A young cop named Peterson came out of the locker room in a sharp-looking suit, tying his four-in-hand. “Ready to go, Sarge.”
“Jennings and Columbus, you two are the coolers. When you take the FBI guys out, make sure that your guns are unloaded, no mistakes, and make it look good now. Closterman, you go down to the basement and get the tool bag, take it to the room.”
The room was in pandemonium, with people yelling and cops running all over the place.
“Doyle, get a mop and bucket up to the room. Hurry, lad.”
“Brown, you are the bookie. Get the petty cash box and distribute the singles to your bettors. Throw a few fivers in there for effect. Hustle, boyo.
“Crenshaw, you and Lafferman are strapping the suspect in. Make sure you go and get the wide straps out of the locker in the basement. Hustle, we only have a minute or two.”
The Sarge continued to look up and down the clipboard. “Johnson, you be the handyman and go get the chair. Antonio, you and Peterson go down to the cells and get ready to bring our man up. I’ll call when you are to come up. Is Marty Durrant getting changed in there, Peterson?” Peterson waved that he was.
Vinnie Castellano came over with two inspectors, Friendly and Malone.
“Okay, Sean, I know this looks like a circus in here. Let me explain what we are doing. Ten years ago they developed this show that they put on for suspects they want to talk. It’s only been done a few times, and the Chief has to authorize it. We only do it when we need to break a suspect and time is against us. The last time we did it was five years ago, it was the Harrrigan kidnapping.”
“I remember that one, you caught the guys, they confessed and then you found the boy in a box in warehouse a couple of hours later,” I said.
“Exactly. We are doing our little show before the Feds came along and take the case away. These are out-of-town shooters; the Chief and the Mayor want the complete story before this bum gets taken away. It’s pretty elaborate, Sean. I’m the live wire. My job is to try to kill the suspect. You three, your job is to stop me with everything you have and take me out of the room. We will go next door and watch the rest of the show through the glass. Trust me, Sean, you will enjoy this. It’s a thing of beauty.
The gray-haired sergeant was screaming.
“Let’s get moving, people. They will be bringing our man up in a few minutes. I want to tell the Chief that we are on schedule.”
The Chief and Chief Inspector came into the room.
“That’s all right, Pattie, I know you are on top of things. Well done, you got this thing set up in the less than an hour.” The Chief walked over to Vinnie.
“Your friend O’Farrell here and Marty Durrant both have some balls. They saved your little girl and wife. How are they doing, lad?”
“She’s okay, her mother is with her at the hospital.”
“Maybe you should go back,” the Chief said.
“Chief, she’s okay. I needed to be here to thank Sean and Marty. Where is Marty?” Vinnie asked.
“They were taking his statement downstairs. Don’t worry, you’ll see him. He is going to be the bucket man.” The Chief put his arm around Vinnie. “Everything is going to be fine, son. When we finish up the show, you head back to the hospital.”
The Chief yelled across the room to the Sarge. “All right, Pattie, let’s get this damn show rolling. Bring that Chicago turd up here. It’s time for him to sing.”
The room exploded into action, then suddenly it fell silent.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
It was the greatest show on earth. That’s what P.T. Barnum called it. I always considered the circus to be a sideshow with animals. Right now, they were getting the cage ready, which was the interrogation room. And the animal to be tamed was this mug from Chicago. The Chief of Police was going to be Frank Buck; hell if I know if the Chief was going to bring ’em back alive.
I went the station’s largest interrogation room, deep in the bowels of the station. There were cops everywhere.
They brought the suspect into the room and closed the door. He was wearing a black hood. The only people in the room were me; the two Inspectors, Friendly and Malloy; and the two cops that brought in the suspect. The hall was dead quiet; you would think we were the only people in the building. The room had a couple of wooden chairs and a long table.
They pulled the hood off the guy and the show was beginning. I was leaning in the corner, smoking a butt. The shooter said nothing. He was a tough guy; his expression was all arrogance. He wasn’t going to tell anybody anything.
