Tucker was his client.
“Don’t worry about it, Mario,” Donovan said softly. He reached for one of the slips of paper on his desk and began to dial a number. Without another word Mario DeVito left the office.
Justice moved swiftly in the case of Norman Frank, thirty-eight, unemployed, of no fixed address.
He was charged with murder (one count), rape (one count), unlawful use of a weapon (one count), and assault with a deadly weapon (one count).
He was taken in a squadrol to the Criminal Courts building on the West Side. The trip took thirty minutes in the late-morning traffic, and Norman Frank slept on the soiled backseat of the locked van. The squadrol pulled into the courtyard behind the building, where Frank was taken out and to the elevator used for prisoners.
A Chicago policeman and a deputy sheriff escorted him to the fourth-floor courtroom of Judge Thomas Mulroy. Mulroy waited in the chambers until the public defender and prosecutor were ready. The clerk told him there were four reporters in the court as well.
Mulroy entered the courtroom quickly, mounted the bench, and looked down at the forlorn countenance of Norman Frank. Then he looked out at the reporters. He beckoned the public defender forward and told him to confer with his client.
At one A.M. Norman Frank was taken to court. His hands shook. The public defender asked that bail be set at ten-thousand dollars. It was a formality. Mulroy denied bail, and the prisoner was taken through a back door to the lockup and then down in the elevator to the long tunnel that connected the building with Cook County Jail. He was being held for the grand jury on a murder charge.
3
The heat wave broke finally in the afternoon during state’s attorney Thomas P. Halligan’s press conference.
Jack Donovan had finally phoned Halligan at ten twenty-three A.M. after deciding to go ahead with the prosecution of Norman Frank. Once Halligan got the news of Frank’s imminent arraignment, he ran down the carpeted hall in the Civil Center building to Leland Horowitz’s office. That office had two doors. Halligan went in quietly through the back door.
Horowitz, a small man with neatly plastered gray hair and wide, incredulous eyes, sat at his desk reading a newspaper.
Secretly Halligan felt envious of Horowitz’s desk. It was the largest in the entire state’s attorney’s office, including Halligan’s own.
Halligan told his political mentor almost everything about the arrest of Norman Frank except Donovan’s own misgivings. Horowitz told Halligan he would call a press conference as soon as the arraignment was complete and before the police superintendent called his own press conference. They set the time for one o’clock, which, it turned out, was technically three minutes before Norman Frank even appeared in court.
The conference was held in a little white-walled room off the main corridor of the downtown office. Halligan entered and stood behind the lectern inscribed with the seal of Cook County. He waited for the television crews to finish setting up.
Channel Five was late and that delayed the conference further. Meanwhile the reporter from the Chicago Daily News—pressing his last deadline—got Halligan to release a brief statement to him while the TV crews finished their work. This annoyed the Chicago Tribune reporter, who reminded Halligan he was the only Democrat on the county ticket supported by his paper in the previous election. When they were all ready to go, Halligan began:
“Today, I am pleased to announce the arrest and arraignment of Norman Frank for the brutal rape and murder of a Swedish visitor to our city, Miss… er… Maj Kirsten, whose body was found yesterday in Grant Park. Thanks to quick work by Chicago police led by Commander Leonard Ranallo, chief of homicide, and his men, and our own office, led by Assistant Maurice Goldberg and John J. Donovan of the criminal division, we believe we have tracked down the man responsible for this brutal slaying. Justice delayed is justice denied, and in this case we believe we have acted swiftly and responsibly to bring the guilty to our court of law as quickly as possible consonant with the rights of the accused.”
After the statement there were the usual questions, and Halligan began to field them as the clouds finally broke with rain. The rain fell in winding sheets that slashed at the city from the southwest, blowing rain against the open windows on the fourth-floor cellblock of the massive county jail where Norman Frank was now held.
The rain washed at the grime on the tall gloomy windows in Jack Donovan’s office where he sat eating the remains of a bologna sandwich he had purchased in the cramped lunchroom. The rain danced across the plaza in front of the Civic Center and washed down the rusty sweeping sides of the huge Picasso statue in the center of the plaza.
On the streets of the Loop office workers out for a breath of air on their lunch hours were caught suddenly by the rain. Some of them dashed for their offices down slippery sidewalks, and others walked calmly with newspapers shielding their heads from the rain. Within a few minutes the streets were empty of pedestrians, but cars and buses and cabs continued to course their way along the wet, glistening streets.
The rain caught everyone unawares.
Including Angela Falicci.
She was a student at the Art Institute school. She had gone to the Monroe Street Harbor at noon to paint a picture, which would bear no resemblance to the small boats moored there. She worked with acrylics, and angry dashes of red and orange were splashed on her canvas though the predominant colors of the harbor at that moment were blue and green and gray.
When the rain began, she found brief refuge in the entrance of the Chicago Yacht Club. At one forty P.M. the storm let up briefly, and she ran from the entrance up the winding road to the Outer Drive and then darted across the drive with the lights in her favor. At that instant the storm renewed its force, and lightning flashed in the western sky over the towers of the Loop. New clouds came up, gray and green and menacing.
