I forced a small smile. “You have a son and daughter, I know. I apologize for not remembering their names.…”
“Mike is in junior high, Susie’s in the sixth grade. My parents live in Milwaukee-that’s one of the reasons Tom and I moved there, Dad had some very good connections with the Miller people.… Anyway, I’m afraid I did something very cowardly.”
A woman alone who had driven the hour plus from Milwaukee to Chicago, within hours or maybe minutes of hearing of her husband’s death, did not strike me as cowardly. But I didn’t say that. I didn’t know what to say.
Nor did Lou, who had positioned himself in a chair just in back of and to the right of her.
She explained without prompting: “I left it to Mom and Dad to tell the kids. That’s terrible of me, I know. But I left it to them. They seem … more stable, more reliable, than me right now. I couldn’t think of how I could tell the kids. Just couldn’t. What would I say? Mike! Dad can’t make it to your football game Friday night. Susie! You won’t see Dad at the school musical.”
Another short, awful laugh.
I said, “How can we help?”
She leaned toward me, just a little. “Before we speak, I must ask you, uh-your friend, Mr. Sapperstein?” She glanced back at him and smiled politely. Then her dry-eyed gaze fixed itself on me: “Is he aware of why my husband contacted you on Friday?”
That gave me a chill. A goddamn chill.
She knew.
Her husband had confided in her about his worries, the situation he’d got himself into trying to get into that unmemorable Bears game.
I had not seen this one coming. I figured she might be here to ask me to look into Tom’s death, because I was their former client, their sort of friend who was a private investigator … maybe at most Tom might have mentioned to her he was going to see me Friday, but this?
“Jean,” I said, sitting forward, “how much do you know?”
“I know about the football ticket and the envelope of money and the burlesque house and hiring you to go along, to protect him. I think I know all of it.”
The emphasis on protect had been the only sign that she perhaps blamed me a little. I’d been hired as Tom’s bodyguard Friday, and two nights later he was dead.
Trying not to sound at all defensive, I said, “I didn’t see Tom after the 606 Club. Everything appeared to go well-he passed along the envelope and left.”
I didn’t tell her the guy on the receiving end of the money drop was Jack Ruby, a little mobster I’d known for years. And I didn’t say I’d been invited to that Bears game, too, by Jimmy Hoffa himself.
“I blame myself,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“Blame myself.” She settled back and sighed. The only sign of inner turmoil was the way she held onto that purse. Maybe she had a gun in it and was going to shoot me for letting Tom die. Maybe I wouldn’t blame her.
But she went on: “We don’t hide things, Tom and I. Even in business, he always runs things past me. We are close. We are still … sweethearts. Soppy as that sounds. He is a very loving husband, and a wonderful, attentive father. He does have to travel sometimes, but … he is the best husband a woman could ever dream of having, and the best father our kids could ever hope to have.”
Okay, so she was talking in the present tense. That was how she was handling it. Tom wasn’t dead yet. Even if she had just read me his obituary.
She was saying, “When he got the chance to take on those questionable clients, with the connections to this Hoffa gangster, I could have said no. But the money was good. The money was very good. We bought a new home. We put money away for Mike and Susie’s college. If I had just said, ‘No, Tom, not those people.’ If I had said that, I wouldn’t have had to go to that nasty-smelling place today and look at him on a tray with a tiny hole in his chest.”
I thought that might unleash the torrent, but it didn’t. The gloved hands strangled the purse.
“Do you think,” she said, “that this big shot Hoffa or the gangsters he runs with are responsible for Tom’s death?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible.”
“May I tell you what’s not possible? A Chicago police detective, and to his credit he tried to be as gentle as he could, indicated the official theory is that Tom had a woman in his room, and that she robbed and killed him.”
“Yeah. I don’t buy that.”
“I would understand if you did. Businessmen on out-of-town trips, they sometimes see women. Girls they meet in a hotel bar. Girls they pay for it. Sluts. Whores. But not Tom. You see, we’re still very … this is embarrassing to say … but there is … there’s nothing wrong with our sex life.”