The door opened and a cop came in with a steel-welded chair. There were steel square holes in the cement floor. The cop slid the legs of the chair into these slots and secured them with steel pins the size of pencils. He sat in the chair and rocked it as hard as he could. He stood, looked at the chair, and nodded. The cops who brought in the shooter shoved him in the chair and cuffed each hand to a hole in the chair seat. They took heavy straps and wrapped his legs and torso to the back and the seat. He wasn’t going anywhere. Still, he kept that tough-guy look on his face.
They left and the sergeant who was the designated bookie opened the show. The room suddenly filled with cops holding dollar bills.
“All right, boys, the odds are two to one that the Swede gets him to talk. The last time a daisy was broke it took him twelve minutes. Here are the odds, boy: under five minutes, two to one. Between five and ten minutes, three to one. Over ten minutes, four to one. Over fifteen minutes are ten to one. I’m sorry, boys, but if you bet that the Swede kills him, it’s only even money.”
All the cops were griping about the odds.
“Enough already. The Swede has killed two guys, so I’m not laying down any large bets on him killing this Chicago piece of shit.” He pointed to the hood in the chair.
The tough guy had to prove he wasn’t scared.
“Screw you, gees, you don’t scare me. Not even a little.” He spit out the words with indignation.
The bookie went over and backhanded the suspect.
“You talk again and I’ll carve your tongue out.”
He turned back to his bettors.
“All right, who is in?” There was pandemonium; the bookie was taking bills and writing down numbers. You would think we were at Bay Meadows. All of this was not lost on the tough guy. He didn’t look scared, but he was watching all right.
A little cop came in with a tool bag, and spread out a towel. He opened the bag and took out pliers, wire cutters, and a ball peen hammer. He placed a bucket with water on the table. The tough guy was looking at everything, but kept the mean look on.
Another gee walked in with a large truck battery on a rolling cart. It had some heavy-duty jumper cables, and heavy-duty rubber gloves. He took the bucket of water, threw in three sponges, and wrung them out. He then opened the clamps on the jumper cable and closed it again on a wet sponge. The tough guy was really paying attention now.
The door opened and the Chief walked in with a secretary. The room went silent and most of the uniforms flew out of the room. The Chief looked stern, cold, and steely. He walked over to the tough guy and got within two inches of his face.
“I’m Gallatin, the Chief of Police here in San Francisco. I’m giving you just one chance to tell us everything, do you understand?” The Chief was almost whispering. The tough guy was looking right at the Chief, not breaking his stare.
“You killed a little girl. Not just any little girl. That little girl was the daughter of one of my Inspectors. You don’t come into my town and kill little girls; you sure as hell don’t kill little girls of one of my cops, NOT IN MY TOWN!” He hit the guy in the face.
“What you don’t know, dummy, it that our local Federal Building is being upgraded, and a few agencies were relocated to the building you hit. That makes this a federal bounce, which means one of two things. Murder in
a federal case either gets you the Nevada gas, or you get to sit in the lap of Old Sparky. Either way, you are a dead man. I suggest you started talking while you can. Maybe we can cut a deal to save your skin.””
The door blasted open and Vinnie Castellano came flying in. He had a blackjack in his right hand. “You bastard. You killed my little girl, get the hell out of the way.”
He flew toward the suspect. The three designated stoppers, myself being one, stopped him just within arm’s reach of the tough guy. Vinnie was putting on a show; he got two or three swings with the blackjack as we were trying to pull him away. It took all three of us plus the Chief to stop him. He took three more really hard swings and almost connected. We were wrestling Vinnie back, and it really was a chore.
The Chief was screaming,
“You three get him the hell out of here.” We pulled Vinnie out and the door closed. Vinnie kept up the screaming until we were at the end of the hall. We let him down quietly and went to the room next to the interrogation room. It had two-way mirrored glass and we could see everything. The show continued.
The Chief was talking to the secretary.
