True Detective Page 10

  Miller looked at me and tried to get a sneer going; he didn't quite manage. "I don't like the company you keep," he said.

  "Maybe you picked the wrong person to pull in out of a speakeasy to do your shit work for you."

  "What's the idea of bringing Ness into this?"

  "Ness has been in since the first day, but never mind. You and Lang should've told me about Newberry, Miller."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Let's just say if Nitti has a relapse and kicks the bucket, I'll expect my five thousand. Give my love to Lang. Tell him when his finger heals to stick it."

  "You're dead. Heller."

  "Sure, why not, what's another body to a big-game hunter like you? Some free advice: I don't know what you and Nydick's little lady had going, but I don't think she expected you to kill him. I hope you can get her to get her story together. You just got to start letting those close to you in on your plans, Miller. See you in court."

  I left him there to think about that and joined Eliot, who was waiting by the door that said EXIT over it.

  "Take the stairs down," he said. "Find your way home. The ambulance and reporters'll be here anytime. You don't need that kind of publicity."

  I grinned at him. "Don't tell me Eliot Ness is helping cover something up?"

  He laughed a little, but his heart wasn't in it. He'd been sickened by what he saw here tonight.

  He said. "That guy really puts the 'hoodlum' into hoodlum squad, doesn't he?"

  And opened the door for me to leave.

  Chicago is a city where rich and poor stand side by side, ignoring each other. Take the block where my office was. Starting at the deli on the comer and looking down toward Wabash, you'd see Barney's blind pig, a pawnshop, a jewelry store, a flophouse, a sign advertising a palm reader one floor up- buildings wealing fire escapes on their faces like protective masks, looking out stoically on the iron beams of the El: not the classiest landscape in the world. But just around the corner from the deli, right before Binyon's, was the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Club, and across the street from Binyon's was the Standard Club, the Jewish equivalent of the Union League. Some of the richest men in Chicago walked under the SC canopy into the gray, dignified Standard Club, while around the corner and down the block, winos slept it off in a "hotel for men only."

  Saint Hubert's, the restaurant General Charles Gates Dawes had selected for our luncheon meeting, was on Federal Street at the foot of the Union League Club, where he'd be able to stop in after his conference with the two Jews (even though neither Uncle Louis nor myself had been raised in that faith, we were, technically, so "tainted"). Maybe the General would have a smoke on his trademark pipe with its low-slung bowl while chatting with another top "bankster" (as big-shot bankers were often referred to by lesser Chicagoans, like yours truly) in the room at the Union League that had been papered with a million dollars in failed stocks and bonds. The Million-Dollar Room, like so much else in Chicago, had been made possible by the depression; and it was sure heartening to know that the banksters were taking the hard times with a sense of humor. My uncle Louis, of course, was a member of the Standard Club, but we couldn't 20 there for lunch with General Dawes because Dawes wasn't a Jew- it worked both ways, you know. It just worked the other way more often.

  It was a walk of only a few blocks. The temperature was in the forties and it looked like rain. Perfect weather to go to Saint Hubert's English Grill- Federal Street was like some narrow, gloomy London bystreet, anyway. All that was missing was the fog. and my state of mind provided that.

  I hadn't woken up till about eleven, because I had come back to Barney's speak last night, after taking a streetcar back to the Loop, too late to go out to Janey's, and had tied one on. So I awoke fuzzy-mouthed and like-minded, and didn't have time to take up Barney's standing offer of using the traveler's lounge at the Morrison to freshen up, and made do with the sink in my office bathroom. I felt it was a major accomplishment getting up, dressed, relatively clean, and to Saint Hubert's by three minutes after noon. But from the look on my uncle Louis' face as a pink-coated waiter showed me to the table he and the General were sharing, you'd think I was three days late. Christ, I'd put on the clean suit as promised; wasn't that enough?

  Apparently not. My uncle stood and gave me a smile and a glare; the smile was forced- the glare wasn't. He gestured toward a seat: the General rose, as well.

