The Alderman

Cliff Bradley was one bullet short of making the Chicago Daily News obits in the summer of 1930. He had gotten tangled up with the mob who got itchy about a bundle of misplaced cash. They wanted it back. It turned out that 10K had been stolen by a teen-age hooker who considered it a tip. Unfortunately, the Chicago outfit didn't see it that way. They terminated both their disagreement and her in the customary way, the mob's way.

Lots had changed since then. Alphonse Capone was out of prison after serving an eight year sentence for tax evasion. Ed Kelly was serving his third term as Chicago's mayor. FDR was serving his ninth year as President, and the Japs had rearranged Hawaii the year before.

But not everything had changed in the Windy City. The Cubs hadn't won a World Series since 1908. Chicago alderman still accepted bribes and were the grease that kept the Democratic machine running smoothly. Corruption and vice were still on the menu giving a private dick like Bradley a steady stream of clients.

Cliff's secretary, Stella, who he called "Songbird," had left after marrying a piano player. Currently, she and the piano man were doing gigs at Capone's old hangout, the Green Mill. The Mill was now a dive patronized by drunks and addicts, but it was steady work for Stella whose voice matched the surroundings.

Stella's replacement wasn't much as a secretary except for her looks. He agreed to hire her more for decoration in his drab third floor office than her inept typing skills. "Ditzy" is what he called her. She called herself Loretta.

Loretta was the eighteen year old daughter of an influential family in Alderman Reilly's forty-second ward. She first met Cliff on an urgent private matter and the alderman had been anxious to help the family. That's what an alderman does in Chicago if he wants to be reelected.

Loretta was nervous but not shy when she waltzed into Bradley's office that first day. She wore a snug fitting blouse that emphasized every sumptuous curve and a knee high skirt that wrapped around her hips held precariously by two scarlet red buttons. Loretta wore bright yellow barrettes on two blond pigtails, looking like the cute ceramic doll Cliff had seen in the Marshall Field's window.

She needed help with an abortion. It wasn't for her, she said. It was for a friend who got knocked up by some kid from Bridgeport. Cliff said he didn't do doctor referrals. She pleaded for his help. He told her abortion doctors weren't exactly advertising in the Daily News' Personal Ads. She shed a few crocodile tears. Cliff needed to be persuaded.

Loretta was good at persuasion. Cliff's Achilles' heal was that he could be swayed by a persuasive female. He was weak that way.

After a few more fake tears, she loosened her blouse as her next attempt to change Cliff's mind. He gave her his best poker face as if he hadn't noticed. Cliff was good at negotiating deals.

Loretta unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor. Cliff loved the view but waited for a better offer. She undid the two red buttons letting her skirt unwind from her tight ass. She was playing him like a Stradivarius. He liked the music and his cock was now doing the dealing. She sat on his desk slipping off her panties, spreading herself open like a slow yawn. She smiled when he unzipped his pants, letting them encircle his ankles.

She licked her lips while watching his hard dick twitch with excitement. It reminded her of a dog's tail when it's begging for attention. Loretta knew she had won even before he thrust himself deep inside her wet youthful cunt.

The transaction was signed, sealed, and delivered the moment he ejaculated inside her with the repetition of a machine gun. Cliff had no worries about getting the girl pregnant. By the look of things, her sensitive breasts and darkened areoles made it clear to Cliff that the Bridgeport boy had beaten him to it.

"Gosh, Mr. Bradley, that was quick. Do you always close a deal that fast?"

"Only when it's urgent business," Cliff answered.

"So we have a deal, right?"

"Yes, we have a deal," he affirmed. It was the kind of deal he didn't mind losing.

Loretta returned to Cliff's office a few days later. Bradley gave her the name and number of a practitioner specializing in shady medical procedures. She kissed him and suggested they meet again. She said she liked the way he did business.

That was the only time Cliff fucked Loretta. Not long after, Alderman Reilly called thanking Bradley for his help. The alderman had another reason for calling. He wanted Cliff to hire Loretta as his secretary. You don't turn down a Chicago alderman.

She showed up the next day with her purse and a scent that put him in the best mood he had been in since Songbird left. The bad news was he wasn't going to fuck her again. He knew better than screwing his secretary after Songbird ran off with fingers.

Loretta's most valuable personal belonging was a compact mirror that was her constant companion. Cliff was certain he heard her in the outer office whispering, "Mirror mirror, who's the fairest of them all." She was vain that way.

