True Detective (11 page)

"Yeah. I came out smelling like a rose. So why do I feel like I need a shower?"

"There's a shower at my place." she said, sounding friendlier.

"Yeah. I remember."

Janey, incidentally, was a lovely girl of twenty-five years and 125 well-placed pounds; with darkish blond hair worn short and wavy, and dark brown eyes highlighted by lona. standing-at-attention lashes. She was smart as she was beautiful, and she let me sleep with her once a week or so, as soon as I started talking marriage. We'd been talking marriage for almost three years now. and I'd given her a little diamond last year. I only had one problem with Janey: I wasn't sure if what I felt for her was love, exactly. I also wasn't sure if it mattered.

"I'll make lunch up to you," I said.

"I know you will." she said, like a threat.

"How about tonight? I'll take you someplace expensive."

"I'm working late tonight. You can come out to my place if you want. About nine-thirty. I'll fix sandwiches."

"Okay. And tomorrow night, we'll take in the Bismarck dining room."

"I'd settle for the Berghoff- that's expensive enough."

"We'll do the Bismarck. It's a special night. I have something special to tell you."

Real special: I hadn't broken it to her yet that I'd quit the department.

"I already know, Nate." she said.

"What?"

"It was in the papers today. Just a little footnote to one of the follow-up articles on the shooting. That officer Nathan Heller had resigned to pursue a career in private business."

"I, uh- I wanted to tell you about it myself."

"You can, tonight. I'm not crazy about you quitting the department, but if your uncle Louis has offered you a position, I think that's fine."

Janey was like that: jumping to conclusions based upon her own desires.

"Yeah, well, let's talk about it tonight," I said.

"Good. I love you, Nate."

She didn't whisper it, which meant she was in the office alone.

"Love you, Janey."

That afternoon I moved out of the Adams and into the office in Barney's building. Barney had moved fast: a big brown box was against the right wall as you came in, next to the closet door. The box was a Murphy bed; he'd even got sheets and blankets for me, which were in a drawer at the bottom of the box, under where the bed fell down out of it when you pulled the latch, which I did. It was a double bed, no less; Barney was being optimistic for me. I stretched out on the bare mattress. It wasn't as comfy as Janey's bed, but it beat the hell out of what I had at the Adams. I studied where some paint was starting to peel on the ceiling, for a while, then got up; put the bed back up and in.

The closet was hardly spacious, but it was roomy enough for my three suits. And I had a box of books and other personal junk, which I slid onto the shelf at the top of the closet; it just fit. My suitcase went on the floor in there; I figured to live out of the suitcase, till I got some kind of dresser or something.

Which presented a problem: How could I make this place look like an office and not a place I lived in? I didn't think
that
would impress prospective clients much: an office with a dresser and a Murphy bed in it, an office that was obviously where this poverty-stricken private dick was forced to live. It wouldn't inspire confidence.

Well, the Murphy bed I couldn't do anything about; but I could get around the dresser. I'd get ahold of a couple filing cabinets, or maybe one big multi-drawer one. and file my clothes and such in the bottom drawers. And speaking of bottom drawers. I could then file my underwear under
U
, I supposed. I smiled to myself, shook my head; this was ridiculous. What was I thinking of. giving up the cops and a life of crime for this? I was sitting on the edge of the desk, laughing silently at myself, when I noticed the phone.

A black, candlestick phone with a brand-new Chicago phone book next to it. My flat-nosed Jewish mother, Barney Ross,
did
work fast. Bless him.

So I sat behind the desk and I tried it out. I called my uncle Louis at the Dawes Bank. He and I weren't particularly close, but we kept in touch, and I hadn't talked to him since this mess began, and I thought I should. I also thought he might be able to get me a couple file cabinets wholesale.

I had to go through three secretaries to get him, but I got him.

"Are you all right, Nate?" he said. He sounded genuinely worried. But this was Wednesday, and the shooting was Monday, and I didn't exactly remember Uncle Louis calling on me at the Adams to express his concern.

"I'm fine. They had an inquest today, and I'm completely in the clear."

"As well you should be. You deserve a medal for shooting those hoodlums."

