“Yeah,” I growled.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Sergeant,” the desk man said, “but you got a funny message just now.”
“Funny ha-ha or funny weird?”
“You tell me. He said, ‘Tell Bannon that Sidney called. Tell him I said since we’re going to be partners, we should talk.’ Does that make any sense?”
“Yeah. And it’s definitely not funny. That son of a bitch. What’s the number?”
He told me and I thanked him, disconnected, and dialed the number he had given me.
“Who was that?” Millie asked.
“The desk man. The biggest shyster in the state is smirking at me.”
Sidney answered. His soft, oily voice said, “Is that you, Zeke?”
“It’s Sergeant Bannon to you, Schyler, and today’s my day off.”
“So sorry to bother you,” he said with a leer in his voice. “I wanted to check in since we’re working on Riker’s release together, in a manner of speaking.”
It’s hard acting tough when Millicent Harrington is sitting two feet away, stark naked and smiling at you.
“In a manner of speaking, my ass,” I said, trying to put a snarl in my voice. “I want you to listen real carefully, Sidney. I am not working with you on Riker’s release. I’m not working with you on the March of Dimes or the USO or anything else. Not if the Panama Canal freezes over.”
“I’m trying to be nice. I can call a press conference in an hour and lay the whole story out.”
“No, you can’t, Sidney. All you got is a jailbird doing time for murder one. He’s been crying ‘Foul!’ for twenty years. Nobody believes him anymore. It’ll be the joke of the week. You have Riker’s daydream and that’s all you have. You want to stick your neck out? Go ahead. Otherwise sit there and count your toes until I tell you otherwise.”
“Always the tough guy,” Schyler said with a chuckle. “You will let me know, won’t you?”
“I’ll let my boss know. You want a statement, get it from him. See you around the courthouse.” And I hung up.
“You’re in the middle of the maelstrom,” she said, obviously enjoying the action.
“If that means I’m in over my head, you’re probably right. Well, the hell with them all. Damn it, it’s my day off.”
She moved the tray over and crawled up over me, one leg on each side, and sat down. She reached over and took the phone off the hook and put the receiver under a pillow and looked down at me.
“We don’t have to get dressed today, do we?” she purred.
“Not unless the joint catches fire,” I answered.
CHAPTER 34
The attorney general’s hearing was held in an assembly room on the third floor of the city courthouse usually reserved for public meetings of the council. There was a large table at one end of the room with six chairs behind it, the seats of the mighty. There were two smaller tables facing the inquisitors, one on each side of the center aisle, a railing behind the tables, and six rows of pews on each side of the aisle for the common people.
The room had fewer than twenty people in it.
The inquiry was closed to the public and the press since it was an advisory hearing, a rare tribunal called by the governor. A gag order concerning evidence was in effect. The attorney general and two men, nominated by the A.G. and appointed by the governor, presided over the hearing. They would listen to the evidence and vote on the issue. The attorney general would then report the findings and recommendations directly to the governor, who would make the final decision. Then the record of the hearing would be made public.
Moriarity, Art Cannon-the city D.A.-Bones, and Dr. Tyler were seated at the table to the right, inside the rail. I was sitting behind them in the first pew when, about ten minutes before ten on Wednesday morning, Sidney Schyler entered with Arnold Riker, who was handcuffed to Harvey Craddock, the Wesco guard captain. Riker was dressed in a dark blue suit, white shirt, and a silk tie, probably courtesy of Schyler. If the objective was to make Riker socially acceptable, it didn’t work. There was a feral aura about the man that a new suit and white shirt couldn’t camouflage. Once a killer, always a killer.
When he saw me, Riker’s lip curled into a mean smile. Then he winked at me and mouthed the words “Hi, partner.”
He was enjoying his hour.
It did not go unnoticed by Cannon, a short, trim man with black hair parted down the middle and a wire mustache. He was fifty-two. He motioned to me and I leaned over the railing. “Don’t let him rile you, Bannon,” he said. “Everybody knows what he is, no matter what happens here today,”
“If he refers to me as his ‘partner’ one more time,” I said, “I’m going to throw the son of a bitch out the window.” I leaned back in my seat.
Sidney Schyler was a dandy. His thin blond hair was carefully distributed over his scalp in an attempt to cover a growing bald spot. He wore pince-nez, a yellow linen suit with a wide red check, and a vest with a watch chain that arced from one side of a growing paunch to the other. He spoke in a soft, unctuous voice, with a smile that was more of a smirk. But from everything I knew about him, he was scrupulously honest and one tough lawyer. He had been true to his promise. First thing Monday morning, while Bones and Tyler were working on the case, Schyler had called a press conference and announced that he had undeniable proof that Arnold Riker did not murder Wilma Thompson. He had requested an immediate governor’s hearing, at which he would demand that Riker be exonerated of the crime and released on the spot. He got his request for the hearing, and a gag order pertaining to all evidence in the case was issued by a state judge. Par for the course.
Pennington, of course, jumped all over me for not tipping him off.
Schyler and Riker sat at the table on the opposite side of the aisle from our side. Craddock took the cuffs off Riker and sat him down in the chair with a firm shove on the shoulder. He went behind the railing and sat directly behind Riker, with a. 38 revolver in his lap, covered by his fedora. I liked Craddock. He was all business.
At exactly 10:00, the governor’s representatives arrived. They entered the room single file. These were the power boys. First was Alan Templeton, a pretty-boy, six-two, steel gray hair, a three-hundred- dollar tailor-made suit, a jaw squarer than Dick Tracy’s, and the morals of an alley cat. The ladies loved him. Three times attorney general, he could run forever and never lose. Behind him was Mike Butcher, a lean man with leathery skin and small, hooded eyes-state director of correctional facilities, former San Francisco chief of police, and onetime warden of San Quentin, who had weathered two investigations into brutality and inhumane conditions in the state prison system. The last one in was State Supreme Court Judge Thomas Levy, a little man with puffy hands, thick lips, and a face blotched with liver spots. Levy had been one of California’s most feared hanging judges until appointed to the high court when he was two years past retirement age.
They sat at the table facing the room, with Templeton in the middle.
“Gentlemen,” Templeton began, rapping his gavel for order, “this is a hearing to determine whether the woman known as Verna Hicks Wilensky, recently deceased, and the late Wilma Thompson, are, in fact, one and the same person. We are not concerned with facts regarding Mr. Riker’s trial. If there were crimes committed against Mr. Riker or violations of the law, they will be brought before a grand jury and handled in the prescribed manner.
“We are aware that Mr. Riker was convicted of the felony murder of Miss Wilma Thompson. We are not interested in Mr. Riker’s background prior to his arrest. We are not interested in any facts involving that trial. We are not interested in how Mrs. Wilensky died. We are only interested in the writ presented to this body by attorney Sidney Schyler, to wit: “That Mr. Riker has been wrongfully confined in state prisons for the past nineteen years for the murder of Wilma Thompson; that Miss Thompson was not the victim of a homicide in 1922, but instead she changed her name to Verna Hicks, moved to L.A. in 1924, married Frank Wilensky, and has lived here ever since, until her death ten days ago; that you, Mr. Schyler, will present physical evidence proving that the late Mrs. Wilensky was, in fact, Miss Thompson; that therefore Mr. Riker should be released forthwith from confinement in Wesco State Prison; and that the findings of the court in 1922 be vacated. Are these conditions true and acceptable to you, Mr. Schyler?”