I raised a hand to indicate she needn’t say more. “Jean, normally I might tell you that anything is possible, even in a good marriage. Good men slip, the best husband can make a mistake. But I don’t believe Tom was killed by a woman.”
“You seem very sure.”
“The evidence indicates a male assailant, no matter what the Chicago police may say. But it is possible that it was a robbery.”
“How so?”
I explained my bellboy theory.
“That seems a little … elaborate,” she said. “The planting of the glass with the lipstick, the Trojan wrapper and so on. Improbable, but not impossible.”
“No argument.”
“Still, Nathan…” Her eyes had a glint now. “It could have been something else … couldn’t it?”
She was smart. Tom had married a beautiful woman but she was much more than that.
“Yes,” I said. “A professional killer might well plan to leave behind a false trail … like the lipstick glass, the prophylactic wrapper. That’s not improbable at all.”
“A cold-blooded, premeditated murder, you mean.”
“I do. If the errand Tom ran on Friday night turned him into a loose end, then … that’s very possible.”
She nodded, as if I had just told her, Your car needs an oil change.
“What kind of loose end had Tom become?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Possibly that money being traceable back to Hoffa’s man may pose somebody a problem. That’s just a guess. And I may be a loose end now myself.”
Neither of us said anything for a while.
Lou filled the silence with a question I should have asked. “Mrs. Ellison, when did you last speak to your husband?”
“Sunday evening. He’d eaten at the hotel. Must have been around seven. We didn’t talk long. He just said he felt stupid, this mess with the Bears ticket, especially how dull the game had been. We talked about the kids, some events coming up.”
A football game. A school musical.
She was saying, “I talked to him Friday night, too. After that burlesque club fiasco. And we spoke Saturday night. He’d taken a client and his wife to a matinee at the Shubert. I forget what was playing.”
They’d spoken every night he was away. I believed they really were still sweethearts. And it didn’t seem soppy to me. Not at all.
She turned from Lou to me. Sitting straight, business-like, purse firm in two hands. “All right, Nathan-what can we do?”
“Jean, it’s not going to be easy. If he was killed by a professional, for the kind of people we’re talking about … it can be hard, even impossible, to prove.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Tom says you’re an interesting man. He says people tell stories about you.”
Lou gave me a look, and I said, “Really. What kind of stories?”
“Tom says that you are a very tough hombre. That’s what he said, isn’t it funny? Tough hombre. That you sit in a fancy office in Chicago, but you’re more like some kind of … Bogart kind of detective.”
Lou grinned.
“I really don’t know what Tom meant by that,” I said.
“Tom meant that you have your own sense of justice. Your own way of doing things. That people you don’t like have been known to … just kind of go away.”
/> Lou stopped grinning.
I could have dissuaded her. I’m not sure why I didn’t. I could have said those were silly rumors, and just talk, people’s imaginations running away with them.
But I didn’t.
“Let me just say,” I replied gently, “that if the long arms of the law prove a little … short … I might sometimes find a way of evening a score. In certain situations.”
Lou’s eyes were wide. He was obviously surprised by what I was saying-not by the content of it, but that I uttered it out loud.
“I like the sound of that,” she said.
“You need to understand that I wouldn’t be able to tell you about it. And it might take years. Sometimes many years, before a score can be settled.”
“But maybe you could call me on the phone some night.”
“Maybe.”
“And just say, I don’t know, something like, ‘I think Tom would be pleased.’ Just something like that.”
I half smiled at the new widow. “I think that’s a phone call I might be able to make. Someday.”
She smiled back at me.
Then she lifted her chin, her expression regal now. “Well, I would very much like to hire you, Nathan. Things are obviously a little topsy-turvy right now, but I feel confident I’m well off. Tom has a big insurance policy, you know, his business is flourishing, and-”
I raised a stop hand. “Jean, no. This investigation was already paid for, by Tom.”
