by Horace McCoy
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I think I can work it. What year was it?”
“Nineteen thirty-three. Maybe nineteen thirty-four.”
“Okay, Eamon. I’ll call you.”
Mike drove straight to the D.A.’s office in the Criminal Courts Building. The 1933-1934 files were in storage in the basement.
He found the file on Nick Carson. It was a transcript of a preliminary hearing in the coroner’s court in which a man had been killed by the automobile Carson was driving. Carson was intoxicated at the time and started blabbering about Nemo Crespi and how he was the chief’s intimate and how he dished out the grease for the boss in thousand-dollar bills. He named names: Captain Decherd and Attorney-General Duncan, who had since become governor, and others.
Mike whistled softly to himself. No wonder Nemo wanted this. “This is it,” Mike said to himself softly. “This is dynamite. This is what I’ve been waiting for.”
Next door to the Criminal Courts Building was the garage for the county cars and next door to that in a small, cramped space was the Photoengraving Department.
Buck Ewing was standing beside an enlarger. His sleeves were rolled up and he wore a heavy rubber apron to protect his clothes. He was looking dubiously at the file Mike Conroy was holding in his hand.
“What the hell, Mike,” he was saying. “I’d like to photostat the stuff for you, but that’s strictly against the rules.”
“Come on, Buck. Be a good fellow.”
“Well, it’ll take some time,” Ewing said. “Maybe an hour. And for God’s sake, don’t peep about this—”
“I won’t, Buck, believe me, I won’t,” Mike said. “Be back in an hour.”
Buck Ewing watched Mike go out and then he moved to a telephone on the desk in front. He dialed a number. He said into the phone, “He was just here.” He nodded, looking at the file on Nick Carson. “I’m holding it in my hands right now.”
Eamon said into the phone, “Make the photostat, Buck, and let him have it.” He shook his head. “No. Let him have it. It don’t mean a thing. Not a thing. It was just bait. We faked all the names and smuggled it into the vault.”
He hung up this phone and reached for the other one. Nemo had been right—blood was thicker than water. Roy Ackerman had been right. They had all been right. Mike Conroy was selling them out.
Not for a second did Harrigan feel sorry for his old pal. He was wondering how much Mike had held out on him, how much Mike knew that he hadn’t relayed.
There was no time to lose. He dialed the other phone and said, “Pia, put me through to Nemo, quick!”
There were two very important factors to be considered in the execution of Lieutenant Michael Conroy: it had to be done spontaneously and it had to have a background of legitimacy. It would have been a simple matter to pop him off, but since he was a central figure in the investigation now under way, an anonymous rub-out would most certainly have violent repercussions and would be, at once and obviously, charged to Nemo Crespi. The murder had to be camouflaged so that everyone in Homicide would be fooled.
That was where Roy Ackerman came in. It was just the kind of emergency for which his cunning brain had been developed. Ackerman had distilled murder and mayhem into an exact science; he did not have to go away for a long week-end to debate and perfect the operation. He had preconceived it and he had picked the spot for it—just in case.
A few minutes after the word was flashed to Nemo Crespi that Mike Conroy’s number was up, Ackerman was ready to roll. For the pop-off of Lieutenant Conroy he summoned a thirty-three-year-old homosexual named Kenneth Gladiola, who was to get $5,000 for the job, payable on completion of the assignment.
Zero hour was eleven o’clock. At ten minutes to eleven, in front of a small market in the suburban area where Mike lived, a Ford delivery truck pulled in and parked. It was a closed truck and there were no commercial legends painted on its sides.
The driver half turned in his seat and looked back. The truck contained an enormous pasteboard carton, the kind in which upright television sets are shipped from the factory. “Ten minutes,” he said quietly, as if he were talking to himself.
But he wasn’t. The carton contained a man, Verne Trickett. For years Trickett had been an instructor at the Police Academy and there probably was no better pistol shot in the world.
