Marked Woman Page #8

down on nightclubs and gambling joints...

... owned or controlled

by Johnny Vanning.

Neither police nor the DA

would disclose the reason...

... for this sudden interest in Mr. Vanning.

It's not hard to guess that it all ties in

with the killing of Betty Strauber...

... and the beating

of her sister, Mary...

... who is still in serious condition

at the General Ho...

All right, Johnny, you wait out here.

Come on, sister, you're going places.

- Where to?

- Never mind. Just places.

Get her stuff out of here.

No. No, I won't go.

I won't. Johnny promised me.

He promised me he'd take care of me.

He can't double-cross me.

He can't. He cant. No.

Oh, no! No!

No.

Wait a minute, Charlie. Vanning's phoning

down. Let's take her to the lobby.

Come out.

Gotta open it.

Get on the phone.

Tell the doorman to stop her.

- Tell him she's drunk.

- Right.

Around the back.

- Did you see a blond come through here?

- No, sir.

Get that dame and get her fast.

You feel better now, don't you?

Yes.

- We'll have to go soon.

- Goodbye.

Oh, don't take it so hard, Mary.

The doctor outside told me he could fix

that scar so nobody'd ever notice it.

I got things wrong with me

that all the doctors in the world can't fix.

Mary, we were figuring

that when you got out...

...we'd send you away,

maybe to Florida...

...and you could lie in the sun

and rest for a few weeks.

It'll do you a lot good.

You'll forget all about this.

How?

By just closing my eyes

and pretending it never happened?

I wish it was as easy as that,

but it isn't.

You see, I keep seeing

that poor little sister of mine...

...lying there with that fear

still in her eyes...

...and her pretty little head all twisted.

Me too.

- I see her too, just like you do.

- Emmy Lou.

Mary.

Oh, Mary.

You go on back to headquarters

and I'll see you there later.

If you pick up any news of Emmy Lou,

call me here at the hospital.

All right, Mr. Graham.

I didn't mean to take her there, Mary.

- You know I didn't.

- Never mind.

Never mind, Emmy Lou.

It's all over now.

There's only one thing

that I'm interested in.

- Estelle, call Graham's office, will you?

- What are you gonna do, Mary?

Have Emmy Lou tell him the same story

she just told us.

- Do you know what you're doing?

- Sure, I do.

I swore that I'd make Vanning pay for this

if it was the last thing I ever did.

Well, why make her pay for it too?

Once she tells Graham, she's gone.

Don't you realize that?

And you'll be just as responsible

for her being bumped off as Vanning will.

Well?

Go ahead, Mary.

It doesn't make any difference anymore.

My number's up anyhow.

He'll get me,

just as he'll get every one of you.

As long as we're alive,

there's a chance of someone telling.

And Vanning doesn't take chances.

One by one, he'll get us.

Well, maybe if we went to him and said:

"Look, Johnny, you know

we won't talk."

Maybe we could make a deal.

I'm sick of making deals.

Well, you wanna keep on living,

don't you?

If this is what you call living,

I don't want any part of it.

Always being afraid.

Never knowing from one day to the next

what's going to happen to you.

I'm fed up with being afraid

of Vanning or anybody else.

There must be some other way

for me to live.

If there isn't, I...

Well, I'd just as soon put a bullet

in my head right now and end it.

- Hello, Graham.

- Hello, Mary.

Emmy Lou?

What does she know?

- Everything.

- Will she talk?

Yeah, she'll talk, and so will we.

I'm telling you, Johnny,

we've got to make a deal.

What do you mean?

Plead guilty.

Throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

Mercy? Don't make me laugh.

They've been waiting to get me

in a spot like this for years.

We haven't got a chance

with that Emmy Lou testifying for them.

- Our only way out is a deal.

- Me?

I don't make no deals with nobody.

They make deals with me.

All the time I've been that way,

ever since I was that big.

You think I care for money?

All I care about is to make people do

what I tell them.

You're crazy, Johnny.

Yeah, maybe I am.

Maybe I ain't.

I just know one thing.

I ain't going to let no five crabby dames

put the skids under me now.

You wanna deal? Here it is:

You get word to those dames

that maybe I get them before the trial...

...and maybe I got to wait

until after it's over.

But if they talk, sure as my name's

Johnny Vanning...

...I'll get them.

I wish that guy Graham would stop

sending these banquets.

He's ruining my girlish figure.

- Don't have to make a pig out of yourself.

- Well, it's free, why not?

- Come on, Mary, your stuff's getting cold.

- No, I'm not hungry.

Gabby, look.

See that guy down there across the street

with the gray hat on?

He looks like Joe Donnera,

one of Vanning's pet executioners.

Right. Get away from that window, Mary.

That little hophead isn't out there walking

for his health.

That's all.

Be seated.

Proceed with the case

of The State v. Vanning.

The state calls Florrie Liggett.

And when Betty got out of the taxi

and came up the stoop...

...she had money in her hand, didn't she?

- Yes, sir.

- It was a hundred dollar bill, wasn't it?

- Yes, sir.

Where did she tell you

she got that hundred dollar bill?

- From a man at the party.

- Just as a sort of a little present?

No, sir. She said she got it

for taxi fare.

She told you that she accepted

a hundred dollar bill for taxi fare?

Yes, sir. We always got that

at Johnny's parties.

Thank you. That's all.

The state calls Estelle Porter.

- You knew the deceased, Betty Strauber?

- Yes, sir.

Will you speak a little louder

so the jury can hear you?

Yes, sir.

- What kind of a girl would you say she was?

- She was the sweetest kid you ever saw.

And up until very recently...

...she didn't know the kind of work

you and her sister were doing?

No, sir. She thought we were

models in a dress shop.

Mary kept her in a swell school.

Wanted her to grow up

to be a god kid, and...

Objection, as irrelevant

and cheap pathos...

...in an attempt to play

on the sympathies of the jury.

I merely offer it in rebuttal to the cheap

insinuations cast upon the character...

...of the deceased Betty Strauber.

Overruled. Proceed.

The state calls Dorothy Marvin,

known as Gabby Marvin.

Then why did you refuse to talk about

this case to the district attorney at first?

I had a reason.

And was it for the same reason that you

tried to persuade the other girls not to talk?

- Yes.

- And just what was that reason?

- Vanning.

- What do you mean, Vanning?

A boy I was crazy about

used to work for him.

He wanted to get out of this racket

so we could go away together.

But he knew too much.

Vanning wouldn't let him out.

So the boyfriend got sore and talked.

George, he was that kind of a guy,

sort of hotheaded and wild...

Never mind that. What happened?

They found him in a ditch,

full of slugs.

The state calls Mary Dwight.

When you defied Vanning's command

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