Chapter 12
In spite of the fact that the recent turn which events had taken were calculated to cause him considerable anxiety, the attorney's manner was outwardly calm and as full of self-assurance as ever; but it did not escape the detective's close scrutiny that his mouth twitched nervously. Appearing to notice nothing, he said, lightly:
"How are you?"
Reluctantly the attorney advanced toward the desk.
"Well, I'm very busy this morning, Mr. Stryker, but I want to oblige you. What did you want?"
Pretending to be busy with his papers, Stryker did not answer the question at once. The longer he could keep his caller in suspense, the more nervous he would get, the better he could keep him under observation. All at once, when he judged the moment right, the detective looked up and said, quickly:
"I think we've got the man who killed Thomas."
Involuntarily the lawyer fell back a few steps.
"Well-well-" he stammered.
Coolly, Stryker extended to him a box of cigars.
"Have a cigar?" he said, amiably.
With trembling fingers the lawyer took one.
"Thanks!" he mumbled.
Stryker waved him to a seat.
"Sit down," he said.
But his visitor was too much perturbed to heed the invitation. Nervously he said: "Who is it? Who is it?"
Again the detective waved him to a seat. Imitating the lawyer's mannerism of speech, he said:
"I'll tell you about that in a moment. Please sit down."
Knapp took the chair, paler now, and uneasy. There was a slight pause, and then Stryker, in the most matter-of-fact way, said:
"Mr. Knapp, when did it first occur to you that Matthew Thomas's mind was affected?"
Floyd Knapp started violently.
"What-what do you mean?"
Stryker opened a drawer and took out a recording device; he held it up for inspection.
"Mr. Knapp, did you ever see a tape recorder?"
Floyd Knapp's eyes opened wide, and he made a light coughing sound in his throat.
"A tape recorder," Stryker said, holding it up. "Don't be afraid; it won't bite you. I t doesn't do anything but listen-and it's got the longest ears.. . " he paused before going on. "As you saw the morning papers before you packed your bag, you know we arrested a gang of counterfeiters last night-" he waved the tape recorder around for emphasis "-after we had been listening to them for some time. Interesting conversations, too, Knapp. Let me play you what you said about me."
Knapp muttered a curse and sprang to his feet.
"Do you think you can bluff me with a framed-up thing like that?" he exclaimed angrily.
"Let me finish!" Stryker snapped. "I have advised Mrs. Martin to do what she could for herself by making, a complete statement, and in her confession here-" he held up the paper Helen Wade had rigged, "-she not only implicates you with the counterfeiters, but she also charges you with the murder of Matthew Thomas!"
His face livid, Knapp turned to leave the room. Stryker stopped him with a bark-like order to remain. Holding out the document, Stryker asked: "Do you know the signature?"
Knapp glanced at it hastily and shook his head.
"It's a fake! A fake to protect herself."
Stryker touched the button on the intercom.
"Then you mean to say that Mrs. Martin is responsible for the death of Thomas?"
As he spoke the door opened and Thelma Martin entered. Stryker turned to her: "Mrs. Martin, Mr. Knapp has just stated that it was you who killed Matthew Thomas."
The woman's pale face flushed with indignation. Advancing on the lawyer, brandishing her fists, she exclaimed, hotly:
"What! You! You! You!" Turning to Stryker, she almost screamed: "It's a lie! He killed him!"
Deathly white, his features haggard, his eyes starting with dl-concealed terror, the lawyer faltered:
"I've been trying to protect her. That's the way I've got involved in this. She killed him! I'll sign a statement."
Turning away with a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders, Mrs. Martin made no further attempt to protect herself. Sure that the detective was convinced of her innocence and knew who the assassin was, she dropped into a chair and sat motionless, her head bowed.
Stryker, his arms folded, stood gazing sternly at the man, who was trying desperately to save himself by fixing guilt on a woman. Contemptuously, he exclaimed:
"Knapp, you can go to hell your own way. If you haven't sense enough to see that it's better to make a clean breasts of it and stand for a charge of manslaughter, you can go to the chair as a counterfeiter-a crook that tried to blackmail an old man and murdered him when he rounded on you. You gave stuff to the papers to throw suspicion on the girl and the boy. You came nosing around here trying to tip off my ,hand, and the minute you saw yourself caught you turned on a woman and tried to sell her out. You're under arrest and the
Bounding forward, his pallid face distorted with terror, his hands clutching convulsively the top of the desk, the lawyer cried:
"Just a minute, Mr. Stryker!"
