Death Sentence Read online

  She wasn’t drunk but she dragged her feet, very tired; she turned the corner and went out of sight into a side street and that was when the man with the pitted face made his move. The cigarette dropped into a puddle and the man walked swiftly toward the corner.

  Paul turned his collar up against the rain and went across the street, sprinting to dodge a passing car, jumping up on the curb fast enough to avoid being splashed by the tires of the next one.

  The man with the pitted face had followed the woman around the corner. Paul approached the corner quickly, pushing both hands into his coat pockets, and made the turn as if it were his own neighborhood and he knew the way home.

  The woman was a half block distant. An elderly man approached her.

  Paul stopped briefly: there was no sign of the man with the pitted face.

  He heard the elderly man speak to the woman with the dignified courtesy of inebriation: “Would you like a drink, madam?”

  The woman shook her head and walked past him; the man smiled wistfully and continued toward Paul.

  Paul went by him, moving more quickly in the woman’s wake: he was looking for the shadow which shouldn’t be there.

  He overtook the woman. No sign of another presence anywhere; had the elderly drunk scared the predator away?

  He went past the slow-moving woman and strode on, nearly a block. Here it was quite dark: the street light at the corner had burned out. It was an unusually narrow street and it had a bad feel.

  Paul went up a six-step flight into the covered entrance of a house. He stopped there in complete darkness and turned to look back.

  The woman approached with the stolid stride of weariness, umbrella-stem resting on her shoulder; the handbag dangled from her elbow, flopping against her coat.

  An entranceway behind her: an apparitious shape appeared.

  The man with the pitted face.

  He was behind the woman and she wasn’t aware of him. Paul saw him draw a knife from his pocket. The man shot the blade silently—not a switchblade; it was a gravity-action knife. He loomed behind the woman.

  Paul braced his arms against the wall, taking aim. He could hardly see the sights. It wasn’t much more than thirty feet but he didn’t want to risk hitting the woman and he withheld his fire, waiting a clear target.

  The man with the pitted face reached from behind, gripped the handbag in his free hand and brought the knife up. It sliced cleanly through the strap and he carried the handbag away in his left hand.

  The woman froze in alarm; she was turning, backing away in terror. Paul had his clear shot now and he steadied his aim.

  The old Jew materialized from nowhere: suddenly he was right behind the man with the handbag.

  Paul held his fire. The chilly sweat of fear streamed down his ribs.

  The Jew had a gun.

  “Turn around and hit the wall.”

  The man with the handbag gaped at him.

  “Move.” The Jew shoved him hard. “Police officer. You’re under arrest.” The Jew’s voice was young, strong.

  Paul saw him kick the man’s feet apart and force him against the wall in the frisk position. “Ma’am, you all right?”

  “I—yes, yes I’m fine….”

  The Jew patted the man for weapons and Paul saw him bring out the handcuffs.

  Paul pushed the Centennial back into his pocket.

  The woman began to speak: a stream of words spilling over with relief and gratitude. The Jew prodded the man with the pitted face; the three of them moved away toward the lights of the intersection, the woman clutching her handbag.

  Finally they were gone but Paul stood rooted above the steps, terrified by the memory of his paralysis. When the Jew had appeared it had taken him by surprise and he had been frozen by an alarm so abrupt it had prevented any thought of flight.

  It wasn’t the fear that disturbed him. Fear was natural. It was the loss of control. Taken by surprise, his domination of the situation destroyed, he had been powerless for that moment despite the gun in his hand.

  He went down the steps. It was something he had to sort out: he knew he was all right so long as he had control of events but he hadn’t realized how badly he could be shaken by the unexpected.

  He’d have to find a way to conquer that. Either that or make sure he was never taken by surprise again.

  10

  ¶ CHICAGO, DEC. 21ST—An Old Town police stakeout paid off last night when Joseph Crubb was arrested while allegedly in the act of snatching a woman’s purse on Oldham Place.

