True Detective (21 page)

"Maybe you
did
go see Capone in Atlanta."

"Yeah," I said good-naturedly, pretending to kid him. "Maybe I did."

"Piquett's connected to Capone, they say."

"I've heard that."

"He was Jake Lingle's killer's lawyer, too."

So there it was: out on the table, between us. Jake Lingle.

"That assumes the guy they sent up really did kill Lingle." I said.

Eliot looked at me. "Oh. I'm sure he was the killer. There were reliable witnesses."

I said nothing; the sarcasm in Eliot's voice had been so faint I could've been imagining it.

"There's something I've wanted to tell you for a long time." Eliot said. "We never talked about the Lingle matter. That happened before we happened. But you seem to be in the thick of it again, in regard to the Capone gang… through no fault of your own." He pointed his thumb Cermak-ward again. "And. well… I can't help but be concerned."

"I appreciate your concern. Eliot. I really do. But…"

"But keep out of it. Fair enough. Only let me tell you this thing I've wanted to tell you. It isn't commonly known. Frank Wilson and I knew about Lingle… we knew he was close to Capone. and could be a major witness, as to the kind of dough Capone spent, to help us build a tax-evasion case. We called Colonel McCormick at the
Trib
. He knew of Lingle, but didn't know him personally. We didn't tell the Colonel why we wanted to see Lingle- if we had, the Colonel wouldn't have made such a sap out of himself, in the press, defending the fallen hero. But we asked the Colonel to set up an appointment with Lingle for us, at the Tribune Tower. He agreed. We were to meet with Lingle at eleven o'clock the morning of June tenth." He paused melodramatically, and this time it worked, "I don't have to tell you what happened June ninth."

Jake Lingle was murdered.

"No," I said, "you don't."

"It's always bothered me. circumstantial as hell though it is, that Piquett, with his Capone connections, a pal of Lingle himself, himself a witness at the trial for having seen Lingle shortly before the murder, that this very man Piquett should defend the guy who supposedly shot Lingle."

"I can see how that would bother you," I said.

"There've been a lot of theories about who was behind the Lingle killing. Who hired it. Some feel Capone was back of it, many feel otherwise. But I don't have any doubt that it was anyone but Capone."

"Neither do I, Eliot."

"Well," he said gravely, "we won't say anything more about the Lingle matter. But I thought you should know about the appointment at Tribune Tower that Lingle didn't get to keep."

"It's not a bad thing to know. Thanks, Eliot."

The waitress came back and we both had another coffee.

"Listen," Eliot said, "I wanted to see you this morning, not just to pry into your affairs. I wanted to give you some news."

Oh?

"I'm putting in for a transfer."

"Out of Chicago?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"The show's over, here. I'm a lame duck. Chief prohibition agent in a city that'll be selling beer legal 'fore you know it, and everything else, soon as FDR gets 'round to it. I want a real job again."

"Eliot, you always used Prohibition as a weapon against the gangs; an excuse to go after them. Why not keep using that excuse as long as you can get away with it?"

He shook his head. "No. It's over." He looked at me and his eyes were tired: he looked older than twenty-nine. "You know something, Nate. Sometimes I think getting Capone was just… public relations. They brought me in, they sicced me on him, and we did the job, and now he's gone, but hail, hail… the gang's still here. And with Prohibition gone, they'll be less vulnerable. More underground. But here. Still here. And I'm not sure anybody cares."

I didn't say anything for a while.

Then said. "Eliot- surely you knew how much the Capone conviction was a PR effort, from word go. Nobody was better at getting in the papers than you."

He smiled sadly, shook his head some more. "That's a nice way of saying I'm a glory-hound. Nate. I guess maybe I am. Maybe I like my picture in the papers, my name in headlines. But did it ever occur to you that the only clout I had, the only way I could build public support, the only way I could show the concerned citizens and the politicians who brought me in to do the job that I was doing that job was to get in the goddamn papers?"

Actually, it hadn't occurred to me; and I felt kind of ashamed of myself that as one of his best friends. I had been right in there giving Eliot an at least partially bad rap all along, where his supposed publicity hunaer was concerned.

"Where will you go?"

