Chapter 8

As soon as Eleanor had left with the Temple girl, I sat down in the front office and put through a call to Diana. She'd had something planned for the afternoon, but I got her to agree to come over.

I didn't tell her what it was about, but merely that something had come up that I had to check into and that Ellie hadn't felt well and had gone home. I was afraid that if Diana heard the Temple girl's story, she would want to do something rash.

When she showed up at the office, she gave me a searching look. "You know, if I was the suspicious type," she said, "I might think it was funny that both you and Eleanor had to be away at the same time."

"Oh, for God's sake, Diana," I chided. "You know there's nothing between Ellie and me.

She gave me a look that said she wasn't too sure of it, and placed her handbag on Eleanor's desk. She rolled the chair into position and sat down.

If Diana had possessed any evidence that I'd been fooling around with Eleanor, it would have broken us up, I knew. But I gave her credit for enough intelligence to realize that if I was going to bed with Eleanor that afternoon, I would not have called her (Diana) to take care of the office. The whole thing was too obvious.

I said, "I'll try to be back before five. But in case I'm not, I'll see you latef at the apartment."

"You'll be able to handle the night-club run tonight, won't you?" she asked.

"If I can't, I'll get hold of Hank and have him go with Ted."

She nodded. "What's it all about? Is there some kind of trouble?"

"I don't want to upset you about it yet," I told her. "I'll know more tonight, and we'll talk about it then. Okay?"

She shrugged.

I'd been turning the whole thing around in my mind and trying to settle on the best way to deal with Zimmer.

I didn't want to accuse him of anything until I'd uncovered some evidence of my own. He could have just laughed off the Temple girl's story and even denied that he had anything to do with the ad in the movie magazine. As far as the box number was concerned, it could have been registered in a phony name and, by the time I had checked it out, Zimmer could have covered his trail.

On the other hand, of course, Zimmer could have admitted the whole thing and challenged me to do what I could about it. After all, Sunnical was deeply involved.

Who would have believed that Diana and I hadn't known exactly what Zimmer had been up to?

For a starter, I wanted the address of Zimmer's place on Arapahoe, if indeed he had a house there, as Leona had said.

I asked Diana, "That report you got on Zimmer a long time ago-before we made our deal with him-do you have a copy of it here in the office?"

She looked at me for a moment, then said, "Yes. It's in the file with the partnership papers. I thought you'd probably seen it."

"No, I haven't," I replied, walking to the filing cabinet.

I found the file quickly and shuffled through it until I'd located what I wanted. I scanned the report, which had been prepared by a private investigating firm. Zimmer's properties were listed and, yes, there was one on Arapahoe. It was designated as a rooming house. I noted the street number.

Diana moved up beside me as I put the file away. "Does this have something to do with Zimmer?" she asked. "What you're going to do this afternoon, I mean."

"Maybe," I told her. "I'm not sure yet. I'll talk to you later, huh, sweets?"

After giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, I left by way of the side door and walked to my car which was parked in back.

The house on Arapahoe was not unlike the one in which Zimmer lived, on Westlake. Both were old and rambling, and they had a gloomy drabness about them which seemed to reflect the personality of their owner.

Or, perhaps it was the other way around. Perhaps, after spending years in and around places like this, Zimmer had taken on something of their forlorn quality.

I drove past the house and parked half a block from it. Then I began to walk back.

I'd assumed that Zimmer wouldn't be there. If he was, the skeletal plan which I'd worked out would have to be abandoned. Since none of Zimmer's personnel knew me, I felt that the plan could be carried out so long as he didn't show up.

I headed up the front walk. There was a For Rent-Rooms sign tacked to the building. The porch of the house contained only a pair of vacant wicker chairs. The front door was a massive slab of oak with a small window in its upper half. I twisted the old-fashioned manual doorbell in its center.

A woman opened the door. Middle-aged, she was short and dark and had eyes like black glass beads. She drew nervously on a cigarette and gave me a close look. "Yes?"

"I'd like to see the room you have for rent."

"We've got several," she said, continuing to give me the once-over. "Is it for yourself?"

