by Zelda Popkin
After she had finished with the records, Miss Carner went around the corner. There, on Greenwich Street, she entered a magnificent modern skyscraper. The stainless steel decorations over its portico bore no legend save the street address. Its leaded windows had no bars. Nothing in its outward appearance bespoke a prison. Indeed, the high-ceilinged, tiled rotunda which she entered might have been a bank or hospital. Trim, white clad matrons moved briskly on their errands. Women attendants sat in steel trimmed glass cubicles, like cashiers' cages.
Mary asked for Laverne Sullivan. As she waited for the switchboard operator to locate the prison psychologist, she glanced around the foyer. It was apparently a visiting time. The benches which lined the rotunda were filled with lolling men young men for the most part, negro and white, with hair slicked down, redolent of bay rum and unguents, wearing showy suits, nipped in at the waist, with sharp lapels, and gleaming yellow shoes. Mary's lips curled. She turned away, nauseated.
Laverne opened a steel barred door. "This is a surprise, Mary. Come into my office."
The halls were spotless and quiet and odorless. That was a remarkable thing. Here was a prison not only without the prison look but without the prison smell of human filth and futile disinfectant.
The office of the prison psychologist was a bright room, with pink geraniums on the windowsill, gay Mexican pottery animals on the desk, and wicker chairs, cretonne cushioned. "This certainly doesn't look like a prison," Mary said.
Laverne smiled. "It isn't all like this. But it isn't too much worse. We're not vindictive here. Sunlight and pleasant surroundings and a decent human approach are a lot better for straightening out people than dirt and darkness and cruelty. Of course we can't do all we'd like to do for them. The time's too short. Thirty days - or even ninety - to undo a lifetime's damage! Now, about Flo Gordon - " She reached into a desk drawer. "These are confidential records, you know. Though why you want Flo Gordon, now she's dead…"
"I want Flo's record, and I want the other girls' - the girls from her place who were arrested at the same time." She read the names from a slip of paper.
Laverne said: "I'll get them. You read Flo's while I find the others." She put a sheaf of papers before Miss Carner…. She said: "I don't think you'll get a great deal out of this because I couldn't get a great deal out of Flo. She was completely uncooperative. Now I look back on it, the whole bunch was uncooperative. (Here's Bessie Jackson. Here's Billie Montrose.) They seemed to be frightened to death, too scared to open their mouths. (Here's Evelyn La Rue.) I take a social history - family background, education. There's a pattern. You'd be amazed how many fit into that pattern. Low I.Q. Little education, large family, usually broken by divorce or death or drunkenness, no economic or emotional stability. I give a Binet. You don't want the technical details, do you? I thought not. (Here's Gloria Clark. I guess that's all.) I give the regulation psychologicals, to get the I.Q. and aptitudes. Our interest is chiefly to find out whether institutional care is indicated, and to learn the mental and emotional factors we have to deal with to accomplish rehabilitation."
"What's this?"
Laverne glanced down at the papers before Mary Carner. "That. It's a word association test. Not one of the essential tests. Supplementary. It often gives me information that I can't get any other way."
Miss Carner's expression was frankly puzzled.
Laverne took the papers from her. "These records are no good to a layman. Let me explain: Take Flo Gordon," she began. "These tests require a certain cooperation on the part of the girl. It's the interviewer's job to get that cooperation. I usually get it by explaining the purpose of the tests very simply, pointing out that they're for the girl's own good - to help her - and that they have no bearing on her punishment whatever. I try to put her at her ease. Sometimes offer her a cigarette. That didn't work with Flo at all. She sat there, in that very chair in which you're sitting and just sneered at me…. 'Come off with that stuff,' she said. 'You don't have to reform me. You don't have to tell me how intelligent I am. I'm smart enough. You don't have to help me. I got the best help in the world - in the bank.' I invited her to have a cigarette with me, and she laughed. 'That's sissy stuff,' she said. 'Give me a good cigar any time.' But she did, after a while, tell me something about herself. It came in a burst of bitterness after I had spoken to her about the reputation she had around town. 'What do they know about me? Do they know what kind of a person I am? Do they know what my life was? Do they know that in Europe where I come from ten people live on six cents a day, starving, rags, diseased? Do they know how I broke my back in a factory? How I stood up all day long - fourteen, sixteen hours a day - in a shop, saving every penny to send home to my family? Nobody was my friend, then, not even my bank book.' Now mind, these weren't her exact words - I wouldn't dare use the language she did - but it's close enough. She told me how well-dressed women used to come to her lingerie shop, buy the most expensive undergarments. It was from them she learned about another sort of business."
