Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 14 (17 page)

“What, Sam?”

“She’ll talk. She’ll sing her lungs out. I mean, shit, she’s a junkie…. The feds will own the keys to her.” He shook his head. “Fucking Rocco—he’s a chowderhead, anyway, a real shit-for-brains. And
he
put her on the junk!”

“Maybe you wouldn’t mind if something bad happened to him,” I said.

His face was blandly expressionless again. “I’d get over it.”

Feeling like I was trying to put the pin back in a grenade, I ventured, “Sam—the girl. Miss Chicago?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s a friend of mine. I don’t want to see her hurt.”

He frowned—almost scowled. “Listen up, damn it: my friends and I are not trying to attract attention, right now. Drury and Bas getting splattered is the worst fucking thing that could have happened—bumping off a beauty queen, recently married to a Fischetti, is just as bad. Gimme a little credit, Heller, for Christsake!”

“Sorry, Sam.”

Smiling, he sat forward and patted my arm. “Hey—you and me, we have no problems. You
need
somebody like me, in my circles, to be your guardian angel. Like Nitti used to be. We aren’t in the same exact racket, but we can be helpful to each other. Do each other favors.”

Like have me bump off your fellow gangsters, when they’ve rubbed you the wrong way?
is what I thought…but sure as hell didn’t say it.

“For example, a favor you could do me, Heller…”

“Yeah?”

“Introduce me to your pal Sinatra, sometime.” Giancana stood. “Listen…it’s going to start getting busy in here, Friday night, I need to be scarce.”

“Yeah—sure.”

“But you can stay, Heller—run a tab on the house. Some decent girls are comin’ out. You see anything you like, just tell Fred…the bartender.”

“Well, thanks, Sam…”

“But they’re not hookers, understand. Lay a double saw-buck on ’em in the morning, as a kind of gift, and you’ll have a friend for life.”

Giancana walked toward the exit, and his bodyguard— Sally—scampered after him, like a two-hundred-fifty-pound puppy. It was still daylight out there, and a slice of it knifed into the smoky joint, as the gangster and his thug slipped out.

I finished my drink, but I didn’t stick around, and I sure as hell didn’t take him up on his offer of my pick of the girls. It wasn’t that I was above that sort of thing; but I wasn’t sure I wanted a friend for life.

Particularly one named Sam Giancana.

My neighbor the Federal Building (which was also the United States Courthouse) was a cross-shaped eight-story structure perched on Dearborn, between Adams and Jackson, extending to Clark, with an octagonal domed central tower adding another seven imposing stories. The grim splendor of the building’s ornate Roman Corinthian design seemed an apropos setting for dramatic trials of national note, like the $29 million judgment against Standard Oil and the Al Capone tax case…both matters of big business, after all.

In addition to the impressive courtrooms—with their William B. Van Ingren murals depicting the development of law over the ages—the Federal Building was also a rabbit’s warren of hearing rooms, offices, and conference chambers, as well as cubbyholes where distinguished lawyers and jurists could cut their sleazy deals.

Kefauver had been given one of the cubbyholes: a modest, windowless room to set up his temporary office, with space for a desk, a few hard chairs, and a bookend-style pair of file cabinets, with cardboard boxes of file folders stacked precariously along the plaster walls. It was as if the senator had been assigned a storage room that happened to include a desk.

I was sitting across from the Democratic congressman from Tennessee, who—when I’d stuck my head in the open door of his cubicle—had stood behind the file-cluttered desk, rising to an impressive six foot three or maybe four, extending me not only his hand but a wide, ingratiating grin.

In his rolled-up shirt sleeves and suspenders, his blue-and-red patterned tie loose under a prominent adam’s apple, Kefauver gave an immediate impression of unpretentiousness, a tall, angular, lanky individual with searching eyes behind round-framed tortoise-shell glasses and a beaky nose that swooped to a peak; facially, he struck me as a cross between Abe Lincoln and Pa Kettle.

“Mr. Heller,” he said, in an easy, drawling, soft-spoken manner (he didn’t have to be wearing his coonskin cap for you to guess he came from the South), “I am very grateful to you for agreeing to see me at such short notice…and on a Saturday.”

I’d received the message toward the end of business, yesterday—Kefauver was arriving from Kansas City that night, and requested a one-on-one meeting with me, Saturday morning.

I was sitting with my raincoat and fedora in my lap. “That’s all right, Senator—my office is just across the street, and I was planning to come in, anyway. I often save paperwork and letters for Saturday mornings, when the phone doesn’t ring.”

“And I wanted to speak to you without my staff present,” he said with a gesture of a frying-pan hand. “They’re great people, but you know, lawyers—particularly prosecutors—are sometimes, well, deficient in social skills.”

“I don’t think we could pack your staff in here, if we tried.”

Kefauver chuckled once, but his grin was endless. He gestured with both big hands. “I know—beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. I never did figure to be popular in Chicago…. But we do have the use of a conference room, and we’ll have hearing room space, as well.”

