Intrigue at the Lieutenant's Office

1948 – May

Mason Jakken had the habit of taking long walks and wander around town, thus he was only found at the Lenny's while enjoying a very late dinner at 3:32 AM. The lieutenant ordered him to get back to the precinct ASAP since they had some ‘real trouble’ to deal with. He could hear a distinct muffled voice in the back, and feared the worst.

That airhead! Had she done exactly what he had told her not to?

As if it mattered...

He put on his best 'wassup?' face as Det. Rick Klein welcomed him and rushed him upstairs to the offices of Ian McLenn, there was still lots of activity in the precinct downstairs (and a lot of funny looks aimed at him and Klein) but upstairs things were really calm. Only a few detectives doing small jobs (mostly checking their guns) or sleeping in the rooms in the back of the floor and the light in the lieutenant's office showed human activity.

Weird, what Stanley Raversham was doing posted in front of the door of the office? He welcomed him with a tip in his hat and stood there, his bulky and massive and very intimidating body blocking their way. Then Steve Brock's face appeared after he barely opened the door to let it pass through and told Stanley to let them pass and resumed his position. It was as bad as he had thought.

Morgan, gorgeous sweet Morgan was there, inside the lieutenant's office. She was not wearing her revealing cigarette girl black with white details 'uniform', but even in this indigo blue (and very sober) business dress her charms were obvious. Too bad that they had tied her up and covered those pouty bright red lips with a blue scarf over her mouth...

Wait a moment, he had seen (and heard) lots of people gagged in his eleven years in the job, men and women and children, and he knew that the 'Hollywood gag' was only effective in movies and comics, in the real world it was needed a lot more than a scarf wrapped over the lips to render someone as speechless as the girl was now...

Ops, the lieutenant was looking at him...

'Here, let me show you a thing...'

He handed him her identification as a federal agent...

He whistled and looked at the captive sitting on one of the chairs in front of the lieutenant's desk, and then back at the photo in the document.

'Oh boy... I would never believe if I this wasn't in my hands...'

He was right in front of her now. Klein and Brock were behind him and the lieutenant was still sitting on his chair behind the desk at his left. No guns being cocked or pulled at him... play possum, just play possum. He returned her identification to Brock's hands.

'So... she's not 'just' a cigarette girl at the 'Shadow of the Moon'...'

'How can you be so cool about it? She's a FBI agent!' - shouted the lieutenant.

'And she's not dead or bleeding, so it means that Stanley hadn’t 'interrogated' her yet...'

He pretended to leer at her bust, then he grabbed her lower face with a sudden move that showed to the others how much 'hate' he was feeling towards the helpless girl. Everybody 'knew' that he had fantasies with her, what red-blooded man wouldn't?, and everybody knew that they were 'friends' as she was 'friend' of every cop that showed up at the 'Shadow', but they all believed that he was 'something more' than just a friend...

He was walking in very thin ice as of now.

'How did you find out Ian? Why is this ***** without a single black eye?'

'NOTHING is going to happen here at my office, nothing! Do you understand?'

He let her chin go with a hard shove, then he grabbed her hair and yanked it very forcefully forcing her head backwards, she was looking straight at him now. No 'please forgive me' teary and begging eyes, she had messed up big time but was in control of herself. He mouthed 'play along' and slapped her hard on the left cheek. And got another ready...

'Mason! Didn't you hear me? Get your hands out of there and come here!'

Looking at the captive girl with all the sneer and hate he could muster he moved and positioned himself between Klein and Brok. And was told of what had happened.

At around 11:00 PM she had entered the precinct demanding to see the lieutenant, there were about sixteen men downstairs and ALL OF THEM had seen her (who wouldn't?) going up through the old wooden staircase, she had entered his office and demanded to be alone with him, then she had shown her badge and told him what she was doing in town.