Loretta had been pecking at Cliff's typewriter since the fall. She could now do it with two fingers, and it was December. Winter in Chicago is an import from Canada, sent free of charge. This December day was a Canadian special. The winds howling off the lake were as treacherous as a Nazi Blitzkrieg carrying enough snow to cover the Tribune Tower up to the thirteenth floor, if it had one.

Ditzy called in sick with a cold, the kind of cold that penetrated your skin as if you were naked in an ice cream freezer. She wouldn't be coming in on Monday. Going AWOL wasn't unusual for Ditzy, especially after she had been shacking up with a guy for a one night stand. Ditzy might have been vain, but she wasn't frigid. Sex came only second in importance to her mirror.

The streets below on this bitterly cold Sunday were so quiet you could hear a clock ticking in the apartment across the street. Loretta's absence didn't matter to Cliff and clients were unlikely to be calling unless they wanted him to shovel their driveway. He would sleep in his office as he often did. Cliff wasn't alone on those occasions. A radio, a bottle of Scotch, a carton of Chesterfields and his .38 heater is all that he needed for company.

In the afternoon, he switched on the Bear/Chicago Cardinal game. Toward the end of the third quarter, it wasn't going well for his beloved Cardinals. Cliff turned it off when the phone rang. It was Molly, the madam he knew from the upstairs bordello at a speakeasy that Bobby Farrell ran during Prohibition. Only by 1942, the speakeasy had closed along with her whore house.

Molly was still in business having found a new location in the western suburb of Berwyn. It was once a family owned hotel back in the thirties, but time had passed it by. She purchased it as shrewdly as the Dutch buying Manhattan. Molly called her whore house, "The Birdhouse." Downstairs was a tavern. Upstairs were the rooms. Cliff had made a few social calls when it first opened. He liked the place better than Farrell's speakeasy. It was less dangerous as long as Molly continued to pay off the cops. And the girls were prettier and young. Molly's girls were Poles and Czechs who had left Europe just before the war started. They were the lucky ones.

"Cliff," she barked on the other end, "I've got another delinquent who refuses to contribute to the Orphanage Home. I need some help with this guy."

"You mean he didn't pay the girl."

"I mean he didn't pay the girls. This was the second time. He wanted a threesome last week with two of the girls. That was fine until he told them he would pay at the bar. He didn't and walked out without touching his wallet."

"Molly, you usually have one of your cop clients handle it. Why is this one different?"

"I know, Cliff, but this guy is tight with the police chief, so none of the cops will touch him."

"You want me to put the squeeze on the guy."

"Yeah, that's about it," she said. "He's here almost every Thursday afternoon. Maybe you can drop by if the roads are clear."

"I'll put it on the calendar."

"And Cliff, when you are here," she added, "be sure to leave enough time for Anika. She said she owes you a free one from that incident last fall." The "incident," as Molly put it, was educating a thug that a whore wasn't a punching bag. It was a striking reminder, mostly to the client's head, ribs and stomach.

It was hard to find space on the calendar among Ditzy's hairdresser, manicure, pedicure, and waxing appointments. She sure did take care of herself if the calendar was any indication. He penciled in Anika on Thursday. She was his favorite.

The weather had slowed traffic to a crawl but by Thursday, the roads were passable enough to let Cliff make a forty-five minute drive to Berwyn. He arrived just before noon. Molly gave him a sandwich and a beer at the bar. There was no sign of the delinquent client.

"Why don't you go upstairs and see Anika while we wait," Molly suggested. "She's in the third door on your right."

Cliff hated to sit around doing nothing unless it was with a bottle of whiskey and a pack of Chesterfields. So he knocked on the third door and was greeted by an almost naked Anika. She had been expecting him. Anika wore a teddy that ended just below her belly button. Her pussy was neatly trimmed just the way Cliff liked it, not too much, not too little, but just right.

Anika started with a lap dance and followed it with a blowjob. Her nipples were like tiny pegs poking through the thin fabric until Cliff peeled it off revealing two perfect pear shaped breasts.

He slipped into her like a snake slithering into a hole. Anika enjoyed fucking Cliff as if he was her long lost love. There was nothing romantic about what they were doing. It was pure animalistic lust, fucking hard with the energy of over active weasels. Cries louder than a howler monkey signaled each of her orgasms while Cliff tried his best to last longer than a flame at the end of a match. But her beauty, jiggling tits, and her soaking wet cunt was too much for him. A geyser of cum filled her insides, and he fell exhausted cradled between two heavenly legs that wound tightly around his waist. Anika didn't let him go until she no longer felt his stiffness inside her.

