The bartender was heavyset and pockmarked, but his apron was clean, which was a first for the evening. I asked him if he knew Jimmy Beame, and he said no. I asked him if he knew Vince Loga and he said no. I gave him a fin and asked again. He still didn't know Jimmy Beame, but Vince was in back playing cards.
He pointed to a door at the rear and I headed there, Reagan next to me. the eyes behind the dark-rimmed glasses blinking as he tried not to look down the pretty necklines at the tables we passed, and considering the size of some of the guys sitting at the same tables as those necklines, that was a wise decision. As I reached to open the door, a bouncer the size of a Buick drove over and advised me the game was closed. I gave him a buck, opened my coat to show him I wasn't armed, and he opened the door for me. and I went in.
■
He stopped Reagan. Said to me, "You gave me one buck. If he goes in. I want another."
I didn't feel like giving him another, so I told Reagan to stay out there.
The room was smoky and the low-hanging shaded lamp cast its pyramid of light across the green-felt, money-strewn table. Six people were playing; the game was poker. Five of the men had their coats off. ties loosened, hats on. except a hatless. dark-haired dude who had his back to me. and had kept his fancy pinstripe on. I waited till the end of the current hand and said, "Who's Vince Loga?"
A guy about twenty-two with the sort of bland, baby-faced looks that could, in company like this, mean somebody with something to prove, was right across from me.
"I'm Loga," he said, not looking at me, looking instead at the cards being shuffled to his left. "I'm also busy. I also don't know you. Beat it."
The dude with his back to me turned and it was George Raft.
He stood and smiled at me. extended a hand, which I took. "Heller." he said. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"You're asking me?" I said. "I'm on business. What are you doing? Making a movie? Sequel to State Fair, maybe?"
"I been in the Tri-Cities for three days." he said. "Makin' stage appearances at the Capitol with Pick Up. That's the new movie. You know, I came here from Chicago Saturday; stopped in with Max Baer and saw Barney while I was in town- didn't he mention it?"
"No, but I was kind of busy last week."
"Yeah, I know. I saw the papers."
"Can I have a word with you, George? In the other room?"
"Sure."
We stepped out into the other room, where Reagan was waiting at the bar. I introduced Raft to him and the kid was grinning ear to ear; he'd apparently never met a big Hollywood star before.
"Look, George. I could use a favor."
"Name it."
"Tell that guy Loga I'm okay. Tell him he can level with me."
"Okay. You mind telling me what it's about, first? I don't want the whole story, mind you. Just an idea of what kind of limb I'm out on."
"It's just a missing persons case. It doesn't connect with anything big that I know of."
"Fair enough." He turned to Reagan. "You like that announcing racket?"
"Sure," Reagan said. "But I'd like to be an actor, like you, Mr. Raft."
Raft's smile, as usual, was barely there. "Well, be an actor if you like; but don't be one like me. Listen, if you do go out to Hollywood…"
"Yes?"
"Lose the glasses."
Reagan nodded, thinking about it, and Raft took me back in and said to Loga, "This guy's a friend of Al Brown's."
Loga swallowed hard; he was in the middle of a hand, but he put his cards down and went out with me. Raft nodded at me and smiled and sat back down and played cards.
"You're a friend of the Big Fellow?" Loga said, like I was a movie star.
"Never mind that. The question is, are you a friend of Jimmy Beame's?"
Loga shrugged, but not insolently, which was an effort for him. "Yeah. So what?"
"Heard from him lately?"
"Not since he left here, year and a half ago or so. Why?"
"You know where he is?"
"Chicago, I guess. That's where he said he was going."
"To do what?"
"Just look for work."
"What kind?"
Loga smirked. "Whatever pays the right money, what else?"
"Did he have a contact or anything in Chicago? Anyplace lined up to stay?"
"Not that he said."
"I hear he hopped a freight to get there."
"Where'd you hear that? That's the bunk. He had a ride."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, Dipper Cooney. He's a"
"Pickpocket. Yeah. I know him."
Loga shrugged again. "He worked the Tri-Cities for a few weeks; he's been all over Wisconsin and Illinois and around. The pickpocket dicks in Chicago put the collar on him once too often, he said, so he started floating city to city."