Giacomo Cranetti, who else?, wasn't laying low as most of the Big Bosses of the East Coast. And had found, while working undercover at the 'Shadow', two girls whom she managed to convince to testify against Cranetti. And then he said what Mason was expecting him to say, and what he had forbidden Morgan to say anything to anyone not 2 days ago..., that Morgan had told him that she had an ally in the precinct and said ally had a bunch of proofs against Cranetti... What did that busty bimbo had in her mind?

True, the lieutenant had an immaculate reputation and had managed to send some employees of Cranetti to prison, but that was a make believe of a ruse set patiently by Cranetti during the past decade... and he had warned her that NO ONE in the police (besides him) was trustworthy, well he could have told her that the lieutenant (and the others) were crooked... but then she would have told it to her superior, who was as crooked at the lieutenant himself (and Morgan had such an admiration for the guy that he decided not to tell her until he was introduced to the superior's superior). He pretended to ponder at to what his superior had just told him. Then he had a crazy and wild idea...

''Parrot' Peyton?'

'I don't know.. But who else can he (the snitch) be? As soon as I started to pressure her a little more about the identity of the rat she started to realize to whom she was talking to...'

'And we had to tie her up before she could attract the attention of the others...'

The 'others' were the honest cops beyond that door behind him. Including 'Parrot' Peyton, the probie that had rated out a violent cop after he 'managed' to get a phony confession out of a 17 years black boy for a crime that didn't had happened in the first place! 'Parrot' was much better than 'Rat', and besides he was used to justify his actions by parroting the laws and regulations that the ex-cop had broken in the course of his 'investigation'... Fortunately for him and Morgan, Peyton worked in his precinct and those crooked maggots around him had no other name to think of in their minds...

'So now we have a very pretty undercover federal agent tied up by us, 'corrupt cops', inside a room in a precinct full of 'good cops' and we have to get her out before we 'question' her?'

'Pretty much that, except that she's not the only one that we have to question...'

Uh? What did they meant with that?

'I made the fool call her superior, Agent Zyckes (that dude with the funny moustache), and she told us that the witnesses were Polly Brent and Christie Fannley. It seems that they don't know much actually, but it seems to be enough to start to build a strong case against Cranetti... something related to that gypsy girl who worked with her and them and who committed suicide five months ago. Zyckes promised to warn Cranetti as I sent Paul and Dunn to the place where she had hid them and Dunn phoned me about twenty minutes ago. They're as bound and gagged as this ****** fed in my uncle's cabin by the lake... We need to take her there... As soon as possible.'

'But you have no idea as to how do it, right?'

Mason was known as one of the sleekiest men alive... he had taken himself and his pals (the lieutenant included) out of many tight spots over the years, and now they were waiting for his magic brain to work for them again. He could pull his gun and aim at them, shoot a couple of rounds to attract all attention possible (especially of the honest dudes) and had it over in about two minutes. But there were those two innocent girls in the cabin by the lake, and there was that even more innocent gypsy girl he had sworn to avenge before...

'Ian, do you have any spool of thread and a needle in this office? And some newspaper?'

The look in all of their faces, but especially in hers, was really priceless. He was now behind her and shoved her upper body ahead, forcing her to bend forward and giving him access to the knots of the ropes on her arms. He started to undo them right away...

'Do you have more rope by the way?'

The men were looking at him as if he had gone crazy. The lieutenant was the first to react.

'What are you doing?'

'Simple. I will untie her arms, sloppy job by the way... some of the knots are almost undone by her own efforts, then she'll remove her jacket and blouse and I'll tie her upper torso very tightly. Oh yeah baby, we're going to see your big melons getting even bigger, then I will put the blouse back, nice pricey stuff by the way (Madam Lenore’s?), and after that the jacket. We'll wring some newspaper and put it inside the sleeves and then we'll sewn the sleeves to the inner part of the front pockets of the jackets, so at a distance she'll look like she has her hands inside the pockets, with my suit over her head we'll be able to cover the gag as we move her out of here right in front of everybody that we will keep at a safe distance... after all, she's a valuable witness against Cranetti, isn't she?'

