The Heavenly Fugitive

by Gilbert, Morris

  Ryan pulled his chair closer to the table and dug in with his fork, closing his eyes in delight with the first bite. Licking his lips, he said, “Lady, you can make all my cakes. This is good.”

  Amelia had said nothing up to this point about her conversation with the Novaks the night before, but it had been on her mind all day. Now she said tentatively, “Ryan, we’ve talked about this before. I can’t help thinking that there’s something wrong in getting criminals off that are obviously guilty.”

  Ryan swallowed another bite of cake and put his fork down. He leaned back, his electric blue eyes fastened on her. He made a roughly handsome picture as he sat there. “Been talking to the law?” he said quietly.

  Defensively, Amelia came back, “Phil and I have a meal once in a while over at the Novaks’. They are very good people.”

  “I’m sure they are. The word’s out on the street—don’t try to buy Novak. He’ll bury you. He’s an honest man.”

  Amelia did not answer, but she felt dissatisfied, and finally Ryan leaned forward and picked up her hand. “It’s meant a lot to me going out with you, Amelia, and my family thinks you’re wonderful. But about my job, the courts are built on the premise that every man and every woman is entitled to a defense. Would you do away with that?”

  “No,” Amelia said slowly, “I wouldn’t do that. I don’t understand these things, Ryan, but I don’t like the idea of your being mixed up with Big Tony Morino. You know what he stands for. He’s vicious. Oh, he puts on a good act, and he can be pleasant enough, and he loves his family, but he’s no better than the men who work for him. You know what they are.”

  The silence built up, and finally Amelia said, “Ryan, I think we’d better not see each other for a time.”

  Ryan sat very still. He leaned back in his chair and studied her carefully. Finally he said, “I’m sorry you feel like that, Amelia—for I find that I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  The words frightened Amelia. She was not in love with Ryan Kildare, and she had already purposed that she would allow nothing to stand in the way of her career. She did like him very much, however, and had allowed him to kiss her several times. Still, she knew she had to break this off now. It would be too painful for both of them if she let it go on.

  “I’m sorry, Ryan, but I don’t want to get serious right now.”

  ****

  Lee Novak’s dark eyes were flashing, and he grabbed Phil by the shoulders and shook him. He was a powerful man, and Phil blinked with surprise. “Hey, you’re going to break my neck. What’s wrong with you?”

  “We’ve got him, Phil! We’ve got him!”

  “Got who?”

  “We got Leo Marx!”

  The trial of Leo Marx had been going on for nearly a week. It was almost a forgone conclusion that Marx would be found not guilty. It had happened before. He had the best legal team in the country, and the evidence was, even as Novak admitted, skimpy.

  “What happened?” Phil said. “I didn’t think the DA had a prayer of convicting him.” He was excited, too, and watched as Novak stalked back and forth, slapping his fist into his hand with a meaty sound.

  “It’s not because the DA’s so smart—somebody blew the whistle on him.”

  “Who? That’d be suicide. You know what Marx is like.”

  “I don’t know. Probably never will. The dope came in an unmarked brown manila envelope through the mail. It had dates, names, places—everything the prosecution needed—and I’ve already nailed down the witnesses who can vindicate it.”

  “Somebody set him up all right,” Phil said abruptly.

  “That’s right. That’s the way it is with these gangsters. They stay on top only by crushing people who get under them. Somebody is out to move Marx out of the way. He’s a rat, but he’s a smart rat.”

  As Phil and Novak talked about the case, Phil became convinced that the evidence was indeed solid. “There’s no way he can beat this, and I don’t care where it came from. I say it’s good no matter who did the job!”

  ****

  The New York City jail was not particularly inviting. It had endured many years of use and abuse, and even when it was built it had not been designed for the comfort of its inmates.

  Leo Marx, who was accustomed to the finest suites in the finest hotels in New York City, sat in a cell leaning over and whispering to a small man with hazel eyes and stiff blond hair. Jake Prado was the one man in the world Leo Marx trusted.

  “I was set up, Jake.”

