Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 14 (13 page)

“Yeah, right. You tell McCarran I’m no problem. And Christ, neither is Sinatra. You’ve got to give that kid a pass, too, Joe. You’ll destroy his career.”

“Mr. Sinatra is also on Kefauver’s list.”

“Oh. Wait…. I think I’m finally getting this.” I shook my head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “You’ll lay off Sinatra, if he doesn’t cooperate with the Kefauver Committee.”

He twitched a humorless smile. “You make this sound like a quid pro quo…. I can tell you that Senator McCarran admires Mr. Sinatra, has enjoyed his many appearances in Las Vegas.”

I raised a hand, as if I was being sworn in. “Frank won’t give those guys the time of day—even if they put his ass on TV and embarrass him in front of the entire nation.”

“You can speak for him?”

“I am speaking for him.”

McCarthy thought about that. Then he grinned, and it didn’t seem strained. “Great. Great! Jesus, Nate it’s nice seeing you. You want to go out for beer and steak? I’m ready for a break.”

“No thanks,” I said. “Rain check.”

I was the one with the strained grin, now.

I stood, he stood again, and we had another handshake, and I went quickly out. At first I was pissed off, although relieved; but then the humor of it hit me.

The other shoe had finally dropped.

I’d thought Fischetti, Giancana, and company had too easily accepted at face value my assurances not to help Kefauver. I mean, hell—I was Bill Drury’s friend and almost partner! Yet there’d been no intimidation—just one bribe, from Tubbo, nothing from the Outfit itself.

Until this Sunday evening screening of
Mr. Heller Goes to Washington,
that is.

This had all been just another scam, courtesy of the mob and that poker-playing ape back there. Sinatra was a friend of the Chicago/Nevada gambling interests, after all; they wouldn’t want to insult him, not directly. And me, better to keep me a friendly nonwitness.

So they had reached out to Senator Joe McCarthy, that great Red-hunting all-American boy, to squeeze Frankie and me into silence.

No silence right now: I was laughing, loud and hard, and it was echoing through the rotunda of the S.O.B., filling the hollow, hallowed halls, startling the guard.

The flight from D.C. took maybe three hours, the bag handlers at Midway managed not to lose my suitcase, the ride to the Loop clocked thirty-eight minutes, and I was back in my suite at the St. Clair before noon on Monday.

Unfortunately, I was alone: no sign of my new roommate.

Not only was Jackie Payne absent from my apartment, so were her things—the clothes she’d hung in my bedroom closet, her toiletries, suitcases, everything. Gone. Like she’d never been here…

…except for the lingering fragrance of Chanel No. 5., in the bedroom particularly.

I got the front desk on the phone and asked the clerk to round up Hannan, the house dick. Hannan sometimes did jobs for me, and he was supposed to have been doing me a favor, while I was away.

Leaving Jackie even for twenty-four hours had been problematic. we’d spent Saturday together, mostly at my suite, loving each other, me assuring her that I was going to get her the best help for her problem. We’d gone to a picture show—a matinee of
All About Eve,
at the State-Lake, holding hands like high school kids—and had a light, early supper at the Tap Room, back at the St. Clair. The rest of the evening had been consumed by passion worthy of honeymooners, intermingled with bouts of doubt and paranoia on her part, worry about me leaving even for just a day (and night), fear that Rocco would barge in and beat her, or worse.

“I’m afraid of him,” she’d said.

We were in bed, and the only light was courtesy of the lakefront and the moon through the window; she was nestled against me, her face against my chest. I was fooling with her hair, scratching and rubbing her scalp.

“No need,” I said, lying only a little. “Rocco’s going to have to watch himself where we’re both concerned.” She looked up at me, eyes a-glimmer with worry. “Why do you think that?”

“His brother Charley will keep him in line. Baby, Charley knows I’m capable of dishing out the same kind of…medicine as his brother. And one thing these goombahs don’t want right now is bad publicity.”

“Bad publicity…?”

“I’m the friend and associate of an ex-cop who’s going to testify against them in this crime inquiry. The curtain on that roadshow is going up soon—probably after the election, but soon—and the Fischettis of this world…the smart ones, anyway…don’t want the papers filled with stuff out of an old Jimmy Cagney movie.”

“You mean—they have to behave themselves?”

“That’s right.” If they were smart—but Rocco wasn’t smart; Charley had to be smart enough for both of them…which was the catch I didn’t explain to her.

So I had, seemingly, soothed her nerves and eased her fears; but I needed to take other steps, to soothe and ease my own.

Hannan had agreed to keep an eye on my suite and the precious contents therein; he and the night dick—Goorwitz, who also did occasional jobs for the A-l—would make sure she wasn’t disturbed. Both were reliable, at least as far as ex-cops went, and could handle themselves with Rocco should he, or any underling, come around. Hannan, in particular, was a hardcase, an ex-GI who survived the Battle of the Bulge.

I was pacing when knuckles rapped on my door; the peephole revealed red-headed, freckle-faced, blue-eyed Hannan, in a rumpled brown suit and brown felt fedora.