Five minutes later Brock left the precinct in a hurry after giving orders that absolutely no one was allowed to go upstairs. He stopped at a joint called 'Noah's Ark' and called  Vinloyd (Cranetti's second-in-command) and told him what had happened at the precinct and how they would deal with it and what they expected that Cranetti did as a cover-up, spread the words that he was behind the shooting that was about to happen, then he rushed to his home and grabbed his rifle. He had been a sharpshooter at the Army and could do almost anything with that gun, like purposely missing a couple of rounds.

At Ian's office things went just like Mason wanted, while he spent nearly fifteen minutes ensuring that Morgan's arms were completely useless for the moment, Klein stuffed the jacket's sleeves with the newspaper and sewn them to the front pockets while the lieutenant gave orders to all the detectives and personnel at the precinct. The alley behind the precinct was closed and under heavy guard in five minutes, three cars were provided and parked right at the end of the stairs and the floor was now completely for them.

Stanley was allowed to get inside the office and gave a loud whistle... And was immediately admonished by Ian for it. But he couldn't help himself.

Morgan had a real big pair of breasts, and as Mason had said the complete immobilization of her arms had forced them frontward and they were straining the fabric of the indigo blue bra she was wearing. There were four ropes below her breasts and above her waist (and around her torso of course), there was this weird crisscross pattern around them and even a couple of turns of rope squashing them. And Mason, that lucky perv!, wasn't finished with her! He looped three more long pieces of rope above and below her breasts and finished his job by applying bandage above her already well gagged mouth. Then he put her blouse back on her body and next it was the jacket. The girl was crying openly now, she still had defiance in her eyes but she was crying... Pity that she had to die...

'Stanley, wrap your arms around her as if you were shielding her with your body, then walk around the office for a moment... Now... Stanley!'

Stanley did so, the feeble resistance of the girl was no match at all for his strength, and both the lieutenant and Klein agreed that, at a distance, she could pass for a normal girl being protected by Stanley. Time to check on the other girls...

They were two prostitutes that were being booked when Brock  saw them and ordered that they were taken to a room upstairs. They were the 'decoys'.

Exactly thirty five minutes after Brock had left the precinct the plan was put in motion. Every cop in the alley saw three women being escorted by the lieutenants through the emergency fire stairs in the back of the building, all three kept their heads (covered by the men's jackets) low and were being held tightly in the hands of the lieutenants, especially the poor girl that was about to be crushed by Stanley's hug. Then they all heard the shots...

Three shots, fired from the roof of a nearby building and that missed the head of two of the women by inches. Now there was frantic activity in the alley, all the cops rushed to either protect the car's exit or to check on the building from where the shots came from.

No one managed to get a good look at the woman's faces.

The two prostitutes had recognized their companion (and so called 'star witness' by the lieutenant) as a captive woman whose arms were bound behind her back and who was well gagged. But it wasn't their business, the lieutenant would let them go if they played along and kept their mouth shut. The following day they both left town...

Mason had managed to stand by a car and, as ordered, Stanley took Morgan straight to that one while there was a pandemonium around them. They got in the back and Morgan was forced to keep her head down with very little effort from Stanley's part. All three cars took different directions and, as ordered, no police car followed them. While the lieutenant and Klein would take the decoys somewhere before they returned to the precinct, he went straight to the cabin and arrived there forty one minutes later.

Stanley carried Morgan to the cabin in his arms with surprising delicacy, but Mason wasn't paying too much attention to it. There were three cars parked in front of the isolated cabin. One was Dunn's, the other was Paul's, and the last one was trouble in BIG cap letters.

It was HIS car. Which meant that right now he was inside the cabin with two innocent girls?

