Neon Mirage

by Max Allan Collins

  “Put your fuckin’ hands in the air,” I added, and they did.

  I knew them. I don’t just mean that they matched up with the descriptions given by Two-Gun Pete’s trio of colored witnesses, and the orderly’s description of the “reporters”: no. I knew them from the West Side. The widow’s-peaked guy was Davey Finkel. The guy with glasses was Joseph “Blinkey” Leonard. West Side boys—like me. Well, not quite like me, I hope.

  “Okay, Davey,” I said to Finkel, “one step forward.”

  With my left hand, I patted him down; under the loose green top, he had a .45 automatic tucked in his waistband—he was wearing slacks under the baggy pajama bottoms. I tossed the piece just behind me and it clanked on the fire escape floor.

  “One step back,” I told him, and nodded to his balding friend. “Now you, Blinkey.”

  I disarmed him, as well; he carried a relatively small gun, a .32 automatic, but it had a silencer attached, making it bulky. This, had I not intercepted them, would have been the murder weapon, the little darling that would’ve given Ragen a goodbye kiss. I tossed it just behind me, too, clanking.

  “What’s a couple of nice Jewish bookies like you guys doing playing torpedo, anyway?”

  “Why don’t you just let us lam out of here, Heller,” Finkel said, in his sandpaper voice. “You won this round, okay?”

  “No hard feelings,” Blinkey said; his voice was higher pitched but just as unpleasant.

  “I got hard feelings,” I said. “You boys tried to kill me last Monday.”

  They shut their traps, glanced at each other, looked back at me. Finkel was scowling; Blinkey had a bland, blank expression.

  “Now we’re all going to step inside,” I said, jerking my head toward the door to the Meyer House third floor. “You boys, first. Feel free to pull something and give me an excuse.”

  Just behind them, coming up the fire escape steps, came a painfully thin patient, about thirty, with a gray pallor and dazed expression and green psyche-ward p.j.s. I knew just looking at him he was a veteran; he had combat in his face.

  “Can you see the lake from here?” the man said, very slowly.

  “Please,” I started, “get off…”

  Finkel grabbed the skinny figure and goddamn hurled him at me, knocking me back against the fire-escape rail, hard; and quickly headed back down the iron stairway, Leonard already having a head start on him.

  I brushed past the confused psyche patient and followed them down, the fire escape stairs rattling like a passing El. I had a gun and they didn’t, but they stayed a landing ahead of me and on each landing were more psyche patients, and when they reached the bottom, there were more psyche patients still, a sea of green nutcases they waded into, poor goddamn innocents that were in the way of me getting a shot off at these guilty sons of bitches. They didn’t head for Lake Park Avenue, possibly because a cop was patrolling it, but to the right, around toward the Meyer House parking lot and loading area.

  Their car was probably in this small lot, but it wasn’t going to do them any good at the moment, because a food delivery truck was slowly maneuvering—and blocking—the narrow alley between the parking lot, the Meyer House and another hospital building. And that was the only way out.

  So they were on foot, running down an aisle between parked cars, then squeezing past that delivery truck through the alley, two desperate men in green pajamas.

  I followed, gun in hand, running through the parking lot, edging past the truck, following them out onto 29th; they were moving fast, but tearing at their outer covering, shedding their green tops, beneath which were white sportshirts. They crossed to Ellis Avenue, a street of two-and three-story buildings whose once proud architecture had long since decayed, cutting across a lot made vacant by an urban renewal project.

  Finkel and Leonard were heavier men than me, but younger, and, so far anyway, faster. I could take a shot at them, but they were unarmed; wasn’t sure I could risk it. I was breathing hard, stumbling on the rocks and rubble of the vacant lot, watching up ahead as they climbed a fence that was half-fallen down already. When I climbed it, I found myself in an alley. Soon I was trailing them through a nightmare landscape, the garbage-strewn alley running past the ass-ends of crumbling tenements whose tiers of back porch balconies sagged, their wooden slats like rotting teeth about to fall out. But it was strangely deserted—not a single colored face looked out from a window; no children jumped rope or sang songs. Yet in the distance I could hear music. A marching band was accompanying us as we ran…

  And, God bless John Philip Sousa, I was gaining on them; they were glancing back, seeing that I was, some panic in their faces, and I grinned and poured it on. Then, at alley’s end, they rounded the corner, on what must have been 32nd, and soon I realized why it was so deserted, understood the band music, remembered: Bud Billikens Day.

