True Crime

by Max Allan Collins

“Who knows,” I said, getting a busy signal.

  I sat behind the desk. Yanked the window-glass wire-frames off and flung ’em in a drawer. So, the line was busy over at the Banker’s Building. It was just five after six. The pickup wasn’t to be made till six-fifty. Plenty of time.

  She sat across from me in the chair her father had sat in not long ago.

  “Why are we here?” she asked. Her eyes wide and brown and confused.

  “It’s a safe place,” I said. Drumming my fingers on my desk.

  “What about Ma, and Paula and everybody?”

  “They’re in the past, sugar.”

  “The past.”

  “That’s right. And you’re leaving the past behind you, understand?”

  “No. Not really…”

  “Do you know what’s happening today? What’s set to happen in about forty-five minutes?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  “A kidnapping. Do you want to be part of that?”

  “No,” she said. But she didn’t seem sure, as if I was posing some abstract problem that went way over her head.

  “Forget Ma and Paula and all of them. Got it?”

  “Why?”

  “Because those people are going to be in trouble. You don’t want to be in trouble, do you?”

  Her face fell, her eyes got even wider. “Why…you’re not going to rat on them…”

  “Never mind what I’m going to do,” I said, dialing again.

  Busy signal.

  “I don’t want you to rat on them,” she said. “Jim. Please don’t.”

  “You’re with me, now, remember?”

  “Jim…”

  “Are you with me now?”

  “Yes…”

  “Then you’ve got to go along with me. You went along with Candy Walker, you can go along with me, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Please don’t yell at me, Jim. Please don’t yell.”

  I didn’t know I was.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She stood; leaned her hands against the desk, and those big brown eyes I loved so much begged me. “Jim, if you call the police, leave Ma and Paula and Dolores and Helen out of it. Please. You got to promise.”

  “Okay. I promise.” But I was thinking about the police she’d mentioned. Maybe I should call them. But I figured Cowley and Purvis would want to handle this themselves; it would mean the difference to them between a feather in the cap or a major embarrassment. Squelching the kidnapping themselves beat hell out of having the local cops pull their director’s butt off the burner.

  And I could use Purvis and Cowley’s goodwill—I was involved in this just deep enough to need to explain myself, and better them than the Chicago cops, Christ! I was an accomplice in the murder of Dr. Joseph Moran, if you got right down to it. You could make a case—a convincing one—for me being part of the kidnap ring. But time was slipping away—if the snatch went down, I wouldn’t just be up shit creek, I’d be drowning in it. Maybe I should call the cops anyway; take my chances with Chicago’s finest—hell, I hadn’t been fed the goldfish in weeks.

  The number at the Banker’s Building was still busy.

  It was six-ten.

  I got up and pulled the Murphy bed down.

  “Jim! What are you doing?”

  Now she thought I was a sex fiend.

  “Are you sure this is all right with your friend…?”

  “It’s fine with him. And it ain’t whoopee time, so relax. You’re just going to take a rest. I have to step out for a while.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just a few blocks over. I got an appointment.”

  “But what if your friend comes back?”

  “It’ll be okay.” I sat her on the edge of the bed. “Just catch a nap. Okay?”

  “Jim, I’m so confused…what’s going on? What’s this about?” She had tears in her eyes.

  Shit.

  Without knowing it, without meaning to, I’d joined the club: joined the ranks of men who’d abused this girl, pushed her around, hurt her. Damnit. Fuck. Shit.

  I sat down on the bed next to her. Slipped an arm around her. “I won’t be gone long. Just stay here and take it easy. Tomorrow, I’m going to take you to see your daddy.”

  “Do you think that’s for the best?”

  “I do.”

  “But you said I should leave the past behind me, Jim.”

  “Some things you simply got to face before you can put ’em behind you. Now, I’m going to be with you, all the way. Right at your side. And then we’re coming back to the big city and find you some honest work. In fact, my friend who runs this office just might be able to use a secretary, at that. Would that suit you?”