To hell with his plan, if he had to he'd gun him down without blinking his eyes. He opened the door to Stanley and entered with his hand ready to grab the gun in his holster...

And saw one of the most stupid things that he had ever seen in his life.

Both Polly (another cigarette girl at 'Shadow') and Christie (one of the many dancers at 'Shadow') were tied up to chairs in a row the middle of the front room of the cabin. There was an empty chair in between them and Stanley carried Morgan to that and proceeded to tie her to that one immediately. Both Polly and Christie were clad only in their underwear (bra, panties, garter belt and stockings – white and red in Polly's case and blue and black in Christie's), and had been lashed to the chairs with white ribbons or strips of bed sheets. Their legs were tied together at the ankles and above the knees and the ankles had been tied to one of the front feet of the chair. Their torsos had been tied to the back of the chair at the waist and bust line and, since the chairs had arms, their arms had been tied separately to each correspondent arm of the chair at the elbows and wrists.

Nothing really weird or stupid so far, the problem was in the gags. Both were blindfolded and  cleave gagged with a strip of cloth so big that it had been wrapped around their faces, and between their teeth, so many times that their mouths were forced open with them.

Very effective.

And completely pointless in Christie's case since she was mute since the day she was born.

They had gagged a mute! And they knew about her condition, all three of them!

He heard a sound of water flushing and HE entered the room. Doodley 'Duke' Baccart, one of Cranetti's top enforcers. By the look of things he had arrived in time to prevent that ********** rapist to have some ‘fun’ with the captives, or perhaps Paul and Dunn had something to do with that? No, both men were openly goggling at the captives, and had 'welcomed' Morgan with wolf whistles. He would have to keep an eye on them too...

'Mason, help me with her, will you?'

Stanley needing help to deal with a girl? That was a first.

He had cut all the rope that he had applied on Morgan's arms, forced her to strip and now was holding her with one arms as he handed Mason a few strips of cloth. Mason took care of Morgan's legs while Stanley bound her arms to the chair's ones, after that Stanley proceeded to tie her torso to the back of the chair (and Duke, Paul and Dunn wolf whistled and made lewd comments when Morgan's breasts became even more prominent) as Mason grabbed a glass and filled it with water.

'Take her gag off. Morgan, or whatever is your name, I will give you this water because your mouth is probably dry as of now after all those hours with something inside it. I want to talk to you and you better talk to me, but for that your voice must be audible and understandable. So drink it, and don’t even think of spiting it on my face!'

What was passing through that girl's mind as of now?

She had trusted in him as much as she had trusted in her superior, now she had been shamelessly betrayed by both men and was at his mercy. The look in her eyes said everything... she was desperate and scared to her core, but she still trusted in him. Good. Now to play the 'good crooked cop' and see if those varmints sucked it in...

'Now, agent Morgan, I was told that there is a snitch in my precinct. Who is it?'

Come on... remember the emergency plan you fool!

'You promise that you won't hurt them?'

Both girls mewled as they heard it and turned their heads to her direction.

'Yes, I promise. You of course have no chance at all to leave this place alive, but them...'

'Richard Klein. My informer is Detective Richard Klein.'

That fell like a bomb in the room. Klein? Klein was as dirty and corrupt as any of them, he spent his 'extra income' with women and '21' tables in cities far away from his own (and always posing as a travelling salesman) and had done all sort of things to get this 'extra income' every week in his wallet. No way that he would be a rat!

Both Paul and Dunn arose from their chairs with menacing looks in their eyes, Stanley looked dumbfounded and Duke was calm. He grabbed her chin in a most vicious way.

'You are lying. I know Klein, he would never betray us. He'll get the chair no matter what deal he tries to get with the DA or the feds. The chair! Death sentence!'

'He already has one...'

Now even Duke was looking at her with a weird and curious expression in his face.

'Explain it.'

