The Million-Dollar Wound nh-3 Read online

  The Million-Dollar Wound

  ( Nathan Heller - 3 )

  Max Allan Collins

  Max Allan Collins

  The Million-Dollar Wound

  Although the historical events in this novel are portrayed more or less accurately (as much as the passage of time, and contradictory source material, will allow), fact, speculation, and fiction are freely mixed here; historical passages exist side by side with composite characters and wholly fictional ones-all of whom act and speak at the author’s whim.

  What immediately comes to mind, with this-the final book of the Frank Nitti Trilogy-is the battle over the title I had with editor Tom Dunne of St. Martin’s Press.

  My title was The Hollywood Wound. This was a World War II phrase among combat soldiers, meaning a wound bad enough to get you sent home, but not so bad you wouldn’t recover to a normal life. I felt it also had a secondary resonance, which is the Hollywood aspect of the story-the move by Nitti and the Chicago Outfit to take over the motion picture unions.

  Well, Dunne just hated the title (loved the novel, though). Word came back to me from several other writers that Dunne had said to them, “Your friend Collins writes great books, but he comes up with terrible titles,” which I thought then was fairly ungracious and still do. But he was the boss, and I did my best to come up with alternates. The only one I remember (of a long undistinguished list) is True War, which would have been a natural follow-up to the prior books (True Detective and True Crime), but seemed both too easy and…wrong.

  I had also considered The Million-Dollar Wound as a title, because that, too, was a combat phrase with the same meaning as “Hollywood wound.” “Million-dollar wound” did come into use during World War II, but not with the prominence of the “Hollywood” term; and “million-dollar” was more commonly (if inaccurately) thought of as strictly a Vietnam-era term (and admittedly that’s where “million-dollar wound” really became common G.I. vernacular). In addition, there’s a “million-dollar” resonance in the story that I won’t spoil here.

  Finally, in desperation, as a throwaway, I told the editor over the phone that the only other title I could think of that satisfied me even remotely was The Million-Dollar Wound. But why-if he hated Hollywood Wound-would Million-Dollar Wound seem any better?

  Who knows why, but Dunne loved it. Thought Million-Dollar Wound was a terrific title (despite its source). Oh well. I still prefer Hollywood Wound, but not enough to reinstate it.

  The other thing I recall is how many people assumed that this would be the last novel about private eye Nate Heller, because in my endnotes I mentioned that this book concluded the Nitti Trilogy. But Heller came back, and even Nitti did now and then (notably in Stolen Away). I am the rare writer who likes to do series, who thrives on sequels. Familiarity breeds content (pronounce “content” any way you like-both meanings apply).

  Boy, you know, I was really trying to challenge myself in this period of my career. Part of what the Nate Heller books were about was finding the truth behind the cliches of private eye fiction-in the case of Million-Dollar Wound, I was exploring the convention that P.I.s were almost always ex-military guys with combat experience, usually traumatic combat experience (Mike Hammer being the poster child of postwar psychosis). But it was always off-stage-always moody, nonspecific backstory. I wanted, in this novel, to accompany the private eye to war and experience with him that trauma. I wanted to show, and explore, how the war changed him-made him grow, but also damaged him.

  Nate Heller, post-Million-Dollar Wound, is not the same guy as the breezy brash kid-on-the-make of the ’30s novels. He is much more prone to dark behavior, including murder, when he considers it the right thing; he makes fewer wisecracks out loud-and thinks very nasty, cynical thoughts. I remain proud of the difference between the Heller of the prewar flashback section and the Heller of the postcombat section that concludes the novel. And I like to think it contrasts ’30s and ’40s America as much as it does the “two” Nate Hellers.

  I also think this novel has a particularly difficult yet successful structure-flashbacks moving around in time, organized not in a linear way but in a manner that works best for the story. I really didn’t take the path of least resistance on this one-I wonder if I’m still capable of challenging myself in so bold a manner. Anyway, this is clearly the most ambitious and artistically dexterous of the three novels, and remains my favorite in terms of craft and even, dare I say it, artistry. And I really love where the Heller/Nitti relationship goes in this novel.