  She smiled, but it was forced. “Sure, Jim. Any friend of yours…”

  I kissed her cheek, and she grabbed me, clutched at me. Kissed me hard on the mouth. There was more desperation than passion in it, and I held her close to me, hugged her close, and whispered in her ear, “I’m not going to hurt you, Louise—nobody’s going to hurt you anymore.”

  I tucked her under the covers and smiled at her and she smiled at me, a brave-little-soldier smile, and turned on her side and shut her eyes.

  I locked the office behind me, and got the hell out of there. It was six-fifteen. I was only a few blocks away from the Banker’s Building; three or four minutes by foot, five tops.

  All I had to do, I thought as I walked briskly by Binyon’s, was head over there and take the elevator up to the nineteenth floor and tell ‘em the tale. It was late enough that most, maybe all, their agents would be gone for the day—but at least the call to the cops could be placed by Purvis or Cowley—at least they could initiate and coordinate the effort to stop the kidnapping and nab the kidnappers. Somehow I didn’t think Hoover would grab a gun, though.

  I was walking by the Federal Building, now; sidewalks were all but empty, this time of day, and I could move right along. It felt good to be home, where the buildings were taller than the corn, where the cattle was lined up in the stockyards where it belonged. It would be over soon—already, I was out of the outlaw’s world and back in my own; and the girl I’d come to get was tucked safely away in my office. I almost smiled.

  But around the next corner there was one last street to cross.

  Maybe the feds, maybe Cowley anyway, could keep this thing from turning into a bloodbath. Just as I couldn’t allow myself to be party to Hoover’s kidnapping—even for twenty-five goddamn grand—a massacre of Floyd and Nelson and the others was nothing I cared to be part of, either.

  As I rounded the corner of Jackson, just before six-twenty, with half an hour to spare, moving to the crosswalk, I glanced down the street and there, in front of the Edison Building, was the backup car with Baby Face Nelson and Fred Barker sitting in it.

  And if the backup car was in place, the Hudson—and Karpis and Floyd and Dillinger—wouldn’t be far behind.

  40

  I slowed my pace.

  I couldn’t get lost in the crowd: there wasn’t one. The sidewalks weren’t empty, though—there were a few people around, so I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, either. I pulled the brim of my hat down, lowered my head, waited for the light and crossed Clark Street and walked toward the Banker’s Building. The backup car in front of the Edison Building was almost a block away. Far enough that I’d had to look hard to recognize Fred Barker behind the wheel of the car, a black Ford roadster.

  So maybe they wouldn’t notice me. They certainly wouldn’t be looking for me.

  Then again, I hadn’t been looking for them and I spotted ’em, easy enough.

  I glanced at my watch: six-twenty.

  Hoover’s powwow with Courtney and the police commissioner had been moved up, obviously, and the same inside source who’d leaked the original information had passed the change of plans along to Karpis and company. It had been a seven o’clock dinner, with the pickup to be made at ten till; my guess was it’d been moved up to six-thirt
y, in which case the next pickup time was right now.

  The Hudson should be making its appearance, any time.

  I walked by the Clark Street edge of the Continental Illinois Bank Building, and strolled down Quincy. Once the Banker’s Building was blocking me from the parked backup car’s view, I ran to the side door and found my way to the bank of elevators and punched the up button.

  I gave the uniformed operator, a tall red-haired guy of about twenty-five, a buck and said, “Nineteenth floor and step on it.”

  He yanked the handle so hard the box lurched, but he earned his dollar: within a minute we were on the nineteenth floor. I gave him another buck and told him to wait for me; he questioned that with his eyes, and I gave him another buck hurriedly and said there’d be a sawbuck for him if he kept his end up.

  Then I was off the elevator and running down the hall to the Division of Investigation field office.

  The door was shut.

  Locked.

  I banged on it.

  “Hey, in there! Come on—somebody!”

  Seconds that seemed an eternity passed and the door opened, and there was Cowley, his moon face somber as ever, then he squinted at me, which was his way of registering surprise.