He stepped inside, saying, “She went out this morning. I saw her, and stopped her.”

“Stopped her?”

“In the lobby—a bellboy paged me, to let me know what was going on…I mean, that she had called down to get help with her luggage.”

At my directive, Hannan had alerted the staff to inform him of Jackie’s movements, and he’d shown around a picture of Rocco—which I’d plucked from Jackie’s wallet in her purse—so that clerks, bellboys, elevator attendants, and cleaning ladies would be on the lookout for that ugly face as well.

Hannan shrugged and held out his empty hands. “She said she was leaving, and I said you wouldn’t like it, and she said to say she was sorry.”

“Sorry.”

“A cab came for her, and she was gone. I couldn’t tail her, Nate—the follow-that-cab routine, I mean, it was out. I
am
on the job here, you know, and she was obviously skating of her own free will.”

I shook my head. “Hannan, that girl doesn’t have any free will—she’s on the damn spike.”

“And you were gonna get her off it, I suppose? Maybe that’s your answer—she decided she didn’t wanna get off it. You weren’t trying some cold turkey number on her, were you, Nate?”

“Hell no. I’m not that fucking stupid.” But I didn’t elaborate: I couldn’t tell the St. Clair’s house detective that I had been paying for her habit to be temporarily fed, that I’d arranged a delivery of H to hold her over, here at the hotel.

“She didn’t look like she was coming down, at that,” Hannan said.

Maybe he was wise to what I’d done.

“Listen…thanks. I appreciate it.” I dug into my pocket.

But Hannan put a hand on my suitcoat sleeve. “That C note you already gave me’ll do just fine…it let me spread some around and have plenty left for me. Hey, I didn’t do you much of a service, anyway, as it turns out…. Sorry, buddy.”

The hotel operator said, yes, she’d been working the switchboard on Sunday; and several calls had come through for my room yesterday, which she’d connected. So Jackie had taken calls meant for me—or had someone called for her?

I tried to imagine Rocco calling Jackie and convincing her to come back to him. He’d been tired of her, after all…but could his brother, the Machiavellian Charley, have advised Rock to take this potential witness back into the fold…at least for now?

When I was grabbing a burger at the hotel coffee shop, I spotted two Chez Paree showgirls—in babushkas over pin curls and no makeup, unrecognizable as glamour pusses—sharing a booth. They agreed to give me a call if Jackie showed back up around there. A long shot, but one of the things Rocco could have enticed Jackie back with—besides smack—was a return to the Adorables chorus line.

At the office, Gladys informed me that Bill Drury had called, wanting to meet with me this afternoon.

“You didn’t have anything in the book for four o’clock,” she said at her reception area desk, “so I wrote him in…. I can try to contact him and cancel if you like.”

“No, that’s all right.”

“I told him to bring back those Revere recorders, if he was dropping by.”

“He hasn’t returned them yet?”

“No. And he has a paycheck coming.”

I doubted Drury had been doing much A-1 work in the past several weeks, but I merely nodded at Gladys and headed for my office.

A knock at my door preceded Lou Sapperstein sticking his head in; he found me sitting at my desk, leaning my chin into an elbow-propped hand.

“How was D.C.?” he said, ambling over and depositing himself in one of the client chairs.

I’d made Lou aware not only of my trip, but that the A-1 was working for Sinatra, on the singer’s “pinko” problem.

“Fine,” I said. “A success. McCarthy’s laying off.”

“Great.” Lou didn’t ask how I’d managed it; he’d learned a long time ago not to ask me how I pull things off. “Have you called Frankie boy, yet?”

“No. I’ll do that.”

“Man, is he gonna be relieved…. You look a little peaked, my friend. Have a rocky ride home?”

I looked at him, wondering if “rocky” had been a dig; Lou’s deadpan showed nothing.

I said, “That girl I took in…the one Rocco threw out on her ass—Jackie Payne? She’s disappeared.”

He sat forward. “Shall we put somebody on it? I got two good boys sitting out in that bullpen, doing paperwork, just to keep ’em from playing with themselves.”

“She seems to have left my protective custody of her own volition.” I had not told Lou about Jackie’s drug habit, merely that she had been a punching bag of Rocco’s.

“Sometimes these masochistic dames go back for more from assholes like that,” Lou said, shaking his head. “I could send somebody around to talk to the doorman and janitor at the Barry Apartments.”

“Let me think on it. In the meantime, I’ll call Sinatra and tell him the good news.”

“I got a couple of jobs I need to talk over with you, this afternoon, Nate, if you’re up to it—that banker in Evanston, looks like his brother-in-law is embezzling, all right, and—”

“Sure. Let me make my phone call.”

Lou nodded, got up, and went quietly out.

I called Sinatra at the Palmer House, and filled him in, without sharing my theory that McCarthy had been rattling his cage at the behest of his mob friends. No reason to get Frank stirred up; better to let him think I was a miracle worker.

“You’re the best, Nate,” he said. “How did you like the new material, the other night?”