  Thirty-second Street itself was thronged with colored kids in Boy Scout uniforms being lined up for marching purposes by similarly garbed dark adults; and some kind of high school marching band, in gaudy uniform, was already in rows, practicing a tune. Most of this activity was in the street itself, but there was overflow and parents and such on the sidewalks, including the two white men in white sportshirts and green pajama bottoms who went running through that crowd, knocking people aside, women and children included, and people were immediately pissed. Into that hostile arena I ran, having tucked my nine millimeter away as soon as I saw this mass of humanity, doing my best not to knock into anybody, slowing down accordingly.

  And then I was at South Park Avenue, where the parade was in full swing, sidewalks packed; this boulevard, with its four lanes divided by a parkway, was thronged with colored people, in their summer finery, men in straw hats, women in bonnets, kids getting their Sunday duds stained from free ice cream and candy and pop, families filling the sidewalks, lining the parkway, as marching bands and floats streamed by.

  Through this pushed my two psyche ward escapees, jostling an otherwise utterly Negro crowd that was too stunned by this Caucasian presence to do anything; I followed after, but was falling back, slowed by the sidewalk swarm. I felt hands on me, touching, slapping, but nobody outright grabbed me, or hit me, or had yet, at least. I couldn’t even make out any cries of outrage, in the general confusion of band music and the crowd noise.

  I’d lost sight of them, now. Hopelessness rising in me, I got to the front of the packed sidewalk and looked for white faces in a black world. It was a Klansman’s worst nightmare come true.

  And then there they were: they’d moved out into the street, were running alongside a float from Lake View Dairy, where a giant shredded paper milk bottle served as the backdrop for a throne for a lovely high yellow gal in a gown and crown, who was waving to her subjects.

  By the time I caught up with the dairy float, Finkel and Leonard had cut across in front of it, and were up running alongside a pack of cyclists on decorated bikes. I cut in front of the float, too, fell in behind the two. They had perhaps twenty yards on me. I smiled. They seemed to be tiring; I was going to catch them after all—I was getting my second wind. People were pointing at us, shouting at us, perhaps some of them not quite sure we weren’t part of the festivities.

  Then I saw the two of them veer off the street and back into the crowd, on the parkway side. Getting away from the parade.

  I picked up speed, and a hand reached out and grabbed me and my legs went out from under me and I rolled forward, in an awkward somersault, skinning myself on the pavement.

  When I finally picked myself up, a colored cop was standing there, glowering at me. He had a nightstick in one hand; the sun was glinting off the polished copper buttons of his blue uniform.

  I glanced up ahead.

  My psyche-ward escapees were gone.

  I felt a hand on my arm, yanking me off the street as the dairy float floated by, the high yellow queen waving, enjoying her moment.

  “I don’t suppose it would do any good,” I said to the cop as he pulled me thr
ough the crowd on the parkway, “to mention I’m a personal friend of Two-Gun Pete.”

  “He’s Mr. Jefferson to you,” the cop said, and folded me in half with his billy club.

  In the background, the colored crowd was cheering.

  The Pershing on 64th Street, the top Negro hotel in Chicago, drew a lot of white trade at its Beige Room. On most any Saturday night, eight hundred people of both races packed themselves into this basement ballroom that was Bronzeville’s swankiest nightclub. Tonight, Peggy Hogan and I, just the two of us at a cloth-covered table for four, were among them.

  “I haven’t been in a black-and-tan in years,” she said, sipping her stinger through cherry red lips. She looked terrific, wearing a stylish beige suit, in honor of the room, a white flower in her pinned back hair; Joan Crawford would’ve killed for those padded shoulders. “And this is the slickest black-and-tan I’ve ever seen.”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to muster some enthusiasm, “slick as a whistle.” I did not look or feel terrific. I was bruised and skinned-up and sore, from marching in the Bud Billikens Day parade (and having it march on me); if Two-Gun Pete Jefferson hadn’t spoken up for me at the Fifth District Station, I’d probably still be in a cell.

