I rotated my shoulders; lifted my legs. “About the same. Maybe a little better.”
She threw back the sheets.
“Well,” she said, “you seem to be changing color. For what it’s worth.”
The black-and-blue splotches on my legs had turned purple, with patches of yellow spreading within them. My skin looked like a suit in poor taste.
“Why don’t you go take a shower?” she said. “I’ll get some brunch going….”
I took her advice; cold first, then hot. I did feel better. I still ached, but it didn’t hurt just to breathe. Except for my head. Maybe that was it—maybe the hangover was distraction enough to make me forget the other aches. I got out of the shower and toweled off—and it didn’t hurt any worse than having somebody tear off one of my fingernails—and found a little can of tooth powder on the counter by the sink with a brand-new toothbrush. Brushing my teeth made me feel vaguely human again, and I wrapped a fresh towel around my middle and plodded back into the bedroom.
The new suit I’d bought with Nitti’s money was laid out there for me; also a shirt I’d bought, a hat, and socks and underwear, not new, but clean. I hadn’t brought any of this with me, so it looked like my friends had been taking care of me. I got into the underwear and pants and shirt and went to the kitchen, where she was making brunch. Scrambled eggs again, or actually an omelet with some diced vegetables and cheese. It reminded me a little of the side dish at Pete’s Steaks and I felt my stomach go queasy. But then I was all right, and I wouldn’t have said anything to her even if I wasn’t.
I took a seat at the table and she glanced over with a maternal smile. “Barney brought some of your things over,” she said.
“I don’t have many friends,” I said, “but I got the right friends.”
“You count me among them?”
“You and Barney are at the head of the list, today. If Barney hadn’t come in when those guys were dancing with me, I might be in traction right now.” I laughed, and it only hurt a little. “They didn’t exactly expect a world’s champion fighter to come to my rescue. The guy he lit into must have a swollen puss about now.”
“He really took care of ’em, huh?”
“He did all right for a lightweight. Anyway, it sent them running fast enough.”
“You know who they were?”
“Not their names. But they were East Chicago cops.”
“Cops?”
“Yeah—say, have you seen the papers today, been listening to the radio?”
She shrugged, stirring the eggs. “I have the Sunday Trib in the other room, if it’s the funnies you’re after.”
“I don’t follow the funnies. What about the radio?”
“I had the radio on, earlier. Why?”
“What’s in the news?”
“The heat. Real muggy out there today. It’s one hundred one point three degrees, last tally I heard. Seventeen died of heat prostration yesterday, and half a dozen more reported today already.”
“Nice to be inside where it’s cool.”
“Why’d you ask? It’s not the heat you’re interested in.”
“I thought there’d be something else in the headlines.”
“What?”
“Dillinger captured.”
She looked away from the pan she was cooking in to give me a wide-eyed, disturbed look.
“Nate—why don’t you find another way to make a living?”
“I considered nude ballet with a bubble, but it’s been taken.”
She crinkled her mouth and chin in mock-anger. “You’re dodging the issue. You’re an intelligent, capable man. Why do you sit in that shabby little office, doing shabby little work? Not to mention dangerous.”
I shrugged. Didn’t hurt much. Half a fingernail being torn off. I said, “My work isn’t usually dangerous. Don’t be deceived into thinking exciting things like these happen to me every week. Hard to believe as it may be, I never been worked over with a rubber hose before.”
She had turned away from me; she was easing the omelet out of the pan onto a plate. “A lot of people go through life without ever being ‘worked over’ with a rubber hose at all.”
“Think what they missed.”
She put the omelet down in front of me, with a side plate of toast. “You like some cottage fries with that?”
“No. This’ll be fine.”
“Coffee?”
“Orange juice’d be better.”
“I already squeezed some.” She got a small white pitcher out of a small white icebox and poured me a large clear glass, turning it orange. I sipped it and it tasted good; the feel of the pulp in my mouth was nice. The hangover seemed to be fading.
Just the same I said, “And a side order of aspirin?”
She smiled and nodded. “Comin’ right up.” The aspirin was on the kitchen counter; I took two with the last swallows of the orange juice.
Then she sat by me and said, her expression almost somber, “I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to you.”
“I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to you, either.”
“You live in your office, Nate. I saw it. You sleep in a Murphy bed.”
“I know guys who sleep in parks.”
“Don’t try to shame me—I’m no snob, you know that. I just know a real waste when I see one.”
“A real waste.”
“Yes. A waste of a mind, potentially of a life.”
“This omelet is very good. Sure you don’t want to give up show biz and marry me?”
She laughed, sadly. “You’re hopeless.”
“That’s what they tell me. Look, Sally—Helen—I only have one trade. It’s all I’m trained for, it’s all I know. And I really do have plans to live somewhere besides my office someday. I’ll have a good-size agency with operatives working under me, and a nice big office with a pretty secretary to fool around with while my wife raises little Nates and Helens at home.” That made her smile, not sadly. “It’s a shabby little office, because I’m just starting out, and this is the goddamn Depression, okay?”
“Okay, Nate. I won’t press. Maybe it’s none of my business.”