"The city council's giving me three hundred bucks. Me and Miller and Lang, each of us get that. And commendations. That's like getting a medal, I suppose."

"You should be honored. You don't sound it."

"I'm not. I quit the department, you know."

"I know, I know."

"You saw it in the papers, too, huh?"

"I heard."

Where would Uncle Louis have heard?

"Nate," he said. "Nathan."

Something was coming; otherwise it would've just been Nate.

"Yes, Uncle Louis?"

"I wondered could I have lunch with you tomorrow."

"Certainly. Who's buying?"

"Your rich uncle, of course. You'll come?"

"Sure. Where?"

"Saint Hubert's."

"That's pretty fancy. My rich uncle's going to
have
to pick up the tab if we go there. I never been there before."

"Well, be there tomorrow, promptly at noon."

"Promptly, huh? Okay. You're the boss; you're the only rich relative I got."

"Dress nice, Nate."

"I'll wear the clean suit."

"I'd appreciate that. We won't be dining alone."

"Oh?"

"There's someone who wants to meet you."

"Who would that be?"

"Mr. Dawes."

"Yeah. sure. Rufus or the General?"

"The General."

"Say, you aren't kidding, are you?"

"Not in the least."

"The biggest banker in Chicago wants to see me? Former vice-president of these United States meets former member of the downtown division's pickpocket detail?"

"That's correct."

"Why, for Christ's sake?"

"Can I count on you for noon. Nathan?"

Nathan again!

"Of course you can. Hell. Maybe we can stick Dawes for the check."

"Noon, Nathan," Uncle Louis said humorlessly.

I sat looking at the phone, after hanging up. for maybe ten minutes, trying to figure this. And it just didn't figure. Cermak and Nitti wanting to see me was one tiling; Dawes was something else again. I couldn't work it out.

And I had forgot to ask about the file cabinets.

At about six, I went down onto the street and found another cool evening waiting for me- the day had been cloudy, no snow, a little rain, and the sidewalk was shiny, wet. Van Buren Street itself, though, sheltered by the El tracks, looked dry. A streetcar slid by, obscuring the store across the way- Bailey's Uniforms- for just a moment. I walked to the restaurant around the corner from Barney's building; it was a white building with a vertical sign that spelled out

B

I

N

Y

o

N

S in neon-outlined white letters against black, with the word "Restaurant" horizontally below in black cursive neon against white. Not a cheap place, but they didn't rob you either, and the food was good, and since I'd missed lunch I decided I could afford something better than a one-arm joint.

I couldn't afford it, really: I'd get one more paycheck from the department and then would have to dig into the couple thousand I had salted away- a combination of the remainder of the small estate my pa left and money I'd been putting aside for a house for after Janey and I got married.

I had about an hour to kill before hopping the El to go out to Janey's flat on the near North Side, so I hit Barney's blind pig again, and Barney was in there, sitting in a booth with a hardly touched beer; he lit up like July 4 when he saw me.

I was embarrassed What can you say when somebody goes that far out of his way for you?

"Might've made up the bed, you thoughtless bastard," I said, with a sour smile.

"Go to hell," he said pleasantly.

"I tried to call you at the gym this afternoon, but couldn't get you."

"I was doing roadwork around Grant Park. I usually do that in the morning, but I had some business to do. and Pian and Winch insist on that roadwork. 'cause my wind ain't my strong point."

"You had business to do, all right. Going out and getting that Murphy bed. and getting a phone put in. You forgot to get me a file cabinet, you know."

He shrugged. "They couldn't deliver till tomorrow."

"You're kidding."

He wasn't.

I said. "I hope you know I'm paying you for all this."

Barney nodded. "Okay."

"You might have argued a little."

"That gracious I'm not."

Buddy Gold came over from behind the bar and leaned in to our booth, raising his furry eyebrows sarcastically. "You got a phone call. Heller- that fed friend of yours."

I took it behind the bar.

"Eliot," I said "what's up?"

"Nate, can you get free?"

I looked at my watch; I needed to hop the El in half an hour to keep my date with Janey.

"Is it important, Eliot?"

"I think it's something you'd find interesting."