  One of the interesting things about the Heller novels, from the author’s point of view, is that readers tend to think the first one they read-whichever one it might be-is the best. I believe that to be “shock of the new”-that encountering my hardboiled history mix for the first time has an impact that can only hit you once…after that, you kind of take it for granted. I’m not complaining. The first time you hear Sean Connery say, “Bond, James Bond,” is never going to be surpassed.

  But many of the true aficionados of this cycle of novels consider the book you’re holding in your hands to be the best Nate Heller. Now, I usually consider whatever book happens to be the latest Nate Heller novel to be the best one…that’s mostly just me kidding myself, but I have to psyche myself up to stay in the game, okay?

  I will admit, however, that of the three novels making up the Frank Nitti Trilogy, The Hollywood Wound… I mean, The Million-Dollar Wound (goddamnit!)…is the one I consider the best.

  Maybe you’ll agree.

  — M.A.C.

  April 2003

  Lucky indeed for America that in this theater and at that juncture she depended not on boys drafted or cajoled into fighting but on “tough guys” who had volunteered to fight and who asked for nothing better than to come to grips with the sneaking enemy who had aroused all their primitive instincts.

  — Samuel Eliot Morison

  History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II

  Say a prayer for my pal Who died in Guadalcanal.

  — Commonest of inscriptions among the hundreds of crosses in a cemetery on that island

  If you don’t do like I say, you’ll get shot in the head.

  — Frank Nitti

  There’s no business like show business.

  — Irving Berlin

  My name was gone.

  When I woke, I didn’t know where the hell I was. A small room with the pale green plaster walls and antiseptic smell of a hospital, yes, but what hospital? Where?

  And then the damnedest thing happened: I couldn’t remember my name. Couldn’t remember for the life of me. It was gone.

  There was nobody to ask about it. I was alone in the little room. Just me and three other beds, empty, neatly made, military fashion, a small bedside stand next to each. No pictures on any of the stands, though. No mirrors on the wall. How in hell did they expect a guy to know who he was without a mirror on the wall?

  I sat up in bed, the horsehair mattress beneath me making an ungodly racket, working against itself like a bag of steel wool. My mouth had a bitter, medicinal taste. Maybe that was it; maybe I was so pumped full of medicine I was woozy. My name would come to me. It would come.

  I stood up, on wobbly legs. I hadn’t forgotten how to walk, exactly, but I wasn’t ready for the Olympics.

  Funny. I knew what the Olympics was. I knew all sorts of things, come to think of it. That the mattress was horsehair, pillow too. I knew what color green was. I knew that this brown, wool, scratchy blanket was government issue. But who was I? Where did I come from? Who the fuck was I?

  I sat back down on the edge of the bed; my legs couldn’t take standing up for long, and neither could the rest of me. Wh
ere did my memory begin? Think back. Think back.

  I could remember another hospital. Yesterday, was it? Or longer ago? I could remember waking up in a hospital bed, next to a window, and looking out and seeing, goddamnit, seeing palm trees and screaming, screaming…

  But I didn’t know why palm trees would make me scream. I did know what palm trees were. That was a start. I didn’t think seeing one today would make me scream. Shit, I needed some joe. That taste in my mouth.

  Then I remembered looking at myself in the mirror! Yes, at the other hospital, looking at myself in the mirror, and seeing a man with a yellow face.

  Fucking Jap! somebody said, and broke the mirror.

  Still sitting on the edge of my rack, I lifted a hand to my forehead; felt a bandage there. The hand, I noticed, was yellow.

  It was me. I broke the mirror. I was the one who yelled at the Jap. And I was the Jap.

  “You’re no fuckin’ Jap,” somebody said.

  Me, again.

  You’re not a Jap. You think, you talk, in English. Japs don’t think and talk in English. They don’t know Joe DiMaggio from Joe Louis. And you do.

