True Detective

by Max Allan Collins

  Jake Lingle was murdered.

  "No," I said, "you don't."

  "It's always bothered me. circumstantial as hell though it is, that Piquett, with his Capone connections, a pal of Lingle himself, himself a witness at the trial for having seen Lingle shortly before the murder, that this very man Piquett should defend the guy who supposedly shot Lingle."

  "I can see how that would bother you," I said.

  "There've been a lot of theories about who was behind the Lingle killing. Who hired it. Some feel Capone was back of it, many feel otherwise. But I don't have any doubt that it was anyone but Capone."

  "Neither do I, Eliot."

  "Well," he said gravely, "we won't say anything more about the Lingle matter. But I thought you should know about the appointment at Tribune Tower that Lingle didn't get to keep."

  "It's not a bad thing to know. Thanks, Eliot."

  The waitress came back and we both had another coffee.

  "Listen," Eliot said, "I wanted to see you this morning, not just to pry into your affairs. I wanted to give you some news."

  Oh?

  "I'm putting in for a transfer."

  "Out of Chicago?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "The show's over, here. I'm a lame duck. Chief prohibition agent in a city that'll be selling beer legal 'fore you know it, and everything else, soon as FDR gets 'round to it. I want a real job again."

  "Eliot, you always used Prohibition as a weapon against the gangs; an excuse to go after them. Why not keep using that excuse as long as you can get away with it?"

  He shook his head. "No. It's over." He looked at me and his eyes were tired: he looked older than twenty-nine. "You know something, Nate. Sometimes I think getting Capone was just… public relations. They brought me in, they sicced me on him, and we did the job, and now he's gone, but hail, hail… the gang's still here. And with Prohibition gone, they'll be less vulnerable. More underground. But here. Still here. And I'm not sure anybody cares."

  I didn't say anything for a while.

  Then said. "Eliot- surely you knew how much the Capone conviction was a PR effort, from word go. Nobody was better at getting in the papers than you."

  He smiled sadly, shook his head some more. "That's a nice way of saying I'm a glory-hound. Nate. I guess maybe I am. Maybe I like my picture in the papers, my name in headlines. But did it ever occur to you that the only clout I had, the only way I could build public support, the only way I could show the concerned citizens and the politicians who brought me in to do the job that I was doing that job was to get in the goddamn papers?"

  Actually, it hadn't occurred to me; and I felt kind of ashamed of myself that as one of his best friends. I had been right in there giving Eliot an at least partially bad rap all along, where his supposed publicity hunaer was concerned.

  "Where will you go?"

  "Where they send me. I'd imagine I'll be here through the summer. They may have some use for me during the fair."

  "You'll be missed. I'll even miss you."

  "I'm not gone yet. Anyway. I wanted to tell you about it. Kind of; you know. Get it off my chest."

  "I'll be leaving town, myself. For just a week or two."

  Oh?

  "Yeah. I'll be down in Florida, early next month."

  "Isn't that when Cermak'll be down there?"

  Ever the detective.

  "Is it?" I said, with what I hoped came off as genuine ignorance/innocence.

  "Think it is," Eliot said noncommittally, rising, picking up the check, putting down a dime for the tip. I added a nickel. He looked at me. "You are in love."

  "I fall in love easy when I haven't been laid in two weeks," I said.

  He smiled at that, and didn't have a tired look in his eyes anymore. We walked out on the street together, and I walked over to Dearborn with him and down to the Federal Building, where he left me, and I went on to Van Buren and 'round the corner to my office. It was windy, which was hardly a surprise in January in Chicago, but the wind had real teeth now, and I buried my hands in my topcoat pockets and walked with my head looking at the pavement, because the wind made my eyes burn when I walked into it.

  My head was still down as I opened the door and came off the street and into the stairwell, and I raised my head only when I heard footsteps coming down above me.

  In the stairwell, half a flight up. a woman was coming down. A woman in her early twenties with a face like Claudette Colbert's, only not as wide. She was rather tall, perhaps five eight or nine, and wore a long black coat with a black fur collar, nothing fancy, yet not quite austere. She had dark black hair, short, a cap of curls that lay close to her head, and another cap cocked over that: a beret. She carried a little black purse in one hand. As we passed on the stairs, I smiled at her and she returned it. She smelled good, but it wasn't a perfumy, flowery scent; it was a fragrance I couldn't place: incense? Whatever the case, I was in love for the second time in an hour.