“I understand you’re getting started soon.”

“Next week…. And
I
understand you’re reluctant to testify.”

I shrugged, grinned back at him. “Let’s just say I’m not anxious—on the other hand, I haven’t come down with a case of Kefauveritis.”

A nod and another wide smile. “Ah yes—that mysterious new ailment…the most pronounced symptom of which is an irresistible urge to travel.”

“But I do know my constitutional rights, Senator—I can decline to answer on the fifth amendment; and I can protect my clients on grounds of confidentiality.”

He nodded some more; his goofy-looking combination of hayseedish and professorial qualities was oddly appealing. “That’s true—as I understand it from my associates, your standard operating procedure with criminal cases is to work for the attorneys of the client, not the clients themselves.”

“That’s right.”

“Well that’s a very clever approach. You’re serving your clients effectively, and that’s exactly what you’re supposed to be doing…. You can’t be faulted for that. And I wouldn’t dream of asking you to betray your profession’s code of ethics.”

I tried to find sarcasm in that, without success.

“Senator, if I might explain myself further…?”

“Certainly.”

“I don’t mean to be a hostile witness. It’s just that I don’t approve of your committee’s methods. Your traveling circus rolls into town, you make a lot of noise, cause a lot of trouble, and move on, leaving the rest of us to clean up after the elephants.”

He was sitting back in his swivel chair, arms folded; friendly though his expression was, he was clearly appraising me. “I can understand your point of view, Mr. Heller—but you need to understand mine: my aim is to expose the influence of the underworld on American life.”

“That simple, is it?”

“And that complex. This is the fullest, most public investigation of organized crime ever attempted in America—and we have captured the attention, and more importantly the imagination, of the press and the public. By the time we hit New York—the climax of our ‘circus’—we will be fully televised. The average American, for the first time, will be aware of the national crime syndicate—thanks to our efforts, the word ‘Mafia’ is already entering the national vocabulary.”

I sighed. “I don’t mean to knock you off your high horse, Senator—but if you really meant that, you’d be going after more than just gambling.”

Sitting forward, he fixed a penetrating gaze on me. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Heller—it’s the tie-up between crime and politics that most makes me sick…the rottenness in public life. But from what I hear and read about you, you’re a pragmatic man…and you’ll understand that I have to start somewhere.”

“Plus you don’t want to alienate these political machines that you’re gonna depend on when you run for the presidency.”

He grunted a humorless laugh. “Oh, I already have alienated them—and will further, here in Chicago, by moving the hearings up before the election.”

“Well…I have to admire your balls for that. Senator. If you’ll excuse the crudity.”

“I appreciate the compliment. Also, that you seem to understand what’s at risk for me, personally.”

I shrugged. “You may do fine without the political machines—after all, the public dearly loves a gangbuster.”

That seemed to amuse him, and he leaned his elbow against the desk and his chin against his hand. “Would it surprise you, Mr. Heller, to find out I’m a gambler myself? I do relish a good horse race.”

“I’ve heard that, Senator.” I didn’t mention I’d also heard this father of four had an eye for the skirts.

“So you might think I’m a hypocrite.” He leaned back in the chair again, rocking a little. “But it’s a bit like the situation your friend Eliot Ness was in, back in Prohibition days. Mr. Ness, I understand, likes to take a drink now and then.”

These days, Eliot was damn near a lush.

But I just said, “You could say that.”

“Still, Ness knew the Mafia underworld was tied up in bootlegging…and that every other sin that can be marketed to man, from prostitution to dope peddling, was part of the same vile syndicate. So he went after the bootleggers. Here in Chicago—do I have to tell you?—you have the national race wire, the manufacture and distribution of coin-operated machines, including slots, and the numbers racket and every other manner of illegal gambling you can think of, flourishing openly.”

“That’s Chicago, Senator. Do you really think you’re going to change it?”

He shook his head. “I can’t change human nature…” But then he began to nod. “We can, however, expose these vicious, homicidal thugs…who think murders like those of Bill Drury and Marvin Bas are just the price of doing business.”

Now I leaned back, folding my arms. “What if I were to tell you that those murders were hired by Syndicate renegades? That Accardo and Ricca and the rest had expressly forbidden those murders—but Charley Fischetti hired them done, just the same.”

The eyes behind the round lenses widened. “Are you providing me with information, Mr. Heller?”

“If you want to call it that. And this…right here…is what you should be doing, if you really want to investigate the Outfit. You want help fighting this war, Senator? Then don’t put guys like me on the stand, where we embarrass ourselves and get added to the same hit list as Drury and Bas. Talk to us behind the scenes, on the q.t. But no—you want to play Ed Sullivan, and put on a show.”

“I think you misconstrue our motives—”

“Maybe I do. But can you seriously think putting some mobster on the stand will result in a meaningful dialogue? The revealing of new, key evidence? I know you’re just campaigning for president, Senator—I mean, don’t kid a kidder.”

