Читать книгу City Limits - Will Oursler - Страница 6

WHEN I GOT THERE, the defendant had already taken her place on a high-backed wooden chair with the rays of the first really hot June sun of the year slanting down on her through the big open window and the courtroom dust like a spotlight.

She was good-looking, and that surprised me. She had tawny hair worn longer than you usually see it these days, and she had skin which would tan a deep bronze during the summer, if she didn’t spend the summer months acquiring a prison pallor. She didn’t look the type who would be sitting with a brawny policewoman behind her, facing a morals charge.

The judge nodded his head a half inch to show he had seen me come in. If he thought it peculiar that an assistant D.A. wanted to sit in on a prostitution case in Women’s Court, he hadn’t said anything when I called and asked for permission to be there.

The cop who was testifying wore plain clothes. He wasn’t looking at the woman and she wasn’t looking at him. He was saying in a steady, unhurried and unhappy voice, “So I came down Washington Street—”

“Walking?” the judge asked.

“Walking, your honor. The defendant was standing there, window shopping. She must have seen my reflection in the window. She turned around and smiled. I stopped a little ways off and straightened my tie. She smiled again and came over to me and we both smiled. Then we started in talking.”

“Did she proposition you?” the judge asked.

“Not right away, your honor. I asked if she wanted something and she said what did I think, and before you know it we walk over to Melville Avenue, where she’s got an apartment.”

“What does ‘before you know it’ consist of?”

“Just small talk, your honor. I don’t remember it very well. Anyhow, we went over to her place and she told me it would be twenty-five dollars, which I gave her.” The plain clothes man’s voice became so faint, the judge had to tell him to speak more distinctly. He said, “Then she undressed and I told her she was under arrest.”

The judge leaned forward to look down at the woman. “Does the defendant wish to speak?”

“No, your honor,” the woman said in a small voice.

I raised my eyes to the bench and the judge said, “Assistant District Attorney Macauley, I believe, has something to say which may be relevant here before sentence is passed. Mr. Macauley?”

I stepped forward while everyone, including the testifying plain clothes man, whom I knew personally, looked surprised. My job in an understaffed D.A.’s office was no cinch, but I wouldn’t have traded places with that plain clothes man for a million bucks, tax free. He was a member of the Morals Division, which meant that he spent his time playing the part of a visiting fireman who got himself picked up by prostitutes, propositioned by pimps and sometimes by dope pushers. For this he got exactly what the patrolman on the beat got, eighty-five bucks a week in his pay envelope, and something the beat cop never got at all—a hard, cynical attitude toward the world. He could have it.

I said, “I’d like to ask the defendant a few questions, your honor.”

“You have the court’s permission.”

I turned to the woman. This close, she was hardly more than a girl. She wore a spring-weight suit, and it was too hot in the courtroom for that kind of clothing. A fine dew of perspiration beaded her forehead and her upper lip, but her face was under perfect control. She had spent a few days in the common jail, and wore no makeup. She looked pale, but you could tell that with a little makeup, or maybe just some fresh air, she would be a knockout.

“Your name is Gloria Townsend?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

“Did you phone the district attorney’s office on last May twenty-third?”

“No.”

“You’re testifying under oath.”

She hesitated. “I don’t remember if I called or not.”

“Do you remember talking to me? Macauley’s the name.”

“I don’t remember talking to anybody.”

I frowned at her. “About the call-girl racket in this city?” I prompted.

“I don’t know anything about a call-girl racket.” She jerked her head in the plain clothes man’s direction. “He picked me up for a streetwalker.”

The judge and I exchanged glances. I said a little desperately, “You told me you were fed up with the life you led. You told me you wanted out. You told me—”

She interrupted. “How could I have told you anything, if I don’t remember talking to you?”

The brawny policewoman tried to hide a smile. The judge cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Macauley, much as this court would like to help you, if the defendant maintains that position, I’m afraid your line of questioning is pointless.”

He was right, of course. I nodded and apologized to the court for wasting its time.