  You know English, you know about Japs, you know about DiMaggio and Louis, but you don’t know your own name, do you, schmuck?

  Schmuck? Isn’t that Jewish?

  I’m a Jew. A Jew or something.

  “Fuck it,” I said, and got up again. Time to walk. Time to find another window and see if there are any palm trees and see if they make me scream.

  I was in a nightshirt, so I dug in the drawers of the bedside stand and found some clothes. Skivvies and socks and a cream-color flannel shirt and tan cotton pants. I put them on; I remembered how to do that, anyway. And I about tripped over a pair of shoes by the bed; stopped and put them on. Civilian-type shoes, not the boondockers I was used to.

  The adjoining room was a dormitory or a ward or something; twenty beds, neatly made, empty. Was I the only guy here?

  I walked through the ward into a hallway, and at my right was a glassed-in area, behind which pretty girls in blue uniforms with white aprons were scurrying around. Nurses. None of them seemed to notice me. But I noticed them. They were so young. Late teens, early twenties. I hadn’t seen a pretty girl in so very long. I didn’t know why. But I knew I hadn’t. For some reason it made me want to cry.

  Held it back, though. Instinct said tears would keep me in here, longer, and already I wanted out. I didn’t know where else I’d go, because I didn’t know where the hell I belonged, but it wasn’t here.

  I went over to the glass and knocked; a nurse looked up at me, startled. She had light blue eyes, and blond curly shoulder-length hair showering from under her white cap. Petite, fine features. The faintest trail of freckles across a cute, nearly pug nose.

  She slid a window to one side and looked at me prettily from behind the counter. “Ah-you’re the new patient,” she said. Pleasantly.

  “Am I?”

  She checked her watch, glanced at a chart on a clipboard on the counter. “And I think it’s about time for your Atabrine tablets.”

  “What is it, malaria?”

  “Why, yes. You’ve had quite a flare-up, as a matter of fact. You were just sent over from M and S after several days there.”

  “M and S?”

  “Medical and Surgical building.”

  She got me the pills-small, bright yellow pills-and a little paper cup of water; I took the water and the pills. The aftertaste was bitter.

  “Tell me something,” I said.

  She smiled and I loved her for it; tiny white teeth like a child. “Certainly.”

  “Do they have palm trees outside the window, over at M and S?”

  “Hardly. You’re at St. E’s.”

  “St. E’s?”

  “St. Elizabeth’s. Near Washington, D.C.”

  “I’m in the States, then!”

  “Yes you are. Welcome home, soldier.”

  “Never call a Marine ‘soldier,’ sweetheart. We take that as an insult.”

  “Oh, so you’re a Marine.”

  I swallowed. “I guess I am.”

  She smiled again. “Don’t worry,” she said. “After a few days, you’ll get your bearings.”

  “Can I ask you to look something up for me?”

  “Sure. What?”

  “My name.”

  Her eyes filled with pity, and I hated her for it, and myself, but the feeling passed, where she was concerned; she checked on the clipboard chart and said, “Your name is Heller. Nathan Heller.”

  It didn’t mean a thing to me. Not a thing. Not the faintest fucking bell rang. Shit.

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  “Unless there’s been a foul-up.”

  “If this is a military hospital, there could sure as hell be a snafu. Double-check, will you? If I heard my own name, I’m sure I’d recognize it.”

  Pity in the eyes; more pity in the eyes. “I’m sure you would. But we’re not strictly military here, and…listen, Mr., uh, sir, why don’t you step into the dayroom and relax.” She gestured graciously to a wide, open doorway just down and across from us. “If I can straighten out this snafu, I’ll let you know.”

  I nodded and walked toward the dayroom; she called out after me.

  “Uh, sir!”

  I turned and felt my face try to smile. “I’m no officer.”

  “I know,” she said, smiling. “You’re a PFC. But that gives you plenty of rank to pull around here, believe me. You guys are tops with us, never forget that.”

  Pity or not, it was kind of nice to hear.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Those palm trees you mentioned?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You were in Hawaii three days ago. At Pearl Harbor, in the Naval hospital there. That’s where you saw the palm trees.”