  Then when we'd passed, she called out to me, in a melodious, trained voice that seemed affected, somehow, in a way I couldn't quite define, like the fragrance.

  She said, "Do you have an office in this building, or are you just calling on someone?"

  I turned to her, leaned on the banister, which wasn't the safest thing in the world to do, but I was trying for a Ronald Colman air.

  "I have an office," I said. With understated pride.

  "Oh, splendid," she smiled. "Then perhaps you'd know what Mr. Heller's hours are."

  "I'm Mr. Heller," I said, losing my air, but managing not to sputter. "Anyway, I'm Heller."

  "Oh, splendid! Just who I've come to see."

  And she came up the stairs and I allowed her to pass, her body brushing mine, the fragrance still a mystery, and once in the corridor, led her to my office. She went in, I took her coat and hung it on the tree, and she stood poised, purse in two hands like a fig leaf in front of her.

  She was stunning, in an oddball way: she was deathly pale, partially from face powder, but her lips were dark red, a red with black in it; she wore black, completely black- a one-piece slinky dress that wanted to be satin but was cotton, with a slit up to her knee, black heels, sheer black hose with a mesh pattern. The effect, with the beret, was vaguely apache dancer, but also vaguely naive. Play-acting was part of this, somehow.

  I hung my own topcoat up, gestured to the chair in front of my desk, which I got behind; she sat with her back straight, her head back a bit. She reached a hand out to me across the desk, which I had to stand to take; I wasn't sure if I was supposed to kiss it or shake it, so I just kind of took it, taking the tips of four fingers in my hand and squeezing gently, acknowledging the hand's existence, then sitting down.

  "My name is Mary Ann Beame," she said. "That's Beame with an E. A silent one. I don't have a stage name."

  "You don't?"

  "That's my real name. I don't believe in stage names. I'm an actress."

  "Really?"

  "I've done some little theater, here and there."

  Very little theater. I thought.

  "I see," I said.

  She sat up even straighter, wide-eyed. "Oh! Don't worry. I'm not destitute. Just because I'm an actress."

  "I didn't assume you were."

  "I have an income. I work in radio."

  "No kidding?"

  "Yes. It makes a tidy living for me, till I can go on to something better. Do you listen to the radio?"

  "When I get the chance. I been meaning to pick one up for the office."

  She looked around, as if trying to see where to put this radio, once I bought it. She noticed the Murphy bed and pointed toward it; the gesture was theatrical, but somehow I didn't think this was coming from snobbishness. "Isn't that a Murphy bed?" she asked.

  "It might be," I said.

  She shrugged to herself, not bothering to understand either the Murphy bed or my remark, and looked across the desk at me. smiled and said. "Just Plain Bill."

  "Pardon?" />
  "That's the sudser I'm on. 'Just Plain Bill' I do several voices, one of them a lead. I do that regularly, and pick up a lot of other shows. Have you heard 'Mr. First-Nighter'? That's where I've done my best work, I think."

  "I'm more an 'Amos 'n' Andy' man, myself."

  "They do all their own voices," she said, rather sadly, as it wasn't a market for her wares.

  "I'm glad a serious actress like yourself has no compunctions about working in radio. A lot of actresses might feel above it."

  "A number of splendid actors and actresses are working in Chicago radio, Mr. Heller. Francis X. Bushman. Irene Rich. Frank Dane."

  "Eddie Cantor," I offered.

  "Not in Chicago." she corrected.

  "Well, then. We've established you're gainfully employed Now, why is it you wanted to employ me?"

  Her face took on a serious cast; the pretension dropped, and concern came through. She dug in her little black purse and came up with a dog-eared snapshot.

  "Here's a photo of Jimmy."

  She handed it across the desk to me; it was a photo of her and a boy who looked a bit like her. though he was pudgy. It was several years old; possibly when they were still in their late teens.

  "We were twins," she said. "Still are. I suppose."

  "Not identical twins. I hope," I said, venturing a small smile.

  "No," she said distantly, not getting it.

  I started to hand the picture back, and she shook her head no.

  "Keep that," she said. "I want you to find him."

  "How long has he been missing?"

