Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 14

by Chicago Confidential (v5. 0)

  I shook my head. “Hannan, that girl doesn’t have any free will—she’s on the damn spike.”

  “And you were gonna get her off it, I suppose? Maybe that’s your answer—she decided she didn’t wanna get off it. You weren’t trying some cold turkey number on her, were you, Nate?”

  “Hell no. I’m not that fucking stupid.” But I didn’t elaborate: I couldn’t tell the St. Clair’s house detective that I had been paying for her habit to be temporarily fed, that I’d arranged a delivery of H to hold her over, here at the hotel.

  “She didn’t look like she was coming down, at that,” Hannan said.

  Maybe he was wise to what I’d done.

  “Listen…thanks. I appreciate it.” I dug into my pocket.

  But Hannan put a hand on my suitcoat sleeve. “That C note you already gave me’ll do just fine…it let me spread some around and have plenty left for me. Hey, I didn’t do you much of a service, anyway, as it turns out…. Sorry, buddy.”

  The hotel operator said, yes, she’d been working the switchboard on Sunday; and several calls had come through for my room yesterday, which she’d connected. So Jackie had taken calls meant for me—or had someone called for her?

  I tried to imagine Rocco calling Jackie and convincing her to come back to him. He’d been tired of her, after all…but could his brother, the Machiavellian Charley, have advised Rock to take this potential witness back into the fold…at least for now?

  When I was grabbing a burger at the hotel coffee shop, I spotted two Chez Paree showgirls—in babushkas over pin curls and no makeup, unrecognizable as glamour pusses—sharing a booth. They agreed to give me a call if Jackie showed back up around there. A long shot, but one of the things Rocco could have enticed Jackie back with—besides smack—was a return to the Adorables chorus line.

  At the office, Gladys informed me that Bill Drury had called, wanting to meet with me this afternoon.

  “You didn’t have anything in the book for four o’clock,” she said at her reception area desk, “so I wrote him in…. I can try to contact him and cancel if you like.”

  “No, that’s all right.”

  “I told him to bring back those Revere recorders, if he was dropping by.”

  “He hasn’t returned them yet?”

  “No. And he has a paycheck coming.”

  I doubted Drury had been doing much A-1 work in the past several weeks, but I merely nodded at Gladys and headed for my office.

  A knock at my door preceded Lou Sapperstein sticking his head in; he found me sitting at my desk, leaning my chin into an elbow-propped hand.

  “How was D.C.?” he said, ambling over and depositing himself in one of the client chairs.

  I’d made Lou aware not only of my trip, but that the A-1 was working for Sinatra, on the singer’s “pinko” problem.

  “Fine,” I said. “A success. McCarthy’s laying off.”

  “Great.” Lou didn’t ask how I’d managed it; he’d learned a long time ago not to ask me how I pull things off. “Have you called Frankie boy, yet?”

  “No. I’ll do that.”

  “Man, is he gonna be relieved…. You look a little peaked, my friend. Have a rocky ride home?”

  I looked at him, wondering if “rocky” had been a dig; Lou’s deadpan showed nothing.

  I said, “That girl I took in…the one Rocco threw out on her ass—Jackie Payne? She’s disappeared.”

  He sat forward. “Shall we put somebody on it? I got two good boys sitting out in that bullpen, doing paperwork, just to keep ’em from playing with themselves.”

  “She seems to have left my protective custody of her own volition.” I had not told Lou about Jackie’s drug habit, merely that she had been a punching bag of Rocco’s.

  “Sometimes these masochistic dames go back for more from assholes like that,” Lou said, shaking his head. “I could send somebody around to talk to the doorman and janitor at the Barry Apartments.”

  “Let me think on it. In the meantime, I’ll call Sinatra and tell him the good news.”

  “I got a couple of jobs I need to talk over with you, this afternoon, Nate, if you’re up to it—that banker in Evanston, looks like his brother-in-law is embezzling, all right, and—”

  “Sure. Let me make my phone call.”

  Lou nodded, got up, and went quietly out.

  I called Sinatra at the Palmer House, and filled him in, without sharing my theory that McCarthy had been rattling his cage at the behest of his mob friends. No reason to get Frank stirred up; better to let him think I was a miracle worker.

