True Detective (34 page)

Eliot was back; sat down. Sipped his beer and said to Barney, "When are they going to give you your shot at Canzoneri? After you put Billy Petrole away at the stadium last month, I don't see how they can deny you."

"You spoiled my surprise, Mr. Ness," Barney grinned, "I haven't told Nate yet, 'cause we won't get the contracts back signed and sealed till this afternoon. But I put my John Henry down a couple days ago. I'm getting my title shot."

I said, "Barney, that's great. When's it set for?"

"June. Gonna take advantage of those world's fair crowds."

"That's just great, Barney."

"I'll have tickets for you guys if you want 'em. I hope you both'll be there."

Eliot said. "Try and stop us." and raised his mug of beer in a toast.

Barney turned to me. "Can I get you a beer or something? Help me celebrate a little?"

"No thanks, champ. I got to testify in half an hour."

Eliot looked at his watch. "That's right." He drained the beer. "Let's 20."

Near the Bismarck there was a parking lot. where Eliot left his government Ford, and we walked over to City Hall, half of which was the County Building, where the courtroom was. The day was cloudy and in the lower forties, windy enough to be chilly; a light rain fell. We walked with our heads lowered and our hands dug in our raincoat pockets.

"Eliot," I said.

"Yeah?"

"This prosecutor."

"Charley, you mean?"

"You just answered my question."

"What question?"

"I've just been wondering if the prosecutor was a friend of yours, that's all."

He pretended not to get my drift.

But before we went in the building, I stopped him, put a hand on his arm and we stood in the rain, close enough that I could smell the beer on his breath.

"I know you got my best interests at heart," I said.

"Yeah,'but'..."

I grinned. "No 'buts' about it. I know you got my best interests at heart. Thanks, Eliot."

He grinned back. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Eliot sat next to me in the courtroom, and that made Lang, a couple rows up, nervous. He kept craning his neck around to look at us, a vaguely desperate look on his face. He'd brought some of the nervousness along with him, apparently, as he'd also brought his lawyer, who sat next to him- the same dapper little fat attorney who'd come to that ditch in the Indiana dunes to identify the body of Ted Newberry, back in January- and who noticed Lang turning to look at me and stopped him doing it.

But Miller, sitting on the other side of Lang, wondering what his partner was looking at. turned and looked at us, too, and seemed similarly disturbed.

I hadn't had any contact with either of them since Nitti got his continuance, in this same courtroom, a few weeks before. No threatening phone calls or bribes or confrontations. Not that I had expected them to try anything. They probably wouldn't have risked doing anything to me themselves, at this point; and as far as I knew the only gang affiliation they had was with the Newberry/Moran group, who weren't much of a threat to anybody these days, many of their various members having defected to sign up with other factions, primarily the major one: Nitti's. But I'd been sleeping with my gun under my pillow just the same.

Besides, for all they knew I might get on the stand and tell the story they wanted me to.

The judge came in, and we all rose, and, despite his lawyer's admonitions, Lang turned and looked at me again, and I winked at him, like Cermak did at Roosevelt.

And Lang was the first witness called.

He walked to the stand and as he passed Nitti, Nitti muttered something, presumably nasty. It wasn't loud enough for the judge to rap his gavel and reprimand Nitti- but it was plenty to unnerve Lang another notch. He took the stand and, after the prosecutor had asked a few perfunctory questions to establish the legality of entering the office at the Wacker-LaSalle without a warrant. Nitti's lawyer rose from the defense table and approached the bald cop.

"Who shot you?"

Lang looked at me.

"Who shot you. Sergeant Lang?"

The answer to that question, of course, was supposed to be. "Frank Nitti."

But Lana said. "I don't know who shot me."

Over at the prosecution table, the prosecutor jumped to his feet, as did several associates of his. and a wave of surprise- noisy surprise rolled over the courtroom. Several people stood; one of them was Miller. His fists were clenched, and he said, "Dirty son of a bitch."

The judge rapped his gavel, and everybody shut up, or anyway kept it down; the jury sat looking at each other, wondering if all trials were like this.

Nitti's lawyer leaned against the rail in front of the witness stand and, calmly, asked, "Can you say under oath that the defendant, Frank Nitti, shot you?"

