Chapter 15
Charles Aiken followed a beefy hoodlum-type the length of the nightclub to a stairway leading to an upper floor. They came to a stop before a paneled door and waited for a response to the hoodlum's discreet knock. A voice sounded and Charlie walked by the bruiser into an informal but tastefully furnished office.
The man seated behind the desk looked almost boyish in his slenderness. As Charlie drew closer however, he was forced to alter that initial impression. Marty Jex was not slender, he was lean ... the way a jungle cat was lean. The nerveless demeanor of the handsome stranger put Charlie on edge and made him feel suddenly ill-equipped to handle whatever was to transpire between them.
"Sit down, Judge Aiken," Jex said softly, his voice holding the residual inflections of a dozen cities. "My name is Jex, Marty Jex, as you probably already know. I understand Mayor Bauer gave you some idea of who I am and why I wanted to see you."
Charlie sat in the chair facing the desk. "I gathered that it has something to do with the June Ryan case."
Jex smiled thinly. "That's part of it, Judge. How's the trial going anyhow? Do you think we'll have any trouble getting the right verdict from the jury?"
Charlie stiffened resentfully. "I'm not at liberty to-"
"Never mind the ethics routine, Aiken," Jex snapped harshly, the cold smile disappearing with frightening suddenness. "I want answers to my questions, understand?"
The menacing and cat-like assurance of the man behind the desk stripped Charlie of his composure for the moment. He felt obliged to submit to Jex's arrogant commands even though he still did not know what he had to fear from the man. "All right," he mumbled confusedly, "I'll answer your question. I have reason to believe that the girl is innocent of the charge. Now, may I ask what business all this is of yours, Mister Jex?"
"It's very much my business, Judge," Jex drawled easily, his voice soft and lulling again. "Anything that happens in Whitebank is my business. I'm taking over this town."
Charlie was not sure he'd heard right and yet, for some unknown reason, he did not feel totally surprised. "Taking over?"
Jex nodded. "That's right. The town ... and everyone in it. That includes you, Judge Aiken. As of right now, you're working for me." Charlie started to rise from the chair but a curt gesture by Jex froze him. Jex stared fixedly at him over the desk. "Let's not waste time, Aiken. I had Bauer put you on this case so I could be sure June Ryan would be sent away for a stretch. And that's exactly what's going to happen, understand?"
A wave of despair swept through Charlie as he slumped down in the chair. It all fit, it all made sense. Mayor Bauer's attitude, the changing scene in White-bank, the steamroller tactics in the Ryan case. Jex was a racketeer and Whitebank was slated to be corrupted. It made him feel sick and helpless to think about it and yet the truth of it was sitting across a desk from him. He could feel what little honor and courage he still possessed seeping out of him and being replaced with a tremendous bleakness of spirit.
Jex lifted a familiar manila envelope and opened it. "I've been studying your private files, Judge Aiken. They're very interesting, to say the least." He paused to look up and smile affably. "I thought it might be worth the trouble after what Julie Miller told me about you. You remember Julie, don't you, Judge? The young dancer who appeared before you on a marijuana charge some time ago?"
Charlie stared at the floor. "Yes ... yes, I remember...."
"I thought you might," Jex drawled cynically. "She's willing to sign a sworn affidavit as to the reason you had for letting her off the hook. After checking through these records, I have a hunch I could come up with another situation just like Julie's. Let's see now ... what was that name again? Oh, yes, Missus Rita Grimek. A hit-and-run case, wasn't it? Shall I go on, Judge?"
Charlie felt a strange satisfaction, a perverse relief, in accepting the fact that the time had come to pay penance for his sins. "No ... it won't be necessary," he answered emptily. "What do you want me to do?"
Jex leaned back and tossed the folder to one side.
"It's not much, Judge. I want June Ryan sent up on at least a manslaughter charge, something that will put her away for a long time. I want you to see that I'm not disappointed. Is that clear?"
Charlie thought of the sweet-bodied young redhead and the moments he had spent with her in his office. Nausea rippled through his body and he realized that his face had broken out in a clammy perspiration. "Why?" he asked dully. "Why do you want to punish this girl? What has she done to you?"
