Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

The first time I ever saw Monk was three years ago, when I was stuck in the maximum security cell block in Sing Sing, just before he arrived. He’d been convicted of a felonious assault rap — his temper again. He’d been celebrating the success of a big job and got in a fight with a legitimate john in a bar and almost killed him. The john happened to have a cop friend right there with him, so Monk didn’t have a chance to beat that one. We were cell neighbors for a week then, until Monk moved on to his permanent jail, but we hardly noticed each other. He was up for parole a little sooner than expected, just a few weeks ago, and I’d been pulled off an investigation in Los Angeles and flown back in a jet to sit in the same cell Monk had seen me in three years before. Then we’d struck up a sort of acquaintance, an acquaintance that led to me being hired by Monk and getting into the enemy camp.

Monk never knew it, but all during those three years in the can he’d been like a bug on a slide with guys watching him and studying him. The insurance companies even had psychologists exercising with him in the prison yard to find out what made him tick. I read all the reports, that’s why I felt sorry for him.

His body was partly blocking the door, I tugged his legs out of the way so that I would be able to get out, then searched him quickly. He didn’t have much on him, but I did find a folded paper in his inside jacket pocket which made me whistle in surprise as I read it. It was a list of fifteen jewelry houses in the city — five or six I recognized as active fences — some of them big, respectable businesses, supposedly above suspicion. But I imagine if the stakes were high enough some of these guys would come down off their pedestals to do business with Monk.

I had no time now to stay and explain things to the Homicide boys, that would have to come later, if I got through with the rest of the night. I wasn’t worried about Monk’s friend outside, he would just be a hood to watch the back way out of the hotel — he wouldn’t even see me leave through the front. I unlocked the door and slipped into the hall, then walked down the one flight and through the lobby. My bill was paid a week in advance so I got a big, Good evening, Mr. Young, from the manager at the desk. When the cops came for Monk’s body that guy would hate me forever. The one thing no one could ever do was die in a hotel in New York, even a third-rate joint like this. It was the unforgivable sin.

In the street I decided to walk to a drugstore a block away to call my office. Among other things I had to start the wheels moving for Monk’s funeral, and I was anxious to get the latest reports on his partners.

I hadn’t gone thirty feet when two fellows stopped me. They looked like college kids. Anyone standing more than ten feet away would think they were just that and that they were asking for directions. Only they weren’t college kids, they were two of my best men. I had almost forgotten how closely Monk had been followed.

“Bill, Monk went in that joint twenty minutes ago,” Jim Trevor, the taller one, said to me.

He was holding a card out for me to look at. I took the card, looked at it, and pointed down the street and started making gestures.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But you can forget about Monk now. He’s dead.”

Jim Trevor whistled.

“Dead, huh?” Bob Moran said. “You know we got four Safe and Loft Squad guys floating around here with us? You want us to tell them?”

I was still gesturing. “Stall them for five or ten minutes. I can’t stay here now. If we don’t break this case tonight, especially after this, we can forget all about it.”

Both of them were looking at me with funny expressions. Then I realized what it was. Leaving the scene of an automobile accident was kindergarten stuff compared to what I was doing — walking away from a stiff who had died at my hand. And I also realized what a very dim view the Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office would take. There are certain things you just can’t do, only now I had to, I had no choice.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll try to straighten it out later,” I said to them. “Monk tried to gun-whip me, I slugged him and he cracked his head open. He’s in my room. Take those cops in five minutes from now. Ask them to keep it away from the reporters as long as they can.”

“Okay, Bill,” Jim Trevor said. “Only those boys are going to be a little steamed at you for walking out on the party.”

“Yeah, I know, but I can’t help it, Jim. If we can hand them the other two alive and with the right evidence they’ll get over their mad — I think.” I waved to them and hurried down the block, hoping I wouldn’t be stopped by any of the detectives staked out on Monk. It wouldn’t be so easy to get away from one of them.