“Miss Hunter, please take a memo. The suspect was interviewed at five fifteen p.m. He confessed to the crimes at five forty-five and was killed trying to escape while in Central Booking. Please include the names of the twenty police witnesses. Make sure you get the coroner to sign a death certificate. Take a bottle of the good twenty-year scotch out of my lower desk drawer and give it to Doc Smith and be sure to thank him.”
The tough guy was starting to look like a lobster being suspended over a boiling pot of water. He wasn’t so tough now; he was tenderizing nicely.
The secretary left and Ashwythe and Dunderbeck entered the room, along with the cop who was designated the suit.
The FBI guys flashed their badges and held up the blue summons folder. “Special Agents Ashwythe and Dunderbeck, FBI. This is Deputy Attorney General Cranston.”
The suit did the talking. “We have a material protection and witness order signed by a federal judge. You are to turn this suspect over to federal custody immediately.”
Dunderbeck held up the folder. The tough guy was all for that by the look on his face.
The Chief yanked the paper and looked it over.
“This doesn’t mean shit to me. This asshole killed a little girl of a cop and he is going to talk to me before he walks out of this room, or before we carry his body out.”
The suit was putting on a good show. “That’s enough of your crap, Chief. Uncuff him now!”
Next I got to see what the coolers were for. The three cops pulled their guns and stuck them in the sides of the FBI guys and the suit. They pulled Ashwythe’s and Dunderdeck’s guns.
The cop with the suit was great.
“You will all go to federal prison for this.”
The Chief was unrepentant.
“Who cares, take a bounce, mouthpiece. Boys, lock these three gentlemen in a holding cell, we’ll let them go later,” the Chief snarled.
They escorted the three men out. “You won’t get away with this, Gallatin,” the suit yelled. “I promise you that you are headed to prison for this.”
The door to our room opened quietly. We all shook hands. It was an amazing performance. The tough guy looked like a giant marlin: hooked, landed, and about to be served up.
Marty Durrant came in a pair of janitor overalls, with a mop and a bucket on wheels. He was wearing a goofy-looking knit hat and thick glasses, and had an unlit cigar in his mouth. It took me a moment to recognize him. He even talked differently. He had a green heavy-duty garden hose over his shoulder. He hooked up the hose to a faucet in the wall in the corner and shuffled his feet like an old man.
“Here you go, Chief. I’ll clean up the mess when you are done. Sorry, but I couldn’t find any thick plastic to wrap the body in. I’ll keep looking around.” He shuffled out of the room.
The door opened and Jerry “Swede” Amundson entered the room. Vinnie keeps asking me why I can’t stand Amundson. For one, he is a complete cement head. For another, he has a reputation for shaking down hookers, pimps, and gamblers. It is not simply a case of not liking the guy; I don’t trust the guy, and I doubt that he has Vinnie’s back. Coupled with the fact that he gets his jollies inflicting pain, he is my least favorite cop. I have to tolerate him to a certain extent because he is Vinnie’s partner.
“Did a toilet back up in this room or something?” He grinned. “Oh it’s only you, O’Farrell.”
I didn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. “Sorry about the smell, Swede. I had lunch with your wife.”
The smile became broader. “At least I got a wife, peeper. Plus, I can protect my family, unlike you.”
I came pretty close to bopping him on the beezer. But I did my best not to react.
“Isn’t it about time you beat the crap out of some guy tied to a chair? A fair fight for you.”
He came right up to my nose. “Listen, O’Farrell, I would love to knock your teeth down your mush. But you got one thing going for you today. You saved Gina and Mimi’s lives, so I’ll give you a one-day pass, gumshoe.” He slammed his fist into his palm to intimidate me.
“Easy with those hands, Swede.”
He gave me a bewildered look. “What?”
“You need those paws for counting the bribe money.”
“I’m sorry the chopper squad missed you, O’Farrell. I wouldn’t have lost any sleep over you getting blasted to hell. However, another time, another place, gumshoe.
