“And,” Educated went on painstakingly, “while the re-election, on the State’s Attorneyship, is sewed up—and in the bag!—for his party—providing they don’t just stick up some kind of a downright rumdum as a candidate—the re-election won’t be in Vann’s Christmas stocking! For—so again the girl told Handsome—Vann got the highball from his party chiefs last week that he’s not ‘sensational’ enough for them—and that, re-election in the bag, or not in the bag, they won’t run him again unless, perchance, during the next 7 days, he can cinch matters for them—from his side of the fence—by assembling the elements for a big criminal conviction that the whole city is as one man together on. And—now don’t get sore, Gus—that conviction would be you! On the Wah Lee snatch. A fact, now! For there isn’t another case like it pending—or even that can break. It’s the case of all cases, Gus, and the one case that can iron out any of ‘Honest Lou’s’ personal problems. For if he has in his mitts what it takes to send you to the chair—and the power to time it exactly, as he has, by an indictment of you and a setting of your trial just before next election—then he’s renominated next week with flowers and music; and, renominated—and with that conviction in his portfolio—he’s elected. And thus pays off the rest of his notes—and his mortgage included. And all that. While conversely, Gus,” Educated pointed out painstakingly, “if you knock his one chance for renomination sky high by jerking that evidence out from under him, then—” Educated made an airy-fairy gesture with his two hands, “—Honest Lou—is up the flue! Financially—politically—and every other way!”
It was with ever-growing interest that Big Gus had listened to every word of Educated’s careful exposition of matters political up in Chicago. Several times, indeed, he actually licked his lips with his thick tongue. And, when Educated came to the engaging—though as yet, of course, hypothetical—end of matters, he actually guffawed aloud.
“Well, by Jesus Christ,” he said in a low voice, acceding to Educated’s warning headshake about the tone of that guffaw, “if this, what you’ve jist told me, ain’t the best news I ever hearn in my life—outside, o’ course, of learning that that sconce was laying in that old tin can in the Klondike Building!—then I hope to—to—to lick all the sweat off my body, on the next hot night, wit’ my own tongue. No foolin’, Ej’cated. W’y, to save my skin—an’ at the same time cost that bastard his skin—w’y say, that’s Christmas comin’ in October. No less!”
It would have been plain to anyone, however, that Educated was not able to grasp the tremendous personal animus that was now entering Gus’s probable triumph with respect to prolonging his own criminal career another twenty years or so! Indeed, Educated’s face indicated that he thought Gus should be mighty glad if the latter had a chance to get that evidence—and should forget such trivialities as personal feelings. But he made no comment. And, staring helplessly a few seconds longer at Gus, he spoke.
“Well,” was all he said, “I’ll give this guy that I’m to call up—the entire set-up. And the fact, as well, that you’ve got to have a phoney kite—saying he’ll have the job done. Or—or—that he won’t.” He hurried on as Gus’s face darkened savagely. “But,” Educated now added, businesslike, “you haven’t given me the name of the guy yet. So what—what is his name?”
CHAPTER VI
A Name—Complete!
Big Gus sighed. He had the natural reluctance of the born criminal to divulge to even his right hand what his left hand did—or knew! But—it had to be! And Educated after all was a square grifter. And so, digging up from his blue overall pocket a stub of pencil, and a ragged scrap of paper, Big Gus laboriously—on the wall—wrote out on the scrap a single complete name.
Which he turned over—without comment—to Educated. And whose eyes, gazing on it—widened. Exceedingly wide. Indeed, Educated gave vent to a but half-suppressed whistle.
“Jesus—Christ, Gus! I’ll say you had an inside wire—into the heart of the Law. You—” He broke off helplessly and, folding up the slip of paper, tucked it into an inside pocket of his gray chauffeur’s uniform. “Gus, I got to go! I got to. I couldn’t stand to lose my good time off here—in this lousy hell hole. I—but before I go, a question. Easy to see, Gus, that you’re figuring this guy will do something—anything—and quick and fast; that he’ll maybe get hold of one of your old mob, and—well—do something. In a hurry. And—but Gus, am I to tell him what he’s to do? Or anything?”
“No,” said Big Gus, easily.
