True Crime

by Collins, Max Allan

  “Who hasn’t? You’re better known than the First Lady.”

  “And a damn sight better looking.”

  “Yeah, but so am I.”

  She turned and smiled and looked at me. “Why are you still here?” She said this with no nastiness.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you thinking about making a pass at me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “You’re not a client, anymore.”

  “Does that make it kosher?”

  “It could.”

  She stood and the robe slipped to her waist. Her breasts were very beautiful. She was powdered white, for the stage; talcum powder. She smelled good; she smelled like a great big baby.

  I went over and kissed her.

  It was a nice kiss, but something was missing. She looked up at me with those long lashes and sad blue eyes.

  “What is it, Nate? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said, moving back. “Maybe I better go.”

  “It’s that actress of yours.”

  “You—you know about her?”

  “I know a lot of things. She left you. Went to Hollywood. You don’t owe her anything.”

  “We still write.”

  “Do her letters keep you warm at night?”

  “Not particularly. But in this weather, who needs it?”

  “Maybe you do. Come and kiss me again.”

  I thought about it a second, then did.

  It was better this time.

  “You need a new girl,” she said, and enfolded me in her arms.

  “Maybe I need a new actress,” I said into her neck. Her sweet, talcum-smelling neck.

  She pushed me away, gently, keeping me within her arms. Her eyes, her smile, were knowing and yet gentle, very gentle.

  “I’m just a Missouri farm girl,” she said. “Scratch most any actress, and that’s what you’ll find. We’re not special. Just playing at being special.”

  “Shush, Helen.”

  The floor was wooden but her silk robe was cushion enough.

  Now all I needed was another client.

  2

  He was waiting outside my office door, hat in hand.

  My office was at the dead end of a hall on the fourth floor of the building on the corner of Van Buren and Plymouth, just a stone’s throw from the exclusive Standard Club. But don’t get the wrong idea: it was also just a healthy spit away from a couple of flophouses. Chicago’s an open-minded place—bums and bankers, whores and debutantes, crooks and cops. There’s room for everybody, here. Just don’t ask me to sort out who goes in what slot.

  The building my office was in was full of marginal businesses and second-rate doctors and third-rate lawyers and possibly one first-rate detective who deserved better. So if anybody shlepped up three flights and stood outside my office, he was either a bill collector, a process server or a potential client. Walking down the corridor, the wood-and-mostly-glass walls of offices on either side of me like a tank I was a fish in, I studied this bird and tried to sort out his slot.

  He was a pale blond man with a darker blond mustache, immaculately groomed in a tailored brown suit with a yellow-and-brown bow tie. The hat in his hand was straw, with a chocolate band; he had a thin, rather pointed nose and eyes the color of slate behind wire glasses. He looked rather harmless, and from the way he stood, head bowed a bit, he seemed shy, even a little timid. Which either made him a client, or a process server. Process servers study looking timid, you know.

  On the chance that he might be a client, however, I did not turn around, but kept walking; approached him.

  “Mr. Heller?” he said. He smiled tentatively; the skin of his face pulled tight over his cheeks. Like he’d never smiled before. Even tentatively.

  “That’s right,” I said, and he stood to one side as I unlocked the pebbled-glass door.

  “I’d like to inquire about your services,” he said.

  I smiled and made a gracious gesture with one hand. “I’d like you to,” I said, and he nodded, and stepped inside.

  Mine was a good-size office, but there was no outer waiting area, just one big room, with cream-color plaster walls. A big scarred oak desk was opposite the door, and behind the desk were windows, several of which I immediately opened to let a little air in. Out the windows was a view of the El. There was also a brown leather couch with tears repaired with brown tape, a wooden filing cabinet, a hat tree and, against the right wall as you came in, a big brown cabinet.

  “Is that a Murphy bed?” my potential client asked.

  I got him a chair and he sat across from my desk, which I got back behind and said, “Yes. Were like Pinkerton’s. We never close.”

