“John,” she said, “I found him.”
He had long ago ceased to be surprised at anything Sabina said or did; she was his equal as a detective in every way. He asked, “Where? How?”
She shook her head. “He'll be getting off any second.”
“Getting off? How could he – ?”
“There he is!”
Quincannon squinted at the passengers who were just then disembarking: two women, one of whom had a small boy in tow. “Where? I don't see him – ”
Sabina was moving again. Quincannon trailed after her, his hand on the Navy Colt inside his coat. The two women and the child were making their way past Sheriff Hoover and his deputies, none of whom was paying any attention to them. The woman towing the little boy was young and pretty, with tightly curled blond hair; the other woman, older and pudgy, powdered and rouged, wore a gray serge traveling dress and a close–fitting Langtry bonnet that covered most of her head and shadowed her face. She was the one, Quincannon realized, that he'd nearly bowled over outside the women's lavatory in the first–class Pullman. She was also Evan Gaunt.
He found that out five seconds later, when Sabina boldly walked up and tore the bonnet off, revealing the short–haired male head and clean–shaven face hidden beneath.
Her actions so surprised Gaunt that he had no time to do anything but swipe at her with one arm, a blow that she nimbly dodged. Then he fumbled inside the reticule he carried and drew out a small–caliber pistol; at the same time, he commenced to run.
Sabina shouted, Quincannon shouted, someone else let out a thin scream; there was a small scrambling panic on the platform. But it lasted no more than a few seconds, and without a shot being fired. Gaunt was poorly schooled on the mechanics of running while garbed in women's clothing: the traveling dress's long skirt tripped him before he reached the station office. He went down in a tangle of arms, legs, petticoats, and assorted other garments that he had wadded up and tied around his torso to create the illusion of pudginess. He still clutched the pistol when Quincannon reached him, but one well–placed kick and it went flying. Quincannon then dropped down on Gaunt's chest with both knees, driving the wind out of him in a grunting hiss. Another well–placed blow, this one to the jaw with Quincannon's meaty fist, put an end to the skirmish.
Sheriff Hoover, his deputies, Mr. Bridges, and the Limited's passengers stood gawping down at the now half–disguised and unconscious fugitive. Hoover was the first to speak. He said in tones of utter amazement, “Well, I'll be damned.”
Which were Quincannon's sentiments exactly. “So that's why he assaulted Old Dan in the baggage car,” Bridges said a short while later. Evan Gaunt had been carted off in steel bracelets to the Barstow jail, and Sabina, Quincannon, Hoover, and the conductor were grouped together in the station office for final words before the Desert Limited continued on its way. “He was after a change of women's clothing.”
Sabina nodded. “He devised his plan as soon as he recognized John and realized his predicament. A quick thinker, our Mr. Gaunt.”
“The stolen clothing was hidden inside the carpetbag he carried into the lavatory?”
“It was. He climbed out the window and over the tops of the smoker and the lounge car to the first–class Pullman, waited until the women's lavatory was empty, climbed down through that window, locked the door, washed and shaved off his mustache and sideburns, dressed in the stolen clothing, put on rouge and powder that he'd also pilfered, and then disposed of his own clothes and carpetbag through the lavatory window.”
“And when he came out to take a seat in the forward day coach,” Quincannon said ruefully, “I nearly knocked him down. If only I had. It would've saved us all considerable difficulty.”
Hoover said, “Don't chastise yourself, Mr. Quincannon. You had no way of suspecting Gaunt had disguised himself as a woman.”
“That's not quite true,” Sabina said. “Actually, John did have a way of knowing – the same way I discovered the masquerade, though at first notice I considered it a coincidence. Through simple familiarity.”
“Familiarity with what?” Quincannon asked.
“John, you're one of the best detectives I've known, but honestly, there are times when you're also one of the least observant. Tell me, what did I wear on the trip out to Arizona? What color and style of outfit? What type of hat?”
“I don't see what that has to do with – was Then, as the light dawned, he said in a small voice, “Oh.”
“That's right,” Sabina said, smiling. “Mr. Gaunt plundered the wrong woman's grip in the baggage car. The gray serge traveling dress and Langtry bonnet he was wearing are mine.”
Barbara D'Amato
(1938 – )
Barbara D'Amato's detecting duo of Chicago police officers Suze Figueroa and Norm Bennis made their first appearance in the short–story form. The half Italian, half Mexican policewoman and the black policeman are well–matched partners, and the often amusing interplay between them and the other members of their squad realistically mirrors police work. In 1996 the pair proved their ability to sustain a full–length work in the novel Killer.app. “Stop, Thief!” displays both their detecting abilities and their compassion as they go about their usual (and not so usual) daily business.
In addition to Figueroa and Bennis, D'Amato has created two other series characters: forensic pathologist Gerritt DeGraaf and freelance investigator Cat Marsala. The DeGraaf books (The Hands of Healing Murder, 1980; The Eyes on Utopia Murders, 1981) are traditional mysteries respecting all the conventions of the genre, while the Cat Marsala novels are broader in scope, examining various aspects of contemporary society.
