The judge rapped his gavel, and everybody shut up, or anyway kept it down; the jury sat looking at each other, wondering if all trials were like this.
Nitti's lawyer leaned against the rail in front of the witness stand and, calmly, asked, "Can you say under oath that the defendant, Frank Nitti, shot you?"
"No."
A group of surprised prosecutors and police officials were on their feet and moving forward, and the chief prosecutor pushed his way to the forefront.
His face was red as he thrust a finger at Lana.
"Do you see the man who shot you?" he shouted. "Is he in the courtroom, sergeant?"
"No," Lang said. A calm had settled over him: with his bald head, and his folded hands, he looked damn near cherubic.
Nitti's lawyer stood next to the prosecutor but turned to the judge, who seemed to be having as much trouble believing his eyes and ears as the jury, and said, "I object, Your Honor! The prosecution is impeaching its own witness!"
The prosecutor turned to Nitti's lawyer and said, with contempt, "Yeah, he's my witness. But he turned out to be yours."
That left Nitti's lawyer momentarily at a loss for words.
The prosecutor jumped back in. "I want to ask him if he committed perjury just now. Or did he commit perjury when he testified before the grand jury, when this indictment was voted? Because before the grand jury, he said Nitti shot him."
I could see Nitti, sitting in his chair sideways; he was amused by all this. He was leaning back, a smile turning the downward V of his thin mustache into an upward one.
I leaned toward Eliot and said, "Your friend the prosecutor is getting pretty worked up about this."
We both knew that the prosecutor wasn't finding anything out about Lang he didn't know already.
"I don't know what he's so steamed about," Eliot said "You're the one Lang's upstaging."
I was supposed to climb the stand and contradict Lang's Nitti-shot-me story; who could've guessed the pressure of the possibility of my doing that would be enough to make Lang contradict the story on his own?
Well, one person might have predicted it: Lang's lawyer, who was rising from the gallery to go toward the bench, saying as he went, "Your Honor! Your Honor! I am appealing here as this policeman's lawyer. As his counsel I advise him not to answer any more questions."
"Your Honor." the prosecutor said. "This man has no part in this proceeding. A witness has no right to a lawyer."
The judge agreed, but Lang's lawyer did not retire to the gallery; he stood beside the defense table, where Nitti and his lawyer were sitting, just two more spectators fascinated by a trial straight out of Lewis Carroll.
"Either you lied before the grand jury," the prosecutor said to Lang, "or you're lying now. I am giving you the chance to straighten yourself out here."
Lang's lawyer called out, "I advise my client not to answer"
The judge's gavel interrupted him.
Lang said. "Right after I was shot, my memory wasn't as good as it is now. Because of shock."
"You weren't suffering from shock in January, when you testified before the grand jury." the prosecutor said. "You were out of the hospital and cured by that time!"
Lang said. "I was suffering from shock. I can bring doctors to prove it."
The prosecutor let out a short laugh and turned his back on the witness, walking away saying. "You'll probably have that chance- in a trial of your own."
And sat down.
The judge sat behind his big wooden box wondering why the room got so silent all of a sudden; and then, remembering he was in charge, called a recess, instructing the prosecutor to meet with him in chambers.
People stood in little groups out in the corridor; reporters mingled with the various groups, not getting anywhere particularly. Lang and his lawyer stood talking solemnly; Miller and some plainclothes dicks stood well away from Lang, but Miller was bad-mouthing his partner loud enough that the echoey corridor carried it to anyone who cared to listen.
"I think Miller feels double-crossed." Eliot said.
I shrugged. "The minute Lang recanted, it made Miller look dirty. He's been supporting Lang's story all along, remember."
"He looks dirty because he is dirty," Eliot said.
"Good point," I said. "But this is Chicago. I wouldn't go looking under any cop's nails, if I were you."
Frank Nitti and his lawyer were standing down the corridor from us. talking; Nitti was all smiles. I saw him look my way a couple of times, but perhaps because I was standing with Eliot, he didn't come over right away. But eventually he did, and he looked at Eliot and nodded and said, "Mr. Ness."
