I climbed out of bed at 9:15 on Sunday morning, having formulated a plan of sorts, nothing elaborate. Looking down onto Clark Street from my living room, I spotted the tail car, a black Dodge this time. Given the man-hours they were putting in, the organization placed a ton of faith in my detecting abilities — far more than I did myself. Once again, I had to wonder how smart they were, collectively. And although they had indeed been patient until now, I didn’t need some oversized, pea-brained wheelman to tell me that their patience was wearing thin.
I could have brought in the cops any time during the last few weeks, of course, and had them knock out the surveillance. But the respite would only have been temporary... although I was a police reporter and as such unofficially entitled to protection beyond that received by the average citizen, the boys who wore brass buttons on their uniforms were not about to keep watch indefinitely. You could bet the farm that as soon as the prowl cars pulled back, the fedora-lids would return, watching and waiting. And there was another good reason for not calling in the law: They would want to know just why the mob was so interested in me, and for now I wanted to pursue the Martindale case alone and unfettered, and unquestioned by the police.
I strangled the juice out of a half grapefruit, then slurped two bowls of Rice Krispies with brown sugar and three cups of coffee at the kitchen table while reading the Trib and the Examiner, which I had begun subscribing to on Sundays. The line story on both papers was the death in a Paris subway station of old Sam Insull, who had been the grand poohbah of the public utilities in Chicago and across the whole of the Middle West until his electric empire came crashing down around him during the Depression. Sam skedaddled to Greece in the early ’30s to avoid all kinds of investigations, and damned if he wasn’t acquitted when they finally did have a trial in ’35. The public, many of whom lost their shirts on his stocks, never acquitted him, though, and he was smart enough to spend the rest of his life on the far side of the Atlantic.
The Examiner, which like every Hearst paper was big on celebrity news, also had fun with the ongoing hit-and-miss romance between Hollywood’s Katharine Hepburn and Howard Hughes, the big-bucks aviator who had been setting all sorts of speed records in his souped-up aeroplane. The two were good at avoiding reporters, though, as both a news story and Damon Runyon’s smart-alecky column reported with undertones of frustration.
I dumped my dishes in the sink and put on a white shirt and my newest summer suit, a light gray herringbone. After giving the hairbrush a workout and straightening my maroon-and-gray striped tie, I contemplated my image in the bathroom mirror. Despite the slight bruise on my right cheek where I’d gotten belted the day before, I looked respectable enough to be heading for Mass, which in fact I was.
Walking along Clark from my building, I kept my eyes straight ahead, paying no heed to the Dodge at curbside. I heard its motor start and knew that it had to be crawling along several yards behind me, which was fine. Standing as though I didn’t have a care in the world, I turned east on Belmont and assumed the Dodge did as well. Both auto and pedestrian traffic increased as I neared Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. It was the 11 o’clock Mass crowd.
I had been in the church only once before, for the funeral of a Tribune reporter about a half dozen years earlier, but I had a clear recollection of the layout. Not looking back, I joined the crowd of worshipers shuffling through the double doors, dipped my hand in the holy water from the font, and genuflected. I then made for the far right aisle and briskly moved toward the front of the sanctuary. I finally did risk a peek back, and only then from behind a knot of people pushing toward the pews. I saw no one who looked like a hoodlum, so I walked to the front of the nave and out through a door to the right of the altar. I found myself in a small, windowless room with three straight-backed wooden chairs, on one of which sat a young, dark-haired priest in his vestments who was praying aloud.
“Yes?” He looked up, startled, his eyes magnified by horned-rim glasses with thick lenses.
“This the way out?” I muttered, trying to look befuddled and probably succeeding.
“Uh, yes... that is... if you want the alley?” he said, blinking and gesturing vaguely down a hallway. I thanked him and within seconds found myself in the alley that ran behind the church. No sign of the Dodge or of anybody following me. I turned west and eventually hailed a southbound Checker on Halsted. All the way downtown, I kept watch out the rear window — this was getting to be a habit. The cabbie didn’t remark on it, although he gave me a questioning look when we pulled up in front of the LaSalle Street Station. “It’s okay,” I told him with a grin. “I’m only wanted for bookmaking and bunko, nothing rough like armed robbery or, heaven forbid, murder. Hell, I’m not even packing a rod.”
Leaving him with a quarter tip and an open mouth, I went into the depot. Given the Sunday schedules, I had to wait almost an hour for a Rock Island local. As on my previous trip to Beverly Hills on this line, I was one of just a handful of passengers in my sooty coach. Stepping off the train into the sunlight at 103rd Street, I followed the route from my earlier visit except that once I reached Longwood Drive, my destination was not Edna Warburton’s house but rather the massive brick-and-stone Victorian pile with all its chimneys that sat haughtily on a rise on the opposite side of the street.
I climbed the brick stairway cut into the embankment and marched up to an oaken door with leaded glass that was recessed in an archway on the front porch. I pushed the doorbell and heard chimes within. I waited a decent interval, then made the chimes sound again. This time, the thick door swung silently inward, revealing a broad-shouldered, somewhat hunched-over figure in a dark suit standing in the dark-paneled foyer. His oddly handsome triangular face, tapering to a pointed cleft chin, was without expression. “Yes?”
“Hello,” I said cheerfully. “My name is Stephen Malek, from the Tribune.” I held out my press card. “I apologize for not calling in advance. I am writing a long feature article for the newspaper saluting Lloyd Martindale for his accomplishments, and I would like very much to talk to his mother for a few minutes. I promise not to take too much of her time.”
He frowned as he studied my card, then inhaled to speak when the shaky, querulous voice of a woman came from somewhere within. “Who is there, Preston?”
“Excuse me, sir,” he said frostily, closing the door in my face. Either I had been dismissed or the dour Preston was receiving instructions, presumably from Mrs. Martindale, on how to deal with me. Ever the optimist, I waited, hat in hand. No more than a minute had elapsed when the door opened and the butler, if that was his role, reappeared.
“Sir, Mrs. Martindale regrets that she is indisposed and is unable to see you,” he pronounced in a precise, well-modulated radio announcer-type tone that was as emotionless as his face was expressionless.
I nodded. “I certainly understand, of course, my coming on the spur-of-the-moment as I did. I should have made an appointment, sorry. Well, I would like to make one now — at Mrs. Martindale’s convenience, of course.”
Preston cocked his head and emitted a practiced throat-clearing sound, which they must teach in butler’s school. “Sir, if you will permit me to be more specific: Mrs. Martindale is permanently indisposed. She is unable to see you at any time whatever.”
“But, I—”
“Good day, sir,” he said with the slightest of bows, his crisp tone contradicting his words as he closed the door with no further pretense of politeness.