Chicago Lightning : The Collected Nathan Heller Short Stories

by Collins, Max Allan

And Mrs. Bolton was standing nose to nose with the startled woman, saying defiantly, “I am Mrs. Bolton—you’ve been up to see my husband!”

  “Why, Mrs. Bolton,” the woman said, backing away as best she could. “Your husband is not in his room.”

  “Liar!”

  “If he were in the room, I wouldn’t have been in there myself, I assure you.”

  “Lying whore…”

  “Okay,” I said, wading in, taking Mrs. Bolton by the arm, less gently this time, “that’s enough.”

  “Don’t talk to my mother that way,” the young man said to Mrs. Bolton.

  “I’ll talk to her any way I like, you little degenerate.”

  And the young man slapped my client. It was a loud, ringing slap, and drew blood from one corner of her wide mouth.

  I pointed a finger at the kid’s nose. “That wasn’t nice. Back away.”

  My client’s eyes were glittering; she was smiling, a blood-flecked smile that wasn’t the sanest thing I ever saw. Despite the gleeful expression, she began to scream things at the couple: “Whore! Degenerate!”

  “Oh Christ,” I said, wishing I’d listened to my old man and finished college.

  We were encircled by a crowd who watched all this with bemused interest, some people smiling, others frowning, others frankly amazed. In the street the clop-clop of an approaching mounted police officer, interrupted in the pursuit of parking violators, cut through the din. A tall, lanky officer, he climbed off his mount and pushed through the crowd.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  “This little degenerate hit me,” my client said, wearing her bloody mouth and her righteous indignation like medals, and she grabbed the kid by the tie and yanked the poor son of a bitch by it, jerking him silly.

  It made me laugh. It was amusing only in a sick way, but I was sick enough to appreciate it.

  “That’ll be all of that,” the officer said. “Now what happened here?”

  I filled him in, in a general way, while my client interrupted with occasional non sequiturs; the mother and son just stood there looking chagrined about being the center of attention for perhaps a score of onlookers.

  “I want that dirty little brute arrested,” Mrs. Bolton said, through an off-white picket fence of clenched teeth. “I’m a victim of assault!”

  The poor shaken kid was hardly a brute, and he was cleaner than most, but he admitted having struck her, when the officer asked him.

  “I’m going to have to take you in, son,” the officer said.

  The boy looked like he might cry. Head bowed, he shrugged and his mother, eyes brimming with tears herself, hugged him.

  The officer went to a call box and summoned a squad car and soon the boy was sent away, the mother waiting pitifully at the curb as the car pulled off, the boy’s pale face looking back, a sad cameo in the window.

  I was at my client’s side.

  “Let me help you get home, Mrs. Bolton,” I said, taking her arm again.

  She smiled tightly, patronizingly, withdrew her arm. “I’m fine, Mr. Heller. I can take care of myself. I thank you for your assistance.”

  And she rolled like a tank through what remained of the crowd, toward the El station.

  I stood there a while, trying to gather my wits; it would have taken a better detective than yours truly to find them, however, so, finally, I approached the shattered woman who still stood at the curb. The crowd was gone. So was the mounted officer. All that remained were a few horse apples and me.

  “I’m sorry about all that,” I told her.

  She looked at me, her face smooth, her eyes sad; they were a darker blue than her son’s. “What’s your role in this?”

  “I’m an investigator. Mrs. Bolton suspects her husband of infidelity.”

  She laughed harshly—a very harsh laugh for such a refined woman. “My understanding is that Mrs. Bolton has suspected that for some fourteen years—and without foundation. But at this point, it would seem moot, one would think.”

  “Moot? What are you talking about?”

  “The Boltons have been separated for months. Mr. Bolton is suing her for divorce.”

  “What? Since when?”

  “Why, since January.”

  “Then Bolton does live at the Van Buren Hotel, here?”

  “Yes. My brother and I have known Mr. Bolton for years. My son Charles came up to Chicago recently, to find work, and Joe—Mr. Bolton—is helping him find a job.”

  “You’re, uh, not from Chicago?”