The truck driver got out from under the wheel and sauntered to the window of the market. It was a small neighborhood market, and there were only a few people inside. He lit a cigarette.
A few minutes later Kenneth Gladiola walked down the street. He wore an old gray suit and no hat and no tie. His coat pockets bulged—in one he had a rubber mask that was a perfect reproduction of the head and face of Adolf Hitler and in the other he had a .45 automatic. He paused beside the truck driver and looked through the window.
“Keep your eye on me,” the truck driver said.
Kenneth Gladiola walked into the market.
Up the street, half a block away, Eamon Harrigan glanced at his watch. It was exactly eleven o’clock. Then he saw Mike Conroy walking toward him, with a manila envelope under his arm.
“What the hell did you have to come way out here for?” Mike said angrily.
“I told you,” Harrigan said. “We have to be careful. If anything happens you can say you were going home for lunch.”
“It would have been simpler to mail it,” Mike said. “Don’t you trust me, either?”
“Sure, I trust you,” Harrigan said. “I’m your friend. But you know how Nemo is when the heat’s on.”
Mike handed him the envelope and started to go.
“Hold it, Mike. Nemo’s waiting for you. Down the street in the gas station,” Harrigan said.
Mike’s face clouded. “What for? Anything I got to report, I’ll report. I don’t like guys breathing down my neck. You tell Nemo I don’t wanna see him. If I never see him again it’ll be too soon.”
“It’s about John,” Harrigan said.
Quickly Mike asked, “What about John?”
“Nemo’ll tell you—”
“Where is he?”
“In the gas station down the street.”
Mike turned and started down the street.
He did not see Eamon put his hand over his head and then pretend that he was adjusting his hat.
But Trickett did. It was what he had been waiting for. He got out of the carton and stood inside the truck, behind the seat.
Then the driver signaled through the window to Kenneth Gladiola.
Gladiola was in the back of the store. He put on the Hitler mask and took the .45 automatic out of his pocket and moved rapidly toward the front of the market.
The woman cashier saw the man in the Hitler mask and for a second she did not know what to think. Then she saw the pistol and screamed and Kenneth Gladiola hit her in the face with the barrel of the automatic. She screamed again and fell back, her face spurting blood, clutching at her cheek, and Gladiola scooped up some of the money in the till and ran out.
“Holdup! Holdup!” the truck driver yelled.
Mike was passing the market and the truck driver almost collided with him.
Thirty years of training and thinking as a cop had conditioned Mike’s reflexes and he roared, “Police officer! Drop that gun!” reaching for his own pistol at the same time.
Kenneth Gladiola shot him three times and then he turned and started to run down the street to the alley where the getaway car was waiting. He had done his $5,000 job and it had gone according to plan.
But there was one vital part in the plan that Kenneth Gladiola had not been told about, that had not been rehearsed.
He took one step and a bullet squashed through the forehead of the tight rubber mask and he went down, too—dead.
Trickett, leaning over the front seat of the truck to steady his aim, had let him have it.
In the excitement and confusion of the next few minutes, Trickett found it simple to substitute the .38 he had used to kill Gladiola for
Mike Conroy’s own .38 that had not been fired. Then he jumped into the truck and disappeared. This was the tour de force. It was no coincidence that the pistols were alike in model, caliber, grip and color. It was elemental that a ballistics test would be run on the bullet in Gladiola’s skull and on Mike’s gun.
There was only one detail Ackerman couldn’t solve—and that was the serial numbers of the pistols. But it was a chance they had to take that no one would ever check the serial numbers.
Late that night Amanda sat with John in the suite at the Hotel Manchester. There was a half empty bottle of cognac on the coffee table, and John’s collar was unbuttoned, his tie loosened. He was sitting with his hands clasped together, staring across the room at the wall. Amanda had one of her hands on his wrist. She was staring at his face.
“I’m the one who’s responsible for all this,” he was saying thickly. “I really am.”