  "Well, he isn't missing exactly… it's nothing you could go to the police about. I mean, it isn't a missing persons case or anything like that."

  "What is it, then, Miss Beame?"

  "Call me Mary Ann. Please."

  "All right, Mary Ann. Why is your brother not exactly missing?"

  "We come from Davenport. Iowa? On the Mississippi. One of the Tri-Cities. Heard of that? Rock Island? Moline?"

  I'd heard of all three: Davenport was where Bix Beiderbecke came from- the jazz cornet player who, till bad bootleg gin killed him in '31. made Paul Whiteman worth listening to; Rock Island I knew from its railroad; and Barney had fought in Moline. But the term "Tri-Cities" was new to me. I didn't bother saying so. because she was off and away.

  "My father was a chiropractor. That makes it sound like he's dead, and he isn't. He's alive and well. But Daddy was a chiropractor. Davenport is the home of that, you know… the Palmers, they invented chiropractic. And my father was very thick with them. Very friendly, one of their first students. But he had an accident in an automobile, and his hands were badly burned. He had to stop practicing. He taught at the Palmer College for a while, and ended up as the manager of WOC Radio."

  I stopped her. "How did he go from being a bonesetter to the manager of a radio station?"

  "The Palmers own WOC. 'World of Chiropractic' Like the Tribune's station WGN stands for 'World's Greatest Newspaper.' Understand? That's where I had my first experience, in radio, was on Daddy's station. I read poems on the air when I was a little girl. When I was older, I had my own program for the kids, reading stories, like fairy tales. That's where I got my experience, and why I was able to come to

  Chicago and find work in radio, here."

  Having a father in the business who could pull some strings (even if he couldn't crack bones) must not have hurt, either.

  "Jimmy and I were always close. We had a lot of the same dreams. I wanted to be an actress, and he wanted to be a reporter. We both read a lot, as kids, and I think that's what fueled our fantasies, and our ambitions. But, anyway, that was Jimmy's dream, only Daddy wanted him to be a chiropractor, as you might guess. Jimmy had a couple of years at Augustana College, taking liberal arts, planning to take journalism, but Daddy wanted him to go on to Palmer, and when Jimmy wouldn't, Daddy cut off the money. And Jimmy left home."

  "When was this?"

  "A year and a half ago. About June 1931, I'd say. Right after his college got out."

  "How long have you been in Chicago?"

  "A year. I hoped to run into him here."

  "Chicago's a big place to just run into people."

  "I know that now. I didn't know that in Davenport."

  "Understandable. But you had reason to believe he'd come here?"

  "Yes. He wanted to work for the World's Greatest Newspaper."

  "The Trib?."

  "Yes. Short of that. I think any Chicago paper would do."

  "And you think, what? He came to Chicago and applied for jobs at the various papers?"

  "I think so, yes. I called all the papers and asked if they had a James Beame working for them and they just laughed at me."

  "They thought you were pulling their leg."

  "Why?"

  "James Beame. Jim Beam. You know."

  "No."

  "It's a whiskey."

  "Oh. I didn't make that connection."

  "Well, they probably did. He hasn't contacted your family? Your father, your mother, since he left in the summer of 31?"

  "No. Mother's dead, by the way. When she gave birth to us."

  I didn't know what to say to that; it was a little late in the game to express condolences. Finally I said. "I take it this is your personal effort to locate your brother… your father isn't involved."

  "That's right."

  "Is there anything else pertinent you can tell me?"

  She thought. "He came by hopping a freight. At least that's what he told me he planned to do."

  "I see. It's not a lot to go on."

  "But you will try, won't you?"

  "Sure. But I can't guarantee you anything. I can check with the papers, and maybe ask around some Hoovervilles."

  "Why those?"

  "A naive kid. down on his luck, he might fall in with hobos or down-and-outers." If he lived through it.

  "Or he might have gone on by freight to someplace else. Do you want to know what my guess is?"

  "Certainly."

  "He came here and tried to land a job and got nowhere. He was too embarrassed to go back home, so he hit the road. My guess is, he's traveling the rails, seeing the country. And one of these days, God willing, he'll get back in touch with the family, and he'll be a grown-up."

  "What are you saying, Mr. Heller?"

  "Nate. I'm saying, save your money. I'll take the case if you insist but I think things would work out just as well if you let them work out on their own."