'Four months ago he supposedly went to Atlantic City for another one of his weekends of women and 21, right?' - All four detectives nodded – 'But actually he went to see a doctor. He has cancer. Big mean and incurable cancer that will kill him in a few months... '

And so she told them the story he had told her to say if her cover was blown and she was interrogated. How, after receiving the information that he wouldn't live more than an year, Klein had a sudden change of mind and called the nearest FBI office the following Monday. He had gotten in touch personally with a certain 'Agent Kowalski' and he had told him about her. He had spent the past four months helping them to identify every link, every piece and every name in Cranetti's organization while she, as a decoy, would try to be his eyes and ears at the 'Shadow' (the not-so-secret HQ of Cranetti's organization).

The big names of the FBI were suspicious that there was someone in the local office working for Cranetti, but of course they didn't expected hat it was the chief of the field operation department, so she was supposed to divert the mole's attention with her ‘investigation’ while Klein did his job. He had managed to give them tons of data about Cranetti, but no useful evidence or smoking gun against him.

'And what about those two...?'

'They are friends of a girl called Zara who committed suicide a few months ago because of... of... him – she looked very menacingly at Duke, and should be looking at Mason and Stanley as well - They managed to get some very good evidence against Cranetti...'

'That we destroyed as we arrived at the motel room from where took those two babes.'

'Shut up you two! Okay... I got it, then you say that it's Klein... can you prove it?'

She looked at him so weirdly for a moment, then she thought about it and shook her head.

'Gag her Stan...'

He and the others talked about what they had just heard. It made sense, Klein had unusually extended his stay in Atlantic City for a couple of days five months before. He had started to take some pills after that and was very evasive as to what they were for. One moment they were for an ulcer, then for the bladder, then for the lungs... (Actually they were for an inflammation in his most sensitive area, but only Mason knew about it...).

Could it be possible?

While pretending to follow the conversation and giving every now and then his opinion, and playing the devil's advocate for Klein and seeing (with hidden delight) that Paul and Dunn were falling for it; Mason was actually puzzled with Stanley's attitude. That Duke would devour the girls with his eyes (and have horrible thoughts about what to do with each one of them) was predictable. But Stan? He was looking every now and then at Christie and was it tenderness that he had just seen in his eyes?

It was something... good, at the very least. But what? And why?

Stan and Christie? Well, she wasn't exactly a petite, nor a tall woman, and was almost as endowed as Morgan and had an aura (for the lack of a better word) around her that made everybody wants to see her again and be with her, a strong and natural charisma... If she could talk she would have been discovered by Hollywood eons ago. The only thing that Mason didn't liked in her was her haircut. Too short and too tomboyish for his tastes (but it seemed to be the favored one by the young women those days), if she at least kept it a bit longer (Rapunzel style like Polly’s) she'd irresistible!

Even being a redhead. Red wasn't popular these days... Could it be possible that Stan...?

'Okay, here's what we are going to do... Stan, ungag her...'

Mason warned Morgan that if she had lied to him it would mean a horrible fate for all three women but if she did lie to him then it would be much worst. And asked her if there was some code word that those who had put her in the 'Shadow' (as a decoy for a still unknown squealer in the FBI) had given to her so, if someone appeared to them and said that he/she had gotten in touch with and had some information for them they could check if it was true or not. 'Dry green lawn', what kind of code word was that?

And besides it was the distress code word but only Mason knew that.

He folded his hankie and put it carefully inside her mouth, Stan wrapped a scarf over it and they all decided the girl's fate. They couldn't be killed right away since they had to check the info that Morgan had gave to them, so Stanley and Dunn would guard them as Paul, Duke and Mason would check the info. Mason insisted that Duke went with him since, that way, Duke would be able to learn firsthand if the feds and the DA office had or not bought their act and how things were going for the lieutenant. Paul was to check Klein's home and see if there was any trace or evidence that pointed at his betrayal or not.

