The Million-Dollar Wound (21 page)

I swallowed. “I appreciate your frankness, Frank. I appreciate the warning.”

“Right. Some people wake up dead in the alley. They didn’t rate no warning. You, I figure, got that much coming.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, Frank. I apologize for—”

He waved a hand again. “No apologies. Clients hired you; that’s what you’re in business for. But that was before the law was laid down. Henceforth, stay the fuck out of my affairs.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, except: “Yes, Frank.”

“Now, you saw some things at O’Hare’s.”

What was he talking about?

“Frank, I don’t know…”

“I want you to forget it. All of it. Anything O’Hare said to you, before he was killed. Anything you saw there, at his office. You just put that out of your mind.”

And as he said that, I put it together: the very thing he didn’t want anyone to put together. Because as he sat there looking at ledgers—fresh from a conference with O’Hare’s partner Johnny Patton—I recalled who was the accountant at Sportsman’s Park: Les Shumway, the witness who helped put Capone away. And who was O’Hare, but the federal informer who helped put Capone away? Yet O’Hare had prospered, in the wake of Capone’s fall, and even Shumway had found refuge, right under Frank Nitti’s nose.
Why wasn’t Shumway dead?

Perhaps he
was
, now, like his boss O’Hare. Or he was out of town, or he was being well taken care of.

Because the man sitting across from me was the
real
man who put Capone away. It wasn’t Stege or Ness or Irey or Frank J. Wilson or Uncle Sam.

It was Frank Nitti.

I knew, with a certainty that chilled me, something that the papers for all their theorizing had not guessed, something that the feds for all their investigating had not even considered, something that few people living knew, few people but for the handful of conspirators themselves, one of whom, Edward J. O’Hare, was freshly dead.

That Frank Nitti had, through O’Hare and Shumway, set Capone up for the federal fall.

To vacate the throne for himself.

“Well,” he said, “I won’t take up any more of your time. It’s been a busy week for all concerned.”

“I would imagine,” I said, casually I hoped, “what with the big boss coming back in a few days.”

He laughed again; not the booming laugh, but loud enough. “Al’s not getting back in the business, kid.”

“Would I be out of line asking why?”

Matter-of-fact shrug. “We heard rumors, but till they let his own doctor examine him at Lewisburg the other day, we couldn’t be sure.”

“Sure of what?”

His smile stopped just short of gloating. “Kid, Al’s crazier than a bedbug. The syph’s eaten away half his brain. He just didn’t live right, you know.”

And he finished his milk.

I rose. My knees felt weak, but I could stand. I could even walk, and did, out the door.

Campagna, waiting, said, “You want a ride home? Snow’s comin’ down. I got a car.”

I could hear the muffled sound of Nitti talking to a woman, in the entryway back of the closed door behind me.

“No thanks,” I said.

After all, the day might come soon enough when Louis Campagna, or someone like him, took me for a ride at Nitti’s behest.

On November 22, the first of Pegler’s columns exposing Bioff and Browne appeared in hundreds of papers nationwide. For once, Pegler submerged his quirky, alternately folksy and pompous writing style into a flat, clear, straightforward reporter’s voice that helped make his union-busting series something that was taken seriously.

The first column specifically exposed Bioff’s unserved sentence for pandering; later Pegler bared Browne’s gangster-tinged past.

In February 1940, due to public pressure created by Pegler’s columns, Bioff was returned to Chicago and, on April 8 of that year, the clang of a cell door swinging shut at the House of Correction marked the start of his actually serving that long-forgotten six-month sentence. Word was he had a private office-like cell with a fresh tub of iced beer each day, the latter a luxury more suited to Browne than Bioff; and he was sometimes released on a good-conduct pass, and was seen out-and-about in Chicago. What the hell—I was pleased that the bust I’d made so long ago had finally resulted in a jail sentence being served at all, iced beer, private office, good-conduct passes or no.

On May 4, 1941, Pegler was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, for “articles on scandals in the ranks of organized labor.”

Twenty days later, Bioff and his co-defendant Browne were charged in a federal court in New York under the Federal Anti-Racketeering Statute on the film-industry extortion. Shortly thereafter, so was Nick (Dean) Circella. Dean and Browne each received eight years; Bioff ten. All three went to prison without uttering a word about Nitti and the Outfit.

Dean, however, was a fugitive for some months prior to his trial, until FBI agents arrested him in a roadhouse known as Shorty’s Place, in Cicero. He was hiding out with Estelle Carey, who had dyed her hair black and posed with Dean (himself posing as a workman) as his little homebody housewife; it must have been a masquerade Estelle enjoyed not in the least.

The murder of E. J. O’Hare remained (and remains) unsolved.