“I see. Then there must be somebody then, Gus, that he can contact, who—”
“There is. You ever hear, Ej’cated, of Venus Baldy, who–”
“Venus—Baldy?” educated asked. “Listen, Gus, there isn’t anybody ever in the racket that I haven’t heard about. As a kid, I ate up everything ever printed. Venus Baldy took the rap in Australia back in—oh, I guess it must be now about 15 years ago—anyway, he took the rap in Sydney for a bump-off. He was bald as a billiard ball—so I read—and had a nude Venus tattooed on his scalp—the lousy damfool! Anyway, he beat the rap by a crush-out—had help from the outside—disappeared completely—and was known to have hit Chi, because 3 months after the crushout he shot his mouth off, to some hood, over some phone circuit in Chi that the cops happened to be listening in on just then. But they never glaumed him, and—Jesus Christ, Gus, was he in your mob?”
“Right! Though I ain’t got nothing today that could prove it. No! He’s the golden-haired boy—so far’s my bein’ able to involvate him—or call on him. Even if I knowed w’ere he was. But anyway, ’twas him, Ej’cated, who put us together—me an’ th’ guy whose handle’s in your pocket there. For Venus Baldy had met this guy w’en th’ latter had been in Australy, some years before—buyin’ in on a gold mine—and had helped him to forger some name of some dead miner; an’ Venus knew the bastard was crooked as hell, and would sell his behind if he was paid for it. And ’twas to him Venus blew—w’en things got hot as hell for him in Chi—and Venus didn’t have a lead dime. And then—later—I got hold of Venus. Yes. Well, there ain’t no doubt that since I took my rap—an’ my mob got all sent to hell an’ gone—that Venus has prob’ly been eatin’ off my man w’enever he ain’t no coin. Though not eatin’ no lobster ally newberger—no!—since both has a pretty nice set-off a’gin each other w’en it comes to blackmail. I’ll say! Anyway—my man’ll know, all right, all right, where in Chi Venus can be got. W’ile Venus, in turn, is abs’lutely cert to know some soup-slingin’ lad somewhere, who can do anything from blowin’ a high-proof V wit’ dinny, to torchin’ in wit’ a oxy-flame—or even knockin’ a knob, such as this job is. Or, if needs be, Venus hisself could—”
“I get you perfectly, Gus. Your man there can easily contact Venus Baldy, and Venus Baldy can contact somebody else. Or even pull the job himself—for a price!—if needs be. I get it all okay, Gus. I got to go! I hear inspections something—going on out there. Doors opening—and closing. Screw 32—McGinnis—if I don’t miss my bet. Now suppose—well one last question, Gus. Suppose this guy—being on the outside of stir—safe, and all that—don’t want to mess in a dangerous game, and, convinced maybe by those key names I’ll give him that I’m the McCoy, just stalls by saying that he doesn’t know where Venus is today; or what if maybe he doesn’t—so far as that goes? Or suppose—sitting safe and pretty as he does—he refuses absolutely to play ba–”
Big Gus, at the very suggestion of inspection, and a screw outside, was hastily refilling his pail—with a loud roar of falling water—at the nearest faucet.
He turned the water off, however, momentarily, so that he could answer. But in a low, low voice.
“Oh—yeah? Well that, Ej’cated, is the very las’ thing I want you to tell the bastard. Tell him, Ej’cated, that if I catch the hot seat—thanks to th’ corpse o’ Wah Lee bein’ now complete to the ident’fyin’ item—that I’m gonna crack wide open—wide open, see?—with all dates on certain long-dis
tance calls I made him—and he made me—plus 4 letters I snitched 10 years ago out of his diggings. And w’ich I got in a lockbox—under a 12-year lease—under another monicker. Which I really have, Ej’cated, In short, Ej’cated, tell the son-of-a-bitch I’ll be namin’ no less than th’ finger-man in th’ Wah Lee case. Right! For he was finger-man, Ej’cated, in that snatch—as well as inside wire. And I’ve got him by the nerts. Tell him he better think goddamn hard—as to w’ere he can fin’ Venus—or somebody else—in case he says he ain’t nobody who can do nothing. Tell him I got th’ New Orleans letter—an’ th’ Vicksburg letter—an’ th’ Memphis letter. An’ a carbon of his letter—to Cairo, Illinois. Right! Tell him all that, Ej’cated—replete with them details I just gave you—and tell him that if Big Gus catches the hot seat for the snatch O’ Wah Lee—that two is gonna set in it. Two—not one. Him an’ me. Two, Ej’cated—an’ tell him that if he sits in the hot squat, I hopes they fry him to a crisp brown!”
