EQMM, June 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  August 1933 in Chicago was surprisingly cool, unless you were a crook, in which case it was hotter than usual. We were suffering through one of those anti-crime drives the city subjected itself to now and then, and since the Capone/Nitti Outfit got a free pass on its fun and games, small fry like the Blonde Tigress and her “mob” (two male accomplices) got the brunt.

  Did the Blonde Tigress have a damn thing to do with the policeman who got himself shot in a Cook County courtroom? No. She and her gang of two merely got caught up in the overreaction when the Honorable John Prystalski, the county's chief judge, ordered all the other judges back from summer vacation to work through the jammed-up docket. Two hundred thirty-five defendants got the book thrown at them that August, including three death sentences.

  And that was before the Blonde Tigress had appeared in the dock....

  In my big underfurnished one-room office on Van Buren, I sat at my desk, working on a pile of retail-credit checks, with the window open behind me to let in a cool morning breeze and the occasional rumble of the El.

  I tried to let the phone ring five times before answering, but was short enough on clients to settle for three.

  "A-1 Detective Agency,” I said. “Nathan Heller speaking."

  "Nate, Sam Backus."

  My hopes sank. Backus—small, nervous, with ferret features—was with the public defender's office, which made him the kind of criminal attorney who couldn't afford my help.

  "Hiya, Sam. Any of your clients get a ticket for the hot squat today?"

  "No, but the day's young. Listen, I got the Tigress."

  I sat up. “What?"

  "You heard me. Eleanor Jarman is my client."

  All summer, the Blonde Tigress case had been plastered across the front pages, and the radio was all over it, too. The so-called Blonde Tigress—a good-looking lady bandit with “tawny hair” and a “voluptuous figure"—had led her two-man mob on a series of stickups all around the West and Northwest sides. The Tigress was said to carry a big revolver in her purse and a blackjack, too, one of her male accomplices using the gun, the Tigress adept with the jack. The usual target was the small merchant—grocery stores and other shops—the robbery victims often roughed up for intimidation or maybe just the hell of it.

  After the August 4 holdup of a clothing shop near Oak Park—and the murder of its seventy-year-old proprietor—sometime waitress Eleanor Jarman, her live-in guy George Dale, and Dale's ex-fighter buddy Leo Minneci had been identified as the perpetrators and brought in by two top Detective Bureau dicks.

  "Well, she's guilty as sin, isn't she?” I asked him cheerfully. “Maybe you can arrange for her to sit on her boyfriend's lap when they fry him, and save the state on its electricity bill."

  "Nate, I think she's being railroaded. These characters Dale and Minneci are stickup guys, sure, and there's no doubt Dale pulled the trigger on the old boy. But Eleanor's just the girlfriend. Wrong place at the wrong time."

  "Are they being tried separately?"

  "No, but each has separate representation from the public defender's office."

  I was shaking my head. “If she's innocent in this, why was she charged? Didn't Tuohy and Glass make the arrest? They're as close to real detectives as the police department gets."

  "Nate, you know about this cleanup-and-crackdown campaign that's going on. When did you ever hear of somebody getting arrested for murder in this town and then have the trial go on the same damn month?"

  "Okay, you stumped me. But I—"

  "Think it through, Nate. This is about the papers looking for a hot story, and what's better than a sexy baby leading her ‘gang’ on a bunch of robberies?"

  I shifted in my chair. “Listen, I don't care if she's guilty or not guilty. I'd be glad to work for you, Sam, if you were a real criminal lawyer with some scratch to spend."

  "That's the good part about all this press nonsense, Nate. Think about the publicity! There's no bigger story right now."

  "Then I'm right—there isn't any money in this."

  "Actually, pal, there is."

  That got my attention, but I said, “Don't call me ‘pal.’ Makes me nervous. When do I ever see you, Sam, when we aren't in a courtroom?"

  "Nate, if you take this case, you can peddle your story to one of the papers afterwards, with my blessing. And I've got a true-detective magazine that'll pay even better. That'll beat any of your five-dollar-a-day action, any time."