  “Thanks.”

  Only I had a crawling feeling Hawaii wasn’t the only place I’d seen palm trees.

  The dayroom stretched out like the deck of an aircraft carrier, eighty feet long by forty feet wide, easy. The same institutional pale green walls dominated, with an expanse of speckled marble floor where massive furniture squatted-heavy wooden tables, chairs, a piano, the smallest stick of this furniture would take two guys to toss around, and maybe not then. That was when I figured it.

  I was in the nuthouse.

  Hell, where did I expect to be? I didn’t know my own fucking name, right? Of course, I knew who was singing “White Christmas,” as the radio was piped in over an intercom system: Bing Crosby. I was no idiot. I knew the name of the song and the name of the singer; now, for the sixty-five-dollar question: who the hell was I?

  If I had any doubt about where I was, the human flotsam sprawled across the heavy chairs cinched it. Hollow cheeks and hollow eyes. Guys sitting there shaking like hootchie-coo dancers. Guys sitting there staring with ball bearings for eyes. A few very ambitious guys playing pinochle or checkers. One guy sat in the corner quietly bawling. Made me glad I held my own tears back. I had enough problems just being minus the small detail of an identity.

  Most of the guys were smoking. I craved a smoke. Something in the back of what was left of my mind told me I didn’t smoke; yet I wanted a smoke; I sat next to a guy who wasn’t shaking or staring; he was smoking, however, and he seemed normal enough, a tanned, brown-haired, round-faced man with distinct features. He was sitting along the wall over at right next to a window; this window, like all the other windows, looked out at a nearby faded red-brick building, through bars.

  I was in the nuthouse, all right.

  “Spare a cig?” I asked.

  “Sure.” He shook out a Lucky for me. “Name’s Dixon. What’s yours?”

  “I dunno.”

  He lit me up off his. “No kidding? Amnesia, huh?”

  “If that’s what they call it.”

  “That’s what they call it. You had the malaria, didn’t you, Pops?”

  Pops? Did I look that old? Of course Dixon here was probabl
y only twenty or twenty-one, but somebody who hadn’t been in the service might peg him for thirty.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I still got it.”

  “I hear it’s the ever-lovin’ pits. Fever, shakes. What the hell, you got any other injuries?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What about that noggin of yours?”

  He meant my bandaged head.

  “I did that to myself. In some hospital in Hawaii.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t like what I saw in the mirror.”

  “Know the feelin’,” he said. Yawned. “That’s most likely why you’re on MR Four.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Men’s Receiving, fourth floor. Anybody remotely suicidal gets stuck here.”

  “I’m not suicidal,” I said, sucking on my cigarette.

  “Don’t sweat it, then. There’s six floors in this joint. Worse off you are, higher your floor. As you get better, you get promoted downwards a floor or two. Hit MR One and you’re as good as home, wherever that is for ya.”

  “Wherever that is,” I agreed.

  “Oh. Sorry. I forgot.”

  “Me too.”

  He grinned, laughed. “You’re Asiatic, all right.”

  I understood the term; didn’t know why I did, but I understood it. It described any man who’d served long enough in the Far East to turn bughouse. Subtly bughouse, as in talking to yourself and seeing the world sideways.

  “You’re a Marine, too,” I said.

  “Yeah. That much about yourself you remember, huh, mac? Not surprising. No Marine alive’d forget he’s a Marine. Dead ones wouldn’t, neither. You can forget your name, that ain’t no big deal. You can’t never forget you’re a Marine.”

  “Even if you want to,” I said.

  “Right! Here comes one of those fuckin’ gobs.”

  A medical corpsman in his work blues strolled over; he seemed cheerful. Who wouldn’t be, pulling duty on a land-locked, home-front ship like St. E’s?

  “Private Heller,” he said, standing before me, swaying a bit. Something about bell-bottoms makes a Marine want to kill. If there was a reason for that, I’d forgotten it.