“To a crisp brown,” repeated Educated, nodding. “I’ll tell him that, all right,” he said with the determination of the true crook. And hastened out of the door before “inspection” might catch him.
CHAPTER VII
A State’s Attorney Receives Happy News!
Louis Vann, State’s Attorney of Cook County, dismounting, bag in hand, in the Central Passenger Station at Chicago, from the train which had left St. Louis at midnight, noted that his train was right on the dot—for the hands of the gargantuan clock that hung suspended just beyond the gates stood at 7 a.m. exactly. He might, he reflected, as he made his way briskly along the platform, have come back to Chicago by air—in which case he would be starting this day of Wednesday, October 23rd with an upset stomach; and, again, he might have left St. Louis at 2 a.m., and come in on the streamlined Zephyr—with the result that he would have had a beastly headache due to no sleep—the latter being due, in turn, to his not turning in before midnight. As it was, he felt—outside, that is, of the depression engendered in him by the bad news he’d received, just before leaving Chicago, from the party chiefs—like a million dollars—head clear!—step as elastic, for: his 39 years of age, as of a youth in college. And so, bag in hand, he threaded his way through the yawning exit gate to go straight to his office.
But, somewhat to his surprise, standing at the gate just back of the guard’s elbow, was a girl with taffy-colored hair and blue eyes—a girl of about 23—with a very English traveling bag in her hands. No other, in fact, than his office girl, Beryl Burlinghame—the one, that is, who superintended his old office in the Klondike Building where he had started his career with but 4 thick law books, a diploma, an ancient second-hand iron safe, and no clients—and where today he still did his concentrative work on such big criminal cases as he had to prosecute personally.
“Well—well—Beryl,” he said, as he came entirely through the gates. “You’re just leaving, eh—as I’m coming in?”
“Yes, Mr. Vann,” the girl replied. “As I told you I would be, when we talked on the long-distance wire Monday afternoon. My sister Sylvia, down there at Indianapolis, would never forgive me if I failed to appear as bridesmaid at her wedding—which is set for two o’clock today. I stayed on, however, ’til the last minute—so that you would be back—”
“—and holding the fort, eh?” he laughed. He wheeled about and glanced back at the gates. No waiting train—streamlined or otherwise—was drawn up. He turned and surveyed the New Zealand girl curiously. “But you’re a bit early, aren’t you, Beryl? I don’t see any train.”
“Yes, Mr. Vann,” she returned, “I am. Half an hour early. But I came down thus because I knew you were coming in on the Chicago Special—and in that way I would be able to see you for a few minutes anyway—before I left myself.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “Though you didn’t need to have bothered. Nothing important, I take it, has come up—in my absence!”
And without waiting for an answer though taking her bag, he beckoned her off to one side and away from the gate and the waiting guard. And she followed him. Now they stood alone.
“No,” she now said, in answer to his question propounded just before he had drawn them both off to one side, “nothing important has come up, Mr. Vann. Nothing. Except that the skull of some Chinese young man named—what was it now that was told to that Negro?—yer—some Chinese youth named Wah Lee has been found. And—”
“Wah—Lee’s—skull?” ejaculated Vann. “Found?” he repeated unbelievingly. “Found? Why, Beryl—you amaze me. Who found it? Where was it found? I saw nothing in the St. Louis papers.”
“Well, you see, Mr. Vann, its finding doesn’t happen to be a matter of publicity. At least not yet. Nor could I tell you about it when I talked to you on long-distance Monday afternoon because it wasn’t—well—apparently found till around the time I was closing the office at 5 o’clock. Of course I don’t know anything about the case—who Wah Lee was—anything—for I was only a little girl when it probably all happened—”
“1927—and also 1930,” Vann put in hurriedly. “But go ahead.”
“And living in New Zealand, too,” she said, a faint trace of homesickness showing plaintively in her voice.