  “You’ll beat it, Leo.”

  “Not this time. They’ve got it all. I’ve seen it.”

  Prado was a cold-blooded killer. He was smart, tough, and absolutely ruthless, and his idol was Leo Marx. He sat there shaking his head as if to deny it, but Marx reached out and grabbed him by the arm. “I’m going to be convicted. No way out of it. But there are ways of getting out if enough money goes to the right places.”

  “Why, sure.” Prado brightened up. “Well, I bet you won’t be in here a month.”

  “A little longer than that,” Marx said dryly. He was a tall man with black hair and dark brown eyes, a thin face and a knife-edged mouth. His hands were long and graceful like those of a concert violinist, but all the grace was in his hands, for he had none in his soul.

  “Jake, you’ll have to hold things together until I get out. You’ll be the boss.”

  Jake Prado was a good lieutenant, but he had no illusions about his capability. “I can’t do that. I ain’t up to it.”

  “You’ll have to put a few down. They’ll try to take over our territory. But you’ve got some good help with Abrams, Michaels, and Foy. They can do the thinking, and you do the rough stuff.”

  Prado nodded. He had his orders—that’s all he ever wanted. “How did it happen, Leo? I can’t believe it.”

  “I was fingered, that’s what.”

  “Give me a name,” Prado insisted.

  Leaning forward, Leo Marx whispered, the sound making a sibilant hissing in the cell. “Don’t tell anybody this, Jake. I’ve got a line right into the DA’s office. They got the dope on me from an outsider.”

  Suddenly Jake Prado’s eyes blinked. “It was Big Tony, wasn’t it? I can’t get in there, boss. He’s too closely guarded.”

  “No, it wasn’t him. I got it straight from my guy inside the DA’s office. It was that fancy lawyer of his, Kildare. He ain’t guarded.” Marx’s eyes glittered, and he whispered, “Get him, Jake, but do it like this. Let him know he’s going to get it. Miss him a couple of times. I want him to be so scared he’ll shake himself to pieces.”

  “It’d be easier just to pop a cap on him, Leo.”

  “I don’t want that. I want him to hurt. When he’s half crazy you can put him down.”

  ****

  Tony Morino looked up and saw that his attorney was in bad shape. Ryan Kildare’s clothes were rumpled, and he had circles under his eyes. Tony got up. “What is it, Kildare?” He noticed that the lawyer’s hands were unsteady as he ran them through his red hair.

  “They’re going to get me, Tony.”

  “They aren’t going to get you. Now calm down. What happened?”

  “They got into my apartment when I was out and put a dead cat in my bed. Here’s a note they left.”

  Tony Morino took the note and read it. “ ‘You’re going to die, lawyer, but slow.’ ” He looked up and said, “Look, you’re going to have to come and live here at my place. We’ve got plenty of security.”

  “How can I do that? I’ve got to go to the courthouse. I’ve got to be out. You know what my work’s like.”

  Morino argued for a time, but he saw that the man’s nerve was completely broken.

  “All right,” he said. “You’ll have to get out of town. Marx is behind it. I’d say Jake Prado is the triggerman. But look, Marx is going to Sing Sing. He’ll lose all his power when he’s there.”

  “Not with Prado out.”

  “I’ve got plans for him,” Morino said in a deadly to
ne. “I wish it hadn’t happened, but I’ll find out who’s handling the hit. If it’s Prado, we’ll get him. It has to be him.”

  Ryan Kildare shook his head. “My mother, I can’t leave her.”

  “They won’t bother your mother if you’re out of the picture. I’ll put two men there for a while, so don’t worry. A fly wouldn’t be able to get through.”

  Ryan Kildare was frightened. He had seen the victims of the hit men who roamed the streets of the city, and now he knew there was no mercy for him. “I’ll have to do it,” he whispered. “But take care of my mother.”

  “Sure, sure. When this thing blows over you can come back, and it’ll be business as usual.”