“Why do you say that?” Amanda asked quietly.
“Because I had the governor appoint Dad as my chief investigator. I didn’t even ask him if he wanted the job. He knew there would be trouble. He was worried about getting his pension—he thought Nemo had so much influence that he wouldn’t get it if we went ahead with the investigation.” Tears filled John’s eyes, he shook his head and tried to laugh. “Well, he was wrong about that. He got his pension, all right. I got it for him.”
“John, you’re feeling very guilty about all this,” Amanda said.
“I know I’m feeling guilty. I know that.”
“Too guilty, dear.”
John got up and walked across the room to the window. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said thickly, and then paused and blew his nose before he went on. “He was an honest cop, and an honest man—and a poor man, too. It’s easy for some people to be honest, people with enough money so they don’t have to cheat or lie or steal. But if you’re poor then it’s not an easy thing always to be honest, and my dad was honest. And it wasn’t easy for him. I know it wasn’t.” He gestured with his hand. “When I was a kid we were poor, Amanda, dirt poor. You’ve never known anything like it. I still remember those tenement stairs. We didn’t even have a toilet, you know. The toilet was at the end of the hall. You had to bathe in the kitchen. I remember in the winter my mother washing clothes and then hanging them to dry in the kitchen. There were so many, many things like that—”
“John,” Amanda said, “please.”
“No, let me finish what I started to say. You see, they tempted my father. They offered him money to become one of the boys. All right, if he had been alone in the world then it would’ve been easy for him to refuse and say no. But when they did offer him money he must’ve thought of mother, of how hard she worked, of that miserable cold-water flat. He must have thought of me, too, of the things he could do for me. So I know it wasn’t easy for him to be honest—but he was, anyway. And that’s what I helped to get killed, a rock of a man like that. God, I might as well be working for Nemo Crespi. I might as well be Nemo Crespi myself for all the good I’ve done.”
Amanda went to John and put her arms around him. She laid her cheek flat against his chest and listened to the strong, steady beat of his heart. “Dear, I’m not trying to insult you or make you angry, but you are really feeling far too guilty about this. You are not responsible, personally.”
“Yes, I am,” John said stubbornly.
Amanda smiled. “Why?”
“Because I firmly believe that if my father had not been connected with this investigation then he would be alive this moment.”
“John, he was killed in a gun battle with a hoodlum.”
John did not reply.
“Well, wasn’t he?” Amanda insisted.
“Yes,” John said, with a sigh.
“A hoodlum who specialized in just that type of holdup, too. Right?”
John had to nod “yes” to that.
“Where is the connection with Nemo Crespi, then?”
“Oh, I know there isn’t any, really,” John said. “I’ve searched, and I can’t find it. But I keep thinking—why was Dad at that place at that time?”
“He was on his way home to lunch,” Amanda said gently.
“But he didn’t go home to lunch very often. Hardly ever. He hadn’t the time.”
“But sometimes he did go, didn’t he? And your mother was expecting him, wasn’t she?”
“Oh, all right,” John said. “Yes. Yes, she was expecting him.”
“I’m not trying to be cruel to you,” Amanda said. “I simply want you to face things as they are. I love you, John. I don’t want you to torture yourself with something that’s not your fault. You didn’t cause your father’s death. There’s no connection with Nemo Crespi at all. It just happened, it was kind of an accident. You’ must believe that, or you’ll end up making yourself sick with these thoughts and feelings. Do you understand me, dear?”
John nodded. “I guess you’re right. I’ll try.”
“Then come in the bedroom and lie down,” Amanda said. You must get some rest.”
“I’ll have another drink, then I’ll be in.”
“No, you’ve had enough to drink this evening,” Amanda said. “Come with me now.”
“All right,” John said.
Mike Conroy had died a hero’s death and they gave him a hero’s funeral.