  Without hesitation, she said, "Please take the case."

  I shrugged. Smiled. "Consider it taken."

  "Splendid!" she said. Her smile lit up the room.

  "My rates are ten bucks a day. I'll put at least three days into this, so…"

  She was already digging into her purse. "Here's a hundred dollars."

  "That's too much."

  "Please take it. It's a… what is it?"

  "Retainer. I can't."

  "Please."

  "I'd rather not."

  "Please."

  "Well. Okay."

  "Splendid!"

  "Listen, do you have an address? A place where I can reach you?"

  "I have a studio on East Chestnut. We have a phone." She gave me the number; I wrote it down.

  "That's in Tower Town, isn't it?" I said,

  "Yes. And you aren't surprised, are you?" That last was delivered impishly.

  "No," I admitted. Tower Town was Chicago's version of Greenwich Village, home of the city's self-styled bohemians. "Say. how did you happen to pick me to come to?"

  She looked at me with more innocence than I knew still existed in the world; or anyway, Chicago. "You were first in the phone book," she said. Then she stood. "I have to run. I've two parts on a sudser this afternoon."

  "Where?"

  "Merchandise Mart."

  That was where the NBC studios were; CBS was at the Wrigley Building.

  "Let me get your coat," I said, and got up from behind the desk.<
br />
  I put it on her; the smell was incense. That was about as close as Tower Town got to perfume.

  She gazed at me with the brownest eyes I ever saw and said, "I think you're going to find my brother for me."

  "No promises," I said, and opened the door for her.

  I'd give it the old college try, Palmer or otherwise.

  I went to the window and looked at her out on the street, straining to see her through the fire escape between us, seeing little more than the top of her head, that beret, as she caught a streetcar.

  "I think I'm in love." I said to nobody.

  Sundays. I missed Janey.

  I missed her other times, too; every night, for instance. Days hadn't been a problem: my new business was keeping me occupied, so far. and I didn't really have time to mope. I worked long days, so nights I was tired, and then there was always Barney's speak waiting for me when I dragged home; not that I got drunk every night, but I drank enough to go to sleep without much effort. Rum, mostly.

  But Sunday, goddamn Sunday.

  That was our day, Janey's and mine. Good weather, we'd go to a park or a beach or a ball game- summers we played tennis and pee wee golf; we'd go to a matinee in winter, maybe ice-skate at some lagoon, or just spend a day in her flat, and she'd cook for me, and we'd listen to Bing Crosby records, and play Mah-Jongg, and make love two or three times. Now and then Eliot and his wife, Betty, would have us over for Sunday dinner, like family, and we'd play some bridge. Eliot and Betty usually won, but it made for a nice afternoon. A preview of the sweet, quiet life Janey and I'd have after we got married and had a house of our own, maybe even in as respectable a neighborhood as Eliot and Betty's.

  But I wasn't living in a dream cottage, I was living in an office, and that had its advantages, but spending Sunday alone in it wasn't one of them. I'd sit and look at the phone and think about calling Janey. I would manage, for minutes at a time, to convince myself there was a percentage in doing that. A full five minutes might go by before I admitted to myself that what was between us was dead.

  And today was Sunday.

  But I had another woman on my mind, this Sunday: a client. Purely business. I was able to convince myself of that for minutes at a time, too.

  I hadn't had a chance, yet. to do much about tracking down Mary Ann Beanie's brother. I had started on the case the afternoon of the day she came to my office. I followed the most obvious course of action, which was to check with all the papers in town, where he'd probably gone looking for work, just another naive teenage kid from the sticks who expected the big town to spread its legs for him, never considering that the town might be on the rag. It had only taken me that one afternoon and part of the next morning. I showed his picture to the information desks and cashiers in their first-floor cages at the Trib, News, Herald-Examiner; I checked with the City News Bureau, too. Nobody remembered him, and why should they? A lot of people were looking for work these days; nobody had been hired in janitorial for a year and a half, let alone editorial. Nobody kept job application forms, because would-be applicants didn't get that far: any reporters that did get hired were pros who would go right to the city editor and ask if he had anything for 'em. Jimmy Beame's plan to be a big-city reporter was a pipe dream: I knew that going in. But I was a detective, and any competent detective knows that most of the legwork he does will account to nothing, so I checked anyway, knowing what I'd find: nothing.