Chicago Lightning

by Max Allan Collins

  Vinicky slammed a fist on the table. “I told you! I told you!”

  Mullaney said, “We need you to calm down, sir, and tell us about your day.”

  “My day! Tell you about, what…this? The worst day of my life! Worst goddamn day of my life. I loved Rose. She was the best wife any man ever had.”

  Neither cop was nasty enough to mention that the bedroom dick this weeping husband had hired was sitting at the table with them.

  Vinicky’s story was unremarkable: he’d got up around eight, dressed for the court appearance, stopped at the office first (where he was seen by various employees) and then took breakfast at a restaurant on Halsted. From there he’d gone to the post office, picked up a parcel, and headd downtown by car to Municipal Court. He had littered the South Side and the Loop alike with witnesses who could support his alibi.

  “You’re being sued, we understand,” Mullaney said.

  “Yeah—but that’s nothing. Kind of standard with us. Rose is…was…a hardnosed businesswoman, God love her. She insisted on a full day’s work for a full day’s pay.”

  Mullaney was making notes again. “Did Miller ever complain about getting shorted?”

  “Yeah. That’s probably why he was…so friendly with Rose. Trying to get on her good side. Sweet-talk her into giving him the benefit of the doubt on his hours. I was a son of a bitch to ever suspect—”

  Cullen asked, “Could you give us a list of employees who’ve made these complaints, over the last two years?”

  “Sure. No problem. I can give you some off the top of my head, then check the records at the office tomorrow for any I missed.”

  Mullaney wrote down the names.

  When that was done, I asked, “Did your wife have a wedding ring?”

  “Yes. Of course. Why—wasn’t it on her…on her?”

  “No rings.”

  Vinicky thought about that. “She might’ve taken it off to do housework. Was it on her dresser? There’s a tray on her dresser…”

  “No. What was the ring worth?”

  “It was a nice-size diamond—three hundred bucks, I paid. Did the bastard steal it?”

  Mullaney said, “Apparently. The money in her wallet was missing, too.”

  “Hell you say! That was a small fortune—Rose was going to buy train tickets with that, and cover hotel and other expenses. She was treating her sister to a trip to California, and Sally was going along…. It was robbery, then?”

  “We’re exploring that,” Mullaney said.

  Vinicky’s eyes tightened to slits. “One of these S.O.B.’s who claimed they were shorted, you think?”

  The inspector closed his notebook. “We’re exploring that, too. This list should be very helpful, Mr. Vinicky.”

  I gave Mullaney the eye, nodding toward the back door, and he and stepped out there for a word away from both the husband and Captain Cullen.

  “How long will you boys be here?” I asked.

  “Another hour, maybe. Why, Nate?”

  “I have a hunch to play.”

  “You want company?”

  “No. But I should be back before you’ve wrapped up, here.”

  I tooled the Buick over to 63rd Street, a lively commercial district with all the charm of a junkyard. Not far from here, Englewood’s big claim to fame—the multiple murderer H.H Holmes—had set up his so-called Murder Castle in the late 1880s. The Vinicky case could never hope to compete, so maybe I could make it go away quickly.

  In the four days I’d kept an eye on Rich Miller, I’d learned a handful of useful things about the guy, including that when he wasn’t betting at Washington Park, he was doing so with a guy in a back booth at a bar called the Lucky Horseshoe (whose only distinction was its lack of a neon horseshoe in the window).

  The joint was dim and dreary even for a South Side gin mill, and business was slow, mid-afternoon. But I still had to wait for a couple of customers to finish up with the friendly bookie in the back booth before I could slide in across from him.

  “Do I know you?” he asked, not in a threatening way. He was a small sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed, sharp-chinned sharpie wearing a derby and a bow tie but no jacket—it was warm in the Horseshoe. He was smoking a cigarillo and his sleeves were rolled up, like he was preparing to deal cards. But no cards were laid out on the booth’s table.

  I laid mine out, anyway: “My name is Heller, Nate Heller. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”

  The mouth smiled enough to reveal a glint of gold tooth; the dark blue eyes weren’t smiling, though.

