Target Lancer nh-14

by Max Allan Collins

  I wore a dark-green Stanley Blacker hopsack blazer, my tie striped dark orange and white, shirt a very light orange. My slacks were brown H.I.S., and my shoes darker brown Hush Puppies. But the most distinctive aspect of my dressed-to-kill ensemble was the shoulder-holstered Browning, Lytton’s in the Loop having tailored the blazer without spoiling the line.

  Because I wasn’t going anywhere now without the nine-mil.

  We had arrived around ten P.M.-the place didn’t open until nine-thirty-and were here to talk to manager Ben Orloff about the possibility of a booking for the world’s most famous fan dancer. This had taken a good deal of discussion, since the Frolics was, for all its pretensions, a strip club. But none of the legitimate nightclubs in town had offered Helen a firm date, despite half a dozen meetings and gracious reception from all concerned. Nobody wanted to insult a living legend in the burlesque biz. Just seemed like nobody wanted to hire one, either.

  I had frankly little hope for the Frolics, as they had never hired the big-name exotic dancers like Gypsy Rose Lee or Tempest Storm, preferring to stick to their own stable of younger unknowns, none older than early thirties. But Sally Rand was a Chicago institution, and I’d done a couple of jobs for Orloff, so when I called him, he issued a positive response in his gruff baritone: “Stop by tonight.”

  Helen and I had dinner at the Cape Cod Room at the Drake, in part because it was the best seafood in Chicago (narrowly edging out Ireland’s) and also because back in 1934, when we had first become friendly, Helen had lived in a suite at the hotel. Some very friendly times, in fact, were spent in that suite.

  The show ran two hours, and would start back up in half an hour, lengthy enough a break to clear some of the tables out for newcomers. During the hiatus, Ben Orloff came trundling over, all smiles. He was short, balding, heavy-set, in a well-tailored brown suit with a brown and green tie a little too wide for the fashion-like his club, he looked fine but out of step.

  He bowed to the seated Sally Rand and took her hand with respect, as behooved such flesh-trade royalty. She liked that and beamed at her host.

  “Miss Rand, a real, genuine honor. Where would any of us be without you?”

  I know he meant this nicely, but it reminded her that she was a museum piece, and anyway, lovely as Helen had been in her prime, I had a hunch if she’d never existed, guys would still be paying to see good-looking women take their clothes off.

  “Mr. Orloff,” she said, “I can’t believe we’ve never met. This has to be the most beautiful club of its kind. And your girls are stunning.”

  Orloff took the chair nearest Helen. There had been a nod between us that sufficed.

  “Please call me Ben. And is Sally okay?”

  “Sally is fine.”

  “I guess you know,” he said with a shrug, “we don’t normally book big acts in here. But … we might consider an exception for a star of your stature. And with your special connection to Chicago.”

  “At risk of reminding you that I’ve been around a while,” she said, her smile as broad as it was beautiful, “we are celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the fair.”

  He grinned and his eyes damn near popped. “I’ll never forget going to that wingding! I was still in high school, and had to lie about my age to get in to see you.”

  Her smile remained, but turned strained. She was aware of an inescapable fact-like the Frolics itself, she was an anachronism. Like strippers.

  Like private eyes.

  I was wishing I’d never suggested this, but the club manager surprised me.

  “I will tell you right now,” he said, taking her hand and patting it, “no beating around the bush whatsoever, that I am prepared to book you in here.”

  Nothing strained about her smile now.

  “That’s wonderful, Ben,” she said, almost purring.

  He raised a cautionary finger. “But here’s the thing-we may not be here long.”

  “What? Why?”

  Her question got an answer out of him, but he aimed it at me: “Nate, it’s that son of a bitch Wilson. Do I have to tell you he’s shuttered half the clubs in town?”

  I shook my head-very old news. Plenty of the other strip joints had converted to movie houses, showing nudie-cutie fare like The Immoral Mr. Teas and Not Tonight, Henry. Apparently Mayor Daley’s reform police commissioner, Orlando Wilson, had less objection to cinematic skin than the genuine article.