“No, I insist-”
“I’ll let you pay any expenses I incur. How’s that?”
“… All right.”
“And I’ll need your full cooperation. If any of my people come around wanting information about Tom or access to his private papers or anything at all, you have to provide it.”
“All right.”
“Good,” I said, rising. “I need to discuss the particulars of this assignment with Mr. Sapperstein … so for now, I’ll just show you out.”
I came around and helped her out of her chair, and she looked up at me and her lower lip began quivering. “Please, Nathan. Do something about this.”
“Count on it,” I said.
I walked her through the bullpen, which had cleared out by now. Lou trailed after. Gladys was framed in her office door, watching.
The reception area was empty, just a faint hint of Mildred’s perfume remaining-Joy, Jackie Kennedy’s favorite.
“Do you need someone to drive you?” I asked.
“No, I’ve done quite well today.”
“You have. But it’s going to hit you.”
“Oh, I know,” she said.
She took my hand, squeezed it, and-the picture of composure-stepped out into the hall, shutting the door behind her.
Lou was at my side suddenly. “Somebody should drive her back to Milwaukee. You want me to?”
“She says no. She seems strong.”
That was when I heard something fall.
I went into the hall and she’d collapsed, she was curled up against the wall, one shoe off, the purse discarded, weeping, moaning, grief coming up out of her in wrenching wails. I picked the little thing up in my arms like a bride and crossed the office’s threshold and rested her on the reception-area couch.
I sat next to her and she crawled over and hugged me, hard, and wept into my clothes.
“I’ll drive her,” Lou said.
“You do that,” I said. “We’ll talk later.”
Anyway, I had someone to see.
CHAPTER 8
The big, burly Bismarck Hotel, on the corner of LaSalle and Randolph, hadn’t changed much since it was rebuilt in 1926. Oh, during World War II its celebrated dining room became the Swiss Chalet, but then even the Berghoff turned magically Swiss when Hitler suddenly made Wiener schnitzel unpatriotic.
Squatting on the edge of the Loop near the northwest corner of the El tracks, the venerable Bismarck had seen the city around it shift. German Square, over which it once ruled, was a term nobody used anymore, the deutsche shops, steamship office, and clubs largely gone. And the real downtown center of social activity was a few blocks away-famous restaurants, ritzy hotels, movie palaces, and legit theaters.
Yet the Bismarck survived and even thrived. Located across from City Hall as it was, the hotel made the perfect place for politicians, businessmen, gangsters, union leaders, and assorted combinations thereof to hold meetings or maybe lunch in the Walnut Room or (for you out-of-towners) even book a room.
The overcast sky decided to spit at me as I walked over to the old hotel; I just tugged my hat brim down and hunkered, walking against the wind like a goddamn mime. At only six-thirty, the darkening sky made it seem like night was getting impatient, and maybe something bad was coming.
I wasn’t heeled, as we of the lower class used to say, my nine-millimeter and shoulder holster back in my bedroom, and I hadn’t availed myself of any of the other artillery in the A-1 safe. My suit wasn’t cut for hardware, anyway. And why would I need a firearm to protect myself in the Bismarck Hotel?
On the other hand, Tom Ellison could have used one at the Pick-Congress.
I nodded to George the doorman in his Victor Herbert operetta uniform, got a hat-touch nod back that said I mattered, spun through the revolving door into the modest entryway, and trotted up the double-width, red-carpeted stairs into the wider world of the lobby. My raincoat wasn’t wet enough to climb out of, but I did take off my hat and shake some droplets off. Then I moved across the high-ceilinged, elaborate chalet-like chamber, dodging overstuffed chairs and potted plants, footsteps echoing off marble.
The elevator I shared with half a dozen others, a mix of tourists and business types. When you pushed a floor button, a sultry female voice talked to you: “Lobby … second floor…” This was a relatively new feature, and I hadn’t decided yet whether to be amused or spooked.