The Marsala series had its genesis in an actual case that D'Amato researched for her true–crime book, The Doctor, the Murder, the Mystery (1992), for which she exhaustively researched the case of a Chicago physician convicted of murdering his wife in spite of a preponderance of evidence to the contrary. The author undertook many of the same tasks her fictional heroine works at and came away with the idea for Hardball (1990), in which Marsala investigates a campaign to legalize drugs in Illinois. Subsequent titles delve into similarly interesting areas, such as prostitution (Hard Women, 1993) and hospital trauma centers (Hard Case, 1994). The six Marsala novels, while hard–edged, are leavened by cynical good humor, and their protagonist conveys a strong moral sense without indulging in heavy–handed sermonizing.
STOP, THIEF!
SUSANNAH (SUZE) MARIA FIGUEROA AND NORM BENNIS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 1991
Officer Susannah Maria Figueroa lounged back against one of the desks in the roll–call room. She was five feet one, which made her just the right height to be able to rest both buttocks on the desktop.
“See – this woman in a Porsche was driving along, minding her own business, on the way to an afternoon of serious shopping,” she said to Officers Hiram Quail and Stanley Mileski, while her partner, Norm Bennis, taller than she was, lounged with one thigh against a neighboring desk,
“and whump! She hits a cat in the street.”
“I would think moosh! Not whump!” Mileski said. He was a skinny white guy, slightly stooped.
“She gets out,” Figueroa said, “looks at the cat, head's okay, tail's okay, but it's flat as a wafer in the middle. Well, it's about three o'clock in the afternoon and she figures the kids'll be coming outa school soon and it's gonna upset the little darlings to see a squashed cat.”
“Would,” said Mileski. “Some. Then again, some of 'em would love it.”
“So she picks it up real careful by the tail and puts it in a Bloomingdale's bag she had in the car and drives on to the mall with it.”
“Type o' woman,” said Norm Bennis, “who has lotsa extra Bloomie's bags.”
Bennis was a black man of medium height, built like a wedge. He had slender legs, broad chest, and very, very muscular shoulders.
“Right,” said Figueroa, shrugging a little to settle her walkie–talkie more comfortably.
“So she pulls up into the mall. Gets out to go in, she should hit Nieman Marcus before the rush starts, but the sun's shinin' down hard and she figures the car's gonna heat up and the cat's gonna get hot and smell up her car.”
“Which it would,” said Mileski.
“So she takes the bag and puts it up on the hood of the car to wait there while she's shopping. She goes in the mall. Meanwhile, along comes this other woman – ”
“Nice lookin' lady,” Bennis said.
“Named Marietta.”
“ – who sees the bag there, thinks hah! Fine merchandise unattended, and takes it. Then this woman Marietta with the Bloomie's bag goes into the mall. She's a shoplifter. She's truckin' through the jewelry department at Houston's lookin' for something worth boostin', sees a pearl necklace some clerk didn't put back, picks it up, opens the Bloomie's bag, drops the necklace in, sees the cat, screams like a train whistle, and falls down in a dead faint. The store manager or some other honcho runs over, tries to revive her, slaps her face, but she sits up once, glances at the bag and falls over again in a dead faint, so they call the paramedics. The EMT's arrive, chuck her onto a gurney, put her Bloomie's bag between her feet, which is SOP with personal belongings, and whisk her out to the ambulance.”
“Meanwhile,” Bennis said, “the clerk at the jewelry counter's seen the pearls are missin'.was
“Which is where we come in. By this time the woman's at the hospital, but by astute questioning of the store personnel, we put two and two together – ”
“Experience and astute questioning, Suze my man,” Bennis said. Bennis was thirty–five. Suze was twenty–six.
“ – we figure out where the pearls are. So we roll on over to the hospital with lights and siren. Woman's in the emergency room and we just mosey on in and ask if we can dump out the bag. Orderly doesn't know enough to say no – ”
“Sometimes you luck out,” said Bennis.
“ – so we turn the bag upside down and out flops the pearls plus the dead cat. At which point, the orderly faints.”
“We were kinda surprised ourselves,” Bennis said. “Didn't faint, though.”
“Too tough,” said Figueroa.
“Macho,” said Bennis.
“Spent the next two hours in the district on the paper,” Figueroa said.
“Odd, you know, when a supposed victim turns into a perp. Kinda felt sorry for her.”
Figueroa said, “Not me, Bennis. She's a crook.”
Mileski said, “Don't suppose they managed to revive the cat?”
Sergeant Touhy strode in and the third watch crew faded into seats.
Sergeant Touhy said, “Bennis? Figueroa? We've had a complaint from the hospital. Seems they don't like cat guts on their gurneys.”
Bennis started to say, “We didn't know about the cat – was but Figueroa kicked him and muttered,
“Probable cause!” so he shut up. “But we got our offender, Sarge,” Suze Figueroa said.
“Yeah,” Bennis said. “Boosts our solved record.”