  The Summerdale police scandal a couple years back-eight cops had formed a burglary ring in their off hours-had forced Hizzoner to finally do something about police graft here in the City That Worked, hence Commissioner Wilson and his new broom. (Wilson’s presence probably had something to do with Dick Cain leaving the PD and winding up with the sheriff’s department.) I didn’t mind this Wilson character cracking down on some of the rampant police department corruption, but enough was enough. A guy might want to get a parking ticket fixed.

  Ben was talking to both of us now. “We had a bad incident last month, and the hammer could fall any time.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “Anything I can do?”

  He shook his head glumly. “We had a bunch of doctors in here. I don’t know if you know much about doctors, when they decide to let their hair down, but they go wild, turn into one nasty bunch of assholes, in my experience. They caused a lot of trouble, got very plastered, threw tables and chairs around like a bar fight in a John Wayne picture, and played the kind of grab ass with our girls that we don’t put up with in a respectable club like the Frolics.”

  “What did you do about it?”

  “Our bouncers dragged them outside, beat the shit out of them, and dumped them in the gutter. What would you have done?”

  Maybe something a little more diplomatic.

  “Anyway, they filed a complaint,” Ben said, in a whaddaya-gonna-do manner, “and that gives Wilson just the ammunition he needs. Meaning we may be in the last days of this grand establishment.”

  Helen said, “That’s awful news.”

  He leaned toward her, his broad face apologetic, hands folded as if in prayer. “I only confide in you like this, Miss Rand, because if I give you a booking, and we sign a contract, and I don’t have this place no more … well, you have to be prepared for that, and agree not to sue my ass.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  “I think it is fair … and speaking of fair, we will make a big deal out of your appearance commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the great Chicago World’s Fair. We’ll get Irv Kupcinet and Bill Leonard and Herb Lyon and all the big press guys on it, and if it turns out the Frolic is on its last legs, we will go out kicking.”

  That was when I noticed Jack Ruby sitting up at a front table.

  I sat forward and had to work not to put anything into my voice. “Ben, excuse me for changing the subject, but isn’t that Jake Rubinstein up there? I grew up on the West Side with him.”

  “Yeah, you and Barney Ross. That’s Jake, all right. Jack, he’s called now. Jack Ruby. Last few days, he’s been going around town checking out the few of us that Wilson hasn’t snuffed out. Looking for talent for his club. Even went out to Cal City, scoping out the girls. He’s got clubs down in Dallas, you know.”

  “So I hear.” I rose. “You and Sally have business to conduct. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you two to it, and go say hello to my old friend.”

  Helen gave me a smile that said, Thank you, giving me maybe more credit for this booking than I deserved.

  Ben grinned. “Wait’ll you see who ol’ Jake is sitting with.”

  I grinned back. “Ben, right now, nothing would surprise me.”

  But I was a little surprised, because when I made my way to Ruby’s ringside table, his companion-whose tight, beaded white dress had a neckline exposing a shelf of bosom that you could rest a couple of martinis on, with little fear of spillage-was that platinum-blonde, blue-eyed, baby-faced stripper, Candy Barr.

  Her presence was surprising because I thought she was in stir. Ca
ndy, who was maybe twenty-five, had several years ago drawn a stupidly harsh marijuana charge deep in the heart of Jack Ruby’s Texas. The well-known stripper, nude model, and occasional blue-movie star was also a former mistress of gangster Mickey Cohen, another old friend. The kind of old friend you don’t mind never running into again.

  Ruby didn’t see me at first. The beauty-and-beast-type couple were talking-or anyway Ruby was talking while she blankly endured it-and there was no way not to interrupt. Sporting a dark-gray sharkskin suit with a lighter gray silk tie, he was gesturing with his left hand, which was missing the tip of its forefinger. Bit off in a fight.

  I leaned in, a hand flat on the linen tablecloth, and said, “Jack, sorry to bust in, but I just had to say hello.”

  Candy frowned after I used the word “bust”-I had a feeling she had suffered a lot of bad bosom jokes, so she was apparently always watchful. Like the men eyeballing her in that low-cut dress.