"Mr. Nitti," Eliot said, nodding.
It occurred to me that Eliot and Nitti, like Eliot and Barney, shared a certain respect; and if my suspicions were correct about Eliot working on his pal the prosecutor to help see I didn't perjure myself, then Eliot had, in a roundabout way, been working to help Nitti here. The irony wasn't lost on Nitti, either.
"You're not here to root for me, are you, Mr. Ness?" Nitti asked.
Eliot shrugged. "If somebody tried to assassinate you, I am."
Nitti shrugged. "There's a lot of that soma around."
Eliot's expression turned cold "Yeah. So I hear."
Nitti had overstepped his bounds, and knew it. He turned to me and said, "I get the feeling you're behind this."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I don't figure Lang's conscience is why he suddenly don't remember who shot him."
"You don't huh."
"If I'm indebted to you, and it looks like maybe I am… well. I pay my debts, that's all."
He shrugged again, smiled almost nervously, and turned to rejoin his lawyer, only his lawyer was right behind him; it made Nitti look a little awkward, and Nitti snapped at the man in Sicilian. The lawyer took it stoically, and they walked back down the corridor a ways, and Nitti was smiling again by the time they came to a stop.
"If you don't believe him," Eliot said, "just ask Cermak."
"What?"
"Whether Nitti pays his debts or not."
When court resumed, the prosecutor had a perjury warrant ready for Lang, and Lang was placed under arrest.
"I'd like a ten-thousand-dollar bond. Your Honor." the prosecutor said.
The judge said. "Bail will be two thousand dollars. That seems large enough. He is a policeman, after all. with a policeman's pay which as a city employee has been infrequent of late."
"You mean he was a policeman," the prosecutor said.
Eliot leaned my way and whispered, "His policeman's pay seems up to hiring a high-priced attorney."
The prosecutor said. "The State calls Nathan Heller."
And I took the stand.
Lang and his attorney were sitting in the front row of the gallery; one deputy sat next to Lang, several others hovered. Lang was looking off to one side, not terribly interested in what I had to say.
Why should he be? It was nothing he didn't already know: I told what had really happened in the office at the Wacker-LaSalle.
Despite Lang's upstaging me, all eyes (except his) were on me; the reporters were scribbling fast and furious. Miller was glaring, fat and furious.
At one point I was asked to step down and show how I had held Nitti by both wrists just before Lang came in and shot him.
"How was Lang shot?" the prosecutor asked.
"Nitti was unconscious," I said. "Lang must've shot himself."
A murmur passed across the courtroom, and Lang's eyes finally turned my way; he looked sad.
I stepped down; I had expected at least a few questions about or references to the guy I'd shot, in the window. But neither the defense nor the prosecution brought it up. I think Lang's lawyer would've got into it if he could, but Lang wasn't on trial. Technically.
Miller was called.
"Lang came in and said. 'He shot me.' " Miller told the prosecutor. "I went into the room where the shooting happened and picked up a revolver with one shot fired."
Nitti's lawyer had some questions for Miller.
"Why was Nitti put in that room before he was shot?" he wanted to know. "Was it to murder him, away from witnesses?"
"You'd have to ask Lang."
"Where did you go between four o'clock and five-thirty?"
"The mayor's office."
"With whom did you talk there?"
The prosecutor rose and objected. "Irrelevant and immaterial, Your Honor."
The objection was sustained.
Eliot shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
I said, "Cermak still has a few friends. I see."
Eliot said nothing.
Nitti's attorney tried again. "Did Lang have a conversation with anyone just before the shooting?"
"Yes," Miller said. "Ted Newberry."
And yet another wave of surprise rushed across the courtroom.
The judge rapped his gavel, and Nitti's attorney said, "You refer to the reputed gangland leader, Ted Newberry?"