Angela Falicci was frightened by the rain. She had always been afraid of the noises of a storm.
She ran along the line of trees that led to Columbus Drive, usually called the Inner Drive.
A sudden clap of thunder startled her, and she dropped her acrylic paints. There was a second thunderclap, and the sky was lit furiously by a third lightning bolt that danced on the television antennae atop the Hancock building.
She bent to pick up the paints. She felt frustrated and angry with herself. Her painting was ruined.
The action saved her life.
The form—was it a man?—passed very close to her. She smelled his breath.
Thunder rolled. She turned and screamed. Then she saw the flash of a knife. Another wave of thunder rolled over the embankment of buildings that fringed the park.
She screamed again.
Was it a man? She thought she heard footsteps behind her as she ran.
No one. No one. But she ran across the open field, and the rain pelted her in large drops. If she looked behind her, she would die. She ran until the breath in her lungs ached.
The trees and bushes were blurs, and she was sure of the sound of steps behind her, splashing in the mud, gaining on her.
Once she slipped and fell, but she scrambled up quickly and ran on.
She screamed again. Why wasn’t there anyone to hear her?
She stumbled across the railroad bridge, fell, got up, and ran on. There, ahead on Michigan Avenue, were people bent against the rain, holding umbrellas and briefcases; there cabs cruised the streets and the great green buses muscled their ways along the ro
ad.
Safe.
On the stone steps of the Institute, she slipped again and fell hard on her knee. Blood trickled from the cut.
Angela Falicci sat down on the steps, crying, and that was how the guard found her.
At the same moment a puzzled patrolman from the First District station sat talking to Angela Falicci in a waiting room inside the Art Institute, Sergeant Terrence Flynn of Area One Homicide was on his way to the Red Lion Hotel on Clark Street.
Flynn pushed open the doors of the flophouse and knew he had smelled worse. Not that it didn’t smell bad. But then Flynn had worked a long time in the ghetto slums of the South Side before he was transferred up to Loop homicide. Because he liked to consider himself a limited man, Flynn’s goal in life was to work homicide on the Northwest Side of the city in Area Five, where murders were few. And where the buildings did not smell bad.
He went to the little niche under the worn stairs that served as a front desk. There was a big iron safe behind the desk. A thin man with a gray complexion sat in the cubicle, reading the Daily Racing Form.
“Hiya.” Flynn did not pull out his star. It was usually unnecessary. The only people with clean shirts who went into places like this were cops.
The man with the racing form did not look up but managed a grunt.
“I want to know about one of your guests, Norman Frank.”
Without looking up, the thin man pushed the register toward him. Flynn shoved it back across the counter so violently that it struck the clerk in his chest.
“Hey, what the—?” The man looked up. “What the hell’re you doing? You hurt my chest.”
“Don’t play games with me, shithead.” Flynn reached across the counter and tore the racing sheet from the clerk’s hand, then threw it on the stained carpet.
“Hey. Whaddaya want? We got no beef here. You got no right.”
“I asked you a question.”
“You got no right to talk to me like that. I know Captain Nelson at the district.”
“And I know Jesus Christ. Listen, you dumb son of a bitch. I ain’t from East Chicago Avenue station, I’m from homicide, and I ain’t on nobody’s pad, and this ain’t a game. So answer me when I talk to you, or we’re going bye-bye.”
Flynn realized that Lieutenant Schmidt would say he was turning on his charm.
“Awright, will ya? I didn’t know who you are.” The gray man lit the end of a new cigarette with the smoldering remains of an old one in a tin ashtray. “What’s the guy’s name again?”
“Norman Frank.”
“He ain’t here.”
“I know he ain’t here. Tell me about him. Where’s his room?”
“He ain’t been here for a month. Look in the book.”
“If I got to play with that book again, I’ll shove it up your ass.”
The clerk reached for the book and gave Flynn a hard look. He flipped to a page marked “May.” He turned the book around carefully. “See, he ain’t been here for nearly a month. He was here about two months and then he got into some trouble with one of the guests and he split.”
Flynn waited.
“I ain’t seen him around. Ask around the corner at the tavern. I don’t know about the guy.”
“Where’s his gear?”
“He didn’t leave nothing here.”
“Who’s the guy he had trouble with?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Sure you do.”
“You shouldn’t treat people like that. You got no right to treat white men like that.”
“When’s this place been inspected last?”
“What?”
“You know guys, I know guys. My cousin works at the fire inspection office.”
“Come on, buddy. We had to pay off the building department just last month.”
“Tough.”
“Guy was named Shorty, I think. Honest to Christ, I don’t know.”
“What kinda trouble they have?”
“Hell, I don’t interfere with the guests.”
“Shit, there isn’t anything you don’t know about these stewbums. What kinda trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
“Norman Frank carry a shiv?”
“He had a bayonet, I think.”
“Where is it?”
“Musta took it with him.”
“Where’s his gear?”