"No."

A group of surprised prosecutors and police officials were on their feet and moving forward, and the chief prosecutor pushed his way to the forefront.

His face was red as he thrust a finger at Lana.

"Do you see the man who shot you?" he shouted. "Is he in the courtroom, sergeant?"

"No," Lang said. A calm had settled over him: with his bald head, and his folded hands, he looked damn near cherubic.

Nitti's lawyer stood next to the prosecutor but turned to the judge, who seemed to be having as much trouble believing his eyes and ears as the jury, and said, "I object, Your Honor! The prosecution is impeaching its own witness!"

The prosecutor turned to Nitti's lawyer and said, with contempt, "Yeah, he's my witness. But he turned out to be yours."

That left Nitti's lawyer momentarily at a loss for words.

The prosecutor jumped back in. "I want to ask him if he committed perjury just now. Or did he commit perjury when he testified before the grand jury, when this indictment was voted? Because before the grand jury, he said Nitti shot him."

I could see Nitti, sitting in his chair sideways; he was amused by all this. He was leaning back, a smile turning the downward V of his thin mustache into an upward one.

I leaned toward Eliot and said, "Your friend the prosecutor is getting pretty worked up about this."

We both knew that the prosecutor wasn't finding anything out about Lang he didn't know already.

"I don't know what he's so steamed about," Eliot said "
You're
the one Lang's upstaging."

I was supposed to climb the stand and contradict Lang's Nitti-shot-me story; who could've guessed the pressure of the
possibility
of my doing that would be enough to make Lang contradict the story on his own?

Well, one person might have predicted it: Lang's lawyer, who was rising from the gallery to go toward the bench, saying as he went, "Your Honor! Your Honor! I am appealing here as this policeman's lawyer. As his counsel I advise him not to answer any more questions."

"Your Honor." the prosecutor said. "This man has no part in this proceeding. A witness has no right to a lawyer."

The judge agreed, but Lang's lawyer did not retire to the gallery; he stood beside the defense table, where Nitti and his lawyer were sitting, just two more spectators fascinated by a trial straight out of Lewis Carroll.

"Either you lied before the grand jury," the prosecutor said to Lang, "or you're lying now. I am giving you the chance to straighten yourself out here."

Lang's lawyer called out, "I advise my client not to answer"

The judge's gavel interrupted him.

Lang said. "Right after I was shot, my memory wasn't as good as it is now. Because of shock."

"You weren't suffering from shock in January, when you testified before the grand jury." the prosecutor said. "You were out of the hospital and cured by that time!"

Lang said. "I was suffering from shock. I can bring doctors to prove it."

The prosecutor let out a short laugh and turned his back on the witness, walking away saying. "You'll probably have that chance- in a trial of your own."

And sat down.

The judge sat behind his big wooden box wondering why the room got so silent all of a sudden; and then, remembering he was in charge, called a recess, instructing the prosecutor to meet with him in chambers.

People stood in little groups out in the corridor; reporters mingled with the various groups, not getting anywhere particularly. Lang and his lawyer stood talking solemnly; Miller and some plainclothes dicks stood well away from Lang, but Miller was bad-mouthing his partner loud enough that the echoey corridor carried it to anyone who cared to listen.

"I think Miller feels double-crossed." Eliot said.

I shrugged. "The minute Lang recanted, it made Miller look dirty. He's been supporting Lang's story all along, remember."

"He looks dirty because he is dirty," Eliot said.

"Good point," I said. "But this is Chicago. I wouldn't go looking under any cop's nails, if I were you."

Frank Nitti and his lawyer were standing down the corridor from us. talking; Nitti was all smiles. I saw him look my way a couple of times, but perhaps because I was standing with Eliot, he didn't come over right away. But eventually he did, and he looked at Eliot and nodded and said, "Mr. Ness."

"Mr. Nitti," Eliot said, nodding.

It occurred to me that Eliot and Nitti, like Eliot and Barney, shared a certain respect; and if my suspicions were correct about Eliot working on his pal the prosecutor to help see I didn't perjure myself, then Eliot had, in a roundabout way, been working to help Nitti here. The irony wasn't lost on Nitti, either.

"You're not here to root for
me
, are you, Mr. Ness?" Nitti asked.