"Yeah." Miller said. "The dead one. He offered Lang fifteen thousand to kill Nitti."
The judge had to bang his gavel again to quiet the courtroom, but the excitement was winding down: Miller was getting into an area that Nitti's lawyer obviously felt was best left unplumbed, and he said he had no further questions. The prosecutor seemed content to leave Miller and his Ted Newberry story to the grand jury. The Nitti case, however you figured it. was coming to a close.
The prosecutor asked for, and got. a directed verdict of not guilty for Nitti.
The next day, at the grand jury indictment for Lang, I was questioned again, this time by State's Attorney Courtney. The same ground was gone over. Nitti testified, corroborating my story, of course. He told reporters he would prefer to forget the whole thing, however; he didn't want to prosecute anybody for anything- he just wanted to get back to Florida and "regain his health."
Whether Nitti wanted to participate in the prosecution of an assault charge against Lang or not, Lang's perjury charge would go through.
And Lang's pal Miller tried, in the grand jury hearing, to desert a sinking ship. He was, the papers said, as helpful as could be, and repeated the Newberry story in detail. Cermak was one detail, however, that got left out.
Lana took the Fifth.
A John Doe warrant was used on Nitti, to keep him in town.
Outside the grand jury room, as I was coming out. Nitti and his lawyer were standing waiting to be called.
He stopped me and said. "Heller- something I want to ask you. now that your pal Ness ain't around."
"All right, Frank. Shoot. If you'll pardon the expression."
■
"What were you doing in Miami? What were you doing in the park, when that crazy anarchist bastard tried to kill the president?"
So I was right: the blond had recognized me, and reported back to his chief.
I said. "I was playing bodyguard for Cermak. Some job I did. huh?"
"About changed the course of history, didn't you, pal?"
" 'About' doesn't count for much, Frank."
"Why'd Cermak hire you on, an ex-cop, when he had Lang and all the other cops in town at his fingertips, and for free?"
"Cermak didn't hire me."
"Oh, yeah? Who did?"
"One of his longtime backers."
Nitti considered that, or pretended to: there wasn't a flicker of a reaction to indicate he suspected Capone's role in this; but that didn't mean he didn't.
"Well." he said. Smiling. "No harm done." His lawyer was wanting him to move along; it was their turn at bat. Nitti put a hand on my arm. "About what you did for me. in this Lang thing…"
"I didn't do it for you, Frank. I just told the truth."
"Sure. I know. But I appreciate it. I owe you one. kid."
And he winked at me, and went in to testify.
I had a talk with some reporters, who I'd managed to duck the day before; they wanted to know about my quitting the force, and what my future plans were and so on.
And suddenly I knew what a part of my future plans would be; Nitti had reminded me of a debt somebody else owed me.
"I'm going to be working at the world's fair, boys," I told the newsmen. "I used to be with the pickpocket detail, you know, and General Dawes himself has contracted me to work with the fair's special security7 force in that regard"
They put that in their stories, and the next morning the phone rang.
"Hello. Uncle Louis." I said into it. without waiting to hear the voice on the other end. "When does the General want to see me?"
My appointment with General Dawes was at ten. and I figured I'd be out of there by noon, easy, for my luncheon date with Mary Ann Beame at the Seven Ails, a joint in Tower Town on the second floor of an old stable that made the Dill Pickle seem like Henrici's. I'd been seeing her a couple times a week since I got back from Miami, and by seeing her. I mean sleeping with her, and she was still driving me crazy with her small-town-girl-goes-bohemian ways, and one minute I wanted her out of my life and the next I was thinking about asking her to marry me, though with all her talk of a career I wasn't sure where I fit in.
