The Million-Dollar Wound

by Collins, Max Allan

  I stood over him and looked down and said, “Who the fuck did you people think you were dealing with?”

  But he didn’t answer. Neither did she.

  I walked out of there, stepping over what used to be Olivia Borgia, a greedy one-time 26 girl who was so much like Estelle Carey it killed them both, walking carefully around the glass shards, as I’d already cut my bare feet in several places, and went back in my office.

  I felt strangely calm. The El was as silent as the Borgias, now. I sat there at my desk, soaking my bleeding feet with a cool damp cloth, sorting out my options, wondering if calling Drury was the thing to do. Two dead people in my office. Dead by me. Including a woman. I’d killed a woman. I didn’t care.

  I just thought of Estelle’s burned, tortured body and didn’t fucking care.

  Why hadn’t they found the diary themselves, that awful afternoon? They’d tossed the place, after all. But they’d missed the baseboard hideaway Donahoe had later found, he was a detective, our trusty basset-hound Donahoe, and, besides, Estelle hadn’t mentioned the book till right before she died, meaning after one of them had splashed whiskey over her and smashed the bottle on the floor nearby to frighten her and lit a match and held it over her to frighten her some more, and maybe then she said it, maybe then she said, it’s in my diary—I’ll get it for you, because Donahoe had after all found a gun in that baseboard hideaway as well, only somebody fumbled the match and the housecoat caught fire, and she was aflame, and she was screaming and there was no more talk of diaries as the fire spread from her to the whiskey to the walls, and the place was starting to burn, smoke was starting to fill the place, and they had no choice but to make a run for it, Borgia grabbing a couple of furs to make it look like a robbery.

  That was then. What of now? Had anyone heard the shots over the El’s rumble? The building was empty, but for me and those I’d killed. It was the middle of the night. Ten minutes had passed, easily, and no one had come to see what was the matter. No one rushing in. No sirens cutting the night. No nothing.

  I dialed a number.

  After many rings, a gravelly male voice said, “Yeah?”

  “This is Heller. Tell Campagna to call me, right away.”

  Pause. Then: “It’s real late.”

  “It’s later than you think. Tell him.”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  “Tell him.”

  Three minutes later the phone rang.

  “Heller?”

  “Hiya, Louie.”

  “Are you crazy, Heller?”

  “Sure. If I wasn’t, I’d still be in the service, shooting people. But I’m finding it easy enough to keep in practice here at home.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about John and Olivia Borgia.”

  Silence.

  “They’re dead in my office, Louie. I killed ’em.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “They were rifling the place, looking for Estelle Carey’s diary. They didn’t believe me when I said I burned it.”

  “You what?”

  “I burned it, Louie. Spread the word. The diary is ashes. To ashes. If the secret to her buried treasure was in those pages, it’s going to be a well-kept one. Should I call the cops on this? It’s not going to do much for business, my killing people in the office. You want a chance to clean up after yourself?”

  Silence.

  “Borgia was Outfit, Louie. You want to clean up after yourself?”

  Silence.

  “The Borgias killed Estelle Carey, Louie, but then you know that, right? It was an Outfit hit from word go, just like everybody’s been telling me. But I got some outdated notion that Nitti don’t work like that. Well, times change, and people change. Take for instance, this is the very first time I killed a woman in my office.”

  “I want you to go someplace.”

  “Where, Louie?”

  “What’s the closest hotel?”

  “Morrison, I guess. They don’t have any rooms.”

  “They’ll have one for you by the time you walk over there. Don’t come back to your office before seven.”

  The phone clicked in my ear; Louie didn’t want to talk to me anymore.

  When I got to the office at nine, a fiftyish guy in coveralls was measuring to put in new glass. All the broken glass had been swept up and removed. Bullets had been dug out of woodwork and puttied and touched up with paint.

  “I didn’t send for you,” I said to the guy in coveralls.

  “It’s all taken care of,” he said. He pointed with a thumb over to the doctor’s office across the way, where the waiting room and receptionist could be viewed through where opaque glass used to be. “That’s being taken care of, too.”

