Invitation to Violence

by Lionel White

  He handed the paper to the other man.

  “The doctor…”

  Steinberg whipped out a second piece of paper.

  “His permission,” he said. “So just roll over and I’ll go on in.”

  Officer Hoffman carefully read both papers and then handed them back.

  “And how do I know you are Leon Steinberg?”

  “Oh, my God.” The attorney reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a wallet. “Do I look like somebody who’s going to go in there and shoot him?” he asked. “Do I…”

  “It would be a good thing if you did,” Hoffman said. “The dirty cop killer! O.K., go on in. But five minutes. That’s what the doc says. Five minutes. And if you can get a word out of that rat in that time, you’ll be doing a lot more than we’ve been able to do.”

  He reached down and turned the key in the door and then opened it.

  Steinberg entered the sterile white room, unconsciously observing the barred window and slightly repelled by the heavy anesthetic atmosphere.

  He waited until the officer had closed the door of the room and once more turned the key in the lock. Then he moved over to the high white bed and leaned down, speaking in a low, hoarse voice.

  “How is it, Jake?”

  Jake opened his eyes and stared at the lawyer.

  Looking down at him, Steinberg knew that the Assistant D.A. had been right; knew he’d been telling the truth when he’d said that the man was dying. That he wouldn’t even need a mouthpiece.

  Steinberg wondered if he’d be able to talk at all.

  “Dommie’s dead,” Steinberg said, “but Vince made it. Only he hasn’t turned up yet and Fred’s worried. You’re going to be all right, boy,” he said as Jake again closed his eyes. “You’re going to be O.K. and we’ll get you out of it. Be sure of that-we’ll get you out. But try and tell us what happened to Vince.”

  Once more Jake opened his eyes.

  “I’m dead,” he said in a choked whisper. “You know it-I’m dead.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Steinberg said quickly. “You’ll be O.K. But try and think now, kid. What happened to Vince?-Fred’s gotta know. We gotta find Vince.”

  Jake groaned and tried to turn away, but quickly fell back on the bed. Five minutes later, when Hoffman opened the door to tell Steinberg his time was up, the little lawyer was still pleading with Jake.

  Steinberg picked up a cab a half a block from the hospital and gave the driver the address. It was an apartment hotel in upper Manhattan, and the driver didn’t want to make the trip that far out of his territory, but Steinberg slipped him a ten spot and so he drove him. On the way, Steinberg muttered to himself under his breath.

  “Fred ain’t gonna like it-not one little bit. He just ain’t gonna like it.”

  One thing was good about it, though. Dommie was dead and Jake couldn’t last much longer. And Jake hadn’t talked. Jake wasn’t talking to anyone, not even to his own mouthpiece.

  * * *

  Bella Riddle looked across the oilcloth-covered kitchen table at her son and raised the napkin to wipe her eyes.

  “Sammy,” she said. “Sammy, I want you should eat your food.”

  “You’re not eating, Mom,” Sammy said.

  “It don’t make no matter. Eat. You’re a growing boy and you gotta eat. And when you finish, I want you to go over to Grandma’s for a while. Maybe for a few days.”

  Sammy pushed the plate away and his delicate, sensuous lips formed a stubborn line.

  “I’m not hungry and I’m not going to Grandma’s,” he said.

  Bella felt the tears starting again, but she made an effort to control herself.

  “Sammy,” she said. “Sammy, what’s got into you anyway? A course you’ll go to Grandma’s. Just for a few days. Just until Daddy is better and maybe gets outta the hospital.”

  “Daddy isn’t going to get better,” Sammy said.

  “Of course he’s going to get better. What are you saying anyway, Sammy? An auto accident can happen to anyone. What kind of son…”

  “Listen, Mama,” Sammy said. “I was downstairs a while ago. I got a tabloid. It was no auto accident. I didn’t think so this morning when the cops came ’cause cops, that many cops, don’t come around because of an auto accident. So I went downstairs and I could tell the way people looked at me. And I got a tabloid and I read all about it. I know what happened. I know all about it so there ain’t no use you’re trying to kid me.”

