Chicago

by David Mamet

Mike took three foolscap sheets and spread them on the table. Parlow looked at the sheets covered with notations.

  “Why did they put in the claim?” Mike said.

  “What?”

  “Nobody wanted the brooch. They just wanted to find the girl. Girl, probably pawned the brooch? Somebody put in a claim, to let the cops find her.”

  “. . . Why do they want the girl?”

  “Someone,” Mike said, “was after something Jackie Weiss had.”

  “. . . Alright,” Parlow said.

  “If we connect the dots, they killed four people to get it. We might assume it was something that Jackie kept in the safe. The doxy, the maid, Teitelbaum, equally, were killed to get it.”

  “And what is it?” Parlow said.

  Mike shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t know yet. But . . .”

  “But what?” Parlow said.

  “Wait, I know a different question,” Mike said.

  “Alright,” Parlow said, “what is the question?”

  “Who opened the safe?”

  Chapter 31

  JoJo Lamarr had achieved what he had of fame due to Mike’s notice.

  One morning several years previously, Mike had been taking his morning walk, down North Avenue to the Lake, and south to the Tribune, on the river. It was dead winter, the Lake was frozen a good distance out. Mike heard a shout, and looked east, to see a man, emerging from the Lake, pull himself onto the ice. On the ice, before the man, was a small, inert form.

  Mike ran out onto the ice. The man hefted the bundle in his arms, and proceeded toward Mike. It was the body of a small boy.

  The boy was blue with cold, and drenched. The man, JoJo Lamarr, was shaking uncontrollably. He handed Mike the child.

  Mike ran, with the child, over the ice and onto North Avenue Beach. A mounted policeman was patrolling the beach. Mike gave him the child, and the cop rode off with him.

  Mike yelled, “Call for an ambulance!” And pointed toward JoJo.

  Mike walked back to JoJo, who had collapsed on the beach. Mike covered JoJo with his coat, and helped him into the lee of the pavilion.

  In the hospital, JoJo was treated for shock and hypothermia. Mike told the story first to Rewrite, and then to the reporters assembled in the hospital waiting room.

  The story ran in all five papers on page 1. Man Rescues Drowning Child, from Beneath the Ice.

  The least extensive of all the coverage was that of the Tribune, as Mike, having first called it in, returned home, to a very hot bath, a bottle of rum, and a nap that lasted into the next day.

  The story, as reported, held that Anton Lamarr, taking his morning stroll, had seen the small boy break through the ice; and disregarding all thoughts of his personal safety, ran to the spot, plunged into the Lake, and discovered the boy, now shocked into unconsciousness, lying in ten feet of water.

  The papers hinted at, but did not report, that Mr. Lamarr was, at the time, awaiting a hearing on revocation of parole, and faced the prospect of return to Stateville for the remainder of his previous felony sentence. Fourteen years to be served.

  JoJo was being arraigned for extortion, and violation of the Volstead Act. His accomplices in this last crime had arranged for bail, and for the attention of a lawyer who would put on a good show. But anyone familiar with the fixers knew that JoJo’s services, though of sufficient worth to entitle him to bail and a good show, certainly fell short of the reward of the fix. Of which JoJo was most certainly aware.

  On his return to the world, Mike read all of the coverage, and he saw, on the court blotter, that JoJo was due, in a week, to go up before the judge on the parole revocation. Mike went down to see it.

  The defense attorney asked for a notice of JoJo’s heroism to be read into the record. The prosecution objected, and when the objection was overruled, Mike, and everyone else in the court, knew that JoJo would go free.

  That night, at the Sally Port, Mike told his suspicions to Parlow. Parlow said, “It’s too good to check,” but Mike checked anyway.

  He had been schooled to look for the outlying fact, and ask the unasked question. The unasked question was, “Who was the boy?”

  Mike found that the child had been released from the hospital soon after his mishap, into the care of one Clarice Mitchell, 251 Luella, City.

  Mike went to the address to verify that which he knew as sure as sin: that there was no such person and no such address.

  Mike asked the boys downtown where JoJo Lamarr was usually to be found: at the Del Mar Billiards, North Clark Street. Mike found him there, and congratulated him. JoJo, to his credit, reacted modestly: “You have to be bold,” he said.