  He shrugged. Seemed embarrassed to have brought it up. “I just…wondered. You just don’t often see a Murphy bed in an office.”

  “I live here,” I said, taking my suitcoat off and tossing it on the desk, loosening my tie, rolling up my sleeves. It was hot, and, unlike Sally Rand, I had no fan. “If you’d like to take your coat off, be my guest. Make yourself at home.”

  He waved that off, despite a faint beading of sweat along his forehead, but did place his hat on the edge of my desk, saying, almost incredulously, “You live here?”

  “I try not to advertise it, because it doesn’t impress my other clients any more than it’s impressing you. But I have an arrangement with the landlord to live in the office in exchange for rent. I’m a night watchman of sorts.”

  “I see.” He folded his arms, crossed his legs; tried to hide his second thoughts about hiring me.

  “Times are hard,” I said.

  He looked at me blankly.

  “It’s been in all the papers,” I said.

  “Oh. Yes. Of course. I…I’m not bothered by your lack of…”

  “Of a secretary. Of associates. Of decent furniture. I’m relieved.”

  He smiled again, a little nervous twitch of a smile; his face was tight as a mask. “I’m not a wealthy man, myself. I probably couldn’t afford someone like…Pinkerton’s or Hargraves. What are your rates, Mr. Heller?”

  “Ten dollars a day and expenses.”

  He nodded, stroked his mustache, adjusted the way his glasses were sitting on his nose.

  “Is that too high for you?” I asked. “I assure you I’m fully qualified. I was on the police force here for a number of years….”

  He twitched his smile again. “I won’t hold that against you, Mr. Heller.”

  Where this flash of humor—however slight—came from, I hadn’t the faintest idea; but a brief sparkle in the slate eyes disappeared as quickly as it came, and he said, “I have full confidence in you, Mr. Heller.”

  That stopped me.

  “Why?” I said.

  That stopped him.

  “Well…let’s just say you were recommended by an attorney.”

  “Who would your attorney be?”

  “I, uh, didn’t say it was my attorney, Mr. Heller.”

  “If I was referred to you by an attorney, I’d like to know who it was.”

  “Is that important?”

  “If I haven’t heard of him, I’m going to start wondering what this is about. Excuse me, but one thing I can’t allow my clients to be is evasive with me. I can’t do honest work for you if you won’t be honest with me. Fair enough?”

  “Louis Piquett,” he said, softly.

  “Louis Piquett,” I said.

  I didn’t know what to make of that. I had done a job for Piquett once—through him, I’d performed a service for a certain underworld figure. Much of Piquett’s practice was criminal law, so it was natural he’d have connections with both mob and local government (the line between which was often a fine one).

  Piquett had a large, and apparently mostly aboveboard, practice; he was, after all, a former city prosecutor—though admittedly that had been in the especially corrupt administration of Big Bill Thompson (a onetime law partner of his). That his client
list included a who’s who of bank robbers and gangsters—among them Leo Brothers, the accused slayer of Jake Lingle—only made him “colorful” in Chicago terms.

  “Okay,” I said, still a little thrown. “That’s a reference I can accept. How do you know Piquett?”

  “He’s the attorney my employers recommended.”

  “Who are your employers?”

  “I’d rather not involve them—they’re a grain sales and service company, out of Gary.” He cleared his throat, and added, “Indiana?” as if I might not know where Gary was.

  Well, this at least made sense; a grain company might have had business with the mob, back in the recent bootlegging past, which could lead them to Piquett. That seemed innocent enough. And so did my client.

  I took out a yellow pad from a left-hand drawer. Began scrawling some notes in pencil.

  “Why don’t we start with your name,” I said.

  “Howard,” he said. “John Howard.”

  “All right, Mr. Howard. What is it I can do for you?”

  He uncrossed his legs; put his hands on his knees. “This is hard for me…”

  “Just regard me as you would your attorney, Mr. Howard. Whatever you say, it’ll be confidential. Anything embarrassing, or illegal…that’ll stay within these walls. Between us. And whatever problem you’re having, it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before, believe me. Like a doctor, I’ve seen a lot of different kinds of illnesses.”

