Which Way to Die? (3 page)

“Oh? Who would that be?”

“A Captain Corrigan. The same officer who worked on the case four years ago, as it happens.”

Baer hid a grin. He could imagine how Corrigan relished the assignment. It had to be an assignment; he could not see Corrigan volunteering for the job. Protecting the killers he had worked so hard to catch!

But the big man said nothing.

“I don't understand why the Police Commissioner assigned him,” Mrs. Grant said in a whine. “He's the man who beat those confessions out of Frank and Gerard.”

“Now, Elizabeth,” Alstrom said. “The boys never claimed anything worse than psychological pressure.”

“Well, he implied they'd be beaten if they didn't confess—I don't like that brute.”

Alstrom began to look testy; apparently Mrs. Grant was a cross he found hard to bear. “He's an excellent police officer, Elizabeth. The man was doing his job. I can't find it in my heart to hold anything against him.”

“You may act the Christian if you wish, John,” she said, all fermentation now. “But I shall never forgive him for putting my son in prison. My innocent son. And
your
innocent son!”

The uncomfortable expression on Alstrom's face revealed something to Baer. There was no question in Alstrom's mind about the two boys. Maternal blindness and a waspish character explained Elizabeth Grant, but John M. Alstrom was under no illusions. He knew the boys had killed the girl.

“I'll save you a stop Thursday morning,” Baer said. “Suppose you pick Captain Corrigan and me up at Police Headquarters. It's closer to my place than here.”

Alstrom rose with evident relief. “Of course. Thank you, Mr. Baer, for accepting the assignment. Come, Elizabeth.”

3.

Corrigan was on the phone when his door swooshed open and Chuck Baer came in, straddled a chair, and lit a panatela.

Corrigan said to the phone, “Okay, okay,” and hung up. He fixed the redhead with a stern glittering eye. “Didn't your mother ever teach you to knock?”

“I didn't have a mother,” Baer said.

“I know, you crawled out from under a rock.”

“My, my. Touchy this morning, aren't we? Well, I can't say I'm surprised. Having to play footsie with a couple of punk killers and all.”

Corrigan's one eye looked startled. “Where did you pick that up?”

“I'm your nurse's aide. John M. Alstrom and Mrs. Grant have hired me as those cute little tykes' bodyguard.”

The brown eye hardened. “Why'd you accept the assignment?”

Baer looked at him.

“I have to protect those lice because I'm under orders. But you have free choice. Lowering your standards, aren't you?”

“What standards?” Baer blew a stream of panatela smoke his way. “What's the matter with you this morning? You're supposed to be the guy who doesn't believe in lynch law. Even killers have the right of physical protection against mobs and nuts and whatever. I've bodyguarded a hell of a lot of bastards I wouldn't spit at. It's a job. Were those two lawyers sent whimpering into the night because they defended Alstrom and Grant?”

Corrigan grunted. “My apologies.”

“It's about time.”

“I guess this thing has me steamed up. To tell the truth, I'm glad to have you on the team. It may be a he-man's job keeping the young gentlemen alive.”

“Martello?”

“And assorted bedbugs. I've already received one crank note—unsigned—from somebody who remembered I'd worked on the case.”

Baer pursed his heavy lips. “Must be one of the original letter-writers.”

Corrigan shook his head. “That was Yoder over at the lab I was talking to when you walked in. No fingerprints, and the typing and style don't match any of the crank letters from four years ago. As a matter of fact, it's the only really literate letter on the subject ever received. It was sure as hell written by someone who's well-educated.”

“Fine. Now we have to worry about a literate nut.”

“Plus the usual assortment of illiterate ones. By tomorrow I expect a dozen more threat-letters.”

“Plus Marty Martello.”

“Plus Harry Barber.”

“You think Barber's a real threat? The clean-cut All-American boy?”

“The clean-cut All-American boy damn near killed both of them the day of their arrest. I had to knock him stiff to break his strangle-holds on their throats.”

Baer looked surprised. “I never saw that in the papers.”

“It was covered up. The boys' lawyers advised them not to press charges. They must have figured public sympathy would be with Barber. But if he was capable of trying to kill them—and believe me, he wasn't kidding—then he's still capable of it.”