  ****

  Amelia had just gone to bed when the doorbell rang. It startled her, and she glanced at the clock. “After midnight. Who could that be?” At first she decided not to answer it; then she got out of bed and put on a silk robe. As she belted it she approached the door and called out, “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, Ryan.”

  “Ryan, what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve got to talk to you for just a minute, Amelia—please.”

  Amelia hesitated and then turned the dead bolt. She opened the door and was shocked at Ryan’s features. Fear was etched in his face, and he was pale. “I’ve got to get out of town, Amelia.”

  “I know. Phil told me about the threats on your life.”

  Kildare took a deep breath, and then shook his head and grew somewhat calmer. “It’s shaken me up pretty bad, Amelia.”

  “It would shake up anybody.” She wanted to say, Now you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of these gangsters, but she held her tongue, feeling a great pity for him.

  Ryan bit his lower lip, then met her eyes. “I don’t know why I came here, but I’ve got a feeling I won’t see you again. And a woman’s got a right to know that a man loves her, even if she doesn’t love him. I just came to say that.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “Tony’s taking care of her.”

  “I’ll go see her if you’d like.”

  “Would you do that?” Relief washed across Ryan’s face. “It would mean a lot to me and to her.”

  “Yes, but you’d better clear it with Big Tony.”

  Ryan blinked and shook his head. “Good-bye, Amelia,” he said. “And thanks.”

  As Amelia closed the door it was as if she was closing a door on part of her life. She had had strong feelings for this man, but now she well knew that he was caught in the very machine he had helped to create. She stood there in the center of the room, and a feeling of compassion washed over her. “What will this do to his mother?” she whispered, knowing she would have to do whatever she could for Judith Kildare.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A Different Rosa

  The jail reeked of urine, strong cleaning chemicals, unwashed bodies, and the smell of fear. Phil had learned to adjust to it, but he had never learned to like it. Now as he sat in the small cell facing the young man who watched him with wary eyes, he wondered how he could influence the young man to save himself.

  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a packet of chewing gum and extended it toward the prisoner. “Have a chew,” he smiled.

  “Don’t use it.”

  The speaker was a wiry teenager with stiff black hair and eyes as dark as obsidian. Charlie Zlinter was seventeen years old, and Phil suspected that very few pleasant events had transpired in his life. He had read the boy’s record—he had grown up in poverty, dropped out of school by the age of ten, committed many small offenses, and now was charged with a major one. The jails were filled with human debris such as Charlie Zlinter, and outside in the street they swarmed like schools of piranha feeding on whatever got in their way.

  Phil stuck the chewing gum back in his pocket and said easily, “Charlie, you probably won’t believe this, but I’m here to help you.”

  “Why would you want to help me?”

  Phil wanted to answer honestly and was fairly certain that honesty would get him nowhere. Still he decided to try. “I’m out for bigger game than you, Charlie, and that’s the truth. I can put you away, but the real guys I’m after are going to be walking free.”

  The case was relatively simple. Lee Novak’s crew had arrested Charlie as part of a bootlegging team. The big fish had gotten away, and Zlinter had been snatched up and hustled into jail with little ceremony. According to his record he had never served hard time, but he had been in the city jail three times, all on minor charges. This was not going to be minor, Phil knew, for Lee had made it plain that he intended to arrest and severely charge anybody connected with bootlegging.

  “You got a family, Charlie?” Phil asked.

  “No.”

  “Nor ever had, I suppose.”

  “Sure, I had a pa once. He beat me up all the time and kicked me out when I was ten.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She died when I was three.”

  It was a familiar story to Phil, and despite the antagonistic set of the young man’s shoulders and his hateful stare, Phil felt that somewhere deep down under this exterior was a human being who needed a hand.

  “All right, Charlie, let me explain this to you. You know what I do. We’re out to put bootleggers out of business.”

  “You’re not having much luck, are you?”

  Phil grinned ruefully. He liked the boy’s spirit. He knew that Zlinter was afraid, but he was doing a good job keeping it from showing. A fight broke out somewhere down the cellblock, and Phil turned, but Zlinter did not even move his eyes. He was as wary as an animal in a trap, and Phil knew the effort to get him to open up was hopeless.