  Police described the arrest as the “first break” in their campaign, begun four days ago, to “corral the gang of thugs who’ve been ripping off the Old Town area.”

  A spokesman for the district squad said, “The stakeouts will continue until we’ve broken up the entire gang.”

  Suspect Crubb, 23, of 2473 W. 96th Street, will be arraigned in Criminal Court Monday morning.

  11

  THE NEIGHBORHOOD looked like a place where children grew up quickly. Anything and everything probably was for sale if you knew where to go and what name to ask for. In its midst, strangely, the Cook County Criminal Courthouse loomed opposite an expanse of vacant land.

  Behind the courthouse stood a monolith that looked like photographs he’d seen of San Quentin: high stone wall, machine-gun towers. When he turned the corner he saw the legend carved in stone above it. Cook County Jail.

  It had occurred to him there were more efficient ways of finding the predators than stalking dark streets at random. This place, the court, was the start of a natural game trail. It captured some of them but it turned others loose, and those who had been turned loose could be followed from this known starting point.

  On California Avenue he found a space and parked. He left his guns in the car because they might have metal detectors inside against attempted breakout capers. He hid the guns well and locked the car.

  A window washer’s crane loomed above the entrance like a gallows. Paul went beneath it into the pillared portico.

  People vs. Crubb—Part III. The calendar was penciled on a cork board by the information booth. Paul studied the map of the building, memorized the route and set out through stone hallways.

  The courtroom seemed as unreal and musty as a nightclub in the daytime. Motes of dust hung in motionless beams of grey that spread weakly from the high windows and seemed to be absorbed before they reached the floor. There was an insistent banging of steam radiators. A long row of people on the rear bench cowered under the cavernous mass of the courtroom, diminished to midgetry by its cruel proportions: a farmer with a scrawny grey neck; a bewildered black woman; a stubborn stubbled man in windbreaker and soft cap; a tall black man, unbreakably aloof; a narrow-faced codger with clever restless eyes; a pudgy youth with his attention fixed on his hands in his lap; a gross woman talking in an insistent whisper to the potbellied little man beside her; two teen-age youths, Latins, with slicked hair and apathetic eyes; a grizzled black overwhelmed by hopelessness.

  Lawyers sprawled in the hard pews, foolscaps spread out on the seats beside them; two or three in the front pews were twisted around in conversation with colleagues behind them. There was a conference of dark-suited men in the far corner beyond the unoccupied bench; one of the men probably was the presiding judge but Paul couldn’t single him out and he was almost surprised that there wasn’t a man in robes and powdered wig.

  The arena below the bench contained two long tables and a solitary lawyer with silver hair had taken possession of one of them; otherwise the arena, like the jury box, was empty. A queue of five or six lawyers stood patiently at the court clerk’s desk beside the bench, probably ascertaining their order of appearance in the day’s calendar of cases.

  Paul chose an inconspicuous pew and sat down behind a lean angular woman in an orange tweed suit. The sweep of her eyebrows was emphasized in dark pencil; she had a sleek tense look. She was talking to a young man. in funereal black: “Frank, it’s not good enough. I’m so
rry.”

  “You can’t renege on me. I already told him the deal was made.”

  “What exactly did you tell him?”

  “He cops a manslaughter plea, he gets five and serves three. Irene, look, the kid’s nineteen years old.”

  “It’s not the first time he’s been nailed with a knife in his hand. This time it was covered with the blood of a seventy-four-year-old woman.”

  “She didn’t die from the stabbing. She had a coronary.”

  “The coronary was brought on by the assault. Look up your felony murder law again, Frank. The boy goes up on first degree, I’m sorry.”

  “You can’t just …”

  “I told you before, you know. You just didn’t listen. You jumped to conclusions, you assumed …”

  “What does Pierce say about it?”

  “Ask him.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “He always backs up his assistants. He’ll throw you out of the office if you bleat about it.”

  “What’s got you so hot about this one? Would you feel the same way about this case if the victim had been a man?”

  “I won’t dignify that with an answer.”