  The office had been tidied up. File cabinets in order; drawers in desks. No dead bodies on the floor. No bloodstains. Lou Sapperstein was standing in the inner office, looking around, puzzled.

  “What happened here, last night?” he said. “The glass is broken, everything’s just a little out of place…and it smells like disinfectant, and something else…what? Paint? Did you have somebody in to clean the place up?”

  “Elves,” I said. “Tiny Sicilian elves. Lou, I want you to get your things together at the end of the day. I’ll be moving back into my office. And I made arrangements over at the Morrison for a room there, till I can find an apartment. You can have the whole big office next door to yourself, till we find somebody to take Frankie’s place.”

  Lou seemed confused, but he said, “Sure. You’re the boss.”

  I went next door and sat at my desk. I’d slept pretty good at the Morrison. Restless, but no dreams about shell holes. Or office shoot-outs, either.

  Midmorning, the phone rang.

  “A-1 Detective Agency.”

  “Heller?”

  “Louie.”

  “No problems, I trust?”

  “No. Thanks for the new glass.”

  “You’re welcome. Frank said to tell you he appreciated the opportunity to clean up that mess.”

  “Well, it was Frank’s mess, after all.”

  “No. It wasn’t. They were Outfit, but Frank didn’t send ’em to that apartment on Addison Street. And he didn’t send ’em to your place, neither.”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t have to believe it.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Frank says he owes you one.”

  “Frank owes me nothing!”

  “He says he owes you one. And he’s going to pay it right now. Your boxer pal, Ross?”

  What in hell could Frank Nitti have to do with Barney?

  “What about him?”

  “He’s got a monkey on his back.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s buying morphine from street dealers.”

  “What?”

  “They must’ve give it to him overseas to kill the pain and he got a taste for it. He’s got a seventy-buck-a-week habit, and it’s gonna get more expensive in a lot of ways as the days go by. Capeesh?”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything.

  “Frank just thought you might want to know,” Campagna said.

  And hung up.

  On March 18, a Thursday, the federal grand jury in New York returned indictments against Nitti, Campagna, Ricca and six other top Outfit figures. It didn’t hit the Chicago papers till the next morning—I, however, got a preview that very afternoon.

  I was sleeping on the couch in my inner office under the photos of Sally and another actress from my past; such cat naps were becoming a way of life for me. Gradually, I’d been sleeping better. The shell hole dreams were easing up. Subsiding. But I’d as yet to have a good, full night’s sleep, so once or twice a day, I flopped out here on the couch and snoozed.

  And was usually awakened by the phone on my desk ringing, like it was doing right now, and I stumbled over and fumbled for it and the long-distance operator asked for Nate Heller
, and I said “Speaking,” thickly, yawning, and then somebody else was speaking—U.S. Attorney Mathias Correa, who was spearheading the investigation into the Outfit’s Hollywood “extortion” racket.

  He was calling from New York; he told me about the indictments that had just been handed down against Nitti and the others, and said, “Mr. Heller, I understand your reluctance to come forward. But we feel your testimony may be valuable. You are a former police officer. You are a decorated soldier—a war hero—and one of the few ‘civilians’ known to have had considerable contact with Frank Nitti.”

  “Make up your mind—am I soldier or a civilian?”

  “I think you get my meaning. We have Willie Bioff and George Browne’s testimony and, in a limited manner at least, Nick Circella’s. But both Bioff and Browne lied on the witness stands in their own trials. Their credibility may be called, justly, into question. You, on the other hand, are the kind of outside, reliable, corroborating witness we need.”

  “I made my feelings clear to your emissaries.”

  “I’m grateful to Eliot Ness and Bill Drury for paving the way for me. But I’m serving notice on you, Mr. Heller. You’re going to testify in this trial. You’re being subpoenaed. Whether you choose to perjure yourself on the witness stand or not is, of course, your decision. Good afternoon.”

  So I called Campagna—or, rather, I called the number Campagna gave me and told the guy I needed to talk to Campagna, and a call from Little New York followed within half an hour.