Quick as a flash the detective produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them on his wrists. "You're just a minute too late!"
Realizing that the end had come, and that nothing further was to be gained by lying, the lawyer cried: "Before God, Stryker, I tell you it was an accident! He'd gone into this counterfeiting. Then suddenly he shifted and threatened to show me up; I took her there to try and use her influence to fix it. As soon as he saw her he pulled a gun and tried to shoot her. I knocked it out of his hands. He sprang on me and tried to strangle me. I didn't want to hurt him; I just beat him off, trying to defend myself, and the first thing we knew he was dead on our hands."
The detective shrugged his shoulders. Coldly he said:
"I don't want to hear your troubles. Tell them to the district attorney."
He pressed the buzzer and two detectives entered. He nodded toward Knapp, and said: "He's all yours. Take him down and book him."
The two detectives led Knapp from the office, closing the door behind them.
Stryker rose and approached Mrs. Martin. Kindly he said: charge is murder in the first degree!"
"Mrs. Martin, would you like to go and take care of Karl Bruker?"
The woman lifted her pale, tear-stained face and gazed at the detective in open-eyed astonishment
"Oh yes, yes-if I only could!" she cried, clasping her hands.
He waved his hand in the direction of the door. "You may-go."
"You're not joking with me, are you?" she cried.
Stryker nodded. "Not at all. However, there is one condition. You must be here in my office tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."
"I'll be here," she said, simply. , "You'll be detained only as a witness, Mrs. Martin," he explained. "I know you think I've treated you harshly, and I have-but it was the only way to save you."
Mrs. Martin wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and turned to go. She hesitated, looking down at him.
"If I could feel anything at all I'd thank you," she said. "But I'm dead here-dead-dead."
Helplessly she beat her bosom, as if trying to express all she felt. Then she turned and went out, walking with slow, dragging steps.. .
The victory party was held at the office, and the celebrants were Bill Cooley, Helen Wade, and Flint Stryker. It was a sex party for the purpose of introducing Bill Cooley to the hot, swinging pussy of Helen Wade.
The rules were simple and easy to follow. Each guest swallowed three shots of bourbon in rapid succession. Then they raced toward nakedness. The first man to get undressed had his choice of fucking Helen Wade or having her suck his cock. Stryker held back and deliberately allowed Bill to beat him.
"You go first, Bill," Stryker said. "There is Helen, and the choice is yours. After your first orgasm we all join the action. Now what will it be?"
Bill was already under the influence of the bourbon, and he gazed upon Helen's long, shapely legs through watered eyes. His gaze locked on her tits, with their cherry-red nipples, and his mouth fairly dribbled. She stood with legs slightly apart, revealing her snatch, the lips of which were pinkishly visible through the mass of hair that covered her pubis. Bill's cock was hard and burning, and he felt as if he could come just by looking.
Helen walked over to him, swaying her hips and cupping her tits. She took hold of his cock and sighed:
"Not bad, big. Not bad! Shall I decide for you?"
"Yeah," BUI said. "You do what you wanna do. I can't make up my mind what I wanna do first."
"I think I should give you a blow job, Bill," she said, gently stroking his cock back and forth. "Then when you fuck, you won't come so quick."
Without waiting for him to agree, Helen sank to her knees and began kissing his lubricated crest. She slipped it into her mouth and out again, delicately licking over it with her supple, educated tongue.
Bill's knees quivered, and his balls itched. He instinctively pushed his fingers into her hair and massaged her scalp, tempted to pull her closer and thrust his throbbing cock all the way in. But he restrained this desire and let her handle it
Helen cupped his balls in one hand and fondled them, all the while working over his cock-taking it in and out of her mouth, gradually increasing the speed as she sucked.
Bill tensed his muscles; he wanted to hold back the swelling climax. But Helen would not let him. She sucked feverishly, demanding that he let go. With a sudden moan Bill released the thundering fluid and felt it spurt into Helen's devouring mouth. She gobbled his prick when she felt the first spurt, taking the full length of it into her throat. Bill sagged at the knees and bent over her, gasping for breath.
"Keep it hard, Billy Boy," Stryker laughed. "Now we're going to do some tall fucking."