“Sounds interesting,” Baer said. “Shall we start a pool on who gets them?”

“You not only had no mother,” Corrigan growled, “but that rock that fathered you had no sense of humor. Shut up and let me work, will you?”

At eight-thirty on Thursday morning Corrigan and Baer were waiting on the front steps of police headquarters. The private detective had a small valise at his feet; Corrigan had brought nothing. Mrs. Grant had informed him over the phone that he would not need a bag. After all the secrecy about the released men's destination, this struck Corrigan as a stupid breach of security. Since he would not be gone overnight, it was clear that the hideout could not be far from Manhattan.

The limousine, a Lincoln Continental, arrived at 8:35. It was chauffeured by a huge square-faced man of middle age with bristling brows and a massive jaw. John Alstrom and Elizabeth Grant were in the tonneau.

Corrigan got a polite reception from Alstrom and a cold shoulder from the woman. Her open dislike did not bother him. He had learned four years earlier that Elizabeth Grant was an overprotective mother incapable of an objective viewpoint where her son was concerned. All he felt was pity for her predicament.

It was a seven-passenger job. The chauffeur stowed Baer's suitcase in the trunk, Baer took one of the jump seats, and Corrigan elected to sit beside the chauffeur.

“How are you, Andy?”

“Okay, Captain,” the chauffeur said. He sounded as frigid as his mistress.

Andy Betz shared Elizabeth Grant's attitude toward Corrigan, and for the same reason. He had a slavish faith in young Frank's innocence. Betz, now in his mid-fifties, had been in the employ of the Grant family for twenty-five years—since two years before Frank's birth. He was a phenomenon rare in mid-century America: an old family retainer. Devoted to the family, he idolized the “young mister,” as he customarily referred to Mrs. Grant's son. It was hardly surprising that he looked on Corrigan with a hostile eye.

His hostility rolled off Corrigan's back, too, but with a difference. The MOS man could only admire the unwavering loyalty from which Betz's hostility stemmed. As far as Corrigan knew, the man had no life or interests outside the Grant family; at least he had not had four years ago. He was unmarried. He lived in a room above the garage on the Grants' Long Island estate.

En route to Ossining, Corrigan sat half faced about. Conversation was minimal. Mrs. Grant was largely silent with resentment, and Alstrom seemed immersed in thought. Even Chuck Baer was infected, and the fact that Mrs. Grant objected to his cigar smoke did not make him communicative. There were long periods during which Corrigan did nothing but glance at the road ahead and back through the rear window.

They were some ten miles out of the city when he spotted the tan Buick sedan a few hundred yards behind them. As far as he could tell, it contained no one but the driver; Corrigan could not even make out if it was a man or a woman. When it steadily maintained its distance over the remaining twenty miles to Ossining, it took no Sherlock Holmes to deduce that it was a tail.

He did not mention it to the others. The tailing driver would know he had been spotted if Alstrom and Mrs. Grant turned to peer back, as they undoubtedly would.

When they reached Ossining's town limits, the Buick shortened its distance to half a block. It held that relative position until Betz turned into the street going by the main gate of the prison. As Betz slowed down, the Buick picked up speed.

Corrigan said, “Chuck,” and jerked his thumb. So they were both looking that way when the car passed. It was a man behind the wheel, wide-shouldered, with rugged, handsome features. He was hatless and wore his blond hair in a crew-cut.

Baer looked startled. He opened his mouth, then shut it at Corrigan's head-shake. There was no point in upsetting Mrs. Grant and Alstrom. The Buick had disappeared by the time Andy Betz backed into a parking place and they got out of the limousine.

To Corrigan's surprise, Betz joined them on the sidewalk. Mrs. Grant noticed.

“Andy's anxious to see Frank, too,” she said coldly. “They're very close.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Then Corrigan spotted the black Cadillac across the street. There were four men in it. His brown eye sharpened.

“Excuse me,” he said to Alstrom. “Mr. Baer and I had better check out that car over there. You and Mrs. Grant go on ahead, sir. We'll meet you in the Warden's office.”

Alstrom, Mrs. Grant, and the chauffeur stood frozen.