While they rested, he tapped out two Chesterfields, lighting them both. She only inhaled lightly. He sucked the smoke into the tiniest recesses of his lungs, chasing it down with glass of whiskey.

For a time they talked, mostly about her past. She was from a small town in Sudetenland making her an ethnic German. Hitler had annexed it thanks to the 1938 Munich Agreement. Anika and her family were Jews, and it was time to leave. She came to America in 1939 and to Chicago in 1940. Molly treated her like a daughter since working at the Birdhouse in 1941.

When Cliff was ready, she sucked him as stiff as a telephone pole and fucked him like the whore she said she wasn't. Anika said she was a party girl that helped to make ends meet. She said it made her happy to make men happy. She definitely made Cliff happy.

Cliff especially liked going back for seconds. It was always a longer fuck, and he loved the feeling of a sloppy cunt that was left over from the first time. Going twice with Anika was enough for an afternoon. There was nothing left in either of them, and he still had business to take care of.

It was three in the afternoon when a knock came on the door. It was Molly. She whispered, "He's here with Ewa in the next room."

Cliff dressed and holstered his .38 pistol. He decided to take full advantage of the situation while the guy was naked and defenseless. So, Cliff waited about fifteen minutes hoping by then, the delinquent would be armed only with a pulsing erection.

Cliff was right when he entered the room. The guy was on his back with Ewa, a petite girl, working on a cock that was straining to reach the roof. It was a dick as fat as a hard salami hanging from a butcher's hook. The whore was first to look up and tumbled out of bed on the side away from the door. The man turned to look at Bradley. Cliff recognized him immediately. "Oh my God," Cliff thought. "It's the alderman."

"Look alderman, we don't want any trouble. All we're asking is that you pay for the service."

"Okay, Bradley, you've got me at a disadvantage. Let me finish here, and I'll write Molly a check."

"As you know, pal, Molly is a cash only business," Bradley told him.

"I know that but I don't have the cash on me."

"Here's the deal alderman. Get your pants on and we'll march over to the bank. Believe it or not, they still are cashing City Hall checks. You can finish with Ewa when you get back."

The alderman had no choice. Like he said, Bradley had him at a disadvantage.

After the alderman had paid up, he headed back to Ewa's room. Turning back and glaring at Cliff he said, "Look flatfoot, don't tell Loretta's dad about this or I'll have your P.I. license pulled as fast as a Nazi bomb falling on London.

Before Cliff left, Molly thanked him and said, "Come back soon, honey. You really should try Ewa. She's new from Minsk. I think you'll like her."

"Thanks for the suggestion and the lunch, Molly."

Cliff left the Birdhouse at four and was back at his office before five. By the looks of Ditzy's coat hanging on the rack, she was still there but not at her desk. The sounds from his inner office seemed to suggest she wasn't alone in there. The scene when Cliff stepped into the room was not entirely unexpected. Loretta was draped over his desk with her skirt up to her neck and some guy with his pants down to his knees reaming her from the rear. Neither of them were particularly silent about it. Waiting for what he thought would be considered polite, Bradley cleared his throat to announce himself and said, "You know Ditzy, I'm not payin' overtime for this."

Loretta wasn't the slightest bit embarrassed when she tpulled down her skirt, even with cum trickling down her leg. She pouted at Cliff and said, "Jealous, Mr. Bradley?" Then she picked up her panties and left the office.

Her mating partner zipped up and winked before joining her, slamming the door behind them.

Cliff didn't see any reason to fire the girl. After all, he had used his desk for the same purpose months earlier. He only cautioned her to be discrete, then had to explain what the word meant.

Business went on as usual through the winter and early part of '43. Most of it was mundane missing persons, divorce cases, stolen property, and a few minor inheritance claims.

It all changed when a women walked in the office more beautiful than Rita Hayworth in the movie, You Were Never Lovelier. She was tall with the legs of a dancer, a face of an angel, tits of a goddess, and a presence as if she belonged. She wore impossibly high stiletto heels that made her as tall as the Tribune Tower. The woman made Ditzy look as plain as the costume jewelry she wore. The lady didn't have a name. At least, she was less than candid about her identity but by the looks of her clothes, she had money. That's the kind of client Bradley appreciated. A woman that looked like a movie star was a bonus. This lady had it all, money and looks.

"The door says 'Bradley, Private Investigator'. Is that you?" she asked.

"Call me Cliff. What's the problem?"

"I'm being blackmailed. I want you to find who's responsible."

TO BE CONTINUED