  Mike asked, “Who was the kid?”

  “The kid?” JoJo said. “The kid, some kid from Cicero, we found him.”

  “Who was ‘we’?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah,” JoJo said. “Somebody might have thought, maybe, they owed me something, or was afraid that, if jammed up for a long while, in effect, I might turn snitch. Which I would rather die than do.

  “So, it may be I went to them. And suggested, ‘How about this?’ As I was stone broke, and they, ’cause, I think, it tickled them, said, ‘Okay,’ and bought me the kid, they rented him.”

  “The kid was never through the ice . . . ,” Mike said.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” JoJo said. “No. The only, the tricky part was timing. You”—he pointed at Mike—“have too much a predictable pattern of behavior. Somebody, wanted to get next to you, or get over on you, he knows where you go and how you get there. Be careful of that.”

  “Were you through the ice . . . ?” Mike said.

  “Yeah, I had to go through,” JoJo said. He shrugged. “I dunked the kid, too. But I held on to him.”

  Mike looked at him.

  “Hey, he got paid,” JoJo said. “He got paid.”

  “‘He got paid,’” Mike had concluded, that night, to Parlow, and they got sick laughing.

  Through that evening, and for some days afterward, one, and then the other, would remember JoJo’s tag, “He got paid,” and begin to laugh again. But, after the girl’s death, in Yuniko’s flat, and in the cabin, and at periods afterward, Mike remembered the admonition: Don’t be so regular. In your behavior. You don’t know who’s watching you.

  JoJo sat, as usual, in the elbow of the Wabash speak, pleased to be saying sooth to Mike Hodge, who had, after all, made him famous.

  “I’m looking for a safecracker,” Mike said.

  “Safecracker,” JoJo said. “A rare breed. Breaks down into: the nitro guy, or the peeler, which is to say, strong-arm the thing . . . Two distinct subspecialties.”

  “The fellow with the stethoscope,” Mike suggested.

  “S’mby, going to sound out the combination?” JoJo said. “Perhaps, though many have claimed they did so, but I disbelieve them.”

  “Why?” Mike said.

  “Why? ’Cause where’d I hear this story? In the joint. So, one, whatever you hear there’s a lie; two, fellow could actually crack the box, a stethoscope? No noise, no fuss, in and out, what’s he doing in the bandbox? And I doubt it on another score,” JoJo said.

  “What is that?”

  “Guy is wrong? He looks wrong.”

  “That’s right,” Mike said.

  “Walking down the street? Wrong neighborhood? Five blocks away. He’s wrong? Cops are going to toss him. What do they find? A stethoscope? It’s not, ‘I beg your pardon, Doctor,’ but, ‘Get in the car.’

  “Tell you about burglary tools,” JoJo said. “Don’t do it.”

  “A flashlight . . . ?” Mike said.

  “Same thing as the stethoscope,” JoJo said. “You turn your pockets out, it’s not quite a hard chisel, but what’re you doing with it, that you need a flashlight? You a coal miner?” He paused. “It’s arguable. But why take the chance?”

  “In front of the judge,” Mike said.

  JoJo nodded, but improved the instruction, “Front of the judge? You’
re probably goin’ anyway. They jammed you up for being you. So, theoretically, the flashlight, yes. But, but . . .” He looked down at his glass, and Mike gestured the bartender for another round. JoJo nodded his thanks. He drained the glass in front of him and pushed it away.

  “But: ’n’ here’s the ‘A’ material: Who needs the flashlight? The moonlighter? He’s goin’ in there, people are asleep. One of them wakes up? ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ Little Billy is asleep in his crib? ‘Bang bang bang,’ homeowner goes. Herr Midnight knows this. Porch climber? Straight folks in the house? There may be shooting. Cops figure, ‘I found the flashlight, where’s the mohaska? He might’ve pitched it, but he had it.’ So: flashlight equals, to them, violence. Might as well be a gun. Fucken cops hate a gun.”

  “Yes—they dislike violence,” Mike said.

