Page 20 of Passion's Wicked Torment

Rogers slapped him on the shoulder. “All right. Will do. As for you, I don’t guess you want the department to arrange for you to be sprung.”

“No. Better let me call down my own shyster and have him arrange it. If I get off too easily, it’ll look bad.”

Rogers nodded. “Right. And don’t worry about that cop, Lieutenant Shaeffer, talking about you having a visitor from Washington. I’ll talk to him.” He tossed his pack of cigarettes to Hunter to keep and started to leave. “Call us when you need us. And to report! I get irritable when my field agents don’t report on schedule.”

“Poor Rogers,” said Hunter. “Having to get all irritable and edgy. It’s a rough life.” He grinned. After Rogers left, Hunter poured himself a mug of coffee and sipped at it absently. He wondered what Kristin would do now. Who would she turn to? That would answer a lot of questions about her, finding out that one piece of information.

CHAPTER 12

Ironman Mike Gianelli was stunned when his man Riggio told him who was calling. “Kristin Seagrave?” Ironman repeated, frowning in puzzlement. “Hunter’s dame? What does she want with me?”

Riggio shrugged and spoke into the phone. “What do you want with him?” He listened for a minute, his sadeyed, deeply lined face impassive. Then he said to Ironman, “She’s in jail. She wants you to spring her.”

Ironman frowned even more. He wondered how she had managed to escape from Rooney. Jail was certainly an improvement for her over Rooney’s whore ship. He also wondered why she was calling him for help, instead of Hunter. Reluctantly, he took the phone. He had misgivings, but he was curious.

“Yeah?” he said into the receiver. “Ironman Gianelli here.”

“Ain’t we formal,” muttered Riggio, penciling in a number on his scratch sheet.

Ironman listened to Kristin explain her situation. He asked her questions and listened intently to her answers. At the end of the conversation he told her not to worry, he’d see that she was taken care of. Then he hung up. He grimaced as he leaned back in the plush leather swivel chair behind his desk. “That’s strange,” he said.

“Dames is always strange,” said Riggio, not looking up from his scratch sheet. He was seated on the edge of his boss’s desk. He was a wiry, lanky man with a thin Brooklyn face and thinning hair.

“You know how she managed to get away from Rooney’s boat? Hunter helped her.”

“Well, you been wondering where he’s been these past few days. Now you know.”

“He and the girl were arrested a couple days ago. Hunter got sprung this morning. Instead of having his shyster spring her too, though, he told her to kiss off and left. That’s why she’s calling me.”

“And here I thought it was your charmin’ personality.”

Ironman ignored the sarcasm. He seemed lost in thought. “You know what else she said? She doesn’t want me to have her delivered over to Hunter’s club after she’s sprung. She wants to be taken right. . . . here.” He adjusted his tie and nodded in affirmation of the significance of this.

Riggio whistled, impressed by the significance. “Why you think that is, boss?”

Ironman said nothing, and after a minute, Riggio returned to filling out his scratch sheet, penciling in the bets he planned to make at the horse races. He was used to being ignored. Ironman leaned farther back, put his feet up on the desk and began wondering about the question. Why did the girl want to come here?

Ironman Gianelli was not a dumb man, though he sometimes made it appear that he was when it was to his advantage. He controlled a good portion of the most profitable underworld activities in Chicago. He had worked his way up from being a subordinate to another gangster—Paul “the Gunner” Rasmusson—to eventually controlling all of Rasmusson’s activities, and more. The means by which he had accomplished all this was simple: He had killed the notorious Paul Rasmusson. Then he killed the only other subordinate who could compete with him in inheriting Rasmusson’s organization. For six years now he had had an iron grip on his territory in Chicago. He was recognized as the nation’s foremost gangster, though the authorities could prove nothing against him.

There were many reasons for his success, but one main one was that he chose his own assistants very carefully. He wanted them to be tough enough to get their jobs done, but not so tough as to think about doing what he himself had done: killing the boss and taking his place.

There were three main lieutenants working for him, one for each major area of his operation. Of the three, Dallas Hunter, head of gambling, was the brightest. This bothered Ironman. He distrusted brains. But Hunter had several advantages going for him, like being very polished and a good administrator. These were necessary traits in the manager of a successful casino. You almost had to be as much of a diplomat and good businessman as any ordinary, law-abiding businessman.

Hunter was tough, too, but not vicious like some of the others. He had been highly recommended to Ironman by other gangsters whom Hunter had dealt with when he had been a bootlegger, and Ironman had personally dealt with him at that time too. The man was resourceful, daring, and he had a sense of style. In the year that he had been working for Ironman, there had been no problems at all.

Until now.

Ironman pulled open a drawer of his desk and withdrew a long thick cigar from a box within. He lit it and puffed on it thoughtfully. Hunter had disobeyed his orders. It was the first time as far as Ironman could tell. He had gone to rescue the girl, even though Ironman had told him not to. So what was Ironman going to do about it? Probably nothing. It only meant that Hunter was a sap for a beautiful dame. Well, not just any dame, but this particular one. Ironman had to admit that she really was something special.

But now—and here was the part that made him wary and distrustful—now he was giving up his interest in the girl. And after he’d gone to all that trouble to rescue her. Why? Ironman sensed something very fishy, and he made up his mind to find out what the truth of the situation was. He also wanted to know why the girl was interested in himself all of a sudden.

Ironman didn’t deceive himself about his attractiveness to the opposite sex. He wasn’t very attractive to them, and that was all there was to it. He didn’t kid himself. But on the telephone this Kristin dame had hinted around that she was interested in staying with Ironman for a while, instead of going back to Hunter. Was it the power he wielded that attracted her? His wealth? Or maybe he had just misread her intentions, imagined the wrong thing?

He’d find out. soon enough. He grinned. He had always had a fondness for the ladies. That was one of the reasons he had gone into a life of crime. Even as a kid he knew he’d never be able to have beautiful dames by his looks alone. He needed money, power, position. So he went after it. But now, getting it, he still only got floozies and the kind of dames that turned out to be molls. They weren’t a very classy bunch. This Kristin Seagrave, though, was of a different mold entirely. Ironman had seen that right from the start.

“Hey, Riggo.”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Have our shyster contact his associate in New York and get this girl sprung. And have Teal take a train down and meet her at the lockup and escort her back here.”

“What’s the matter, you don’t think she can find her own way?”

“Well. . . Ironman hesitated. “There’s still Rooney’s bunch to worry about. Teal can be her protection.” This was only a very minor concern though. Rooney probably had no idea where she was, or thought she was still on his associate’s ship. The real reason, Ironman admitted to himself, since he was not a man who was afraid to face the facts, was this: He didn’t want to take any chances with the girl not coming. He wanted her. And it looked like he would have her. He smiled a crooked smile as he tapped the cigar ash into his carved ivory ashtray.

Kristin sat in the luxury of a private, first-class cabin on the train and gazed at the man sitting across from her. The man, Arthur Teal, was reading a copy of Life magazine. On the cover was a cartoon caricatu

re by John Held, Jr., of a flapper doing the Charleston, the newest dance craze. Teal was smiling at what he was reading, but it was a weasel’s smile. The man looked tough, sly and savage.

Kristin looked out the window at the industrial area they were passing through. A factory loomed off in the distance. Then suddenly they were past, and it receded quickly in the distance. The train jolted her about in the seat and made a metallic clanging noise as it sped along the rails.

Teal glanced up at her from his magazine. “We’re almost there. We’ll be pulling into Grand Central Station in a few minutes. Bet you’ll be glad to get back to the big city after spending all those days in that lockup.”

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