“Took it with him. He was paid up, so I didn’t hold nothing. This ain’t the goddamn Greyhound depot, you know.”
Flynn stared at him, and the gray man squirmed under the gaze. “I’m tellin’ you on the square.”
“Listen. What’s your name?”
“Frankie.”
“Listen, Frankie. This isn’t for fun.” He pulled out a color Polaroid picture from his notebook. He held it up. It was a picture of Maj Kirsten, dead.
“Who’s that?”
“You tell me.”
“Looks like a hooker.”
“Someone you knew around here?”
“Listen, all we get are nigger hookers and fags around here. And the stewbums. Shit, you go out on the corner of Bughouse Square at night and those fag whores practically rape you driving through.”
“You go that way, Frankie?”
“Fuck no. I ain’t no fag. And I don’t let no fags in this joint neither. This is strictly a residential hotel.”
Flynn nodded and wanted to smile. “You seen this woman though.”
The gray man named Frankie studied the picture. “I can’t say I did. But you never know. They all look alike, all got blond hair. She sleeping?”
“Dead.”
“Norman Frank do it?”
“Did he do those things?”
“How do I know?”
“Look, Frankie. I don’t want trouble for you. I just want to know about Norman Frank.”
“I don’t know anything more’n I told you. The guy just split. And took his shit. But if I see him, I’ll call you.”
“Sure. But you won’t be seeing Norman Frank for a while.”
“Got him, huh?”
“What about the bayonet?”
“I don’t know, I told you. Listen, I ain’t gonna fuck around with a murder beef. Why didn’t you tell me it was murder when you came in?”
“You didn’t ask.” Flynn replaced the picture in his notebook almost with tenderness. He dropped a card on Frankie’s desk, turned, and walked out.
When Flynn was out the door, Frankie threw the card in the wastebasket, leaned over the desk, and picked up the scattered racing form.
Outside it was still raining and very dark for the middle of the afternoon. Flynn looked at the heavy sky and decided he might as well hit the tavern, too, while he was there. Besides, his father, a patrolman for years, had once told him, “A good copper never gets wet.” Flynn edged along the building to the tavern door fifty feet away.
The bar was permeated with the odor of stale beer and a bad basement. Flynn moved down to the end and leaned against the bar top. He knew he smelled like a cop to them but that was all right. Sometimes a fleabag bar like this had old-timers who didn’t hate cops but lived quietly on their meager Social Security checks in bad hotels and spent their afternoons trying to forget everyone had forgotten them.
As he waited for the bartender to come over, he noticed two customers quickly downing their shots and walking out.
“You wanna beer?” asked the bartender.
“Make it J and B and water,” said Flynn who was trying to lose weight. He knew he looked like a beer drinker.
The bartender brought the drink in a short glass.
Flynn sipped at it. The bartender waited. Flynn had not paid him.
“You know a guy comes in here named Norman Frank?”
“Lotta guys come in here.”
“Good. I’m glad business is so fine. This was a southern guy with a long face and real white skin.”
“We get a lot of hillbillies in here from the flophouse around the corner. I d
on’t know all their names or maybe I know only their street names. Those guys all got street names. Maybe the night man knows. He comes in at six.”
“This guy Norman Frank was staying around the corner. I wanna know some more about him. You wanna take a look at a picture of him?”
“You from the district? We got no trouble in here. We’re okay. Call Sergeant Fogarty over in the district, he’ll let you know.”
Flynn waited. When he trusted his voice, he said, “I’m not from the district and this doesn’t have anything to do with this joint. I just want some information about this guy Norman Frank. He must’ve come in here. I wanna know who his pals were.”
“I dunno anything about the guy.”
“You wanna look at a picture?”
“I got no time for pictures. I got customers.”
Flynn finished his drink and set it down. The little bartender stood waiting to be paid.
“I’m from homicide. This guy Norman Frank is involved in murder, and if you’re obstructing, you’re involved too.”
“Fifty cents for the drink.”
“Hard case, huh?” Flynn pulled a bill out of his pocket. The bartender cranked a register, made change, and threw it on the bar.
“What’s your name?”
“Krause. What’s yours?”
“This is all you gotta see, Krause.” Flynn flashed his star and replaced it in his pocket.
“Okay, Captain,” said Krause with sarcasm. “If you were to head over to Top’s joint on LaSalle, you might find out a little more about your buddy.”
“Top’s?”
“Just down on LaSalle Street. I remember maybe this guy Norman. He came in here awhile, but I had to eighty-six him.”
“Why?”
“He had a hard-on for this steady customer came in here. So one night I got to call the cops on him, and he spent the night in the lockup. So he comes in the next day and I said, ‘out’ and I eighty-sixed him.”
“Who was the guy?”
“What guy?”
“Guy he fought with.”
“I don’t want no trouble for him.”
“You don’t want no trouble for yourself, Krause.”
“Hey, don’t come on like Kojak. I’m okay. I got friends, too, and you wanna lean, lean and you’ll fall flat on your fat Irish face.”