  “You’re the best, Nate,” he said. “How did you like the new material, the other night?”

  “You were great. Shave that mustache, and you just might have a career again.”

  He laughed. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  “Yeah, definitely see what Ava thinks.”

  “Fuck you, Melvin,” he said, cheerfully, and hung up.

  For maybe the next half hour, I sat and tried to think if there was something I could do about Jackie—do for Jackie. And I couldn’t come up with a goddamn thing.

  So I went back to work, and dealt with the matters Lou Sapperstein had for me, and a couple of other things. Then at four o’clock, Bill Drury was shown into my office, his usual natty self, blue suit and gray homburg.

  “I’m not alone, Nate,” he said, the homburg in hand, exposing his thinning dark hair. “Someone’s with me—this is business. Can I have him come in?”

  “Sure.” I hadn’t got up to greet Bill—I was still sitting behind the desk.

  Drury turned to the open doorway and crooked his finger. A rather fleshy man in his mid-forties stepped in—six foot, hatless, with a square head, dark alert eyes highlighting strong features, and black, gray-at-the-temple hair, wearing a dark gray vested suit with a gray-and-blue tie. His name was Marvin J. Bas, and he was an attorney and Republican politician, in the Forty-second Ward—the turf of notorious saloonkeeper/alderman Paddy Bauler.

  I stood up as Bas approached, smiling anxiously; we shook hands across the desk, said hello—using each other’s first names, though we didn’t know each other well, at all.

  A folded newspaper tucked under his arm, Drury—who seemed uncharacteristically edgy—shut the door and came over and sat next to Bas, the pair filling both client chairs across from me at the desk.

  “I’m a little surprised, Bill,” I said. “I thought you were coming around to settle up—return equipment, collect a paycheck. I hope Marvin’s presence doesn’t mean you plan to sue me.”

  I’d said that with a smile, but anything was possible.

  “No,” Drury said, with his own small smile, the newspaper in his lap like a napkin, “I realize I’ve taxed your patience, and took advantage of our friendship, these last few weeks…putting you on the spot, thoughtlessly.”

  “If you’re expecting an argument—”

  “No. I returned the tape recorders, and I’ll forgo any further paychecks from the A-1. Frankly, I’ve really been working for myself, for a good month now…longer, but prior to that I did earn my agency paycheck.”

  “Fine. Is that why you’re here—to apologize? Patch up our friendship? And does that take an attorney?”

  Bas, who had a resonant voice, sat forward and said, “Actually, we’re here to seek your help—not to ask a favor, based upon your long-standing friendship with Bill…rather, to hire you.”

  “Really. To do what?”

  Drury said, “I have a witness—a new witness—to an old crime.”

  “And what crime would that be?”

  “A murder, Nate.” Pouchy as those dark blue eyes of his might have become, they had lost none of their unsettling penetrating power as he fixed them on me like magnets seeking metal. “A murder you and I tried to solve together in 1946.”

  “…You have a new witness to the Ragen shooting. Another eyewitness?”

  “Not an eyewitness,” he said, but nodded and kept nodding as he cont
inued, “a witness who will testify to Yaras admitting being one of the assassins—and that Tubbo Gilbert himself covered up the murder. That the witnesses who recanted did so due to Tubbo using a prostitute to—”

  I held up a hand. “I know the story, Bill—each of the witnesses admitted to the same chippie that you told them what to say and who to identify.”

  “Which was pure utter horseshit,” Drury said.

  “It was enough to invalidate them as witnesses…and get you suspended.” I turned to Bas. “You’re working for Babb’s campaign?”

  Bas had intense eyes, as well, and his courtroom orator’s voice gave him further weight, as he said, “That’s right. But I’m also working for the Chicago Crime Commission. Virgil Peterson and I are old college chums. I share his enthusiasm for cleaning up this—”

  “The idea being,” I said, “expose Tubbo for the corrupt, mob-connected bastard he is, and your man Babb wins the race for sheriff.”

  Bas winced. “That’s an oversimplification, but…yes.”

  “So why do you need me?”

  Drury said, “We have to meet with this witness, tonight— our first face-to-face.”

