Rafferty

by Bill S. Ballinger

  ‘The Church,’ he said. ‘We’re Catholic. She might agree to a separation, but not a divorce. That wouldn’t do any good, because we still couldn’t be married.’

  ‘I’m not a Catholic,’ said Rose. ‘I don’t give a damn about divorces.’ She regarded him narrowly. ‘How about you? Does a divorce bother you, too?’

  ‘No,’ he replied slowly, ‘I’d get a divorce if I could, but if she won’t agree to it... what can I do?’

  ‘You could go to Mexico and get a divorce...’

  ‘Look,’ he said, his voice defensive, ‘that takes dough. More dough than I’ve got... right now. I’ve still got to support Katherine and the two girls. I couldn’t... just walk out and let ’em starve...’

  ‘You told me you had plenty of money.’

  ‘I have... but it... comes and goes.’ He was angry, his face red and dangerous. ‘Goddamnit!’ he shouted, rising to his feet,’ what the hell are you beefing about?’

  Surprisingly, his anger sparked no responding emotion from her. She remained in her chair, quietly, considering him almost objectively. ‘Yes,’ she agreed gently, ‘it’s been good. But it can still be better.’ His familiar, powerful figure stood before her, legs planted wide apart, awaiting her attack. Briefly her eyes flicked over his square face, now flushed with anger, and met his stare. ‘Sit down, Emmet,’ she said softly. ‘Let’s think... let’s think what we can do.’ He lowered his eyes. ‘So it’s money again,’ she said musingly. ‘It’s always money...’

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  ‘Darling,’ she said abruptly, ‘if we had money... plenty of it... would you be willing to go away and get a divorce? And then we’d get married and come back here and live like normal, decent people?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If I could do that... and still take care of my kids... I’d do it. Why?’

  ‘Well... I... think... I know how we can get... a lot of money...’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Seventy-five thousand dollars.’

  Rafferty whistled softly. ‘That’s a hell of a lot,’ he said. His face was no longer angry, and he looked at her expectantly. ‘Where is it?’

  She hesitated. ‘I don’t know... exactly where. But I think I know how we can get it.’

  ‘What do you plan to do?’

  ‘I don’t know... I haven’t thought about it. We’ll have to work it out. It can be done, though, I know it can!’

  ‘Stop talking in riddles, Rose. What’re you thinking about?’

  Swiftly she arose from her chair and seated herself on the divan. ‘Come on and sit down. I’ll tell you.’ She leaned forward to the coffee table and picked up a cigarette, putting it in her mouth. She didn’t light it, and after a moment removed it, rolling it over and over between her fingers. Eventually, she began to speak. ‘I’ve never told you very much about this fellow I was married to,’ she said. ‘His name was Eddie... Eddie Stack. I think you know that. I think I told you.’ Rafferty nodded. ‘But what I didn’t tell you was that he’s a convict. He’s serving life up in Wisconsin.’

  ‘How’d you ever get mixed up with a guy like that?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly how I did... but he wasn’t a bad guy, not at first anyway. We were both pretty young... kids really... when I met him in Los Angeles. He was nice to me, and we had fun. I didn’t know what he did for a living; he said he was lucky at Santa Anita. He always seemed to have plenty of money. There were five or six other fellows he used to run around with... they’d all been kids together in L.A. I didn’t know it then, but I guess they used to steal cars and things like that and drive ’em to Mexico where they’d sell ’em.’

  ‘I hope I can make you see how it was. Things had been tough for me, too, and Eddie and I just sort of drifted together... and finally we got married. But after we were married, and Eddie started getting a little older, I guess he and the boys wanted to make more dough. Stealing cars wasn’t enough. It got so they’d deliver the cars to Mexico and when they’d come back they’d bring a load of dope back with them.’

  ‘When’d you start to know what was going on?’ Rafferty asked.