  “I live in Woodstock. I’m a widow. Have you any other questions?”

  “Excuse me, ma’am. I’m sorry about this. Really. My client misled me about a few things.” I tipped my hat to her.

  She warmed up a bit; gave me a smile. Tentative, but a smile. “Your apology is accepted, mister…?”

  “Heller,” I said. “Nathan. And your name?”

  “Marie Winston,” she said, and extended her gloved hand.

  I grasped it, smiled.

  “Well,” I said, shrugged, smiled, tipped my hat again, and headed back for my office.

  It wasn’t the first time a client had lied to me, and it sure wouldn’t be the last. But I’d never been lied to in quite this way. For one thing, I wasn’t sure Mildred Bolton knew she was lying. This lady clearly did not have all her marbles.

  I put the hundred bucks in the bank and the matter out of my mind, until I received a phone call, on the afternoon of June 14.

  “This is Marie Winston, Mr. Heller. Do you remember me?”

  At first, frankly, I didn’t; but I said, “Certainly. What can I do for you, Mrs. Winston?”

  “That…incident out in front of the Van Buren Hotel last Wednesday, which you witnessed…”

  “Oh yes. What about it?”

  “Mrs. Bolton has insisted on pressing charges. I wonder if you could appear in police court tomorrow morning, and explain what happened?”

  “Well…”

  “Mr. Heller, I would greatly appreciate it.”

  I don’t like turning down attractive women, even on the telephone; but there was more to it than that: the emotion in her voice got to me.

  “Well, sure,” I said.

  So the next morning I headed over to the south Loop police court and spoke my piece. I kept to the facts, which I felt would pretty much exonerate all concerned. The circumstances were, as they say, extenuating.

  Mildred Bolton, who glared at me as if I’d betrayed her, approached the bench and spoke of the young man’s “unprovoked assault.” She claimed to be suffering physically and mentally from the blow she’d received. The latter, at least, was believable. Her eyes were round and wild as she answered the judge’s questions.

  When the judge fined young Winston one hundred dollars, Mrs. Bolton stood in her place in the gallery and began to clap. Loudly. The judge looked at her, too startled to rap his gavel and demand order; then she flounced out of the courtroom very girlishly, tossing her raccoon stole over her shoulder, exulting in her victory.

  An embarrassed silence fell across the room. And it’s hard to embarrass hookers, a brace of which were awaiting their turn at the docket.

  Then the judge pounded his gavel and said, “The court vacates this young man’s fine.”

  Winston, who’d been hangdog throughout the proceedings, brightened like his switch had been turned on. He pumped his lawyer’s hand and turned to his mother, seated behind him just beyond the railing, and they hugged.

  On the way out Marie Winston, smiling gently, touched my arm and said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Heller.”

  “I don’t think I made much difference.”

  “I think you did. The judge vacated the fine, after all.”

  “Hell, I had nothing to do with that. Mildred was your star witness.”

  “In a way I guess she was.”

  “I notice her husband wasn’t here.”

  Son Charles spoke up. “No, he’s at work. He…well, he thought it was better he no
t be here. We figured that woman would be here, after all.”

  “That woman is sick.”

  “In the head,” Charles said bitterly.

  “That’s right. You or I could be sick that way, too. Somebody ought to help her.”

  Marie Winston, straining to find some compassion for Mildred Bolton, said, “Who would you suggest?”

  “Damnit,” I said, “the husband. He’s been with her fourteen years. She didn’t get this way overnight. The way I see it, he’s got a responsibility to get her some goddamn help before he dumps her by the side of the road.”

  Mrs. Winston smiled at that, some compassion coming through after all. “You have a very modern point of view, Mr. Heller.”

  “Not really. I’m not even used to talkies yet. Anyway, I’ll see you, Mrs. Winston. Charles.”

  And I left the graystone building and climbed in my ’32 Auburn and drove back to my office. I parked in the alley, in my space, and walked over to the Berghoff for lunch. I think I hoped to find Bolton there. But he wasn’t.

  I went back to the office and puttered a while; I had a pile of retail credit-risk checks to whittle away at.

