True Detective (35 page)

Whether Nitti wanted to participate in the prosecution of an assault charge against Lang or not, Lang's perjury charge would go through.

And Lang's pal Miller tried, in the grand jury hearing, to desert a sinking ship. He was, the papers said, as helpful as could be, and repeated the Newberry story in detail. Cermak was one detail, however, that got left out.

Lana took the Fifth.

A John Doe warrant was used on Nitti, to keep him in town.

Outside the grand jury room, as I was coming out. Nitti and his lawyer were standing waiting to be called.

He stopped me and said. "Heller- something I want to ask you. now that your pal Ness ain't around."

"All right, Frank. Shoot. If you'll pardon the expression."

■

"What were you doing in Miami? What were you doing in the park, when that crazy anarchist bastard tried to kill the president?"

So I was right: the blond
had
recognized me, and reported back to his chief.

I said. "I was playing bodyguard for Cermak. Some job I did. huh?"

"About changed the course of history, didn't you, pal?"

" 'About' doesn't count for much, Frank."

"Why'd Cermak hire you on, an ex-cop, when he had Lang and all the other cops in town at his fingertips, and for free?"

"Cermak didn't hire me."

"Oh, yeah? Who did?"

"One of his longtime backers."

Nitti considered that, or pretended to: there wasn't a flicker of a reaction to indicate he suspected Capone's role in this; but that didn't mean he didn't.

"Well." he said. Smiling. "No harm done." His lawyer was wanting him to move along; it was their turn at bat. Nitti put a hand on my arm. "About what you did for me. in this Lang thing…"

"I didn't do it for you, Frank. I just told the truth."

"Sure. I know. But I appreciate it. I owe you one. kid."

And he winked at me, and went in to testify.

I had a talk with some reporters, who I'd managed to duck the day before; they wanted to know about my quitting the force, and what my future plans were and so on.

And suddenly I knew what a part of my future plans would be; Nitti had reminded me of a debt somebody else owed me.

"I'm going to be working at the world's fair, boys," I told the newsmen. "I used to be with the pickpocket detail, you know, and General Dawes himself has contracted me to work with the fair's special security
⁷
force in that regard"

They put that in their stories, and the next morning the phone rang.

"Hello. Uncle Louis." I said into it. without waiting to hear the voice on the other end. "When does the General want to see me?"

My appointment with General Dawes was at ten. and I figured I'd be out of there by noon, easy, for my luncheon date with Mary Ann Beame at the Seven Ails, a joint in Tower Town on the second floor of an old stable that made the Dill Pickle seem like Henrici's. I'd been seeing her a couple times a week since I got back from Miami, and by seeing her. I mean sleeping with her, and she was still driving me crazy with her small-town-girl-goes-bohemian ways, and one minute I wanted her out of my life and the next I was thinking about asking her to marry me, though with all her talk of a career I wasn't sure
where
I fit in.

Today I was going to tell her I'd pursued every avenue I could think of to find her brother- in Chicago at least- and the only idea I could think of, to pursue it further, was to start at the source: to go back to their hometown and try to track him from that end. Whether she'd go for that, since it would involve telling her father, who she'd kept out of this so far, I didn't know. But it was about all I had left. I'd checked with every newspaper in the suburbs and small towns around Chicago, and nobody recognized Jimmy's picture, and I hit the employment bureaus and the relief agencies and a hundred other places- and I'd run through that retainer of hers (which I'd initially thought was overly generous) weeks ago, with no intention of asking for anything else from her- except the right to keep seeing her. I was definitely going soft in the head department: that radio I bought I'd been using to listen to her on that silly soap opera- though I never admitted that to her.

At nine-thirty, after "Just Plain Bill," just as I was getting ready to walk over to the bank, a messenger delivered an envelope to me with a thousand-dollar bill in it.

There was also a note- "For services rendered"- typed on a sheet of Louis Piquett's law firm's stationery.

I called Piquett up; his secretary, after checking with him, put me through.

"I trust you've received my message. Mr. Heller. I hope it was satisfactory."