  ‘Not for a long time. I didn’t suspect anything, so it was pretty easy for Eddie to fool me. When I did find out, it was too late to do much of anything about it. Eddie had gotten to believe he was plenty tough. I wanted to leave him, but he beat me up a couple of times... and threatened to find me if I ever ran out. So,’ she shrugged her shoulders listlessly, ‘I just hung around...’

  ‘You could’ve turned him in to the cops,’ said Rafferty.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t. I didn’t hate him that much. I didn’t hate him at all. I just felt sorry for him. He was all mixed up and sort of crazy... and besides, I knew it was only a matter of time until something happened, or he got killed. That last year or so, I was with Eddie, they were pulling holdups... and everything else I guess. Then Eddie met some fellow who came from Wisconsin... some little town... and this fellow tells Eddie about a bank that’s in it... which would be very easy to rob. This fellow sells Eddie on the idea, and Eddie tries it. Only it doesn’t work out the way he plans it, and there’s shooting and somebody gets killed.’

  She held only the paper of the cigarette between her fingers. Shreds of tobacco lay in small heaps on top of the cocktail table. Rolling the empty paper into a tiny, tight ball, she dropped it in an ash tray. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘they didn’t catch Eddie for nearly a week. He was too smart to head back for California... he came East instead. But they caught him. Only he didn’t have the money on him. They never did find the money. They sent him up to Waupun for life because of the shooting, anyway; so returning the money wouldn’t have made any difference.’

  Rafferty exhaled slowly through his nose, and relaxed the tightened muscles in his shoulders. ‘So Stack’s the only guy who knows where the dough is,’ he said. ‘What do you have in mind?’

  She looked at him levelly. ‘What do you have in mind? If there was some way we could find that money, our worries would be over...’

  ‘I thought you were so damned careful about getting mixed up in something like this,’he replied.

  She didn’t reply immediately. Finally she said, ‘A man was killed for that money. Eddie is locked up for the rest of his life. He’s paying for it. But somewhere that money is just lying around doing nobody any good. If we had it, it could give us a new start. When they caught Eddie and I knew I’d never see him again, I simply walked out of the apartment in Los Angeles and never went back. I started working again... like I had been before I met him. All those years, in between, were lost. They were wasted and I don’t even have anything nice to remember about them. I decided then, I’d never settle for a cheap affair, or a fast deal, again. And somehow I feel perhaps that money belongs to me; I earned it. Believe me, Emmet, I earned it. So perhaps it’s just a way life has of having Eddie give me a wedding dowery to start all over again.’

  ‘What do you plan to do about it? Have you any idea where it is?’

  ‘I don’t know what I can do about it. And I don’t know where it is. It’s somewhere between Wisconsin and New York. But I’m telling you, because you’re supposed to be smart. You say you’ve got connections... all right, Emmet, perhaps you can find it.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The cops tried it and failed... and I’ll bet they looked damned carefully. Tell me, Rose, would there be anyone left in the old Stack gang who might know?’

  ‘There’s nobody left... at least, I heard they were all gone...’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Dead, I guess.’

  ‘Was somebody else after that dough?’

  ‘No-o-o. I don’t think that was it. I think perhaps after Eddie was gone, the boys started holding up some of the West Coast gambling joints. Eddie would never let them because it was too dangerous. I think perhaps the boys started holding up some of the Syndicate spots, and so the Syndicate took care of them.’

  ‘Al
l right,’ said Rafferty. ‘Let me think about that seventy-five grand.’ His wiry, sandy hair was damp with perspiration. He wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand.

  Thoughts of the money tantalized Rafferty... pricking his imagination day and night. He had stumbled upon the answer to the Los Angeles killings, but the information was now useless. Officially he had done nothing with the case for over a year and a half. Feinberg had called him off for lack of information, and Rafferty was far from anxious to have the lieutenant know that he had maintained contact with Rose over many months. Moreover, the Stack information was unimportant now. It concerned the Los Angeles cops, not New York. The case had undoubtedly been closed on the Coast.

