by Joe Meno
“Okay.” I sighed. “I won’t blame you if you don’t blame me.”
“Deal.”
“So what’s next?”
“You can go on home.” He glanced toward the Ford. “We’ll take care of this.”
“You want me to tell the family?”
“Were you close to them?”
“Not really. They’re from my old neighborhood, is all.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” He patted my shoulder. “Go home.”
I started to go, then turned back. “When are you going to pick up Rooney?”
“I’ll have to talk to the state’s attorney, first. But my guess? Tomorrow. We’ll raid the union hall tomorrow.”
“Mind if I come along?”
“Wouldn’t be appropriate, Heller.”
“The kid worked for me. He got killed working for me.”
“No. We’ll handle it. Go home! Get some sleep.”
“I’ll go home,” I said.
A chill breeze was whispering.
“But the sleep part,” I said, “that I can’t promise you.”
* * *
The next afternoon I was having a beer in a booth in the bar next to the deli below my office. Formerly a blind pig—a speakeasy that looked shuttered from the street (even now, you entered through the deli)—it was a business investment of fighter Barney Ross, as was reflected by the framed boxing photos decorating the dark, smoky little joint.
I grew up with Barney on the West Side. Since my family hadn’t practiced Judaism in several generations, I was shabbas goy for Barney’s very Orthodox folks, a kid doing chores and errands for them from Friday sundown through Saturday.
But we didn’t become really good friends, Barney and me, till we worked Maxwell Street as pullers—teenage street barkers who literally pulled customers into stores for bargains they had no interest in.
Barney, a roughneck made good, was a real Chicago success story. He owned this entire building, and my office—which, with its Murphy bed, was also my residence—was space he traded me for keeping an eye on the place. I was his night watchman, unless a paying job like Goldblatt’s came along to take precedence.
The lightweight champion of the world was having a beer, too, in that back booth; he wore a cheerful blue and white sportshirt and a dour expression.
“I’m sorry about your young pal,” Barney said.
“He wasn’t a ‘pal,’ really. Just an acquaintance.”
“I don’t know that Douglas Park crowd myself. But to think of a kid, on his twenty-first birthday . . .” His mildly battered bulldog countenance looked woeful. “He have a girl?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Poor little bastard. When’s the funeral?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re going, aren’t you?”
“No. I don’t really know the family that well. I’m sending flowers.”
He looked at me with as long a face as a round-faced guy could muster. “You oughta go. He was working for you when he got it.”
“I’d be intruding. I’d be out of place.”
“You should do kaddish for the kid, Nate.”
A mourner’s prayer.
“Jesus Christ, Barney, I’m no Jew. I haven’t been in a synagogue more than half a dozen times in my life, and then it was social occasions.”
“Maybe you don’t consider yourself a Jew, with that Irish mug of yours your ma bequeathed you . . . but you’re gonna have a rude awakening one of these days, boyo.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s plenty of people you’re just another ‘kike’ to, believe you me.”
I sipped the beer. “Nudge me when you get to the point.”
“You owe this kid kaddish, Nate.”
“Hell, doesn’t that go on for months? I don’t know the lingo. And if you think I’m putting on some stupid beanie and . . .”
There was a tap on my shoulder. Buddy Gold, the bartender, an ex-pug, leaned in to say, “You got a call.”
I went behind the bar to use the phone. It was Sergeant Lou Sapperstein at Central Headquarters in the Loop; Lou had been my boss on the pickpocket detail. I’d called him this morning with a request.
“Tubbo’s coppers made their raid this morning, around nine,” Lou said. Sapperstein was a hard-nosed, balding cop of about forty-five and one of the few friends I had left on the PD.
“And?”
“And the union hall was empty, ’cept for a bartender. Pribyl and his partner Bert Gray took a whole squad up there, but Rooney and his boys had flew the coop.”
“Fuck. Somebody tipped them.”
“Are you surprised?”
“Yeah. Surprised I expected the cops to play it straight for a change. You wouldn’t have the address of that union, by any chance?”
“No, but I can get it. Hold a second.”
A sweet union scam like the Circular Distributors had Outfit written all over it—and Captain Tubbo Gilbert, head of the state prosecutor’s police, was known as the richest cop in Chicago. Tubbo was a bagman and police fixer so deep in Frank Nitti’s pocket he had Nitti’s lint up his nose.
Lou was back: “It’s at 7 North Racine. That’s Madison and Racine.”
“Well, hell—that’s spitting distance from Skid Row.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So that explains the scam—that ‘union’ takes hobos and makes day laborers out of them. No wonder they charge daily dues. It’s just bums handing out ad circulars . . .”
“I’d say that’s a good guess, Nate.”
I thanked Lou and went back to the booth, where Barney was brooding about what a louse his friend Heller was.
“I got something to do,” I told him.
“What?”
“My kind of kaddish.”
* * *
Less than two miles from the prominent department stores of the Loop they’d been fleecing, the Circular Distributors Union had their headquarters on the doorstep of Skid Row and various Hoovervilles. This Madison Street area, just north of Greek Town, was a seedy mix of flophouses, marginal apartment buildings, and storefront businesses, mostly bars. Union headquarters was on the second floor of a two-story brick building whose bottom floor was a plumbing supply outlet.
