The Million-Dollar Wound (19 page)

“He isn’t in town. I just got back from a couple days in California.”

Her laugh was a grunt. “He’s making hay while the sun shines out there, that’s for sure. What put the two of
you
in bed together? Pardon the expression.”

Briefly, I told her about Pegler investigating Bioff’s past and present; that she should be on the lookout for Pegler himself or somebody Pegler might send around.

“Nobody’s been around yet,” she said. “And I don’t think anybody’d get a single word out of me. But I appreciate the tip. Willie must be afraid his phones are tapped.”

“Or that yours are.”

“Possible,” she said, nodding. “These FBI and internal revenue boys are hard to bribe. They seem intent on doing their goddamn jobs.”

“You never met Eliot Ness, did you?”

“Actually, I did a couple times. He raided the 101 more than once. He was cute. You two boys were thick, later on, I hear. The tarnished knight and the boy scout. Quite a combo.”

“Let’s just say he did his goddamn job. I can respect that; can’t you?”

“Why not? What became of him?”

“He’s public safety director in Cleveland.”

She mock-yawned.

“It’s not really all that dull,” I said. “He’s done his share of gang-busting in those parts. He’s the guy that ran the Mayfield Road Mob out of Cleveland.”

“I just love civic progress.” She shook her head, smiled wryly. “You and Willie Bioff. That’s a match made in hell.”

“He’s not such a bad guy,” I lied. Again, I played a surmise of mine like it was a fact, saying, “So what if he’s hitting up the movie moguls for some strike-prevention insurance? He’s done okay by the rank and file…going back as far as that soup kitchen he and Browne started.”

She started laughing and I didn’t think she was going to stop.

“Estelle, cut it out, you’re gonna bust a gut…”

“The soup kitchen!” Tears were rolling down her face. “Yeah, yeah, the soup kitchen…couple of philanthropists, that’s Bioff and Browne.” Laughing throughout.

“Okay, okay, so I’m a naive jerk. Let me in on the joke, why don’t you?”

She leaned on her elbow, shaking her head, smiling ear to ear. “That soup kitchen was the biggest scam Willie Bioff ever ran on this burg. That’s what got him and Browne started.”

“How do you mean?”

“They used the joint to launder money, you cute impressionable little hick. They went to Barney Balaban of the B and K chain…”

“I talked to him today, for Bioff. Giving him the same warning about Pegler as I gave you.”

“How is he in bed?”

“Cute, Estelle. Very cute.”

She snorted. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he got screwed. See, after the crash, Balaban got the Stagehands Union to let him get away with a twenty-five percent pay cut. You know, hard times and deflation and all. Then all of a sudden the World’s Fair came in and every kootch show on the midway was needing stagehands and show business in general around here was booming. This next part I love. Balaban is in the hospital for his ulcers, and Willie and George go visit him. They take him flowers and smile at him and ask him how he’s feeling and he says better and smiles back and they inform him that if he doesn’t restore the twenty-five percent pay cut immediately they will call their men out on strike. This would close every one of his four hundred movie theaters. Some treatment for stomach ulcers, huh? Anyway, Balaban said his company couldn’t afford it, and Willie reminded him about the soup kitchen. How there were good Samaritans who donated to it. And Balaban offered ’em a hundred and fifty a week for the soup kitchen, if they’d forget this strike business.”

“And Willie and George grabbed it.”

She gestured with an upraised, lecturing finger. “No. They asked for
fifty thousand a year
for the soup kitchen.”

“Jesus Christ. Did they get it?”

Knowing chuckle. “They settled for twenty grand. Of course, Browne did use some of the dough for supplies for the kitchen. He bought four cases of canned soup for two dollars and fifty cents each.”

“I always suspected that soup kitchen was some kind of racket.”

“Sure! What else? They sold votes to politicians out of there, too—all those stagehands and their families would vote any way Willie told ’em. That brought in a pretty penny in soup kitchen donations.”

I was impressed. “Estelle, you are one knowledgeable girl. Dean must really trust you to let you in on all this stuff.”

“Ha! What little spider do you think led Bioff and Browne into Nicky’s web in the first place?”

“You?”