Gloria Townsend sat with her hands in her lap, studying her fingernails. The plain clothes man, Harry Allerup, was looking down at the floor. I decided to hang around while the court passed sentence, although I knew what the stenence would be.

The court officer came up and read Gloria Townsend’s health report. She had passed with flying colors. He informed the judge that the defendant had no previous record, and that her permanent address was listed as c/o Smith, R.F.D. Two. R.F.D. Two was about twelve miles outside the city limits along the river road.

“R.F.D. Two!” I blurted. “Don’t you get it, your honor? That’s the old Rivershore Drive outside the city. Headquarters for the call-girl racket which—”

“Mr. Macauley,” the judge said slowly, in the same tone he would probably use to scold his grandchild, “the alleged racket has no bearing on this case, and this court has no jurisdiction on Rivershore Drive.” He smiled at me, though, sympathetically. It was no secret that the city’s call-girl racket had been dumped in my lap by the D.A. as a kind of extracurricular activity. That was six months ago, and I’d been banging my head against a stone wall ever since, until Gloria Townsend’s call. Now Gloria had changed her mind and I was back at my same old spot against the wall, only now the wall was harder.

The judge cleared his throat and sentenced Gloria Townsend to six months in the workhouse, then suspended sentence because the girl had no previous record. The policewoman nudged Gloria and said, “Well, you’re free.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, dearie.”

Gloria got up. She was a tall girl and carried herself well. The other plain clothes men sitting on the long wooden bench, waiting unhappily for their turns to testify against the other prostitutes who would parade through Women’s Court this morning, never took their eyes off her.

“I won’t be long,” Gloria Townsend said.

“You won’t be what?” the policewoman asked her. They came slowly toward where I was standing, between Harry Allerup and the police bench.

“Long,” said Gloria Townsend, and walked over to plain clothes man Allerup and smiled at him. Harry Allerup smiled back. It was a surprised and timid smile.

Gloria made a noise in her throat, her face worked convulsively and she spit in Allerup’s face.

The brawny policewoman grabbed Gloria’s arms and twisted them behind her until the girl winced. Allerup wiped his face with his display handkerchief as Gloria turned to look defiantly at the judge.

The judge glared at her. “There will be an additional thirty days for contempt of court.”

Gloria looked indifferent.

“Suspended,” said the judge bitterly, bleakly. The workhouse, women’s division, was overcrowded. The order was to get them back on the street, where they’d be better off than sharing overcrowded prison accommodations with the really bad ones. You couldn’t blame the prison officials.

The matron and Gloria Townsend went outside. I followed them into the corridor and hurried to make the elevator just as they got on. I stood in front of Gloria with my back to the door and looked at her steadily.

“I don’t have to talk to you,” she said.

“Why’d you change your mind?”

“Do I have to talk to him?” she asked the matron.

“No, dearie. You’re free. I’m only taking you downstairs to get your things.”

“What I can’t figure,” I said suddenly, getting close to Gloria Townsend and looking at her eyes while I spoke, “is why a high-class call girl like you takes up streetwalking in her spare time. Hobby?”

“Ah, what’s the use?” Gloria said. “You cops are all the same.” She said it with such depths of bitterness, even the impassive Negro elevator operator turned around and stared at her.

She turned away and faced a rear corner of the elevator. Her shoulders began to move, and by the time we reached the street floor her whole body was shaking with sobs.

The elevator door opened. A small crowd of people waited politely for us to get out before they got on. Nobody moved.

Then Gloria Townsend turned around and said very softly, “That son-of-a-bitch. That no-good, lying son-of-a-bitch.” She said it devoutly, almost as if she were praying.

“Who?” I asked “Allerup?”

She hit me on the face with her left hand. She was going to use her right hand too, but the matron picked that one off in the air and held it. They walked past me and out of the elevator. The matron gave me one of those looks only two-hundred-pound policewomen can give. Men, the look said, every one of you. It said a lot of other things, but they aren’t printable.

The crowd filing into the elevator tried to duplicate that look. They couldn’t, but it was still one hell of a way to start the morning.