  First, my uncle. He was a thinner, taller version of my father, wearing a navy suit with vest and bow tie. His hair and mustache were salt-and-pepper, heavier on the salt, and he had the paunch that a thin man can set in his middle age. if he's eating well.

  And the General. He was in his mid-to-late sixties, one of those men who manage to look lanky and beefy at the same time, with a long face, its most prominent feature a long, low-slung nose that seemed designed to go with the long, low-slung pipe clutched tight in his lips. He, too, had salt-and-pepper hair, but heavier on the pepper, and the faintly amused smile and bemused eyes of a man so self-assured that it never occurred to him he was superior to you: that, after all, was a given. He wore a dark gray suit with a lighter gray pinstripe and a gray-striped tie. He offered a hand for me to shake, and I did. It was a firm grasp

  I sat. I knew about the General. He was Chicago's number-one Good Citizen. Not just a banker, but a public servant. The "General" title came from his serving under Pershing as the U.S. Army's purchasing agent in the Great War, after which he authored the Dawes Plan for postwar European reconstruction. He was comptroller of the currency under McKinley and, of course, vice-president under Coolidge. He'd even done work for Hoover: recently, he'd headed up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to provide emergency support for banks hit by the depression, but he had had to resign to save his own bank and, by a remarkable coincidence, the RFC had loaned his bank S90 million just three weeks after he resigned as RFC president.

  But even a cynical soul like me had at least one good thing to say about Dawes. In memory of a son who had died at twenty-two. he established a hotel for down-and-outers at six cents a bed and three cents a meal; the Dawes Hotel for Men was the Ritz of flophouses and a genuinely charitable endeavor.

  Dawes sat and so did my uncle, who made the introductions, as if we didn't all know who we were. They were drinking tea and soon I was, too. The atmosphere of Saint Hubeil's was that of an old Dickensian inn. The pink-coated waiters had English accents, presumably real. Prints of fox hunts and other pip-pip-old boy sporting events hung on the rough stone walls, and a fireplace across the room was providing warmth and a homey feeling. The ceiling was low: long clay pipes hung from its beams, and a few of the all-male guests were smoking them- the pipes, not the beams.

  No clay pipe for the General, though: he took too much relish in the monster he was already smoking, with its special fire bowl designed to trap in its false bottom the tobacco tar distilled in smoking. This was not the first thing the General told me about over our lunch, but when I did express interest in his unusual pipe, he perked up. as if he had suddenly realized we were both of the same species, and promised to send me one. which he did. He kept his promises. But I never used the pipe.

  He sat leaning against one elbow, pulling on the pipe, and, looking about the place, said. "I'm reminded of England."

  No kidding!

  "When I was ambassador," he said, "I grew to love Loudon. What do you think of Leon Errol?"

  "Pardon?" I said.

  "Leon Errol," Dawes said, with enthusiasm. "The renowned comedian, man!"

  "Oh. Sure. Leon Errol. Yes. Funny. Funny man."

  What the hell did Leon Errol have to do with London? He wasn't even English.

  "Allow me to tell you a story," Dawes said, and smiling to himself, he leaned forward and told us a story, not looking at either Uncle Louis or me during the telling.

  When he gave his first formal dinner as ambassador to England, in attendance were Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice, the prime minister, the Japanese amb
assador, the Spanish ambassador. Lord and Lady Astor, among many others, including several famous authors and artistes, among them Leon Errol, who was strangely absent when the prim and proper dinner began. But suddenly things began to go awry. One of the waiters, who had a rather large mustache, began filling water glasses with lemonade; he removed plates before guests had finished the course at hand; he began to pass a tray of crackers then spilled it onto the plate of one of the guests; he stumbled while carrying a tray and nearly upended it in a lady's lap; and, finally, he dropped a spoon, kicking it under the table clumsily, and took a candle from the table and got down on hands and knees and searched.

  "And then Lady Astor, bless her," Dawes smiled, "saw through our ruse. For you see- "

  "Leon Errol was the waiter," I said.

  Dawes looked surprised. "You've heard the story?"

  My uncle was giving me a look-to-kill.

  I tried to cover. "My uncle told it to me. It's one of his favorites of your stories."