Another wry smile. “In case you hadn’t picked up on it, Detective Heller, Browne drinks.”

“Really? My, you
are
knowledgeable.”

“Shut up, Nate. But
Bioff
doesn’t drink, not as much anyway. He’s not used to holding his liquor.”

“So?”

“So the night after they took Barney Balaban for twenty grand, they went out on the town. That afternoon they’d bought themselves fancy foreign sportcars, and spiffy new clothes. Bioff likes to look good, good as he can, the fat little greasy bastard. Anyway, guess where they go to celebrate? The 101 Club. Nicks club. Guess how they choose to unwind? With a little game of twenty-six. Guess who the twenty-six girl was? Little ole me.”

I laughed softly. “And guess who started bragging about being in the dough?”

“Exactly right,” she said, green eyes smiling. “I motioned to Nicky and he came over and joined us. Before the night was out we had the whole story.”

“I think I can guess the rest. Nicky told Nitti.”

“Ricca, actually. Little New York and Frankie Rio picked Willie and George up the next day, hauled ’em to the Bismarck. Nitti was in on it, by that time, I’m sure. I don’t know what was said, but the upshot was the Outfit cut themselves in for half.”

“How’d Willie and George take that?”

“The same way they took it when Nitti upped the Outfit’s share to two-thirds, a few years later. Without any fuss, how else do you take something like that? But it paid off for ’em in the long run.”

“It was bound to,” I said. “Nitti’s a financial mastermind, and about as shrewd a planner, as skillful a chessplayer as you could find in the boardroom of the biggest corporation in town.”

“Nate, he
is
in the boardroom of the biggest corporation in town.”

“My mistake.”

She elaborated: “First thing they did for those union Katzenjammer Kids was get Browne elected national president of the IA. He ran once before and lost. Before he had the Outfit’s support, I mean. This time when they held the election, in Columbus back in ’34, there were more gunmen in the room than voting delegates. Lepke Buchalter was the guy in charge.”

“That could sway a fella’s vote.”

“Like Capone said, you can get more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word. Anyway, those two horses’ asses have been on the gravy train ever since. They were in New York awhile, where the studios have corporate headquarters—and then they were going to move their office to Washington, at the president’s request, but Nitti vetoed it.”

“What president’s request?”

“You know.
The
president. The guy with the glasses and funny cigarette holder and dumpy wife? He wanted George and some other union leaders to be close at hand, to be advisors on domestic affairs.”

Maybe Montgomery was right about that third term.

She seemed to be winding down, now. “Three years ago they moved the office to Hollywood, and Nicky went with ’em, to keep an eye on them for the boys. He comes back a lot, though. This club’s his first love.”

“I get the feeling Nitti doesn’t trust Willie and George.”

“It’s not George. George is just a tub of fat, guzzling beer all day long. Willie’s the one who might pull a fast one someday.”

“Well, when Willie sent me here to warn you, he hoped it wouldn’t get back to Nitti. Which means I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Nicky about this.”

“Sure, honey. You can trust me.”

“I guess Bioff figures he’s on the spot enough, with this income-tax scare.”

Her expression was thoughtful, businesslike. “Willie Bioff could be about to get caught. A lot of money’s been pouring through his chubby fingers. They been getting brown paper bags of cash for years now, from every major studio you can think of—MGM, Twentieth Century-Fox, Paramount, Warner Brothers, you name it. Willie’s latest scam, Nicky says, is making the studios make him their ‘agent’ for buying raw film stock. He gets a seven percent commission on all film stock the studios buy.”

“A money laundry again?”

“Yeah. But that’s a new idea, and there’s a lot of money to wash out there. Anyway, don’t give me this song-and-dance about Willie Bioff looking after the rank and file. He’s been selling out his own union members, agreeing to wage cuts and longer hours, for as long as he’s been a union boss.”

“How do you feel about that, Estelle? You used to be a working girl.”

She shrugged. “I still am. Willie’s just doing what we all gotta do, Nate. Looking out for himself. You
got
to look out for yourself; nobody’s gonna do it for you.”

“My old man gave the best years of his life working for the unions.”

“What’d it get him?”