Mason drove to a secluded telephone booth in the outskirts of town. There Duke called Vinloyd and told him about Klein, then it was time for another act for Mason. He called the lieutenant's office and wasn't surprised when he was informed that there were some federal agents with Ian and the District Attorney in the room.

Then he pretended to have something big, really big to say about a traitor in the local office of the FBI, besides what the current location of the 'witness', but that he would only say to his superior (Ian) and the agent in charge of the operation among the feds. He had to say the (distress) code word to him but that managed to convince the man to, along with Ian, be at a bar called 'Nate's' in twenty minutes. Mason then convinced Duke that they should go to another place to make that call, the feds had ways to trace phone calls and they couldn't take to chance to be seen together, and there was this place nearby and he knew the owner and thus they could enter through the back and use his private phone instead of a pay one.

Mason phoned the man warning him of their arrival and they were off.

If Duke had recognized the weird European accent when the mustachioed and funny looking elder man welcomed 'Mizter Maahzon', he would have put himself on guard and grabbed his gun. He didn't. And thus he entered the small slaughterhouse owned by the grandfather of Zara, the girl who had committed suicide hours after he had raped her as part of his 'special warning' to her to not try to tell anything to the DA or the press about drugs at the 'Shadow', and in which most of her male relatives worked...

No one ever heard of him again and his fate was a mystery that Mason kept to himself.

He did call Nate's in a phone booth right a few blocks away of the place, and after Agent Kowalski properly identified himself to him (whom he knew was the informant of the feds in Cranetti's organization), he told him everything that had really happened and where Morgan, Christie and Polly where being held.

The agent tried to warn him to not try anything, but he was already gone.

Lieutenant McLenn was arrested at the Nate's and, as a list with the names of all crooked cops that Mason had managed to discover in his investigation was given to the DA in person, Kowalski and seven agents got into three cars and rushed to the lake at top speed.

Right on time thought Mason as he arrived at the cabin twelve minutes later. Dunn was trying to lock someone in his car's trunk. Only the girl's legs were visible and she was kicking the air with frantic efforts. Paul couldn't care less, he punched the girl and wrapped rope around her ankles and thighs, then he shoved the legs into the trunk and closed.

And pointed a gun at him as soon as Mason got out of his car.

'Hey Dunn, what gives?'

Now that hey were closer to each other he could see a black eye forming itself around his left eye. And there was one car missing, Duke's... the only one, of the two that were there a few minutes before, in which Stanley could seat with some comfort as he drove it...

'Stanley did that?'

'Yeah, I received a call from Paul not ten minutes ago. He said that the lieutenant had been arrested at the Nate's and Nate himself had phoned him... actually he called Klein but since Paul was there he picked the phone... giving him the news. He called some guys and heard that Ian wasn't the only one. The FBI is going to take us down, Paul must have told them everything about the bitch... anyway I told Stanley about it and you know what he did? He punched me! Then he cut both Morgan and the mute bimbo loose from their chairs, threw them over his shoulders, brought them outside and took them in Duke's car...'

'And why are you taking Polly with you?'

'I need a hostage, I think I can escape if I have a hostage... and afterwards...'

'Afterwards? What do you intend to do with her Paul?'

'Oh come on! Do I have to tell you? She has these long legs and big...'

Inside the trunk Polly wasn't being able to hear clearly the conversation between the men, she was also a bit dizzy due to the blow she had received from Paul. He had cut her from the chair, cuffed her hands behind her back and did what he did while explaining what were his intentions towards her all along, which of course gave her panic and desperation in very generous doses. She needed to get out of trunk!

Then she heard two shots.

It made her get alert instantly and her fear grew exponentially as she heard the lid being opened. She was still blindfolded, but heard Mason's voice not Paul's, and he was telling her to relax. He grabbed her lean body in his arms, without bothering to touch her bonds or remove the handcuffs, and carried to the cabin.

