Showing results by author "Frank Lovejoy" in All Categories

Randy Stone comes upon Marty, a six-year-old boy who is running away from home with a $100 bill. This leads Randy to an attempt to prevent an execution.

It was a busy Wednesday night. Barnes on the city desk asked me to lend a hand, and I filled in for a couple of hours. I'd just finished taking notes over the headphones, when the switchboard buzzed me with a personal.

Night is when the city comes alive full of promise. Randy stood on the corner watching the world go by, cataloguing each and every person and happening, when a car came by and clipped a guy holding a black case, knocking him over. Randy went to help him, but he was okay and disappeared into the street into a bar called the Glamour Palace. Randy followed him, realizing that he had the guy’s hat.

For Randy Stone of the Chicago Star, stories begin in many ways. This one began with a Halloween killing and ended with sweet revenge.

Alfred Wyman is a strange artist who wants to kill the wealthy Miss Gleason because she killed Vincent. Just when Randy has given up on a story for the night, he stumbles across an old man in a dispute with a taxi driver over the fare. The old man has no money, so Randy pays the fare but is surprised when the gentle-looking old man, Alfred Wyman, says he has to go to kill Miss Gleeson.

Randy didn’t have to go and look for his story tonight; it came in over the Teletype. Charles Keller died today in the state penitentiary after serving 14 years of a 20-year sentence for armed robbery. His wife, Molly Keller, a quiet woman, worked in the offices of the Chicago Star as a humble cleaner. Keller died still denying any knowledge of the $650,000 payroll robbery in the sensation of 14 years ago.

Charlie owed Joe Sligo $3000 from his gambling and Sligo’s motto was pay up or die. Charlie has a family and kids to think about and has been in debt for 6 months. Now he turns to Randy Stone for help. Randy Stone knows that the police are looking for Sligo and tells Charlie his only hope is to let the police know where Sligo is.

It wasn’t much of a story, just an obituary. Mrs. Martha Orloff, age 62, scrub woman, death by natural causes, heart failure. But what’s natural about killing yourself with a scrubbing brush? It would have only been a two-line obit if the other scrubwoman hadn’t stopped him on his way out of the building.