Target Lancer nh-14

by Max Allan Collins

  Had somebody tied off Tom Ellison as a loose end? Because of that money drop he’d made? And if so, what the hell did that make me, but another loose end?

  Plus, there was always the possibility that somebody had seen Tom with that envelope of cash, not knowing he’d passed it to Jack Ruby at the 606, and my bellboy theory-right down to preparing for the hooker ploy-seemed suddenly less preposterous.

  I did not, however, share any of that with Dick Cain. He was a friend, as far as it went, but there was no way I would ever let him know about the job I’d done for Tom, not unless he confronted me with an eyewitness. His presence today could have less to do with him covering for me, out of friendship, and more to do with somebody-Hoffa? Giancana? — checking up on me, to see if I’d spill what I knew about Tom and Ruby to a copper.

  From the Outfit’s point of view, my pal Dick would be the perfect cop to send my way.…

  Still, Dick’s dealings with the Outfit always seemed to be at arm’s length-he was doing business with them because he had to, to make it in Chicago. Which was an attitude I well understood, because it was my own. You have to swim in the waters you find yourself in.

  And the sheriff’s top investigator had expressed his disgust with the Outfit to me many times-though everybody seemed to think of Dick as Irish, his father had been Italian … and had been murdered by the Black Hand.

  “Do you want me to keep an eye on this thing?” Dick asked. Considering that he only had one good eye, that was damn near a joke. He was lighting up another Dunhill.

  “Let’s see what the coroner comes up with,” I said casually. “The trajectory of the pick will help pin down whether it’s a man or a woman who swung it.”

  He shook his head, sighing smoke. “Not sure I see that.”

  “Well, it’s obvious Tom was standing up when he was killed.”

  “Is it?”

  “The angle of his body on the bed. His feet hanging over. He started out standing near the bed, got stabbed, fell backward … and that’s why there’s so little blood.”

  “There’s never a lot of blood with an ice pick.”

  “But more blood than that! After he fell backward, gravity took care of the rest-making for damn little bleeding. Anyway, the angle of the ice-pick wound will give us the height of the killer.”

  “All right. I’ll buy that.”

  “And that bed, Dick-didn’t you notice? It was tidy, except for Tom’s body, on top of the spread. Didn’t look to me like anybody’d been riding bareback on it lately. He was in his T-shirt, boxers, and socks-a guy relaxing in his hotel room, not a guy who just got laid. If somebody came to the door, Tom probably pulled his trousers on and answered, and let his murderer in. Post-kill, the guy yanked Tom’s trousers off and dumped them on the floor.”

  Now Dick was nodding, clearly with me. “Okay, Nate. Maybe you got something. We’ll see what latent prints comes up with.”

  “Good. That’s all I ask.”

  “Is it?” The milky eye made his gaze unsettling. “You’ve been known to even scores, Nate. Business, schmizness-this was a friend of yours. Are you really content to let law enforcement handle it?”

  “I’m old and respectable now, Dick. I don’t play Wild West anymore. That’s for you young go-getters.”

  He’d shot a few bad guys in his time-sometimes coming under criticism for the same. Probably had led to his resignation from the PD.

  But my remark only made him smile.

  “You know, Nate, I think I’m gonna choose to believe you,” he said. “Here comes that waitress again. Maybe we better order lunch before she puts coffee down us with a funnel. You’ll be getting the check, by the way.”

  CHAPTER 7

  After lunch, I decided to leave the Jag in the Pick-Congress parking ramp and shrugged on my Cortefiel raincoat, snugged on the Dobbs narrow-brim hat, and took a brisk, overcast walk over to the Monadnock Building.

  Once upon a time it had been the largest office building in the world; today the Monadnock was a sixteen-story curiosity among its taller, often less-distinguished offspring. Even now the soot-gray brick structure with its flaring base and dramatic bay windows struck a moody yet modern pose that made it a good fit for a detective agency.

  I went in the main entrance on West Jackson, walked down a corridor consisting of the ass-end display windows of stores facing Dearborn and Federal, ignored the distinctive open winding stairwells, and took the elevator to seven.