  “I’m gonna take a wild stab,” I said, “and guess they call you Goldie.”

  “Some do. You the…‘Frank Nitti’ Heller?”

  By that he meant, was I the mobbed-up private eye who had been tight with Capone’s late heir, and remained tight with certain of the Outfit hierarchy.

  “Yes.”

  “You wanna place a bet, Nate? My bet is…not.”

  “Your bet is right. I’m not here to muscle you. I’m here to do you a favor.”

  “What favor would that be?”

  “There’s a murder a few blocks away—Inspector Mullaney’s on it.”

  “Oh. Shit.”

  And by that he meant, imagine the luck: one of the honest Chicago cops.

  “But, Nate,” he said, and I got the full benefit of a suspiciously white smile interrupted by that gold eyetooth, “why would Goldie give a damn? I have nothin’ to do with murder. Any murder. I’m in the entertainment business.”

  “You help people play the horses.”

  The tiny shrug conveyed big self-confidence. “It’s a noble sport, both the racing and the betting.”

  I leaned toward him. “One of your clients is shaping up as a chief suspect. The favor I’m doing you is: I’m talking to you, rather than just giving you over to the inspector.”

  Eyelids fluttered. “Ah. Well, I do appreciate that. What’s the client’s name?”

  “Rich Miller.”

  The upper lipped peeled back and again showed gold, but th bet as no smile. “That fucking fourflusher. He’s into me for five C’s!”

  “Really. And he’s made no move to pay you off? Today, maybe?”

  His laughter cut like a blade. “Are you kidding? One of my…associates…went around to his flop. Miller pulled outa there, owin’ a week’s back rent.”

  Which, of course, I already knew.

  Goldie was shaking his head, his tone turning philosophical. “You never can tell about people, can you? Miller always paid up on time, before this, whereas that pal of his, who I wouldn’t trust far as I could throw him, that crumb pays up, just when I was ready to call the legbreakers in.”

  “What pal of Miller’s?”

  He gave me a name, but it meant nothing to me. I wondered if it might be the guy Miller had met at Washington Park, two of the days, and ran a description by Goldie.

  “That sounds like him. Big guy. Six four, easy. Not somebody I could talk to myself.”

  “Hence the legbreakers.”

  “Hence. Nate, if you can keep that goody-two-shoes Mullaney off my ass, it would be appreciated. He’ll come around, make it an excuse to make my life miserable, and what did I ever to do to that fat slob?”

  I was already out of the booth. “See what I can do, Goldie.”

  “And if you ever wanna place a bet, you know where my office is.”

  When I got back to the brown-brick house on South Elizabeth Street, the Catholic school girl was hugging a tall slender woman, who might have been her mother come to life. On closer look, this gal was younger, and a little less pretty, though that may not have been fair, considering her features were taught with grief.

  Sally and the woman who I took to be her aunt were beneath the same shady tree where Mullaney and I had stood with the girl, questioning her, earlier.

  I went up and introduced myself, keeping vague about the “investigative job” I’d been doing for Mr. Vinicky.

  “I’m Doris Stemmer,” she said, Sally ea
sing out of the woman’s embrace. The woman wore a pale yellow dress with white flowers that almost didn’t show. “I’m Rose’s sister.”

  She extended her hand and I shook it. Sally stayed close to her aunt.

  “Sorry for your grief, Mrs. Stemmer,” I told her. “Have you spoken to Inspector Mullaney yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

  “But you’re a private detective, aren’t you? What were you doing for Sylvester?”

  “Looking into some of the complaints from his employees.”

  Her eyes tightened and ice came into her voice. “Those men were a bunch of lazy good-for-nothing whiners. Doris was a good person, fair and with a great heart, wonderful heart. Why, just last year? She loaned Ray three hundred dollars, so we didn’t have to wait to get married.”

  “Ray?”

  “Yes, my husband.”

  “What does he do, if I might ask?”

  “He started a new job just last week, at an electrical assembly plant, here on the South Side.”

  “New job? What was his old one?”

