He brushed himself off, his coat first; the few other reporters were dispersing, smiling at Davis’s fate. He dusted off his hat. “And here I wrote that nice piece about you the other day.”
I decked him again.
He looked up, rubbed his face. “Didn’t like the piece, huh?”
I helped him up again. “Don’t say anything else. I might hurt you next time.”
“There’s a hundred in it for the personal story of your love life with Estelle. Don’t do it! I’ll press charges, Heller, I really will!”
“Go away, Davis.”
“Goddamn. The war sure has soured you. What happened to your sense of humor? Used to be a guy could depend on you, when a C-note was involved.”
“Go away.”
He looked at me like I was some weird animal he’d never seen before, shook his head, dug his hands in his overcoat pocket and walked toward his parked auto. It had a C sticker, too. For purposes of delivering horseshit, I would imagine.
I crossed the street, heading toward the El station, when the front door of the parked limo swung open and a uniformed chauffeur stepped out and said, “Mr. Heller. Excuse me, sir?”
I’d never heard “Excuse me, sir” posed as a question before; it was novel enough an event to make me stop in my tracks, and back up, despite the cold and the snow.
The chauffeur was a pallid fleshy-faced man of about forty-five with a bottle-bloodshot nose; terrific choice for a driver.
He said, “Mr. Wyman would like to speak to you.”
“Who? Oh. Yeah. Sure.”
He opened the back door and I climbed in. A man of medium but powerful build, in his mid-fifties, in a gray suit and a dark tie, his overcoat folded neatly on the seat beside him, sat morosely, staring forward, wet trails on his ruggedly handsome face.
This was Earl Wyman, self-made man, a construction worker who bettered himself, the president of an ornamental iron company with a fancy Michigan Avenue office, now, a man who two years ago had been messily, publicly divorced by his wife, who had named one Estelle Carey as a correspondent in the proceedings.
I got in and sat there and Wyman said, without looking at me, “Could I drop you at the El station?”
“Certainly. It’s nasty weather even for a short walk.”
He tapped on the window separating us from the front seat and the chauffeur, who responded to the tap by pulling out into the street. We were not headed toward the El station, and I said as much.
Wyman, still not looking at me, said, “We’ll just drive for a few minutes, if that’s all right. I’d like a word with you, Mr. Heller.”
I unbuttoned my overcoat; it was hot in here. The car’s heater was a furnace.
“How is it you know me?”
He smiled faintly, just for a second. “I might say from the newspapers. You’ve had occasion to be in them. Most recently just the other day. And, in passing, last night and this morning. But your experiences on Guadalcanal are quite…stirring. You must be a brave young man.”
“I’m not particularly brave, and youth, I find, is fleeting.”
He looked at me. His eyes were gray. And red.
“A wise observation, Mr. Heller.”
“Not really. More like trite. Estelle told you about me. That’s where you know me from.”
He nodded, slowly. “She trusted you. I’d even say…she came close to loving you. Or at any rate I could tell she had been in love with you once. As much as she could love any man, that is. Of course she loved mammon best of all.”
Well, that was a little arch, but I couldn’t argue with him.
I said, “She loved Estelle, not wisely, but too well. And so did you.”
He looked away from me. “I loved her very, very much, for the little good it did me. She could be very cruel. No—that’s not fair. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She was just so very…acquisitive.”
“Yeah. She was that. What can I do for you, Mr. Wyman?”
He didn’t answer. Not directly. “I’m so…ashamed of myself. I came here today, full well intending to go in and sit among the mourners, but… I came here for the inquest, you know, early this morning, and they continued it till a few weeks from now, so I came out to my limousine to wait, and then the reporters began showing up, and I… I was a coward.” His head lurched forward and he covered his face and began weeping. “I was a coward. A craven coward. I loved her so. And I didn’t, couldn’t so much as go in and…”
I shifted in my seat. This was the most uncomfortable limo I’d ever sat in, and it wasn’t just the heat, and it didn’t have anything to do with the seat cushions.
