By Reason of Insanity (31 page)

On rare occasions the two men would get in a competitive spirit when recalling past deeds. Chessman usually won since he had done many things and was much more vocal. But Solis could always point to the men he had killed in wartime. Chessman had killed nobody. But he had come close a lot of times, he kept insisting.

Solis remembered one time they were talking about women and he told Chessman about the Italian peasant girl he had raped during the war. A bunch of American soldiers had caught her in a barn during a lull in the fighting around Salerno. They kept her in that barn all night taking turns at her. Did everything to her too.

Chessman said that was nothing. He had raped at least a half dozen women in Los Angeles, forcing most of them to give him oral sex which he particularly liked. He was the famous Red Light Bandit who had robbed couples in lonely spots, sometimes taking the women to his car for sex. He never thought any of them would identify him because of shame. When two women did, he decided to bluff his way through. He was smarter than any dumb cop, and he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing they got the right man. Also, his mother was alive at the time and he’d never do anything to bring her grief. Now they could all go to hell. He’d beat the rap yet! He would somehow get out through legal means, and then watch out! He’d pay them all back for the years they’d kept him locked up. When the time came he would rob and rape his way clear across the country. He’d show them, he’d show them all!

That was the story he, Solis, would tell Senator Stoner. Caryl Chessman had admitted he was the Red Light Bandit and had stated that once he got out he would continue his activities. Proof? For one thing, the attacks stopped completely as soon as Chessman was arrested. For another, he was captured in a car that had merchandise from one of the robberies still in the back seat. Then, too, in the police station he confessed to almost all of the robberies and attacks, though he later repudiated the confession. Oh, just one last thing. On that prison day when he admitted his guilt, Chessman bragged that one of the women he had raped told him she liked it but she was cheating on her husband with a mutual friend and he was going to get her in a lot of trouble. Chessman also bragged that a young girl he attacked had a large mole on the small of her back that looked like a flower.

Why was he coming forward after all these years to tell what he knew? Because he was a legitimate businessman now. He lived by the law and recognized his responsibility to tell the truth. He hadn’t thought of Chessman for many years and believed that what he knew just didn’t matter any longer. Now he saw that he had been wrong, and he wanted to tell the truth to others so that he could go back to his quiet, peaceful life.

Satisfied with his story, Don Solis, against his better judgment, picked up the receiver in his office and called Stoner in Sacramento. He gave his name and said he would like to speak to the senator about Caryl Chessman, He was told that Stoner was out of town but would return on August 17. Could he call back then? Solis left his number and agreed to call again in two days.

When he cradled the phone his palms were covered with sweat.

TWO THOUSAND miles away Jonathan Stoner was having the time of his life. For two days he had been wined and dined by the political bigwigs in Kansas City. He had met and talked with the top men, the bottom men and a half dozen groups in between. He knew they were sizing him up and so he was on his very best behavior. From all the attention accorded him, Stoner could only conclude that they were thinking of backing him nationally. To see how he went over, of course. He already had firm commitments for exposure throughout the Midwest. And he was doing a creditable job of exposure on his own in the western states, though more attention would have to be given to Washington and Idaho. He felt certain that the Southwest would fall in line, especially if he got the backing he now expected.

Stoner was well pleased with himself. He was still youngish, still in good shape. He intended to pay even more attention to his physical appearance and style. He would affect a mod look, but a bit sterner and somewhat westernized of course. If he went national, there was no telling how high he could go. Governor, United States senator. And then?

He smiled at the thought. A boy from the California valley, from the lower middle class. The goddam working class, for chrissake. Harry Golden was right. It could only happen in America.

