True Detective

by Max Allan Collins

  "Crazy? It's suicide. Heller. Times are hard; the booze business is comin' to a close. And I got to take my business into quieter areas. I made plenty of progress with the unions, for instance. That's the future, Heller. But there ain't gonna be a future, not for my business, if the guy I give it for safekeeping to goes around shooting the mayor of Chicago."

  "He's not going to shoot him himself, for Christ's sake- "

  "No! He's crazy but he ain't insane. Don't be dumb."

  "How's it going to happen?"

  "I don't know exactly. That's where you come in."

  "Me?"

  "I got certain lines of communication; I picked up on some of it. but not all of it. I know where, and sort of when. I even know who the triggerman is."

  "So tell."

  "Cermak's going to Florida. I wish it was me, not him. Going to Florida, that is, not gettin' hit. He's going to Miami for patronage. Cermak flicked up royal, you know, when he backed Al Smith clear till the last minute, and didn't deliver the important votes to FDR at the convention. He hopped on the bandwagon at the last minute, but he's still shit with the White House, so he's gotta go down there while the president-to-be holds court, and beg for scraps. Kind of a laugh, the king of patronage havin' to be a beggar. Well. Cermak'll be down there a week or so. And sometime during that week, the hit'll go down. Doing the hit outa town, that's Frank's idea of keeping from stirring up the heat. Jesus. Anyway. That's all I know."

  "You said you knew the triggerman."

  "I know who they plan to use as of today; it could change. We're talkin' next month, and things change. But it's part of why I sent for you. Heller. First, you're a cop; you can handle this. You can tail Cermak. and even if you get seen, so what? You're no hood, just an honest citizen takin' a vacation. And bein' a cop, you can use a gun if you have to. And you'll have a gun permit, don't worry. You'll be down there as a licensed private cop with a gun permit. I got connections in Miami that'll see to that."

  "There are plenty of people just as capable as me, Al. So why me?"

  "The triggerman's name don't matter. But let me put it this way he's a blond boy. About twenty-eight, thirty. And you seen him before." He grinned at me. "Get it?"

  I got it.

  Because suddenly I understood what favor it was I'd done for him once; what work I'd done that I didn't know was for him.

  In the summer of 1930, Alfred "Jake" Lingle walked down the steps into the tunnel running under Michigan Avenue to Illinois Central Station, to catch the one-thirty racetrack special to Washington Park. As he walked along within the tunnel, reading a racing form, smoking a cigar, wearing a jauntily cocked straw hat, a jauntily cocked.38 was placed just over the back of his collar and a bullet went up through his brain, and he fell dead, on his racing form, cigar still burning.

  His slayer, who also wore a straw hat as well as a medium-gray suit, was blond, about five ten, weighed perhaps 160 pounds, and seemed to be in his late twenties. He had held the gun in his left, gloved hand, and dropped the snubnose to the cement, just as Lingle was dropping. And the blond gunman ran. He ran through the startled crowd, pushing his way back to the stairs Lingle had come down, ran back up to Michigan Avenue, crossing it, running west onto Randolph Street, where a traffic cop stationed at Randolph and Michigan, in response to someone's cry of "Get that man," took pursuit. The cop got within arm's reach of him, getting a good look at the blond, but stumbling. and then the gunman angled down an alley and, presumably, followed the maze of alleys back into the Wabash crowds, where he was lost.

  And so Jake Lingle, reporter, was dead. And Chicago, particularly his employer Col. Robert R. McCormick (who had never met this particular employee- he had four thousand), was outraged. It was obvious that this sixty-five-dollar-a-week police reporter had "got the goods" on gangland, that he "knew too much" and so had been struck down, martyrlike. The Colonel in Tribune Tower offered a a twenty-five thousand dollar reward for information leading to the murderer's conviction; other papers and civic groups kicked in, bringing the tally to over fifty thousand dollars. The fallen hero, this "first-line solider" in the war on crime, would be avenged.