"But about Rockey? About the men who run the rackets? What did she have to say about them?"
"Not a word," Laverne answered. "She said: 'I'm taking a rap. I'm taking it and I don't like it. But thirty days ain't forever. And Flo Gordon's got to earn her living after it's over. So I'm keeping my trap shut.' I couldn't do a thing with her…. Now, here's her word association test - the free, spontaneous association of ideas. I read off a list of words and the other person responds with the word that comes spontaneously to her mind. If she hesitates over a word, that has often as much significance to us as a direct answer. Flo started to answer and then suddenly she banged her fist on the table and yelled: 'You can't trick me. You can't trap me.' And not another word out of her. Here. You can see what she did."
On the sheet of paper Mary read a list of words, one after the other:
White
Home
Work
Food
Woman
Kill
Friend
Children
Pleasure
Wrong
Fear
Police
Punishment
People
Hot
"Some of the words are innocuous," Laverne explained. "Test words. To find out whether the person normally would give conventional answers. To 'White,' for instance, most people would automatically say 'Black.' To 'Hot,' they might say 'Cold' or 'Summer.' Flo started out easily enough, you see. She answered 'Black' to 'White'; 'Europe' to 'Home'; 'Hard' to 'Work'; 'Eat' to 'Food'; 'Man' to 'Woman'; but here - here's where she banged down. I said 'Kill.' And her answer flashed back: 'Girl friend.'"
"And that," said Mary Carner, "is exactly what I came to find out."
Laverne Sullivan looked at her queerly. "I'm beginning to get the idea," she said. "I think this one will help you even more - tell you all you want to know. Bessie Jackson was the colored maid in Flo Gordon's house - a sweet-looking, simple girl, with an I.Q. in the lower eighties. She looked very gentle, very anxious to please. But when I took down her answers, I was flabbergasted. They were lurid. They puzzled me, but I had no way of knowing that they were more than the expressions of a tabloid reader's mind. They'll mean more to you than they did to me."
In a score of words, Bessie Jackson, in the unwitting responses of her overburdened mind, had told the story of what had happened in the basement of fiftynine.
To "White" she had answered, acceptably enough: "Black."
"Home" made her think of "Mother."
After "Work" she had named her vocation: "Maid."
"Food" called forth "On the Table."
And then the narrative had poured out: "Woman" - "Door"; "Kill" - "Shoot"; "Friend" - "False"; "Children" - "Cute"; "Pleasure" - "Dance" (these two, digressions into Bessie's private tastes); "Wrong" - "Place"; "Fear" - "The Big Shot"; "Police" - "Gun"; "Punishment" - "Electric Chair"; "People" - "Bloody"; "Hot" - "Furnace."
"Bessie Jackson," said Mary, "gave you all the wrong answers
. And me the right ones. The false friend shot the woman at the door who had come to the wrong place. The police gun was used. The people were bloody. They sought to burn something in a hot furnace. The electric chair should be the punishment, but the Big Shot is to be feared."
"The Big Shot," Laverne repeated "You mean Rockey Nardello?"
"No." Mary's face was grave. "Someone bigger than Rockey. Someone of whom even Rockey Nardello is afraid." She shook herself as though she sought to dislodge some clinging horror. "You don't suppose anyone knows where to find Bessie Jackson?" she asked.
"Hardly. These girls float around. She may be on probation still. I can find out. I'll make you a copy of this list if you wish."
Mary waited until Laverne had typed the list. She folded the sheet of paper, placed it in her purse. "I'm eternally grateful."
"Glad to help. S'long. Take care of yourself."
"I'll try."
Elation quickened Mary's footsteps as she went out of the prison door. "Now," she thought, "I can go right down to Headquarters. The picture's complete. Now, there's no doubt. No doubt at all."