  Seventy-five thousand dollars, however, was different. Entirely different. With the money, his problem could be permanently solved. After he was divorced and married to Rose, he would have to resign from the force. That was obvious. He would give enough money to Katherine and the girls to take good care of them; with the balance he would have sufficient funds to look around and find another job. There were plenty of jobs, with the war on, and he had nothing to worry about.

  Except one thing.

  Find the money.

  Rafferty was too experienced as a police officer to believe that he could locate it himself. After all this time, the trail was cold, the leads lost and forgotten. Obviously at the time of Stack’s arrest all efforts had been made to recover the money; undoubtedly the insurance company itself had kept men working for months trying to find it. Too, Rafferty was handicapped by a lack of information concerning the actual details of the case. Without a direct query to the Wisconsin officials, he had no way of uncovering this information; and a direct query would immediately bring renewed attention to the case.

  He turned the problem over and over in his mind, until it seemed to assume the shape of a hard, black, smooth ball. There was no crack into which he could pry, no break in its surface which he could probe and explore. He considered it and weighed it and tested it for unknown factors; he examined it closely and viewed it from a distance, but the hard, blank, impenetrable surface of the problem continued to face him from every angle.

  From the beginning, there had been one obvious solution to the problem, but Rafferty had been unable to face it. He kept pushing the solution from his thoughts while his mind sought frantically to discover another answer. At night he would lie in bed, his body quiet and relaxed, his breathing deep and regular... and then his mind would bring out the little black ball. He would roll it over and over... slowly, thoughtfully... then faster and faster. After hours of consideration, he would try to put it away again, and then the solution would come creeping out, a grayish wisp from the back of his mind, and he would desperately wave it away. Sometimes he would arise and light a cigarette and sit on the edge of the bed smoking until dawn. But always, although he refused to face it, there was just one answer. And he knew it.

  Eventually, he could evade it no longer. It was a difficult decision to make, and he made it reluctantly and only after days of careful deliberation; and he decided not to tell Rose of his solution. He would wait until he had the money, and it was all over; then, if there was no other way, he would tell her. Once he had made the decision, he was anxious to move quickly. He began his plans carefully.

  ‘Are you still thinking about the money?’ Rose asked him one evening.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, remembering his decision.

  ‘What’ve you decided?’

  ‘I think perhaps I can find it.’

  ‘How?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘I’ve got some contacts out. I’m working on it,’ he replied casually.

  ‘Anything definite?’

  ‘Yes... in a way. I’m working on it. Let me worry about it. I’ll let you know when I get it all worked out.’

  It was already worked out in Rafferty’s mind. It was simple: only one man knew where the money was. That man was Eddie Stack. If Eddie Stack could get to the money, he would. If Rafferty knew where Eddie Stack would be, he would take the money from Stack. It was as easy as that, and the plan revolved around two points. First, giving Stack the opportunity to get to the money. Secondly, maneuvering Stack into a definite locality at a specified time. There was only one possible flaw in his plan. He must take a third person into his confidence.

  Consequently, he scanned his list of informers; checking and rechecking the names of his stool pigeons carefully to decide upon the one over whom he had the strongest hold. Stool pigeons are the eyes and ears of each metropolitan police force, at large only because they are more valuable to the police as spies and informers than they are locked up. Each detective soon surrounds himself with his own private collection of informers. Fearing the retribution of the underworld in which they live and the criminals whom they double-cross, the stool pigeons will work only with the one detective they trust, scorning to give information to other members of the same force. In return for their information, their chosen detective protects them from the arrests and molestations of petty charges and general police roundups.

  The majority of stoolies never report in person. They call their detective at specified times and places, and stay away from precincts and headquarters. If they are seen talking to a detective their value is over, and their next meeting with the police is usually on the slab in the morgue. Consequently, on the few occasions when it is necessary for the detective to meet with his stoolie in person, the meeting is arranged with great care and secrecy.