"Best message I've had in some time. But why? I didn't deliver on what your client hired me for. The man I was sent to protect isn't with us anymore, you know."

"Correct. And you haven't received the full ten thousand dollars promised, either. But my client does recognize you performed your services as best as circumstances would allow, and felt services rendered should be compensated."

"Thank your client for me."

"I will. And we're sorry for the delay in getting this message to you. My client's business transactions don't move as swiftly as they did before his confinement."

"I understand. Thanks. Mr. Piquett."

"My pleasure."

I got up from the desk and folded the thousand and put it in my pocket; too bad I didn't bank with

Dawes- it would've saved me a trip. Of course the only banking I did with anybody these days was keep a safe-deposit box. Maybe happy days were here again; but bankings days weren't, as far as I was concerned.

The Dawes bank was on the comer of LaSalle and Adams, in the shadow of the Board of Trade Building and across from the Rookery, and was as pompous as the General himself: a massive graystone edifice with stone lion heads lording it over eight three-story pillars cut out of its face, little stone lions lurking above like regal gargoyles. A corridor ran the length of the building clear over to Wells Street, through a promenade of shops; the bank was on the second floor. Dawes had his office on the third. Just off the street entrance were rows of elevators on either side, and my uncle Louis- wearing a gray suit the price of which would feed a family of four for as many months- was pacing between them, getting in people's way.

"You're late." he said, barely opening his mouth, which was like a gash under his salt-and-pepper mustache.

"My limo stalled," I said.

He glared at me and we got on an elevator empty but for the operator; we had it all to ourselves. There's nothing like a family reunion.

"I hope you realize the position you've put me in." Uncle Louis said.

"What position is that?"

He glared at me again, and for the rest of the ride stood fuming silently, possibly searching for the words to put me in my place, but not finding them before the elevator operator opened the door for us at the third floor.

My uncle led me to a door without any lettering on it; inside was a male secretary at a desk in a large wood-paneled anteroom. The secretary nodded at us and buzzed us through, into a big bleak office that was more dark paneling with one of the walls covered by photos of the General and notables.

Dawes was sitting behind a big mahogany desk on which the stacks of papers were so neat it looked posed; so did the General, in a blue pinstripe, his hand touching his pipe. He didn't rise; his stern expression apparently meant he wasn't pleased with me. either.

"Sit down, gentlemen," he said.

There were chairs waiting for us; we filled them.

"Mr. Heller," the General said, then clarified: "
Young Mr
. Heller. What was the idea behind giving that story to the press?"

I pretended to be surprised. "Was I meant to keep our business arrangement a secret?"

Dawes sucked on the pipe; his brow was knit. "What business arrangement is that?"

"We spoke in December, at Saint Hubert's. You suggested that I let the chips fall where they may and tell the true story at the Nitti trial. In return, as a token of gratitude for performing this possibly dangerous civic duty, I was to be paid three thousand dollars for working with your security people at the fair, to help control the anticipated pickpocket problem there."

Dawes relit his pipe. It was an elaborate operation. He said, "I believe you're quite aware that the situation has changed since we spoke."

"The truth is still the truth. And a bargain is still a bargain."

"And Mayor Cermak is deceased."

"Yes. But what does that have to do with our contract?"

"I don't remember signing a contract with you, Mr. Heller."

"We had a verbal contract. My uncle here was witness to that."

Uncle Louis went pale as death.

I said, "I'm sure my uncle will attest to that."

My uncle said, "Nathan, please, you're being most rude- "

Dawes interrupted with a wave of the hand. "Louis, I quite understand your position." He turned his gaze on me and it was like one of those stone lions was looking at me. "You should not have spoken to the papers about this. It was quite a breach of confidence."

I shrugged. "You said nothing about our agreement being a confidential one. Besides which. I didn't tell the reporters why you offered me the job at the fair- that
might
have been a breach of confidence. My testimony at the trial made news, you know; my views are of interest to the press at the moment. And they asked me my future plans."