I nodded.

"You want housekeeping privileges?"

"Just a sleeping room," I said.

"No women," she warned. "We don't allow women coming in and out."

I smiled at her. "Agreed."

She shrugged and stepped back to let me in.

As she led me down the dim hall, she said over her shoulder, "You don't look like the type to rent a room in a house like this."

"It's close to my work," I said. "Right now I'm interested in saving money."

She nodded jerkily, my answer apparently having satisfied her.

Near the end of the hall, she stopped in front of a door with a metal 7 nailed on it, and she jingled some keys from a side pocket of her dress. After several tries, she found the right one. The door opened.

The room was barren and as cheerless as Zimmer's own apartment had been.

"It's ten dollars a week," she said. "Okay?"

I glanced around. "It will do. I'd like to move in right now."

"Where's your stuff?"

"It's in my old room. I'll go over and pick it up tonight."

"Well, you can pay me now," she said, taking a step forward and peering at me through the curling wisp from her cigarette. She had a hard face, and the garish lipstick she wore didn't help it.

I dug in my pocket and brought out some bills. I separated a ten and handed it to her.

She removed a key from the ring she carried and gave it to me. "It will open the front door, too," she said. "I'll bring you a receipt."

I smiled. "Don't bother. I trust you."

She shrugged again and headed for the door. When she reached it, she stopped and turned back to me. "Remember ... no women."

"I wouldn't think of it," I said. Then I added in a confidential tone, "Actually I'm a homosexual."

She squinted. "Just a joke."

She didn't join in my laughter, but turned and stomped out on her stumpy legs. I walked over and flipped the door shut.

At least I was in the house, I told myself, and the ten dollars it had cost would prove to have been money well spent if it helped me get some solid evidence on Zimmer. I decided to wait a little while before i started looking around, in order to give the hard-faced manager a chance to busy herself with something. Too bad I was in a back room, I thought, so that I couldn't keep a watch on who entered and left the house.

I removed my jacket and hung it over the back of a plain wooden chair. Then I stretched out on the three-quarter size bed. It was almost as uncomfortable as a bench; it had crude springs and little more than a pad to serve as a mattress.

The room did seem to be fairly clean, I decided with some surprise. There were a couple of dark stains on the brownish ceiling where water had once run over upstairs but, outside of that, the place was in pretty good condition. The single window, though it faced another wall only a few feet away, was at least clean.

I thought about the manager's concern that the male roomers not have women guests. Hypocrisy, I thought-the world was full of it.

Here was Zimmer running a couple of houses, and forcing young girls into them by trickery and blackmail so that they could spend their lives being ravished by men of all sorts. At the same time, he required his manager to see that the tenants in his rooming house were deprived of friendly sex-fun with girls who were willing. I assumed it was a practical decision, motivated by Zimmer's need to avoid the eyes of the police, but the hypocrisy which lay behind the situation was all too plain.

I have a theory about society, especially that which exists in the United States: You and I-all of us bring on the so-called social evils which we are supposed to deplore-specifically, crime and corruption and much of the violence that we read about in our newspapers.

How?

Take a look:

We outlaw gambling, as a general practice, and yet we make it all right to place bets on horses within the confines of race tracks, and to place most any kind of bet in the state of Nevada. In New Hampshire it's all right to throw a quarter into a slot machine, and in some towns in California you can bet on a game of poker. Where's the sense to it? Is there really any principle involved? Is it any wonder such laws breed only disrespect for law in genereal?

People have always gambled and they're always going to gamble. The puritans can't stop it. Government can't stop it. No one can stop it.

What if we, as a society, recognized this and gave up our futile efforts to prevent gambling, but instead regulated it in such a way that it would be operated cleanly and honestly, and with sufficient restraint so as not to offend the sensibilities of those who are opposed to it on moral grounds? In one stroke, we would go a long way toward putting the underworld out of business, restoring respect for law-and-order in general, decreasing the cost of law enforcement, and easing the general tax burden, since taxes taken from gambling would be far less painful than those now levied on property owners and across the counters of retail stores. All right, let's go a couple of steps further: Let's say that prostitution was legalized under the same sort of sensible controls, and let's say that narcotics were made available to addicts in drug stores on medical prescription, again under strict regulation.