Inside he helped her to stand and told her to stay put for a moment as he went to fetch the keys, moments later the cuffs, gag and blindfold were gone, and she was crying and sobbing in his arms. He told her that he had to go after Stanley right away, but that in a few minutes a lot of federal agents would be arriving to help her. And he had to let her there so she could give them the most probable location to which Stanley was taking the girls.

His aunt's home in a nearby town. The old lady was senile and living in an elder care facility upstate so the place was unoccupied. Mason couldn't help but think about Zara.

Five months before he and Stanley had grabbed her while pretending to want to hear more about the drugs, tied her up, threw her in Mason’s car’s trunk and took her there, and he left her at the care of Duke and Stanley. He still could hear her begging for him not to do that.

She did kill herself (no doubts about it since there were over a hundred of witnesses) a day later... And now... two girls, two very helpless girls with that caveman!

He had to rush!!!

The place was in need of everything; a mowing, paint, repairs...

He wouldn't be able to get inside it without Stanley realizing (and hearing) it. He grabbed his gun and walked to the front door, and Stanley opened the door to him. He was looking tired, very tired... and raised his arms right away.

'Where are they Stanley? Where? Tell me now or...'

'They are fine, and at the kitchen... care to join them?'

Not letting him out of his sight and out of range for a single second, Mason followed him to the kitchen. Both girls were bound to sturdy chairs, probably the only furniture in the place that was still usable, with their back to the wall. The whole place was covered in dust, and dust covered both girls left side, right at their left there were marks on the floor indicating that he had placed them as he went to fetch the chairs somewhere else in the house. Both captives looked very frightened, but Morgan was frantically trying to warn him something.

But she was still wearing the gag that Stanley had put on her... no, it looked a bit different, her cheeks were bulging more than they were and the color of the scarf over her mouth was wrong. So she had been ungagged and then regagged.

At least Stanley had had the decency to stop gagging a mute woman. That was the only difference in their bonds that he could see. Their arms were behind the low back of the chairs so he couldn't see them, he turned to Morgan to ask her if they were alright...

...and Christie arms were now in plain sight and she was holding a gun with both hands!

'It's loaded Mason, and she will shoot if you don't put yours on the floor and kick it. Now.'

She was not even tied to the chair! Only her ankles were crossed and cinched together, which prevented her to stand. Stanley grabbed his gun and she started to undo the knot.

'You are the rat. Not Klein, YOU. And you are dying, aren't you?'

'I'm not going to see Jack Frost arriving in town this year... let her go Stanley...'

'And that, plus the remorse you feel for what we did to Zara, is what made you...'

'Yes... Stanley, she's not even a field agent of the FBI, she was a pretty secretary in a federal building somewhere in Kansas, they needed a pretty decoy and she volunteered for the job, had the basic of the basic as training and...'

'I wish I had had your courage.' – And Stanley KOed him with a couple of punches.

Nineteen minutes later four federal agents and six state troopers arrived at the house. They found Morgan still bound to the chair in the kitchen, but now almost completely covered with a clean white blanket, and Mason unconscious and locked in a closet.

There were evidences that Stanley was using a nearby room to guard stuff for him and Christie (like clothes for her, food, ammo and money) under the wooden floor. Even with his massive 6'9” frame, he was one of the few men that managed to escape the law. His and Christie's fate were never exactly known, but Polly did receive a postcard from Christie a few years later, it was mailed in Chili. They were married and had had a little girl.

1948 – August

Mason died in a hospital bed before he could see the results of his actions, a lot of convictions (a few of them to the chair), and few people were present at his funeral.

One of them was one of the few female field agents of the FBI (and due to the strong opposition, and disdain due to her sultry looks, she was met with everywhere she went she was thinking about another career for her).

Another was a gypsy elder leading a few members of his clan present at the cemetery.

Another was a young woman who was almost as beautiful and sensuous as the federal agent, and who put them both in a lot of trouble a few days later...

But that a story for another day.