  Her strained smile was a signal that I was pushing it. “He worked for Sylvester in the moving business. You can ask him yourself if Rose wasn’t an angel. Ask him yourself if she wasn’t fair about paying their people.”

  “But he did quit…”

  “Working as a mover was just temporary, till Ray could get a job in his chosen field.” Her expression bordered on glare. “Mr. Heller—if you want to talk to Ray, he’s waiting by the car, right over there.”

  She pointed and I glanced over at a blue Ford coupe parked just behind a squad car. A big rugged-looking dark-haired guy, leaning against the vehicle, nodded to us. He was in a short-sleeve green sportshirt and brown pants. His tight expression said he was wondering what the hell I was bothering his wife about.

  Gently as I could, I said, “I might have a couple questions for him, at that, Mrs. Stemmer. Would you and Sally wait here, just a moment? Don’t go anywhere, please…”

  I went inside and found Mullaney and Cullen in the living room, contemplating the tape outline. Things were obviously winding down; the crime scene boys were packing up their gear, and most of the detectives were already gone.

  “Button button,” I said to them. “Who’s got the button?”

  Cullen glared at me, but Mullaney only smiled. “The brown button, you mean? Cullen, didn’t you collect that?”

  The captain reached a hand into his suitcoat and came back with the brown button and held out the blood-caked item in his palm.

  “You want this, Heller?”

  “Yeah,” I said, marveling at the evidence-collecting protocol of the Chicago Police Department, “just for a minute….”

  I returned to Mrs. Stemmer, under the tree, an arm around her niece.

  “Couple questions about your husband,” I said.

  “Why don’t you just talk to him?” she asked, clearly exasperated.

  “I will. I’m sorry. Please be patient. Does your husband have a coat that matches those pants he’s wearing?”

  “Well…yes. Maybe. Why?”

  “Isn’t wearing it today, though.”

  “It’s warm. Why would he wear it…?”

  “Could this button have come off that jacket?”

  She looked at it. “I don’t know1;

  Quietly, I said, “When did you say your husband started his new job?”

  “Last week.”

  “But he didn’t have to go to work today?”

  “No…no. He had some things to do.”

  “Does he normally get Fridays off?”

  “I don’t know. He just started, I told you.”

  “So it’s unlikely he’d be given a day off….”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Mrs. Stemmer, forgive me, but…does your husband have a gambling problem?”

  She drew in breath, but said nothing. And spoke volumes.

  I ambled over to the tall, broad-shouldered man leaning against the Ford.

  “Mr. Stemmer? My name’s Heller.”

  He stood straight now, folded his arms, looked at me suspiciously through sleepy eyes. He’d been out of earshot when I spoke to his wife, but could tell I’d been asking her unpleasant questions.

  “Why were you bothering my wife? Are you one of these detectives?”

  “Yeah. Private detective.”

  He batted the air with a big paw. “You’re nobody! I don’t have to talk to you.”

  “Private detective,” I picked up, “who followed Rich Miller to the track most of this week.”

  “…What for?”

  “For Rose’s husband—he thought she and Miller were playing around.”

  He snorted a laugh. “Only thing Richie Miller plays is the nags.”

  “And you’d know, right, Ray? See, I saw you and your buddy Richie hanging out together at Washington Park. You were betting pretty solid, yourself. Not big dough, but you were game, all right.”

  “So what?”

  “Well, for one thing, your wife thinks you started a new job last week.”

  The sleepy eyes woke up a little. “And I guess in your business, uh…Heller, is it? In your business, you never ran across an instance of a guy lying to his wife before, huh?”

  “You like the nags, too, don’t you, Stemmer? Only you don’t like to get nagged—and I bet Rose Vinicky nagged the hell out of you to pay back that three hundred. Did she hold back from your paycheck, too?”

  He shook his head, smiled, but it was sickly. “Rose was a sweetheart.”

  “I don’t think so. I think she was a hardass who maybe even shorted a guy when he had his hard-earned money coming. Her husband loved her, but anybody working for her? She gladly give them merry hell. She was that kind of nagrry hell. p>

  A sneer formed on his face, like a blister. “I don’t have to talk to you. Take a walk.”