  “I think my wife is cheating on me.”

  Imagine that.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “I’m a salesman. Traveling salesman. Selling to feed and grain stores in a two-state area. That keeps me on the road much of the time. Weeks at a time, at times.”

  “I see.”

  “And Polly…well, Polly’s always been a little free-spirited. Very independent.”

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Just over a year. A few months ago, I got this new territory—it was a big opportunity for me, how could I pass it up? Only it meant…being gone for longer stretches of time than before. And, well, she didn’t seem to mind. I guess I wish she would have minded. Then last week I found out she’s been working at a café. Took the job without even telling me. I confronted her about it, asked her why, why on earth she was doing this, didn’t I make good money, didn’t I do right by her, and she said she was just bored—and that ‘a girl can use a little money of her own.’”

  “Do you have any children, Mr. Howard?”

  “No. None. Not yet. I hope to…”

  “I see. Is it so wrong for her to have a job, a little something to keep her busy?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Extra money, in times like these, is that anything to be angry over?”

  “Perhaps not…”

  “Wouldn’t some husbands be grateful for the extra income?”

  “Possibly…”

  “If that’s all the more reason you have to be suspicious, I’d have to advise you—much as I hate to lose a prospective client—to leave well enough alone.”

  Outside, the El rumbled, rattled; he glanced at it, like the world passing him by. I waited for the noise to go away before getting back into this—with the open windows, there was no other choice.

  Then, when silence filled the room again, he looked at me and said, “She should have told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  “That she was working! She should have asked me.”

  “Asked your permission, you mean?”

  “Well of course! I’m—I’m the husband, aren’t I?”

  “Somebody’s got to wear the pants,” I said, keeping the sarcasm to myself, I hoped.

  “That’s not the most disturbing part.”

  “Tell me what is.”

  He looked away from me, as if he couldn’t bear to make this admission and eye contact at the same time. “She’s working under her maiden name. Hamilton. Not her married name.”

  That seemed curious, but not necessarily sinister.

  “She’s just asserting her independence,” I said.

  “But she’s a married woman!”

  “Married women have a right to an identity of their own. Or anyway that’s what a lot of ’em think.”

  He spoke barely moving his lips. “She may be asserting more than just her independence.”

  “You think she’s seeing other men, then?”

  “That’s what I’d like you to find out.”

  “You have no other reason to believe this other than your wife using her maiden name to get a job.”

  “There’s another reason.”

  “Well?”

  He sighed, heavily; looked out at the El. “It’s personal.”

  “Getting cuckolded is personal, Mr. Howard. Convince me I wouldn’t be wasting your money by taking on this job.”

  “It’s the way she is…way she acts…in bed.”

  “Cold, you mean?”

  He looked at me, the slate eyes very sad. “Not at all. Just the reverse.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” I should have this guy’s problems.

  “She’s doing things I didn’t teach her.”

  “Oh. Maybe she’s imaginative, or has a girlfriend who’s been around who shared some secrets.”

  “Or read a sexual manual. Or was more experienced before our marriage than she at first let on. Yes, I’ve thought of those things. But she’s trying too hard, in bed; it’s as if—as if she’s trying to allay any suspicions I might have. Besides. A husband senses when a wife has been unfaithful, don’t you know that?”

  Actually, I knew the opposite to be true in many cases; but why argue with money?

  “I’ll be glad to look into this, Mr. Howard. For one reason only—to ease your mind. I’m inclined to think your wife will come out of this smelling like a rose.”

  “I pray you’re right, Mr. Heller.”

  He gave me the particulars—the address of the café, 1209½ West Wilson Avenue, which was in the neighborhood known as Uptown, so called because that was where the El ended; and their apartment, in the Malden Plaza Hotel, a few blocks from where she was working. He also gave me a snapshot of her, a pretty, apple-cheeked girl who seemed innocence personified.