"But he was heading back?"
"Yeah, he was going back. And Jimmy hitched a ride with him."
I chewed on that awhile.
"That's all I know, pal," Loga said. His being impressed with my knowing Capone was wearing off, possibly because I was making noises that sounded like a cop. "It was a while ago, and you're damn lucky I got a good memory. Y'mind I go back and play some cards?"
"Sure. Tell Georgie I said thanks."
"Will do."
He went back in the smoky room, and, just as the Dixieland combo was starting up again, Reagan said, "Did you get something?"
"Maybe," I said. "We better cash it in for the night. You look like you're about one beer over your limit. And I got to get some sleep- I got a long drive back to Chicago tomorrow."
Saturday. May 27. a beautiful sunny day. A Goodyear blimp glides overhead. The oblong bowl of Soldier Field, where Mary Ann and I sit well back in the bleachers, is packed with people- now and then sections of the crowd begin singing "Happy Days Are Here Again." apparently believing it. Outside, crowds swarm either side of Michigan Avenue to watch the parade, as if expecting the president of the United States to be grand marshal.
But the president hasn't been able to get away from Washington to open Chicago's big fair; he's sent instead his postmaster general. Jim Farley. The only president on hand is Rufus C. Dawes, the General's brother, the president of the Century of Progress Exposition.
The crowd is noisy, festive, as the parade pours into the amphitheater, the motorcycle police, sirens blaring, leading the way for band after band, horse troop upon horse troop, the stadium awash in waving flags, flashing sabers, gleaming helmets. Then touring cars bearing dignitaries: big, bald, genial Jim Farley; Rufus Dawes, whose pince-nez seems designed as a means for the rest of us to tell him apart from his brother; the recently appointed mayor, Edward J. Kelly, a big man with a full head of hair and glasses that lend a needed dignity; Governor Horner, smaller, slightly rotund, bespectacled, bald; moving past the reviewing stand where high-hatted officials sit, beaming, movie cameras grinding nearby, as the procession moves around the arena. And the cheering crowd gobbles it all up; or most of the crowd, anyway. A few, like Mary Ann, don't like being part of a crowd: starring roles only, no mob scenes, please- though the show business aspect of the event clearly excites her. Others, like me, have seen parades before.
At the platform in front of the reviewing stand, the speeches begin; Dawes. Kelly, and Horner make the expected grandiose claims for the fair and Chicago. Farley is the keynote speaker, and not a bad one.
His bald head reflecting the noon sunlight, Farley first solemnly explains the president's absence. Loudspeakers fill the stadium with Farley's tale of the president's regret at not being able to attend: "It was here in your Chicago stadium that his party nominated him for the presidency… moreover, there is the tie of friendship…"
And the uninvited guest, the last man Rufus and General Dawes want to see here, sneaks in: the man Mayor Kelly has replaced through party machinations devious even for Chicago, with legislation rushed through Springfield to authorize the city council to select the new mayor (to "save the public the expens
e of an election"), turning scandal-ridden Park Board Chairman Edward Kelly into a world's fair mayor ("A man of vision!"), a mayor who represents the Irish faction of the Demos ("Fuck the Irish!" having been the previous mayor's war cry), backed by Jewish Governor Homer, who owes his election to that uncouth, patronage-minded hunky whose departure from this vale of tears has been a blessing disguised by a period of several weeks of public mourning, weeks ago, months ago, history now, dimly remembered if at all; but Farley, possibly not fully understanding the twisted nature of Illinois politics, has brought the uninvited guest up onto the reviewing stand.
"… the tie of friendship with your martyred mayor, a friendship the warmth of which rose above political affiliation and typified the mutual admiration of two outstanding public men, each of whom recognized the sincerity of the other."
Mayor Kelly, Rufus Dawes, and Governor Homer shift in their seats, in perfect unison, like dancers in
The Gold Diggers of1933.
Farley continues: "The most intense moment in our president's career was when he held in his arms the friend who had stopped the deadly bullet aimed at his own heart."
There are few dry eyes in the bleachers; I wonder how Cermak's family is taking all this. A small article in yesterday's Trib told of the family's disappointment at not being invited to be on the reviewing stand; the city council responded by assuring the Cermaks reserved seats in the bleachers nearby.