  He shoved me.

  I didn’t shove back, but I stood my ground; somebody gasped behind me—maybe Doris Stemmer, or the girl.

  “You knew about that money, didn’t you, Stemmer? The money Rose was going to use to treat your wife to a Hollywood trip. And you could use eleven-hundred bucks, couldn’t you, pal? Hell, who couldn’t!”

  He shoved me again. “You don’t take a goddamn hint, do you, Heller?”

  “Here’s a hint for you: when a bookie like Goldie gets paid off, right before the legbreakers leave the gate? That means somebody finally had a winner.”

  His face turned white.

  “Sure, she let her brother-in-law in the front door,” I said. “She may have had you pegged for the kind of welsher who stiffs his own sister-in-law for a loan, but she probably thought she was at least safe with you, alone in her own house. That should’ve been a sure bet, right? Only it wasn’t. What did you use? A sash weight? A crowbar?”

  This time he shoved me with both hands, and he was trying to crawl in on the rider’s side of the Ford, to get behind the wheel, when I dragged him out by the leg. On his ass on the grass, he tried to kick me with the other leg, and I kicked him in the balls, and it ended as it had begun, with a scream.

  All kinds of people, some of them cops, came running, swarming around us with questions and accusations. But I ignored them, hauling Stemmer to his feet, and jerking an arm around his back, holding the big guy in place, and Cullen believed me when I said, “Brother-in-law did it,” taking over for me, and I quickly filled Mullaney in.

  They found four hundred and fifteen bucks in cash in Stemmer’s wallet—what he had left after paying off the bookie.

  “That’s a lot of money,” Mullaney said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “I won it on a horse,” Stemmer said.

  Only it came out sounding like a question.

  After he failed six lie detector tests, Raymond Stemmer confessed in full. Turned out hardnosed businesswoman Rose had quietly fired Stemmer when she found out he’d been stea
ling furniture from their warehouse. Rich Miller had told Rose that Ray was going to the track with him, time to time, so she figured her brother-in-law was selling the furniture on the side to play the horses. She had given him an ultimatum: pay back the three hundred dollars, and what the furniture was worth, and Rose would not tell her sister about his misdeeds.

  Stemmer had stopped by the house around nine thirty and told Rose he’d brought her the money. Instead, in the living room, as she reached for her already burning cigarette, he had paid her back by striking her in the back of the head with a wrench.

  Amazingly, she hadn’t gone down. She’d staggered, knocked the ashtray to the floor, only to look over her shoulder at him and say, “You have the nerve to hit me?”

  And he found the nerve to hit her again, and another ten times, where she lay on the floor.

  He removed the woman’s diamond wedding ring, and went upstairs and emptied the wallet. All of this he admitted in a thirty-page statement. The diamond was found in a toolbox in his basement, the wrench in the Chicago River (after three hours of diving). His guilty plea got him a life sentence.

  About a week after I’d found Rose Vinicky’s body, her husband called me at my office. He was sending a check for my services—the five days I’d followed Miller—and wanted to thank me for exposing his brother-in-law as the killer. He told me he was taking his daughter to California on the trip her mother had promised; the sister-in-law was too embarrassed and distraught to accept Vinicky’s invitation to come along.

  “What I don’t understand,” the pitiful voice over the phone said, “is why Rose was so distant to me, those last weeks. Why she’d acted in a way that made me think—”

  “Mr. Vinicky, your wife knew her sister’s husband was a lying louse, a degenerate gambler, stealing from the both of you. That was what was on her mind.”

  “…I hadn’t thought of it that way. By God, I think you’re right, Mr. Heller…. You know something funny? Odd. Ironic, I mean?”

  “What?”

  “I got a long, lovely letter from Rich Miller today. Handwritten. A letter of condolence. He heard about Rose’s death, and said he was sick about it. That she was a wonderful lady and had been kind to him. After all the people who’ve said Rose was hard-hearted to the people who worked for us? This, this…it’s a kind of…testament to her.”