Today I was going to tell her I'd pursued every avenue I could think of to find her brother- in Chicago at least- and the only idea I could think of, to pursue it further, was to start at the source: to go back to their hometown and try to track him from that end. Whether she'd go for that, since it would involve telling her father, who she'd kept out of this so far, I didn't know. But it was about all I had left. I'd checked with every newspaper in the suburbs and small towns around Chicago, and nobody recognized Jimmy's picture, and I hit the employment bureaus and the relief agencies and a hundred other places- and I'd run through that retainer of hers (which I'd initially thought was overly generous) weeks ago, with no intention of asking for anything else from her- except the right to keep seeing her. I was definitely going soft in the head department: that radio I bought I'd been using to listen to her on that silly soap opera- though I never admitted that to her.
At nine-thirty, after "Just Plain Bill," just as I was getting ready to walk over to the bank, a messenger delivered an envelope to me with a thousand-dollar bill in it.
There was also a note- "For services rendered"- typed on a sheet of Louis Piquett's law firm's stationery.
I called Piquett up; his secretary, after checking with him, put me through.
"I trust you've received my message. Mr. Heller. I hope it was satisfactory."
"Best message I've had in some time. But why? I didn't deliver on what your client hired me for. The man I was sent to protect isn't with us anymore, you know."
"Correct. And you haven't received the full ten thousand dollars promised, either. But my client does recognize you performed your services as best as circumstances would allow, and felt services rendered should be compensated."
"Thank your client for me."
"I will. And we're sorry for the delay in getting this message to you. My client's business transactions don't move as swiftly as they did before his confinement."
"I understand. Thanks. Mr. Piquett."
"My pleasure."
I got up from the desk and folded the thousand and put it in my pocket; too bad I didn't bank with
Dawes- it would've saved me a trip. Of course the only banking I did with anybody these days was keep a safe-deposit box. Maybe happy days were here again; but bankings days weren't, as far as I was concerned.
The Dawes bank was on the comer of LaSalle and Adams, in the shadow of the Board of Trade Building and across from the Rookery, and was as pompous as the General himself: a massive graystone edifice with stone lion heads lording it over eight three-story pillars cut out of its face, little stone lions lurking above like regal gargoyles. A corridor ran the length of the building clear over to Wells Street, through a promenade of shops; the bank was on the second floor. Dawes had his office on the third. Just off the street entrance were rows of elevators on either side, and my uncle Louis- wearing a g
ray suit the price of which would feed a family of four for as many months- was pacing between them, getting in people's way.
"You're late." he said, barely opening his mouth, which was like a gash under his salt-and-pepper mustache.
"My limo stalled," I said.
He glared at me and we got on an elevator empty but for the operator; we had it all to ourselves. There's nothing like a family reunion.
"I hope you realize the position you've put me in." Uncle Louis said.
"What position is that?"
He glared at me again, and for the rest of the ride stood fuming silently, possibly searching for the words to put me in my place, but not finding them before the elevator operator opened the door for us at the third floor.
My uncle led me to a door without any lettering on it; inside was a male secretary at a desk in a large wood-paneled anteroom. The secretary nodded at us and buzzed us through, into a big bleak office that was more dark paneling with one of the walls covered by photos of the General and notables.
Dawes was sitting behind a big mahogany desk on which the stacks of papers were so neat it looked posed; so did the General, in a blue pinstripe, his hand touching his pipe. He didn't rise; his stern expression apparently meant he wasn't pleased with me. either.
"Sit down, gentlemen," he said.
There were chairs waiting for us; we filled them.
"Mr. Heller," the General said, then clarified: "Young Mr. Heller. What was the idea behind giving that story to the press?"
I pretended to be surprised. "Was I meant to keep our business arrangement a secret?"
Dawes sucked on the pipe; his brow was knit. "What business arrangement is that?"
"We spoke in December, at Saint Hubert's. You suggested that I let the chips fall where they may and tell the true story at the Nitti trial. In return, as a token of gratitude for performing this possibly dangerous civic duty, I was to be paid three thousand dollars for working with your security people at the fair, to help control the anticipated pickpocket problem there."
Dawes relit his pipe. It was an elaborate operation. He said, "I believe you're quite aware that the situation has changed since we spoke."
True Detective Page 26