I went up to seven, took a left turn down the carpeted hallway to the Presidential Suite. The gentleman I was calling on usually stayed here, though sometimes you would find him in the Conrad Hilton’s Presidential Suite, which at a thousand dollars a night was twice the rate here, such a bargain.
Anyway, I had called the Bismarck first, and got lucky. I had not asked to be connected to this famous guest’s room, merely saying I needed to have something messengered over to Mr. Hoffa, and was he in?
He was.
At the end of the hall was a little vestibule with a door within that said 737 over a small golden plaque that read PRESIDENTIAL SUITE. The numbers and plaque looked new, but their predecessors had read the same, back when I would come to this suite in the 1930s and early ’40s to call on another powerful man-Frank Nitti, Al Capone’s successor and my sometime benefactor. Gone since 1943 but a presence still felt.
I’d met with Hoffa here a couple of times before, so the resonance of this having been Nitti’s suite was nothing new. But somehow, this evening, it seemed more pronounced.
There was a gold knocker. I used it.
I stood and waited while, presumably, a guardian of the gate eyed me through the peephole. The door cracked open, the night latch in place. A part of a chubby face with half a flat nose and half a mouthful of bad teeth revealed itself. Also in that lineup was a bulgy orb (under a hairy eyebrow) that stared out at me like I was an apparition. Maybe the Virgin Mary, or the Ghost of Christmas Past.
“Nate Heller,” I said. “To see…” Shit, I damn near said Mr. Nitti. “… Jimmy.”
“You don’t have no appointment.”
The rough-hewn low-pitched voice was familiar. I believed this was the put-upon lackey who had delivered my football tickets the other night.
“Tell Mr. Hoffa I apologize for coming unannounced,” I said, the “Jimmy” familiarity not having worked, “but that it’s important.”
“You gotta have an appointment.”
“If I leave? Be sure not to tell Jim I was here, and you sent me away, because he’ll kick you in the ass.”
The bulgy eye blinked. The door
shut. I waited. The door opened.
It was indeed my pal from the other night. He was in a brown suit that was too baggy with a blue tie that was too short. I figured the bagginess was to make the gun under his left shoulder not show. You’d think the Teamsters could afford a decent tailor.
“Nice to see you again,” I said with a nod, as he opened the door, stepped aside, and I went in. “The game was lousy, by the way.”
“You gotta stand for a frisk.”
“I’m not armed.”
“Rules is rules.”
Before I let him pat me down, I gave him my damp raincoat and hat to dispose of, just out of general disrespect, thinking this would have been an excellent time to shoot him, if that was why I was here.
As he did his job, I glanced around the spacious suite. The living room still had a Victorian look, as in Nitti days, but had been remodeled, and they’d brought in new fake antiques about five years ago. In all its incarnations, the suite maintained a lavish, gold-leaf look that would impress politicians and whores, if you’ll forgive the redundancy.
Two thugs also in baggy suits and ill-knotted ties were sitting on a fancy couch reading Ring magazine and Modern Man respectively. A versatile pair, they were also watching a rerun of My Little Margie. Same model color TV as I had, I noticed. But Margie remained in black-and-white. They looked up at me, wishing I were room service.
I was wondering if I should find something fancy and uncomfortable to sit on in there when I heard Hoffa call, “Heller! Nate! Come on in here. Come on, come on, come on.”
I followed the machine-gunning voice into a lavish bedroom with its own color TV. On the bed, like the Invisible Man taking a nap, a suit was laid out-just a standard off-the-rack pinstriped blue business suit, with a white shirt on a hanger inside the coat. Some well-shined shoes were on the floor nearby, a pair of the white socks he always wore waiting next to them.
Hoffa was in the bathroom, with the door open, shaving with a straight razor, about half the lather on his face gone. Black head of hair bristling with butch wax, the broad-shouldered little man was in an athletic-style T-shirt that showed off his massively muscular arms, and yellow-and-white-striped boxer shorts that revealed somewhat less muscular legs. He was in his bare feet.
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