Helen lay on her stomach and invited Bill to fuck her from the rear. She pushed her cunt up to him and made it easy for his cock to slide between her juicy lips. Then Stryker sat down near her head and eased himself under her face. She took his cock in her mouth and began sucking him off.
Stryker deliberately climaxed so he could get into her ass, and his semen nearly choked her, coming so profusely, as it did.
"O.K., Bill, we change positions now. You lie on your back and Helen will ride you for a while. That way I can get my rod in her sweet asshole."
Helen straddled Bill and came down on his cock, forcing it to the hilt, and he squirmed and moaned with joy. Then she leaned over, bring her chest down to his, thus making her asshole available to Flint Stryker.
Flint got on his knees and moved in over Bill's legs, grinding his cock into contact with Helen's buttocks. He parted the mounds of silken flesh with his hands and directed his prick into her anus, forcing it bit by bit, until he had most of it in. Then he brought himself forward, driving all the way in. His balls bounced against the underside of Bill's cock as he pumped in and out.
Helen was creaming now, and they could hear her moaning and muttering sexy words. It so excited Bill that he thrust upwards with great force and speed, feeling his prick rubbing its way against Stryker's as the older man pumped into her rectum.
"Ready?" Stryker asked, his voice hoarse. "Let's make it together.. . "
"I'm ready," Helen squealed. "Come on, fellows-let's blow!"
Bill was in such a state of ecstasy that he couldn't speak; he just grunted and moaned and kept fucking until the orgasm gripped him.
"There I go!" he yelled in high excitement.
Helen screamed and shuddered from head to toe, recklessly contorting her torso under the influence of an extra strong climax. This, in turn, caused Stryker to ejaculate. He lunged into her with great force and emptied himself. Helen screamed again, with sheer joy-she could feel both pricks throbbing and spurting their juices into her.
Flint Stryker withdrew his shaft from Helen's ass and sprang to his feet.
"Well, you two are well enough acquainted for me to leave you alone," he said. "See you in the office tomorrow morning. I got a date with a lovely piece of kootch."
He took a shower, dressed and left Helen and Bill ere still fucking when he went out the door.
Let them-let everybody, he thought In another hour, if all goes well, I'll be screwing the woman I love.. . "
Thelma Martin was in the office waiting when the clock struck ten. Helen Wade announced her and Flint Stryker himself came out to invite her in.
"You've had an awful life, Mrs. Martin," he said.
"Maybe now you'll have a better one."
"My man's dead," she said, sadly. "I know he wasn't much of a man in the eyes of the world, but he was all man to me. I don't think I'll find another one-at least not like him."
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled a smile of sorrow. Then she looked straight into Stryker's eyes and asked:
"You in love with my daughter?" Stryker nodded.
"Yes. I love her very much. I intend to marry her if she'll have me."
"Don't ever tell her about me, please."
"No. I won't," he assured her.
Thelma moved her lips as if she wished to tell him something, but before she could speak the office door opened, and Janet entered. Stryker sprang to his feet and went to welcome her.
"I thought perhaps you'd like to say goodbye to Mrs. Martin," he said.
Janet looked sympathetically at the sad, bowed figure standing at the other side of the room. Advancing quickly and taking the visitor's hand, she said:
"Oh, sha'nt I see you again?"
Mrs. Martin shook her head sadly. Moving slightly away from the girl's embrace and averting her face, she murmured:
"No."
"Goodbye," said Janet, holding out her hand.
Turning quickly round, Mrs. Martin eagerly grasped it. Her body shaken by sobs, she said, with much emotion:
"Goodbye!" Drawing-the young girl closer, she went on, her voice broken by weeping: "You're where I was twenty years ago. You have just the same possibilities for love." Pointing to Stryker, she went on: "This man loves you. Like me, you'll give everything."
She said no more, but clasped her daughter's hand tightly in both of hers. Reluctantly releasing the young girl, she turned away and slowly left the office.
Janet turned to Stryker, who sprang forward eagerly. Before he could reach her the telephone rang. Impatiently taking up the receiver, he said:
"Well, what is it? No, I'm not going to Chicago. I've got an urgent case here."
Janet looked up anxiously.
"An urgent case?" she asked.
"Yes, ours," he smiled.
"Yes," she murmured. "Yes. It is rather urgent, isn't it?"