Death Sentence by Brian Garfield Page A

involved. Suppose every time they find a dead man with a criminal record, they pin it on the vigilante?”
    â€œWhy would they do that?”
    â€œMastro was in court today to testify in a case. He told me—”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œVic Mastro. He’s a police captain, they’ve put him in charge of the vigilante case.”
    â€œOh that’s right,” he said vaguely. “I knew I’d seen the name somewhere.”
    â€œMastro said something interesting. You know cops, they’ve got an interstate grapevine like everybody else. He’s got a friend on the force in New York. They’re still blaming murders on the vigilante there.”
    â€œYes, I know. They haven’t caught him yet.”
    â€œHe’s been blamed for three killings in the past two weeks in Manhattan. Mastro thinks they’re phonies. All three were shot by different guns. But the police are keeping the vigilante alive.”
    â€œYou mean he’s dead?”
    â€œNobody knows. But as long as the vigilante gets publicity, the crime rate stays down.”
    â€œIs it really down? There was a lot of debate about that when I was still in New York. The police and the mayor’s office denied there’d been much change.”
    â€œThey had to. Otherwise they’d be admitting the vigilante was accomplishing what their own police department couldn’t accomplish. The fact is, street crimes were off almost fifty percent for a while. They’ve started to climb again, but it’s still far below the record rate. Mastro insists they’re keeping the vigilante myth going for that reason.”
    Paul reached for the scotch when the waitress took it off her tray. “What’s happened to the crime rate here in Chicago?”
    â€œDown about twenty percent in the past few days.”
    â€œWell it might be a policeman,” he said. “Or a small secret group of policemen.” He lit her cigarette for her; he’d taken to carrying matches with him. “Let’s talk about something a little less grim.”
    She smiled. “I’m sorry. I’ve gotten too used to taking my work home with me. What time is the party?”
    â€œSeven. You sure you want to go?”
    â€œIt’ll be a change from the faces I see around the courtroom.”
    â€œThey’re probably crashing bores.”
    â€œWe can always leave early.”
    The car had been manufactured before the introduction of interlocks or seat-belt buzzers and she perched next to him on the middle of the seat. He was pleased and he was alarmed. There was too much conflict in his reactions to her. He had contrived to cement the acquaintance because he needed to know more than the newspapers could tell him about the official hunt for the vigilante: every item of knowledge would help him stay ahead of them. Now that he knew she was on good terms with Mastro he knew he had to go on cultivating her. At the same time he liked her and that was dangerous because he could not afford ever to relax with her.
    He waited in the living room of her apartment while she changed behind the bedroom’s closed door; he sipped a drink and read about himself in the Tribune.
    â€œThat’s lovely,” he said when she appeared. Pleased, she pirouetted for him; Paul laughed at her. At the awning on the sidewalk he opened the umbrella and convoyed her to the car under it; then they were driving north in a crawling tangle of half-blind cars, wipers batting the snow.
    â€œYou’re a very careful driver.”
    â€œI lived all my life in New York. This is the first car I’ve ever owned. I’ve had a license since I was eighteen but I’ve never particularly enjoyed driving.”
    â€œMaybe that’s why you’re still alive.”
    He had to counter the impulse to look sharply at her. She’d said it cheerfully enough; she meant nothing by it. But her eyes in repose had something near a