Me? I went about my business, watching all this from the sidelines, keeping what I knew about the Nitti-directed murder of O’Hare to myself. That week never quite faded from my memory, however, if for no other reason than it was the single most financially rewarding week I had in those early years, and for some time thereafter. Between O’Hare, Nitti, Montgomery and Bioff, I brought in enough mazuma to pay the entire yearly salary of my secretary with some left over toward one of my ops. At the same time I knew the risks I’d taken earning that dough could never be properly compensated. I could still be killed for what I’d done, and for what I knew.

Nonetheless, I thought all this movie-union crap was behind me. I had not been called to testify in the Bioff/Browne/Dean proceedings, and Pegler had in his columns played down my role as much as he could; he probably thought he was getting back at me, but I considered it a favor. I took Nitti’s advice and stayed out of his Outfit’s business—as much as I could, anyway, in a town he owned.

When I came back to Chicago in February 1943, Guadalcanal weighed more heavily on my mind than Willie Bioff and company, and I had no intention of allowing myself to get drawn back into that sordid affair. Nitti’s “final warning,” after all, to stay out of his business, still went—and, battle fatigue and amnesia not withstanding, I clearly remembered that Frank Nitti was not to be taken lightly.

And then Estelle Carey came back into my life, and everything went out the window.

I got a cab at Union Station just before noon, sharing it with two sailors, and sat in the rear holding on to the strap and looking out the window at snowy, grimy streets. I was back in Chicago, all right. It had been less than a year, but the world had changed. Service flags were in every storefront window—one star for each son at war, and most flags bore at least two stars; horse-drawn wagons (“This wagon replaces a truck for the duration!”) mingled with autos, while cabbies caught behind the wagons turned shades of patriotic red, blue and white, swallowing their irritation. The autos all had ration stickers prominently displayed in their windshields, B stickers in evidence mostly, and an occasional C, like my cabbie’s. The sidewalks seemed filled with lovely young women, the edges of their skirts under their winter coats flapping, the city’s famous wind intent on exposing pretty, nylonless legs; but if you had a nickel for every guy under forty you saw on the street, you wouldn’t have busfare—unless you counted the boys in uniform.

Me, I wasn’t in uniform, unlike the gobs I was sharing the cab with, and I wasn’t a boy, either. I was a gray old man in a gray woolen overcoat I’d picked up in D.C. yesterday—under which I was wearing the suit I’d worn to San Diego last year, and it seemed a little big for me, like it belonged to somebody else. Maybe somebody I used to be. I sat there craving a cigarette, but for reasons I couldn’t explain, not giving into it.

The cabbie dropped me in front of the Dill Pickle, the rumble of the El greeting me, making me feel at least a little at home. Up in the window of the A-1 Detective Agency a service flag bore a single star. I wondered if it stood for me, or Frankie Fortunato, who was in the Army. Probably Frankie.

Sea bag slung over my shoulder, I stepped around a wino (4-F or over forty? Hard to say) and started up the familiar narrow stairs; passed some people there, older men, younger women, coming down for lunch, nobody I recognized. I set foot on the fourth floor, feeling like my own ghost. Walked down the familiar hall with its wood and pebbled glass and paused at the door that still had
NATHAN HELLER, PRESIDENT,
on it. I touched the letters; they didn’t smear.

I turned the knob.

Gladys was sitting behind her desk, on which was a rose in a slender vase. She looked lovely, her brown hair in a slightly longer pageboy, now, her white blouse slightly more feminine and ruffly than I remembered ever seeing her in. She was a little heavier, but it looked good on her—made her bustier. She gave me a big smile.

“Hello, Mr. Heller,” she said.

She stood and came around and hugged me. I hugged her back. It felt good, if a little awkward.

A banner made from a bedsheet said
WELCOME HOME, BOSS
in crude yet oddly graceful red letters; it was tacked on the wall over that World’s Fair couch where I’d caught Gladys and Frankie humping, years ago.

“You shouldn’t’ve made a fuss,” I said.

“Not that big a fuss,” she said, shrugging.

“No ticker-tape parade?”

She narrowed her eyes; she didn’t get it. Gladys still didn’t have a sense of humor. “This is the extent of it,” she said, gesturing to the banner, which I felt sure she’d made herself. “Except for we have some champagne chilling.”

“That’s fuss enough,” I said. “Lead me to it.”

“You got it,” somebody said.

I turned and saw Lou Sapperstein, looking haggard and wearing a black arm band on one sleeve of his brown suitcoat, standing in the doorway of my inner office, pouring me a Dixie cup of champagne out of a big bottle.

I went over and took the cup with my left hand and shook hands with Lou with my right and drank the champagne and said, “How’s business?”