  Then, to Chicago's embarrassment (and Colonel McCormick's), Lingle turned out to be. well… he turned out to be Jake Lingle; sixty-five-dollar-a-week legman with the Trib whose yearly income was easily over sixty thousand dollars; who was known in gangland circles as the "unofficial chief of police" because of the clout he could wield, for a price, if you wanted a speak or a brothel or what-have-you sanctioned by the powers-that-be; whose Lincoln car was chauffeured; who owned a summer home on the Michigan lakeshore, and another in Florida; who lived in a suite at the Stevens Hotel, when in Chicago; who played the stock market and the races with equal abandon; whose closest friend was the commissioner of police, next to Al Capone, of course, who gave him the diamond-studded belt buckle he wore at the time of his murder.

  The gun that killed Lingle was traced to Peter von Frantzius, who had also supplied the machine guns used on Saint Valentine's Day. He admitted having sold this gun and several others to one Ted

  Newberry.

  Newberry was, at that point, in Capone's camp, leading some to believe that the Big Fellow had turned on his old friend Lingle. After all, story was that after Capone got out of jail in Philly, he had snubbed his old pal Jake, rather than give him the usual exclusive coverage. Al, in Florida at the time of Jake's murder, pooh-poohed that to the press.

  And a rival tied to the old Bugs Moran faction. Jack Zuta, seemed to be the likely suspect for engineering the Lingle hit: after being grilled by the cops, Zuta was killed, apparently by Capone people avenging the death of Al's old pal Jake.

  This did not satisfy Colonel McCormick, who financed his own investigation, and a combined effort between the state attorney's office and 7WZ>-financed investigators led to a fellow named Leo Brothers. The investigators, it was rumored, had got a tip on Brothers from Capone himself, eager to help get the heat off in Chicago, thanks to the bad publicity Lingle's murder had generated, the worst since February 14, 1929.

  Brothers, a labor-union terrorist on the ma from St. Louis authorities, was thirty-one, with wavy light brown hair. He was mute throughout the proceedings, and even during the course of the trial; rumor had it he was taking the fall for the mob, for pay. One of his lawyers was a former Trib staffer, a friend of Lingle's; the other lawyer was Louis Piquett, also a friend of Lingle's, who had seen Lingle shortly before the murder and was a witness in these very proceedings.

  There were fifteen witnesses. Fourteen of them had been in the tunnel with Lingle and had seen the blond killer flee. Seven of them identified brown-haired Brothers as the blond; the other seven didn't. Still, Brothers was convicted, and sentenced to a strangely lenient fourteen years for the cold-blooded assassination, a sentence that finally got a public comment from Brothers: "I can do that standing on my head."

  It was widely held that the prosecution's case was won by the fifteenth witness; a witness who could identify" Brothers as the blond, though this witness (bringing the total to eight who could identify the killer) had not been in the tunnel; but up on the street: the traffic cop who had pursued the killer, who had nearly caught him, who had seen him clearly. Me.

  "Jake Lingle," Capone said, almost wistfully, "was a pal. Paid him one hundred thousand dollars for protection on my dog tracks, and got nothing for my money. Then he cut me out of the wire-service action, servicing the handbooks; twenty-five hundred of 'em in the city, it adds up. Then he starts doing business with Moran, on the side. And all the while he's going to my tailor charging four and five suits at a time to my account. Well, something had to give."

  I didn't say anything.

  "You did us a favor," Capone said, "helping us put the wrong man away."

  Meaning Brothers.

  "And now it's gonna come in handy," he said, "because you're the only guy who ain't a hood who can recognize this blond guy Nitti's sending to hit Cermak. Ain't that lucky?"r />
  I smiled. "Lucky," I said.

  That day I chased that blond kid and lost him had led me to plainclothes, which led me to Nitti's office, which led me here, sitting in front of Al Capone. Who I was about to work for again.

  "There's nine grand more in it," he said. "That's ten grand total. And all you got to do is stop it."

  "How?"

  "That's up to you. But I suggest you do it quiet. If you spot the guy, take him someplace and handle it."

  "I'm no killer."

  "Did I say kill him? I said stop him. How you do that's between you and him." He smiled broadly, with those fat. faintly purple lips. "Then when that traitor Cermak comes back to Chicago in one piece, I let Frank know who saw to it."

  "Nitti won't be happy with me," I said.

  "You won't matter. You won't have had nothin' to do with it. It'll be me. Me. sitting here in fuckin' prison, still on top of things. And Frank and the boys'll know better next time."