“Look, Mr. Wyman,” I said. “She’s dead. It doesn’t matter whether you went in there and paid your last respects or not. Say good-bye to her in your own way…in your, you know, your own heart.”
He wiped his face off, with almost frantic swipes of one palm, as if noticing for the first time that tears were there, suddenly embarrassed by them, saying, “I… I like to think she knows I came today. That I… I did, in my own private way, pay my proper respects. That I did, that I do, still love her. That she’s watching, from above.”
If Estelle was watching, it probably wasn’t from that particular vantage point; if she was watching, it was probably hotter there than this car. Or her apartment had been, at the end. If she’d gone anywhere.
But I said, “Sure, Mr. Wyman. That’s the ticket. I’m sure she knows how you feel. Now, uh, the next train leaves in ten minutes. What can I do for you?”
He looked at me, tentatively. “The papers mentioned you were one of the first at the…scene.”
“That’s right.”
“Did you happen to have a look around the apartment? Did you aid the detectives in examining Estelle’s things?”
I nodded. “Up to a point, yes.”
“The, uh, stories said that certain personal effects were found…letters from a serviceman, photos, an address book…my name was in the latter, though the papers don’t have that. Yet.”
“I saw all that stuff, yes.”
Now he looked at me sharply, intensely. The gray eyes alert. “Did you see anything else?”
“I saw a lot of things, including Estelle herself and various instruments of torture.”
He shuddered. “That’s not what I’m inquiring about.”
It was so hot in this goddamn car, I was sweating; snow storm outside, and I’m sweating. “Mr. Wyman, I appreciate your grief, I share it, but will you get to the fucking point?”
He sighed. “I understand your frustration. I hope you can forgive my, well…I’m out of sorts today, Mr. Heller. This has shaken me. This…”
“Get to the point. I have a train to catch.”
He turned to the fogged-up window next to him, as if looking out. “Did you see a red book?”
“A red book?”
He stared at the fogged window. “With a clasp. Perhaps two inches thick. The book, I mean.”
“A diary?”
Now he looked at me. “A diary.”
“Estelle kept a diary?”
“Yes. Did you see it?”
“No. There was no diary. And I was one of the first on the scene, as you said.”
His eyes narrowed. “Not the very first.”
“The firemen were the very first. Some patrolmen and detectives after that.”
He was quite forceful, now, as he spoke; for the first time, I could see the successful man of business in him.
He said, “I believe that someone stole that diary. Perhaps one of those…public servants who preceded you.”
I shrugged. “That’s certainly possible.”
“I would like you to get it back.”
“That would be withholding evidence, Mr. Wyman.”
He gestured in an open-handed way meant to suggest how reasonable he was. “Mr. Heller, you can read the damn thing if you find it. If what is in the diary should seem to you potentially helpful, in an investigation of her murder, why
by all means turn it over to the police.”
“After tearing out any pages referring to you, you mean.”
Tiny smile. “Of course. You see, I’m about to be remarried. And, I’ve reason to believe, Estelle…recorded personal things about me. About us.”
“Sexual things, you mean.”
He pursed his lips. Then said, “That is correct. I’ll give you two thousand dollars, and expenses.”
“I want a grand retainer. No refunds if I can’t come through for you.”
“Done.” P. T. Barnum was right.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
“Mr. Heller, I’m engaged to a lovely woman. From a good family. You must help me keep this scandal contained.”
“I thought you loved Estelle.”
“I did. I do. I was still seeing her, from time to time. I won’t deny that. I’ve admitted as much to my fiancée, and we’re working that out. But another public display of my indiscretions could ruin me. Personally. Financially.”
He reminded me of Eliot talking about how Nitti was slipping.
I said, “When did you last see Estelle?”
“Sunday.”
This was Wednesday.
“That recently?”