  "That's ten and expenses, and what do you have in mind?"

  "Just meet with my client. See if she doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt."

  "So then you have no case?"

  "...I have no case. I need you to go get me one."

  If I was the private eye who cleared the Blonde Tigress, I'd be in demand with every criminal lawyer in town.

  "I can meet with her,” I said, “any time today."

  * * * *

  Now a guy can get some pretty funny thoughts sometimes. And by funny, I mean stupid. But while I'd been around, I was only twenty-eight and I couldn't keep from wondering if some exotic, erotic encounter might not occur between the Blonde Tigress and me, behind the closed door of that First District Station interrogation room. The matron standing guard would hear the muffled sounds and wonder what might be happening in there, between the curvaceous blonde gun moll and that handsome six-footer with the reddish brown hair, and dare she interrupt?

  I was expecting the combination Jean Harlow and Mata Hari that the papers had been pumping, and in my defense I must say that they'd taken some fairly fetching photos of Eleanor Jarman. And the woman seated at the scarred table in a brick-walled enclosure whose windows were barred and throwing appropriately moody shadows was certainly attractive, albeit in a quiet, modest, even mousy way.

  Her hair was not tawny, at least not by my standards—more a dishwater blonde, curling-ironed locks framing her heart-shaped face. I'd call her pretty, or anyway pretty enough, with big gray eyes that dominated her face and a nice mouth, full lips lightly rouged. Prisoners awaiting trial were allowed street clothes—in this case, a simple white dress with angular blue stripes and a white collar with a bow, the stripes giving the faintest unintentional prison-uniform touch. She had a nice shape, but “voluptuous” was torturing a point.

  She gave me a big smile and stood and held her hand out for me to shake. The smile was disarming—I might have been a brother she hadn't seen for some time.

  "Thank you for this, Mr. Heller,” she said warmly, as I took a chair at the table, her at the end, me alongside.

  "I haven't agreed to take the job, Mrs. Jarman,” I said, and took my hat off and tossed it on the table. “I said I'd have a talk with you and see."

  Her smile remained, but she put the teeth away and nodded. “It's because Mr. Backus can't afford to hire you. But what if I could?"

  "Could what?"

  "Afford to hire you."

  I squinted at her. “How could you afford to hire a private detective if you can't afford your own lawyer?"

  She shrugged and half a smile lingered. “That was strategy, Mr. Heller. I could've hired a lawyer, not an expensive one, but I do have some money salted away. It's just, well..."

  And I got it.

  "If you could hire a criminal attorney,” I said, “it would make you look more like a criminal. Somebody pulling off heists all summer could afford counsel. Smart."

  "I'm not rich. But I could offer you one hundred dollars."

  "I charge ten a day and expenses. That'll take you a fair way."

  "Fine. I'll have it sent over to your office."

  "You're not what I expected."

  She grinned. “Not a Tigress?"

  "Not the femme fatale the papers paint, and not the victim Sam Backus would make you, either."

  "What, then?"

  "A smart, resourceful cookie."

  "Thanks. Could I call you something besides ‘Mr. Heller'?"

  "Sure. Nate'll do. And I'll call you Eleanor."

&nbs
p; They had provided a pitcher of ice water and I served us up some. The breezy afternoon was making its way through windows that were open onto their bars.

  "Do you need to hear my story, Nate, before you say yes?"

  "I want to hear your story, but I already said yes to your hundred dollars."

  She had a whole repertoire of smiles, and she gave me another one, a chin-crinkler. But the gray eyes had a sadness that fit neither her happy kisser nor her businesslike brain.

  She started with the story of her life, which didn't take long, because it wasn't much of one. She was from Sioux City, Iowa, daughter of immigrant German parents who died in a flu epidemic when she was fourteen, just the right age to start working as a waitress in a joint near the stockyards. She married Leroy Jarman, who told her she deserved better, and gave her two sons and put her to work as a laundress. Earlier this year, after Jarman took a powder, she moved to Chicago, where she continued to do laundry in her little apartment while taking care of her two boys. A neighbor introduced her to George Dale, and her life changed.