  “Let me tell you what’s happening here, Charlie. As far as I can figure out, you were helping to load illegal liquor. That makes you guilty, but some people are guiltier than others. The big bosses upstairs—they’re the ones we really want to get after.”

  “And you want me to give you their names.”

  “That’s right, I do.”

  Zlinter cursed and glared at Phil. “I ain’t no rat. I’ll never squeal.”

  “Ah, the code of honor!” Phil had encountered it before, and it left him with a bad taste in his mouth. “Your kind will do anything—break the law, break knees, shoot each other down—but you have this one little rule that you don’t squeal on anybody.”

  “That’s right.”

  “No, it’s not right. It’s wrong. What’s it going to get you? You’re going to the penitentiary, Charlie. What about the guy who hired you? You think he’ll be there? Not on your life. He’ll be living in his big house with his fast women and his liquor, and if anybody ever says to him, ‘Whatever happened to Charlie Zlinter?’ he’ll probably laugh and say, ‘That poor sucker. He took the rap.’ ”

  Zlinter’s eyes faltered for a moment, but then his lips grew thin, and he shook his head without saying a word.

  Phil went on. “They’re using you, Charlie.”

  “I’ve had enough of this.” Charlie jumped up from the table and banged on the door, but the guard outside ignored him.

  Sighing heavily, Phil leaned back and studied him. He knew there was no way Charlie would ever accept his help, but he had tried, nevertheless. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small New Testament. He extended it toward Zlinter, who still stood by the door, a suspicious light in his eyes at Phil’s offer.

  “Go on, take it,” Phil said. “It won’t bite you. It’s just a Bible—a small one at that.”

  Zlinter stared at him and made no move to take it. “Why you giving me a Bible?”

  “Because you need it just like I do, and just like everybody does. You’ve probably heard this before, Charlie, but we all need God. Jesus died for your sins just like He died for mine. The only difference between us is that I’ve called on Him and asked Him to forgive me of my sins, and He has. And just remember, that’s all you have to do.”

  Zlinter reached o
ut gingerly and took the Bible, and Phil knew not to press it further. “I marked a few verses in there and wrote a few notes on the inside cover.” He stood up and called out, “Guard, I’m ready.” As the guard came in, he turned back to Charlie and said, “My phone number’s written in the back of that New Testament. If you want me to help you, Charlie, just call me.”

  The door clanged open, and Phil stepped outside. As the guard slammed it shut, the hollow, ringing sound had a fatal note in it. He had heard it before, and he wondered how he himself would survive if he were locked up behind steel bars with criminals, their souls abounding with every evil instinct in the world. A shiver twitched his shoulders, and he walked quickly down the corridor, his heels echoing on the concrete. The guard at the end let him out and said, “Good day to you, sir.”

  Phil studied the man. He was white haired, and his face was lined. “Been here a long time?” Phil asked.

  “Twenty-two years.”

  “That would depress me watching all these men go down.”

  “Well, I get a chance to say a word to them every now and then about the Lord Jesus.”

  Instantly Phil smiled. He put out his hand and said, “My name’s Winslow. I’m from the DA’s office. Here’s my card. If you ever need anything, give me a call.”

  The guard looked at the card with surprise. “Why, thanks, Mr. Winslow.” He smiled slyly and said, “You’re not really a lawyer, are you? You don’t look old enough.”

  Phil laughed. “I just graduated from law school last month, so I’m pretty new at it. But I’m starting to learn the ropes.”

  “Well, I suppose we need lawyers, although they don’t seem to do most of these fellows much good.”

  “We do the best we can, Sam.” He had read the name tag on the white-haired man’s chest. “You’re doing a good work here.”

  The compliment caught the guard off balance. “You know, in all the years I’ve been here nobody’s ever commended me for standing up for the Lord. I get lots of cussin’ out.”

  “You’re being faithful, and that’s all any of us can do. I’ll see you again, perhaps.”