“That recently. It was a…farewell dinner of sorts. I told her this would be our last evening together, because I was going to be married again. I…think I even believed what I was saying. At any rate, I called for her at 9:00 P.M.” He smiled, privately. “We wore evening clothes. She was lovely. We spent the evening at the Buttery, where we dined and danced. As usual, Estelle didn’t drink and she didn’t smoke. She seemed in exceptionally high spirits. She was doing well; she had a lot of money in the bank, she said. I shouldn’t worry about her future.” Tears were rolling again; God, I felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t the heat, it was the humanity. “I don’t know where she got her money. She hadn’t worked for several years.”
He didn’t know she was a call girl, then; well, the papers would tell him about it soon enough.
Speaking of which.
“Mr. Wyman,” I said, “if a cop or somebody lifted that diary, and didn’t turn it in as evidence, then it’s going to be sold to the papers. That’s the only reason a cop would swipe it. To make a buck in that fashion.”
His expression was firm. “Let it be known—let it quietly be known—that I will double any newspaper’s highest bid.”
“Okay,” I said. “But you better consider this. The killers themselves may have taken it. If it incriminated them, that’s quite likely.”
“I’ve considered that.”
“They may even have known about its existence, and its hiding place in the apartment may have been information they tortured out of her.”
“I’ve considered that as well.”
“That’s just dandy, ’cause finding Estelle’s killers, well—that’s something I don’t know if I’m up to. I’ll be frank. I’d like to find them. I’d like to blow their brains out. But Captain Drury is looking, too, and he’s much better equipped than I am. And he’s every bit the detective I am, and twice the cop. And there will be dozens of suspects in this thing. Estelle got around. So I’m not promising anything.”
He leaned over and touched my hand. I felt even more uncomfortable, now.
He said, quite earnestly, “Estelle had faith in you. I have faith in you, too.”
“Swell. I got faith in that thousand-buck retainer. You can make me out a check now, or send it over by messenger.”
He looked away, seeming disappointed in me, and in life and the world in general, said he’d send a messenger, and I got out and took the El.
I met Eliot for a late lunch at the Berghoff. Just because we were at war with Germany didn’t mean I couldn’t eat some Wienerschnitzel, if I felt like it. They were even still serving beer in steins, though the menu now described the cuisine as “Bavarian.” Also, my serving of schnitzel seemed postage-stamp size, hardly the Berghoff’s style. War is hell.
We sat in one corner of the busy open room, where waiters in black tails with long white aprons held trays of steaming food high on upturned palms as they wound swiftly around and through the scattered, clustered tables like acrobats with a mission. It was comforting being in this no-nonsense, wood-and-glass Protestant church of a restaurant, a true Chicago fixture dating back before anybody was alive, a bastion single-handedly stemming the tide of change, despite such minor setbacks as meat rationing and “Bavarian” euphemism. Here I felt at home. Here I felt like I was in the Chicago I remembered.
Also, it was the sort of noisy, bustling room, brimming with people, that provided cover for a private conversation.
“I made those calls first thing,” Eliot said, referring to his efforts to track down D’Angelo’s whereabouts. “No response yet. Will you be in your office all afternoon?”
“I plan to be.”
“If I get word, I’ll let you know.”
“I’d appreciate that. Sooner the better.” Drury, working from the letters signed with the initials “A.D.,” that photo and the San Diego referral address, would not be far behind me.
Eliot was eating pig’s knuckles and sauerkraut, a Berghoff specialty. Between bites, he said, “You were right about Dean, by the way.”
“What d’you mean?”
“He’s clammed up, all right. Whether Estelle Carey’s murder was a message somebody sent him or not, he sure took it that way.”
“So he won’t be testifying, then?”
Eliot smirked humorlessly. “Not as simple as that. He’ll testify. He’ll just have a…selective memory.”
“Well, you did say Dean was the last to cooperate.”
“That’s right, and he’s only gradually been revealing bits and pieces of this and that. He’s never mentioned Nitti or Ricca or Campagna or Capone by name, for instance.”