As she turned toward Sixth Avenue, she saw the gleaming hood of a black Cadillac and a yellow license plate with two black digits. She swung on her heel. She began to run. A man's long stride came swiftly behind her. A hand gripped her elbow, tight as a vise. Saxon Rorke's silken voice said: "Don't hurry, my dear. I want to talk to you. I'm going to take you riding."
Chapter XV
Mary had ceased struggling. She lay on the floor of the car, under a stifling robe of fur, the cloth of a gag pressing against her tongue; her wrists and ankles chafing under tight ropes. Only her eyes were free, to stare into the thin, yellow face of Li and the snout of the revolver in his hand and beyond him, out on sliding roof-tops, framed in a square of glass.
She heard the rumble of trucks and busses, the motorized movement of the city. Beyond the windows, there was rescue. There was freedom. There was life. She could not summon it.
It had happened swiftly. Rorke's hand, propelling her into the car. A second to turn a pleading face toward an uncurious passerby, to hear uncomprehending comment from the pavement: "Drunken lady. They're putting a drunken lady into that car." A thrust downward. Li's arms pinning her, binding her.
Saxon Rorke's hand was steady on the wheel. He stopped for the traffic lights, shifted his gears, without haste, without excitement. The vibration of the car was a gentle massage under her shoulders.
A longer pause, the driver's window opening, a voice saying: "Thank you, sir"; the jingle of a cash register, a rush of clammy cold, the car gaining speed, the echo of slithering tires, a curved tile wall, reflecting ceiling lights. "The Holland Tunnel," Mary told herself. "There are policemen in the Tunnel. Every few feet."
Desperation gave her strength. She struggled to a sitting posture. Li's right hand forced her down. His left pressed the gun against her heart.
Saxon Rorke turned his head slightly. He said: "Don't do that. It makes Li nervous. Might make that gun go off. Pop. And it's all over. Just another backfire in the tunnel. But why hurry? You're not in any hurry to die, are you, my dear? It'll be pleasanter in the country. Really it will. With the blue sky and the trees. And time to say your prayers."
He swung out of the Tunnel. There was daylight again, a pewter sky overhead. Mary could see the box-like tops of houses, hear the rattle of trucks on the cobblestones. And then the rivet-knotted lattice of a bridge, and tall, light stanchions, slicing the heavens, and the squares of power lines and the monotonous swish of passing cars.
"We're in New Jersey," Mary told herself. "We're on the Pulaski skyway."
A silver airplane circled the window's vision, vanished into the gray sky. And another plane, its motors humming. "We're passing Newark airport…I must notice things. I must remember the route." And then it came to her that remembering did not matter, since there was but one ending to the road she traveled now.
"But he won't get away with it," she thought, triumphantly. "Johnny knows. Chris knows. I'll be gone but they'll get Rorke."
The car was gaining speed. Tops of billboards, of garish neon signs above roadside taverns, trees, telegraph wires whizzed by the window. The swish of passing cars was less frequent. A concrete road flowed smoothly beneath the wheels.
Saxon Rorke began to speak. His voice was suave, mellifluous. "Relax, my dear," he said. "We've a long way to go. Out where it's quiet and the woods are thick. And no one will find you. Extraordinary, isn't it? The clever detective always captures the criminal. That's the usual thing, isn't it? But today the clever criminal captures the not-so-bright detective. Quite a blow to your pride, I'm sure, Mary. I may call you Mary, mayn't I?
"Oh you were very clever, my dear. Much too clever for your health. Not like the police. MacKinoy's their man. MacKinoy's gun did the trick. That's all they need to know. And a faithful correspondent sends them a postcard every day, to make certain they don't forget poor MacKinoy. Poor MacKinoy." Saxon Rorke laughed. "Poor, considerate thing. It was really very, very kind of him to have his gun so handy. Lying on the table. Waiting to be used. There's a lesson in that. Policemen shouldn't relax. Not even with their friends. Their very best friends…. And so decent of him not to mention names in those sad farewell notes of his. You wouldn't tell me, Mary, but your Inspector did.
