True Detective

by Max Allan Collins

  Back of the two men and the body, sand dunes rose. The dunes were spotted with khaki-color brush, like gigantic scalps with the hair mostly fallen out. leaving only occasional sick patches behind. Bare trees, skinny, black against a sky such a faded blue it might have been wearing out, stood close together, watching from atop the dunes, some of which ran to a hundred feet; skeletal branches touched to form a black-lace pattern against the horizon. The bitter cold air and the desert-like dunes mocked each other, and the wind blew like a bored fat man with a sense of irony.

  We were on a back road near Chesterton, Indiana, about fifteen miles east of Gary, five miles west of nowhere. It was Saturday morning, about seven, and I would rather have been sleeping. But Eliot called and said he was picking me up; there was something he wanted me to see.

  The something was the body in the ditch.

  Eliot bent over the body, which was sprawled on its side, wearing an overcoat, a hat partially covering the face; he lifted the hat off. set it easily to one side.

  "It's Ted Newberry- all right" he said to me.

  The man who seemed to be the sheriff thought that was meant for him. "Thought as much." he said. He was about fifty-five with a vein-shot nose that indicated he didn't keep all the laws he was theoretically hired to enforce.

  "I'm Ness." Eliot told the apparent sheriff. "A couple more people from Chicago will be showing up soon. A representative of the police department, and the deceased's lawyer."

  "What do we do with the body?"

  "What do you usually do?"

  "We don't have a morgue; we use a local mortuary."

  "Use it, then."

  "It's okay if I call 'em now?"

  "I think that'd be wise. It's a cold enough day, but this boy isn't going to keep forever."

  "I got to walk to that farmhouse." the sheriff said, pointing with a hand distorted by a heavy cotton glove. Then he put the hand down and waited for something, and what he got was silence. When Eliot failed to fill the silence, the sheriff grinned, shrugged, said, "Don't have a police radio in my car yet. Like to have one."

  Eliot just looked at him, and the sheriff kind of nodded and walked off, his breath preceding him like smoke from a steam engine.

  Eliot stood and looked at Newberry. I did the same, but from more of a distance. In life Newberry had been a jaunty sort; hail-fellow-well-met, though I'd never met him. But he had a reputation as such. A big, dark-haired roughly handsome gangster, about forty. Now he was a body sprawled in a ditch, with his pockets turned inside out.

  The guy in the cap and brown jacket said to Eliot, "I found him. 'Bout daybreak."

  Eliot nodded, waited for more information to come. It didn't.

  "Was there anyone else around when you found him?" Eliot asked.

  "No. I was by myself."

  Eliot pointed to Newberry. "What about him. Was he by himself?"

  "I should say."

  "Is there anything else you can tell me about this?"

  "Looks to me like this boy was took for a ride."

  "Stand over by your car. would you?"

  "Are the reporters coming soon?"

  "Sooner or later."

  Reluctantly, the guy went over and stood by his flivver.

  Eliot came over to me and shook his head. "Publicity seekers." he said.

  I resisted any ironic comment.

  "Come over and take a look at Ted"

  "I've seen dead bodies before."

  "I know you have. Come on."

  We walked to the body and Eliot knelt over it again and pointed to Newberry's belt. The buckle was large and jewel-encrusted: diamonds and emeralds.

  "Ever see one like that?" Eliot asked.

  "Yeah. Jake Lingle had one on. the day he was shot."

  Eliot nodded. "Capone gave more than one of his pals fancy belts like that."

  "And more than one of'em ended up like Ted, here."

  "Lingle included." he said guardedly.

  "Lingle included." I said.

  Jake Lingle was a subject Eliot had never broached with me directly, though I knew he wanted to. knew his curiosity was killing him and had killed him repeatedly since he'd known me. but out of a sense of courtesy toward me. he'd resisted the urge. My involvement with the Lingle case predated my friendship with Eliot, which had come about when I got into plainclothes, which had come about after my testifying at the Lingle trial. Which meant that Eliot and I would not have become friends if the Jake Lingle case hadn't elevated me to the status of a detective, a peer of the great Eliot Ness.

  He said. "You could look at this as an appointment with Capone that finally got kept."