Eliot tended to understate, so that meant it was probably crucial I come.

"Okay. You going to pick me up?"

"Yes. I'm at the Transportation Building, so it won't be more than ten minutes. I'll try for five."

"Okay. You know where I am, obviously. Want to stop in for a beer?"

"No thanks. Nate." There was a smile in his voice; he liked to pretend he didn't have a sense of humor, but he did.

"Why don't you pick me up in that truck of yours, the one with the prow on the front end? You can just butt your way in. pick me up. and get a little work done on the side."

Eliot allowed himself a short laugh. "Why don't I just honk instead?"

"And I thought you had style," I said, hanging up.

I tried to call Janey to tell her I'd be late, but she wasn't home yet. So I went back to the booth.

"What does Ness have going?" Barney asked.

"He didn't say. Sounded like he was in a hurry to get there, wherever it is we're going. I haven't talked to him since this brouhaha started brewing. I do know he's involved peripherally. I saw in the papers that he and another prohibition agent questioned Campagna and Palumbo and the others when they were still in custody, that same day of the shooting. I meant to give him a call, but I didn't get 'round to it."

That wasn't quite true: in a way, I'd been ducking Eliot; not consciously, exactly, but I hadn't gone out of my way to see or talk with him, because he really was one of the few straight-arrow law enforcement officers in Chicago, and I liked him, and had earned a certain amount of his respect, and I didn't know if I wanted to talk to him about the shooting until I found out exactly how I was going to be able to play it. And now that I knew- knew that I'd be playing Cermak's crooked game, out of necessity I didn't know if I wanted to tell Eliot the truth, even off the record.

Eliot was, after all, one of the primary forces behind Al Capone's fall. The original Prohibition Unit had proved as corrupt as it was underpaid and poorly trained. That had been a Justice Department operation, but was transferred after an inauspicious seven-year run to Treasury in '28. In '29 Eliot, then only twenty-six and only a few years out of the University of Chicago, was chosen to command a select detail. He scoured personnel files for honest men. found almost no prospects among Chicago's three hundred-some prohibition agents, and finally came up with nine (and even of these "untouchables." one did prove crooked, a sore point with Eliot). The members of Eliot's detail were young- thirty or under- and expert marksmen, and included specialists in wiretapping, truck-driving, shadowing suspects on foot or by car. you name it. They shut down breweries and distilleries, made speakeasy raids, hitting Capone hard in his pocket-book; and they put together enough evidence to indict Capone and some of his cronies on "conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act."

But Nitti was right about Eliot's weakness for publicity. The effectiveness of his efforts was somewhat hampered by a tendency to inform the press of his battle plans, so that cameras would be on hand when the ten-ton truck smashed open the doors of a Capone brewery. And Eliot and his squad by no means single-handedly "destroyed" the Capone empire. For one thing, it was Elmer Irey, of the IRS Enforcement Branch, and Treasury Agent Frank Wilson, among others, who nailed Capone on tax evasion. And for another thing, the Capone gang was still around and doing quite nicely, thank you.

About five minutes had gone by since Eliot's call, and I was getting up to try Janey one last time, when I heard his honk. I reminded Barney to keep trying Janey till he got her, and went out and climbed in the front of Eliot's black Ford sedan.

I was barely in when Eliot pulled away.

"Where's the fire, chief?" I asked him.

He gave me a sideways glance and tight smile. "Your old stomping grounds."

Eliot had a certain grace; even sitting behind the wheel of the car. he seemed somehow intense and relaxed at the same time. He was of Norwegian stock, with a ruddy-cheeked, well-scrubbed appearance. a trail of freckles across the bridge of his nose; a six-footer with square, broad shoulders, he looked like somebody who could be Eliot Ness, if you were told that. But left to your own devices, you might take him for a young business exec (he was only twenty-nine, not that much older than me- but then Capone, at the time of his fall, had only been thirty-two, not the fortyish mobster
of Scarf ace)
. He was wearing a tan camel's hair topcoat, a gray suit and maroon tie peeking out. His hat was on the seat between us.

"Ever hear of a guy named Nydick?" Eliot said.