Death Sentence Read Online Free Page B

chit. “My daughter’s boy friend lives on Howard Street. I guess you wouldn’t know the area. Anyway a few months ago the city in its wisdom put up no-parking signs there, and Chet had to find overnight parking on the side streets after that. Within a month his car had been stripped twice. Recently the council passed an ordinance to repeal the no-parking restrictions out there, but what the hell kind of solution to a problem is that? I suppose our troubles won’t come as any surprise to you but I’d be kidding if I said we didn’t have a hell of a crime problem in Chicago. A thousand murders—most of them never solved. It’s no promised land.”
    Paul didn’t want to be drawn into speculations about the Crime Problem. The best way to avoid being betrayed by a slip of the tongue was to say nothing at all.
    Spalter talked on. He darted from topic to topic and sometimes there were no discernible connectives. He wasn’t a stream-of-consciousness talker; he was being dutifully—and good-naturedly—helpful, telling Paul things he thought a newcomer ought to know. Paul was grateful when the subject moved away from crime.
    He tried to put some show of interest on his face; he was finding it hard to keep his attention on Spalter’s pointers about the firm’s internal politics. There was useful data in Spalter’s anecdotes about office feuds and jealousies, his throwaway character sketches, his quick run-down on the companies for which Childress Associates regularly did audits. It would be important for Paul to familiarize himself with these oddments. He intended to do good work at Childress: he’d always taken pride in his abilities but now there was something else—he couldn’t risk drawing attention to himself by displaying any sudden deterioration in the professional capabilities for which he was known. It would require more effort than before because the job was no longer the center of his life; now it was merely a source of income and a camouflage for the appeasement of his private demons.
    After lunch they had left the club and Spalter, burly in his topcoat, had ridden with Paul as far as the hotel. Paul had declined Spalter’s dinner invitation, pleading tiredness after his flight. When Spalter was gone he had crossed the street and prowled the arcade of the John Hancock complex until he found a magazine shop where he bought Chicago maps and guidebooks and all three local newspapers and a New York Times which had a page 40 column about the police department’s continuing unsuccessful search for the vigilante who had used the same revolver, according to ballistics reports, to kill seventeen people in the streets of New York over a five-week span. Of the seventeen victims of his retributive vengeance, fourteen had criminal records and two others had been found dead with stolen property on or near their bodies. It was possible he had saved a score of innocent lives.
    In his hotel room he had found a printed card from the management:
    We urge your use of the Safety Deposit Vaults available at no charge at the Front Office. Please DO NOT leave furs, jewelry, cameras, money or ANY VALUABLES in your room. Illinois State laws relieve the hotel from liability for loss, excepting when valuables have been properly placed in a safety deposit vault.…Please use the DOUBLE LOCKS on your guest room door. We wish you a most enjoyable stay.
    That night he’d slept with his wallet inside his pillowcase.

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    Â¶ CHICAGO, DEC. 17TH —The bodies of two men, shot to death, were found early this morning on the sidewalk in the 2000 block on North Mohawk.
    Discovery of the homicide victims was reported to the police by Philip Frank, 43, a passing motorist.
    A police spokesman identified the dead men as Edward A. Smith, 23, of 1901 Washtenaw, and Leroy Thompson, 22, address uncertain. According to the police, both men had criminal records for assault and