  "How do you mean. Eliot?"

  He stood, shrugged, still glancing down at the body. "I'm just thinking of a certain morning when Ted and his boss Bugs Moran were delayed a few minutes on the way to meet with the rest of the boys, and when they finally got there, Ted spotted a squad car parked in front of the garage, and he and Bugs and Willie Marks ducked in a cafe to avoid what they figured was the cops running a petty shakedown. Know what morning I'm talking about, Nate?"

  Eliot was giving me his best melodramatic deadpan, now.

  "Yeah, yeah," I said.

  February 14, 1929. Saint Valentine's Day.

  I bent over Newberry's body and had a close look; it wasn't hard to reconstruct what had happened. He got the bullethole through the hand, with accompanying powder burns, when, in an effort to keep from getting shot, he'd grabbed a gun pointed at him; that same bullet, or another one from the same gun, had shot off his left earlobe as he struggled. That point, probably, was when he got his skull bashed in, and only then came the final bullet, the one that killed him (unless the bashing had already done the trick): a single execution-style slug, fired from behind, at the base of the skull. There wasn't much blood, here. He'd been killed elsewhere and dumped in the dunes, pockets pulled inside out, in a nod toward faking a robbery.

  Eliot was looking at the tire tracks. He studied them for a few minutes, then turned to me. "The car came from the west, dumped Ted, turned around, and went back the way it came."

  I moved away from the body, pointing at it as I did. "He had a place near here, didn't he? A summer home?"

  Eliot nodded. "At Bass Lake. They probably killed him there."

  Last night, at about two, Newberry's lawyer, at the prompting of a worried crony of Ted's who said Ted was two hours late for an appointment, had called the detective bureau and asked if his gangster client had been arrested, and got no answer. Then the lawyer had called Eliot at home and asked if the feds had his boy, and Eliot had told the lawyer to go jump and went back to sleep. A writ of habeas corpus was filed, and by early this morning the chief of detectives and Eliot were in the former's City Hall office, both officially responding to the lawyer that Newberry was not in custody. And at that point the word came in that a body answering Newberry's description had been found in Indiana.

  Shortly after the sheriff had returned from his phone call at a nearby farmhouse, a dark blue Cadillac sedan pulled up and a short squat man in a blue pinstripe with a diamond stickpin hopped out; he was Newberry's lawyer.

  "Hello, Abe," Eliot said, as the little man trundled toward the body in the ditch.

  Without acknowledging Eliot's greeting, the lawyer looked at Newberry and, as if speaking to Ted, said, "Where's the county official?"

  The sheriff, standing in the road, called out, "Me, mister!

  The lawyer walked up to the sheriff and said, "That man is Edward Newberry. Where will his body be taken?"

  The sheriff gave him the name of the mortuary.

  The lawyer nodded, said. "We'll be in touch." and got in his Cadillac and drove off.

  The man in the cap and brown jacket was still over by his flivver, standing first on one foot, then the other. He said, to no one in particular, "Where's the reporters, anyway?"

  "Stick around," Eliot said, and advised the sheriff the same thing, then nodded to me and we walked back to his F
ord.

  "Aren't you going to wait for the press, Eliot?" I asked him.

  He shook his head no. "This is nothing I want to be part of. You, either."

  On the way back to Chicago, Eliot said, "That's Nitti's work, of course. So much for Ted Newberry as the mayor's handpicked candidate for running gambling on the North Side."

  "That still leaves Touhy in Cermak's pocket."

  "Touhy's nothing. Nitti's made an important point here. Newberry offered fifteen thousand for Nitti dead. Well, Nitti's alive and Ted isn't."

  "I wonder how Cermak's favorite bodyguards will take the news of Newberry taking a ride."

  Eliot smiled a little. "I wonder how Cermak will take it."

  "Why'd you want me to see that, anyway?"

  Eliot, watching the road, said, "It concerns you."

  "Sure. But you could've phoned and told me about it. Why'd you want me along? Outside of me being charming company."

  "Newberry was Cermak's man."

  "So?"

  "He's nobody's man. now."

  "Point being?"