  "George never said what he did for a living,” she told me. “I always figured it was something a little shady, but hell, I ran a beer flat in Sioux City, so who was I to talk? Anyway, he always had plenty of dough and we lived in nice apartments."

  Then she got to the meat of the matter: the crime. She and her boyfriend George and George's friend Leo were on their way to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. They were running early and decided to stop and do a little shopping; George spotted the clothing store sign and pulled in, saying he needed some shirts. They had all three gone inside.

  "George was talking to Mr. Hoeh up in front,” she said. Her eyes were not on me; they seemed to be staring into her memory. “The old man was getting shirts from behind the counter and laying boxes out for George to see. Leo wasn't interested, and was just hanging by the door. I was in the back of the store, looking at ties and other boys’ clothing—my sons are nine and eleven—and was caught up in making some selections.” Now she looked at me, gray eyes wide and earnest. “Then I heard the sound of a scuffle."

  "Was the old boy still behind the counter?"

  "No, he was coming around after George, who was heading out."

  "Leaving you in back of the store?"

  "No, that's the other thing that alerted me that something was wrong—George was calling, ‘Eleanor! Hurry!’”

  "What did you think was happening?"

  "Honestly, I had no idea. I guess I thought the old man had gone off his rocker or something. Leo was there at the door, holding it open, but Mr. Hoeh was attacking George. Then all of sudden George had this gun..."

  "You didn't know George had a gun?"

  She shook her head. “And the old man wrestled with George, had a hold of his wrist and twisted the thing around, and it went off!"

  "And the old boy got hit?"

  "No! Leo did—in his hand, his left hand, I think. Leo yelled something like, ‘Jesus, George, you shot me!’ Then George shoved Mr. Hoeh away, and I was coming up from the back of the shop now, and I followed them out onto the sidewalk. I was the last one out, kind of trailing the old man, who was all over George. Why did he do that? He knew George had a gun!"

  I shrugged. “It was his store. A guy his age, builds a business, he might do anything to defend it. Go on."

  "I know Mr. Hoeh was old, but he was big and tough, slugging and swinging, and I almost jumped on his back, trying to pull him off George, trying to stop this."

  "You must've known it was a holdup by now."

  She shook her head firmly. “No. I wasn't thinking, not rationally, anyway. It was all so fast. I just knew George was in trouble and this crazy old man was attacking him."

  "All right. What happened then?"

  She swallowed; no smiles now. “The old man shoved me away. That's when George shot him. Twice."

  I drew in a breath; I let it out. “And Mr. Hoeh died before he made it to the hospital."

  "I know.” She was shaking her head, eyes glued to the scarred tabletop. “I'm so sorry. I had no idea George was some kind of ... stickup man. But I can't believe he did that, with me along."

  "You'd never been along before?"

  "No. Never."

  "They say something like sixty witnesses have identified you and George and Leo in a whole slew of other robberies. Thirty-some?"

  "I don't care what they say. These witnesses are only saying what the police tell them to. Do you think they had us stand in the show-up line? No. Hell, no. They'd haul their witnesses into the women's cell block and point at me and say, ‘That's her, isn't it? The Tigress?’ And I'll bet they've done the same kind of thing with George and Leo."

  "That's not a point I'd care to argue. You're not saying that this was a spur-of-the-moment thing for George, that he suddenly decided to become a stickup artist on his way to a Cubs game? He didn't grow that gun."

  She got out another smile, a bitter one. “No. I understand that now. I believe George and Leo have been at this a long time. George had been throwing a lot of money around and that's where it came from, obviously. They saw an opportunity with that old man alone in that shop, and they took it—putting me in this fix."

  "You're not saying there's another ‘Tigress’ working with George and Leo?"

  "Why not? And anyway, I'm no ‘Tigress,’ and if there is a real female accomplice, she probably isn't either."

  I frowned at her. “You think George has another girlfriend who goes out on robberies with him?"

  "No. But Leo might."

  "Is Leo married?"

  "Yeah. Does that mean he can't have a girlfriend?"