After a while he stopped daydreaming. There were a lot of problems to solve before dreams came true. In two days he would be home, with much to do and important people to see. A dozen TV shows were waiting for him, innumerable speaking engagements. A lecture tour had been arranged for later in the month. Roger was doing a good job, a terrific job. Now he had to do his job. He had to convince these old bastards that he was a hotshot, a sure winner if they gave him the chance. All it took were the right keys to open the right doors; that’s all he needed. Give him the exposure, push him across the country. He’d do the rest. Goddam right he would! He’d smile and shake and kiss and take. Yeah, and if he had to diddle a few, he’d do that too. He had the guts, he had the drive, he had the ambition, the brains, the body, the style, the look. He had it all.

And he had the issue too. Capital punishment was national, a nationwide concern. It was moving across all economic levels but most especially with the moneyed whites. The phony liberalism of the sixties was dying. Too many people were being hurt in the pocketbook, where it counted. Too many were being killed. Things were getting out of control. Maybe the death penalty wasn’t the whole answer but it was a damn good start. It was big and getting bigger, and it would take him along with it. By then he’d find other issues of national concern. A man grew as his responsibility grew. Stoner firmly believed that. Look at all the dumb sons of bitches who became near-great presidents. The office made the man. Especially if he was straight to begin with. Stoner was straight.

He suddenly thought of Vincent Mungo. God bless him! Wherever he was, Stoner hoped that he could hold out a while longer.

Meanwhile he had work to do. He called his mistress to tell her he would be back in two days. He called his wife and told her he’d be back in two, maybe three days. Then he put on his best face and went into another meeting.

WHILE THE senator was having the time of his life in Kansas City, a woman with saddened eyes was identifying a body in the Sacramento morgue. Cause of death was massive injuries suffered when struck by an automobile; since no one had reported the death to police it was listed as a probable vehicular homicide. The identification was positive. The body was that of Velma Adams, who lived in Los Angeles and owned a beauty parlor there. She was fifty-four years old and had been traveling alone around the state on vacation.

The woman viewing the body was the manager of the salon. A native Californian, she had known the deceased for seven years. She had reported her employer missing on August 2, already a week overdue. Twelve days later she was notified that a woman answering the description had been the victim of a hit-and-run between Sacramento and Yuba City. A close-cropped photo of the face, taken in the morgue, was shown to her. Would she be willing to go to Sacramento for formal identification?

Afterward she talked to the sheriff’s deputies. The dead woman’s car was missing, along with her money and clothing. In light of the missing possessions the file on Velma Adams was changed from vehicular homicide to possible murder. A description of the car, a tan Buick hardtop with a “Save the Whales” bumper sticker, and the license plate immediately went out. Since almost six hundred cars were stolen each day in the state, the search might take some time. The manager understood. She would be informed of any developments.

On the way home she thought of the dead woman. They had been good friends but she knew her good friend had not left a will. Which meant she would get nothing and would probably lose her job under new owners. However, she knew a man in Los Angeles who was very good at handwriting. Especially other people’s. She would call him as soon as she got back.

THAT EVENING a man in San Francisco watching television was suddenly struck by an odd thought. Why hadn’t that fellow sent in his proper birth information so his credit file could be corrected? What was his name? Long—Daniel Long, that was it. It’s been about a month now. Well, business procedure is sixty days. We’ll wait another month, thought the credit clerk, who was really very conscientious about his job. He stuck it in his memory file and promptly forgot it as the movie came on.

THE NEXT morning Don Solis again called Stoner’s office. The senator was expected back later in the day, if the caller cared to leave a message. Solis replied that he had valuable information concerning Caryl Chessman. No. He would talk only to Stoner. He was told that the senator planned on being in the office the next day even though it was Saturday. Solis promised to call back then.

GEORGE LITTLE was concerned. It had been ten days since he gave a Los Angeles man $25,000 to kill Vincent Mungo. To kill him and cut the body into sections. Little intended to see the sections before handing over the other $25,000. To gloat over them and thereby dispel his grief. He especially wanted to look at the face, to make certain it was Mungo. And to stare into the eyes of the devil himself.

Sitting in his Kansas home, his wife by his side, his other two daughters out on the town, he wondered if he should call the number given him in Los Angeles.