  He glanced at me. then back at the road. The dunes were still around us: it was like the Midwest was doing a bad but impressive imitation of Egypt.

  Eliot said. "Maybe this opens the door for you telling a different story at the Nitti trial."

  "Like the true story, you mean."

  He shrugged. "You might want to consider it. Newberry's an example of how Nitti operates. And Newberry's also an example of Cermak's current lack of strength in mob circles."

  "So, what? You're saying if I stick with Cermak's team. I'm ditch-bound? That's bullshit. Eliot. Nitti knows I'm an innocent bystander in this. You notice that was Newberry dead back there, not Lang or Miller. Frank Nitti doesn't kill the messenger; he kills the guy who sent the message."

  Eliot just drove.

  I kept talking. "Just because Cermak isn't aligned with a gang of any power, at the moment, doesn't mean he isn't going to be again, soon. He's been playing this game a long time, you know. And if I cross Cermak, I'll get my op ticket, and my gun permit, pulled. Get serious, Eliot."

  Eliot didn't say another word to me till he pulled up in front of my building on Van Buren; not until I was getting out, feeling just a little irritated with him.

  "Sony, Nate," he said. "I just thought you should see that back there."

  I could feel my face was red, and it wasn't the cold. "Christ, Eliot, what is it you want out of me? Are you such a goddamn Boy Scout you expect me to tell the truth because it's the truth? You been in Chicago too long to be that naive."

  Which was a lousy thing for me to say, because Eliot might have been a lot of things, but naive about the Chicago facts of life he wasn't.

  He gave me a sad little smile.

  And said, "I just don't like the idea of you getting on a witness stand and perjuring yourself."

  He didn't add "again," but the word hung in his eyes, and it was that flicking Lingle case again, wasn't it? Coming back to haunt me.

  I nodded at him to let him know I understood he meant well, and shut the door on the Ford, and he drove off.

  It was a little after eleven, and I hadn't had any breakfast, so I went into the deli on the corner for an early lunch. I ate my usual pastrami sandwich but, despite my hunger, barely got it down. Eliot had bothered me, whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not. I sat nibbling dill pickles absently for maybe half an hour, sipping at a ginger ale, when Barney came in through the door that connected the deli with his speak, noticed me, and got this silly grin, like it just occurred to him that he was top contender.

  "There's somebody you got to meet," he said, leaning against the table, not sitting down, pointing with a thumb back at the door he'd just come through.

  "Does she have nice pins?" I asked.

  "It ain't a woman. Nate."

  "Then I ain't interested."

  "Nate, it's a famous guy."

  "Barney,you're a famous guy, and I'm not interested."

  "Some mood you're in."

  "You're right. I'm sorry. I better start being nice to you or you'll start charging me rent. Who do you want me to meet? Some other goddamn fighter?"

  His grin got silly again. "You'll see. Come on."

  I finished off the last dill pickle and got up and followed him into the speak. The place was about half-full, and the patrons, all of them men, were craning their necks back to see the far corner booth by the boarded-up street windows, talking among themselves as they did. We headed to the booth that was causing the commotion.

  For a second, just a second, I thought it was Frank Nitti. The same slicked-back blue-black hair, the same swarthily handsome, hooded-eyed look, though this guy lacked Nitti's vaguely battered quality, sported no pencil-line mustache, and was younger, thirty-five or fort)'. Like Nitti, he was immaculately groomed, in fact was a snappy dresser, sporting a dark gray pinstripe with lavishly wide lapels, and a black shirt with white tie. And. like Nitti, he wasn't a big man; he was sitting down, but you could tell standing up he wouldn't be more than five six or so. This was a more conventionally handsome Frank Nitti. with a little Valentino tossed in.

  Barney and I stood next to the booth and the man smiled at us. rather remotely, while Barney introduced us.

  "Georgie," he said, "this is a childhood pal of mine. Nate Heller. Nate, this is George Raft.1'

  We sat in the booth across from Raft, and I smiled at the actor and said, "I'm embarrassed. I should've recognized you."

  Raft shrugged, barely perceptibly, smiled the same way. "Maybe if I been flipping a coin."

  I nodded. "I saw that picture. Pretty wild."