“That’s what your wife keeps telling me, tubby.”
That got a reaction. He dove for me, but Vinnie cut him off.
“Get out of here, Swede, you got work to do.”
After Swede left, Vinnie let me have it.
“You just always have to have the last word, don’t you Sean? God damn it, when are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut?”
Tommy D’Amato and Amundson, came into the room on the other side of the glass. Swede took off his hat, coat, and shoulder holster and handed them to Tommy, who folded everything neatly and placed it on the table. The Swede lowered his suspenders and took off his dress shirt, folded it and handed it to Tommy. He pulled the suspenders back up. He started whirling his arms around like a pitcher warming up in the bullpen. He stretched, and Tommy held up his hands so the Swede could do his warmup punches. He turned his head around on his neck and got loose. Tommy handed him a pair of black leather gloves. He put them on and slapped his right into left palm. He was ready.
The Chief came over to him. “We want him to talk, Swede. Take your time, don’t kill him quick. We need to know what he knows.” The Chief and the Swede knowingly smiled in unison.
The Swede delivered the first punch. It was a beauty; the tough guy’s head snapped back. He was almost knocked out. Amundson delivered ten speedy punches to the head and six fast ones to the ribs. This immediately made it hard for the tough guy to breathe. The tough guy looked like Jim Braddock taking a beating from Joe Lewis in ’37.
The Swede was walking in a circle around the hood; he spoke for the first and only time.
“You better talk now, pal, or you are as good as dead.”
The Swede delivered four savage blows to the ribs, both sides. The hood couldn’t breathe. Or talk, for that matter.
After a few minutes, blood was flying off the Swede’s gloves and going airborne. As Swede was circling the chair the Chief have him a nod. Swede looked mighty disappointed; he was enjoying the work, the sadistic son of a bitch.
After one more minute of working on the gee, the Swede reached into his pocket and took out a small black balloon-looking thing. Swede nodded to Tommy, who moved over by the door. There was no one standing against that wall; unlike all the other walls, this one was painted bright white. The stage was set.
T
he Swede walked around to the front to the tough guy and hit him hard with a right then a left, and I found out what the balloon was. It was a bladder of fake blood. The Swede squeezed as he hit him with a left and it covered the tough guy with fake blood. Better yet, it splattered all over Tommy and the bright white wall. It looked like a slaughterhouse. Everyone in the room gave a moaning gasp of disgust. Tommy looked at his hands, splattered with the fake blood, and vomited in the mop bucket.
“Get that rookie out of here if he can’t stomach it,” the Chief yelled.
One of the uniforms helped Tommy up and out of the room, and wheeled the bucket with them. The Swede picked up a ball peen hammer and knelt in front of the tough guy.
The show was now officially over. The tough guy started singing. He was like a damn information booth. He was barbering faster than the room full of inspectors could write down the dope.
His name was Mickey Pellegrini. He worked for Frank Nitti. The other two guys were Frankie Cantone and Bobby Caspian. They took a twelve-hour overnight flight from Chicago on United Airlines and arrived at eight this morning. They were ordered by Nitti to report to Tony Giovanni in San Francisco, then to kill a private dick named Sean O’Farrell. They were met at the airport by Giovanni, who drove them to the location where they would find O’Farrell. They were to wait an hour until Giovanni could get to a meeting somewhere so he could set up an alibi.
The Chief asked, “Why did they want O’Farrell dead?”
“He was poking into Tony’s meal ticket, some architect. He thought O’Farrell was getting too close to their business, so Frank and Tony told us to plug him. Get rid of the problem, so to speak.”
“What was the business with the architect?” Gallatin demanded.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“How did you know who O’Farrell was?” the Chief asked with a puzzled look.
“Tony had a couple of pictures of the gee. Plus he had a broad waiting across the street. She fingered the guy for us. We were told to wipe out everybody in the lobby and make sure we give O’Farrell the Chicago overcoat.” He smiled broadly.
The Halfway to Hell Club Page 18