General Dawes is among the dignitaries on the reviewing stand, but he does not speak. He is content to allow the public to think his brother Rufus the sole guiding force of the exposition- Rufus and the visionary Mayor Kelly- though Dawes must certainly be somewhat disappointed having another Democrat take Tony's place, and a scandal-tinged one at that. The extent of General Dawes' public activities at the Century of Progress, this sunny day. will be to take the first two-wheeled carriage ride of the fair, sitting in his stovepipe hat. puffing his pipe, his back-seat chauffeur a college kid. The papers will take pictures of this earth-shattering event, saying "Who says Dawes can't be pushed around?"
We have aisle seats, and Mary Ann doesn't argue when I suggest we leave early, while speakers are still having at it, and get over to the fair, which has been open for business since nine this morning.
Even leaving that stadiumful of people behind, it's crowded getting in, partially because there are so few turnstiles for everybody to push through. In the background the dignified, imposing Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium look on, as if jealous of the crowds their new neighbor is attracting. I pay Mary Ann's fifty cents, and offer my pass in its little leather billfold to the attendant, who checks my picture and punches the card.
And, then, spread out before us is General Dawes' and Cermak's- dream city, a city of futuristic towers, geometrically shaped buildings, flat angular planes of white, blue, orange, black, yellow, red, gray, green, windowless bold splashes of color. Before us is an avenue overseen by flapping red flags angling in from overhead at either side, an avenue filled with people and an occasional tour bus, the buses getting out of the way of people, for a change, and at its far end, the Hall of Science, Camelot out of Buck Rogers, fluted white pylons alternating with sheets of cobalt blue. To our left is the Administration Building, an ultramarine box with a silver facade; at the left a lagoon shimmers- across it the long, low, green-and-black Agricultural Building, and the three white towers of the Federal Building, which loom over its triangular Hall of States like the prongs of a big upturned electrical plug.
And it goes on like that: the Sears Roebuck Building, an off-white, blue-trimmed tower rising from a sprawl of modernistic wings; the Swedish, Czechoslovakian, and Italian pavilions, looking just as futuristic as the next guy, with little old-world flavor in evidence; then up a ramp to the Hall of Science, the "capitol" of the fair, with its U-shaped front facing the lagoon. Inside, a ten-foot transparent robot human says to us (and others gathered around him), "Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall swallow. You can see this mouthful of food passing down my esophagus. Now you see the swallow entering the top door of my stomach. Watch my stomach contract to churn up food."
I had been hungry, before that, and when the memory had faded a bit we did partake of a couple of red hots from a futuristic white stand by the Sky Ride; Mary Ann was anxious to take this ride- with its six-hundred-some-foot towers standing a couple thousand feet apart. At about two hundred feet up, so-called "rocket" cars traveled back and forth on steel cables, above the lagoon. It was not something I
wanted to do after having a hot dog-Once you got past the assault upon your senses by geometry and color gone berserk, the fair turned out to be a fair: we wandered anions plaster dinosaurs; saw Admiral Byrd's City of New York, the ship he used to explore Antarctic seas; hit the two-block stretch of midway, and rode the roller coaster, the Bozo, and the Cyclone, but. hoping to keep the red hot down. I begged off the Lindy Loop, passing up, too, the Pantheon de la Guerre, where the world's largest war paintings were on display, and doing without the flea circus and the Florida alligator show. We crossed the lagoon and had a look at the Enchanted Island, where parents could dump kids (after a doctor inspected each tyke) and gigantic cutouts of Oz characters and a two-story boy riding in his red wagon ruled the five-acre roost.
The whole fair was big on giantism, despite a midget village on the midway the Time and Life Building had, on its either side, towering huge mock covers: a Fortune cover depicting planets in space; a Time cover featuring the man of the year- FDR- whose face loomed over the fair, even if he hadn't been able to make it there. The Haviland thermometer was just this big goddamn thermometer, several stories high, with a red neon stem; no wonder that kid at Enchanted Island was trying to get away on his wagon.