Touhy ignored them. “Next time, look in the bag first. Now let's read some crimes.”
“You really need three ammo pouches?” Quail whispered at Figueroa. “You expecting a war?”
She whispered back. “Hey! You get in serious shit and I come in as backup you'll kiss my pouches.”
Each ammo pouch held six rounds of .38 ammunition for the standard service revolver. You could fit three pouches, max, on your Sam Browne, though most officers didn't. Privately, Figueroa wished she could carry her ammo like the cowboys did, in loops all around the belt. But the department had a regulation that all ammo had to be concealed. Takes half the fun out, Figueroa thought.
She also thought it would be nice if Maintenance would wait to turn on the heat in here until the weather got cold. The roll–call room for the First District was never going to be a photo opportunity for Architectural Digest. But why not livable? The smell of hot wool and sweat was practically thick enough to see.
After ten minutes or so Touhy finished up with, “Pick up the new runaway list at the desk. Now, we've been getting more and more complaints from the senior–citizen groups in the neighborhood, and I'll tell you now I don't want the Gray Panthers on my ass. We got a lot of older people out there, they think they're under siege. From teenagers, more than our serious nasties. These are people who're specifically trying to get their grocery shopping done before the schools let out. Get back in their houses before the teenagers are set free. I mean, it's like three–thirty to them is when the Draculas come out. They get pushed, hassled. Yelled at. Called bad names. Get their groceries stolen.”
“It happens,” Mileski said.
“Not in my district it don't, Mileski!”
“Right, boss.”
“Okay. Now hit the bricks and clear.”
Norm and Suze were in an early car today, so they were on the street by three in the afternoon. They were beat car 1–33, patrolling the north end of the district.
Chicago's First District is unique among the twenty–five district stations in that it operates out of the big central cop–shop at 11th and State. It is also one of the most varied districts. It has world–class hotels of mind–boggling elegance and enough marble to stress the bedrock. It has the most soul–deadening public housing. It has staggeringly expensive jewelry emporiums and meretricious underwear stores where lewd sayings are embroidered on bras and panty bottoms. It has grade schools and premier medical schools and on–the–job training in crime and prostitution.
“One thirty–one?”
One thirty–one was Mileski and his partner, Hiram Quail. Suze and Norm heard Mileski's voice come back, “Thirty–one.”
“I've got a car parked on a fire hydrant at 210 W. Grand.”
“Ten–four, squad.”
A new voice. “One twenty–seven.”
“Twenty–seven. G.”
“I need an RD number for an attempted strongarm robbery.”
“Uh – your number's gonna be 660932.”
“Thanks much.”
Norm and Suze rolled south on Wells, Norm driving and Suze doing a good eyeballing of the street. This part of Wells was a patchwork retail mix of run–down cigar and miscellany stores, trendy boutiques, newsstands that specialized in stroke magazines, cheap shoe stores, a Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, coffee shops with early–bird special dinners and upscale yuppie restaurants where you could pay fifty bucks for a hundred calories. Four black teenagers, three of them boys with Gumby haircuts and one leotard–clad girl, cutting school and throwing shots at each other, lingered around a newsstand. They glanced at the squad car and looked away. A skinny white guy with a wispy beard passed them, cowboy–walking. “One of our known felons,” Norm said.
“Brace him?” Suze said.
“He's not breakin' a law.”
“Not right now.”
“Be mellow, my man.”
Coming the other way were two women in high heels, wearing fur coats that were hardly necessary, given the mild weather, the coats open in front, heavy gold chains swinging, very high heels, and purses dangling by their traps from one hand. Norm slowed. The white guy and the black kids watched the women peck their way along the street.
“Volunteer victims,” Norm said.
The radio said, “Twenty–seven, your VIN is coming back clear.”
“Ten–four.”
“Thirty–one?”
“Thirty–one.”
“We got a maroon Chevy blew the stoplight at – ”
Norm shrugged as the women achieved the next block unharmed. He accelerated away from the curb. The radio said, “One thirty–three.”
Suze picked up the mike. “Thirty–three.”
“We got a shoplifting, Sounds of the Times, 279 Wells, two male whites, fifteen to eighteen years old.”
“Somebody holding them?” Suze said.
“Nope. Fled on foot, knocked over an old man. Check on the man, plus see the manager. Mr. Stone
.”
The address was a block north of their car's beat boundary, but thirty–one was tied up, so it was reasonable for them to slide on over.
Sounds of the Times was one of the seriously trendy ones. The double window display, with glossy chrome–and–ebony frames around the windows and the entry between them, was laid out on sheets of casually rumpled blue denim. “Dance through the Decades” was spelled out in letters cut from sheet music that hung from barely visible threads above the display. There were rows of CD's, and beneath them rows of shoes of the period when the music was popular, starting in the left window with the 1890's, Strauss waltzes and kid pumps with little seed pearls, through Cuban heels and Friml with a gap where a CD had been taken out, and Billy Rose with T–strap dancing shoes, through the early
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