  "If it did,” I said, and grinned at her, “I'd be out of business."

  "It's also possible,” she said, “that George and Leo pulled some robberies, but on their own. Without a female accomplice, and we're taking the blame for some other bunch."

  "You each have your own lawyers."

  "Yeah. Our stories don't exactly jibe. Leo says he had no idea George was going to pull a robbery at that haberdashery. George says there wasn't any robbery."

  "Then why did George have the gun?"

  She held her hands up in surrender. “I think it was the old man's. Look, they don't exactly let me talk to George and Leo. You'll have to ask them, if you can.... Well, Nate? Do you think you can help?"

  "I'll give it a hundred bucks’ worth of college try,” I said.

  "Do you believe my version of what happened?"

  "I don't exactly believe you. But I don't exactly disbelieve you, either. I'll keep an open mind. How's that?"

  "That's the best I could hope for,” she said, and offered me her hand to shake. The handshake lingered and her gray eyes sent me the tiniest signal that her gratitude might be shown in ways beyond that hundred bucks.

  Which is as close as my Tigress daydream came to playing out.

  * * * *

  In the hallway of the First District Station, a new, modern facility, I encountered an old-fashioned cop—Captain John Stege, who greeted me much as I'd expect: “What the hell are you doing here, Heller?"

  Stege was a fiftyish fireplug with a round white face and round black-rimmed glasses. He was in shirtsleeves and a blue bow tie, which was about as casual as he ever got, a revolver on his hip.

  "Fine, Captain,” I said. “How are you?"

  The owlish cop frowned at me. “Get your ass in my office."

  I was an irritant to Stege because I confused him: When I'd been on the Detective Bureau, not so long ago, I'd ratted out some corrupt coppers, which he considered disloyal of me, and yet he was one of the most honest flatfeet on the force.

  I sat across his desk from him. The office was as small and clean and compact as he was. He just looked at me, asking no question but clearly expecting an answer.

  "I'm doing a job for Sam Backus,” I said.

  "Since when does the public defender's office have money to hire investigators?"

  "Since never.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I'm doing it out of a sense of public duty."

  His tiny eyes tightened behind the lenses. “Hell—not the Tigress? That's it, isn't it? You figure you can peddle your story to the papers!"

  "I don't care what anybody says. You're a detective."

  The door to the office was open. I was sitting there with my hat on. He told me to close the door and take off my hat. I did so. What was this about?

  "I'm glad you're on it,” Stege said.

  "What?"

  "Something smells about that case."

  "Oh, you mean like taking witnesses down to the cell block and pointing to the suspect, in lieu of a line-up?"

  He tasted his mouth and it obviously wasn't a pleasant flavor. “Something like that. This cleanup campaign, I never saw so many corners cut. If I can help you, let me know. I mean, keep it on the q.t.—but let me know."

  "This is so sudden, Captain."

  "Don't get cute. It's just that lately I feel like we're working for these yellow damn journalists—trying to make ourselves look good instead of trying to do our jobs."

  I sat forward. “They're taking this to trial right away. I could use some help."

  "All right.” Stege squinted at me meaningfully. “But don't ask to see the files—I won't go sneaking around on honest cops. Anyway, the papers told the story accurately enough, if you take out the ‘Tigress’ hooey."

  "Do you think Dale and Minneci were part of this stickup gang hitting small merchants on the West and Northwest Sides?"

  "They could be. And so could that woman, for that matter. There's definitely been a rash of robberies where two men and a woman go into a store, once they've established that no other customers are around. They'd make a lot of noise, one of the men and the woman, too, yelling and threatening and even shoving, waving a gun and a blackjack around."

  "That's not a stupid approach."

  "You don't think sticking up innocent merchants is stupid, Heller?"

  "Sure. My old man ran a bookshop on the West Side, remember? Anybody kills a shop owner for what's in his till, I'd like to take their tonsils out with a penknife. But by making a big commotion, intimidating their victim? It can turn the whole thing into a big blur. Hard to get a good identification out of somebody who's been put through that. What was the woman's role?"