True Detective

by Max Allan Collins

"Well. Coin and Mike Talarico were sometimes rivals, sometimes partners. You know how that business goes. Coin was shot down in front of his house last summer. Shotgun. Never found the killers, though they held a guy from Muscatine for it. then released him. Somebody brought in from Chicago did it, was the rumor, of course. Probably hired by Talarico, 'cause Coin had reportedly squealed to the feds. Anyway, Jimmy knew Coin and his crowd. And… well."

  Go on.

  "Look- John Beanie's a good man; if he's trying to find his son. I'd like to help. But there's something that I can only tell you if you swear to secrecy. Absolute goddamn secrecy."

  "All right."

  "You gotta understand Jimmy's second reason for hanging around with those lowlifes: he wanted to be a writer, a reporter. He wanted to go to Chicago and write about gangsters for the Trib. He didn't want to get in the game, see; he wanted to sit on the fifty-yard line and do the play-by-play, if you get me."

  "I get you."

  "And this is the part you got to keep to yourself. Jesus, keep it to yourself." He lowered his voice, leaned toward me. "Jimmy was feeding me stuff. He was hanging around with the Coin crowd, and even doing some minor things for 'em- driving a truck, here and there, no guns or anything, just bootlegging. But he'd keep his ears open, and he'd tell me tilings. Pass along the scuttlebutt, get it? If something big was up- and we've had our share of Chicago-style shootings and bombings and kidnappings and what-have-you- Jimmy'd pass along what he heard. To me."

  "Did you encourage this?"

  He looked at me hard, the gray eyes looking like smoky glass; his cigar was out, but he didn't seem to have noticed.

  "I paid him." he said.

  'I see.

  "No you don't. You gotta understand the kid was doin' this on his own. And I told him he'd get his damn head blown off if he kept it up. but dammit if he didn't start feeding me some good tips. I couldn't help myself; I'm a reporter. And he was eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old when this was goin' on. He was old enough to be held responsible for his own actions."

  "You wouldn't happen to know some of the places he hung out, would you? And who his 'friends' were?"

  "Are you nuts? I never went with him: he couldn't be seen around with me. if he was gonna do this half-assed undercover work. But I can tell you where some of the speaks in town are. if you like."

  He started rattling 'em off, and I stopped him till I could get my notepad out. When he'd finished, he said, "I can't really give you any names of the wharf rats he was hanging around with, 'cause he never really said. He wasn't close to the big boys, so talking to Talarico or Lucchesi wouldn't do any good. They probably wouldn't know Jimmy from Adam. Coin knew Jimmy, but Coin's dead."

  "Anything else you can tell me?"

  "Well. I do know he made some trips to Chicago. This was while he was in college, but during the summers. As early as the summer of'30. That always bothered me. See, his friend Coin was tight with the Chicago boys. Ever hear of a guy named Ted Newberry?"

  The body was in a ditch near a telephone pole.

  "Yeah," I said. "I heard of him."

  "He was the Chicago big shot the Tri-Cities liquor ring was tight with. I covered a trial in the fall of '31, where Newberry and Coin. Talarico and Lucchesi were codefendants. Anyway. Jimmy went to Chicago a couple times, and I always wondered if he was running an errand or something for Coin. I grilled him about it. but he always claimed it was just pleasure trips. Still. I always had the queasy feeling that Jimmy was getting in over his head. All I could think of were those scrapbooks he put together in junior high and high school, full of Chicago and Capone. and couldn't help but wonder about those 'pleasure trips.'"

  "Did you talk to him about his plans to go to Chicago and try to get a job there?"

  "Yeah. I told him his expectations were unrealistic. That they'd toss him out on his butt. But he had to try, he said. And I guess every kid does have to try. So I didn't try to stop him. I even wrote him a letter of recommendation, in case he did get in for a real interview by some miracle. And I told him if he flopped, he could come back and I'd try to get him on the Democrat here, as a copyboy if nothing else. And he said- what was it he said? He seemed confident they'd give him a shot. Almost cocky, the little snotnose. 'Oh, they'll print my stuff,' he said. Something like that. Ever heard anything so ridiculous?"