  Yet here I was in Bronzeville, again—at Two-Gun Pete’s request, otherwise I wouldn’t have come within a mile of the black belt tonight. But Pete had asked me to meet him here around ten, because the Ragen shooting investigation was “really popping.” It was now ten-thirty-something.

  I was already set to go out with Peggy this evening, and so I did, even though we got a late start. I had no qualms about bringing her into this part of town: she was a South Side girl herself, though obviously not from this particular part of the South Side. And besides, any effort I made on behalf of her uncle was jake with her. And I don’t mean Guzik.

  The Beige Room was the latest, and most elaborate ever, of these so-called black-and-tan clubs to come into white vogue. Such clubs came and went, and only the Club DeLisa, which had been around for almost twenty years, seemed an exception to that rule. I preferred the DeLisa to this place; the prices weren’t jacked up there, even if the surroundings were less ritzy.

  A girl with a milk chocolate complexion and a body that reminded me of a certain bubble dancer was leading a Caribbean conga line of colored babes out on the Beige Room’s stage. They had an elaborate floor show here, and if the names of the performers weren’t immediately recognizable, the M.C.—a smooth singer named Larry Steel—would remind you that this chanteuse was with Cab Calloway for four years, and that that comic appeared in a movie with Abbott and Costello.

  The floor show had just gotten over and we were deciding whether or not to eat here or elsewhere when Two-Gun Pete strode up, wearing a flashy double-breasted tan suit buttoned over the bulge of at least one of his two guns, with a beautiful young light-skinned Negro woman on his arm. She was wearing a bright yellow dress that followed her curves; when she entered the dark room it was like the sun came out. She looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t place her.

  Pete introduced her as Reba Johnson and I shook her small, smooth hand and made introductions where Peg and me were concerned.

  “You look pretty good for a man who spent the afternoon in the slam,” Pete said, sitting, a smirk on that sullenly handsome mug of his.

  “It was less than half an hour,” I said. “But it did seem like all afternoon. They were understaffed, with the parade and all going on. It’s lucky you stopped by. So. Did you run your witnesses down?”

  “Well, yeah, but since it was Bud Billikens Day, it wasn’t no picnic,” he said, and grinned, and his date smiled and giggled. The Billikens festivities ended up with a big picnic in Washington Park, you see.

  I wasn’t particularly amused by anything to do with Billikens, thank you. I said, “You showed them some suspect photos?”

  He nodded. “About a dozen that Drury brung ’round, with pictures of Finkel and Leonard mixed in. They both of ’em picked ’em out.”

  “Both? You had four witnesses.”

  “I never did track the newsboy down, and I’m meetin’ with the other eyeball, Tad Jones, over at the DeLisa in about an hour. But there ain’t no doubt in my mind. Finkel and Leonard was the boys with the big guns in the big green truck, all right.”

  “I wonder if Drury has tracked them down yet.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jefferson said.

  “The dairy float queen!” I said, snapping my fingers.

  “What?” Peggy said.

  I pointed to Reba, who was smiling with pleasure that pretended to be chagrin. “You were on that float today!”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Peggy asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just proves it’s a small world.”

  “Yeah,” Jefferson said, “but it’s a big city. And Finkel and Leonard are somewheres lyin’ low in it.”

  “I hope your witnesses hold up, Pete. Because I don’t have a thing on ’em, where the attempted hospital hit is concerned.”

  Peggy reached for my arm, gripped it. “How can you say that? You told me you caught them dead to rights!”

  “I did. But by the time I got back to the hospital, their car was gone, and so were the guns I took off them.”

  “Weren’t there any witnesses?”

  “Oh, sure. Half a dozen nutcases. Maybe a few more, if you count the ones with split personalities twice.” I shook my head, chipped at my rum cocktail. “Nobody a prosecutor would dare put on the stand. And the cop who left his post, leaving that fire escape unguarded, claims he developed stomach flu and had to head for the shitter. Excuse my French, ladies.”