We walked hand in hand. Mary Ann wasn't saying much, but was trying to maintain a cynically bohemian attitude- she wore a black beret with a black slit dress, and heels that must've killed her, while everybody else in sight wore colorful, holidaylike apparel; but while her look was Tower Town, her eyes were full of Iowa. This place made Little Bit O'Heaven look sick. This was the most unreal unreal place on earth, and Mary Ann, whether she would admit it or not, loved it here.
So did the rest of the people, and it was a swell place to hide from the depression, even if a lot of families did have to pass up the many food concessions and find a bench to eat the lunch in brown bags they'd brought with 'em. Most of the tourists were staying in private homes, usually at fifty cents per person, meals included; and many a frugal head of the family- whether in trousers or skirts- insisted on getting the full fifty cents worth by bringing their lunch.
Of course a lot of people were buying their lunch here, in which case it was likely their money- at least some of it- would go into Syndicate coffers. Capone might have been in Atlanta, and Cermak in the ground, and Chicago superficially a cleaner city, but Nitti's boys were cleaning up at the fair. Quite literally, since they controlled the fair's street-sweepers union, and the union the college-boy rickshaw pullers/carriage pushers formed, and half a dozen others. The San Carlo Italian Village restaurant was run by Nitti people; they had the popcorn concession, hatcheck, parking, towel/soap/disinfectant concessions; every hot dog and hamburger sold at the fair was theirs, and Ralph "Bottles" Capone, Al's brother, had seen to it that, with the exception of Coca-Cola, no soft drinks sold on the grounds came from any other bottling works than his own. Most of the beer here was Nitti's, too, of course. And why shouldn't Nitti make money off the fair? He built it.
Word from the street, confirmed by Eliot, seconded by the private police I'd been working with on pickpocket prevention, was that Nitti-dominated unions and employers' associations had controlled the trucking and much of the construction work in the clearing of Northerly Island and the turning of the lakeshore into a futuristic landscape of geometry and giantism. And all contractors accepting construction jobs on Northerly Island had added an extra 10 percent on top of their bids- because Nitti had decried 10 percent off the top for the mob.<
br />
Nobody was talking about this, really: not the papers; not the Dawes boys, certainly. You had to look the other way in certain matters, after all. For example, with all these tourists coming in, prostitution was bound to go through the roof, so the city fathers had required prostitutes to register as "masseuses." and to submit to weekly examinations by a city-appointed doctor who would look for. well, "skin diseases." And now all around town neon signs had sprung up saying MASSAGE PARLOR, and so what? Hadn't the General admitted to me once that he only wanted to clean the town up "within reason"? The world wasn't going to end because some bird from Duluth got laid- and if we wanted him to brine his business back to Chicago again sometime, better to send him home without the clap.
This fair that Mary Ann was wandering through so gaga-eyed was not the City of Tomorrow, it was just another never-never land; harmless, but transitory. In a few months the brightly colored plywood and glass would come crashing down. These tourists from Iowa and every other hick state were all aglow, thinking their future was all around them; some poor souls even imagined they were in Chicago.
They weren't, of course; they were in Chicago only in the sense that the fair was what Chicago- which is to say, Dawes and Cermak and Nitti- had planned it to be. In that sense, they were in Chicago, all right.
In every other sense, they were in Tower Town, with Mary Ann.
"I haven't mentioned you looking for my brother." Mary Ann said, "for ages."
We were seated at a small round table in the open-air gardens at the Pabst Blue Ribbon Casino, overlooking the fair's south lagoon, just to the rear of the Hollywood pavilion. There was a lake breeze.
"Actually," I said, pouring a legal Pabst from its bottle into a glass, "it's been two weeks. But you have been good about it, I must say."
Ben Bernie and his Lads were taking a break; they'd been playing on a circular revolving platform right out in the open, next to a canopy-covered dance floor that extended into the garden. We'd had to wait half an hour for our table, even though it was only around three-thirty in the afternoon, well away from either lunch or supper crowds. But this was opening day at the Century of Progress, and the Pabst Casino (casino in the cabaret sense only- no gambling was going on) was the largest, swankiest joint on the exposition grounds; it was, quite legitimately, touting itself as the place "to dine and dance with the famous," and the three round white-red-and-blue interlocking buildings, one of them twice the size of the other two, were jammed to capacity.
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