  I hadn't, and I said as much to Mary Ann, in the Palmer cafeteria over lunch. The cafeteria was in a narrow one-story building with a half-roof slanting up against the side of one of the main school buildings; above the archway going in was a motto: "Is Life Worth Living? That Depends On the Liver!"

  Well. I wasn't having liver, though it had been one of the selections; I was having a go at the meat loaf, and it wasn't a Little Bite O' Heaven.

  "I knew Jimmy had some rough friends." Maty Ann said, "and knew he went out drinking and all. But I didn't know about any… gangsters or bootleggers or anything."

  "Maybe you weren't as close to him as you thought."

  Her eyes stung me. "We were very close." Then, offhandedly, she said, "I knew he had an interest in criminology."

  "He had an interest in criminals."

  "It's the same thing."

  "No it isn't. Ever hear of a guy named Reinhardt Schwimmer?"

  She was having liver. She swallowed a bite of it and then said, "Why of course. Rudolph Schwimmer's name is on the tip of every tongue," and stuck hers out at me, just a bit. Some college boys who were watching her from a nearby table about fell over when she did that; they'd fallen deeply in love with her back in the cafeteria line.

  "Reinhardt Schwimmer," I said. "He was an optometrist. He had a fascination for gangsters. And since his practice was in Chicago, he had access to some. He took to hanging around with them, at the speakeasies they frequented, even at some of their places of business, including a garage where trucks of hooch got loaded and unloaded. One day Doc Schwimmer dropped by the garage to talk to the boys, who were waiting for their boss Bugs Moran and his second-in-command, a fella named Newberry, to show, when some cops came barging in and told everybody to put their hands in the air."

  "And the innocent doctor got arrested right along with the bad guys," she said.

  "Not exactly. This was Saint Valentine's, 1929."

  Mary Ann didn't play naive; she knew what I meant.

  "They killed him, Mary Ann," I said. "He probably told the men with machine guns he wasn't one of the gangsters; that he was just an optometrist. But they killed him anyway. He was there, and he got killed."

  Her eyes were damp. "Why are you saying these things, Nathan?"

  We were on the verse of a scene.

  "Hey," I said, trying to shift gears, "I shouldn't have got into this here. I'm sorry. I didn't intend to upset you, it just came out… but a picture's starting to form, Mary Ann. A picture of your brother. And he isn't looking too very smart."

  "For your information, my brother was an A student."

  "Mary Ann. There's school, and there's school. Like the hard-knocks kind. Your brother is a kid from Davenport, Iowa. He may have hung around with some bootleggers"- I'd been a little vague with her on this point not wanting to betray Traynor's confidence- "but he was still a kid from the sticks."

  "What's your point?"

  "I don't know. I'm starting to have a sick feeling, that's all. Maybe it's the meat loaf."

  "You've said all along you think Jimmy's off somewhere… riding the rails, seeing the country."

  "I think he probably is. But he's not seeing Chicago, or I'd probably turned him up by now. Some things bother me, Mary Ann. Like his hanging around with hoods, here in Davenport. And did you know your father gave him two hundred dollars for tuition to Parmer, which he pocketed and took with him to Chicago?"

  She turned pale. "No. Jimmy didn't tell me that."

  "He told you he was going to hop a freight, though, didn't he?"

  "Yes."

  "If he did, and if he had two hundred dollars on him, well… that wor
ries me."

  "What are you saying?"

  "Nothing. But if he made it to Chicago with his two hundred, I'll eat another serving of this meat loaf."

  Her lower lip was trembling; I reached across and touched her hand.

  "I'm sorry if I seem a bastard" I said. "It's just… I want you to be prepared, incase."

  "In case what?"

  "In case you have to look at something without the rose-colored glasses on."

  She thought about that; she pushed the plate of liver away.

  "Find him, Nathan," she said. "Please."

  "I'm going to try."

  "Don't try. Do it. Find him for me."

  "I can't promise that."

  "You have to."

  "Okay. I promise. All right? Are you all right?"

  She managed a smile. "Yes."

  "How about helping me find this brother of yours?"

  "Sure," she said.