  He stopped talking suddenly, feeling the tears coming to his own eyes. He gulped a couple of times and then spoke again, his voice suddenly thin and high-pitched.

  “Oh, God,” he said, “how’m I ever going back to school? How’ll I ever even go out on the streets again. My old man a thief and a cop killer!”

  “Sammy! Don’t talk that way, Sammy. Don’t dare say those things about your Daddy. He was only doing it for us. Only trying to do things for you and for me. Your Daddy is a good man. A fine…”

  “A good man?” Sammy said through bitter tears. “A good man? He’s nothing but a…”

  “Sammy, stop it,” his mother cried. “Don’t say it, Son. Maybe Jake made a mistake; maybe he did a wrong…”

  “Mama, I read the story in the papers,” Sammy said. “It was no mistake. You always said Daddy worked in a restaurant. But it was all a lie. He’d been in jail. He had a record. He was a gambler and bookie. The papers said so and so there’s no use kidding ourselves. My old man is a crook and a…”

  “He did it for us, Sammy,” Bella said. “Don’t talk ill of him now. It was for me and for you…”

  Sammy stood up and shoved the table away. He wasn’t crying now and his voice was suddenly deeper and harder.

  “Nuts, Mama,” he said. “Uncle Merv has four kids and he takes good care of them without robbing and killing. He’s no smarter than Daddy. You’ve said so plenty of times. A lot of men take care of their wives and kids and aren’t crooks. But me… my old man’s a cop killer. I’m proud of him, Mama-real proud. He always said I should be good and live a decent life so he could be proud of me. Yeah? Good. And so now I should be proud of him because he’s a thief and a cop killer, is that it?”

  He suddenly turned and ran from the room.

  Bella started to get up from the table and then slowly sank back into her chair. She dropped her head into her arms and this time there were no tears. Nothing but dry sobs as her heavy shoulders slowly weaved from side to side.

  * * *

  Gerald had bought all of the New York newspapers. A quick look through the morning papers turned up nothing, but there were comparatively complete stories in the early editions of the afternoon sheets.

  He had to admit that the police moved fast. They didn’t have all of the answers, at least according to what the press had learned, but they did have a lot of them.

  The Tele gave the case the most complete coverage, handling the story without sensationalism, but playing up the pertinent facts. There was a long statement given out” by the Pinkerton man, who had been guarding the jewels and who had been found semiconscious from breathing the gas which had been pumped into the office where he sat.

  The guard had had a lucky break; police admitted that the only thing which had saved his life was the fact he had been dragged from the office by the thieves. He was going to be all right after a day or so in the hospital, but the police sergeant was dead and one of the gangsters had been killed outright. The other cop. Hardy, was not expected to live and already had been given last rites.

  A second mobster, identified as Jake Riddle, ex-convict and known bookie, forty-four years of age and married, and the father of a teen-age son, was also dying. During a moment of consciousness he had been questioned, but had refused to talk. He’d asked to see his wife and child and the request had been refused.

  It was believed that a third and fourth member of the gang had made a clean getaway in a second car. One of the mob cars, a Ford sedan stolen twenty-four hours previously from a par
king lot in Garden City, had been abandoned at the scene of the shooting after a stray bullet had disabled it. Hardy, the patrolman who was not expected to live, had been able to tell investigating officers that a second car was driven off at the time of the shooting. The newspaper said that he had made a partial identification of the automobile.

  Hanna, reading this last, paled slightly. A partial identification? He wondered just what the phrase meant. He realized that when Hardy referred to a fourth member of the gang, he must be referring to himself. He could feel his pulse quicken as the thought struck him.

  One of the newspapers devoted several paragraphs to the loot itself, itemizing much of it and mentioning that its total value was well over a quarter of a million dollars. It also added that the gems were fully insured.