"Where they send me. I'd imagine I'll be here through the summer. They may have some use for me during the fair."

"You'll be missed. I'll even miss you."

"I'm not gone yet. Anyway. I wanted to tell you about it. Kind of
_;
you know. Get it off my chest."

"I'll be leaving town, myself. For just a week or two."

Oh?

"Yeah. I'll be down in Florida, early next month."

"Isn't that when Cermak'll be down there?"

Ever the detective.

"Is it?" I said, with what I hoped came off as genuine ignorance/innocence.

"Think it is," Eliot said noncommittally, rising, picking up the check, putting down a dime for the tip. I added a nickel. He looked at me. "You
are
in love."

"I fall in love easy when I haven't been laid in two weeks," I said.

He smiled at that, and didn't have a tired look in his eyes anymore. We walked out on the street together, and I walked over to Dearborn with him and down to the Federal Building, where he left me, and I went on to Van Buren and 'round the corner to my office. It was windy, which was hardly a surprise in January in Chicago, but the wind had real teeth now, and I buried my hands in my topcoat pockets and walked with my head looking at the pavement, because the wind made my eyes burn when I walked into it.

My head was still down as I opened the door and came off the street and into the stairwell, and I raised my head only when I heard footsteps coming down above me.

In the stairwell, half a flight up. a woman was coming down. A woman in her early twenties with a face like Claudette Colbert's, only not as wide. She was rather tall, perhaps five eight or nine, and wore a long black coat with a black fur collar, nothing fancy, yet not quite austere. She had dark black hair, short, a cap of curls that lay close to her head, and another cap cocked over that: a beret. She carried a little black purse in one hand. As we passed on the stairs, I smiled at her and she returned it. She smelled good, but it wasn't a perfumy, flowery scent; it was a fragrance I couldn't place: incense? Whatever the case, I was in love for the second time in an hour.

Then when we'd passed, she called out to me, in a melodious, trained voice that seemed affected, somehow, in a way I couldn't quite define, like the fragrance.

She said, "Do you have an office in this building, or are you just calling on someone?"

I turned to her, leaned on the banister, which wasn't the safest thing in the world to do, but I was trying for a Ronald Colman air.

"I have an office," I said. With understated pride.

"Oh, splendid," she smiled. "Then perhaps you'd know what Mr. Heller's hours are."

"I'm Mr. Heller," I said, losing my air, but managing not to sputter. "Anyway, I'm Heller."

"Oh, splendid! Just who I've come to see."

And she came up the stairs and I allowed her to pass, her body brushing mine, the fragrance still a mystery, and once in the corridor, led her to my office. She went in, I took her coat and hung it on the tree, and she stood poised, purse in two hands like a fig leaf in front of her.

She was stunning, in an oddball way: she was deathly pale, partially from face powder, but her lips were dark red, a red with black in it; she wore black, completely black- a one-piece slinky dress that wanted to be satin but was cotton, with a slit up to her knee, black heels, sheer black hose with a mesh pattern. The effect, with the beret, was vaguely apache dancer, but also vaguely naive. Play-acting was part of this, somehow.

I hung my own topcoat up, gestured to the chair in front of my desk, which I got behind; she sat with her back straight, her head back a bit. She reached a hand out to me across the desk, which I had to stand to take; I wasn't sure if I was supposed to kiss it or shake it, so I just kind of
took
it, taking the tips of four fingers in my hand and squeezing gently, acknowledging the hand's existence, then sitting down.

"My name is Mary Ann Beame," she said. "That's Beame with an
E
. A silent one. I don't have a stage name."

"You don't?"

"That's my real name. I don't believe in stage names. I'm an actress."

"Really?"

"I've done some little theater, here and there."

Very little theater. I thought.

"I see," I said.

She sat up even straighter, wide-eyed. "Oh! Don't worry. I'm not destitute. Just because I'm an actress."

"I didn't assume you were."

"I have an income. I work in radio."

"No kidding?"

"Yes. It makes a tidy living for me, till I can go on to something better. Do you listen to the radio?"

"When I get the chance. I been meaning to pick one up for the office."