“Nothing. Heartbreak.”

“See? Enough of this. Let’s kick Bioff out of bed and keep it to just the two of us.”

Part of me wanted to be a million miles away from this sugar-sweet, hard-as-nails dame; part of me, and not just the part you’re thinking, didn’t ever want to leave. “Don’t you have to be getting back downstairs?” I asked her, half looking for an out. “Won’t you get in trouble with Sonny?”

Short deep laugh. “Don’t be silly, Nate. Sonny works for me. I own a third of this place, and he owns jack shit. I can stay up here and screw my brains out all night long, if I like, and who’s to stop me?”

“Must you be so romantic, Estelle?”

“Be quiet. I’m a whore, Nate. I can’t remember ever saying it right out like that, before, but it’s true, isn’t it? I’m Nicky Dean’s little whore. And you’re Willie Bioff’s little whore. Well, fuck them both. And fuck us.”

And we did. Repeatedly.

Sunday I slept in till noon. I was in my own bed in my own room at my own hotel, having left the Colony Club around 4:00 A.M., getting the fish eye from Sonny Goldstone but not much caring. I knew there was no way to approach Estelle without Nitti and company learning. But Estelle was an old flame of mine, and besides, any man who ever saw her wouldn’t question my motives for spending six hours in a suite with her.

I’d asked the desk to hold all calls, but on my way to lunch I picked up my messages and found that Pegler had been trying to call me all morning. Why wasn’t he in church, praying for an end to unionism? Anyway, I stopped at a pay phone and called him; he was staying at the Drake.

“I must see you at once,” he said.

“I’m going to get something to eat and then I have some things to do. Meet me at my office around four.”

“Heller, I have a train to catch.”

“When?”

“Eight this evening.”

“Meet me at my office around four,” I repeated, and hung up.

I could have done without meeting with Pegler at all, but I didn’t see any way around it; Montgomery was a client, and he expected me to cooperate with Pegler, to a degree at least. But being seen with Pegler at this point could prove embarrassing, maybe even fatal, which made me glad he was coming up on a Sunday afternoon, not a business day. Of course, if he were to be seen entering my office on a Sunday, that might be interpreted as a secret meeting, and…

What the hell. I felt reasonably secure, and not just because I had an automatic under my shoulder. I’d pulled it off—done my job for Montgomery by doing my job for Bioff. Slight conflict of interest, there, of course, but who was to know? Still, as I walked the Loop on a quiet Sunday afternoon of a winter day that had me turning up my collar and stuffing my gloved hands deep in my topcoat pockets, I felt a little jumpy, looking behind me, seeing if I was being tailed.

I didn’t seem to be, and I had a leisurely solitary luncheon at the Brevoort Hotel dining room—breast of guinea hen, corn fritters, fresh mushrooms. Two cups of hot black coffee, declining a third to keep the jumpiness at bay. The wear and tear of the California trip was starting to fade; the glow of last evening’s sexual adventures still warmed me; and I was comforted by the thought that I would soon be at my office typing up a confidential report to Robert Montgomery, after which I would phone Willie Bioff, and finally dispense with Westbrook Pegler, putting this risky but neatly profitable affair behind me.

It was one-thirty-something when I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor of Barney’s building, my footsteps making hollow notes in the otherwise silent Sunday-afternoon symphony the empty building was playing. My keys were already in my hand, I’d fished them out on the stairs, so even that didn’t add a sound.

But something inside my office did.

Through the pebbled glass, at left, adjacent to the door, I could make out a shape, rising, and heard a grunt.

Quietly, quietly, I slipped the gun out from under my arm.

P
EGLER

Pegler? No. Not two and a half hours early. Or was Pegler’s hotel phone tapped? Did someone know about our meeting at four, and was waiting to do the both of us in, a Sunday-afternoon two-for-one sale? From the sound of it, whoever it was was making some effort in there, not expecting me here this soon, tossing the office, maybe, looking for something or staging a fake robbery to drop some bodies into and, well, that was enough of that.