  Hell with it, I thought, and walked over to Bolton’s office building, a narrow, fifteen-story, white granite structure just behind the Federal Reserve on West Jackson, next to the El. Bolton was doing all right—better than me, certainly—but as a broker he was in the financial district only by a hair. No doubt he was a relatively small-time insurance broker, making twenty or twenty-five grand a year. Big money by my standards, but a lot of guys over at the Board of Trade spilled more than that.

  There was no lobby really, just a wide hall between facing rows of shops—newsstand, travel agency, cigar store. The uniformed elevator operator, a skinny, pockmarked guy about my age, was waiting for a passenger. I was it.

  “Tenth floor,” I told him, and he took me up.

  He was pulling open the cage doors when we heard the air crack, three times.

  “What the hell was that?” he said.

  “It wasn’t a car backfiring,” I said. “You better stay here.”

  I moved cautiously out into the hall. The elevators came up a central shaft, with a squared-off “c” of offices all about. I glanced quickly at the names on the pebbled glass in the wood-partition walls, and finally lit upon BOLTON AND SCHMIDT, INSURANCE BROKERS. I swallowed and moved cautiously in that direction as the door flew open and a young woman flew out—a dark-haired dish of maybe twenty with wide eyes and a face drained of blood, her silk stockings flashing as she rushed my way.

  She fell into my arms and I said, “Are you wounded?”

  “No,” she swallowed, “but somebody is.”

  The poor kid was gasping for air; I hauled her toward the bank of elevators. Even under the strain, I was enjoying the feel and smell of her.

  “You wouldn’t be Joseph Bolton’s secretary, by any chance?” I asked, helping her onto the elevator.

  She nodded, eyes still huge.

  “Take her down,” I told the operator.

  And I headed back for that office. I was nearly there when I met Joseph Bolton, as he lurched down the hall. He had a gun in his hand. His light brown suitcoat was splotched with blood in several places; so was his right arm. He wasn’t wearing his eyeglasses, which made his face seem naked somehow. His expression seemed at once frightened, pained, and sorrowful.

  He staggered toward me like a child taking its first steps, and I held my arms out to him like daddy. But they were more likely his last steps: he fell to the marble floor and began to writhe, tracing abstract designs in his own blood on the smooth surface.

  I moved toward him and he pointed the gun at me, a little .32 revolver. “Stay away! Stay away!”

  “Okay, bud, okay,” I said.

  I heard someone laughing.

  A woman.

  I looked up and in the office doorway, feet planted like a giant surveying a puny world, was dumpy little Mildred, in her floral housedress and raccoon stole. Her mug was split in a big goofy smile.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him, Mr. Heller,” she said, lightly. “He’s just faking.”

  “He’s shot to shit, lady!” I said.

  Keeping their distance out of respect and fear were various tenth-floor tenants, standing near their various offices, as if witnessing some strange performance.

  “Keep her away from me!” Bolton managed to shout. His mouth was bubbling with blood. His body moved slowly across the marble floor like a slug, leaving a slimy red trail.

  I moved to Mrs. Bolton, stood between her and Bolton. “You just take it easy…”

  Mrs. Bolton, giggling, peeked out from in back of me. “Look at him, fooling everybody.”

  “You behave,” I told her. Then I called out to a businessman of about fifty near the elevators. I asked him if there were any doctors in the building, and he said yes, and I said then for Christsake go get one.

  “Why don’t you get up and stop faking?” she said teasingly to her fallen husband, the Southern drawl dripping off her words. She craned her neck around me to see him, like she couldn’t bear to miss a moment of the show.

  “Keep her away! Keep her away!”

  Bolton continued to writhe like a wounded snake, but he kept clutching that gun, and wouldn’t let anyone near him. He would cry out that he couldn’t breathe, beating his legs against the floor, but he seemed always conscious of his wife’s presence. He would move his head so as to keep my body between him and her round cold glittering eyes.

  “Don’t you mind Joe, Mr. Heller. He’s just putting on an act.”

  If so, I had a hunch it was his final performance.

  And now he began to scream in agony.

