retching naked boy friend, I said to the girl, “Turn on the light and put on your clothes.”
She nodded dutifully and did as she was told. In the glow of a nightstand lamp, I caught glimpses of her white, well-formed body as she stepped into her step-ins; but you know what? She didn’t do a thing for me.
“Is Berry here?” I asked Rooney. “Or Arnold?”
“N…no,” he managed.
“If you’re lying,” I said, “I’ll kill you.”
The girl said shrilly, “They aren’t here!”
“You can put your clothes on, too,” I told Rooney. “If you have another gun hidden somewhere, do me a favor. Make a play for it.”
His hooded eyes flared. “Who the hell are you?”
“The private cop you
He lowered his gaze. “Oh.”
The girl was sitting on the bed, weeping; body heaving.
“Take it easy on her, will you?” he said, zipping his fly. “She’s just a kid.”
I was opening a window to ease the stench of his vomit. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll say kaddish for her.”
I handcuffed the lovebirds to the bed and called the local law; they in turn called the State Prosecutor’s office in Chicago, and Sergeants Pribyl and Gray made the long drive up the next day to pick up the pair.
It seemed the two cops had already caught Henry Berry-a tipster gave them the West Chicago Avenue address of a second-floor room he was holed up in.
I admitted to Pribyl that I’d been wrong about Tubbo tipping off Rooney and the rest about the raid.
“I figure Rooney lammed out of sheer panic,” I said, “the morning after the murder.”
Pribyl saw it the same way.
The following March, Pribyl arrested Herbert Arnold running a northside handbill distributing agency.
Rooney, Berry and Rosalie Rizzo were all convicted of murder; the two men got life, and the girl twenty years. Arnold hadn’t been part of the kill-happy joyride that took Stanley Gross’ young life, and got only one to five for conspiracy and extortion.
None of it brought Stanley Gross back, nor did my putting on a beanie and sitting with the Gross family, suffering through a couple of stints at a storefront synagogue on Roosevelt Road.
But it did get Barney off my ass.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While Nathan Heller is a fictional character, this story is based on a real case-names have not been changed, and the events are fundamentally true; source material included an article by John J. McPhaul and information provided by my research associate, George Hagenauer, who I thank for his insights and suggestions on this story and all the others in this collection.
THE BLONDE TIGRESS
August 1933 in Chicago was surprisingly cool, unless you were a crook, in which case it was hotter than usual. We were suffering through one of those periodic anti-crime drives the city subjected itself to now and then, and since the Capone/Nitti Outfit got a free pass on its fun and games, small fry like the Blonde Tigress and her “mob” (two male accomplices) got the brunt.
Did the Blonde Tigress have a damn thing to do with the policeman who got himself shot in a Cook County courtroom? No. She and her gang of two merely got caught up in the over-reaction when the Honorable John Prystalski, the county’s chief judge, ored all the other judges back from summer vacation to work through the jammed-up docket. Two-hundred-thirty-five defendants got the book thrown at them that August, including three death sentences.
And that was
In my big under-furnished one-room office on Van Buren, I sat at my desk, working on a pile of retail-credit checks, with the window open behind me to let in a cool morning breeze and the occasional rumble of the El.
I tried to let the phone ring five times before answering, but was short enough on clients to settle for three. “A-1 Detective Agency,” I said. “Nathan Heller speaking.”
“Nate, Sam Backus.”
My hopes sank. Backus-small, nervous, with ferret features-was with the Public Defender’s Office, which made him the kind of criminal attorney who couldn’t afford my help.
“Hiya, Sam. Any of your clients get a ticket for the hot squat today?”
“No, but the day’s young. Listen, I got the Tigress.”
I sat up. “What?”
“You heard me. Eleanor Jarman is my client.”
All summer, the Blonde Tigress case had been plastered across the front pages, and the radio was all over it, too. The so-called Blonde Tigress-a good-looking lady bandit with “tawny hair” and a “voluptuous figure”-had led her two-man mob on a series of stickups all around the West and Northwest sides. The Tigress was said to carry a big revolver in her purse and a blackjack, too, one of her male accomplices using the gun, the Tigress adept with the jack. The usual target was the small merchant, grocery stores and other shops, the robbery victims often roughed up for intimidation or maybe just the hell of it.
After the August 4 hold-up of a clothing shop near Oak Park-and the murder of its seventy-year-old proprietor-sometime waitress Eleanor Jarman, her live-in guy George Dale, and Dale’s ex-fighter buddy Leo Minneci had been identified as the perpetrators and brought in by two top Detective Bureau dicks.
“Well, she’s guilty as sin, isn’t she?” I asked him cheerfully. “Maybe you can arrange for her to sit on her boyfriend’s lap when they fry him, and save the state on its electricity bill.”
“Nate, I think she’s being railroaded. These characters Dale and Minneci are stick-up guys, sure, and there’s no doubt Dale pulled the trigger on the old boy. But Eleanor’s just the girl friend. Wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Are they being tried separately?”
“No, but each has separate representation from the Public Defender’s office.”
I was shaking my head. “If she’s innocent in this, why was she charged? Didn’t Tuohy and Glass make the arrest? They’re as close to real detectives as the police department gets.”
“Nate, you know about this clean-up and crackdown campaign that’s going on. When did you ever hear of somebody getting arrested for murder in this town and then have the trial go on the same damn month?”
“Okay, you stumped me. But I-”
“Think it through, Nate. This is about the papers looking for a hot story, and what’s better than a sexy baby leading her ‘gang’ on a bunch of robberies?”
I shifted in my chair. “Listen, I don’t care if she’s guilty or not guilty. I’d be glad to work for you, Sam, if you were a real criminal lawyer with some scratch to spend.”
“That’s the good part about all this press nonsense, Nate. Think about the publicity! There’s no bigger story right now.”
“Then I’m right-there
“Actually, pal, there is.”
That got my attention, but I said, “Don’t call me ‘pal.’ Makes me nervous. When do I ever see you, Sam, when we aren’t in a courtroom?”
“Nate, if you take this case, you can peddle your story to one of the papers afterwards, with my blessing. And I’ve got a true detective magazine that’ll pay even better. That’ll beat any of your five-dollar-a-day action, any time.”
“That’s ten and expenses, and what do you have in mind?”
“Just meet with my client. See if she doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.”