  Behind me. a voice said. "Time."

  It was the guard, sticking his head in. almost embarrassed to be interrupting.

  Capone nodded to him; and the guard retreated back outside.

  I stood. "Aren't you going to ask me if I'm going to do it?"

  "Oh, you'll do it." Capone said, standing. And he went out, leaving me alone in the room with the bars on the windows.

  He was right, of course: I'd do it. Not just because it was Al Capone asking, and it would be unwise to say no; not just because there was ten grand in it. though that was no small part of it.

  It had to do with something Capone couldn't even guess. I wanted to catch that blond killer, this time.

  The Morrison was the tallest hotel in the city and, if its advertising was to be believed, the world The main building was twenty-one stories, with a tower going up another nineteen, with a flagpole atop that, the gold ball atop the flagpole the highest point in the city. Cermak was living in the bungalow atop the tower; if he wanted to ride higher up, he'd have to climb the pole and sit on the ball.

  It was Wednesday morning, but I was still tired from the Atlanta trip; I'd got in at Dearborn Station at two yesterday afternoon, giving an unintentional scare to a couple of pickpockets who apparently didn't know I was off the force. I'd spent the rest of the day in my office doing Retail Credit checks over the phone and, after a bite at Binyon's and a solitary nightcap at Barney's, I'd gone up and pulled down the Murphy bed, the plan being to sleep till noon; any noon. But a phone call from Eliot had woken me at seven-thirty this morning- he wanted to meet me for coffee at eight; we settled on nine, in the Morrison Sandwich Shop.

  I went in the hotel's main lobby, which was pretty plush: gray marble floors, walls inlaid with marble and wood, overstuffed furniture, bronze lamps, potted ferns, high vaulted ceiling. To the right was the marble-and-bronze check-in desk, to the left a bank of five elevators, one of which I took up to the fifth floor. Most of the hotels in the city were in trouble; one, the Blackstone, was about to go under. But the Morrison Hotel was doing fine, having cut its rates in half; even a relatively posh joint like this had to make concessions for the depression.

  I showered and shaved in the traveler's lounge, went to my locker to get dressed; I was buttoning my pants when I felt a finger tap on my shoulder. I turned.

  It was Lana.

  It was the first I'd seen him since Nitti's office. His five o'clock shadow seemed even darker this time; maybe he was down here to shave. He was in a rumpled suit that looked slept in. and his bald head caught the overhead light and reflected it. His black eyes were shiny, too, and he had something like a smile going, though there was more than a little sneer in it.

  He kept tapping the finger against my chest. "You doin' anything special here, Heller?"

  "That finger's healed nicely," I said.

  He prodded me with it, kind of hard. "It's healed fine."

  I grabbed it, twisted it; he grimaced but said nothing.

  I said: "Didn't your friend Miller give you my message? You're to keep your distance from me. I don't like either one of you bastards."

  I let go of him. He backed away, holding the finger, his reddened face screwed up, and glanced behind him, wishing Miller were around to back him up. He wasn't.

  "I just wanted to know what you're doing here, Heller," he said lamely.

  "I'm using the traveler's lounge, Lang, just like you are. I presume you're using this 'cause Cermak won't let you use the facilities in his fancy bungalow. Or maybe His Honor just keeps 'em tied up."

  "You think you're pretty funny."

  "No, I think you're pretty fanny. Now excuse me." I put my suitcoat on. and my hat, slung my topcoat over my arm, ready to leave; he held a palm out, in a stop gesture- but he didn't touch me.

  "Look," he said. "Maybe we should get off each other's backs. We're in this together, right?"

  I said, "Three peas in a pod, that's us. At the trial. But till then, keep your fucking distance, okay?"

  He shrugged, almost embarrassed. "Okay," he said.

  Eliot was in a booth in the sandwich shop, sipping coffee; he gave me a weary little smile as I joined him.

  "Just saw a friend of mine," I said.

  "Who's that?"

  "Lang."

  "No kidding. You boys keep it friendly?"

  "Sure. We're pals."

  "He must be looking after Cermak." Eliot pointed upward with a thumb. "That bungalow's something. I hear. Steinway in the living room. Three master bedrooms. Library. Kitchen, dining room, the works."

  "Must pay to be a servant of the public."