  “They’re going to subpoena me,” I said.

  “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “I just wanted Frank to know.”

  “Okay,” Campagna said, and hung up.

  I got back to work on some insurance matters and at a few minutes after four Campagna called again.

  “Frank wants to see you,” he said.

  “Is that wise? Surely the FBI is keeping him under tight surveillance. That would just link us further. It plays right into Correa’s hands.”

  “I know. I agree with you. But Frank wants to see you.”

  “Louie, I’m not in the mood to go swimming forever.”

  “No Chicago River, no cement shoes. He wants to see you tonight, at his house.”

  RICCA

  “His house?”

  There was a shrug in his voice. “Show of good faith.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Don’t come heeled.”

  “Don’t send me home wounded.”

  So around seven that night I walked to a parking garage near Dearborn Station and picked up my ’32 Auburn. I’d only gotten the sporty little number back out of storage last week; while I was overseas, I’d kept it in a client’s garage in Evanston, in lieu of payment for a divorce case. I had the top up—there was still snow on the ground—and my C sticker in the window, and the old buggy was riding well, though I was in no frame of mind to enjoy it. I was on my way to see Frank Nitti, to share a quiet little chat with him in his suburban Riverside home. I turned South on Michigan Avenue, at the Hotel Lexington, Capone’s old headquarters, and headed west on 22nd Street, a.k.a. Cermak Road. I drove through Chinatown. After a while I was within a few blocks of where O’Hare had been gunned down, then crossed through the south end of my old neighborhood, South Lawndale, then Cicero, not far from Sportsman’s Park, and across to Berwyn, catching Riverside Drive to Riverside itself. The ride was like having my life pass before my eyes.

  I didn’t want to park the Auburn in front of Nitti’s house, so I left it two blocks up, by a small park, and walked down. It was a cool, clear night, and Nitti’s quiet, quietly wealthy little suburban neighborhood, with its large lawns and oversize bungalows and driveways and backyard swing sets, looked as unreal and ideal as a street in an Andy Hardy movie. As American as apple pie and twice as wholesome. The smell of cordite was not in the air.

  712 Shelbourne Road. A relatively modest brown brick house on the corner, story-and-a-half high, with crisp white woodwork. Car parked in the driveway, ’42 Ford sedan, black. A few lights on in the downstairs windows. Shrubs hugging the house; average-size lawn, house well back from the street; postage-stamp patio. Somewhere a dog was barking. Frank Nitti lived here.

  Cars parked across the way, turning the narrow street into a one-lane. I wondered if eyes were watching me from those cars. Bodyguard eyes? Federal eyes?

  Yes, I was nervous. This was much worse than meeting Nitti in a suite at the Bismarck. His suburban home in Riverside? Wrong. This was wrong.

  But, just the same, I walked up the sidewalk, which wound gently up the sloping lawn, to the white front door, over which a light was on. I rang the bell.

  The door cracked open, and a sliver of dark attractive female face looked out at me.

  Then she was standing in the doorway wearing a Mona Lisa smile and a simple blue dress with a gold broach. A tall, distinctive-looking woman with cold smart dark eyes, wide dark-lipsticked mouth, Roman nose, ironic arching brows. She wasn’t as attractive as she’d been a few years ago, pushing forty now and looking it, and she’d always had a certain hardness, but she was still a handsome woman.

  “You’re Toni Cavaretta,” I said. Blurted.

  “Mrs. Frank Nitti, now,” she said, in her smoky, throaty manner. “Come in, Mr. Heller.”

  I stepped inside and Mrs. Frank Nitti, the former Antoinette Cavaretta, the former secretary of the formerly living E. J. O’Hare, took my coat.

  “I’ll just hang this up for you.”

  She did so, in the closet I was directly facing, and then I followed her around the corner, out of the vestibule.

  “Frank just stepped out for a walk,” she said. “I’ll see if I can catch him.”

  Then she went out the way I’d come in and left me there.

