The Interpretation Of Murder (24 page)

    By day, criminal cases of great
import were tried in the Jefferson Market courthouse. After hours, the same
tribunal became the city's Night Court, where vice cases were processed. As a
result, the Jefferson Market jail was occupied largely by prostitutes awaiting
disposition and punishment. It was here, in this jail, that Littlemore found a
frazzled but unhurt Betty on Wednesday evening.

    She was in a large, crowded holding
cell in the basement. Some twenty-five or thirty women were detained within,
standing in small knots or sitting on long narrow benches against the walls.

    The cell was divided between two
classes of prisoner. There were about fifteen young women in working outfits
like Betty's - simple dark, solid-colored skirts, down to their ankles, of
course, and white long-sleeved blouses. These prisoners were from the
shirtwaist factory where Betty had for half a day been an employee. A few of
these girls were as young as thirteen.

    Their colleagues were another dozen
women, of various ages and far more colorful in their accoutrements and
cosmetics. Most were loud and conspicuously at their ease, being familiar with
the surroundings. One, however, was louder than the others, complaining to the
guards and demanding to know how a woman in her circumstances could be kept in
jail. Littlemore recognized her at once; it was Mrs Susan Merrill. She was the
only one with a chair, which the others had deferentially yielded to her. Over
her shoulders was a burgundy wrap, in her arms a baby, sleeping peacefully
despite the uproar.

    Littlemore's badge got him inside the
jailhouse, but it couldn't get Betty out. They stood only a few inches from
each other, separated by the floor-to-ceiling iron bars, speaking quietly.
'Your first day of work, Betty,' Littlemore said, 'and you went on strike?'

    She had not gone on strike. When
Betty arrived at the factory that morning, she went directly to the ninth floor
and joined a hundred other girls sewing. There were, however, at least fifty
empty stools in front of idle sewing machines. What had happened was this: the
day before, a hundred fifty seamstresses had been fired for being 'union
sympathizers.' That evening, in response, the International Ladies Garment
Workers Union called a strike against Betty's factory. As the next morning wore
on, a small band of laborers and unionists gathered in the street below,
shouting up to the workers on the floors above.

    'They called us scabs,' Betty
explained. 'Now I know why they hired me so quick - they were replacing the
union girls. I couldn't be a scab, Jimmy, could I?'

    'I guess not,' said Littlemore, 'but
what did they want to go and strike for anyway?'

    'Oh, you wouldn't believe it. First
of all, it's hot, like a furnace. Then they charge the girls rent - for
everything: lockers, sewing machines, needles, stools to sit on. You don't get
half the pay they promise you. Jimmy, there was a girl there worked seventy-two
hours last week, and she made three dollars. Three dollars! That's - that's -
how much is that?'

    'Four cents an hour,' said
Littlemore. 'That's bad.'

    'And that's not the worst thing
either. They lock all the doors to keep the girls working; you can't even go to
the bathroom.'

    'Geez, Betty, you should have just
left. You didn't have to go and picket, with people smashing windows and all.'

    Betty was half indignant, half
confused. 'I didn't picket, Jimmy.'

    'Well, what did they arrest you for?'

    ' 'Cause I quit. They
told
us
we'd go to jail if we quit, but I didn't believe them. And nobody was smashing
windows. The policemen were just beating people up.'

    'Those weren't policemen.'

    'Oh, yes, they were.'

    'Oh, boy,' said Littlemore. 'I got to
get you out of here.' He beckoned to one of the guards and explained to him
that Betty was his girl and wasn't part of the strike at all; she was in the lockup
by mistake. At the words 'my girl,' Betty looked down at the floor and smiled
with embarrassment.

    The guard, a pal of Littlemore's,
answered penitently that his hands were tied. 'It ain't me, Jimmy,' he said.
'You got to talk to Becker.'

    'Beck?' asked Littlemore, his eyes
lighting up. 'Is Beck here?'

    The guard led Littlemore down the
hall to a room where five men were drinking, smoking, and playing a noisy game
of cards beneath a flickering electric bulb. One of them was Sergeant Charles
Becker, a bullet-headed fireplug of a man with a powerful baritone. Becker, a
fifteen-year veteran on the force, worked the most vice-ridden precinct in
Manhattan, the Tenderloin, where the city's glittering casinos and brothels,
including Susan Merrill's, mixed with the gaudiest lobster palaces and
vaudevilles. Becker's presence at the jail was a stroke of good fortune for
Littlemore, who had spent six months as a beat officer in Becker's squad.

