by David Mamet
The boys at the Port cheered when Parlow made his speech. Crouch said that he, as an altar boy, had once been the first postulate. Asked if he had served Mass correctly he responded in the affirmative, and all agreed that, according to Kant, then, all was well.
The case itself was fairly clear, and, so, though enjoyable as gossip, was not troubling to the reporters.
The two Jewish lads had been spoiled rotten. They had written a ransom note to the parents of their school chum, demanding ten thousand dollars. Previously, and, it would seem, in the name of safety, they had taken the boy out to the wetlands in Hegewisch, and murdered him.
Unstated in the police reports, but common knowledge among the reporters, some of whom had been at the coroner’s office, was that the boy had been genitally mutilated and sodomized before his death.
The tenor of the room held unanimously that that was not fit for consumption as news, but split as to whether or not those facts, if known, should ensure the boys’ execution as monsters, or excuse their crime as unquestionably psychotic derangement.
Darrow and the judge had made the argument moot. They would be tried not only as minors, but as minors suffering under some unnameable curse: they deserved not execution, but understanding. That was Darrow’s plea.
But why had the judge agreed to consider it?
Parlow, of late, had spent a good deal of time in the courts, and had followed the Leopold and Loeb case closely.
After Darrow’s three-day speech, which Parlow characterized as “Sarah Bernhardt Come Again,” the judge had sentenced the youths, each, to life plus ninety-nine years, sentences to run consecutively.
They went, in chains, to Stateville.
The questions raised by the trial took their place among life’s other imponderables.
The Capone organization was on the run. A new sentiment of reform, and a new mayor, had prompted Al’s decampment to Florida.
Various shootouts, in his absence, decimated much of the Irish mob; these and attendant reprisals now occurred to the city not as a crime wave, or gang wars, but recurrent, unavoidable disruptions, to be borne like the weather.
The present became part of the past, digested as history, hearsay, legend, or misinformation.
The Ace of Spades had been closed down by the new reform. Rumor had it that Peekaboo had moved south.
Mike spent the better part of a year in the cabin on the Fox River writing his war novel.
Crouch was retiring from the paper.
Parlow had wired Mike pleading with him to come down for the party, and Mike had come.
Parlow had met him at Northwestern Station. He took Mike’s bag and walked him to the taxi stand. They rode toward the hotel.
“Best thing,” Parlow said.
“What?” Mike said.
“Darrow? The kids? Set his fee. The families . . . ?”
“Yeah, I know,” Mike said.
“Everyone, rich Yids, purchasing justice . . . ?”
“Alright.”
“Bar Association . . . ?”
“Set his fee,” Mike said, “I know. One hundred . . . ?”
“Hundred thousand dollars,” Parlow said.
“That ain’t news,” Mike said.
“The families? Refused to pay it.”
“This, also, ain’t news,” Mike said.
“Why?” Parlow said.
“Why what?” Mike said.
“Why’d they refuse to pay it? . . . Figure it out.”
“They’re cheap?” Mike said.
“Rolling in dough,” Parlow said. “Rolling in dough; one. Two, they’re Jews, last thing in the world they want, everyone to say, ‘The Jews stiffed him.’”
“Three?” Mike said.
“Three,” Parlow said, “is, ostensibly; Darrow? He got their boys off.” He sat back and smiled.
“Ostensibly,” Mike said.
“You bet,” Parlow said.
Mike thought for a moment. “I give up,” he said. “But I like it.”
“The asked, but unanswered, question,” Parlow said. “What was it?”
Mike shook his head. “Wait.”
“Nothing’s a mystery but the one thing,” Parlow said.
“Okay,” Mike said. “And not the kids . . .”
“No.”
“What could it be but the kids?” Mike said.
“Figure it out.”
“No, I give up,” Mike said.
“It’s the judge.”
“Okay, tell me,” Mike said.
Parlow smiled. “Why does the judge go for this cockamamie ‘They ain’t nuts but they ain’t sane’ defense? You been away too long.”