AROUND MIDNIGHT Jonathan Stoner was relaxed enough to tell his mistress about his triumph in Kansas City. Much as he liked to brag to her, he left out one interesting detail. During his sojourn he had been introduced to some political favorites, women of beauty and quality who were apparently turned on only by men of enormous political power. They were a new breed to Stoner and they excited him. He already foresaw the day when his mistress would no longer be worthy of his attentions. He was moving up in every way.

For her part, his mistress hoped only that he wouldn’t discover the tape-recording equipment she had installed months earlier. She was wise to the ways of men and the world and had no intention of being suddenly dumped by her lover-boy senator, at least not without remuneration. She was twentyfive years old and had to look out for herself.

Her bed was wired to a tape recorder grinding away in a closet. The mechanism was voice-actuated, working only when sounds were made on the bed. It was simple and efficient and very expensive. The equipment and installation had cost over a thousand dollars. She expected to get it back someday with a great deal of interest. Until then she listened with wide-eyed fascination to anything her lover said.

HENRY BAYLOR did not believe in premonitions of course. He was a doctor, a scientist of the mind. Precognition and inner voices were components of the occult, and the occult quite properly had no place in the discipline of science.

Still, as Baylor puttered around his home on Saturday morning, he had a strong feeling that he was not yet out of the woods, so to speak, in the matter of Vincent Mungo’s escape from his institution.

What particularly bothered him about his feeling was that he paid any attention to it at all.

THE FOLLOWING day was Sunday and Senator Stoner had planned to spend it at home with his wife. But something had come up, something important. He knew she would understand, and he’d certainly be back by evening. His wife, a plain woman and long-suffering, understood even more than he knew.

On the way to his office he thought of the phone call about Chessman. Could the man be legitimate? He would find out, and fast. But if it were true, if Chessman really had admitted his guilt, it would be helpful to the campaign to restore capital punishment. And to his own personal campaign as well. He just hoped the man was telling the story straight.

Starting in Fresno that morning, Don Solis arrived in Sacramento just in time for his meeting with Stoner. He had called back the previous day and told the senator the bare outline. Now he would have to give him the whole chapter. He was ready. He just hoped the senator was in a receptive mood.

ON TUESDAY morning Amos Finch called John Spanner in Hillside. It was now August 21, and he had thought about it since receiving the rejection note from Sacramento a week earlier. Spanner was the man to see; he had been on the Mungo case from the very beginning, as Finch remembered from the papers of early July. He probably knew more about Mungo than all those idiots in the state capital. At the least, he would be a good start.

Finch still had that feeling about Mungo, that he could become a true mass murderer. But the major interest at the moment was with the elusive shadow behind Mungo, the other killer no one knew about. No one but Finch, He was sure his theory was right. That there should be two maniacal crank artists running loose at the same time stretched even his imagination. Yet, not having that instinctive police mistrust of all coincidences, he simply attributed it to bad luck. Or good.

The only way he could visualize the other man was as the specter of death. The Grim Reaper, shrouded in mystery, scythe in hand, collecting its victims. Hiding behind one of its own creations lest anyone catch a glimpse of its reality. As long as Mungo remained free the other was safe, Perhaps Mungo was being hidden by the other or protected in some way. Perhaps they even shared the same body in the sense of a wonderfully devious schizoid personality.

Finch was thrilled by the thought but was quickly forced to reject it. The idea of two distinct identities simultaneously being homicidal, both with ungovernable destructive urges toward the body, each with its own area of specification, was beyond even the imagination, let alone logic. There was nothing like it in all the literature of murder. Finch the expert could vouch for that. Such a find, were it ever discovered, would be the coup of the century. Beyond anything known. Beyond even Jekyll and Hyde, which was merely a personality battle between good and evil. But this! A battle for supremacy on the most elemental level in man’s makeup: murder. The thought was staggering, and Finch reluctantly dismissed it from consideration or even hope.