  “No. They fucken hate paperwork. No. Our guy? Our burglar,” JoJo said, “outs with it, shoots the guy. Fucken guy, now, dead on the parquet floor, cop shows up, ‘there goes his weekend.’ Who was standing where and ‘what the wife said,’ all this bullshit. Sergeants show up? They’re going, Lake Geneva, for the weekend, put it to the manicurist. Last thing they want, homicide dicks too, write up these tiresome reports. ‘Fuck it,’ they say. ‘This is too complicated. Break it down for me. Your stenographic skills, I want it on my desk on Monday morning,’ everyone’s pissed off. You get caught with a gun? That’s why you’re going away—you fucked up their weekend.”

  “How come,” Mike said, “your story, it happened on a weekend?”

  “Happened on a weekend,” JoJo said, “as our guy figured, the householder himself’s more likely? Be out in Michigan City, with the wife or side dish, flopping in the waves. Increase the odds, our guy goes in there. Eh? There’s somebody there? Don’t go in at night. There’s no one there, you go in? Turn on the lights.”

  Mike nodded. The bartender poured the two new drinks, and Mike nudged the one toward JoJo, who nodded thanks.

  “They got guys, inside Stateville,” he said, “were an Indian, their name would be Falls for the Tools. All the time, they’re blowing their nose, the cop? Looks at ’em? Don’t like ’em? Tosses ’em, what does he find?”

  “A flashlight?”

  “Much too fucken right,” JoJo said. “Fuck the lockpicks. This guy’s? Got a buttonhook, the cop, end of the month, got to write something? What does he write?”

  “‘This suspicious character, long known to this officer as a repeat offender, apprehended while in discourse with known criminals, and in possession of burglary tools, see attached,’” Mike said.

  “Correct,” JoJo said. “I. Would not have, on my person? A paper clip, penknife, watch key, belt buckle, P.S., why? As I’m not wearing no belt. You get rousted; ‘No, Your Honor, I found no tools, but he is known to carry an assortment of forbidden objects . . .’ ‘Where?’ my lip says. ‘Pants pockets? Your Honor, I call attention to the worn suspenders, to the lightweight fabric of the trousers, I defy you to show me how they could bear the weight of these various tools which you allege . . .’

  “It’s a fucken chess game,” JoJo said. “Hardest part is: getting to and from the spot in question, without some alert copper, looks on at some guy beating his wife to death as entertainment, gets all enraged, here am I, going to or from work, I forgot to pay him off.

  “I say? You got to (and I tell the kids) work in the daylight. That’s the time you want to go in . . .”

  “What if they got a maid?” Mike said.

  “They got a maid,” JoJo said, “maid assumes, there, once in a while, will be noises, some activity, some part of the apartment or house, either unexplained, or unexpected: lady of the house is balling the tennis instructor, husband came home, similarly, some girl, goodness of his heart, he gave her a lift.”

  “What if the maid comes upon you?” Mike said.

  “Maid comes upon you,” JoJo said, “look in her eyes, determine if she’s, A, straight, or B, wise. If she’s A, you excuse yourself; take the pencil, which you are never without, from behind your ear; and tell her, you are measuring for the drapes.”

  “What if she’s B?”

  “If she’s B,” JoJo said, “which is more likely, now you take the five, which you also . . .” Mike nodded. “From the vest pocket, where it lives, and hand it to her. Here comes the pencil: ‘Sorry to’ve disturbed you. I’m the man, as you know, measuring for the drapes.’ You pat your pockets. ‘I forgot my card, please tell Mrs. Mffmr we will telephone her tomorrow.’ Now she’s got what?”

  “The five spot and a story to tell,” Mike said.

  “Well. That’s my gift to her. Eh? I look her in the eye, she thinks, ‘Alright, but what if I can’t stand up to the heat’—’cause, sure as hell, cops don’t think she’s in it? Lady of the house surely will.”

  “. . . Because she’s black . . . ,” Mike said.

  “Well, yeah,” JoJo said, “which is why she’s going to take the jitney in the first place, ’cause, I toss the joint, it’s not impossible she’s going anyway.

  “Lot of these broads,” JoJo said, “incidentally. You see the dawn of understanding, ‘This guy wants to help me’ . . . one or two of ’em, we ended up, space of an evening, very good friends.”

  “What about, they come upon you in the act?”

  “Same way. She’s white, I got to beg her pardon and leave. It’s essentially a peaceful existence,” JoJo said.

  “How do you get in?” Mike said. “The safe?”