The darkly handsome racketeer shrugged indifferently. "I never laid eyes on the kid before the trial, believe it or not. She's what you might call ... kind of a symbol. You see, Judge, we're just getting our organization rolling here in Whitebank and we've got to get started on the right foot. We've got to set an example to keep the other girls in line ... make them know what will happen to them if they don't do what they're told to do. This Ryan kid bucked us and we just can't let that sort of thing happen."
Charlie nodded. "I see."
Jex rose and walked around the desk. "It was nice meeting you, Judge Aiken. I'm sure we'll get along just fine now that we've had this little talk. Give my regards to your wife and daughter, heh?"
Charlie recognized the threat in the pleasantly voiced request. He wanted to hit the smirking face, to shatter the smug composure, to give vent to his self-disgust and despair ... but instead, he only rose and allowed Jex to usher him to the door.
"Remember what I said, Judge," Jex intoned flatly. "I don't want to be disappointed."
Charlie Aiken stumbled out of the office, down the stairs and through the noise and confusion of the nightclub into the hostile darkness of the night. He was not totally conscious of sliding behind the wheel of his car nor of starting it and swinging out to the highway. His mind refused to function, his brain refused to focus.
He rolled down the window and let the air flow against his moist face. A measure of clarity returned and he blinked, straining toward some purposeful measure of concentration. One fact stood out above all others. He had to send an innocent girl to prison. If he refused, if he exposed the cruel scheme behind the false charge, his own crimes would be exposed to the world. This was to be his punishment for the sins of the flesh he had committed.
Helen would learn of them. Kathy, his daughter. All of Whitebank. Relatives, friends, acquaintances, associates. Everyone.
He drove steadily, heading homeward, not knowing why or what was drawing him there. How could he send such a young and vibrant and undeserving creature to jail? How could he learn to live with himself thereafter? Wouldn't it be better to sacrifice himself in one glorious act of defiance? Might not that cleanse him of his transgressions and provide him the opportunity to start life anew with a clear conscience?
And by doing so, wouldn't everyone look upon him with less disfavor since his act might also cleanse Whitebank of corruption? No, it was cowardly of him to entertain such qualifying thoughts. He must bear the burden of his guilt in its entirety. But what of Helen and Kathy? Was it fair of him to expect them to shoulder some of the shame and disgrace as well?
No, he could not compound his sins.
It was enough that he be damned.
No matter what was to come, he must somehow spare Helen and Kathy.
They were all he had left. All he had to support him in the guilt-ridden years to come. They would be his haven, his momentary escape, his justification for doing what he was told and when he was told. As long as he had them, he could sustain himself.
He pulled the car into the driveway of his home and extinguished the headlights and motor. He sat quietly a moment, staring at the lighted living room windows and their protective drapes. Helen was home, he thought. Waiting for him. How would he find the strength to face her and hide the agony that churned within him? He must hide it from her, from Kathy, if he was to keep them ... keep their respect and loyalty. They must never know how unworthy he was of their love. Never.
Charlie climbed tiredly from the car, feeling old and weary and chilled by the night air. The front door was locked and he fumbled for his keys and when the door swung inward, he was startled by the unexpected sound of male laughter coming from the living room. He put aside his things on the foyer table, wondering if Kathy was entertaining a beau or if Helen had invited some of her charity board associates over for an informal meeting.
The laughter was strangely coarse.
Charlie walked to the entrance of the living room and looked inside. At first, he didn't recognize his wife as the naked woman on the floor. It was simply and starkly a naked woman, perversely engaged with two naked men simultaneously. The shocking tableau numbed his brain and froze his senses and only after the passage of a few seconds did he realize that the two grunting men on the floor were strangers and that still a third stranger was the man who was issuing the coarse laughter from a point just behind the straining and sweating trio on the floor.
The sudden spurt of outrage and indignation was choked high in his throat when the meshed bodies altered their position in a show of savage and bestial passion. Charlie's intended cry of anger was transformed into a broken whimper of sick recognition as Helen's flushed and contorted face turned toward him. The impact of her wanton expression was no less crushing than the wild fervor of her sweat-covered body and Charlie's vision blurred as his whimpering moan gained in texture.
Heads turned toward the sound and Helen's eyes focused.
Charlie could not speak.
"Hello, Charlie...." she laughed, her voice thick with lust and liquor. "Welcome home."
Then she was moving again, forcing her companions to turn their attentions back to her. The third man walked forward and held out a punctured can of beer. "Here, Charlie, join the party. The more the merrier, I always say."