The underworld-the massive crime syndicates which now suck the life's blood of the nation would be completely immobilized. They would have no reason to exist any longer, because the products and services which they've been supplying to large numbers of the population would now be available through legal channels.

Think of the saving in police costs and in taxes. Think of the reduction in violent crimes. Dope addicts would no longer be impelled to rob and sometimes kill in order to gain funds to satisfy their cravings at black market prices, and there would be no incentive for anyone to recruit new addicts. Then, too, narcotics would lose the lure which they now have as something "forbidden." Addiction would unquestionably decrease.

And the whole thing would have a beneficial rather than a degrading effect on the moral climate of the nation, because people would no longer be forced to violate a law in order to obtain that which they want or need and which others really have no right to deny them-if you believe in the doctrine of individual freedom, that it. Respect for law and its sanctity would be greatly increased.

I know. People point to Nevada and say that there's a state where gambling has been legalized and that it has the highest crime rate in the nation. But I submit that this is so only because gambling is unlawful in most of the rest of the country and that, therefore, Nevada attracts unstable elements from everywhere else. Also the syndicates, which operate beyond the bounds of law-and-order in other areas and have grown fat there on corruption, find Nevada a fertile field for the extension of their activities. If the syndicates were put out of business, and gambling and narcotics and prostitution were placed in the hands of responsible elements under strict govern mental control, what a different situation would prevail!

And you can go still further in showing how so-called "respectable" society spawns its own evils:

How much less violence there would be, and how much less poverty and less money spent on relief doles, if no elements of our population had to bear the stigma of racial persecution.

Well, enough of that. I didn't mean to launch into a lecture. Maybe I'm all wet, anyhow. But, to me, the foregoing makes a certain amount of sense. It's always surprised me that more people don't see it.

I lay on the hard bed in Room 7 and waited until it seemed that the time was right to make a move.

After easing the door open and satisfying myself that the hall was empty at the moment, I walked to the door at the back of the hall which evidently led to the basement. It was a heavy door, probably sound proofed, but it wasn't locked. I assumed that was because of some housing ordinance. Moving as quickly and quietly as I could, I entered down into the darkness.

There undoubtedly was a light switch somewhere near at hand, but I didn't want to press it. I felt around. There was a metal door to my left at the foot of the stairs. Seemingly empty space extended to the right. I assumed this was the utility area where a water heater, fuse boxes and such were located.

The metal door was securely locked. My hope that Zimmer's "studio" might have a flimsy door which could be opened with a skeleton key was dashed. That meant I would have to figure out some other way to get in.

I thought about "George"-the unshaved giant whom Leona had described. She'd said that Zimmer had "called" him after Zimmer had taken her to the studio. That meant George probably had a room in the basement-somewhere beyond the darkness that stretched off to my right. And he probably spent a lot of time in it, so as to be near at hand when Zimmer needed him to perform his special function in the white slaver's scheme of things.

And George would have a key to the studio, wouldn't he? Sure, he would, because there was a Yale lock set into the metal door which snapped when the door was closed. I had felt it; and there was no doorknob. Since Zimmer wouldn't take a girl in there and leave the door open, it figured that George would carry a key so that he could enter quickly whenever he was called.

I thought about George, wondering if he was really as big and rough as Leona Temple had made him out to be. If he was, I figured my only chance of taking him would be to hit him by surprise.

Peering into the darkness to my right, I tried to pick out some detail among the vague shapes that my eyes had become aware of. There were pipes and a large boiler; there was a crude wooden enclosure that probably housed paints or tools; then, further back, there was another door. I headed into the darkness toward it.

As I got nearer I could see a thin line of light along the concrete floor where the door abutted, I moved closer still, taking care not to kick anything that would cause a sudden clatter.

I was right beside the door now, and L put my ear against the thin partition. There was a radio or television playing on the other side. That meant George was at home.