  Though we’d taken over much of the office space on this floor, our main area remained the corner suite where the frosted glass-and-wood exterior had stayed the same for decades. The door had been revised slightly:

  A-1 Detective Agency

  Criminal and Civil Investigations

  Nathan S. Heller

  President

  with in smaller lettering,

  Louis K. Sapperstein

  Vice President

  Like Fred Rubinski out in Hollywood, Lou was a full partner now. Just not full enough to have his name in letters the size of mine.

  There were no customers in the reception area, which made me sorry we’d expanded it. The walls bore the framed vintage Century of Progress posters that had been part of the agency since 1934, the furnishings blond Heywood-Wakefield numbers. The reading matter on the end tables included the usual suspects-Time, Newsweek, Redbook, Sports Illustrated-with a few battered ringers mixed in. Like a certain Life issue and a few decade-old true detective-type mags, covering cases of mine. I still got written up in such periodicals, but the covers had grown so sleazy of late, they no longer sent the right waiting-room message.

  Our receptionist was a dark-haired looker in her late twenties called Mildred, a name that had always struck me as a bad parental joke. Mildred had a nice smile, was not stupid, but wanted to be Jackie Kennedy so bad I just couldn’t take her seriously. Today she wore a pale-pink dress with a cowl collar. She’d have worn a pillbox hat if I let her get away with it.

  “Mr. Heller,” she said, giving me a bright-eyed welcome.

  “Mildred,” I said, nodding.

  A fairly typical conversation between Mildred and me.

  The bullpen was mostly full, only a few agents out in the field-we always had a Monday staff meeting, and unless a case dictated otherwise, everybody was here. My fourteen agents were a wide range of ages and sexes, and we had a Negro and a Chinese guy, too.

  Every A-1 detective had a police or military police background. Those not working a case were in business clothes, with those taking a break from fieldwork in street clothes. Their modern metal desks were widely spaced, because I didn’t care for cubicles. Most of the agents did not need privacy with clients because either Lou or I took the first meetings. A wall of windows provided a view onto Jackson Street showcasing the Federal Building, and another wall was strictly metal four-drawer files.

  The office was run by Gladys Sapperstein, Lou’s wife. Gladys had been a gorgeous young woman when I hired her in the early ‘40s, who had interviewed warm but proved a cold fish, dashing any Hollywood fantasies I might have harbored about a private eye and his sexy secretary. I’d been made to suffer for my error by way of decades of Gladys’s business acumen and efficiency.

  Several years into my employ, Gladys had married one of our operatives, a kid named Fortunato, and when he died in the war, she thawed out some. Not that she and I were ever an item, not by a long shot; and I thought she would never remarry, but then about ten years ago, she and my partner Lou announced that they’d gotten married by a judge over the lunch hour.

  I suspected a longtime office affair, but said nothing, since I didn’t give a damn, other than my ego being bruised by the beautiful Gladys never having been tempted by my masculine charms. Lou was a strapping guy, sure, but a dozen years older than me-he’d been my boss on the Pickpocket Detail in the early thirties-and he was bald and bulbous-nosed and bespectacled, and what the hell was wrong with me? Well, I knew. Gladys saw me for the randy, unreliable fucker I wa
s, and Lou for the right guy that he was.

  She had her own office now-between Lou’s and mine-and remained attractive, a busty, pleasingly plump brunette in her late fifties wearing jeweled cat’s-eye glasses.

  I was about to step into my office when she emerged from hers, looking primly pretty in an orange and green cotton print dress.

  She crooked her little finger. That was only slightly less intimidating than a cop turning his siren on.

  “Good afternoon, Gladys,” I said, going to her. She rarely came to me.

  “Nice to see you made it in.”

  “I’m the boss, Gladys. I show up when I feel like it.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s interesting. Lou is supposed to be semi-retired, and he’s here more often than you are.”

  She never referred to Lou as “my husband” in the office. You would never guess they were married. In fact, she nagged me a hell of a lot more than she ever did Lou.