  Eliot laughed humorlessly. "So they tell me."

  "What's the word from the streets, on the Nitti hit?"

  Eliot shrugged. "People seem to think Nitti was going to use Little New York Campagna as a triggerman, to bump Cermak, and Cermak got wind. Newberry, either at Cermak's suggestion or to be a good team player, offered fifteen thousand dollars to have Nitti hit first. Box score: Nitti's alive. Newberry's dead. Cermak's hiding upstairs."

  "Think he's in danger?"

  "I hear he bought a bulletproof vest. But. no, I don't think so. Too much publicity. Frank Nitti isn't stupid enough to shoot down the mayor of Chicago."

  "He was planning to."

  "He could've got away with it. before the shit hit the fan. The Cermak hit could've been pinned on any number of gangs, not just the Capone faction. But after all that's happened, no… I'd say Cermak's safe. Nitti's too smart for that."

  I nodded. A pretty waitress with blond hair in a pink-aproned outfit came over. She gave me a nice smile and I asked for coffee. I watched her leave.

  "I think I'm in love." I said.

  "Maybe you should call Janey."

  I turned back to him. "No. That's over."

  "If you say so. Look, about last Saturday…"

  "What?"

  "Taking you along on the Newberry ID. I'm sorry if I sounded like I was lecturing you or something."

  "Hey. It could have been worse. I could've been taken for a ride by Nitti. not Ness."

  He let go a rueful smile. "I suppose. Say. uh… were you out of town or something?"

  "Yeah. For a couple of days."

  "Where'd you 20?"

  "Out of town. Business."

  "I don't mean to snoop."

  "I know. Eliot, but you just can't help yourself."

  "Say. did you pick up any work from Retail Credit?"

  "Yeah. I did. Anderson's giving me some insurance claims to investigate. I appreciate the lead, and the recommendation, Eliot."

  "Oh, that's okay, Nate."

  "But I'm still not going to tell you where I was yesterday."

  "If you don't want to…"

  "Okay, I went to Atlanta and took on Capone as a client."

  He smirked. "You don't have to be a smart-ass."

  I shrugged. "Let's just say I'm working for an attorney and it makes the case more or less privileged information."

  "That might be stretching a legal
point, but I'll accept it. Besides, it isn't my business. I'm just curious, that's all."

  "It's okay."

  "What attorney?"

  "Jesus. Eliot! Louis Piquett."

  He didn't like that: he didn't say so, he just looked into his coffee with Norwegian gloom.

  "I'm not thick with him, Eliot. Fact, I haven't even met him."

  "Maybe you did go see Capone in Atlanta."

  "Yeah," I said good-naturedly, pretending to kid him. "Maybe I did."

  "Piquett's connected to Capone, they say."

  "I've heard that."

  "He was Jake Lingle's killer's lawyer, too."

  So there it was: out on the table, between us. Jake Lingle.

  "That assumes the guy they sent up really did kill Lingle." I said.

  Eliot looked at me. "Oh. I'm sure he was the killer. There were reliable witnesses."

  I said nothing; the sarcasm in Eliot's voice had been so faint I could've been imagining it.

  "There's something I've wanted to tell you for a long time." Eliot said. "We never talked about the Lingle matter. That happened before we happened. But you seem to be in the thick of it again, in regard to the Capone gang… through no fault of your own." He pointed his thumb Cermak-ward again. "And. well… I can't help but be concerned."

  "I appreciate your concern. Eliot. I really do. But…"

  "But keep out of it. Fair enough. Only let me tell you this thing I've wanted to tell you. It isn't commonly known. Frank Wilson and I knew about Lingle… we knew he was close to Capone. and could be a major witness, as to the kind of dough Capone spent, to help us build a tax-evasion case. We called Colonel McCormick at the Trib. He knew of Lingle, but didn't know him personally. We didn't tell the Colonel why we wanted to see Lingle- if we had, the Colonel wouldn't have made such a sap out of himself, in the press, defending the fallen hero. But we asked the Colonel to set up an appointment with Lingle for us, at the Tribune Tower. He agreed. We were to meet with Lingle at eleven o'clock the morning of June tenth." He paused melodramatically, and this time it worked, "I don't have to tell you what happened June ninth."