  Bas said, “It’s strictly been intermediaries and phone calls…till tonight.”

  I shrugged. “So meet with him.”

  Drury said, “That is where you come in, Nate—you and your Browning. I’m hot right now—never hotter. We need backup. The address is at Orchard and Frontier…near the El.”

  “That’s a rough neighborhood. Edge of Little Hell.”

  Drury raised an eyebrow. “You can see why we need help. This could be a setup.”

  A guy didn’t need Drury’s list of blood enemies for this meeting to be dangerous—you could get killed without trying, in that part of town.

  “I really want to stay out of this,” I said.

  Drury seemed almost jittery—I’d never seen him this way. “Nate—please. If this is a trap, I need somebody with your balls, and your savvy. You can handle yourself, if the lead starts flying…. Nate, who else can I ask?”

  “How about your new friends on Kefauver’s advance team? They have their own private investigators working for them—a couple ex-FBI agents, or so I hear.”

  Drury reddened; he tossed the newspaper he’d been cradling in his lap onto my desk. I opened it up—today’s Chicago Daily News.

  “I thought maybe you’d seen that already,” Drury said.

  “No,” I said softly, as I quickly scanned the story (bylined Hal Davis), which announced that Drury would soon be meeting with the Kefauver staff to arrange a date for his testimony. It also mentioned his new “bombshell” witness which would require the Crime Committee to “retry the entire Ragen case,” and that Drury would be turning over his voluminous notebooks and personal diaries detailing mobster activities.

  “Here I am,” Drury said, “ready to spring a surprise witness, and it’s plastered all over the front page. What are they trying to do to me?”

  “This is the kind of advertising you don’t need,” I admitted, “but, Bill, other than mentioning the witness—Fischetti and company knew all this stuff, anyway.”

  “That’s not the point, Nate.” Drury sat forward. “All of the information in that article is a direct paraphrase of a letter my attorney sent to Chief Counsel Rudolph Halley, marked ‘confidential.’”

  Now I understood why he didn’t want to go to the committee for his bodyguard.

  “There’s a leak on the staff,” I said.

  Drury nodded. “Ultimately, that doesn’t affect my ability to present Kefauver with testimony and information. I haven’t lost any of my confidence in Kefauver himself…”

  “Lee Mortimer has doubts about Halley,” I said. “But I just saw Drew Pearson yesterday, and he pooh-poohed that.”

  “Whether it’s Halley or some underling,” Drury said, “I can’t trust them for this kind of help…the kind of help you can give me, Nate.”

  I thought about it. Then I shifted in my chair and said, “Bill, did you stake out Fischetti yesterday and today? At the Barry Apartments?”

  Drury studied me—not sure what I was after. “You told me to clear out.”

  “Yeah, but I notice you didn’t bring my Revere machines back till today. The truth.”

  He shrugged—he knew better than to con me. “I was there today—I’ve shut that operation down, but earlier, I was there.”

  “Did you hear anything or see anything of that girl of Rocco’s?”

  “The former Miss Chicago?”

  “That’s right.”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t hear any talk about her—or hear her come in at the apartment today? Or see her…?”

  “No. Nothing interesting involving Rocco, at all today. Of course, I only ever had rooms at Charley’s pad bugged— that’s the nerve center of the Outfit, you know, Charley’s penthouse. Anyway, if I’d rigged Rocco’s place, I’d just have a bunch of train whistles and chugga chugga…. Why, Nate?”

  “Personal matter. Never mind.”

  Drury glanced at Bas, then turned his penetrating gaze back on me. “Okay, Nate—I’ve said my piece, and answered your questions…. Now—will you do it? Will you back my ass up? He was your client—Ragen. They murdered him on your watch.”

  “I can wait while you go rent a flag to wave, if you like.”

  He shot to his feet and leaned his hands on my desk and looked right at me. “Nate—Ragen was your friend…. Peggy’s uncle. Jake Guzik and Charley Fischetti and Ricca and Accardo…they had him killed. Jim Ragen wasn’t an Outfit guy! He ran a wire service…he sold information to mobsters, but he wasn’t a mobster. And they killed him to take over—to grab what was his and make it theirs. It’s an old, old story, Nate.”

