The Judas Plot -- Part Eight
Author’s Note: The finale is done, but Part Eight came in at well over 6000 words and I couldn’t figure out what to cut, so instead of delaying any further, I have decided to break up it up.
Thanks for your patience and support. And now, Part Eight…
Midtown. The next day.
“You got a lot of damned nerve calling me,” Robert said.
I had left the Carol Street safehouse early that morning and telephoned my brother at home.
“Excuse me?” I asked, one finger in my other ear to block the traffic noise.
“You heard what I said. I don’t know what you’ve been up to since you broke out of Liberty General, and I don’t want to know. I don’t have to lie to Garrett if he comes around again.”
“Garrett paid you a visit?”
“Yesterday. He had a warrant for everything in my desk. Even the damned typewriter. Interviewed me in the bull pen meeting room and when he didn’t get what he wanted, he took me down to Russell Street. You know what that’s like.”
“Not a fun time.”
“So, no, I can’t tell you anything about Jimmy.”
He was holding back. “Except?”
Robert answered with silence. I prodded him.
“You’d be wrong to think the rich were your only victims, Walter.”
The line went dead and my face tingled with heat like Robert had reached through the phone and slapped me. He never condoned the choices I’d made in my life, but he never acted the victim either, even when things got hot. He understood me. Better than anyone. At least I thought he did.
I started walking north along Talbot and thought about how I was going to con my way past Gladys into the apartment because the thought of getting rough with a pregnant woman left a bad taste in my mouth.
Twenty minutes later, I came upon the Manor Mansions Apartments, a red brick walk-up, standing proud on the northwest corner of Millar and Connaught. It was a single column of apartments that ran the entire length of the building stacked three-storeys high. Banks of windows overlooked Millar Street, trimmed white under bands of pale stone. A modest triangular gable hung over the Connaught Avenue entrance and suggested that Manor Mansion’s best days weren’t behind it yet.
I passed a black Frontenac left at the curb on Connaught and turned up the short pathway to the glazed panel door and pushed through into the vestibule. The cream terrazzo floor was spotless and warm air poured out of a heater on the right-hand wall next to a small mailroom with three tall brass mailboxes. I read the tags. 3 - Mr. & Mrs. James Caruso.
I left the mailroom just as a young brunette woman in a smart house dress entered the vestibule from the first-floor apartment. I caught the door at the last second and slipped inside.
The walls of the central stair column were painted a smart two-tone slate and bone white. They climbed upward under a skylight.
Apartment 3 occupied the top floor. A handmade wreath of autumn vines and small flowers hung on the door. I listened with my ear against the door, but there was no sound from within. I pulled out a handkerchief and checked the knob. Unlocked. I let go as if it had shocked me. I held my breath and listened again for signs of life inside but heard nothing. I pushed the door slowly. Still nothing. I slipped inside before anyone noticed me loitering on the landing and eased the door shut.
The state of the front hallway set off the alarm in my head.
Brown and black wool overcoats and a mink fur carpeted the front hallway. I stepped cautiously through to the living room where I saw more disarray: a pale blue davenport sofa had been gutted like a cow, its seat cushions disemboweled of their stuffing, bookcases emptied onto the floor. The dining room was more of the same.
I was headed to the kitchen when I heard it: the faintest whisper of paper against paper from the bedroom hallway behind me. My head snapped up and I turned, slowly shifting my weight on the balls of my feet as my thumb cocked the hammer on the Colt.
At the bedroom hallway, I paused and listened, hardly breathing. Straight ahead was an empty bathroom flanked by the spare and master bedrooms. Silence from the master on the right. The scrape of a wooden drawer from the spare on the left. I crept into the hallway and stopped just shy of the threshold.
From the doorway I could see three quarters of the bedroom. On the far wall was a double closet, open and gutted of clothing. There was a white crib dressed in white sheets with yellow baby ducks on it. A teddy bear leaned in the corner.
Ever so slowly, I crossed the threshold, not even daring to breathe. In the blind corner to the right of the window was a large drafting desk. A husky man in a tight blue suit knelt on one knee over a small chest of drawers. I thumbed off the safety and hugged the wall, the Colt automatic leading the way until it nuzzled into the roll in the back of his neck. My new friend froze.
“You know what this is?” I asked. He nodded his head ever so slightly. “Good. You know the drill then.”
His hands rose slowly, fingers splayed. A gold band winked on his left ring finger.
“Lace your fingers on the back of your head then very slowly stand up and face the wall with your eyes closed.”
He obeyed, struggling a little with his weight, but he managed to slide his shoulder up the wall. He leaned his forehead against the wall.
“Please,” he whispered. A bead of sweat ran from his sideburn down his cheek.
“You’re all right, pal. Just follow my instructions and you can go home to your wife.”
“Okay.”
I frisked him thoroughly and found no gun, no knife, not even a sap. His black leather wallet held a few bucks in one compartment and a black and white picture of a woman in the other. She was plump with a round, smiling face.
“Pretty wife,” I said. “What’s her name?”
“C-Carla.”
His driver’s license was in a pocket with a plastic window.