  “Well, this is a surprisingly warm greeting for a Monday, I admit,” I said to her through a strained smile. “Was there something?”

  “Don’t slip out after the staff meeting. You have a five-o’clock appointment.”

  “That’s a little late for an appointment.”

  “Well, she might get here earlier. But she’s driving down from Milwaukee, and has to stop at the morgue on her way, to make some arrangements.”

  Gladys paused to cast me a condescending look.

  “Oh shit,” I said. “You’re talking about Jean Ellison. My God, she just found out this morning her husband is dead, and she’s driving down here? That’s terrible. You should have talked her out of it.”

  She just stared at me. She might have been a stone statue at Easter Island, albeit better-looking. I might have been a bug crawling across the wall.

  “Mrs. Ellison,” Gladys said finally, “said that she felt sure you would see her.”

  “She’s right, of course. You know who she is?”

  “Yes. Her husband did some publicity for us, a few years ago. Very nice man. I take it he’s recently deceased?”

  “Murdered. That’s where I was this morning-over at the Pick-Congress, having a look at the crime scene. Killed in his hotel room, money stolen.”

  Something flared in her eyes. “Surely that’s a police matter.”

  Gladys, ever since being promoted from receptionist to office manager, took a stern, proprietary interest in how I allocated my time.

  I put a hand on her shoulder and she winced, just a little. “I want to promise you, Gladys, that if someone ever murders you in the night, I will not stray from my duty. I will continue to serve the clients of the A-1 and allow the honest, hardworking police of Chicago, Illinois, to bring in your killer.”

  That made her laugh.

  When I got to her like that, she would say, “Oh, you,” and slap my chest.

  You now understand my relationship with Gladys Sapperstein in all its complex glory.

  She was almost in her office when I said, “Lou here?”

  “Yes. You want him?”

  “Please.”

  In my private office, I hung up my raincoat and hat in the closet. My inner sanctum was a spacious preserve immune to the changes of the outer world-even the outer office area. The central feature was the old scarred desk that dated back to my one room over the Dill Pickle in Barney Ross’s building on Van Buren. But there were also padded leather client chairs, a comfortable couch, wooden filing cabinets, and walls arrayed with framed, often signed photos of celebrities, sometimes celebrity clients, sometimes with me in the shots.

  There was Helen, in full Sally Rand persona, standing coyly behind a fan, next to a shot of Marilyn Monroe in a white bathing suit, both signed to me with love. Funny to think Helen was still here, and Marilyn was gone.

  “Nate?” Lou said. He was leaning in-I’d left the door open for him. No black rims for his glasses, strictly wire-frame. “You wanted me?”

  “Yeah. Shut us in and sit yourself down. We have almost half an hour before the staff meeting. I need to fill you in.”

  He settled his big, muscular frame into the chair opposite me as I got into my swivel number. He had on a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up to the elbow, navy-blue suspenders, and a matching clip-on tie. His fashion sense left something to be desired, but he was a hell of a detective. And partner.

  “You heard that Tom Ellison was murdered,” I said.

  “Yeah. Shame. Last night?”

  “Apparently. I did a job for him Friday-it’s off the A-1 books, okay?”

  He nodded.

  I had no secrets from Lou. Or anyway few secrets. He even knew at least the vague outlines of Operation Mongoose. So he listened patiently as I filled him in about the 606 Club money drop, my talk with Jimmy Hoffa in a Wrigley Field men’s room, and the gist of what Dick Cain and I had discussed at the Pick-Congress this morning.

  “The question is,” Lou said, “are you a loose end now? Or was this something else? Tom getting himself killed may have no connection to that errand he ran.”

  “It’s possible. Also possible that he got himself killed because he didn’t just run the damn errand, like he was told-instead getting in touch with a private eye pal of his to back him up.”

  Lou nodded. “So what’s the plan?”

  “I don’t know if Gladys mentioned it to you, but-”

  “Mrs. Ellison has an appointment at five. Yes, I know.”

  “Well, I want you to sit in on that meeting, and hang around after.”

  He was nodding again. “Done. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. If you wind up one of my pallbearers, wear a real tie, for Chrissake.”