“But anyway, Mr. Vann,” she went on hurriedly, “a Negro named Moses Klump came to the office late Monday afternoon, and—well, it seems that a couple of weeks ago he had been digging for a gas-main connection or something, in some old—old dismantled beer manufactury—once known as the Schlitzheim Beery—”
“Brewery,” he corrected her hastily. “And—”
“Schlitzheim Brewery, of course,” she amended. “On some place you call Goose Island, and—and have you really an island—right here in Chicago?”
“Yes, yes,” he returned. “A huge island—caused by the North Branch of the Chicago River parting and then coming together again later. A vast area, full of dark, unpaved roads—without lamp posts, many of them, and without names, many others—the whole dotted with great towering warehouses—sunbaked mud flats—gloomy-looking tanneries and foundries—crazy shacks occupied by Russians—and what-not. So—so the Negro uncovered a skull there, did he? Hm! But the question is—exactly where? And the bigger question likewise is—hm?—was it uncovered deep? Was—he—”
“Mr. Vain,” the girl put in, “I made him tell me every detail possible about its finding: the shape and location and description of the particular room in the building under the dirt floor of which he turned it up, the depth where he found it, and when. And by questioning him I’m sure that I brought out many other things that he would not have thought of. And I read the entire deposition to him and had him sign it—that is, unfortunately, Mr. Vann, he couldn’t write—but he made his mark on it in front of Mr. Peabury down the hall, and Mr. Selzner, up the hall, and the latter, Mr. Vann—as luck would have it!—knew him personally. And thus I was enabled to notarize the deposition in the bargain. And I put it safe against fire in the little lock-box that’s in your and my name—over there in the LaSalle Day and Night Vaults.”
“Ah—good girl, Beryl! You’re catching on to American legal ways like—like nobody’s business. Witnesses die—and they change their testimony—and all kinds of strange things happen. And—but now concerning this skull, where was it fou—but first—this Moses Klump—where does he live?”
“At 3733 Vernon Avenue, Mr. Vann. He’s a bachelor. And though living alone, and a poor man, he has a cheap telephone—and it’s listed—so that he can get jobs from building foremen.”
“Fine! I’ll be in touch with him the minute you take your train. And—but go on. This skull. Where is it right now?”
“Well, you can jolly well be assured, Mr. Vann,” the girl said half jokingly, “that it’s still in the same tied-up paper package that he brought it in!” And added quickly: “Oh, locked safe and tight—yes—of course—the way you’d want it to be—surely—but I confess I didn’t undo the p
ackage he brought in, other than to just—just tear the paper open at one side and confirm definitely that a skull was in there. Ugh!” she gave a little shiver. “No, I didn’t make a doorstop out of it, if that’s what you think—but treated it like valuable evidence which, however, I take it it isn’t—at this late date?”
Vann nodded with satisfaction, though not answering her question. And he was pleased to note how this girl from the Antipodes, to whom—when she and her sister had arrived in Chicago just short of a year before—he had given that position out of obligation to her father, was adapting herself to the requirements of, at least, his personal office; and, quite assured that she had taken the precious package promptly over to his suite in the City Hall, and had it locked in the high-powered burglarproof, fire-proof vault by Retired Detective Sergeant Tom McFee, custodian there for the last 5 years, Vann’s lean face radiated pleasure.
“Here,” he said, “your train isn’t due yet for some time, Beryl—so come into the waiting room there—and let me get all this information.” And he led the way into the big waiting room, and the two dropped down on a high-ladder the—and how deep? he queried, his smile fading.
“Six feet,” the girl told him. “Couldn’t, however, be deeper, it seems, because a half-foot further, and this big gas main would have been uncovered.”
“The hivvins be praised,” Vann said, jocularly, rubbing his hands. “Found then, within the legal 6 feet of the body desired to be offered as the corpus delicti. It’s it—all right. By—the gods! Lying 3—3 feet—under that very body. Plain as day, now. They aimed to plant that identifiable skull where it could never possibly see the light of day again—but had to dig a huge hole in order to get a small one 6 feet down. And then, when filling up—they were tired—and they undoubtedly said—‘why dig another hole for the body itself?’—and just put the body in at a higher level of the same hole. Crafty, at that, that mob! For if the body ever were found—the entire place would be dug up at the level of the body only.” Vann surveyed the girl curiously. “What—if anything—did the Negro tell you about the general appearance of the skull, Beryl?”
The Man with the Crimson Box Page 3