  Dawes seemed faintly embarrassed. "You should have stopped me- "

  "No," I said, "I wanted to hear it again, from the source's mouth. You tell it much better than my uncle."

  Dawes beamed, and looked across the table at Uncle Louis. "I don't remember telling you that one before. Louis. Is that really one of your favorites?"

  "Oh. yes," Louis said, beaming back.

  "Mine, too," Dawes nodded. He turned his distant gaze on me. "I took the liberty' of ordering for you, Mr. Heller, since you were a bit tardy."

  Tardy? What was this, fucking school?

  "Not at all," I said. "What are we having?"

  Dawes relit his pipe. "Mutton chops, of course. The specialty of the house."

  Mutton? Jesus Christ!

  "My favorite," I said.

  "Mine, too," Uncle Louis nodded.

  I was starting to understand why my father had hated Uncle Louis.

  But I was wrong about the mutton chops- they were thick and juicy and good. And when the General ordered plum pudding for us, I didn't argue; I trusted his judgment about such things by now, and that too proved, as the General said, a culinary delight. The General had a way with words: he left no cliche unturned.

  "Of course they lack the brandy so necessary in the making of proper plum pudding." the General said after we'd finished it. "But the law? is the law. Even in England, I refused to serve liquor at embassy functions, out of regard to the prohibition laws in force at home."

  "But liquor wasn't illegal there," I said.

  "I was a representative of the United States government." he said, matter-of-factly. As if that explained it.

  "General," I said, "it was a wonderful lunch. I'm honored you asked me… though I'm still confused as to why."

  When Dawes smiled, he smiled with his mouth closed; that's the way he was smiling now, at any rate.

  "Is it such a surprise to you," he said, "that one public servant should want to meet, and honor, another?"

  "I hope it won't be rude of me to say this," I said, "but neither one of us is a public servant, at the moment. We're both, you might say, in private business."

  Uncle Louis shifted in his seat.

  Dawes nodded. "That's fair. But you were recently honored by the city council for meritorious,

  hazardous service, in the line of duty, as an officer of the law."

  "Yes."

  "And now you've chosen to leave the department."

  Not again!

  "Sir." I said, "my decision to leave the department is final."

  He sat back, looked down his pipe at me. "Fine," he said. "I respect that." Then he leaned forward, just the slightest bit conspiratorial. "That, in fact, is why you are here."

  "I don't understand."

  Uncle Louis said, "Let him explain, Nate."

  "Sure," I shrugged

  We had been there an hour and a half, and the room was emptying out: with no liquor served on the premises, the long lunch hour for executives was less common. It had been this near-privacy in a public place that the General had been waiting for.

  "You're familiar with President Hoover," he said, with no apparent humor.

  "We've never met." I said, "but I have heard of him."

  "Are you aware that he is the man who put Al Capone away?"

  I grinned. "I always thought my friend Eliot Ness had something to do with that."

  "Indeed he did." the General said, nodding sagely. "A good man. He is part of what I am talking about. You see, there were some of us here in Chicago… in positions of responsibility… who began to feel, a few years ago. that Mr. Capone and company were giving our city more than just a 'colorful' reputation. Chicago had come to be viewed as a happy hunting ground for gunmen and other criminals, and. while I undertook a European campaign to defend her good name, Chicago to a degree did deserve this stigma. This colony of unnaturalized persons, which Mr. Capone came to symbolize, had undertaken a reign of lawlessness and terror in open defiance of the law. My friends on Wall Street were beginning to ponder upon whether or not their money was safely invested here. The time had come to act."

  The time had also come for me to ask a question, because the General paused dramatically, here, to light his pipe again.

  So I said, "How does this make Herbert Hoover the guy who got Capone?"

  He shrugged facially. "That is just a way of putting it. The efforts actually began before Mr. Hoover reached office, but it is well known that for many months, every morning, when he and Andrew Mellon would toss the medicine ball around on the White House lawn, the president would ask Andrew, who is a personal friend of mine and the secretary of treasury, if that man Capone was in jail yet. So it has been the interest and support of Mr. Hoover that made the end of Mr. Capone possible. You see. prior to Mr. Hoover reaching office, several of us here in Chicago had devised a two-part plan. First, a world's fair. What better way to restore Chicago's image in the eyes of the nation, of the world. What better way than to attract millions of people from around the globe to our fair city on the lake, to prove to them that the average person in Chicago never so much as sees a gangster."