“You were great. Shave that mustache, and you just might have a career again.”

He laughed. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

“Yeah, definitely see what Ava thinks.”

“Fuck you, Melvin,” he said, cheerfully, and hung up.

For maybe the next half hour, I sat and tried to think if there was something I could do about Jackie—do
for
Jackie. And I couldn’t come up with a goddamn thing.

So I went back to work, and dealt with the matters Lou Sapperstein had for me, and a couple of other things. Then at four o’clock, Bill Drury was shown into my office, his usual natty self, blue suit and gray homburg.

“I’m not alone, Nate,” he said, the homburg in hand, exposing his thinning dark hair. “Someone’s with me—this is business. Can I have him come in?”

“Sure.” I hadn’t got up to greet Bill—I was still sitting behind the desk.

Drury turned to the open doorway and crooked his finger. A rather fleshy man in his mid-forties stepped in—six foot, hatless, with a square head, dark alert eyes highlighting strong features, and black, gray-at-the-temple hair, wearing a dark gray vested suit with a gray-and-blue tie. His name was Marvin J. Bas, and he was an attorney and Republican politician, in the Forty-second Ward—the turf of notorious saloonkeeper/alderman Paddy Bauler.

I stood up as Bas approached, smiling anxiously; we shook hands across the desk, said hello—using each other’s first names, though we didn’t know each other well, at all.

A folded newspaper tucked under his arm, Drury—who seemed uncharacteristically edgy—shut the door and came over and sat next to Bas, the pair filling both client chairs across from me at the desk.

“I’m a little surprised, Bill,” I said. “I thought you were coming around to settle up—return equipment, collect a paycheck. I hope Marvin’s presence doesn’t mean you plan to sue me.”

I’d said that with a smile, but anything was possible.

“No,” Drury said, with his own small smile, the newspaper in his lap like a napkin, “I realize I’ve taxed your patience, and took advantage of our friendship, these last few weeks…putting you on the spot, thoughtlessly.”

“If you’re expecting an argument—”

“No. I returned the tape recorders, and I’ll forgo any further paychecks from the A-1. Frankly, I’ve really been working for myself, for a good month now…longer, but prior to that I did earn my agency paycheck.”

“Fine. Is that why you’re here—to apologize? Patch up our friendship? And does that take an attorney?”

Bas, who had a resonant voice, sat forward and said, “Actually, we’re here to seek your help—not to ask a favor, based upon your long-standing friendship with Bill…rather, to hire you.”

“Really. To do what?”

Drury said, “I have a witness—a new witness—to an old crime.”

“And what crime would that be?”

“A murder, Nate.” Pouchy as those dark blue eyes of his might have become, they had lost none of their unsettling penetrating power as he fixed them on me like magnets seeking metal. “A murder you and I tried to solve together in 1946.”

“…You have a new witness to the Ragen shooting. Another eyewitness?”

“Not an eyewitness,” he said, but nodded and kept nodding as he continued, “a witness who will testify to Yaras admitting being one of the assassins—and that Tubbo Gilbert himself covered up the murder. That the witnesses who recanted did so due to Tubbo using a prostitute to—”

I held up a hand. “I know the story, Bill—each of the witnesses admitted to the same chippie that you told them what to say and who to identify.”

“Which was pure utter horseshit,” Drury said.

“It was enough to invalidate them as witnesses…and get you suspended.” I turned to Bas. “You’re working for Babb’s campaign?”

Bas had intense eyes, as well, and his courtroom orator’s voice gave him further weight, as he said, “That’s right. But I’m also working for the Chicago Crime Commission. Virgil Peterson and I are old college chums. I share his enthusiasm for cleaning up this—”

“The idea being,” I said, “expose Tubbo for the corrupt, mob-connected bastard he is, and your man Babb wins the race for sheriff.”

Bas winced. “That’s an oversimplification, but…yes.”

“So why do you need me?”

Drury said, “We have to meet with this witness, tonight— our first face-to-face.”

Bas said, “It’s strictly been intermediaries and phone calls…till tonight.”

I shrugged. “So meet with him.”

Drury said, “That is where you come in, Nate—you and your Browning. I’m hot right now—never hotter. We need backup. The address is at Orchard and Frontier…near the El.”

“That’s a rough neighborhood. Edge of Little Hell.”

Drury raised an eyebrow. “You can see why we need help. This could be a setup.”

A guy didn’t need Drury’s list of blood enemies for this meeting to be dangerous—you could get killed without trying, in that part of town.

“I really want to stay out of this,” I said.

Drury seemed almost jittery—I’d never seen him this way. “Nate—please. If this is a trap, I need somebody with your balls, and your savvy. You can handle yourself, if the lead starts flying…. Nate, who else can I ask?”

“How about your new friends on Kefauver’s advance team? They have their own private investigators working for them—a couple ex-FBI agents, or so I hear.”

Drury reddened; he tossed the newspaper he’d been cradling in his lap onto my desk. I opened it up—today’s
Chicago Daily News.