  “I’ll have to file for a continuance. We’re not ready to go to trial.”

  “Take all the time you want. Nobody wants to railroad him.”

  “What is it about this kid?”

  “He was on my calendar fourteen months ago and I let his lawyer bargain me down to a reduced charge and an SS. The kid went back on the street, and finally he got caught for killing Mrs. Jackquist, but how many others did he stick that knife in before he got caught?”

  “You mean you’re feeling guilty because you bargained the plea a year ago? For Pete’s sake….”

  “If I’d gone to trial he’d still be in the slammer right now. Mrs. Jackquist would be alive. Think about that, Frank.”

  “If every prosecutor felt that way there’d be a waiting line of greybeards on the trial calendar for twenty years.”

  “Frank,” he was pulling the knife out of her when the cop arrested him. There were two witnesses in that hallway who knew the kid personally. There’s no chance of eyewitness error. Your client’s a vicious animal and he needs putting away. There’s nothing more to say.”

  “I know something about this kid, Irene. His old man …”

  She spoke very low in precise tones, dropping each word with equal weight like bricks: “I don’t give a shit, Frank. I’m sick of people blaming crime on everything but the criminal.”

  “For Christ’s sake, you’re acting like you’re floating a trial balloon for John Bircher of the year. What’s happened to you?”

  The woman rocked her hand, fingers splayed; it was the sum of her answer.

  The young lawyer snapped his case shut and moved away across the aisle. His rigid back expressed his anger.

  Paul leaned forward. “Excuse me, Miss …”

  Her dark hair swayed when she turned; her alert eyes reserved suspicion. “Yes?”

  “I couldn’t help overhearing. You’re on the district attorney’s staff?”

  “Yes, but if it’s about a case pending before this court I can’t …”

  “It’s not. I’m only a spectator.”

  Her face changed: it made clear her opinion of the morbid curious.

  “My name’s Paul Benjamin. My wife and daughter were killed by muggers. It makes you take an interest in the criminal justice system.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “I guess I’ve spent most of my life like everybody else—badly ignorant of law and crime. I suppose I’m looking for some sort of answers. I’m sorry, I’m not making too much sense….”

  She twisted and reached over the back of the bench, offering her hand. “I’m Irene Evans.” Her handshake was quick and firm. “When did it happen?”

  “Oh it was quite a while ago now, in New York.”

  “You’re just visiting Chicago then?”

  “No, I’ve moved out here. I—couldn’t stay there.”

  “You’ve picked a strange place to move to. We’ve got a worse crime problem than New York’s.”

  “You go where the jobs are, I guess.”

  The judge climbed to the bench; the court stenographer settled behind his machine; lawyers arranged themselves and at the back a prisoner was brought into the room. Irene Evans said, “I have to go to work. Are you free for lunch?”

  “I have an appointment. Perhaps tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.” She was gathering her papers. “Still, court will be in session. I’ve got one case to try in the morning. Perhaps if you’d like to meet me here at half past twelve tomorrow …?”

  “Thanks very much. I know it’s an imposition.”

  “No. It may give me a chance to think out some questions I’ve been putting off for too long. You may have done me a favor, you see.” She stood up: she wasn’t as tall as he’d thought. “Tomorrow lunch, then. I’ll look forward to it.” She smiled and went toward the rail and he noticed she wore no rings. A lonely woman, he thought.

  The defendant and his attorney settled behind a table and Irene Evans took her place at the prosecution’s post while one of her fellow assistant DA’s crossed to the defense side; there was a murmured conference there and the defense attorney spoke to the judge: “Permission to approach the bench?”

  The judge was covering a yawn; he nodded his head and the two attorneys approached and the judge cocked his head to listen to their low voices.

  The case was dispatched in moments: an arrangement had been reached, the defense attorney shook his client’s hand and returned to the back bench to dismiss his witnesses—the fat woman and the henpecked man. Defendant and officer left the courtroom and another accused entered the room in a policeman’s custody. Paul watched the cases parade through the courtroom but his attention drifted; occasionally his attention swiveled to Irene Evans and once from her table she looked at him and smiled a bit.