  To my left was a door; directly before me, stairs; to my right, a big open living room, beyond which the dining room could be seen, the kitchen presumably connecting off that. The furnishings seemed new, and expensive, the woodwork dark and shiny; everything was greens and browns, plush overstuffed sofas, dark wood furniture, very masculine, very soothing, a tastefully decorated room. A little boy eight or nine was sprawled on the floor in the midst of it, reading a comic book. He looked up at me through clear-rim glasses. Slight, serious-looking, dark-haired kid; I could see Nitti in his face.

  “Hi, mister,” he said. “Are you a friend of my daddy’s?”

  I went over and sat on the sofa near him. “That’s right,” I said. “How old are you, son?”

  “Nine.” He closed the cover of the comic book; it said CRIME DOES NOT PAY. He sat Indian-style. “Were you in the war?”

  “Yes I was. How did you know?”

  He pointed at me. It took me a second to realize he was pointing at the lapel of my suitcoat. His pale blue eyes were alert, his expression serious. “I saw your pin. I got an uncle who has one of those. It’s called a Ruptured Duck.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I want to be a Marine when I grow up. Maybe a Marine flier. My daddy has a friend who was a Marine.”

  “Really.” I nodded toward his comic book. “Do you like to read?”

  “Yes, but I like skating better. Daddy says the weather’s going to get better soon and I can get my skates out.”

  Mrs. Nitti came back in, shrugging, smiling, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t catch up with him. He must’ve forgotten what time you were coming by. He often takes an evening walk, and with these winding streets, who knows where he is or how long he’ll be?”

  I was standing, now, and said, “Well, uh—I could go and come another time, at your husband’s convenience…”

  “Nonsense. Why don’t you step into his study and relax. Can I get you a cup of coffee, or some wine?”

  “No thanks.”

  I followed her through the doorway by the stairs into a small unpretentious study—lots of dark wood, a desk, a black leather couch, built-in-the-wall bookcase.

  She gestured to the couch and said, �
�Why don’t you sit down? When Frank gets back, I’ll tell him you’re here. Just relax.”

  She went back out into the living room, where I could hear her say to the boy, “Up to your room, Joseph, and do some studying before bed.”

  Toni Cavaretta seemed to be as perfect a housewife as she’d been an executive secretary. And as perfect a mother, too. Well, stepmother, actually. The boy was Nitti’s only son, only child, by his first wife, Anna. Whose picture, in fact, was on his desk in a gilt frame: a beautiful Italian madonna with a glowing expression. Nitti had worshipped her, it was said. Yet here he was, little over a year after his beloved Anna’s death, married to Toni Cavaretta.

  It came rushing back, that business with O’Hare. She’d been Nitti’s “man” all the way, keeping tabs on E. J., probably helping set him up for the one-way ride I’d almost taken with him. Planting that note about the feds in his pocket. I’d only checked up on her once, after the hit. I’d asked Stege, probably in ’41 sometime, what had become of her. He said she was managing an Outfit racetrack in Florida—Miami Beach to be precise—a dogtrack that had previously been looked after by O’Hare. Seemed she had stock in the Florida track, as well as Sportsman’s Park; and some people said she and Nitti were like this. And he held his fingers up in a crossed fashion.

  The notion of Nitti having a mistress had seemed crazy to me—everybody knew he kept Anna on a pedestal, that he loved his son, that he was a devoted family man—and I’d dismissed Stege’s implication as hogwash. But I also knew Nitti kept a separate home in Miami Beach. And men in his position—particularly men who kept their wives on pedestals—often had side dishes, somebody warm and female and closer to the ground.

  Now here he was, beloved Anna gone. Here he was, married to Toni Cavaretta. In his suite at the Bismarck, that time, back in ’39, days after O’Hare’s murder, I’d heard a woman’s voice…

  I slapped myself. Knock it off, Heller! These were dangerous speculations to make. They seemed especially dangerous to be making, sitting in Nitti’s own study, even if I was keeping them confined to my mind.

  I got up and looked at the books on his shelves. A lot of leatherbound classics, whether read or not I couldn’t say. Some less fancily bound nonfiction books, on accounting mostly, and a couple of books about Napoleon, seemed well read.