  “The safe?” JoJo said. “I’m not a safe man, but I’ll tell you: the daytime, you can’t blow it, you can’t peel it, I don’t have the skills, suss out the combination, n’I’m not walking around with picks. I do have”—he patted his pockets—“I do have a certain document, lists the various break-in codes, available to all accredited locksmiths, these listed by make and model.”

  “That’s got to cost a mint,” Mike said.

  “I would assume,” JoJo said. “And, of course, a lot of these locksmiths work at night.”

  “I’m looking for a safecracker,” Mike said.

  “Yeah, n’I know why, I think,” JoJo said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you got a Nose for News.”

  “What are we talking about?” Mike said.

  “Fellow, washed up in the dunes,” JoJo said.

  “What fellow?” Mike said.

  “The box guy. It was in your paper.”

  “No, you’ve got me,” Mike said.

  “Your safecracker, dead, in the dunes? Washt up, eaten by the fucken fish, so on . . . The guy with the sweet tooth . . . guy with the hard candies.”

  “Try it on me, again,” Mike said.

  JoJo shook his head. “The things I do. For a drink. And ten bucks,” he said. “You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  “Tell me a story,” Mike said.

  “Walter Johnson,” he said. “Genius this guy was. And most, most of the true, ancient thinking, that I came by, I came by downstate, from him.” JoJo raised a finger to forestall the question. “‘If he was a genius, what was he doing stowed away?’ He didn’t get cuffed ’cause of professional malfeasance, but for icing a taxi-dance girl, which, that year, was against the law. And he was doing the whole thing. Which, truly, was hard, for a taxi girl. But he, unfortunately, got artistic, and dismembered her in a fashion sufficiently memorable to attract the notice of you fellows, who, in concert, put him away. A more thoughtful man, having chilled her, thrown her in the Fox River, and had the misfortune, some off-duty cop was fishing, just around the bend, would’ve told the judge, ‘She gave me the clap.’ He’d’ve done? Ten spaces, for manslaughter, be alive today.” They sipped their drinks.

  “Oh yeah,” JoJo said. “Your question: Girl comes acrost you cracking the box. She’s B or the colored girl, we’ve dealt with that, your question is: she’s some legit Swede, or white girl or something, what do you do?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well. What y
ou don’t fucken do, ever, is scare her. Never. Or, she sees you in the matinee? ‘That’s him!’ And, additionally: ‘He tried to rape me, and said that Mayor Thompson is a cunt.’ You never scare her, you can’t reason with her . . .”

  “Why not?” Mike said.

  “Why not? ’Cause the broad is stupid. She’s not stupid, white girl? Why isn’t she out, get a better job than picking up some fat broad’s undies all day long, saying, ‘Yes, mum,’ and not even stealing. White girl? Comes upon you? She’s protecting her honor. And, get this, the ‘honor of the house.’

  “So, Walter: He goes in? He’s got two cloth bags, eh? Inside his coat? Little cloth drawstring bag. Two bags. See if you can get it. One bag is empty—other bag, this bag? Filled with hard candies. Can you finish it?”

  JoJo tipped the drink back, and Mike caught the bartender’s eye. The bartender nodded.

  “Two drawstring bags. One full of hard candies,” Mike said.

  “Never get it,” JoJo said. “Cops never got it. It’s too good.”

  “You sure you want to tell me?” Mike said.

  “I’m just talking,” JoJo said. “I’m just killing time until we get around to it.

  “End of the day, we’re going to get to the part where you get to the favor you want,” JoJo said. “I can do it, I will; you know that. Part of the deal, Mike, I assume you assume, everything else, is just two things, I like you, and I talk too much. What is the favor?”

  “Why’d they go in on Jackie Weiss?”

  “Jackie Weiss, I understand, was dilatory with the vig.”

  “What if he wasn’t?” Mike said.

  “Well,” JoJo said. “What would lead you to that?”

  “What if he was current?”

  “Then: the question is: why kill the goose?” JoJo said. “If your information is correct.”

  “Suppose it is,” Mike said.

  “Aha,” JoJo said.

  “Meaning what?”

  “I wondered, why you’d want to go fuck round with Dion O’Banion. No aspersions to your courage indicated.”

  “Yeah. None taken,” Mike said. “Am I fucking around with O’Banion?”