The gun tight in my gloved hand, I smashed the pebbled glass, with a powerful swing of the forearm, gun barrel leading, shattered the glass and shards went flying as I thrust my arm, gun in hand, through the jagged teeth where the panel of glass had been and pointed it at where the shape had been as a woman screamed and a man said, “Oh,
shit!
”

There, on the couch, on my old modernistic black-and-white World’s Fair couch, was Frankie Fortunato, with his bare hairy ass, his bare hairy everything, showing, as he looked back at me with eyes that managed to be narrow and wide at the same time. Under his skinny naked body was a beautiful naked girl.

Specifically, Gladys.

“Whoops,” I said. Lowering the gun.

“Mr. Heller,” Frankie said, and it was the first time he ever used “mister” in front of my name, “I can explain.”

He was crawling off Gladys, leaving the poor girl there to do an embarrassed, impromptu “September Morn” imitation, and not a bad job for somebody lying down. She wasn’t screaming anymore, but her mute humiliation killed the fun of learning that the body under her clothes lived well up to expectations.

I unlocked the door and went in, and Frankie was almost in his pants, and Gladys had reached for her dress, and was sitting now, covering herself up with it, looking scared and ashamed.

“We didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Fortunato explained, lamely, zipping up. “Gladys lives with her mom and I live with my uncle and aunt.”

“Don’t,” I said. Embarrassed myself. Putting the gun away. “Not necessary.”

“Are we fired, Mr. Heller?” Gladys managed to say. Her big brown eyes showed white all around.

I went over and sat on the edge of her desk; assayed the damages. Glass fragments littered the floor like huge misshapen snowflakes. The hole in the pane provided a scenic view of the abortionist’s office across the way.

“Nobody’s fired,” I said. “Get dressed, Gladys. Pick up your things quick like a bunny, I won’t even look, and duck in my office and dress. Shoo.”

She shooed. But I watched out of the corner of my eye. Only the memory of last night with Estelle enabled me to live with the sure knowledge that the only time Gladys’s perfect pink body would be naked in my inner office would be today, putting her clothes back on at my request.

“Jesus, I’m sorry, Heller,” Frankie said. He was fully clothed now. Snugging his tie in place.

The “mister” hadn’t lasted long.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I know how it is. Get it while the getting’s good.”

“You’re not mad?” Smoothing a hand up over his dark widow’s peak.

“I’m jealous.”

Gladys emerged, dressed in a blue-and-white Sunday frock with a virginal bow at the neck. She said, “I’ll pay for the window.”

I looked at Frankie.

He shrugged. “We’ll go dutch.”

“Frankie,” I said, “as long as you’re around, chivalry is not dead. In a coma, maybe, but not dead.
I’ll
pay for the window. It was my fault.”

“How could it be your fault?” Frankie wondered.

“I’m jumpy today. And, also, some dangerous things have been going on and I haven’t bothered to clue you people in. That’s
my
mistake, and it comes out of working alone for so long.”

Frankie slipped his arm around Gladys, supportively. “We’ll go now,” he said, “if that’s okay.”

“Sure. I got some work to do, or I’d let you use the couch.”

Fortunato grinned, but Gladys, still embarrassed, looked away from me. But she let him keep his arm around her.

“Oh,” I said to them. “One of you could get the broom from the closet and sweep up that glass, before you go, but be careful. Of course judging by those, I can see you already are…pick them up, too, would you?” I was referring to, pointing to, a package of Sheiks that lay on the floor next to the couch.

Gladys was crying a little, or trying to.

I put a finger under her chin and lifted her head and looked into her wide brown eyes. “I don’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m just jealous, understand?”

And then she did the most remarkable thing, which made the whole embarrassing, expensive encounter worthwhile: she smiled at me.

I went into my inner office and pulled my typing stand around and began pecking out Montgomery’s confidential report. After while I heard glass being dumped into the wastebasket and, surprisingly, it wasn’t Fortunato but Gladys who opened the door and looked in.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Heller.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Can I ask you a question, though?”

“Sure.”

“Why him?”

She shrugged. “He’s cute.”