“Who is it?” muttered Alstrom.

“Probably nobody to concern us, Mr. Alstrom. But under the circumstances I think it's a good idea to look over a parked car with four men in it. Please go on in. We'll handle whatever it is.”

Corrigan and Baer waited until they were admitted through the main gate.

Then Baer said, “That was Harry Barber driving the Buick.”

“Yes,” Corrigan said. “But right now I'm more interested in the Cadillac.”

They crossed the street. The Cadillac's windows were open. Baer laid both paws on the front sill on the driver's side and gave the man behind the wheel a once-over, not lightly. Corrigan stared into the rear.

Marty Martello sat on the far side. He was a dark man with swimming black eyes and a Mediterranean face. Masseurs had kept his body sleek except for a slight middle-age paunch. Curly black hair graying at the temples and the expensive custom-tailored clothes he wore gave him the look of a banker, or an aging character actor.

Between Martello and Corrigan sat a squat, wide man with a pea-head and the muscles of a wrestler. He had come by them more or less honestly before Marty Martello took him on as a bodyguard; he had wrestled professionally under the monicker of Little Jumbo. His legal name was Leroy Barth, Corrigan knew; he had had occasion to check Barth's yellow sheet more than once.

Corrigan was acquainted with the two men in the front seat as well; he had had both on the pan several times on suspicion of everything from simple assault to homicide. The tall skinny one in the driver's seat was Benny Grubb, once wheel man for a stickup ring before he fell into the safer and more lucrative job of wheeling the mighty Martello.

The other occupant of the front seat, a wiry character with a knife-scarred face and totally dead eyes, was Al (the Acid Kid) Jennings. The nickname had been well earned. Tossing acid into the faces of union organizers had been his M.O. in his labor-racketeering days.

Corrigan looked them over one at a time, deliberately. The three hoods with the racketeer chief glanced at him stonily, once, then looked away. Martello did not look away. He returned stare for stare. If he was bothered by the icy eye examining him he did not show it. Perhaps he was more concerned than he allowed to appear. He was the first to break the silence.

“Something on your mind, Captain?” He had a soft, almost womanish, voice.

“Something,” Corrigan said. “Aren't you a long way from home, Marty?”

“You want to know what I'm doing here?”

“I went to school, Marty. I can add one and one.”

Martello exposed white teeth. “Why not? Call me nosy. I want to see if four years' hard time has made any changes in those scum that killed my daughter.”

So much for amateur planning. Corrigan wondered how many others had seen through the subterfuge. Harry Barber, now Martello. The news media weren't on the ball on this one. The place should have been crawling with reporters and cameramen.

“I think, Marty,” Corrigan said, “it would improve your public relations if you ordered Benny here to turn right around and keep going till you hit the city.”

“That's if you was me,” Martello said. “But you're not.”

“I'm asking you nicely.”

“What law am I breaking, Captain?”

Corrigan struck his head through the rear window, causing Little Jumbo to draw back hastily.

“You got no jurisdiction here,” Martello said. His eyes had slitted.

“Marty,” Corrigan said in a soft voice, “don't make me get tough with you. The two of us could take your three goons on with one hand tied behind our backs.”

“Yeah, man,” said Chuck Baer.

“You gonna give us a sample of police brutality?” Martello asked. “This isn't your turf, Officer.”

“I'm not telling you, Martello, I'm asking you. Just this once: You going back?”

Little Jumbo glanced out of his elephant eyes at his employer. The pair in front stared rigidly ahead. Martello seemed to be weighing something.

Corrigan and Baer waited patiently.

Finally the gang lord said in an even, slightly thick, voice: “Get going, Benny.”

4.

They found Alstrom, Mrs. Grant, and Andy Betz in the Warden's office. The released men's attorneys, Narwald and Fellows, were there, too.

The lawyers were equally well-fed-looking and red-faced. They might have been brothers. Narwald was completely bald and Fellows had gray hair cut theatrically long at the neck. They were a slick pair.

The Warden said, “Hello, Tim.” Corrigan introduced Baer. Neither said anything to Narwald and Fellows, who both had a mingled look of triumph and anxiety that was almost comical.