  Lou grunted a laugh, got up, and ambled out-he was graceful for a big athletic guy, and you’d make him for his mid-fifties, not early seventies.

  I called Helen at my place.

  “Listen,” I said, “I apologize, but I don’t think we should move you in right now.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it.” Her voice had a nice lightness to it. “We can just head over to the Lorraine this evening, and get my bags, whenever you’re done with business. We’re past checkout anyway.”

  “No, Helen. You don’t follow. I think maybe somebody else might drop around to see me, unannounced … and this time not to deliver football tickets.”

  I told her briefly that a client I’d done a job for recently had been murdered.

  “I don’t have any intention of putting you at risk,” I said.

  “Don’t be a pussy, Heller. We’ll make the move tonight. Then you can take me out for a nice meal. Who knows, you might get lucky again.”

  And the click in my ear said that was the end of it.

  If I was so tough, why could all these women push me around?

  After the staff meeting-two hours that ran to reports on the status of current cases and potential new clients-I headed back to my office. I was barely behind my desk when Mildred rang through.

  “Your five o’clock is here,” Mildred said quietly.

  “It’s not even four-thirty.”

  “I know. She says she’ll wait.”

  “I’ll be right out.”

  There was a bathroom off my office, and I went in, took a piss, washed my hands, brushed my teeth, tossed some cold water on my face, and looked at myself, wishing a younger face would look back at me. I toweled off and let out the kind of sigh only a man well past forty can muster.

  Time to greet my murdered client’s wife.

  She was a petite honey blonde, thirtyish, with a Janet Leigh hairdo, wearing a simple gray dress with a rounded collar and a pleated skirt. Subdued clothing, but not widow’s weeds-only her pumps were black. Her pretty, rather delicate features were highlighted by understated makeup. Her white-gloved hands were in her lap, holding a small dark-gray purse. She looked as composed as a prospective teacher waiting for her interview with the superintendent of schools.

  As I stepped into the reception area, I said, “Jean, I’m so
very sorry.…”

  She rose, smiled, and said, “It’s very nice to see you, Nathan. It’s been too long.”

  She extended a gloved hand, as if being introduced to me at a cotillion, and I went over and took it, gently. Only the barest crinkling of her chin gave anything away. Her cornflower-blue eyes were not red and did not look particularly moist.

  I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her and comfort her and let her cry her heart out. But I didn’t know her that well. She and Tom and I probably had dinner out, in a vaguely business-related way, half a dozen times, and that was several years ago. I’d been to their house in Milwaukee once, when I’d promised Tom I would keep my PR business with him, despite the move, which I hadn’t.

  She might have been battling back tears or in shock or even not that devastated-how could I know what the state of their marriage had been?

  So I said nothing more, and she said nothing more, as I took her gently by an arm and led her through the bullpen. My agents did not look up-they were well-trained to ignore clients heading back for a meeting with the boss, particularly clients personally escorted by the boss.

  Just outside my door, I said, “I’m going to ask my partner, Lou Sapperstein, to sit in on our meeting. I trust him, and you can, too. Is that all right?”

  “Certainly.”

  I walked her to the client’s chair, and Lou-who’d been tipped off either by Mildred or Gladys or both-slipped into the office, shut the door, and went directly to Jean Ellison.

  He extended his hand to her and she gave him a gloved one. “Lou Sapperstein, Mrs. Ellison. I am so sorry for your loss. I knew Tom and he was a fine man.”

  “Thank you.”

  I sat and asked if she would like coffee or tea or perhaps water, as Lou stood poised to take our orders. She declined.

  Then I said, “I understand you had to come down here for … official matters. But if this is difficult for you, I could come to you in Milwaukee, later in the week. It’s not a problem. If you’d like some time to sort things out.”

  “No. I’m here. I’m … I believe I’m rather in a sort of stunned state, Nathan. I haven’t cried yet. I feel something more like … anger than grief. Something that feels like it’s, I guess, bubbling up down deep.” She laughed and it was awful. “Like a volcano, I guess.”