  The dead bandit was identified as one Dominick Petri, an ex-con in his early twenties, known to officials as strictly a small-timer. Police were believed to know the identity of one of the escaped pair and claimed he was a youth who had served time with young Petri in a state reformatory.

  Newsday, a local Long Island paper which Hanna had also picked up as he drove through Roslyn, was the only one to mention that a Miss Sue Dunne, nineteen, of 104-16 Meadow Street, Corona, had been picked up for questioning. Aside from saying that she worked as a night-cashier at the G. and S. Cafeteria, no other details were given.

  Gerald carefully rechecked every news column, but nowhere did he see anything about the discovery of a young man’s body, filled with bullets, somewhere on a lonely road on Long Island’s North Shore.

  He carefully folded the papers and stacked them on an end table when he was through with them. And then he did something he had never done before in his life.

  He opened a bottle of Bourbon which had been given to him by Maryjane’s father the previous Christmas and taking a water glass from the kitchenette, poured about two and a half ounces into it. He added an ice cube and a little water and returned to his small living room and sat down and lifted the glass to his lips.

  Downing the drink with a wry expression, he sat back and as the warmth of the liquor hit his stomach and spread through his veins, he felt fine. Fine and relaxed.

  A drink before dinner was a fine idea. He wondered just why in the world he’d never tried it before. There were a lot of things he’d never tried before that he was suddenly determined to try.

  He felt a pleasant warm glow throughout his body and suddenly he laughed aloud. He was the new Gerald Hanna. Yes, there were a lot of things he had been missing that he would soon experience. A lot of things.

  His mind went to Maryjane Swiftwater then and as he thought of his fiancee, his face took on a rather hard, uncompromising expression and he shook his head ever so slightly. The idea of trying out something new with Maryjane completely failed to entrance him, although in the not too distant past he had frequently contemplated that thought with a great deal of frustrated desire and certainly no degree of distaste.

  Things had certainly changed.

  It was the sound of the doorbell which suddenly brought Gerald back to reality. As he stood up his eyes went to his wrist watch and he saw that it was exactly six-fifteen. He was expecting no one; he rarely if ever had visitors. For a fleeting moment it occurred to him that Maryjane might have come down from Connecticut, but quickly he dismissed the idea as utterly farfetched. Walking toward the front door, his face assumed a curious, but not alarmed expression.

  There were two of them; a long thin man with iron-gray hair and a horselike face who wore old-fashioned pince-nez glasses, and a short, round, surly man with a slightly soiled white shirt under an unpressed, badly fitting suit. The thin man did the talking.

  “You Hanna? Gerald Hanna?”

  Gerald half blocked the doorway with his body as he answered.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Detective Lieutenant Hopper,” the thin man said, at the same time turning the palm of his right hand and exposing a gold shield. “May we come in?”

  The short man needed no invitation, but pushed through the doorway, not waiting for Gerald’s weak, forced smile and for him to move back.

  As the fat man brushed past him, Gerald felt suddenly faint. These men were police and there could be only one thing in the world which brought them to his door. Somehow or other they had traced the car to him.

  He stepped back and made a conscious effort to control his quaking emotions.

  The lieutenant followed the other man into the apartment, shrewd eyes quickly darting around and casing the room. Gerald gestured toward the couch and went himself to the big red-leather chair and slowly sat down. The lieutenant seemed to fold up as he slouched down on the couch, crossing long legs so that his trousers were hitched up to expose several inches of thin, scrawny bare shanks over his shoe tops, where his black socks lay in folded rings unsupported by garters. He removed his battered, gray slouch hat and ran a lean fingered hand through his short hair.

  The fat man walked over by the window and just stood there, between Gerald and the door.

  “Just what…”

  Gerald hesitated as Hopper took a notebook from his pocket and methodically folded back its imitation-leather cover.

  “You home alone, Mr. Hanna?”

  “Why yes,” Gerald said. “That is, I live here alone. Rent this apartment from people by the name of Sanderson. A Mr. Miles Sanderson and his wife. They are in Bermuda at present.”

  Hopper nodded.