    'Hey, Beck,' Littlemore called out.

    'Littlemouse!' boomed Becker, dealing
cards. 'Boys, meet my little brother detective from downtown. Jimmy, this
here's Gyp, Whitey, Lefty, and Dago - you remember Dago, don't you?'

    'Dago,' said the detective.

    'Couple two-three years ago,' Becker
told his cronies, referring to Littlemore, 'this guy solves a pump-and-jump for
me. Hands me the perp' - this was pronounced
poyp
- 'who's been paying
the price ever since. They always pay the price, boys. What you doing here,
Jimmy, bird- watching?'

    Becker heard him out, nodding, never
taking his eyes from the poker table. With the roar of a man who savors a grand
display of magnanimity, he ordered the guards to let out the detective's bird.
Littlemore thanked Becker profoundly and hurried back to the cell, where he
collected Betty. On their way out, Littlemore poked his head into the card room
and thanked Becker again. 'Say, Beck,' he said. 'One more favor?'

    'Name it, little brother,' replied
Becker.

    'There's a lady in there with a baby.
Any chance we could let her out too?'

    Becker stubbed out a cigarette. His
voice remained casual, but the jocularity of Becker's cronies suddenly came to
a halt. 'A lady?' asked Becker.

    Littlemore knew something was wrong,
but he didn't know what.

    'He's talking about Susie, boss,'
said Gyp, whose real name was Horowitz.

    'Susie? Susie Merrill's not in my
jail, is she, Whitey?' said Becker.

    'She's in there, boss,' answered
Whitey, whose real name was Seidenschner.

    'You got something going with Susie,
Jimmy?'

    'No, Beck,' said Littlemore. 'I just
thought - with her having a baby and all -'

    'Uh-huh,' said Becker.

    'Forget I said it,' Littlemore put
in. 'I mean, if she -'

    Becker bellowed to the guards to let
Susie out. He added to this command several choice imprecations, expressing
outrage at a baby's being locked up in his jail and yelling that if there was
'any more babes' in the lockup in future, they should be brought directly to
him. This remark produced a gale of laughter from his crew. Littlemore decided
he had better go. He thanked Becker a third time - this one generating no reply
- and led Betty away.

    Tenth Street was nearly deserted. A
breeze stirred from the west. On the jailhouse steps, in the shadow of the massive
Victorian edifice, Betty stopped. 'Do you know that woman?' she asked. 'The one
with the baby?'

    'Kind of.'

    'But, Jimmy, she's a - she's a
madam.'

    'I know,' said Littlemore, grinning.
'I've been to her place.'

    Betty slapped the detective across
the jaw.

    'Ow,' said Littlemore. 'I only went
there to ask her some questions about the Riverford murder.'

    'Oh, Jimmy, why didn't you say so?'
asked Betty. She put her hands to her face, then his. She smiled. 'I'm sorry.'

    They embraced. They were still
embracing a minute later, when the heavy oaken doors to the jail creaked open
and a shaft of light fell on them. Susan Merrill was in the doorway, burdened
with the baby and a hat of enormous proportions. Littlemore helped her out the
door. Betty asked to hold the baby, whom the older woman willingly gave over.

    'So you're the one who sprung me,'
Susie said to Littlemore. 'I guess you figure I owe you something now?'

    'No, ma'am.'

    Susie cocked her head to get a better
look at the detective. Reclaiming the baby from Betty, she said, in a whisper
so faint Littlemore could hardly hear it, 'You're going to get yourself
killed.'

    Neither Littlemore nor Betty
responded.

    'I know who you're looking for,'
Susie went on, the words barely audible. 'March 18, 1907.'

    'What?'

    'I know who, and I know what. You
don't know, but I know. I ain't doing nothin' for free, though.'

    'What about March 18, 1907?'

    'You find out. And you
get
him,' she hissed, with a venom so violent she put a hand over the baby's face
as if to protect her from it.

    'What about that day?' Littlemore
pressed again.

    'Ask next door,' whispered Susie
Merrill, before disappearing into the gathering dusk.