Prologue
The girl with the honey colored hair had been sitting by the terminal gate for almost half an hour. As the minutes lengthened she seemed to be reading a copy of a news magazine, flicking through the pages slowly. Most of the time, though, her eyes had been on the entrance to the boarding ramp. As the last passenger passed through Gate 16 she closed the periodical, bent gracefully to pick up a small makeup case of tooled leather and joined the end of the line. Her movements were casual and unhurried. She was not unaware of the hungry, male eyes which took in each detail of her slender figure from the soft mass of hair to the small tips of her white shoes. She was as delicately exquisite as a rare orchid and the expensively simple suit of beige colored silk flatteringly touched her hips and the contours of her long legs. Her oval face was as fresh as spring lupin and she looked as though she were the perfectly poised and turned out product of an exclusive finishing school. Without speaking she turned her ticket over to the gatemen, received it back, nodded pleasantly, and passed on.
At the steps of the jet, the girl seemed to be having trouble with the clasp of her bag. It took her a few moments to adjust it and during the interval she kept her eyes on the ramp to the terminal building.
"Better hurry, Miss," the ground steward urged and held out a hand to assist her to the steps.
Then, without haste, she stepped lightly up, followed by the steward. He watched her disappear and shook his head bewilderedly. People were always doing funny things. She could have just as well fixed her bag inside.
The DC-10 moved out as slowly and as effortlessly as a breeze, gently twisting its long, gleaming body down the runway ramp. Minutes later it was hurtling along the runway, then rising steeply on its way to Los Angeles.
Head propped against a pillow, long legs stretched as far as space would allow, Matt Grant watched the smoke from his cigarette rise and disappear with the invisible current of the air-conditioning system. His dark, lean face was in repose but there was an odd, speculative luster in his eyes as though something secretly amused him. He had been in this position from the time the huge jet had left the Cleveland airport. When he was thinking, he liked to stretch out and he was thinking now, seriously, and with a curious sense of baffled curiosity. Nothing dropped into form as it should. There were intriguing bits of a puzzle in his mind but they refused to fall into place. The whole thing just didn't make any sense!
He drew heavily upon the cigarette stub and lit another from its coal. The small tray on the arm rest beside him was all but overflowing with twisted butts. Intuition, experience, told him this was no fantastic coincidence and yet it had to be. Coincidence's that involved Victor Rizzi - head of Cleveland's underworld "family" - were Matt Grant's business. And Jill Foster was Victor Rizzi's secretary. So, she too, was his business. But why was she leaving Cleveland? Why was she traveling alone? Why? Why? Why?
Matt rubbed the knuckles of a heavy hand against his nose as though this rough massage would draw out the answer.
A week ago he had been in Mexico. There, in the countryside, the magic bush grew. Acres, upon acres; mile after mile of verdant beauty, shining in the sunlight like endless fields of ripe quivering corn. But they brought no aesthetic pleasure to the women and girls who worked among the rows harvesting the mature marijuana plants for market. Nor to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Mexican authorities, undercover agents, and informers who fought an endless war to shut off the supply into the United States. From Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, to Tijuana, with its crossing into San Diego, there were hundreds of openings. It was impossible to police this extensive border. What Washington tried to do was close the big gaps. Sometimes, Matt thought wearily, the whole thing was like a worn tire. You patched it up here and it blew out there. In Mexico City, he had talked long and earnestly with Mexican officials, government agents, local police. They had flown over the area and looked down upon the fields. It seemed incredible that such malignance, terror, agony and torture could stem from the fields of shimmering beauty.
Back in Washington, Matt had carefully prepared his report. It contained little of which the Bureau was not aware and served only to keep some sort of a check on the current activities. He had been given a pat on the head, a weeks vacation, and a transfer to Los Angeles. The transfer was not unexpected; he had worked there before. In fact he liked California. What better place to start a vacation? But he was restless. In his mind there was a file of names and faces that ranged from the lowly users and pushers to the top - the heads of the underworld "families", the brains behind the web of organized crime that spanned from coast to coast. And, Victor Rizzi was there. So was Jill Foster. It bothered him - vacation or not. . .
Matt Grant straightened up from his lounging position, ordered a martini and stared out the window. He sipped the liquor appreciatively, and smiled at his reflection in the glass. He had a much needed seven days of leisure and here he was, right in the middle of a witches' brew. Whatever Vic Rizzi - and Jill Foster - were up to was really none of his business. He chuckled, he'd simply take his seat in the orchestra and watch the show. Yet, in a small part of Matt's mind, there was a voice that wouldn't let him rest - a voice that had interested him when he had first seen the Foster girl in the terminal.
She was a thing of beauty. She had a background, breeding, education. How then, had she gotten involved with Victor Rizzi? Why was she working for a known gangster. No, "gangster" was old-fashioned. These days society had to deal with a new breed, a second generation from the mob rulers who once held all the major American cities as their private kingdoms and shooting preserves. The Capones, Schultzes, Lepkes, and Lucianos were men of musty fiction. In their places were shrewd businessmen, many of them graduates of eastern universities. They lived quietly, circumspectly and in an aura of respectability. Yet their well-manicured fingers still held the same old threads. Dope, Gambling. Prostitution. The manifold rackets from the numbers with their five-and-ten-cent bets to silent partnerships in hotels and casinos from Las Vegas to Acapulco. Nothing had really changed. The operation now was suave, polished, sophisticated. Murder was done and often, but it no longer roared around a corner in a black sedan. It came quietly and with finesse.