His smile settled in one cheek. “I’m surprised at you, Mr. Heller. I understood you had a highly successful office in Hollywood—I assumed that you understood show business.”

“I don’t follow you.”

He leaned forward again. “Most of what we’re gathering is from confidential sources. Frankly, if Bill Drury hadn’t been so intent on clearing himself, and pursuing his crusade in so public a fashion, he would have been more useful to us—and might still be alive.”

“Go on.”

“Most of our leads are from private, unofficial sources. Newspaper reporters on local crime beats…private eyes like yourself…honest cops caught in the middle of crooked administrations…smalltime hoodlums who want to get quietly even with their bosses.”

“And these people never get called as witnesses.”

“That’s right; we protect them, keep them behind the scenes. We put the information these confidential sources have provided us in front of the American people, by posing embarrassing questions of gangsters who invariably respond by pleading the fifth.”

I was starting to get it. Kefauver was shrewder than I’d given him credit for. “And you guys can’t get sued for libel, ’cause you’re a congressional committee—legally privileged.”

“That’s right. Very astute, Mr. Heller. We can put sensitive facts on the record, by the questions we pose…even though those questions invariably go unanswered. ‘Isn’t it true that…?’ We can put what we’ve uncovered on the record—and reveal the corrupting influence of organized crime on American society…. That’s the purpose of our traveling circus.”

The son of a bitch was close to having my vote. “I gotta admit it’s good show business, at that.”

“Thank you.”

“But you’ve set a dangerous goddamn precedent—Senator McCarthy is protected from libel suits by that same privilege.”

Now, as if a switch had been thrown, his expression turned troubled. “I know…the potential for witchhunting is great…and grim. To misuse this tool, as McCarthy is bound and determined to—”

“That’s what he feels you’re doing, Senator. He thinks you’re the witch-hunter.”

“Is this something you’ve gathered, following the press…?”

“No, I talked to Joe McCarthy last week, in D.C. I’ve done my share of work in your second home.”

Nodding, he said, “For Drew Pearson. Yes—and he speaks well of you.”

“And he of you—he’s your most ardent cheerleader.”

Kefauver heaved a deep breath, seemed to be searching for words. Finally, he found them: “Mr. Heller—I would like to ask you about a certain matter…confidentially.”

“You can ask.”

“You were Bill Drury’s friend—and he worked for your detective agency, in his last months. He promised us extensive materials—notebooks, diaries, files, tapes…do you have them?”

“No.”

“Do you know who does?”

“All I know is Bill took them with him, the day he was murdered. They’re gone by now, anyway.”

“Gone?”

I nodded. “If that stuff’s in Outfit hands, it’s been destroyed.”

He frowned. “What if Charles Fischetti got hold of those books, to keep his Mafia brethren from finding certain things out?”

“Then Fischetti’s burned them. But I
can
give you another tidbit of confidential information.”

“Please.”

“You have a leak on your staff.”

He said nothing; he tented his fingers and his eyes tightened behind the circular lenses. “Are you certain of that?”

“Oh yeah—it comes from an Outfit source. A high-up Outfit source. Lee Mortimer also suspects as much.”

Kefauver worked up a smirk. “I’m afraid Mr. Mortimer is something of a spurned lover, where this committee is concerned.”

“Nonetheless, the guy knows his beans. He suspects Halley—”

“Ridiculous!”

“I tend to agree with you, Senator. But you would be dismayed if you knew how quickly your confidential information is getting into the hands of the competition—the Outfit, I mean.”

He just sat there, mulling that over for a minute; then he said, “I do appreciate this, Mr. Heller. I’ll try to quietly locate the leak on my own. Thank you.”

“That’s okay, Senator. Just don’t say where you heard it.”

He managed a smile; halfhearted though it was, it was still a mile wide. “That’s the nature of confidential sources, Mr. Heller.”

“Swell…and I might be able to help you regarding another matter.”

“By all means.”

“Charley Fischetti.”

Kefauver lifted both eyebrows. “Mr. Fischetti is a witness we would very much like to have sit before our committee. We’re very interested in his brother Rocco, as well.”

“Rocco doesn’t know much—he’s just a thug with an important brother. But I might be able to put Charley’s ass in your chair, so to speak.”

“Really. And how would you manage that?”

I didn’t tell him that I was trying to angle a way to cause Charley trouble, without doing what Giancana strongly implied I should do—flat-out killing the bastard. Which I would have relished, at this point, but was uncomfortable doing Mooney’s dirty laundry. I’d had a feeling I was being played, last night, at the Silver Palm….

I asked, “Does the United States have a friendly relationship with the Mexican government, where extradition is concerned?”

He shrugged matter-of-factly. “If we knew Fischetti’s whereabouts, and those whereabouts happened to be in Mexico, we could get him brought home to us, yes.”

“I know where he is. At least I think I know.”