  “Heller?” he said. Like he couldn’t believe I was standing there; I was something he thought he’d put behind him.

  “Is Hoover in there?”

  He sighed through his nose and his mouth made a tight line, barely opening to say, “Is that any concern of yours?”

  I pushed him out of the way, pushed inside the room.

  “Hey! What do you—”

  The room was full of desks and no people.

  “Where’s Hoover?” I demanded.

  “What business is it of yours?” He was indignant and condescending at the same time.

  I liked Cowley, far as it went, but it didn’t go that far. I grabbed him by his coat and vest with two hands and said, “Where the hell is he?”

  Cowley was bigger than me, and probably tougher, and armed, and a fed; but he forgot all about that and sputtered, “He and Purvis…they just went down in the elevator.”

  I let go of him. “Shit!”

  “You must’ve been coming up as they were going down. Why? What’s this about, Heller?”

  “Grab a tommy gun and come with me—I’ll explain in the elevator.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd and the rest of your public enemies’ list are in two cars down on the street, waiting for your precious goddamn director. Get a gun!”

  He went to a closet and unlocked it quickly and grabbed a tommy gun from a rack and an extra magazine and didn’t ask any more questions, just followed me out in the hall.

  My red-haired elevator guy was waiting; he grinned when he saw me coming, then the grin faded as he saw Cowley bringing up the rear with the Thompson.

  We got on, and went down.

  I filled him in quick: “There’s a fake state attorney’s car in front, to pick Hoover up. It’s a snatch. Three men in the car, including Alvin Karpis and Pretty Boy Floyd—two of ’em dressed as cops. There’s a backup car parked across the way, in front of the Edison Building, with extra firepower. Baby Face Nelson and Fred Barker are in that.”

  The elevator guy was glancing over at me, swallowing.

  Cowley said, “How’d you happen onto this?”

  “Time for that later. When did they move Hoover’s dinner party up?”

  Cowley squinted again, wondering how the hell I was so on top of all this. “They called before noon,” he said. “Courtney and the commissioner wanted it earlier. So they could just go over after work and not have to wait around.”

  I was getting my gun out from under my arm.

  Cowley touched my arm. “You just stay back. I’ll appreciate having you covering my butt, but you stay the hell back, understand?”

  I grinned at him. “I wish you wouldn’t swear like that. I hate to hear it, coming from a good Mormon.”

  He smiled, nervously, and the elevator guy set ’er down and opened the cage and Cowley took the lead, his footsteps slapping the marble floor as he headed toward the front door.

  Where a short, slightly stocky man in a dark suit had his back to us—Hoover—with another short man in a straw hat and white pants and blue coat—Purvis—just about to go out the inner doors into the vestibule and out onto the sidewalk.

  “Stop!” Cowley called, running, tommy gun in one hand, pointing up.

  But they were through the doors, now, and moving across the vestibule, and Cowley sprinted, and I was right behind him.

  He must’ve gone through the inner doors just seconds after Hoover and Purvis; I caught up a second or so later, and heard Cowley yell, “Hit the deck!”

  And saw Hoover, a dark little man whose eyes were as white in his face as a minstrel’s, look back, and Purvis, reacting faster, reach for one of his arms to pull him down.

  In a cop’s uniform, Dillinger, a.k.a. Sullivan, was holding open the back door of the black Hudson with the red and green headlights, for Hoover to get in.

  All this I took in in a split second, ’cause that’s all it took for Purvis to yank the startled Hoover by the arm and flatten him unceremoniously on the pavement while Cowley opened up with the chopper.

  The burst of bullets put a row of puckers across the heavily plated Hudson, kissed little spider webs into its bulletproof glass, and Dillinger caught at least one of the slugs, as he reared back from the impact, with a yowl, but tumbled in the back of the Hudson and the rider in front, Karpis, reached back and pulled the door shut and the Hudson pulled away, while Cowley moved forward, spraying it with slugs.