The Foster girl, he mused, was part of the new look. He had watched her from a point outside her vision. For all her appearance of casualness her attention had never strayed for long from the boarding gates. So, he had told himself, she is waiting for someone to show but it wasn't Rizzi. If she was taking a trip with Victor, wouldn't she have gone directly to the plane? So why the hell hadn't she gone to the plane instead of sitting there pretending to read a magazine?
Grant had decided to wait. There was time. His curiosity had been piqued as she watched gate 16, the flight to Los Angeles; his flight.
When she had finally closed the magazine, he had dropped his cigarette, mashing it out with the toe of a shoe, and joined the line ahead of her.
Now - and he smiled at the reflection in the glass - he had this interest provoking situation to watch. Maybe - just maybe - he might combine a little business with pleasure .. .
Jill Foster was suspended somewhere halfway between sleep and a drowsy wakefulness as the plane flew steadily westward. In the corners of her fine eyes small amounts of moisture had collected. Her thoughts had returned to Jack, her Jack .. . her husband . . . Lieutenant Jack Foster, member of Baltimore's vice squad on loan to the Cleveland Police Department as an undercover agent in a joint project to smash a thriving prostitution ring that floated between Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Her Jack.. . dead and buried in a cold cemetery plot, put there by one Victor Rizzi.
It had begun over a year ago. At that time, only days after Jack's death, Jill had thought it the thing to do. In her sorrow, confused and revengeful, it had seemed sensible. Now, as she looked back on it, it had been stupid - a thing some head-strong teenager might do. It had really started with Captain Elliot Fisher. It had been he who had unwittingly planted the germ of an idea in her head when he painstakingly explained the facts behind Jack's senseless death.
The tearful woman who sat across from him would not be placated by the prepared statements released after her husband's death. She pressed him relentlessly with probing questions. Why? Why? Why? she wanted to know. Why had Jack really been in Cleveland? Why had he been killed? Who had killed him? Finally, he had given in to her, telling her what he could about the events leading up to the death. Bare facts, but essential facts to Jill who lay awake that night and every night for two weeks thereafter, sleeping only when the sun rose and dispelled the lonely darkness from the bedroom and the double bed with it's single lonely occupant. During the long night Jill went over and over the few facts Captain Fisher had given her until a rough plan had formed. Then, every night, in the still darkness, she went over it, again and again, until finally after two weeks she felt she had rounded off the rough edges and had a plan that would work - a plan that would avenge her poor Jack.
Captain Fisher had told her about the person behind the prostitution ring in Cleveland and that this man was the man responsible for Jack's death. He had also told her that the killing had been professional and that there was not a thread of a clue that could link Victor Rizzi to the crime. But Jill knew it was there, somewhere, and she would find it. And when she did she would see to it that Victor Rizzi was put away.
But how was she going to get to Rizzi? How could she get close enough to him to find out what she needed to know? She could, of course, become a prostitute in his ring. She rejected it for two reasons. First, even for the memory of her dead husband, it was beyond her moral capabilities. The thought repulsed and nauseated her. Secondly, she doubted if any of those girls ever got close to him. He probably kept his own mistress, or mistresses. Finally, she decided that the only way to get close to him, and the evidence she needed, was to get a job within one of his legitimate organizations where she could be close to his contacts and his files. From a point close to him, within the organization, she could then find the information she needed. She was a trained secretary and a skilled model, so it shouldn't be too hard to get a job.
Three weeks after the funeral Jill sold all of their possessions and moved to Cleveland. For three months she gathered information on Victor Rizzi's operations. She made friends with several of the girls who worked in his legitimate enterprises and through one got an interview, and then a job as a secretary in his suite of offices. From there it had been easy. Despite her mental repulsiveness for the man, Jill worked hard to charm Victor Rizzi. Once she gained his confidence, she had set to work discovering all she could about the organization. After several months he had made her his private secretary and it took skillfullness to fight off his advances. She traveled with him wherever he went. She always insisted on separate accommodations, but found it difficult to refuse the lavish gifts, clothing and credit cards he forced on her. At the end of nine months she still had not come any closer to finding the evidence she needed.
Then, yesterday, Victor had discovered her going through his desk. Somehow she had managed to convince him that it was an innocent act, but she knew the seed of doubt had been planted. Right now the efficient organization was digging into her past and it was only a matter of time before they discovered she was the widow of Jack Foster. So she had decided to run! But where could she go where he wouldn't find her? How badly would he want her? She didn't know. But she could guess. And what was she going to do when she got to Los Angeles? There was only a little over four hundred dollars in her purse and when that was gone she didn't know where she would get more. She would have to find a job where she would be inconspicuous. She couldn't go back to modeling, or to a secretarial job. Those would be the first places he would look for her. And she had to find a place to live ...
The plane began to shudder slightly and the "fasten seat belt" sign flashed on. They were descending for the approach to Los Angeles International Airport. Oh well, she thought, first things first. I need a drink to calm my nerves. I'll buy a newspaper and check the want ads. Something will turn up . . .