Excitement began to build within me. I looked around my feet, to see if I could spot anything that might be used to send the big man on a quick, certain trip to dreamland. There was nothing. Zimmer kept his basement as neat as the proverbial pin.

I walked back to the wooden enclosure I'd spotted earlier. Its door wasn't locked; I could feel the hasp and the wooden peg that held it.

I eased the peg out, then drew the door open.

The hinges of the crude door creaked loudly, the harsh sound knifing through the darkness. I froze.

There was a bump and a scraping from inside George's room, as if a chair was being pushed aside. He was coming to investigate, and I didn't have a thing to meet him with, except my bare hands.

I But I did have the element of surprise in my favor, if I took advantage of it.

I left the door of the tool room open and hurried on the balls of my feet to the partition beside George's door. I got there just before the door opened, and I flattened myself against the wall.

Leona hadn't lied about her rapist. She hadn't even exaggerated. He was at least six feet tall and built like a lumberjack. His arms bulged below the rolled sleeves of a flannel shirt.

He stopped outside the door, light striking his back and throwing a massive shadow on the brightened concrete before him. I tensed myself.

George was squinting stupidly at the tool room door, evidently trying to decide what to make of it. I hurled myself forward.

The old Army training came in handy as I chopped at his neck with all my strength. Thick as his neck was, I got through to him. But the blow didn't put him out. He grunted, wobbled on his legs, and turned toward me. His face was pudgy and wore a five-or six-day growth of black whiskers. His eyes were deep-set in dark hollows. He was blinking, trying to focus.

I brought my right hand up to his throat with everything I had behind it.

He gagged, his tongue lolling, and then his eyes rolled up and pitched forward. When he struck the bare concrete floor, it didn't do him a damned bit of good, I'll tell you.

I jumped over him, grasped his ankles, and pulled him back into his room. It was a cramped little place, stuffy and foul-smelling. There was a cot that looked as if it hadn't been properly made up in a month, a plain wooden chair, and a small table where a portable TV flickered. I snapped the set off.

Then I looked around and my mouth must have fallen open. The walls of the room were plastered with glossy black-and-white photo enlargements of George and a variety of women.

I moved closer to study them in detail.

The women were in different stages of undress or entirely nude. In some of the scenes, George was pulling articles of clothing from them, while in others he was in the very act of rape. There must have been at least a dozen different women pictured.

As I stared at them, I couldn't keep from shuddering at the awesomeness of the evil which Zimmer and his trained ape had been practicing. And George evidently lay day and night in that little room, staring by the hour with relish at the proof of his depravity!

What I had to do, of course, was to tie him up before he awakened. I shook myself into action, looked around and spotted an old chest of drawers against the wall. I crossed over to it, thinking that I might find something inside that I could use in binding George.

I found something, all right. The first drawer I opened was filled with a tangle of women's stockings, brassieres, panties, girdles, and slips, many of them torn. I opened another drawer: more of the same.

So this was the way Zimmer paid him, I thought. The old man gave him that lousy room, probably some slop to eat, a woman every once in a while to rape, and let him keep their underwear and the pictures to furnish vicarious pleasure in-between times. For those goodies, the ape did Zimmer's dirty work and-who knows?-maybe provided the old man with some kicks of his own in the process. I remembered Leona's description of Zimmer laughing and watching glint-eyed as George violated her.

The whole setup made me want to puke.

I pulled some stockings from one of the drawers and quickly tied George's wrists and ankles. Then I wadded a brassiere, forced it into his mouth, and tied it securely with another stocking. George was fast asleep and, from the look of him and the sound of his breathing, I figured he would be out for some time. There was blood on his face from the headlong fall he'd taken on the concrete.

In one of his pants pockets I found a ring of keys. I pulled these out, then turned off his light and closed the door of the room behind me.

I walked back to the foot of the stairs.

The key fit the lock of the studio door, all right. I shoved the door open, felt for a light switch, and pressed. Then I pushed the door closed.

The room was as Leona had described it. I no longer had the slightest doubt that everything she'd told me had been the truth.

I began to go over the place carefully.