  “I see. You own a car, do you, Mr. Hanna?”

  Instantly he knew that he’d been right. It was the car all right; they’d managed to trace it to him somehow. He might have known. His luck had been just too phenomenally good. But even as the thought went through his mind, Gerald was catching his second breath.

  So they’d traced the car. Well, he’d expected that they might. He was prepared for that eventuality. Wasn’t that why he’d made his preparations; wasn’t it a contingency which he had foreseen?

  There was no point in getting worried, no point in permitting himself to become confused and upset. Now was the time when he must play it smart; it was the moment he knew must come and the moment he had prepared himself for.

  Gerald nodded.

  “Chevrolet,” he said. “Fifty-six convertible. Why?”

  “Just wanted to know. Where’s the car now?”

  “Why downstairs in the garage,” Gerald said. “Or at least it was a few minutes ago. Say, just what’s wrong anyway, Lieutenant? Have I done something…”

  “Have you?” Hopper asked, looking up quickly, his face enigmatic and bland.

  “Well, I mean, is something…”

  “Where were you last night?” the lieutenant interrupted.

  “Last night?”

  The fat man moved across the room and stood in front of Gerald.

  “You don’t hear good, do you?” he said.

  Hopper raised his eyes but not his voice.

  “I’ll handle it, Harry,” he said. He spoke softly. “Harry-Detective Finn here-feels you should know where you were last night. It’s a simple question. Where were you?”

  Gerald coughed and took out his handkerchief and wiped his mouth. “Sorry,” he said. “Well, I spent the evening playing poker. In New York. A friend’s apartment.”

  “Start with the beginning. What time did the game start, who was there, where was it? You might even start before that. Just what do you do for a living?”

  “I work for the Seaboard Life Insurance Company,” Gerald said. “Wall Street, New York. I’m an actuary. Been with the firm for seven years. I played poker last night at the apartment of a man named Bill Baxter, on East Seventy-eighth street, Manhattan. He’s a salesman with the same firm I work for. Quit around five-thirty and had dinner with Bill and then went with him to his apartment. Several other men from the office sat in on the game. We started playing around eight o’clock.”

  “You win?” Finn cut in.r />
  Lieutenant Hopper looked at him and frowned.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Well, there was Doc Kline, Herb Potter, Shelley…”

  “Never mind the rest of ’em. This Baxter got a phone?”

  Gerald gave him the number, as well as Dr. Kline’s number and that of Herb Potter and he noticed that Finn, rather than the lieutenant, wrote them down in a little notebook of his own.

  “When did the game break up?”

  “Sometime after midnight. I can’t tell you exactly when, but I know it was pretty late. I was going to leave earlier, but the boys…”

  “Never mind that,” Hopper said. “You left after midnight. Then what?”

  “I came home and went to bed.”

  “You came home alone? Did you drive?”

  “Yes. I drove and I was alone.”

  “Just how did you come home?”

  “I drove.”

  “You already said that. I want to know how-what route you took.”

  “The way I always do after a game. Took the Drive up to the Triborough Bridge, cut over past the airport and picked up the Cross County Highway. Turned off on Northern Boulevard and drove directly out to Roslyn. Turned off the boulevard at…”

  “And you don’t remember just what time you got here? That right? Did you stop anywhere along the way? Maybe get a cup of coffee or something?”

  “Nowhere. I came directly home, put the car up and went to bed. You see, I had to get up early this morning to go up to Connecticut…”

  Gerald stopped suddenly, realizing what he was saying. It was a slip and he tried to recover.

  “That is, I was planning last night to go up to Connecticut-I always go up early on Saturday mornings to spend the week end-and I wanted to get up early.”

  “But you didn’t go up, huh?” Finn interrupted.

  “Now, Harry,” Lieutenant Hopper said. “All right, did you go up?”

  “No. When I woke up this morning I had a splitting headache. So I called my fiancee and told her I thought I’d skip it this week.”

  “Want to give me her name and address and phone number?”