Page 57 of Passion's Wicked Torment

CHAPTER 30

Ironman Gianelli was in his New York office the next day, worriedly pacing back and forth in giant strides. He had earlier learned from an informer that Treasury agents were on the verge of raiding his Char now Avenue warehouse to confiscate his records. That could be disastrous, he knew. The records were accounts of various ends of his operations, and many of them were in Kristin’s handwriting. They included detailed figures regarding income and profit.

Ironman wished he had never committed those damn figures to ink and paper, and especially not by letting Kristin do it for him. But hell, how could you run a business without keeping records? And bootlegging, gambling, numbers, prostitution—they were businesses just like any other. Ironman prided himself on running his scams with peak efficiency to turn the greatest profit. He couldn’t have done that without accurate records to check over. And how could he know Kristin would be in a position to turn informer on him? That she was Chad Fleming’s sister?

But all that was secondary. The main thing was, how could he ever have imagined the feds would come up with this horrible new idea on how to bust him? This income tax evasion rap? Why, it was positively un-American! He was so incensed that he shouted out loud, to himself as much as to Riggio over on the couch, “It ain’t fair! It ain’t fair, damn it! Where do they get off with this income tax evasion bull?”

Riggio shook his head sympathetically. “You can’t trust the government, boss. I been saying that for years. They’re sneaky. They got no principles.”

“But, aside from that. I mean, why, it’s never been done before! No hood ever got busted on a charge like that. Bugsy Moran didn’t. Dutch Shultz didn’t. Why me all of a sudden?”

“They’re sneaky devils, boss. I’m telling you.” Ironman slammed his beefy fist down on his desk top in frustration. “If only the boys I sent to Paris had got that Kristy dame. Then there’d be no problem. Those ledgers are useless to them without her around to testify that it was me who gave her the figures, and that the figures were profits from my operations. Without her, I’d be home free.”

“The boys just missed her,” said Riggio. He inspected his knuckles as he lay on the couch, his feet up on the armrest. “They got to Paris, then to Belgium just after Hunter came to take her back and hide her away somewhere.”

Ironman slammed his fist on the desk top again. “That rotten Dallas Hunter! He was working for the feds all the time. That’s why he went to get Kristin, so she’d be safe and could testify against me. That son of a . . . He was the one I was looking for all the time, the one whose name that reporter wouldn’t give me. I’d like to have just two minutes alone with him in a dark alley.”

“With a forty-five in your hand,” counseled Riggio. Ironman turned on him. “What? You don’t think I can take him barehanded. Is that what you’re saying?” “Not me, boss. I think you can take ten Dallas Hunters barehanded.”

Ironman snorted. “All right, with a forty-five, then. That’s one dark alley he wouldn’t leave alive.”

“Boss, everything’s not lost yet. Look on the bright side.” He felt the withering, piercing glare Ironman focused on him, and quickly he added, trying to make himself clearer, “What I mean is, the boys are still on the lookout for Kristin. They may find her. Then they’ll do her in, and you won’t have to worry about those ledgers. No testimony from her, no conviction on any of these sneaky pete tax evasion raps.”

“The boys have done nothing but flub up every chance they had with her. No one knows where she is now! She’ll stay under cover until they drag me into court. No, there’s no chance to get her.” He cocked his head and frowned in wistful contemplation. “Boy, what I wouldn’t give to get her.”

Riggio watched as Ironman went to the cabinet and poured himself a stiff shot of the finest Scotch and drank it down in a swallow. “So, uh, what do we do now, boss?”

Ironman grimaced against the bite of the alcohol. His voice was ragged from it. “We go to the warehouse and get those records before the feds break in tomorrow morning. And we bum them.

“But you don’t want to be seen anywhere near those records. You said so. If they put the bite on you before you torch them, well, it’s all she wrote.” He paused, then suggested offhandedly, “Why don’t you send me to bum them?”

“You don’t have the combination to the safe.”

“You could give it to me.”

Ironman looked at him with piercing suspiciousness.

“Aw, come on, boss, you can trust me! Don’t tell me you don’t trust old Riggio?” He was truly insulted. They had been together for over 15 years, ever since Ironman had first come to Chicago to join the Rasmusson mob.

Ironman knew he was being irrational. Deep down he knew he could trust Riggio. But his paranoia about losing the bulk of his illicit earnings, which were in the safe, in case, prevented him from letting Riggio, or anyone else, go in his place. He had never divulged the combination of that safe to anyone, and he didn’t intend to do so now.

“Listen, I trust you, Riggio. We been together a long time, right? But, you see, I’m the only one who knows which ledgers to bum and which to leave alone. And besides, if you went to just gather up everything and bring it back to me, that’s even more dangerous than me going down there. They’ll try to grab you in transit with the ledgers. And they can prove you’re my courier. Naw, better for me to be standing right there with a torch ready the instant the safe’s open. I’ll pull the records that are incriminating, and they’ll be smoke and ashes within minutes.”

“So you’re really going down there, huh?”

“You got any better ideas?”

Riggio thought for a moment, then shrugged and shook his head. Ironman poured himself another drink and sat down with it at his desk. Then he began talking, giving his instructions on who he wanted to accompany him, and when they would enter the warehouse, and how they would try to make the trip in secret, so their arrival time co

uldn’t be anticipated.

Everything was set. A few minutes later the two men who were to go with them arrived in their car. Ironman and Riggio put on their shoulder holsters and coats and were on their way out the door when the telephone rang.

Ironman looked at it, debating whether to answer it. On an impulse he came back into the room and lifted the receiver. “Yeah?” His face became animated. He listened intently. He began smiling. It was a sadistic smile that made Riggio wonder what in the world his boss was hearing over that telephone line.

Ironman nodded a few times and said into the phone, “Sure . . . sure . . . twenty grand? Doll, it’s easily worth that to me if it’ll keep your mouth shut . . . Right . . . three in the morning. Right. I’ll be there.” Ironman hung up. He leaned back against the edge of the desk and broke up laughing.

“What is it?” Riggio asked. “What happened?” Ironman just kept laughing. “Come on, boss. I’m dying of suspense. Who was that? Huh?”

Ironman slapped him on the back. “Riggio,” he said, still smiling grandly, “tell the boys in the car to forget all about it. We’re not going to any warehouse and risk our necks.”

“We ain’t?”

Ironman shook his head. He pulled out his revolver and inspected the chamber. “That was our dear lady friend, Kristin. She doesn’t want to testify after all, she tells me. All she wants is twenty grand to buy her silence. Delivered by me personally.”

“You ain’t going to give it to her?”

“Sure I am.” He closed the chamber of the gun and snapped it cleanly into his shoulder holster. “Twenty grand worth of hot lead. Right between them bee-ooo-tiful eyes of hers.” He threw his head back and began laughing uproariously. His contorted face looked demonic.

Dallas Hunter, who was hiding behind crates of bootleg liquor at Ironman’s warehouse, checked his watch irritably. His gun was in his hand. He was dressed in the operational assault outfit he favored most: black leather jacket, black trousers and sweater. He glanced at Rogers, next to him, who was looking very uncomfortable.

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