  I gave him some particulars, too—assured him that I would shadow his wife without her knowing; that if I did find she had a lover or lovers, I would make no direct confrontation. That sort of embarrassment, that sort of complication, he pointedly did not want. I assured him that his wife—and any lover—would not know I was there. That was my job.

  He didn’t want photos; he wasn’t looking for evidence for a divorce case.

  “I just want the truth, Mr. Heller.”

  “That’s a scarce commodity, Mr. Howard,” I said. “And this is Chicago…”

  I asked him for a twenty-five-dollar retainer and he stood and drew five tens from a fairly well-stuffed wallet.

  “Since I’ll be on the road, and you won’t be able to reach me,” he said, spreading the five bills on my desktop like a poker hand, “I’d prefer to pay you for a full week’s work, now.”

  I managed not to stutter. “Fine. If I need to go beyond a week…?”

  “Do it. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  With a final tight mirthless smile, he extended his hand and I stood behind the desk and shook it.

  “I appreciate your help, Mr. Heller.”

  “I hope I can be of help, by proving to you you’ve a good, loyal, loving little wife at home.”

  “I pray so,” he said. “I pray so.”

  Then he was gone, and I put his money in my pocket, and wondered where I’d seen the pretty, apple-cheeked girl in the snapshot before.

  U

  PTOWN

  U

  PTOWN

  3

  I started the job the following Monday, which was the day the heat wave really started taking itself seriously. At 7:00 A.M. I caught the El—Uptown was six miles north of the Loop—an
d already it was sweltering; every man on the train was in his shirt sleeves, with suit-coat over arm or left the hell home. The only men I saw that day with their coats on were the old gents sitting on benches in front of the El station, where I got off at Wilson and Broadway; they seemed to be unchanging fixtures of the landscape, a part of the ornate, carved-stone station, like the marble arch with the clock in its grillwork belly that hovered above the front entryway.

  The terra-cotta El station—patterned, so they said, after New York’s Grand Central—was typical of the Uptown district’s naïvely grandiose opinion of itself. Though few of the buildings were taller than three stories—the exceptions being a couple of hotels and a few high-rise apartment houses and the occasional office building—Uptown fancied itself a miniature Loop, and with some justification. The gingerbread on the buildings bore the influence of that other Chicago world’s fair, the Columbian Exposition of ’93, where the hodgepodge beaux arts style of pseduo-European/classical architecture reigned; and in Uptown to this day a fairlike atmosphere prevailed. There were movie palaces like the Riviera, dance halls like the Aragon, specialty shops, department stores, banks, drugstores, delis, tearooms; restaurants from Russian to Polish to Greek, as well as chop suey joints and a Swedish cafeteria.

  In this blistering weather, however, the beaches of Lake Michigan, the eastern border of Uptown, would be doing more business than the businesses—with the possible exception of the orange juice huts and ice-cream parlors. And the bars and cafés, offering something cool to drink, wouldn’t be faring poorly, either.

  The Howard girl’s café was a block from the station—a sign protruded over the sidewalk proclaiming it the s & s sandwich shop—in a three-story building with apartments above. Since its address had a “½” in it, I’d expected a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon; but as I walked by, glancing in the window, I saw a long counter and floor space to the tune of eight or ten tables, and a trio of waitresses, one of which was the apple-cheeked pretty Polly.

  That’s all I saw, because I was glancing, and I walked across the street to a four-story residential hotel called the Wilson Arms. The bottom floor was a bar, and the check-in desk was at the top of the second floor. The place was no competition for the Edgewater Beach, but it was no flophouse either. I paid for three nights—which set me back as many dollars—and rented an electric fan for one day. At twenty-five cents, the fan was highway robbery; after all, I knew store clerks who were making only a nickel an hour, these days, and glad for it. But it was hot, and I had a fifty-buck retainer to play with, and Chicago was unfair even when there wasn’t a depression.