He was a touch thinner; more lines in his face. He’d switched from wire-rim glasses to tortoise shell, bifocals now; gray tinged the dark hair around his ears. His skull hadn’t lost its shine.

“Business is not bad,” he said. “Let’s have lunch at Binyon’s and I’ll fill you in.”

“Fine. Why the, uh…?”

He lifted the arm with the armband, gently. “My little brother. Fighter pilot. Silliest goddamn thing. Died in the States while still in training.”

“I’m sorry, Lou.”

“I am, too. Hell of a thing.” He looked at Gladys. “Care to join us? We can make it a celebration.”

Gladys was already back behind her desk. “No. Somebody has to hold down the fort.”

Gladys had loosened up, considerably, over the years; but she was still business first.

“Where shall I put this?” I said, referring to the sea bag, currently residing on the couch.

“Why don’t you stick it in the office next door?” Lou said.

“For now,” I said. “But I got to find a place to stay. I should’ve made arrangements while I was still at St. E’s, but it was hard to think that far ahead…”

Gladys said, “They called us, Mr. Heller.”

“For Christ’s sakes, will you call me Nate.”

“Nate,” she said. It was hard for her. “Anyway, one of your doctors called several weeks ago, and we’ve been looking for a room ever since. I’m afraid there’s nothing at the Morrison.”

“Quite a housing shortage,” Lou said, with a fatalistic shrug.

“So we took the liberty of rearranging the office next door,” she said.

“With both you and Frankie gone,” Lou said, “we haven’t been using that office at all. I’ve been working out of your office, of course…” He nodded to my inner office, his expression apologetic.

“That’s as it should be,” I said.

“So we had the partitions taken out next door,” he went on, “and put your desk in there, as well as some of the personal items you’d put in storage. Some furniture from your old suite at the Morrison. You remember that old Murphy bed of yours that’s been stored in the basement, for years?”

I sat down on the couch, put a hand on the sea bag. “Don’t tell me.”

“We had it hauled back upstairs. It’s in there. You can have that whole office to yourself, and live in it, too, temporarily, till you find something else.”

“Full circle,” I said.

“What?” Gladys said.

“Nothing,” I said.

Lou said to her, “He lived in his office when he started out.
That
office.”

“Oh,” Gladys said, not getting it. Irony wasn’t her strong suit.

I stood. “I appreciate you going to that trouble.”

“If you like,” Lou said, gesturing with two open hands, “I’ll use that office, and you can use the one in here, and just sleep in there. I just figured, with clients used to dealing with me, it wouldn’t hurt to have a transition period, where…”

“Don’t say another word. You stay put, Lou. It’s going to take me a while to get into the swing of things again. For the next few weeks, at least, consider yourself the boss.”

“Am I wrong in assuming you’ll be wanting to get right back to work?”

“No. Anyway, I don’t think you are.”

“Mr. Heller,” Gladys said, her brow knit. I didn’t bother correcting her; “Nate” was just not in her vocabulary. “You do look a little peaked, if you’ll excuse me saying.”

“Gladys,” Lou said, harshly.

“It’s okay, Lou,” I said. “She’s right. I look like hell. But I just spent sixteen hours or so sitting on a train, with no place to sleep, and…” The train had been filthy, crowded; I was lucky to find room to stow my sea bag and plant my butt. The saddest thing had been the pregnant women, of whom there had seemed to be a batallion, and gals with small children in tow, trying to diaper ’em, feed ’em, in the most cramped god-awful conditions, all of these young mothers present and future on their way to see their overseas-bound husbands one last time, or coming back from having seen ’em off.

Lou and Gladys were both staring at me, pity in their eyes, as I’d trailed off in mid-sentence and got lost in thought, thinking about the train ride. That was going to happen; me going in and out of focus like that.

“You might as well get your minds set,” I said. “I’m going to be out of step for a while. Not long ago I was on a tropical island getting shot at. The comparative peace and quiet of Chicago is going to take some getting used to.”

Lou stepped in my, or his, office and got into his overcoat. “Binyon’s okay?” he said.

“Binyon’s is fine,” I said.

As we were leaving, Gladys called out, “Should I tell people you’re in, if they call?”

I stopped, the door open; Lou was already out in the hall. The abortionist was still in business.

“Why should they even know I’m back?” I said.

“Your friend Hal Davis on the
News
did a story about you. Or rather it was about your friend Mr. Ross, with you in it. How you’re a couple of heroes who are coming back to Chicago.”

“That cocksucker!”

“Mr. Heller!”

“Gladys, I’m sorry. Forgive that. I’ve got a bad case of serviceman’s mouth, and I’ll try to get over it quick.”

“Yes, Mr. Heller.”

“Good girl.”

“Mr. Heller—did, uh, did you see Frankie over there?”