  She had arranged for me to talk to her brother's journalism instructor at Augustana, across the river in Rock Island; it was a beautiful campus on a rolling green bluff and the building we entered didn't have a single motto on its walls. But the matronly Enslish literature instructor who also taught journalism had nothing illuminating to say about Jimmy, except that he was a fine writer and showed a lot of promise; that his marks in everything from literature to math were top-drawer. Nothing about Jimmy's personal life; nothing in the subject matter of his stories for the school paper that reflected the interest in crime that Traynor had told me about.

  Back in Davenport, we stopped at a market, then went back to her father's modernistic castle, where I helped her in the kitchen, and she surprised her father with a roast beef dinner with all the trimmings, and she and I surprised each other by both being good cooks. I'd done a lot of cooking at home, growing up; and she'd been the only woman in this house for many a year. So we agreed to alternate days in the kitchen when we got married, though I silently promised myself to let her handle it, except for special occasions.

  After dinner Mary Ann and her father, his arm around her, a gray-gloved hand gentle on her shoulder, went into his study. They asked me to join them, but I declined: this was a family moment, and I wasn't family yet. Besides, I had an appointment.

  Dutch Reagan was waiting for me in front of the Perry Apartments, wearing a sweater over a shirt and tie. and brown slacks. His hands were in his pockets and he was leaning back against the building; with his glasses and crew cut. he didn't look like somebody who could get in a speakeasy, let alone give me a city-wide tour of 'em. I pulled up and he got in.

  "Right on time," he said, with a ready smile.

  "Take a look at this." I said, and handed him my notepad, folded back to the page where I'd jotted down Traynor's list of speaks. I pulled away from the curb.

  "This is most of'em." Reagan said. "Where'd you get this?"

  "A reporter. Anything significant left out?"

  "These are all mostly right downtown here. I'd suggest hitting the roadhouses. too."

  "How many of them are there?"

  "Just a couple. But we better stick to drinking beer tonight, and one per place, or we're not going to make it through the list. At least I won't."

  Anyway he was honest about it.

  "We'll take it easy," I assured him. "Are you a regular at any of these places?"

  "I've been in most of'em. once or twice."

  "Just once or twice, huh?"

  "I didn't say I was a drinking man. just Irish."

  "Is there a difference?"

  "You got red hair, you tell me."

  I grinned at him. "I'm only half-Gaelic- you look like the full ticket."

  "Well, my dad puts it away pretty good- too good, actually. Most of my drinking's been done on the fraternity back porch or in a parked car. Look, you may want to avoid the food in these joints. Most of 'em have to advertise they serve food, to stay open, you know."

  "That's par for the course."

  "Well, I just thought I should warn you. You seem to be heading toward Mary Hooch's, and I know a guy who ordered a sandwich there and when he took a bite, it bit him back."

  We hit the speaks downtown first, starting with the one on West Second Street run by the heavyset old lady known as Marry Hooch, a friendly old gal who looked like she could go a couple rounds with Barney. Her place, like most we went to, was a narrow hole in the wall with no sign out front, but otherwise running wide open. Legal sale of beer hadn't hurt her business any- the dozen or so workingmen at the bar were putting away the specialty of the house: near beer spiked with alcohol, exceeding the legal 3.2 limit and then some.

  "I know Jimmy." Mary Hooch said. She had a puffy face with two beady eyes hiding in it and hair as frizzy as Joe Zangara's. "Good kid. But I hear he took off for Chicago, long time ago."

  "Do you know any of his friends? Did anybody he hung out with hang out here?"

  "Not to speak of."

  "If you know Jimmy, you ought to know his friends."

  "Everybody was his friend. All the fellas and gals."

  "Anybody here tonight, for instance?"

  She looked around the room. "Not really. These guys are working stiffs, or out-of-work stiffs. Jimmy hung around with a different type."

  "If I offered you a fin would you get more specific?"

  "I don't think so. You're a friendly fella, but you're from out of town, right? I think I told you all I'm going to."