  Ruby looked up, and his smile seemed genuine until I noticed the corners of his dark little eyes tightening. “Nate! Didn’t expect to see you again this trip.”

  “I didn’t figure you’d still be in town,” I admitted.

  Actually, I knew it was a possibility, because Lou Sapperstein had reported today that our sources in Dallas could not place Ruby either at the Carousel Club or his apartment. That only meant he was on the road, however, not that he was still in Chicago.

  Turned out he was still in Chicago.

  “Candy, this is Nate Heller. The famous detective? Nate, this is the famous Candy Barr.”

  “We’ve met,” she said without enthusiasm.

  That lack of enthusiasm did not reflect any bad blood between us. She just didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm, period. What she had was the best body I ever saw on a female and you may have noticed that I have an unseemly way of keeping track of such things.

  Her real name was Juanita Slusher, by the way. If you thought she was born Candy Barr, we should probably part ways right now.

  “Nice to see you, Candy,” I said, meaning it. Seeing Candy was always a treat. Talking to her was more like a toothache, but that doesn’t keep a kid from wanting candy, does it?

  “Sit down, join us,” Ruby said, pulling a chair out for me.

  I did. “I didn’t know you and Miss Barr were friends.”

  “Oh, Candy and me, we go way back. I’m hoping to talk her into working for me at the Carousel, once her parole’s up. I told you that, didn’t I? At the 606?”

  Was there anything pointed about the reference to the club? And the money drop?

  “Maybe,” I said, and shrugged. I turned to Candy. “They won’t let you make a living? What kind of parole is that?”

  “Well,” she said, “since the fuckers gave me fifteen years, it’s the kind of parole I’ll take.”

  “Well-reasoned, Candy. What are you doing now, to pay the rent?”

  “Breeding,” she said.

  I’m sure there are hundreds of clever comebacks to a comment like that one, especially coming from the likes of Candy Barr, but what I said was, “Ah.”

  “Jack gave me two dachshunds to get me started,” she said. “I like dogs. They’re better than people, don’t you think?”

  “That’s kind of faint praise,” I said, and she actually smiled a little. “You and Jack traveling together?”

  “No,” she said, “I’m opening Friday in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? at Pheasant Run.”

  “Oh, that’s that new dinner theater in St. Charles.”

  About an hour outside Chicago.

  “It’s an easy part,” she said with her trademark lack of enthusiasm. “I did it before. Mostly I walk around half naked, but it’s not stripping so my parole officer said it was okay. Even let me travel out of state to do it.”

  “So you’re doing more than just breeding.”

  “Girl’s gotta make a living.”

  Having no argument with that, I turned to Ruby and said, “I think the show’s about to start up again-are you staying for it?”

  He nodded. “We came in late. Rumor is this place may shutter, and these girls will have to work somewhere-why not Dallas? People get tired of seeing the same old tail.”

  Yes sir, Jack Ruby, class all the way.

  I gestured with a hand that had all its fingertips. “Could we talk out in the lobby, Jack? Just for a few minutes? Would you excuse us, Miss Barr?”

  “I wish you’d make your mind up,” she said to me.

  “Huh?”

  “Is it Candy or Miss Barr? One or the other.”

  That was a little bitchy, but then she was a dog breeder.

  In the meantime, Ruby had been thinking over my request. He would surely doubt my presence here could be coincidental, and likely assume I’d been trying to track him down. And I had been trying to track him down, through Sapperstein anyway; but our meeting tonight really was a coincidence-though in fairness to fate, the world of Chicago strip clubs was small these days, in part thanks to the police commissioner.

  In the lobby, we took a position near the mouth of a hallway that led to restrooms, planting ourselves next to a big gaudy girl-arrayed poster under glass (Folies Bergere! Moulin Rouge!). We had decent privacy. Our only company was a bouncer in a tuxedo who was chatting up the hatcheck girl at her window, and they were blocked from view.

  “What can I do for you, Nate?” The pudgy oval of his pasty face was smiling, except for the tiny black eyes, which were almost as shiny as his slicked-back, thinning hair. “I’m not really sure if we should be seen together.”