"Your over-sight, Li. You should have seen those letters first. We'll have to talk about that. He did have me worried. You remember that, don't you, my dear? The phone call, at my apartment? Your solicitude was so sweet. I'll treasure the memory. You distressed me a bit, when you spoke of someone named Peterson. But not too much. You see, I knew no Peterson, and so I was sure he didn't know me. And surely, if he had seen anything or recognized anyone, he'd have spoken up immediately. 'Why didn't he go to the Police at once, if he had seen Phyllis killed?' I asked myself. Either he knew nothing, or had his own reasons for keeping silent. And since he had locked up his own tongue, I didn't need to fret about him, did I?"
Rain was spattering the windows of the car. Saxon Rorke stopped talking for a moment, bent forward to adjust his windshield cleaner.
"It was too bad about the raid, wasn't it?" he went on. The monotonous swish of the long blades on the glass punctuated his words. "The meddlesome police. Another count against the Vice Squad. If they hadn't come along, everyone would have been spared such a lot of trouble. Dear Phyllis so neatly cremated. Not so much as a little finger left. And you can't try a man for murder without the corpus delicti, can you, Mary? Ah, but I've learned. I know better this time. Another lady will disappear. And the lady will stay disappeared. And Saxon Rorke? He'll go on, business as usual, pleasures as usual. And the police never suspecting. They couldn't. They wouldn't. Rorke's too rich. He's too powerful. He's a friend of all the right people. That's the trick, my dear. Know the right people. That's power. A very important lesson to learn. But it won't do you any good any more. Too bad. Very much too bad for you.
"And you so promising. A clever girl. But women have no right to be clever. It's dangerous for them. Gets them into trouble. Like your friend Phyllis. Very clever of you to notice that Phyllis didn't write down her date with me. Your surmise was right. There was no date or Phyllis would have written it down. She was so precise. Always so careful. But Phyllis couldn't have denied my statement, could she? Not even after her bright friend had noticed her omission. And searching my car. That was clever, too. Didn't you think I'd miss those cigars? Do you still have them, my dear? I could use one. No, don't trouble yourself to hunt for it. Li'll find them after a bit.
"But if you'll forgive me for mentioning it, you have your faults. You talk too much. Lower your voice when you make appointments, my dear. Speak softly. You thought you were being very clever when you moved out of your apartment last night. But you'd made a date, to see a certain person at a certain place at a definite time. And so I knew where to find you.
"And that telegram you sent. You never came back home for the answer, di
d you? But, I did. I found your answer, under your door. It told me you were working alone. Woman's vanity, my pet. Else you'd not have been asking questions of small town police. You'd have let Inspector Heinsheimer do it. He has the channels of communication. But no, you had an idea - a hunch, let us call it. It was too good to share with anyone. You wanted to enjoy your little moment of triumph. Show up the stupid police."
The billboards were fewer now, the neon signs far between. Only green of tree tops against the dark sky, the car wheels slithering faster on the concrete and the cool voice purring behind the wheel.
"Why didn't you ask me where I came from and what my youth had been? I'd have told you. Oh yes, I have told you as pretty and adventurous a tale as you'd ever heard. It wouldn't have been the truth, of course. But much nicer than the truth. I've a reputation to sustain. Glamour boy. The elegant Saxon Rorke. Factory towns are ugly, my dear. And on the wrong side of the tracks, the landlords don't bother about the look of the houses or the condition of the plumbing. The name wasn't Rorke then, nor Saxon. Nobody back home has ever heard what became of little Tommy Lorimor after his parents died. Nobody's ever dreamed. Little Tommy who played with the Nardello kid, the shoemaker's son. The kid who was always in trouble. Got sent to the Reformatory. Not Tommy, of course. He was too smart for that. Let somebody else stick his neck out. Let somebody else take the rap. Rockey. Rockey was a foreigner. Odd how much oftener the police suspect foreigners. But little Tommy kept things going while Rockey was away. Tommy was a bright kid. At penmanship especially. Wonderful fingers. And very careful of them. Careful to keep them dry, keep them covered, leave no fingerprints. Those fingers were my fortune, my dear. They could duplicate anyone's writing. They kept me in food and lodging a long, long time. Until I discovered I had other talents, too. Executive ability, making friends and influencing people.