“All right, J. Van Ness of 1289 Guthrie Street, I’m going to ask questions and you’re going to answer. Understand?”
A bead of sweat rolled down his fat cheek. Or was it a tear?
“How’d you get in here, Van Ness?“ I asked. “You’re not carrying any picks, and you don’t strike me as a second-storey man.”
“The l-landlord let me in.”
I twisted the muzzle into the fat around his collar. “What did I tell you about lying, Van Ness?”
“I-I’m not l-lying! Please!”
“You just walked up and asked the super, Pretty please, let me snoop around this swanky pad? Who the hell are you for him to let a stranger into a tenant’s apartment?”
“I—I’m a collection agent.”
That stopped me, and not because Van Ness wasn’t a typical dunner. Jimmy was swimming in dough from our Founders heists. Didn’t make sense for Van Ness to be here. I kept rolling.
“Who do you work for? What’s the name of the firm?”
“D-Dominion Wh-Wholesale Creditors. I started last m-month.”
“Enjoying the work?”
He shook his head, eyes shut tight.
“Who hired Dominion Wholesale Creditors?”
“N-Northern Trust and Securities. Some others.”
The mystery deepened. “Explain.”
“C-Caruso over-leveraged himself on inv-vestments he bought on margin. His stocks flopped and n-now the broker wants the m-margin he loaned Caruso. No one can reach Caruso, so I thought I’d p-poke around. Pick up his trail.”
“You said there were others on the ticket.”
“He owes on the f-furniture. Some f-furs.”
“How much does he owe?”
“Eight-Eight-Eight hundred thirty-six dollars and tw-twenty-seven cents. Check m-my inside p-pocket.”
I reached inside his jacket and pulled out a slip of paper. I shook it open and smoothed it against Van Ness’ broad back. There was a lengthy list of delinquencies under Jimmy’s name. It was hard to believe, but it tracked with the grand the Dunbars were offering. The eight hundred plus the back rent, utilities, and other sundries he was probably behind on brought him close to a grand. I folded up the letter and slipped it into my pocket. The Dunbars were his lifeline.
“Did you tear this place apart, Van Ness?”
“No. It was tossed when I got here.”
“You expect me to believe Mrs. Caruso made this mess? She’s a proper lady.”
“It wasn’t me.”
I screwed the muzzle into the back of his jaw. “Then who?”
“The cops!”
It was like a lightning bolt slammed through me. “What?”
“The c-cops were here before me. They did this.”
“Why?”
“S-same as me. They’re looking for Jimmy. They think he’s involved in the D-Dunbar heist. I found a search warrant on the dining room table.”
An image of Gladys—terrified, alone, and very, very pregnant—formed in my mind, and Robbie’s voice echoed in my head. You’d be wrong to think the rich were your only victims, Walter. I shut my eyes and mouthed a curse.
“All right, J. Van Ness of 1289 Guthrie Street, husband to the lovely Carla, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to keep those peepers shut. I’m going to walk you out of here, and you’re going to leave this building and head straight home to your wife. Got it?”
Van Ness nodded until his cheeks jiggled like pudding.
I jammed the Colt into his ribs and pulled him off the wall by his ham hock of a shoulder. I guided him slowly and he shuffled through the apartment. I let him feel for the door and when he got to the landing, I sent him off with a warning.
“You can open your eyes to go down the stairs, but if you look back—bang! I won’t hesitate. Got it?”
“Y-Yes! Yes, I understand!”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Off you go.”
Van Ness hustled down the stairs like I was the devil on his heels. When he disappeared from view, I retreated to Caruso’s apartment and pulled aside the sheer on the dining room window just in time to watch him burst from the entrance like a bull and run straight for the Frontenac and pull away in a cloud of exhaust.
I holstered the Colt and re-examined the dining room table. True to Van Ness’ word, an LCPD search warrant, signed by Inspector Garrett, lay unfolded on top of the previous day’s edition of the Herald Gazette, the upturned ends shivering in the breeze from an open window.
I picked it up with my handkerchief and scanned it, looking for the good stuff.
“...one sapphire and diamond necklace known as the Schönbrunn Blue, believed to be stolen property removed from the Dunbar Estate on or about the 3rd of October, 1932 as well as documents or correspondence connecting the occupant to Walter Burback or Patrick Flanagan; any firearms or weapons...”
So Garrett had come and gone like a tornado. I looked around the ruined apartment and decided there was no point sifting for clues to Jimmy’s whereabouts in the mess left behind.
I lay the warrant on the table and was about to leave when the headline on the Herald Gazette caught my eye. In two-inch letters the headline read: PM BENNETT’S RELIEF CAMPS COME TO LIBERTY. Below that: Single, jobless men urged to register at city employment offices.
I left the Manor Mansion apartments like a hound that had caught the scent of a hare.
© 2026 Kevin M. Coleman
Disclaimer
This article is an original work by Kevin M. Coleman. All rights are reserved. No part of this article may be copied, stored, or reproduced in any form — including but not limited to use in training artificial intelligence or machine learning systems — without the author’s express written permission.
The tension is building well. Looking forward to the rest.
Ohhh, I can't wait for the rest!