A platoon of thirty uniformed policemen and four motorcycle officers accompanied his body to the cemetery, followed by the family, and his friends. Father Murnane of the Holy Name committed his body to the ground and the police chaplain recited the obituary.
Eamon Harrigan was present—at a distance. He spoke briefly with Mrs. Conroy whose face was frozen with unshed tears, and extended his sympathy to John who nodded coldly. He spoke even more briefly with Judge Waycross, whom he had not seen in years.
Mike Conroy got a posthumous citation and stories in the papers and Mrs. Conroy was automatically eligible for pension.
But a cop does not have to serve thirty years to get a pension in this way. If he is killed in the line of duty one hour on the force is long enough ...
Chapter Five
THE EDITORIAL WAS ON the front page. It was set two-column, twelve-point Roman. It read:
AN EXHIBIT: PUT UP OR SHUT UP
Tomorrow evening there will open a public exhibition of 533 photographs that is without precedent in the history of the United States.
For these 533 photographs are of criminals. Each man wears a number—a police number.
These are criminals who, some of them, are known to have worked at one time or another for Nemo Crespi and his syndicate. These are criminals who, some of them, are supposed to have worked at one time or another for Nemo Crespi and his syndicate. This diabolical syndicate has been able to flourish and become fantastically successful because the little man it hurts is too terrified or too fearful of reprisal to co-operate with, the law. In the rare instances when the little man has tried to do something about the syndicate he has been destroyed. How much longer is this going to continue?
You little men, who bellyache about bad government and insufficient laws, this is your chance. PUT UP OR SHUT UP! If you have ever been pushed around, if you have ever suffered extortion, paid protection money, been coerced, if your business or your private life has ever been interfered with by the strong-arm men of Nemo Crespi, go to the Crime Commission Headquarters in the Manchester Hotel and try to identify the photographs.
The mighty forces of Law and Order in this great state are symbolized by John Conroy.
You. Little Man, must help him. Do not fear. You will be protected by armed guards, if necessary.
LITTLE MAN—PUT UP OR SHUT UP!
Lou Walzer, Publisher
It was a new kind of warfare to Nemo Crespi. A guy got out of hand, he could handle it. Two or three guys got out of hand, he could handle that, too. Even a big guy like Mike Conroy who needed extra special handling, he had Roy Ackerman and Trickett to handle that for hi
m.
But here was a punk who would plaster 533 photographs around a room and then invite the public to come in and take their pick. Some 200 of these men in the photographs had either worked for Nemo Crespi or were still working for him. Nemo was only a little worried about the people who could make actual identification and give actual evidence. They had been intimidated so long that the chances were that they wouldn’t get out of line. But what about the jerk who could make a fake identification, or be mistaken about his man? And weren’t there some little suckers his boys hadn’t taken seriously and had therefore never bothered to get into line?
Nemo knew he could not handle that, not with a gun. But there was always political influence. He picked up the telephone and called Eamon Harrigan.
“Eamon?” Nemo said into the mouthpiece. “You know who this is. You seen the paper, I hope. This time that punk ain’t fooling around. You got to do something about it, Eamon. You got to stop him. I’m handing the ball to you, and you better do something with it—run with it, or whatever. You hear me, Eamon?”
When Nemo heard Eamon’s nervous “yes-yes” he put the telephone receiver down and sat there, brooding.
Harrigan met the lawyers in Nemo’s private office and told them that he wanted the sideshow in the Manchester Hotel stopped. He wanted a restraining order or an injunction against the display of the photographs.
The lawyers said there was no basis for asking for such an order. Even on a trumped-up basis, no court would issue such an injunction.
“Lemme worry about the court,” Harrigan said. “You just draw up the papers.”
The lawyers explained that they could draw up papers against John Conroy for slander or malicious persecution, and on that basis they might have grounds for a suit. But that was all.
Harrigan insisted loudly that they do as they were told, but the lawyers said they would not be stampeded into such a stupid maneuver ...