§ 22
Peter was warned by the rat-faced man that he must be careful how he
spent any of that money. Nothing would be more certain to bring
suspicion on him than to have it whispered about that he was "in funds."
He must be able to show how he had come honestly by everything he had.
And Peter agreed to that; he would hide the money away in a safe place
until he was thru with his job.
Then he in turn proceeded to warn McGivney. If they were to fire
Ibbetts from his job, it would certainly cause talk, and might direct
suspicion against Peter. McGivney answered with a smile that he wasn't
born yesterday. They would "promote" Jack Ibbetts, giving him some job
where he couldn't get any news about the Goober case; then, after a bit,
they would catch him up on some mistake, or get him into some trouble,
and fire him.
At this meeting, and at later meetings, Peter and the rat-faced
man talked out every aspect of the Goober case, which was becoming more
and more complicated, and bigger as a public issue. New people were
continually being involved, and new problems continually arising; it was
more fascinating than a game of chess. McGivney had spoken the literal
truth when he said that the big business
interests of American City had put up a million dollars to hang Goober
and his crowd. At the very beginning there had been offered seventeen
thousand dollars in rewards for information, and these rewards naturally
had many claimants. The trouble was that people who wanted this money
generally had records that wouldn't go well before a jury; the women
nearly always turned out to be prostitutes, and the men to be
ex-convicts, forgers, gamblers, or what not. Sometimes they didn't tell
their past records until the other side unearthed them, and then it was
necessary to doctor court records, and pull wires all over the country.
There were a dozen such witnesses as this in the Goober case.
They had told their stories before the grand jury, and innumerable flaws
and discrepancies had been discovered, which made more work and trouble
for Guffey and his lieutenants. Thru a miserable mischance it happened
that Jim Goober and his wife had been watching the parade from the roof
of a building a couple of miles away, at the very hour when they were
accused of having planted the suit-case with the bomb in it. Somebody
had taken a photograph of the parade from this roof, which showed both
Goober and his wife looking over, and also a big clock in front of a
jewelry store, plainly indicating the very minute. Fortunately the
prosecution got hold of this photograph first; but now the defense had
learned of its existence, and was trying to get a look at it. The
prosecution didn't dare destroy it, because its existence could be
proven; but they had photographed the photograph, and re-photographed
that, until they had the face of the clock so dim that the time could
not be seen. Now the defense was trying to get evidence that this trick
had been worked.
Then there were all the witnesses for the defense. Thru another
mischance it had happened that half a dozen different people had seen
the bomb thrown from the roof of Guggenheim's Department Store; which
entirely contradicted the suit-case theory upon which the prosecution
was based. So now it was necessary to "reach" these various witnesses.
One perhaps had a mortgage on his home which could be bought and
foreclosed; another perhaps had a wife who wanted to divorce him, and
could be persuaded to help get him into trouble. Or perhaps he was
engaged in an intrigue with some other man's wife; or perhaps some woman
could be sent to draw him into an intrigue.
Then again, it appeared that very soon after the explosion some
of Guffey's men had taken a sledge hammer and smashed the sidewalk, also
the wall of the building where the explosion had taken place. This was
to fit in with the theory of the suit-case bomb, and they had taken a
number of photographs of the damage. But now it transpired that somebody
had taken a photograph of the spot before this extra damage had been
done, and that the defense was in possession of this photograph. Who had
taken this photograph, and how could he be "fixed"? If Peter could help
in such matters, he would come out of the Goober case a rich man.
Peter would go away from these meetings with McGivney with his
head full of visions, and would concentrate all his faculties upon the
collecting of information. He and Jennie and Sadie talked about the case
incessantly, and Jennie and Sadie would tell freely everything they had
heard outside. Others would come in — young McCormick, and Miriam
Yankovitch, and Miss Nebbins, the secretary to
Andrews, and they would tell what they had learned and what they
suspected, and what the defense was hoping to find out. They got hold of
a cousin of the man who had taken the photograph on the roof; they were
working on him, to get him to persuade the photographer to tell the
truth. Next day Donald Gordon would come in, cast down with despair,
because it had been learned that one of the most valuable witnesses of
the defense, a groceryman, had once pleaded guilty to selling spoilt
cheese! Thus every evening, before he went to sleep, Peter would jot
down notes, and sew them up inside his jacket, and once a week he would
go to the meeting with McGivney, and the two would argue and bargain
over the value of Peter's news.
