Hostage For A Hood (10 page)

My God, you'd think these guys would give up, that they'd get tired too. Except of course it wasn't the same guys. They kept shifting around; new ones coming in to replace the ones who had grown hoarse and drenched with sweat as they stood in a semicircle around him and aimed the questions, like stiff-armed punches, at his head.

He was tired, but really he had to laugh. Did they think that they could wear him down? Why, for Christ's sake, these guys were cream puffs. Soft bums who got silly in their heads from plush living. Karl Mitty had taken plenty in his day, and he could still take all these bums had to dish out—and then some. And they didn't have a thing on him, not one damned thing. He wasn't smart, but he could tell that by the questions they kept repeating over and over again.

He'd lost track of the time a long while back and of course down here in the concrete, windowless basement room, he was unable to tell whether it was night or day, but he guessed he must have spent at least twenty hours in this same chair. Except of course for that first interval, when the plainclothes cop with the deceptively pleasant manner had tried to make up to him and had taken him into the other room for the coffee and sandwiches. It hadn't gotten the guy anywhere, of course, any more than the tough ones had gotten anywhere with him.

There'd been that break and the other break when the small, thin cop in the eyeglasses had taken out the blackjack and had lost his temper and banged away at his neck while the other two held him. It had made him sick and he'd puked and so they'd let him up while they washed down the floor with a hose. The cops couldn't stand the smell of a little puke, for God's sake!

Yeah, he must have been here for a good twenty-four hours now and they'd got exactly nowhere with him, except to make him awfully tired.

He hadn't even admitted trying to steal the car. He might be dumb, but he was too smart for that. Sure, it would have been nice to have grabbed a plea and taken the small rap, but he knew that if he admitted it, he'd never make bail. If he didn't admit it, just stuck to his story that he was leaning against the car and tying his shoelace, sooner or later they'd have to give up. Sooner or later they'd charge him, but Goldman would be around with the bail bond money. It was just a case of hanging on and admitting nothing. He might be a little punchy, as they said he was, but he wasn't as crazy as they were if they thought they could make him crack.

He suddenly felt the cool damp rag on his forehead and he quickly snapped open his eyes again and jerked his head erect.

It was the nice cop again, the smart boy with the felt hat slanted across his brow who'd tried to play it cute and pretend to be his friend.

"All right, Mitty," the cop said. "You can take it easy now. I didn't know these guys had been keeping you down here all this time. Hell, I thought they'd taken you upstairs hours ago and booked you: They had no right keeping you down here this long. I'll tell you what, I'm going to send out and have a container of coffee and some food brought in and you eat them. While you're doing it, I gotta go upstairs for a few minutes and see the lieutenant. You eat and catch a little shut-eye and then, after a while, why I'll be back and maybe we can talk again, eh?"

Mitty stared at him and smiled crookedly.

"Sure, sure," he said. "We can talk. But like I told you, there ain't a thing to talk about. Nothin'."

* * * *

Horace Sims, detective first grade, waited patiently until Lieutenant Parks finished with the telephone call. He stood over by the window, not bothering to remove his hat, and looked out, a bored expression on his heavy face.

Lieutenant Parks didn't look up as he flung the receiver back into its cradle. "I want you to go down and talk to him again," he said, annoyed. "It's just too damned much of a coincidence."

Sims nodded. "Right away. But can you spare a moment? It's about the Sherwood woman."

"About who?"

"The Sherwood woman. Remember—she's missing. You sent me out with her husband last night to look the house over."

Parks looked up, thoughtful for a moment. He had a lot on his mind. "What about her? Has she turned up yet?"

"No. But I've run into something a little odd."

"I thought you were back working on the Rumplemyer job," Parks said, irritated.

"I am. But I stopped out at the Sherwood house around noon because I happened to be in the neighborhood. He's been calling in all morning bothering us. I just stopped as I was passing—we covered everything I could think of last night. I'd suggested that Sherwood find out if his wife had drawn any money out of her bank. They have a joint account. It was just a routine suggestion. Well, it turns out she not only stopped at the bank after she took him to the train yesterday morning; she drew out just about every dime they had between them. Twenty-six hundred dollars, to be exact. Got a certified check made out to cash."

Parks drew down the corners of his thin, wide mouth and slowly nodded his head.

"So-o-o. Well, that should make the picture a lot clearer. She probably just got fed up with her marriage, or maybe had someone else on the string and took the money and blew."

Sims shook his head, turned away from the window, and stepped toward the desk.

"I don't think so," he said. "I talked with young Sherwood for more than an hour last night and I went over that house mighty carefully. There's no doubt that she never returned after taking him to the station, and the way the house was left, she certainly must have intended to come back to it. If she was going to leave him, take the dough and scram, why wouldn't she have gone back for her clothes? She had plenty of time.

"Another thing, I get the very strong impression, from talking with him and several of the neighbors, that they got along very well together. She doesn't seem to be at all the kind of woman who would have had anything going, on the side. Of course you can never tell, but I have a pretty strong feeling about it. Something has happened to her."

Parks nodded.

"What else makes you reach that conclusion?"