Dawes leaned his head back and quite literally looked down his nose at me and. as if lecturing, said, "Once a reporter asked me if I were going to take my knickers with me to London- black silk knee breeches are usual court dress, over there- and I asked him if he wanted a diplomatic answer, or the kind the question deserved? And then I told him to go plumb to hell. You might in future take that example to heart."

"But if you void our deal. General, I'm going to be placed in an embarrassing light; I'll have to let the press know the circumstances. You've already had some unfortunate publicity of late, General- if you'll pardon my adding Insull to injury."

He looked at me solemnly. "This reeks of blackmail, young man."

"This reeks of business. And business is about money, and three thousand dollars to a private detective just starting out is good business indeed."

Uncle Louis was breathing hard.

The General said, "In my very young days, I had a burning ardor for money, Mr. Heller. But since then I have been interested in it only intermittently. One of the Rothschilds once said he made his fortune because he discovered there are times when one should
not
try to make money. It strikes me that money is something you are unduly interested in."

"The Rothschilds can afford that attitude. The Hellers- this Heller, anyway- can't. Now, I apologize for my bad etiquette with the press. But our agreement is binding, as far as I'm concerned, and if you feel differently, I'm going to be noisy about it. I'm not a big wheel, like you, General. But us little wheels can get awful goddamn squeaky when we don't get our grease."

Uncle Louis sat shaking Iris head, staring blankly at the wall of photos of the famous: Coolidge and Dawes; Hoover and Dawes; Pershing and Dawes; Mellon and Dawes.

The General lowered his gaze and began shuffling papers. He said. "My secretary will have contracts ready for you to sign this afternoon at four. Please return then, and sign them, Mr. Heller. Good afternoon, gentlemen."

I rose and went out; Uncle Louis stayed behind, speaking to the General, but the General didn't seem to be having any. Uncle Louis caught up with me at the elevators.

"Let's you and me talk, Nate," he said, pointing down the hall. "I have an office, too."

That he did- and his own secretary, an attractive if bookish woman in her early thirties- but the interior office was perhaps a quarter the size of the General's, albeit bigger than my own. And Uncle

Louis didn't seem to have a Murphy bed.

He did have a desk, and he sat behind it and tried to look as authoritarian and stem as the General. He damn near pulled it off; but I didn't help matters by refusing to take a chair.

He fairly spit the words at me. "You know damn good and well that the General's offer was made at a point in time when besmirching Mayor Cermak's name was a desirable thing. Now that Cermak is dead, and a martyr, your testimony at the Nitti trial has only caused the very sort of bad Chicago publicity? the General wishes to avoid. You kn
ow
all that, don't you? You knew that all along."

"Sure."

"And yet you take advantage of the General, and of me. and hold us to a bargain that was made under vastly different circumstances. Where do you get your damn nerve?"

"I think it's called
chatzpa
, Uncle Louis."

"You're an embarrassment to me. You
must
know all I have to do is tell the General that I'm willing to deny being a witness where that verbal contract is concerned, and your windfall at his- and my- ■ expense will be forfeit."

"Maybe. Maybe not. The General has old-world notions about keeping his word; part of the way he sees himself includes keeping promises, pretentious old fart that he is."

He stood and. his face redder than a Communist, thrust an arm out and pointed a finger as close to my face as he could get without hurtling the desk. "Consider yourself disinherited, disowned, you smart-ass, you
gonif
... you just traded three thousand dollars for more money than you could ever dream of. You're disinherited!"

"I don't want your money."

He suddenly seemed embarrassed for his outburst. Whether it was a pose or not, I can't say; but he sat down and folded his hands and, nervously, said, "I have no sons, Nathan. I have two daughters I love very much. But I always thought of you as… the son I never had."

"Horseshit."

Maybe it
had
been a pose: the hands flattened on the desk, fingers spread out but arched, like spiders, and his face turned hard. "You stood to inherit a lot of money, you ridiculous, ridiculous fool. And you threw that money away. Just threw it away. And nothing you can ever say will change it."