  “You gonna have a little…talk with this sick cop?” Jefferson asked, with a very white, very nasty smile.

  “I don’t think I’ll bother. I asked Drury to take him off hospital duty, and maybe Bill will do something about him. But I can’t go feeding the goldfish to a cop.”

  “Feeding the goldfish?” Reba asked.

  “He means working somebody over with a rubber hose,” Peggy explained.

  “How do you know what that means?” I said, a little amazed.

  “I wasn’t born yesterday,” she smiled, demurely.

  “Sometimes I think you weren’t born this century,” I said.

  “Besides, you’re not the rubber hose type,” Peggy said.

  Jefferson smiled at that, tried with no luck to wave a waitress down to order some drinks. I suggested we go over to the Club DeLisa, where the drinks were cheaper and Tad Jones would be showing up before long.

  The Club DeLisa was, among the black-and-tan niteries of the South Side, a true survivor; when the place burned down, proprietor Mike DeLisa just moved across State Street and started again. I’m always suspicious when restaurants or nightclubs burn down and reopen, but no insurance company ever hired me to investigate the DeLisa, so what the hell. I could enjoy the sixty-five-cent highballs, no minimum or cover, with the rest of the clientele, which was just slightly more colored than it was white. The room was as big as a barn and about as fancy; it had a low, ceiling-tiled ceiling, and used the time-honored nightclub effect of dim lighting to hide its flaws.

  DeLisa, our short, white, deadpan host, who pumped the hand of every male patron as he entered, regardless of race, was said to have been a pal of Capone’s. That impressed out-of-towners.

  “Haven’t seen you here for a while, Mr. Heller,” DeLisa said. He wore a dark suit and a red bow tie.

  “I didn’t think you’d remember me, Mike.”

  “Anybody who sits at Mr. Nitti’s table is worth remembering.”

  “Anybody who sits at Mr. Nitti’s table these days is dead. Got a table for four live ones? I know it’s Saturday, and you’re packed—”

  “I got a ringside saved for Serritella, but he ain’t showed yet. He’s an hour late.”

  “Serritella?” That was sweet. “Well, give us his table, and send him
over if he shows. We’re old pals.”

  I pressed a fin into DeLisa’s hand and a smile cracked the deadpan, barely, and he handed it back.

  “No tip’s necessary, Mr. Heller. Not for a man who’s friend to both Frank Nitti and Two-Gun Pete Jefferson.”

  “Keep it anyway.”

  He shrugged and slipped it into his jacket pocket. He was from Chicago, where you rarely turn down money, and you never turn it down twice.

  “Mike,” Jefferson said, slipping an arm around the little white man’s shoulder as he walked us over to our table, “if somebody asks for me, fella name of Tad Jones, send him over.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Jefferson.”

  From our ringside table we watched a wild floor show— while the Red Saunders Band played, a twentyish, scantily-clad colored cutie named Viola Kemp sang and danced and then stood on her head, then tied herself up like a human pretzel, legs tucked behind her head as she beamed, her face perched above her sweet bottom. Then a guy named Harold King tap-danced on roller skates on top of a rickety card table, blindfolded; it was the damnedest thing. Finally some sepia babes in tutus spoofed ballet steps to the band’s hot music. It was not as sophisticated a show as the Chez Paree—it wasn’t as sophisticated as the Beige Room, either—but it was sure as hell fun.

  The waitresses were almost as pretty as the chorus girls, though instead of skimpy frilly outfits they wore simple white blouses and navy blue skirts, and one of them brought us our meals, and we all four had the specialty of the house, thick, juicy, onion-covered steaks, under four bucks per. For a moment I wondered why I didn’t come down to Bronzeville more often; then I moved a muscle, and the aches and pains from this afternoon reminded me.

  DeLisa was escorting our way a slightly chubby white gentleman, perhaps fifty years of age, on whose arm was a beautiful young girl, also white; she was as blonde as Betty Grable, but a whole lot younger, possibly a Joliet Josie, which is to say jailbait, though her makeup sought to add some years and maturity. The part of her spilling out the top of her low-cut blue gown did a better job of it.