  In the first hour the assembly-line procedure disposed of a half-dozen cases of varying degrees of gravity; he had no doubt that the rubber-stamp system had been preceded by back-room agreements between prosecution and defense; it was clear that the judge’s boredom was justified: he gave the court’s blessing to each prearranged plea, set sentencing dates in those cases that required them, and called for the next case. Only twice were motions for continuance filed by defense attorneys: cases in which evidently no bargain had been achieved.

  Crubb was brought in at 11:45 and when Paul looked back he saw the middle-aged woman whose purse Crubb had snatched; she was sitting with a policeman—the young cop without his old Jew’s disguise?—and Paul wondered how long they’d been sitting there; he hadn’t noticed their arrival.

  An overweight lawyer came out of a front pew and walked back to Crubb; there was a brief whispered conference. Crubb and the lawyer moved forward in the aisle, the lawyer doing most of the talking but Crubb’s voice was louder. “Yeah but man what’s goin’ down now? Sure I know it’s bad. Anything that’s against the law is bad, ain’t it? … Man you’re a jive-ass, you don’t care—what the hell do you care?”

  The lawyer talked swiftly and intensely in a voice trained by long practice to reach no farther than his client’s ears; Paul couldn’t make out a word even though they were sidling past him at arm’s length. It was easy enough to guess the gist of the lawyer’s monologue. He settled in a front pew with Crubb and kept talking low and fast while the case before the court was decided and then it was Crubb’s turn and he went through the gate and paused to look back across the room. His eyes were set very high in his badly pitted face. They were fixed for a moment with arrogant brutality on the middle-aged woman, his victim, the witness; then the lawyer took Crubb’s elbow and steered him to the defense table and they stood waiting while the participants of the previous case put their papers together and left the table. Crubb collapsed into his chair and slid down in it until he was sitting on the back of his n
eck. The lawyer nodded to a man at the prosecution table who came across to him and after a moment the ritual phrase was addressed to the judge: “Arraignment and bail, your honor. Permission to approach the bench?”

  The judge nodded.

  The whispered tricorn conference at the bench was brief. The judge spoke by rote: “Trial is set for April fourteenth. The prisoner will be released on three hundred dollars bail. Prisoner will approach the bench, please.”

  It took only a few seconds: the judge warned Crubb of the restrictions of bail and the penalties for jumping it. A bondsman came forward to post the bail. Crubb turned without a word and walked back to the defense table and sat down.

  Paul made a show of looking at his watch; he got up then and went toward the door. Irene Evans looked up and he waved to her before he left the room.

  He went outside to his car and sat in it. Crubb would turn up any moment, as soon as the papers were signed. Paul reached under the seat for his guns.

  12

  THE NUMBER 94 bus had a sickly green two-tone paint job. Paul put the car in drive and followed the bus north on California Avenue into the barrio. It reminded him of stretches of the Borough of Queens: commercial shabbiness and nondescript duplex houses. Strong winds buffeted and ripped the racing clouds; the temperature had been dropping all morning and the car radio trumpeted alarums of snow.

  Crubb left the bus at Chicago Avenue and walked east on it, shoulders high, boots clicking angrily. Paul waited double-parked and gave him a one-block lead; then he let the car creep forward without feeding any gas. Traffic swished past him in the outside lane.

  Friday night Crubb had muffed his hit and come up empty. He’d shown no fear in the courtroom, only a bored arrogance; the hearing and the setting of bail were a slap on the wrist and probably had annoyed and irritated Crubb but certainly they hadn’t deterred him. The predator was still hungry.

  Crubb entered a pizza café, moving purposefully—he wasn’t merely looking for a place to eat. Paul waited in a bus stop. Within a few minutes Crubb reappeared with two companions. They looked like two of the men in the bunch Crubb had been with when Paul had first seen him in Old Town.