"Sherwood told me this noon that twice the telephone rang during the morning and each time when he picked up the receiver a man's voice asked for his wife. Same voice each time, he said. The guy hung up when Sherwood answered."

"That
don't exactly sound as though she was so damned pure. You sure this guy Sherwood is leveling with you?" Parks asked.

"I'm never sure of anything. On the other hand, I'd bet he's on the up and up. And I don't like the idea of her disappearing with a certified check made out to cash."

For several seconds Parks sat in deep thought. Finally he looked up.

"Okay," he said. "I can't spare you right now with this damned Rumplemyer mess on our minds, but maybe you better stick with the Sherwood thing for another day or so. Go on out to the house again and see if you can find anything at all. Try and get a little better picture of the woman from the husband. Also, if that guy should call again, you pick up the phone and try and get a trace on the call. I'll go downstairs and take care of this mug Mitty."

"You think maybe you got something there, with him?"

The lieutenant shrugged. "Hell, I don't know," he said. "Probably just one of those damned coincidences, but we aren't passing up any bets. The guy used to be a driver for Rumplemyer. Worked there about six months back, for several weeks. Quit his job for no reason at all. Told them he couldn't handle the job because he had a bad back. Any way, he has a record, all petty stuff. Used to be a prizefighter at one time. Strictly third rate. Then he just drifted around, working now and then. In trouble a couple of times on assault charges, and once for larceny. Funny, his being picked up yesterday morning an hour after the stickup, trying to steal an automobile. He was in the front seat and working on the wires when a squad car happened to pass. Murphy, who was driving, spotted him and made the arrest."

"Doesn't seem that a guy who has just finished pulling a quarter-million stickup would be hanging around trying to lift a hot car," Sims commented.

"It doesn't to me either," Parks admitted, "But it is a rather odd coincidence. Anyway, we don't seem to be getting anywhere with him. We can hold him for the car job, of course, but we'll have to charge him. The second we do, he can demand bail. And get it—unless we can tie him in on the other some way. Anyway, you stay with the Sherwood thing. I'll see Mitty. But try and wind it up. Missing wives are all well and good, but the commissioner is a damned sight more worried about missing money at this point. Missing money, and a dead man."

Sims grunted and turned to the door. "I'll keep in touch."

* * * *

Goldman kept his eye on the traffic and drove slowly, heading north through the park and keeping the car at an even thirty miles an hour. He kept both hands on the steering wheel and didn't bother to remove the short cigar butt from the corner of his mouth as he talked. His heavy lips were stretched tight across his face and his eyes behind the thick-lensed glasses were hard and cold as he spoke. He never looked at the man at his side.

"You shouldn't have called me at the apartment," he said. "God damn it, how many times do I have to tell you guys. You wantta get hold of me, call the office. That's where I do business, out of the office."

Santino moved nervously on the leather seat of the car, shifting so that he seemed to squeeze his small body into the very corner. He too looked straight ahead as he talked. "I had to call you," he said. "It was important. Cribbins said to get hold of you the second I made town. I had to tell you about Mitty."

"God damn it," the lawyer said, "don't mention no names to me. I don't know no Mitty."

"Well, I had to let you know the cops got him. Cribbins wants you to get him out."

Goldman laughed bitterly. "So I should get him out! Are you all crazy? How the hell am I supposed to know that the cops got him, huh? You expect those cops up there to think I'm clairvoyant or something? Cribbins knows better and so should you. Mitty will call me as soon as he gets the chance. I can't call him. And don't worry, Mitty won't talk. Sooner or later he'll contact me. I represented him before so it's only natural."

"I suppose," Santino said sarcastically, "that the Brookside cops are just going to be real nice and give him a dime and he can call you and you can spring him."

Goldman shifted the cigar around in his mouth. "You happen to suppose just right," he said. "That's the trouble with all of you punks—you don't know you're alive. Of course the cops will let him call. They'll work him over, but sooner or later they'll let him make a call. After all, this ain't Russia. They'll let him call and when he does my office will get it and one of my boys will go up and get him out. Even Mitty is smart enough to know that."

"All right," Santino said. "The hell with Mitty. I'm not worrying about Mitty anyway. What I'm worrying about is me. What about me?"

"Well, what about you?" Goldman said. "What the hell do you expect me to do—drive you up there and hold hands with you? Good God, first you guys muff this whole thing—make a mess out of it and end up knocking off the driver. Then you haven't enough brains to make a clean getaway. What the hell do you want me to do? I'm a lawyer, not a baby-sitter."

Santino turned and looked at the man beside him with cold, bitter eyes. "Nuts," he said. "Don't con me, mister. I know who you are, and I ain't asking you for nothing. I only called last night because Cribbins told me to call you. And the only reason I'm seeing you today is because you were too cagey to talk over the phone and told me to see you. As far as I'm concerned, you ain't nothing. Nothing at all. But I did think, that knowing what happened, you might arrange a car so Luder and I could get up to the country."

"Why don't you rent a car?"

"I don't rent a car because I'm not stupid," Santino said. "For the same reason I don't take no bus nor no train. I was damned lucky I didn't get picked up when I caught that train into town from Brookside. Luder and I talked it over when we met last night and we figured it would be best if you could get us a car of some kind."