Charles Aiken turned and plunged out of the house.
The car motor responded to his frantic efforts and in a few moments he was speeding away from the laughter, away from the ugliness, away from White-bank and all that Whitebank had come to represent for him. He was aware that he was crying and that he had no destination and that he was in no condition to be heading north on the upstate highway at so fast a pace. He was aware of all this and yet he didn't care.
He was beyond caring. He was beyond thinking. Everything was pressing down on him, crushing him, pulverizing his capacity for caring and thinking and feeling. It was easier to exist in a vacuum, to act without awareness, to avoid recognition of all the worldly evil that surrounded him. And so he drove thoughtlessly, hour after hour, until the night approached dawn....
He found himself seated at a rickety table in the rear of a roadhouse that had sawdust on the floor. He knew he was terribly drunk but he could not recall having had a drink. He knew that he was a homeless man and that he once had a name. Whatever else happened, no matter what the provocation, he sensed that he must not allow himself to remember his name ... for there was something terrible in it. He felt safe in his ignorance and he nurtured it.
He looked around and wondered how long he had been there and when he turned his head toward the door, he saw through the dust and grime that it was daylight. A man came to stand at the side of the table and stare down at him. "I have no more money," he heard himself saying. "I spent it all."
Hands lifted and propelled him into what seemed to be a side alley. He fell and struck his head on the brick wall. The pain came and then faded and he lay still. A few feet away a dog sniffed at an overturned garbage pail. Near the mouth of the alley, another figure lay slumped against the wall with newspapers covering its legs for warmth. He closed his eyes and tried to escape again in sleep.
Something disturbed him and he saw that he was being carried to a police wagon by two uniformed men. He sat on a wooden bench and bounced as the wagon rumbled through strange streets and he wondered how he could know that they were not familiar streets.
A little later, he heard the reverberating clang of a cell door with a knowledge that he had heard just such a sound somewhere in his past. He sat down in a corner and put his head in his hands, trying desperately out of the same unknown fear not to remember anything of his past.
"Hey, you!"
He looked up and blinked at the uniformed man standing on the other side of the bars. "Me?"
"Haven't I seen you somewhere before? What's your name?"
"I'm no one," he insisted, his head aching. "I have no name."
The officer grunted and walked away.
A shabby man nearby cackled. "I guess you told him."
He turned to look at the toothless creature. "Where am I?"
"In the drunk tank, buddy. Don't worry, you'll get used to it. It ain't so bad. They'll be bringing us some balogna sandwiches pretty soon."
He nodded and put his head back in his hands and closed his eyes. He slept but only for a short while. He was being lifted again and guided through the maze of bodies sprawled on the floor of the huge cage. The smell of decay was strong and he felt a terrible need for a drink of cold water. "In here, Judge Aiken."
He entered the office and sat down in the wooden chair and looked around at the faces that stared so soberly at him. "What name did you call me?"
"Aiken," the oldest appearing man answered softly. "Judge Charles Aiken of Whitebank."
He shook his head firmly. "That's wrong. Judge Charles Aiken is dead. He killed himself. I read about it in the newspaper."
The men looked at one another and then back at him.
He wet his lips and cleared his throat. "Can I have a glass of water, please?"
Someone handed him a glass and he drank greedily. He felt his stomach convulse and pain shoot through his body, but the water was cold and comforting to his parched throat. "It's true," he mumbled, wanting to repay them for their kindness by ending their confusion. "It was all in the newspapers. Big scandal. Didn't you read about it? Judge Aiken is dead. Killed himself. They tried to make him send an innocent girl to prison. They knew the terrible things he did with the young women who came before him in court. He killed himself so his wife and daughter wouldn't find out. They loved him very much, you know. His wife and his daughter. It was in the newspaper. Marty Jex and Julie Miller and Mayor Bauer and Rita Grimek and June Ryan and ... and all of them. It was in the newspaper." He stopped, exhausted by his speech, disturbed that they were still staring at him in sober confusion. "Charlie Aiken is dead," he repeated tiredly, covering his face with his hands. "Charlie Aiken killed himself."
He heard someone say something about telephoning the Governor.
Then they were taking him out of the room. He hoped they would bring him somewhere nearby. He was tired. He wanted to find a corner where he could sit and sleep. A corner all his own.