Read Online The Laughing Gorilla by Robert Graysmith - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Graysmith
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thin, expensive—Quinn directed Dullea to a seat. He held his cigar between his first two fingers, thumb tucked under, and pointed down. When he had a point to make he held it like a gun. When he was of equal temperament, he held it perfectly horizontal. But when it pointed up . . . “Get to the point, Charlie. I’m busy on these robberies.”
In May, a big redheaded man had pushed into the Lowe-Davis Loan Company asking for a $100 loan. “Sorry, we don’t lend that much,” said the manager. “Just for that, I’m going to take the whole works.” Drawing an automatic, Red escaped with the money on the No. 9 Market Street car.
In July, he robbed the American Trust Company and escaped in a Yellow Cab. He and a partner then knocked over the Bank of America on Seventeenth. In this wild era of Tommy guns, sawed-off shotguns, and bank heists, there were six times more crooks in the nation than grocers. One year, six hundred banks were robbed for a loss of $3.5 million to the nation. Quinn’s solution was to replace ringing alarms at the banks with silent alarms and invite the employees to the HOJ firing range to learn to shoot. He suspected experienced bank robber George “Red” Kerr. In the end, the robber turned out to be Tommy Coleman, a San Quentin escapee who was a dead ringer for Kerr, who was innocent. Quinn signed his report with a Wahl-Eversharp Gold Seal fountain pen, which had a 14K-gold point and embellishments. He turned it in the light. It was a treasured gift from Commissioner Roche.
Dullea didn’t know how to suggest that a trusted, popular public official was plotting murder. Finally he just came out with it. There was a moment of silence as the chief absorbed his words. Then his jowls quivered, his watery eyes blinked, and his cigar jutted to forty-five degrees. “Which side are you on?” he snapped. His fist came down hard. “I want you to back off Egan! Get it, Charlie?”
Quinn stood and walked to the recessed window. His posture was perfect, alert, filled with fierce energy and strength. He was a big man, two hundred pounds and taller than Dullea. In spite of the spare tire around his waist, the overall impression was of power.
Clasping both hands behind his back, the big Irishman rocked back and forth, his eyes sweeping the blossoming trees of Portsmouth Square across the street. The room was pin-drop quiet. Dullea could hear a clerk down the hall pecking out a report. “Because men are human,” Quinn explained in a calm voice, fighting to control his irritation, “there will be occasional scandals and some, as a matter of course, will involve public officials, but much of this is imagined in the fevered minds of do-gooders.” He turned, small teeth tight against his lower lip. “I want you to back off of any sort of investigation. I will handle matters such as that. Do you understand, Charlie? For Christ’s sake, Egan’s a former city police officer and a fireman.” The cigar dropped to half-mast. Dullea’s moment had passed.
He returned to his small ground floor office with the green tacked carpet, more distraught than before. Quinn’s comments had seemed overly defensive to him—as if he knew of a deeper internal corruption than Frank Egan, which in itself was horrendous. Yes, thought Dullea, curious remarks. But his problem had still not been solved. Still ringing in his ears were the last words he had heard Egan speak over the planted bug—“By Friday night all my troubles will be over.” But which Friday night? And by troubles did he mean Josie Hughes? Or someone else? Each Friday night after that Dullea ordered a secret two-man watch be kept on Josie. There might be nothing to the threat, but he could not take the chance. He did not intend to fail another woman as he had all those San Francisco landladies in 1926.
SIX
The ancient Greeks got their 5th century B.C. word Gorillai from the native name of a hairy tribe in Africa and used it to mean savage.
IAN REDMOND,
In May, a big redheaded man had pushed into the Lowe-Davis Loan Company asking for a $100 loan. “Sorry, we don’t lend that much,” said the manager. “Just for that, I’m going to take the whole works.” Drawing an automatic, Red escaped with the money on the No. 9 Market Street car.
In July, he robbed the American Trust Company and escaped in a Yellow Cab. He and a partner then knocked over the Bank of America on Seventeenth. In this wild era of Tommy guns, sawed-off shotguns, and bank heists, there were six times more crooks in the nation than grocers. One year, six hundred banks were robbed for a loss of $3.5 million to the nation. Quinn’s solution was to replace ringing alarms at the banks with silent alarms and invite the employees to the HOJ firing range to learn to shoot. He suspected experienced bank robber George “Red” Kerr. In the end, the robber turned out to be Tommy Coleman, a San Quentin escapee who was a dead ringer for Kerr, who was innocent. Quinn signed his report with a Wahl-Eversharp Gold Seal fountain pen, which had a 14K-gold point and embellishments. He turned it in the light. It was a treasured gift from Commissioner Roche.
Dullea didn’t know how to suggest that a trusted, popular public official was plotting murder. Finally he just came out with it. There was a moment of silence as the chief absorbed his words. Then his jowls quivered, his watery eyes blinked, and his cigar jutted to forty-five degrees. “Which side are you on?” he snapped. His fist came down hard. “I want you to back off Egan! Get it, Charlie?”
Quinn stood and walked to the recessed window. His posture was perfect, alert, filled with fierce energy and strength. He was a big man, two hundred pounds and taller than Dullea. In spite of the spare tire around his waist, the overall impression was of power.
Clasping both hands behind his back, the big Irishman rocked back and forth, his eyes sweeping the blossoming trees of Portsmouth Square across the street. The room was pin-drop quiet. Dullea could hear a clerk down the hall pecking out a report. “Because men are human,” Quinn explained in a calm voice, fighting to control his irritation, “there will be occasional scandals and some, as a matter of course, will involve public officials, but much of this is imagined in the fevered minds of do-gooders.” He turned, small teeth tight against his lower lip. “I want you to back off of any sort of investigation. I will handle matters such as that. Do you understand, Charlie? For Christ’s sake, Egan’s a former city police officer and a fireman.” The cigar dropped to half-mast. Dullea’s moment had passed.
He returned to his small ground floor office with the green tacked carpet, more distraught than before. Quinn’s comments had seemed overly defensive to him—as if he knew of a deeper internal corruption than Frank Egan, which in itself was horrendous. Yes, thought Dullea, curious remarks. But his problem had still not been solved. Still ringing in his ears were the last words he had heard Egan speak over the planted bug—“By Friday night all my troubles will be over.” But which Friday night? And by troubles did he mean Josie Hughes? Or someone else? Each Friday night after that Dullea ordered a secret two-man watch be kept on Josie. There might be nothing to the threat, but he could not take the chance. He did not intend to fail another woman as he had all those San Francisco landladies in 1926.
SIX
The ancient Greeks got their 5th century B.C. word Gorillai from the native name of a hairy tribe in Africa and used it to mean savage.
IAN REDMOND,
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