City Limits. Will Oursler
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$200 GIRL
She called herself Penny—but it took four crisp fifties to buy her for a weekend.
I had the money—and so I had Penny. When I handed over her fee, Penny was in trouble. One thing she didn’t know about her new customer—
I was the Assistant D. A. in charge of smashing the vicious call-girl ring!
MARINO AND MACAULEY
Nick Marino is a pen name hiding the identity of a top-ranking author who has scored many outstanding literary successes. In ONE WAY STREET he introduced
Mike Macauley, the tough young Assistant D. A., who’s as fast with a girl as he is with a gun. CITY LIMITS brings Mike back in his deadliest—and most femme-filled—case.
CITY LIMITS
© 1958, by Almat Publishing Corp.
All Rights Reserved
chapter one
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