  It went like that everyplace: a joint on East Fourth, where the shrimp and oysters looked edible, and Reagan forgot his advice to me and had a basket of the former; another over a garage at West River Drive and Ripley, where sandwiches apparently more legitimate than Mary Hooch's were being served; a place up on Washington Street that actually had a small sign out front (Yellow Dog) and sold German food. Bartenders remembered Jimmy, knew he hung around with some "locals." but wouldn't set specific about who. With one exception: Jack Wall, the manager of that place over the garage, a smooth, well-dressed guy with a Nitti-style pencil mustache and a shovel-jaw. The impression I got was that he was up high enough in the Tri-Cities liquor ring to talk more freely than the others, if he felt like it. which he did, when I explained I was a private op from Chicago working a missing persons case.

  "Jimmy hung around with some of Nick Coin's boys," Wall said, "in particular Vince Loga."

  "Know where I could find Loga?"

  "A speak. Not this one."

  "Oh?"

  "He ain't here. Trust me."

  It seemed prudent to do so. I had left Reagan at the bar, where he sat nursing a beer, studying some of the sad faces around him. In the car, he said, "Lot of those guys are out of work. Mighty sad situation."

  "They found dough for a drink, though, didn't they?"

  "You're awful cynical. Mr. Heller. Doesn't it make you feel a little sick inside, when you see out-of-work men on street corners?"

  "On street corners, yes. In bars, no."

  "Well, somebody's got to do something about it."

  "Oh yeah? Like what? Like who?"

  "I can tell you what / do. Every day when I walk up the hill to the station. I give ten cents to the first guy who asks for it."

  "If it's the same guy every day. you're getting taken."

  "Very funny. I vox plenty of guys to choose from, believe me. Well, the president'll straighten this out."

  "Voted for him, did you, Dutch?"

  "I'll say I did. And so did my father. He's even working for the government."

  "Your father? Doing what?"

  "Giving out scrip to the unemployed to exchange for food."

  We hit a couple of roadhouses on the outskirts of Davenport, both of them on the rough side: chicken-wire ceilings and sawdust on the floor and factory and foundry workers who liked to fight when they got drunk; I was glad I was with a husky former football player, even if he was wearing glasses and a sweater. Then we headed for a place Reagan had heard of but never been in, on highway 6, a route that took us along
the Mississippi and through several little towns. The night was clear, the full moon reflecting off the smooth surface of the river, turning it an eerie gray.

  Reagan asked me about Jimmy, and I filled him in. He said he could sympathize with the frustration Jimmy mustVe felt, going from newspaper to newspaper looking for work.

  "I had swollen feet from pounding the Chicago sidewalks," he said. "And I got all the reception-room fast shuffles you'd expect. It was a woman at NBC in Chicago who told me to head for the sticks. Even then, I was damn lucky, landing that WOC spot."

  "How'd you manage it?"

  "The station had been advertising for an announcer, but I showed up the day after they filled the slot. It was Mr. Beame who gave me this news, after I'd driven seventy-five miles in my father's car. Instead of staying cool, I kind of lost my temper, and asked him how the hell a guy can get to be a sportscaster if he can't get inside a station? And mentioning sports did it- they needed somebody to help announce some Iowa games, and that's how I started. Five bucks per. And that's where I met Jack Hoffmann, who was Jimmy Beame's drinking buddy."

  "And you ended up taking Hoffmann's place at the station."

  "More or less. Oh, he was a capable man. and he could ad-lib and all that, but he didn't know football. Still. I learned a lot from him. and he went off to find something in radio that wasn't sports."

  "You like your work?"

  "Sure. I wouldn't mind being the next Quin Ryan or Pat Flangan. Of course, my dream's to get into acting, not that this job isn't acting 'A chill wind is blowing through the stadium and the long blue shadows are settling over the field.'"

  "Not bad," I admitted.

  The roadhouse was up ahead, a white two-story building on the right, with a gravel lot full of cars and a small blue neon out front that said FIVE O'CLOCK CLUB. I pulled in.

  This was not a workingman's joint, at least not the men who worked in the area's factories and foundries. The men at the bar were in suits and ties and hats, as were the ones at tables with women in low-cut and/or tight-fitting dresses who might have been working girls, but didn't, I thought, work here; this seemed to be a place you brought a moll. It was modern-looking: black and white and chrome with subdued lighting, a nightclub atmosphere. A five-piece band was doing some Dixieland jazz on a small platform over in the far left corner; they sounded like the reason Bix left the area.