  I would've liked to have met that average person, but never mind.

  "We felt we needed a good ten years to do the exposition up right. We would call it 'A Century of Progress,' and it would take place in 1937, the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the city- "

  I interrupted. "But you're planning it now for this summer. And it's still called 'A Century? of Progress,' isn't it?"

  "Yes," Dawes admitted, "but, after the Crash, the city needed the exposition more than it needed correct mathematics."

  Uncle Louis said, "Fort Dearborn was a village in 1833. That's a century, isn't it?"

  "Hey, it's okay with me," I said. "Hold it any year you like. I think it's a good idea. Good for the city; it'll bring some money in."

  The General smiled and nodded, as if he hadn't thought of that before but it was a good idea.

  Then he continued. "When we were first discussing the possibility of an exposition, we knew that for it to truly be a success, for the point we were seeking to make to be made. Mr. Capone would have to be excised. And then we would need to restore the law and order that preceded him."

  "Excuse me. General." I said, "but Big Jim Colosimo and Johnny Torrio preceded Al Capone. not law and order."

  My uncle gave me another sharp look; like a knife.

  But the General only smiled enigmatically. "Shall we say the relative law and order that preceded Mr. Capone."

  "All right?" I conceded.

  "This was when some of us here in Chicago, who were concerned, and who had certain influence- and since I was, at that time, still vice-president of these United States, I did have influence- thought something should be done. I arranged for a special prosecutor, a Dwight Green, to begin dealing with Mr. Capone and company. A two-part attack was devised. Mr. Ness and his 'untouchables' would damage Mr. Capone financially, while Mr. Irey of the IRS attempte
d to put our income tax laws to a good use, for a change. The first of the gangsters to go to prison for tax evasion, you may remember, was one Frank Nitti, with whom I believe you are acquainted."

  "Him I've met."

  "Of course these things go in cycles, and Mr. Nitti is no longer in prison, though Mr. Capone is. and will be for some time. As you so rightly pointed out. Mr. Heller, the gangster element was with us long before Al Capone. and will go on being with us for time immemorial, human nature being what it is. But it should remain in its back-alley place, inconspicuous, within bounds. It should keep out of City Hall, for one thing."

  I sipped my tea. "You've got a Republican to thank for that, sir."

  Uncle Louis closed his eyes.

  "True," Dawes said, "but I will not take credit nor blame for William Hale Thompson. The man was a public drunkard, his campaign tactics an embarrassment, his connection with the Capone crowd, the obvious graft, the embezzlement"- he glanced about Saint Hubert's sadly "all crowned by the absurdity of his anti-British stance, demanding 'pro-British' textbooks be burned, threatening to 'whack King George on the snoot.' As ambassador to Great Britain I was personally ashamed by such remarks coming from the mayor of my own great city. 'Big Bill,' as he is so quaintly referred to, bankrupted this city, humiliated and disgraced it, to a degree that, well… how should I put it?"

  "Like Capone," I said, "he had to go."

  "Precisely."

  "And now in his place you have Cermak," I said.

  Dawes sighed heavily, nodded. "Still, there are things to be said in Cermak's favor. When city employees under Mayor Thompson were having payless paydays. Commissioner Cermak's count)' employees were paid regularly. His fiscal skills were an encouraging sign. But I have always had misgivings about Mr. Cermak."

  "I thought you bankers were all behind him." I said. "He's one of your own, after all."

  Dawes smiled again, but barely concealed his contempt for the subject at hand. "A. J. Cermak sitting on the boards of a few minor banks does not make him 'one of our own.' But you are correct. Mr. Heller. There was Cermak support among financial and commercial leaders of Democratic leaning, certainly. And we Republicans could hardly be expected to rally around William Hale Thompson's bid for a fourth term."