  “…You just want a bodyguard.”

  He backed away from my desk, but did not sit. “That’s right.”

  Leaning forward, Bas said, “Mr. Heller, we’d be very grateful. You’d have powerful new friends in Cook County.”

  I glanced at Bill. “Marvin here does know that I was also Cermak’s bodyguard, doesn’t he? And Huey Long’s? Jim Forrestal, too.”

  Bas looked somewhat alarmed.

  Drury, amused, sat back down, saying, “Don’t pay any attention to him, Marvin. That’s just his way…. Nate? Will you?”

  “When is this famous meeting?”

  “Tonight—seven o’clock.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Drury grinned and Bas smiled tightly.

  The lawyer stood and said to us both, “I’ll meet you there a little before seven—I have to make a stop at my office, over on Clark.”

  I shook his hand and Bas went out, with a spring in his step.

  Drury, still seated, said, “Why don’t you follow me home, and I’ll drop my car off, and you can drive us over.”

  “All right.” I checked my watch. “We have a little time…Want to get a cup of coffee, first?”

  “Sure,” Drury said, and stood. “You’re, uh—already packing, aren’t you?”

  I patted the nine millimeter in the sling under my left arm. “Oh yeah.”

  “That’s not like you—you hardly ever wear that thing.”

  “I had a little dustup with Rocco Fischetti the other night. At the Chez Paree.”

  Drury’s eyes tightened. “Over Miss Chicago?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, Nate…all of us have our Achilles’ heel. Yours is just a little higher.”

  In the St. Clair coffee shop, as we both drank coffee, I said, “Tell me about this witness.”

  “I can’t give you the name, Nate.”

  “Don’t you trust me, either?”

  “No—I don’t have a name.”

  My eyes almost fell out of my head and into my coffee. “You don’t have a name for your surprise witness?”

  Drury shrugged, embarrassed; he knew this was half-assed. “I told you—we’ve been going through intermediaries, and we’ve been talking on th
e phone. Our witness is nervous, understandably so.”

  “How did you find this anonymous witness?”

  “That attorney, Kurnitz, has a client at Joliet, who’s unhappy with the warden there. Our witness is a friend of the unhappy inmate, who’s been our chief intermediary.”

  “What’s the inmate get out of it?”

  “Kurnitz is going after the warden for mistreatment of prisoners and misappropriation of funds.”

  Actually, that rang a bell: I’d seen stories in the press about this unlikely lawsuit.

  The dark blue eyes were no longer penetrating; they had turned soft, and even sentimental. “Nate—I appreciate this. I didn’t know who else I could turn to.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I know you don’t want to buck these Outfit guys. I know I’m imposing on our friendship….”

  “Shut up, Bill. Drink your coffee.”

  He flashed a chagrined grin, and drank his coffee.

  So I followed Drury home. He was driving a blue Cadillac—a new model—which sure didn’t reflect his A-1 earnings; apparently he’d been paid well by journalists Lait & Mortimer and Lester Velie for his insider’s views on Chicago’s gangsters and the crooked cops who served them.

  Funny, if you think about it—Drury despised police officers who took the mob’s money…yet he’d been making good money off the mob himself, lately.

  Traffic on the Outer Drive was heavy—rush hour—and the going was slow; dusk was already darkening into night. When Drury’s Caddy and my Olds rolled past the Fischetti penthouse on Sheridan, I wondered if Jackie was sitting up there with Rocco, an engineer’s cap on her pretty blonde head, her lovely brown eyes glazed with horse.

  Drury lived on Addison, a mile west of Wrigley Field, which we passed on our way. I knew this area well—the United States Marine Hospital, where I’d had outpatient treatment after the war (for my recurring malaria, among other things), was just three blocks northeast of here. And Riverview amusement park, for whom the A-1 provided security consulting, was less than a mile northeast.

  This was a typical Chicago middle-class/working-class neighborhood, an amalgam of two-and three-story apartment buildings with an occasional single-family home. Some buildings, particularly on corners, housed apartments on the upper floor or two, with stores at street level. Town Hall Station— where in another life, not so long ago, Bill Drury had been in command—was just ten blocks away.