  I approached him and he looked at me with tears in his eyes, eyes that bore the confusion of a child in pain, and he relented, allowed me to come close, handed me the gun, like he was offering a gift. I accepted it, by the nose of the thing, and dropped it in my pocket.

  “Did you shoot yourself, Mr. Bolton?” I asked him.

  “Keep that woman away from me,” he managed, lips bloody.

  “He’s not really hurt,” his wife said, mincingly, from the office doorway.

  “Did your wife shoot you?”

  “Just keep her away…”

  Two people in white came rushing toward us—a doctor and a nurse—and I stepped aside, but the doctor, a middle-aged, rather heavyset man with glasses, asked if I’d give him a hand. I said sure and pitched in.

  Bolton was a big man, nearly two hundred pounds I’d say, and pretty much dead weight; we staggered toward the elevator like drunks. Like Bolton himself had staggered toward me, actually. The nurse tagged along.

  So did Mrs. Bolton.

  The nurse, young, blond, slender, did her best to keep Mrs. Bolton out of the elevator, but Mrs. Bolton pushed her way through like a fullback. The doctor and I, bracing Bolton, couldn’t help the young nurse.

  Bolton, barely conscious, said, “Please…please, keep her away.”

  “Now, now,” Mrs. Bolton said, the violence of her entry into the elevator forgotten (by her), standing almost primly, hands folded over the big black purse, “everything will be all right, dear. You’ll see.”

  Bolton began to moan; the pain it suggested wasn’t entirely physical.

  On the thirteenth floor, a second doctor met us and took my place hauling Bolton, and I went ahead and opened the door onto a waiting room where patients, having witnessed the doctor and nurse race madly out of the office, were milling about expectantly. The nurse guided the doctors and their burden down a hall into an X-ray room. The nurse shut the door on them and faced Mrs. Bolton with a firm look.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bolton, you’ll have to wait.”

  “Is that so?” she said.

  “Mrs. Bolton,” I said, touching her arm.

  She glared at me. “Who invited you?”

  I resisted the urge to say, you did, you fucking cow, and just stood back while s
he moved up and down the narrow corridor between the offices and examining rooms, searching for a door that would lead her to her beloved husband. She trundled up and down, grunting, talking to herself, and the nurse looked at me helplessly.

  “She is the wife,” I said, with a facial shrug.

  The nurse sighed heavily and went to a door adjacent to the X-ray room and called out to Mrs. Bolton; Mrs. Bolton whirled and looked at her fiercely.

  “You can view your husband’s treatment from in here,” the nurse said.

  Mrs. Bolton smiled in tight triumph and drove her taxicab of a body into the room. I followed her. Don’t ask me why.

  A wide glass panel looked in on the X-ray room. Mrs. Bolton climbed onto an examination table, got up on her knees, and watched the flurry of activity beyond the glass, as her husband lay on a table being attended by the pair of frantic doctors.

  “Did you shoot him, Mrs. Bolton?” I asked her.

  She frowned but did not look at me. “Are you still here?”

  “You lied to me, Mrs. Bolton.”

  “No, I didn’t. And I didn’t shoot him, either.”

  “What happened in there?”

  “I never touched that gun.” She was moving her head side to side, like somebody in the bleachers trying to see past the person sitting in front.

  “Did your husband shoot himself?”

  She made a childishly smug face. “Joe’s just faking to get everybody’s sympathy. He’s not really hurt.”

  The door opened behind me and I turned to see a police officer step in.

  The officer frowned at us, and shook his head as if to say “Oh, no.” It was an understandable response: it was the same cop, the mounted officer, who’d come upon the disturbance outside the Van Buren Hotel. Not surprising, really—this part of the Loop was his beat, or anyway his horse’s.

  He crooked his finger for me to step out in the hall and I did.

  “I heard a murder was being committed up on the tenth floor of 166,” he explained, meaning 166 West Jackson. “Do you know what happened? Did you see it?”

  I told him what I knew, which for somebody on the scene was damned little.

  “Did she do it?” the officer asked.

  “The gun was in the husband’s hand,” I shrugged. “Speaking of which…”