And then she was gone, and I was pecking at the report. I put it all in, every rumor, every anecdote, every slip of the tongue that Browne, Dean, Bioff, Barger, Balaban, Coston and Estelle had handed me. But I stated clearly that it was all hearsay, and should be used only as background, or as the starting place for a real investigation. None of these people was likely ever to go public with their knowledge. It took over two hours and I made some corrections in ink and then folded the six single-spaced pages and put them in an envelope, with Montgomery’s home address typed on it. I included no cover letter and no return address. He had promised to keep my name out of it, after all; why not remind him?

I put my feet up on the desk and called Willie Bioff at the number he’d given me, which was his eighty-acre ranch in Canoga Park. A colored maid answered and it took a few minutes for him to come to the phone; calling long distance and hearing silence for several minutes is like watching dollar bills float out the window, but considering I’d wrapped Bioff’s two-grand assignment up in as many days, I could stand to watch a few of ’em float.

“Heller,” Bioff said.

“I talked to your friends.”

“Good. Any problems?”

“No.”

“Any of them say anybody’s been around asking?”

“No.”

“Think they’ll keep mum?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“That’s a fair answer. I’ll send you a cashier’s check for the second grand. We don’t want to trust that much cash to the mails. Those guys ain’t union—yet.”

He hung up, and so did I.

At ten to four I heard somebody enter the outer office. I slipped my gun out of the holster and leaned back in my chair and waited.

Pegler came in.

“You’re early,” I said, gun in hand.

He frowned and waggled a finger at me. “Aren’t we past that?” Then he waggled the finger back where he came from. “And what happened in your outer office? It’s a goddamned mess.”

Not a “goddamn” mess. A “goddamned” mess. Ain’t we grand.

I put the automatic back under my shoulder. “I thought somebody was in my office lyin’ in wait for me, so I broke the glass, but it was just one of my operatives humping the secretary.”

Pegler made a disgusted face, pulled a chair up and sat down. “Very amusing, I’m sure. What have you got to tell me?” He wore another expensive, beautifully tailored suit with lapels wide as wings, light brown this time, with monogrammed pocket kerchief and a dark brown tie touched with white.

“Nothing, really,” I said. “I’m making a confidential report to Robert Montgomery. If he wants to share any of it with you, that’s up to him. But nothing I discovered is anything you’ll be able to easily prove. Nobody who talked to me is going to talk to you, or anybody, not openly.”

“
You
could be quoted,” he said, with a shrewd little devilish smile. “My column is not a court of law; I’ll admit hearsay evidence, gladly.”

“No. It wouldn’t be healthy to.”

“I see. I didn’t take you for a coward, Heller.”

“I didn’t take you for a jackass. I’ve been risking my life, poking into this. This is Frank Nitti’s business you’re nosing in, and if you really did play cards with Jake Lingle, once upon a time, you’ll know that the Capone mob
has
been known to kill reporters—so you’re not immune, either.”

He took his cigarette case out of his coat pocket and selected a cigarette and lit it up. “Is it a matter of money?”

“No, it’s a matter of life and death. I don’t want you for a client, Mr. Pegler. I have enough clients already.”

He shrugged elaborately, blew out smoke. “Do what you please. I don’t need your paltry gossip, anyway. You’ve
already
helped me, Heller, whether you know it or not, whether you
want
to or not.”

“Really?”

His smile, the tilt of his head, turned coy. “I’ve just spent the last several days looking through old police records. With the help of a local officer, a Lieutenant Bill Drury, and several others, I’ve made some interesting discoveries.”

Bill Drury and I had started out on the pickpocket detail together; he was an honest, ambitious cop who hated the Outfit almost irrationally. He’d rousted every major mob figure in the city, numerous times, just for fun—Nitti, Guzik, Ricca, all of them. Why he was still alive was a mystery it would take a better detective than yours truly to ever solve.

But I meant it when I said, “Bill is as good as they come.”

“He spoke highly of you,” Pegler conceded. “If I hadn’t dropped your name, in fact, I don’t know that he would have devoted the time to this he did. He helped me locate a number of brief jail terms Bioff served, dating back as early as 1922. But more importantly we tracked down the record of
your
arrest of Bioff. There it was—a lonely faded index card—with your name and Shoemaker’s, as arresting officers.”

“Old Shoes”—another honest cop, a legendary police detective, dead now.