  For that reason, Emmet Rafferty was double parked, in a plain black Ford sedan with the motor running, by the subway exit on Fifty-eighth and Broadway. It was eleven o’clock at night, and traffic was flowing in a heavy stream around Columbus Circle. At exactly 11:02 a figure darted from the subway opening, swung open the door of the Ford, jumped into the seat beside Rafferty, and ducked his head below the level of the dashboard. Rafferty reached across the man’s back, swung the door closed, and eased his car into the stream of traffic. They did not exchange words. Some ten minutes later, Rafferty drove the car into the gloom of a deserted loading platform, behind a small restaurant closed for the night. The spot was lonely, secluded, deserted, and the figure beside him slowly straightened in his seat.

  ‘Okay,’ said Rafferty. ‘Want a smoke?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said his companion. He took a cigarette and bent below the dash to light it. Then carefully cupping his hands around the lighted end, he began smoking.

  ‘I haven’t seen you for a long time, Luke,’ said Rafferty, quietly.’ How’s it going?’

  ‘You know how it’s going,’ Luke replied. He turned partly in his seat and tried to stare through the blackness at Rafferty. ‘You can put the gun up,’ he said. ‘I don’t carry nothing. Not with the Sullivan Act.’

  Rafferty laughed softly, but continued to keep his hand in his topcoat pocket. ‘Sure,’he said. ‘Sure! I do this to keep my hands warm.’ With his free hand he switched on the car radio, tuning in a dance orchestra, regulating the volume to cover the sound of his voice. Then speaking softly, his voice covered by the music and indistinguishable to anyone listening at a distance of a few feet, he continued. ‘That Alabama murder warrant is still open, Luke...’

  ‘I know it is,’ said Luke.

  ‘You like it here in New York?’

  ‘Better than in Alabama.’

  ‘I thought so. Why don’t you go back and face it?’

  ‘They’d hang me.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess you’re right.’

  ‘What you want, Lieutenant? Why all this gassing? You got me by the thumbs and I know it’

  ‘I just wanted to be sure I had,’ Rafferty replied, ‘because I got something special for you to do, Luke.’

  ‘What?’ Luke stirred uneasily.

  ‘If you had a thousand dollars could you go to South America?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Luke.

  ‘With a passport?’

  ‘With a phony, but so good nobody’d know the difference.�
�

  ‘Where would you get it?’

  ‘From a guy on Third Avenue.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh... a guy I know,’ he replied uneasily.

  Rafferty was quiet, considering... weighing. Finally he said, heavily, ‘All right, Luke, I want you to do something for me. As soon as it’s done, I’ll lay off you for good. I’ll pull your squeal card out of the files and destroy it.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Luke snubbed the cigarette out on the sole of his shoe. The radio played loudly, and around the car there was silence.

  Rafferty cleared his voice; in the car it sounded hoarse and thick. ‘I want you to arrange a crash-out for a lifer in Waupun. His name is Eddie Stack; he’s in for a killing and a bank stick-up.’

  ‘I don’t know the guy,’ said Luke.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Rafferty. ‘You can get to him one way or other.’ They both sat silently, thinking of the long, invisible vine that reaches from the underworld into the cell blocks, the solitary holes, the condemned rows, the wardens’ offices, and guardrooms of all the penitentiaries in the country. Day and night it pulsates, siphoning information in... sucking information out. Relaying messages, making plans, seeking out men known only by numbers from New York and Chicago and Los Angeles; Miami, St. Louis, Boston; Detroit, Dallas, and San Francisco. A mysterious pipeline of punks and big shots, murderers, rapists, arsonists, muggers, hoisters, second-story men, con men, counterfeiters, junkies; cunning men, stupid men; men who are lost and confused, and men who are not.

  Luke finally broke the silence. ‘Got any ideas?’

  ‘A couple,’ said Rafferty. ‘He’s got a little dough. Tell him you can get him out, and you’ll arrange to get him to South America. Make a deal with him... I don’t care what it is. Whatever dough you can get out of it, you keep. I want you to arrange it so he’s got to pick up his papers from you. Make him come to New York to get them. When he’s here, you let me know.’

  ‘He sounds to me like a sitting duck.’