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Show X4te- iiar FICTTIOW A woman's place mm I X- ll By JOHN T. CAVANAUGH 1 i CO, SALUSTRI ia back." Man- aging Editor Pepper Drislane exclaimed as he clicked down the receiver. Excitedly, Police Chief Lawton had just thouted into the telephone, "This guy Is looking (or blood don't take any unnecessary risks." In the editorial room of the Hart-fleld Hart-fleld Herald, Drislane 'sat with his head in his hands and mournfully looked over his city staff two old men and seven girls. "Thirty years in newspapers and this has to happen hap-pen to me a chance to make head-ine head-ine history and here I am saddled with a bunch of sob sisters." The Salustrl case had been spec- over their typewriters as the managing man-aging editor took several seconds to come up from under his desk. In the face of the gathering editorial edi-torial clouds, the new girl bravely continued with her request and began be-gan to fumble with a gold locket which was looped around her neck. "The picture I have from Jerry" she offered but got no further. The thunder broke loose and Drislane Dris-lane hissed, his face purple, "On a newspaper, a woman" he didn't finish but resignedly collapsed in his chair. With effort he continued feebly, "Miss Whatever-your-name-is, go get a manicure get a cup of coffee escape from the United States Marshal's Mar-shal's office in 1943, was recognized recog-nized by the reporter as she walked through the barber shop to the beauty beau-ty salon at the rear of the building. Miss Hewes, upon seeing Salustrl, continued through the shop and left by a rear exit and soon returned with a squad of police officers. "The reporter said that she had identified the gangster through his picture which she had carried in a gold locket given to her by her fiance, Jerry Cowan, formerly police po-lice reporter on The Herald and now on assignment in the South Pacific. " 'Having threatened the life of my fiance, Salustrl was a potential The managing editor's head was poked under his desk In search of bis lost cigarette when a pair of shapely legs approached. threat to my coming marriage, so I carried his picture, knowing that I would run into him some day,' Miss Hewes said. 'Now that he is captured, I know that I can plan to marry Jerry as soon as he returns.' re-turns.' " Speechless, the managing editor scanned the copy. Then, poising his pencil, he added to the message: " 'In the meantime, I will continue working at The Herald as police reporter.' " . tacular from the start. The self-styled self-styled big shot of the numbers racket had challenged repeatedly: "There ain't nobody going to pin a rap on me. This gazabo's got protection all the way to the state house and back and don't forget It." But Jerry Cowan, erstwhile re-portorial re-portorial star of the Herald, and Managing Editor Drislane chose to forget it to the tune of pinning a 20-year federal sentence on the numbers num-bers king. Then the slipup; while waiting for the train that would carry him to prison, Salustrl outwitted out-witted the guards, slugged the marshal mar-shal and was on his way. With the news of his escape, Jerry and Drislane knew Salustrl would be back. The Herald's constant and merciless headlines had galled the gangster, bored right into his pride. "Sure, he'll be back," the reporter re-porter told his editor, "and when he does, he'll head for our office first." That was two years ago. Now Jerry Jer-ry was on assignment in the Pacific. Meanwhile, the managing editor waited. Of course, he was jumpy; who wouldn't be when each comer might turn into a hall of hot lead? And now the chief of police had passed the word that Salustrl had been spotted in Bayslde, just 11 miles this side of Hartfleld. The managing editor was dismally dismal-ly fingering the last cigarette In his squashed pack when Publisher Jim Geldhorn came into the room. Drislane blinked his eyes and dropped drop-ped the cigarette doggone, if it wasn't another girl Attractive and well built, but still another girL Geldhorn hustled the young woman wom-an over to an empty desk and hurriedly hur-riedly left "On a newspaper a girl reporter isn't worth the powder it takes to to camouflage her nose," Drislane had exploded when the publisher unobtrusively attempted to install the last girl on the city staff. "All I hear these days Is 'I've got an appointment with the hairdresser, hair-dresser, the dressmaker, the butcher, butch-er, the baker.' These girls have an nppolnment with everyone but me and their work," he ranted. "Is this a newspaper office or a sorority house?" "Chief," said thin-pated, fiftyish Mike Bales, the paper's only bachelor, bache-lor, coming up to the managing editor's edi-tor's desk, "I'm going to hop down to Nick's for a shave." Generally Mike shaved every second day and today was a first. "Darn," muttered Drislane, "we're off again and it'll take another an-other three weeks to see who Is really queen bee of this hive." The managing editor's head was poked under his desk in search of his lost cigarette when a pair of shapely legs approached. "Mr. Drislane," he heard a feminine fem-inine voice say, "I'd like to be assigned as-signed to the Salustrl case." Abruptly, a hush fell . over the Herald editorial room and light expectant ex-pectant reportorial heads poised get anything. But for right now, just get." As the girl hastily traced Mike Bales' rapidly retreating footsteps, Drislane sighed, "Even Jerry Cowan away out in the Pacific is getting balmy. On top of all this, imagine his wanting to saddle me with his fiancee, some up-country jane who probably doesn't know a dateline from a clothesline." Gleefully, he pictured himself setting up ambush for the next time the publisher came in with another girt After an hour of planting Imaginary Imagin-ary booby traps all over the newspaper news-paper plant the managing editor had mentally destroyed the publisher pub-lisher and all the girls on the staff a dozen times over. Just when he was halfway through his masterpiece master-piece of stuffing Geldhorn and the girls through the news press to be delivered as supplements to the 5 o'clock edition, Mike Bales with a face full of lather tore into the room. "Chief, Chief the reporter panted, "they just got him." "Just got who when where?" Drislane roared. "Salustrl, at the barber shop," said Mike, furiously shoving a piece of copy paper into his typewriter. "I'll have the story written for the last edition in a jiffy." DOWNSTAIRS the presses were silent and waiting as the managing man-aging editor's pencil poised over the reporter's scoop. "Nat Salustrl, former numbers czar who escaped local police two years ago, today was captured in Nick's barber and beauty shop on Main Street through the efforts of Miss Loretta Hewes, a member of The Herald's editorial staff," the story read. "The gangster, who has hidden from the police since his spectacular |