I went up the squeaking stairs and into the union hall, a big high-ceilinged open room with a few glassed-in offices toward the front, to the left and right. Ceiling fans whirred lazily, stirring stale smoky air; folding chairs and card tables were scattered everywhere on the scuffed wooden floor, and seated at some were unshaven, tattered “members” of the union. Across the far end stretched a bar, behind which a burly blond guy in rolled-up white shirt sleeves was polishing a glass. More hobos leaned against the bar, having beers.
I ordered a mug from the bartender, who had a massive skull and tiny dark eyes and a sullen kiss of a mouth.
I salted the brew as I tossed him a nickel. “Hear you had a raid here this morning.”
He ignored the question. “This hall’s for union members only.”
“Jeez, it looks like a saloon.”
“Well, it’s a union hall. Drink up and move along.”
“There’s a fin in it for you, if you answer a few questions.”
He thought that over; leaned in. “Are you a cop?”
“No. Private.”
“Who hired you?”
“Goldblatt’s.”
He thought some more. The tiny eyes narrowed. “Let’s hear the questions.”
“What do you know about the Gross kid’s murder?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Was Rooney here last night?”
“Far as I know, he was home in bed asleep.”
“Know where he lives?”
“No.”
“You don’t know where your boss lives.”
“No. A
ll I know is he’s a swell guy. He don’t have nothin’ to do with these department-store shakedowns the cops are tryin’ to pin on him. It’s union-busting, is what it is.”
“Union-busting.” I had a look around at the bleary-eyed clientele in their patched clothes. “You have to be a union first, ’fore you can get busted up.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means this is a scam. Rooney pulls in winos, gets ’em day-labor jobs for $3.25 a day, then they come up here to pay their daily dues of a quarter, and blow the rest on beer or booze. In other words, first the bums pass out ad fliers, then they come here and just plain pass out.”
“I think you better scram. Otherwise I’m gonna have to throw you down the stairs.”
I finished the beer. “I’m leaving. But you know what? I’m not gonna give you that fin. I’m afraid you’d just drink it up.”
I could feel his eyes on my back as I left, but I’d have heard him if he came out from around the bar. I was starting down the stairs when the door below opened and Sergeant Pribyl, looking irritated, came up to meet me on the landing, halfway. He looked more his usual dapper self, but his eyes were black-bagged.
“What’s the idea, Heller?”
“I just wanted to come bask in the reflected glory of your triumphant raid this morning.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means when Tubbo’s boys are on the case, the Outfit gets advance notice.”
He winced. “That’s not the way it was. I don’t know why Rooney and Berry and the others blew. But nobody in our office warned ’em off.”
“Are you sure?”
He clearly wasn’t. “Look, I can’t have you messing in this. We’re on the damn case, okay? We’re maintaining surveillance from across the way . . . that’s how we spotted you.”
“Peachy. Twenty-four-hour surveillance now?”
“No.” He seemed embarrassed. “Just day shift.”
“You want some help?”
“What do you mean?”
“Loan me the key to your stakeout crib. I’ll keep nightwatch. Got a phone in there?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll call you if Rooney shows. You got pictures of him and the others you can give me?”
“Well . . .”
“What’s the harm? Or would Tubbo lower the boom on you, if you really did your job?”
He sighed. Scratched his head and came to a decision. “This is unofficial, okay? But there’s a possibility the door to that apartment’s gonna be left unlocked tonight.”
“Do tell.”
“Third floor—301.” He raised a cautionary finger. “We’ll try this for one night . . . no showboating, okay? Call me if one of ’em shows.”
“Sure. You tried their homes?”
He nodded. “Nothing. Rooney lives on North Ridgeland in Oak Park. Four kids. Wife’s a pleasant, matronly type.”
“Fat, you mean.”
“She hasn’t seen Rooney for several weeks. She says he’s away from home a lot.”
“Keeping a guard posted there?”
“Yeah. And that is twenty-four-hour.” He sighed, shook his head. “Heller, there’s a lot about this case that doesn’t make sense.”
“Such as?”
“That maroon Plymouth. We never saw a car like that in the entire six weeks we had the union hall under surveillance. Rooney drives a blue LaSalle coupe.”
“Any maroon Plymouths reported stolen?”
He shook his head. “And it hasn’t turned up abandoned, either. They must still have the car.”
“Is Rooney that stupid?”
“We can always hope,” Pribyl said.
* * *
I sat in an easy chair with sprung springs by the window in room 301 of the residential hotel across from the union hall. It wasn’t a flophouse cage, but it wasn’t a suite at the Drake, either. Anyway, in the dark it looked fine. I had a flask of rum to keep me company, and the breeze fluttering the sheer, frayed curtains remained unseasonably cool.
Thanks to some photos Pribyl left me, I now knew what Rooney looked like: a good-looking, oval-faced smoothie, in his midforties, just starting to lose his dark, slicked-back hair; his eyes were hooded, his mouth soft, sensual, sullen. There were also photos of the union’s so-called business agent Henry Berry, a mousy little guy with glasses, and pockmarked, cold-eyed Herbert Arnold, VP of the union.