  We were talking about Scarface, the big hit of the year before, which had made Raft a star; it had caused a lot of controversy in Chicago, opening months later than anywhere else in the country, the local censorship board having fits over its depiction of their city (even though it was Chicago's own Ben Hecht who wrote the picture).

  "I hear good things about it," Raft said. "I didn't see it myself"

  Barney explained. "George never looks at the pictures he's in."

  "Why's that?" I asked Raft.

  "Who needs it?" he said. "I probably look terrible. My face'd scare babies."

  He didn't seem to be kidding. I suddenly realized his remoteness wasn't a tough-guy pose, but a sort of shyness.

  "Georgie's in town doing some personal appearances," Barney said. "What's the name of the new picture?"

  "Undercover Man," Raft said noncommittally.

  "Oh?" I said "Where you appearing?"

  "At the Oriental Theater." Raft said. "I come out and talk to the folks, the orchestra plays, and I do some dancing. Did you see Night After Night?"

  "Sorry, no," I said.

  "That was a pretty good one. Not so much gangster shit. Got to do some dancing."

  "Mae West was in that." Barney said, eating this up.

  "Yeah " Raft said, smiling faintly, "and she stole everything but the camera."

  "How do you two happen to know each other?" I asked Barney, nodding at Raft

  "Oh. Georgie's a big fight fan," Barney said. "He was a fighter himself, weren't you, Georgie?"

  Raft laughed a little. "Seventeen bouts and ten knockouts."

  "That's a good record," I allowed.

  "Not when it's you getting KO'd," Raft said.

  "You won a few," Barney said.

  "Three," Raft said, holding up three fingers.

  Buddy Gold came over for my order. I asked for a beer. Neither Barney nor Raft was drinking anything. I knew why Barney wasn't drinking: he had a fight coming up later this month in Pittsburgh, with Johnny Dato.

  "Don't you want anything, George?" I asked him.

  "I don't drink," Raft said. "Bring me a coffee, would you, Buddy?"

  "Sure thing, Mr. Raft."

  Raft looked my way and said. "I been following Barney's career real close. He's won me some money. I admit to knowing more about boxing out of the tins than I did
in it. I was a fight manager for a while. Discovered Maxie Rosenbloom."

  Something was ringing a distant bell in my mind; like the round-ending bell in the ears of a canvas-prone lighter who's just been saved by it.

  ■ -

  "Weren't you involved with Primo Camera?" I asked.

  Raft seemed to flinch at that, again, barely perceptibly. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Barney's grin disappear. I'd opened a door better left closed I'd been rude to Barney's guest. But I let it ride.

  "Not really." Raft said. "A friend of mine owned a piece of him."

  "Owney Madden, you mean," I said.

  "Yes," Raft said.

  I could tell this was making Barney uneasy, so I didn't pursue it. It was natural that an honest fighter like Barney would be embarrassed by one of his friends being connected to Primo Camera and Owney Madden. Primo Camera was the big, lumbering heavyweight brought over from Italy who, through a succession of fixed fights and sportswriters on the take, was elevated to the Championship of the World. Camera was a slow, awkward giant with a glass jaw, but he made good show business, until a real fighter, Max Baer, took the championship away from him, and damn near killed the poor clown in the doing. New York gangster Owney Madden owned Camera, and Madden and George Raft were lifelong friends. The story I'd heard had Raft, just prior to his Hollywood days, slipping a mickey to "Big Boy" Eddie Petersen, a fighter who had refused to take a dive; Raft's mickey had paved the way for Camera's first major victory'- at Madison Square Garden, no less.

  I knew Barney knew' this story: it was him who told it to me, with some disgust, when he was noting the climb of this guy Raft in the talkies, this guy who used to be Owney Madden's boy. But that had been a year ago, before Barney was into the heavy purses- and the papers- and before he met Georgie at Arlington Park, where they shared a mutual love.

  "I kinda hate to admit how I got a lot of my boxing savvy," Raft said.

  "Why's that?" I asked.

  "Well, the boxing arenas were my stomping grounds, back in my pickpocket days. And I understand you're an ex-pickpocket detail dick. Maybe you don't want to be seen in public with an ex-dip."