Eliot shrugged. "If somebody tried to assassinate you, I am."

Nitti shrugged. "There's a lot of that soma around."

Eliot's expression turned cold "Yeah. So I hear."

Nitti had overstepped his bounds, and knew it. He turned to me and said, "I get the feeling you're behind this."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I don't figure Lang's conscience is why he suddenly don't remember who shot him."

"You don't huh."

"If I'm indebted to you, and it looks like maybe I am… well. I pay my debts, that's all."

He shrugged again, smiled almost nervously, and turned to rejoin his lawyer, only his lawyer was right behind him; it made Nitti look a little awkward, and Nitti snapped at the man in Sicilian. The lawyer took it stoically, and they walked back down the corridor a ways, and Nitti was smiling again by the time they came to a stop.

"If you don't believe him," Eliot said, "just ask Cermak."

"What?"

"Whether Nitti pays his debts or not."

When court resumed, the prosecutor had a perjury warrant ready for Lang, and Lang was placed under arrest.

"I'd like a ten-thousand-dollar bond. Your Honor." the prosecutor said.

The judge said. "Bail will be two thousand dollars. That seems large enough. He is a policeman, after all. with a policeman's pay which as a city employee has been infrequent of late."

"You mean he
was
a policeman," the prosecutor said.

Eliot leaned my way and whispered, "His policeman's pay seems up to hiring a high-priced attorney."

The prosecutor said. "The State calls Nathan Heller."

And I took the stand.

Lang and his attorney were sitting in the front row of the gallery; one deputy sat next to Lang, several others hovered. Lang was looking off to one side, not terribly interested in what I had to say.

Why should he be? It was nothing he didn't already know: I told what had really happened in the office at the Wacker-LaSalle.

Despite Lang's upstaging me, all eyes (except his) were on me; the reporters were scribbling fast and furious. Miller was glaring, fat and furious.

At one point I was asked to step down and show how I had held Nitti by both wrists just before Lang came in and shot him.

"How was Lang shot?" the prosecutor asked.

"Nitti was unconscious," I said. "Lang must've shot himself."

A murmur passed across the courtroom, and Lang's eyes finally turned my way; he looked sad.

I stepped down; I had expected at least a few questions about or references to the guy
I'd
shot, in the window. But neither the defense nor the prosecution brought it up. I think Lang's lawyer would've got into it if he could, but Lang wasn't on trial. Technically.

Miller was called.

"Lang came in and said. 'He shot me.' " Miller told the prosecutor. "I went into the room where the shooting happened and picked up a revolver with one shot fired."

Nitti's lawyer had some questions for Miller.

"Why was Nitti put in that room before he was shot?" he wanted to know. "Was it to murder him, away from witnesses?"

"You'd have to ask Lang."

"Where did you go between four o'clock and five-thirty?"

"The mayor's office."

"With whom did you talk there?"

The prosecutor rose and objected. "Irrelevant and immaterial, Your Honor."

The objection was sustained.

Eliot shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

I said, "Cermak still has a few friends. I see."

Eliot said nothing.

Nitti's attorney tried again. "Did Lang have a conversation with anyone just before the shooting?"

"Yes," Miller said. "Ted Newberry."

And yet another wave of surprise rushed across the courtroom.

The judge rapped his gavel, and Nitti's attorney said, "You refer to the reputed gangland leader, Ted Newberry?"

"Yeah." Miller said. "The dead one. He offered Lang fifteen thousand to kill Nitti."

The judge had to bang his gavel again to quiet the courtroom, but the excitement was winding down: Miller was getting into an area that Nitti's lawyer obviously felt was best left unplumbed, and he said he had no further questions. The prosecutor seemed content to leave Miller and his Ted Newberry story to the grand jury. The Nitti case, however you figured it. was coming to a close.

The prosecutor asked for, and got. a directed verdict of not guilty for Nitti.

The next day, at the grand jury indictment for Lang, I was questioned again, this time by State's Attorney Courtney. The same ground was gone over. Nitti testified, corroborating my story, of course. He told reporters he would prefer to forget the whole thing, however; he didn't want to prosecute anybody for anything- he just wanted to get back to Florida and "regain his health."