The vigilante—whose existence is still disputed in some official circles—has been accused of at least eight killings in Chicago in the past week, all of them involving the deaths of convicted or suspected felons. If the three .45 caliber homicides can be linked to the eight committed with a .38 caliber revolver, it will raise the vigilante’s death toll to eleven.
Captain Victor Mastro, in a telephone interview last night, said, “Eleven homicides in a week isn’t unusual for Chicago, unfortunately. Sometimes we have eleven in a single day. But if all of these have indeed been committed by one man, then it’s not too strong a statement to say we’ve got a one-man murder wave on our hands. We’re doing everything in our power to locate and arrest whoever is responsible for these killings, whether it’s one man or half a dozen.”
Captain Mastro, of the Homicide Division, is in charge of the vigilante case. His closing remark may have been in reference to several heated statements made lately by members of civil rights organizations, religious leaders, spokesmen for community groups, and two members of the Chicago Crime Commission, one of whom, Vincent Rosselli, spoke up in a County Council meeting on Tuesday, demanding “an end to vigilante terrorism in the streets of Chicago.”
16
HE MET HER for cocktails at the Blackstone; she was at a table reading a newspaper. She was in her working clothes—the orange tweed suit he’d seen before. “How’d your exploring go today?”
“I did a couple of museums,” he said. “No point driving around in this blizzard.”
“Have you seen the papers?”
“Yes.”
She put a fingernail on the vigilante headline. “It’s got the machine in a real uproar.”
“I imagine it would.” He contrived to make his voice casual. “Do you want another one of those?”
“Not just yet.”
He ordered scotch and water. The waitress repeated the words in a heavy French accent and went away wiggling the tail of her bunny costume.
“I spent half the day in the Museum of Science and Industry. You could get lost in that place.” He’d been looking for muggers in the dark corridors where they liked to prey on wandering teen-agers and old women.
“I keep wondering if it isn’t one of our esteemed mayor’s crazy stunts.”
“What’s that?”
“The vigilante,” she said. “It could be a cop, you know.”
“I suppose it could be.”
“Or the whole thing might be a phony. Suppose it’s something they’ve cooked up in the crime lab? The victims could have been shot by eleven different guns, for all we know—we’ve only got the crime lab’s word for it that there are only two guns involved. Suppose every time they find a dead man with a criminal record, they pin it on the vigilante?”
“Why would they do that?”
“Mastro was in court today to testify in a case. He told me—”
“Who?”
“Vic Mastro. He’s a police captain, they’ve put him in charge of the vigilante case.”
“Oh that’s right,” he said vaguely. “I knew I’d seen the name somewhere.”
“Mastro said something interesting. You know cops, they’ve got an interstate grapevine like everybody else. He’s got a friend on the force in New York. They’re still blaming murders on the vigilante there.”
“Yes, I know. They haven’t caught him yet.”
“He’s been blamed for three killings in the past two weeks in Manhattan. Mastro thinks they’re phonies. All three were shot by different guns. But the police are keeping the vigilante alive.”
“You mean he’s dead?”
“Nobody knows. But as long as the vigilante gets publicity, the crime rate stays down.”
“Is it really down? There was a lot of debate about that when I was still in New York. The police and the mayor’s office denied there’d been much change.”
“They had to. Otherwise they’d be admitting the vigilante was accomplishing what their own police department couldn’t accomplish. The fact is, street crimes were off almost fifty percent for a while. They’ve started to climb again, but it’s still far below the record rate. Mastro insists they’re keeping the vigilante myth going for that reason.”
Paul reached for the scotch when the waitress took it off her tray. “What’s happened to the crime rate here in Chicago?”
“Down about twenty percent in the past few days.”
“Well it might be a policeman,” he said. “Or a small secret group of policemen.” He lit her cigarette for her; he’d taken to carrying matches with him. “Let’s talk about something a little less grim.”
She smiled. “I’m sorry. I’ve gotten too used to taking my work home with me. What time is the party?”
“Seven. You sure you want to go?”
“It’ll be a change from the faces I see around the courtroom.”
“They’re probably crashing bores.”
“We can always leave early.”
The car had been manufactured before the introduction of interlocks or seat-belt buzzers and she perched next to him on the middle of the seat. He was pleased and he was alarmed. There was too much conflict in his reactions to her. He had contrived to cement the acquaintance because he needed to know more than the newspapers could tell him about the official hunt for the vigilante: every item of knowledge would help him stay ahead of them. Now that he knew she was on good terms with Mastro he knew he had to go on cultivating her. At the same time he liked her and that was dangerous because he could not afford ever to relax with her.
He waited in the living room of her apartment while she changed behind the bedroom’s closed door; he sipped a drink and read about himself in the Tribune.
“That’s lovely,” he said when she appeared. Pleased, she pirouetted for him; Paul laughed at her. At the awning on the sidewalk he opened the umbrella and convoyed her to the car under it; then they were driving north in a crawling tangle of half-blind cars, wipers batting the snow.
“You’re a very careful driver.”
“I lived all my life in New York. This is the first car I’ve ever owned. I’ve had a license since I was eighteen but I’ve never particularly enjoyed driving.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re still alive.”
He had to counter the impulse to look sharply at her. She’d said it cheerfully enough; she meant nothing by it. But her eyes in repose had something near a mischievous expression and at times he had the odd feeling she was amused by him: the feeling that she could see his every thought. It was a fantasy but it unnerved him; she was a clever woman and that implied peril.
She fumbled a cigarette from her bag and dropped it and Paul nearly panicked when she began to feel around on the floor for it. Suppose her hand touched the .38 that was clipped to the springs under the seat?
She found the cigarette and punched the dashboard lighter.
“I’m not sure whether that thing works.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
The lighter clicked and she put the red end to her cigarette. “For shame. You didn’t test it before you bought the car?”
“I kicked the tires. Isn’t that enough?” Get a grip on yourself.
Childress lived on Clark Square in Evanston. The square was a park that fronted on the lake; three sides were faced by stately old houses and big trees heavy with snow arched over the street. It had a kind of decaying dignity like parts of Riverdale he’d seen.
They picked their way under the umbrella, skirting drifts and puddles. In front of the house a small car was parked. “That’s Childress’s car. Spalter told me about it.”