But none of them stopped by the union hall—only a steady stream of winos and bums went in and out.
Then, around seven, I spotted somebody who didn’t fit the profile. It was a guy I knew—a fellow private op, Eddie McGowan, a Pinkerton man, in uniform, meaning he was on night-watchman duty. A number of the merchants along Madison must have pitched in for his services.
I left the stakeout and waited down on the street, in front of the plumbing supply store, for Eddie to come back out. It didn’t take long—maybe ten minutes.
“Heller!” he said. He was a skinny, tow-haired guy in his late twenties with a bad complexion and a good outlook. “What no good are you up to?”
“The Goldblatt’s shooting. That kid they killed was working with me.”
“Oh! I didn’t know! Heard about the shooting, of course, but didn’t read the papers or anything. So you were involved in that? No kidding.”
“No kidding. You on watchman duty?”
“Yeah. Up and down the street here, all night.”
“Including the union hall?”
“Sure.” He grinned. “I usually stop up for a free drink ’bout this time of night.”
“Can you knock off for a couple of minutes? For another free drink?”
“Sure!”
Soon we were in a smoky booth in back of a bar and Eddie was having a boilermaker on me.
“See anything unusual last night,” I asked, “around the union hall?”
“Well . . . I had a drink there, around two o’clock in the morning. That was a first.”
“A drink? Don’t they close earlier than that?”
“Yeah. Around eleven. That’s all the longer it takes for their ‘members’ to lap up their daily dough.”
“So what were you doing up there at two?”
He shrugged. “Well, I noticed the lights was on upstairs, so I unlocked the street-level door and went up. Figured Alex . . . that’s the bartender, Alex Davidson . . . might have forgot to turn out the lights, ’fore he left. The door up there was locked, but then Mr. Rooney opened it up and told me to come on in.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He was feelin’ pretty good. Looked like he was workin’ on a bender. Anyway, he insists I have a drink with him. I says sure. Turns out Davidson is still there.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding. So Alex serves me a beer. Berry—the union’s business agent—he was there too. He was in his cups, also. So was Rooney’s wife—she was there, and also feeling giddy.”
I thought about Pribyl’s description of Mrs. Rooney as a matronly woman with four kids. “His wife was there?”
“Yeah, the lucky stiff.”
“Lucky?”
“You should see the dame! Good-lookin’ tomato with big dark eyes and a nice shape on her.”
“About how old?”
“Young. Twenties. It’d take the sting out of a ball and chain, I can tell you that.”
“Eddie . . . here’s a fin.”
“Heller, the beer’s enough!”
“The fin is for telling this same story to Sergeant Pribyl of the state’s attorney’s coppers.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“But do it tomorrow.”
He smirked. “Okay. I got rounds to make, anyway.”
So did I.
* * *
At around eleven fifteen, bartender Alex Davidson was leaving the union hall; his back was turned, as he was locking the street-level door, and I put my nine millimeter in it.
“Hi, Alex,” I said. “Don’t turn a
round, unless you prefer being gut-shot.”
“If it’s a stickup, all I got’s a couple bucks. Take ’em and bug off!”
“No such luck. Leave that door unlocked. We’re gonna step back inside.”
He grunted and opened the door and we stepped inside.
“Now we’re going up the stairs,” I said, and we did, in the dark, the wooden steps whining under our weight. He was a big man; I’d have had my work cut out for me—if I hadn’t had the gun.
We stopped at the landing where earlier I had spoken to Sergeant Pribyl. “Here’s fine,” I said.
I allowed him to face me in the near-dark.
He sneered. “You’re that private dick.”
“I’m sure you mean that in the nicest way. Let me tell you a little more about me. See, we’re going to get to know each other, Alex.”
“Like hell.”
I slapped him with the nine millimeter.
He wiped blood off his mouth and looked at me with hate, but also with fear. And he made no more smart-ass remarks.
“I’m the private dick whose twenty-one-year-old partner got shot in the head last night.”
Now the fear was edging out the hate; he knew he might die in this dark stairwell.
“I know you were here with Rooney and Berry and the broad, last night, serving up drinks as late as two in the morning,” I said. “Now, you’re going to tell me the whole story—or you’re the one who’s getting tossed down the fucking stairs.”
He was trembling now; a big hulk of a man trembling with fear. “I didn’t have anything to do with the murder. Not a damn thing!”
“Then why cover for Rooney and the rest?”
“You saw what they’re capable of!”
“Take it easy, Alex. Just tell the story.”
Rooney had come into the office about noon the day of the shooting; he had started drinking and never stopped. Berry and several other union “officers” arrived and angry discussions about being under surveillance by the state’s attorney’s cops were accompanied by a lot more drinking.
“The other guys left around five, but Rooney and Berry, they just hung around drinking all evening. Around midnight, Rooney handed me a phone number he jotted on a matchbook and gave it to me to call for him. It was a Berwyn number. A woman answered. I handed him the phone and he said to her, Bring one.”