I touched her hand. “It’s your business. You’re my friend. That gives you the right to stick your nose in, at least till I ask you not to.”
Impish smile. “Friend, huh? You sleep with all your friends?”
I managed to do an exaggerated shrug and not pass out. “Just you and Barney,” I said.
“You’re looking for another beating, Heller.”
“I promise I’m not. This omelet is good. Are you sure there was nothing about Dillinger in the papers or on the radio?”
“Of course I’m sure. If John Dillinger had been captured, it’d be all over the place. Wouldn’t it?”
I nodded. Not much pain. “It should’ve took place last night. They were meeting with Anna Sage—she would’ve given them the address or otherwise led the feds to him….”
“Dillinger, you mean.”
“Yes. I don’t understand why it didn’t happen.”
“Maybe something went wrong.”
“Maybe,” I said, and stood. “Mind if I use your phone?”
Not liking it, she said, “Not at all.”
In the living room, I sat in an overstuffed round-looking chair by the window and dialed the phone, a white candlestick type she kept on a low coffee table. The curtains were back and I glanced out as I waited for the call to go through. Down where Lake Shore Drive curved around the front of the Drake, people on Oak Street Beach and the surrounding park formed a blanket of flesh, staring out at the ironic blue lake, where sailboats and yachts taunted them. The boats were keeping away from the shoreline, though; just beyond the bobbing heads of more casual bathers a pathway was being maintained for those single-minded souls competing in the Herald and Examiner fifteen-mile marathon swim.
From the phone a young male voice said, “Division of Investigation, Hart speaking.”
I could hear so
mething of a hubbub in the background.
“I’d like to speak to Inspector Cowley.”
“Inspector Cowley’s tied up. Can I help you?”
“Tell Cowley Nathan Heller’s on the line.”
“Sir, we’re busy here, could you—”
“Tell Cowley Nathan Heller’s on the line.”
There was a pause while he thought it over, then a sigh, and another pause while he fetched Cowley.
“Mr. Heller,” Cowley said, “let’s keep this short. Now what can I do for you?”
“Sounds to me like you’ve got a rather full house for a Sunday afternoon.”
“Twenty or thirty people, and it’s rather frantic; now what do you want?”
“What happened last night?”
“I didn’t think you were planning to be involved in this matter any further, at this stage of the game.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened last night, Cowley?”
“If it’s the reward you’re after, I may be able to arrange a partial—”
“Fuck the reward, and fuck you, Cowley!”
There was a long silence.
Then Cowley said, “We met with Anna Sage last night. She promised to deliver Dillinger to us today. That’s all.”
“That’s all? Why didn’t she give him to you last night?”
“She didn’t expect to see him again till today. She and Polly Hamilton and Dillinger have a date of sorts to go to the movies together. At the Marbro. The features change today, you know.”
“This is stupid—Anna Sage knows where Dillinger’s been staying…it’s a swanky place on Pine Grove.”
“You know where he’s been staying?”
“Yes.” I gave him the address. I could hear his pencil scribbling it frantically down.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before, Heller?”
“It’s like I been telling you—I didn’t want to finger the guy because I wasn’t sure he really was Dillinger. I was afraid you guys might blast some poor civilian into Kingdom Come because he had two arms and legs and eyes, just like Johnny.”
“Well, this is Dillinger all right.”
“You won’t get any argument from me on that score. Otherwise I don’t know why Frank Nitti would want him dead.”
Cowley didn’t like being reminded of Nitti’s role in this; I could tell from the silence over the wire.
Then he said, “We’re waiting for a call from Mrs. Sage, any minute now, at which point we’ll go to the Marbro. There are continuous showings all day, and since this plan is in motion already, and we haven’t the manpower to spare for a spur-of-the-moment effort, we won’t be following up on this address, not at this time.”
“Use your own judgment.”
“Our plan of action for the Marbro is well under way. We sent agents over yesterday evening and we’ve made maps covering exits and entrances, alleys and fire escapes, and surrounding streets. We’re ready to put the plan into play when Mrs. Sage calls.”
“Why don’t you just go over to Pine Grove and see if Johnny’s home? Or why not just move into Anna Sage’s apartment till he shows up?”
Silence for a moment; embarrassed silence, I thought.
“Heller, uh…this is Chief Purvis’ plan and, uh, Mr. Hoover has approved it. I’ll make them both aware of the Pine Grove situation, and perhaps they’ll act on it. But I believe we’ll be following through with the Purvis plan….”
“What plan?”
“We’ll have agents on the fire exits and on either side of the front entrance. Chief Purvis will be on one side, Zarkovich on the other.”
That sounded like a cross fire to me.
“Why them?” I said. “I thought you told me you were going to see to it that Dillinger was captured, not shot.”
“Heller, last night when we met with Mrs. Sage, it was under what you might call cloak-and-dagger conditions. We picked her up on the North Side, drove a ways to a secluded spot along the lake, and I was with Captain O’Neill in one car, while Chief Purvis and Sergeant Zarkovich—and Mrs. Sage—were in the other.”
“What does that have to do with my question?”