  I kept my voice down but pulled no punches. “Why is that, Jack? Operation Mongoose?”

  He blinked. “Well, sure, but … I have to tell you, Nate, I damn near cut out of this town, when I saw that squib in the paper. And to hell with business.”

  “You mean about Tom Ellison getting murdered in his room at the Pick? That squib?”

  He nodded nervously. “Is that why you come looking for me, Nate?”

  “I didn’t come looking for you. I’m here with Sally Rand, trying to help her get a booking.”

  “Maybe she’d like to work the Carousel!”

  “I’ll relay the interest. What kind of business has you hanging around Chicago, Jack?”

  “Checking out the local talent, like I said. Also selling a couple of items.”

  “Such as?”

  “I designed this Twist board.”

  “This what?”

  “It’s a board you stand on when you’re doing the Twist. It improves your dancing. You should try it. The chicks go wild. And then there’s my specially designed pizza ovens for restaurants.”

  “You’re selling pizza ovens in Chicago.”

  “Damn right. I sold two so far. How’s that for ice to Eskimos?”

  “Not bad.” We were having a fine little chat. “Jack, what do you know about Tom Ellison’s murder?”

  “Nothing! Not a damn thing. What do you know about it?”

  “I know that somebody framed it, kind of shittily, to look like a pickup or hooker kill. It was a murder, all right. And I want to know if it had anything to do with that envelope of cash-you know, Jack … the one Tom handed off to you?”

  He had started shaking his head halfway through my little speech. “Far as I know, didn’t have a thing to do with it. He wasn’t a made guy or anything, your pal. Wasn’t Outfit. He was a civilian.”

  “Did that make him a loose end?”

  “How should I know? You should check out his private life. Maybe something in his personal life or business got him whacked.”

  “Or did he get to be a loose end because of me? Did I get him killed, by coming along with him? Did somebody think that Tom talking to me meant he couldn’t be trusted?”

  His eyes were wide and round, like white marbles with a big black dot at each center. “You ask me this stuff like I know the answer! I don’t. If he’s a loose end, then maybe I’m a loose end. Should I be looking over my shoulder,
Nate?”

  “Should I?”

  “He got it Sunday, right? Has anybody made a move on you, since then?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. So maybe we ain’t loose ends. It’s been a few days, right?”

  Either he was telling me the truth, or was a hell of a lot better an actor than I gave him credit for.

  I played a tricky card. “That kid you introduced me to at the 606-Lee?”

  “What about him?”

  The FBI’s informant on the four Cubans had been called Lee.

  “Is there any chance he’s an FBI informant?”

  He laughed. “Well … define ‘FBI informant.’ Who hasn’t passed along a little worthless information to those sons of bitches, just to get a pass on something or other?”

  “Okay. Let’s try this. You been doing any business with Cubans since you been in town?”

  “Cubans? Why Cubans? I’m here looking for strippers for my club! I guess I could use a Cuban girl, if I called her exotic. Some of my patrons might just call her a nigger. I have to put up with some low-type people, you know, to make a living.”

  “You used to visit Cuba, didn’t you, Jack? Passing messages to Santo? Not to mention a little gunrunning?”

  “Ancient history.”

  “And there’s Operation Mongoose. Lots of Cubans in that. Exile types. You got any Cuban friends, Jack? Maybe back in Dallas?”

  “I don’t even have any Cuban cigars!”

  I kept trying. “Did you know Jimmy Hoffa is in town? Or anyway, he was.”

  Ruby held his palms up-What, me worry? “What does Jimmy Hoffa have to do with me? I never met the man. I admire him, sure, they say he’s a stand-up guy, but I never met him. We got mutual friends and acquaintances, but himself? Way out of my league. What the hell is this about, Heller?”

  I didn’t know, really.

  Seeing Ruby made me want to connect that money drop and Tom’s murder and Hoffa to those missing Cubans with their high-power rifles. Nobody on the planet hated the Kennedys more than Jimmy Hoffa. But the connections were too vague-I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell Martineau about them, let alone Bob Kennedy.