She looked around, as if trying to see where to put this radio, once I bought it. She noticed the Murphy bed and pointed toward it; the gesture was theatrical, but somehow I didn't think this was coming from snobbishness. "Isn't that a Murphy bed?" she asked.

"It might be," I said.

She shrugged to herself, not bothering to understand either the Murphy bed or my remark, and looked across the desk at me. smiled and said. "Just Plain Bill."

"Pardon?"

"That's the sudser I'm on. 'Just Plain Bill' I do several voices, one of them a lead. I do that regularly, and pick up a lot of other shows. Have you heard 'Mr. First-Nighter'? That's where I've done my best work, I think."

"I'm more an 'Amos 'n' Andy' man, myself."

"They do all their own voices," she said, rather sadly, as it wasn't a market for her wares.

"I'm glad a serious actress like yourself has no compunctions about working in radio. A lot of actresses might feel above it."

"A number of splendid actors and actresses are working in Chicago radio, Mr. Heller. Francis X. Bushman. Irene Rich. Frank Dane."

"Eddie Cantor," I offered.

"Not in Chicago." she corrected.

"Well, then. We've established you're gainfully employed Now, why is it you wanted to employ me?"

Her face took on a serious cast; the pretension dropped, and concern came through. She dug in her little black purse and came up with a dog-eared snapshot.

"Here's a photo of Jimmy."

She handed it across the desk to me; it was a photo of her and a boy who looked a bit like her. though he was pudgy. It was several years old; possibly when they were still in their late teens.

"We were twins," she said. "Still are. I suppose."

"Not identical twins. I hope," I said, venturing a small smile.

"No," she said distantly, not getting it.

I started to hand the picture back, and she shook her head no.

"Keep that," she said. "I want you to find him."

"How long has he been missing?"

"Well, he isn't
missing
exactly… it's nothing you could go to the police about. I mean, it isn't a missing persons case or anything like that."

"What is it, then, Miss Beame?"

"Call me Mary Ann. Please."

"All right, Mary Ann. Why is your brother not exactly missing?"

"We come from Davenport. Iowa? On the Mississippi. One of the Tri-Cities. Heard of that? Rock Island? Moline?"

I'd heard of all three: Davenport was where Bix Beiderbecke came from- the jazz cornet player who, till bad bootleg gin killed him in '31. made Paul Whiteman worth listening to; Rock Island I knew from its railroad; and Barney had fought in Moline. But the term "Tri-Cities" was new to me. I didn't bother saying so. because she was off and away.

"My father was a chiropractor. That makes it sound like he's dead, and he isn't. He's alive and well. But Daddy was a chiropractor. Davenport is the home of that, you know… the Palmers, they invented chiropractic. And my father was very thick with them. Very friendly, one of their first students. But he had an accident in an automobile, and his hands were badly burned. He had to stop practicing. He taught at the Palmer College for a while, and ended up as the manager of WOC Radio."

I stopped her. "How did he go from being a bonesetter to the manager of a radio station?"

"The Palmers own WOC. 'World of Chiropractic' Like the
Tribune's
station WGN stands for 'World's Greatest Newspaper.' Understand? That's where I had my first experience, in radio, was on Daddy's station. I read poems on the air when I was a little girl. When I was older, I had my own program for the kids, reading stories, like fairy tales. That's where I got my experience, and why I was able to come to

Chicago and find work in radio, here."

Having a father in the business who could pull some strings (even if he couldn't crack bones) must not have hurt, either.

"Jimmy and I were always close. We had a lot of the same dreams. I wanted to be an actress, and he wanted to be a reporter. We both read a lot, as kids, and I think that's what fueled our fantasies, and our ambitions. But, anyway, that was Jimmy's dream, only Daddy wanted him to be a chiropractor, as you might guess. Jimmy had a couple of years at Augustana College, taking liberal arts, planning to take journalism, but Daddy wanted him to go on to Palmer, and when Jimmy wouldn't, Daddy cut off the money. And Jimmy left home."

"When was this?"

"A year and a half ago. About June 1931, I'd say. Right after his college got out."

"How long have you been in Chicago?"

"A year. I hoped to run into him here."

"Chicago's a big place to just run into people."

"I know that now. I didn't know that in Davenport."