“Simply that only Chief Purvis and Sergeant Zarkovich know Mrs. Sage well enough to recognize her…I wasn’t in the car with her.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Have you considered the crowd you’re going to be dealing with at that theater? With this heat wave, everybody and his duck is going to the movies to cool off! If you have to shoot it out, you’re not going to get just Dillinger—you’ll probably bag a grandmother and a ten-year-old or two.”
“Heller, I’m going to be there, and I’ll control the situation myself. You have my word on that.”
“I’m not your goddamn conscience, Cowley. Do what you want.”
“Mr. Heller. If you’ll excuse me…I have to attend a briefing.”
“What, is Little Mel going to explain how he plans to fuck up even worse than Little Bohemia?”
“I don’t appreciate your language, Mr. Heller. It so happens I’m a good Mormon—”
“I don’t care if you’re a bad one. Melvin Purvis is a fuck-up in any religion.”
Cowley cleared his throat. “Sergeant Zarkovich is about to give us a detailed description of Dillinger, now that his appearance has been altered by plastic surgery.”
“Maybe Zarkovich can have his own plastic surgeons explain that: those ‘doctors’ from East Chicago who operated on me with a rubber hose.”
Short pause. “I don’t believe that to be true.”
“Sure you do.”
“I’ve got to go, Heller. Are you, uh, feeling any better?”
“A little, thanks.”
“Get some rest, why don’t you? Leave the police work to us.”
“Speaking of police work, how the hell did you get Captain Stege to go along with this cockeyed plan?”
Silence again.
“Cowley?”
“We see no reason to involve the Chicago police.”
“No reason to involve the Chicago police? In the capture of John Dillinger, in Chicago? Novel approach, Cowley. How’d you arrive at this?”
“Too many crooked cops,” he said, and didn’t sound too convinced himself. “Don’t want somebody on the inside to tip Dillinger off.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Cowley.”
“Why not?”
“If he heard about your plan, he wouldn’t believe it.”
Silence; then a grunt.
I grunted back and hung up.
I felt Sally’s cool hand on my shoulder and I glanced back at her.
“It’s going to happen tonight?” she said.
“I think so.”
“And it’s really Dillinger?”
“It’s really Dillinger.”
“Come to bed.”
“I don’t know if I can sleep anymore.”
“Who said anything about sleep?”
Well, I was definitely feeling better; but the effort was enough to tire me out, and I fell asleep again. By the time I woke it was getting dark out.
“What time is it?”
Sally, rousing herself beside me, looked over at her clock. “A little after six.”
“I’m sleeping my life away.”
“You’re just recuperating. Nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Who’s feeling guilty? Say, don’t you have a show tonight?”
“Yeah—gotta leave in an hour or so.”
I threw the covers off. “Let’s go in the other room and listen to the radio till then.”
We sat in the living room and listened to WGN, which was broadcast out of this very hotel; Wayne King the Waltz King bored us till the news came on. The hot spell, and the deaths by heat prostration, was the big story.
“When did you change your mind?” Sally said.
“About what?”
“This guy not being Dillinger. Didn’t you think it wasn’t Dillinger, at first?”
I shrugged. “I jus
t wasn’t sure. He looked a little like Dillinger. But not exactly like him.”
“Then why do you now think this is Dillinger?”
“Because Frank Nitti wants him dead.”
“I thought you said Dillinger and the Boys were friendly.”
“Well, they used to be, before Dillinger’s fun and games started bringing the heat down on ’em.”
“Would they kill a friend?”
“Anytime, sugar.”
“But why would his own lawyer betray him?”
“Piquett? Money. Fear of reprisal from his other, more powerful client…those Boys you mentioned.”
“It seems to me the lawyer and the Boys might try to find a way to get rid of Dillinger without killing him. Like shipping him off to Mexico or something.”
“No, honey, he’s just too famous for that. As long as he’s alive, they’d keep looking for…”
I thought a minute.
Sally said, “Something wrong?”
I said, “Don’t you get tired of being smarter than me?” and got up. Went back into the bedroom and dressed.
She stood in the doorway and watched me. She was still in the lounging pajamas, and lounged against the door.
“What did I say?” she asked.
“You said this guy might not be Dillinger,” I said.
“And?”
“And he might not be.”
I kissed her on the cheek and left, moving faster than the pain.
17
A large homemade map of the Marbro Theater and its surrounding area, grease pencil on butcher paper, was pinned to the wall behind Cowley’s desk, which was in the opposite corner from Purvis’ currently empty one. A dozen or so agents in shirt sleeves and shoulder holsters were milling around the big open office, some of them sitting on the edges of desks, many of them smoking, the electric fans pushing the smoke around. Windows were open to let smoke out and let the cool night air in, only there wasn’t any cool air, just night. The college-boy agents had been here most of the day, waiting for Anna Sage to call.
I pulled up a chair, tossed my hat on the desk. My suitcoat, which I’d been lugging over my shoulder, I draped across my lap. “No call yet?”
Cowley’s gray face lifted from the cup of coffee he’d been staring into; his expression was one of frustration, but his eyes were just plain weary. He was in shirt sleeves and striped tie and shoulder holster.
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