Gangbuster by Alan Prendergast

Author:Alan Prendergast [Prendergast, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Citadel Press
Published: 2022-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

THE FLAP AT THE AUDITORIUM did not go unnoticed at the district attorney’s office. The Klan was part of the unfinished business Van Cise was determined to clear away in his last eighteen months in office. So far, he had been able to convict only one Klansman of a single offense, and a pretty minor one at that: Warren Given’s contempt-of-court conviction for refusing to admit that Locke was the Klan leader. But he could see more trouble looming, now that Stapleton had revealed his Klan sympathies. Who knew how many cops, city officials, judges, and state legislators were secretly Klan members too?

In his darker moments, Van Cise wondered if he had cleared out a rat’s nest at City Hall, only to see it replaced with something much worse. He talked to his confidant Robinson about ways of investigating the Klan, or at least getting a handle on the identities of its leaders. As the group grew larger, it might become more vulnerable to infiltration. He knew some newspaper reporters who were thinking along the same lines, trying to finagle Klan memberships so they could expose what went on in the meetings. Perhaps it was time to launch a full-scale undercover operation, similar to what he had done to smash the bunco ring. But what crime was the Klan committing, specifically? Sedition? Inciting violence against immigrants and minorities? Defrauding its own members?

Van Cise began collecting Klan fliers and pamphlets and looking into what other prosecutors had done to fight the organization. Before he got too far down that road, he had other unfinished business to address. In June, Judge Dunklee handed down the sentences in the bunco case: seven years in prison for Blonger, Duff, French, Belcher, Cooper, and six other defendants; a mere three years for the Christ Kid and seven others. The twentieth defendant was deemed to be insane and was spared prison entirely. Van Cise considered the terms quite light. He was surprised when the Fixer reached out to him from the jail, begging for a final meeting before he was sent to the penitentiary in Canon City. Van Cise had the old man brought to his office.

Blonger had lost weight. His clothes hung on him. He was all wheezes and groans. He pleaded for mercy with trembling hands.

“All my insides are gone,” he said. “Seven years, three years, one year is death. Surely you don’t want me to die down there.”

As always, the man had a proposition: Send him to the pen for two months, then ask the governor to pardon him. Let him die a free man. It was the least the Colonel could do.

Van Cise said nothing. He thought about the Reverend Menaugh, who’d lost the funds his clients had entrusted to him and then ended his life with poison. He thought about another victim of Blonger’s operation who had spent his last months in grinding poverty, his life savings gone, devoured by wolves. When he finally spoke, it was with surprising vehemence.

“What leniency have you shown to others?” he asked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.