“Somebody paid him off?” Mike said.
“Yeah. Welcome back,” Parlow said. “Darrow, the families, paid the judge off. Stand up there, take the gaff, listen to Darrow cry about ‘human mercy,’ and sentence them some private asylum.”
“But he sentenced them to Stateville. For life plus ninety-nine.”
“And why’d he do that? When he was paid?” Parlow said.
“I . . .”
“Never assume,” Parlow said.
“Ah, fuck, you got the better of me,” Mike said. “You didn’t figure it out, you got it from someone.”
“That’s fair,” Parlow said.
“Well, what’s the story?”
“Story is: Darrow? Goes to the judge? Figures, ‘What can it cost?’ Judge says, ‘One hundred thousand dollars, they go to the nuthouse in Switzerland.’ Darrow goes to the families. He tells them, ‘One hundred thousand, cash, the judge will go along.’ They get up the money, crocodile briefcase.
“Darrow, crocodile briefcase, now, on the way to the judge’s office? Has an inspiration. Whacks himself on the forehead. Takes out fifty grand, gives the judge fifty, says, ‘Judge, the Jews? That’s as high as they go.’
“Judge, alright. Is philosophical. But. Alright? Down at the Monadnock Club, next day, he’s sitting in the steam, with the head cashier, LaSalle National Bank. ‘Curious thing,’ the man says. ‘Judge, I know you can’t talk about the case, but, fellow from Leopold’s office comes by, picks up, how about this, a crocodile briefcase full of cash. Full of cash.’
“‘Why’d you tell me?’ Judge says. ‘I tell you,’ the cashier says, ‘as, as a public citizen, it occurred to me, maybe they were trying to fund an escape. You can buy a lot of escape for a hundred thousand bucks.’”
Mike began to laugh.
“Fucking, the judge? Is sitting up there? Sentencing time? He’s the only one knows the true story. Families, Darrow, the boys, they think they’re going to Switzerland . . .”
Parlow started laughing. He pounded Mike on the knee.
The car had stopped outside of the Red Star Inn, the site of Crouch’s retirement party.
Mike started to get out of the cab.
“Hold on,” Parlow said. “The fucking families now. Want to have Darrow killed. They apply to Capone. He tells them, ‘Yeah. One hundred thousand dollars.’ They pay him; he goes fishing in Florida.”
The doorman of the Red Star Inn opened the cab door on two men howling with laughter.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been written without the enthusiasm and encouragement of Pam Susemiehl.
I am indebted to David Vigliano, without whom the book would not have been published.
About the Author
DAVID MAMET is a playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and director. His scripts for The Verdict and Wag the Dog were nominated for Academy Awards. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his play Glengarry Glen Ross.
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Also by David Mamet
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A Whore’s Profession
Make-Believe Town: Essays and Remembrances
True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor
Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama
Jafsie and John Henry: Essays
On Acting
South of the Northeast Kingdom
The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews
Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business
Theatre
The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. It is compounded of historical fact, myth, and imagination. Received chronology having been, at some points, an impediment to narrative, has been jostled into a better understanding of its dramatic responsibilities. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
chicago. Copyright © 2018 by David Mamet. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover design by Elsie Lyons
Cover photographs: Los Angeles Times Photographic Archives (Collection 1429), UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA (main photo); © HolyCrazyLazy/Shutterstock (texture); © Igorsky/Shutterstock (texture)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mamet, David, author.
Title: Chicago : a novel / David Mamet.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Custom House, [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017044007 (print) | LCCN 2017049927 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062797216 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062797193 (hardback) | ISBN 9780062797209 (paperback) | ISBN 9780062835932 (large print)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3563.A4345 (ebook) | LCC PS3563.A4345 C55 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.54--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017044007
Digital Edition February 2018 ISBN 978-0-06-279721-6
Print ISBN 978-0-06-279719-3
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