The Capone in question was Ralph “Bottles” Capone, the soft-drink bottler, one of Al’s brothers.
“But he has backed up Browne and Bioff’s admissions,” Eliot went on, “about the Hollywood shakedowns.”
“In other words, he’s trying to tell just enough to get his sentence reduced.”
“Without buying himself a cement overcoat when he finally gets sprung, yes. It’s unlikely he’ll retract anything he’s already admitted; he won’t go opening himself up to contempt or perjury or anything. But it’s clear he’s remembered all he’s going to remember.”
“What about Lum and Abner?”
He smiled, wryly. “Bioff and Browne? The effect has been quite different. If anything, the boys are going to spill even more, if that’s possible.” His expression darkened. “Both their wives got anonymous phone calls last night, telling ’em to tell their husbands to keep their mouths shut or ‘you’ll get cut—your kids, too.’ This morning, I understand, Willie was raving and ranting—‘We sit around in jail for those bastards and they go around killing our families. The hell with ’em.’ That sort of thing.”
“Those phone calls don’t necessarily mean Estelle’s murder was a mob hit, you know.”
He shook his head, smiled wearily. “You still can’t buy that as something Nitti would do.”
“No. It just isn’t in character. I keep thinking of the Cermak hit, and the lengths he went to, to have his revenge without stirring up the heat. This is a man who had the mayor of Chicago killed, Eliot, and got away with it.”
“That was ten years ago, Nate. This is a different time, and Nitti’s a different man.”
I drank some beer. “You may be right. We’ll see.”
“Are you looking into this Carey matter yourself?”
“Not officially. Let’s just say I’m on the outskirts.”
“Those are dangerous outs to skirt. Didn’t you tell me once that Nitti told you to stay out of his business? That was good advice. Drury’s a top-notch cop; let him handle it.”
I shrugged. “That’s good advice, too.”
“Take it, then.”
; “What else do you have for me?”
He shook his head again, smiled with good-natured frustration. “Well, I can tell you that the FBI talked to Estelle a few weeks ago. I don’t know if they got anything out of her or not. But I do know they talked to her. So did the tax boys.”
“In reference to Dean’s missing million?”
“Mostly. And the grand jury investigation in general.”
“Would she have been called to testify?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Would she have talked?”
“I don’t know. Maybe somebody didn’t want to risk she might.” He sipped his beer, gave me a crafty look. “There’s also a theory that it was her that blew the whistle on Dean.”
I sat forward. “Hell, I heard she hid out with Nick, when he was ducking his indictment. That she dyed her hair black and moved into a cheap flat with him, in Cicero.”
“Yes, which is where Hoover’s finest picked him up,” Eliot said. “After somebody tipped them off as to where he was, that is.”
“Estelle?”
“That I didn’t find out. It’s an interesting wrinkle, though, isn’t it? Makes Nicky Dean himself a suspect, if it was a contract hit, that is.”
“Can’t you find out whether she fingered him or not?”
“That information’ll likely be given Drury, in good due course. Besides, I can only do so much sniffing around for you, you know. It’s got to seem casual, gossipy. If I poke too hard, somebody’ll poke back.”
“I know that, Eliot, and I appreciate it, what you’re doing.”
Pig knuckles put away, he used his napkin. Smiled again. “Enjoy me while you can, because tomorrow I’m out of here. It’s back to Cleveland.”
“To see the wife?”
“Yes, and to check in with the Defense Health regional office there. I’m on a swing where I’m spending a few days at each of our regional offices—there’s twelve of ’em, from Boston to San Francisco—giving this co-op workshop with the FBI.”
“Gee, do they have VD in Cleveland now? That place is really getting up to date.”
“Sure there’s VD. It takes the proper stamp out of your ration book to get it, however.”
“Which reminds me,” I said, standing, throwing my napkin down. “I got to walk over to the courthouse and get mine.”
The Million-Dollar Wound (Nathan Heller) Page 26