“Uh, no, Gladys. Sorry. It’s a big war. Why, is he in the Pacific?’

“He’s on Guadalcanal, too, didn’t you know?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t. He must’ve been one of the Army boys who came in to spell us. Is he with the Americal Division?”

“Why, yes,” she said. The concern on her face was easy enough to read. Specifically, she was looking at gray, skinny, hollow-eyed me and had to wonder about how her husband was faring. She was Mrs. Fortunato now, you see; they’d gotten hitched just before he joined up.

“Will he be all right, Mr. Heller?”

I knew enough not to assure her of that, but I could in good conscience say, “The Island’s a mop-up operation, now, honey. He should be fine. Barney and me did the hard work; all he’s got to do is clean up after us.”

She liked hearing that; she even smiled. For a girl with no sense of humor, she had a great fucking smile. Nice tits, too. It made me feel good to know I could still appreciate the finer things.

Like Binyon’s. My appetite at St. E’s had been lousy, but the corned beef platter (albeit a smaller serving now) in the familiar male-dominated restaurant with its wooden booths and spare decor reminded me of the simple pleasure of good food. In fact, I attacked the plate like a Jap whose bayonet I’d taken away and was using on him. I think I embarrassed Lou. He didn’t say a word through the meal.

I wiped my face off with a cloth napkin. A cloth napkin; ain’t civilization something. I said, “I didn’t eat on the train ride. No dining car, and if you got off when they made a stop you could lose your seat.”

“No explanation necessary, Nate. This is Lou, remember? We go way back.”

Somebody laughed; me, apparently. “I guess two guys who got falling down drunk together as often as we did, in the old days, ought to cut each other some slack.”

“That’s how I see it.”

“I’m goddamn sorry about your brother.” I couldn’t keep my eyes off his armband.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“But it isn’t,” I said.

“No it isn’t, but it’s not something I can talk about. I thank God
you
made it back. I was afraid I might never see you again, you dumb son of a bitch. You were too old to go in the service, what were you thinking of?”

“Ya talked me out of it,” I said. “I’m not going in.”

The waiter brought us each a second beer.

Lou shrugged, smiled. “I understand the impulse. I’m older than you and I thought about it, too.”

“When your brother enlisted,” I said, beer at the ready, “you went down the next day and took the physical. If you hadn’t flunked, you’d be in right now.”

Wide-eyed, smiling, he said, “How do you know that?”

“I’m a detective.” I took a sip of beer. “Anyway, I used to be. How much play did Davis give me in the
News
?”

“‘Barney Ross’s Private Eye Pal.’ Pretty corny. All the Cermak and Dillinger and Nitti stuff, dredged up. The Pegler bit, too. But just one story. Yesterday.”

“Fuck. Did I understand Gladys to say Barney’s coming back to town?”

“I believe so. His malaria flared up, and he was off Guadalcanal before New Year’s; he’s been in the States for—”

“I know,” I said. “They let us read the papers in the bughouse. It’s just sharp objects they kept from us.”

“No offense meant, Nate…”

“Me neither. Anyway, I know about Barney. I talked to him on the phone once, even. Did you know Roosevelt pinned the medals on him, personal?”

“We get the papers here, too,” Lou said, smiling faintly.

“But he didn’t say anything about coming back to Chicago, on this extended furlough they’re promising him. He said he was going out to Hollywood, to be with his girlfriend. Wife, I mean.”

“Well,” Lou said, “he’s changed his mind, apparently. My guess is he’s needed to pump some business into his cocktail lounge. His brother Ben just isn’t the manager that Barney was.”

“Shit—Barney was a terrible manager, Lou. But he was a draw. A celebrity.”

Lou shrugged facially. “Now that he’s a war hero, they’ll flock there to see him.”

For some reason I didn’t like to hear that. I didn’t know why, exactly, but I could feel anger behind my eyes.

Lou said, “Do you want to hear about
our
business, or not?”

“Sure. How have I been doing?”

“You’re not getting rich, but you’re no pauper. Business is off slightly—divorce work is way down—but there’s still too much for one op to handle. If Frankie were here, one of us might be feather-beddin’, but there’s plenty here for the two of us.”

Why didn’t I care? I tried to look interested and said, “Such as?”

“Half a dozen suburban banks are using us for investigating loan applicants and credit; also some personnel investigation, and inspection of property and businesses. We got plenty of retail credit-risk checks to do, and four lawyers are now using us to serve their papers…”

I couldn’t listen. I tried. I swear I tried. But after while I was just looking at his face and his mouth was moving but I couldn’t make myself listen.

This is your business,
a voice in my head was saying,
this is what you worked so hard to build, once upon a time, so jump back in, jump back in,
but I didn’t give a shit.