  Purvis was up and his revolver out and he took some pot-shots at the fleeing car; Hoover, on his belly, looked up with wide, wild eyes and then got on his knees and, keeping low, scrambled for the doors, and shouldered them open and he cowered against the wall. I was standing there with my gun out, keeping an eye on Cowley’s butt, like I’d been told to. I looked at the shaking, sweating director of the Division of Investigation and he glared at me, said, “What are you looking at?”

  I looked back outside.

  Traffic was light, but what few cars there were were slamming on brakes, and running up onto sidewalks. A Model A drove up on Cowley’s side of the street, on the walk, and Cowley had to let up fire. He moved out into the middle of the street, and started back in firing, as the Hudson narrowly missed some of the confused, frightened motorists who’d stumbled onto this.

  The Hudson, despite its portholes in the doors for gunplay, hadn’t fired a shot. It had, according to plan, ducked down Quincy, which was just a glorified alley, down the mouth of which was where Cowley now stood with his machine gun spewing.

  That was when I saw the backup, a roadster, come careening around onto Clark.

  I pushed open the glass door and yelled, “Cowley! Your flank!”

  Purvis, who was backing Cowley up, saw the car coming and hit the pavement.

  Barker was driving and Baby Face Nelson was hanging out the rider’s side, half-standing on the running board, with a tommy gun of his own in his hand. He had a crazed look on his face. He loved his work.

  “Sons of fucking bitches!” was his war cry, or one of them anyway—he said more, but you couldn’t hear it over his chopper.

  I fired a few shots over the roadster—I couldn’t make myself fire at Nelson, and to this day I can’t tell you why—but it was enough of a distraction to make him pull the Thompson and fire into the street, and that gave Cowley the split second he needed. He dove in the alley, and ducked in a recessed doorway, and the roadster did a screeching U-turn on two wheels and raced back toward Adams, disappearing around the corner.

  Then they were gone—both the Hudson and the backup.

  And there was nothing left but some startled pedestrians and shaken-up motorists, and two special agents whose suits and faces were dirty and rumpled from rolling around on th
e pavement.

  Cowley came around the corner; the tommy gun was pointing down now, but smoke was still curling out its barrel. He’d gone through both magazines. He looked tired, washed out. Purvis was just standing there, gun in hand, like a kid who just ran out of imaginary Indians to shoot.

  I was still standing there holding the glass door open with one hand, the automatic in the other. Nelson and the others hadn’t got a look at me—at least not enough of one to recognize me, I didn’t think. That was a break.

  Hoover was plastered against the wall, within the vestibule. Shaking. Eyes open wide. He really seemed terrified.

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I said.

  He swallowed. “What?”

  “Being afraid in a situation like this.”

  His eyes flared; he stepped away from the wall. “What’s your name, mister?”

  “My name’s Heller.”

  “If you prize your job, you’d better watch your tongue.”

  He thought I was one of theirs; a fed. That was a laugh.

  “And I’ve never seen such pathetic shooting,” he said. “You seemed to aim deliberately high—”

  “Mr. Hoover?”

  “What?”

  “Fuck you.”

  I went out onto the street and joined Cowley.

  Who said, “How’s the director doing?”

  Purvis was over talking to a couple of the motorists whose cars were up on the sidewalk, calming them down. A crowd was gathering; not a large one.

  “A change of diaper, and he’ll be a new man.”

  Cowley ignored that. “What’s this about, Heller? How’d you happen onto this?”

  “I didn’t. I been undercover looking for a runaway daughter. I fell in with a nest of thieves, you might say. I just shook loose from ’em this afternoon, and was on my way here to warn you, when I saw it was coming down early.”

  Cowley brushed a comma of brown hair back in place, and gave me a tight, one-sided smile. “Thanks, Heller. I’m glad you were here.”

  “It’s swell to be wanted.”

  Two beat cops, pulled away from their supper at a nearby restaurant no doubt, came running up.

  “What happened here?” one of them said.