The Million-Dollar Wound (Nathan Heller) Page 12

  So, the Outfit considered me a stray thread from this afternoon; well, I didn’t feel like getting picked off.

  I could have called the cops, or the house dick, but fuck it, I was a cop, I was a dick, and I had a gun and this was my apartment and the goddamn Outfit, goddamn Nitti who was supposed to have all this respect for me, had very nearly killed me this afternoon. If I hadn’t hopped out of that car, I’d be as dead as O’Hare right now. Deader.

  So I got out my keys and I got out my gun and I worked the key in the door and when I swung it open, I was down low, lower to the ground than that goddamn midget, and I was pointing the gun directly into the sitting room of my small suite, where Sally Rand was sitting on my couch reading Collier’s.

  Sally had the biggest blue eyes in creation, but they were bigger right now than I’d ever seen them; she had her long light blond hair back in a bun and was wearing a light blue blouse and a darker blue skirt and silk stockings and she’d kicked off her heels and made herself at home, already.

  I hadn’t seen her in over five years.

  “Some greeting, Heller,” she said.

  I let out a major sigh. Stood and shut the door behind me and latched it and tossed my gun, lightly, on an easy chair nearby.

  “I had kind of a rough day,” I said, slipping out of the topcoat, tossing it on another chair. The room we were in wasn’t large, though there was a kitchenette at the far end by a window overlooking North Clark Street; the walls were papered in yellow and tan stripes, like a faded tiger. There was a console radio, a servidor, a standing bookcase.

  And Sally.

  She wasn’t a large woman, and, as I stood before her, she looked almost like a child sitting there, a child who’d tried to please and now was afraid of being scolded.

  “I didn’t think you’d mind,” she said. “I flirted with the desk clerk and he gave me a key.”

  “That answers a mystery I hadn’t been able to solve,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Whether that guy likes girls or not.”

  She smiled, now, her wide, unabashed smile, and she stood slowly, smoothing her dress, shoulders back so that I could see how nice her body still was, as if there was any doubt, and she said, “Why don’t you kiss me?”

  “Why don’t I?” I said.

  And I took her in my arms.

  She was such a sweet fit, in my arms, Sally was. She was a sweet fit elsewhere, as well.

  But that had been a long time ago, and the spontaneous kiss at first reminded us how well we’d known each other once but by the time we broke our clinch we remembered how very long it had been, and then it was awkward, then we were sitting next to each other wondering what to say next.

  I broke the ice. “What in hell are you doing here?”

  “You’re such a sweet talker, Heller.”

  “I’m known for my smooth line with the ladies. It’s great to see you again. It’s wonderful. That goes without saying.”

  “No it doesn’t. Say it.”

  “It’s great to see you again. It’s wonderful.”

  “That’s better.” She leaned over and up and kissed me again, softly, briefly. But comfortably.

  “It’s been over five years, Helen.”

  Her smile turned into something sad. “It must be,” she said. “Because it’s been at least that long since anybody called me Helen.”

  She’d been born Helen Beck; when I’d met her, in the summer of ’34, when she hired me to check up on a would-be suitor, I’d taken to calling her by her real name, at least some of the time. In bed, for example.

  She laughed a little. Not much humor in it. “Even my mother calls me ‘Sally’ now.”

  “Well, you’re a famous girl.”

  “I’m not really a girl, anymore.”

  “You could’ve fooled me.”

  “I’m a woman past thirty, Heller. Never mind how far past thirty.”

  “Yeah, you’re a wreck all right.”

  Now the smile went crinkly. “Stop it, you. I’m…well preserved; it’s my job to be. But I do have a few miles on me.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  She did look her age, though, close up at least; I was sure with makeup and lighting, on stage, from a distance, she still looked like the Sally Rand who was the hit of the Chicago World’s Fair in the summer of ’33 (with her fan dance) and ’34 as well (with her bubble dance). She was still a top box-office draw, although she hadn’t played Chicago in some time.

  Anyway, she looked her age, but a beautiful woman of, say, thirty-five who looks thirty-five is hardly over the hill. In fact, one of the oddities about being in my thirties myself was that women about my age seemed more attractive to me now than the sweet young things.

  “Why the gun?” she asked, a little concerned, nodding over at the automatic that was sitting on the chair.

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “I like long stories.”

  I told her about O’Hare. Unlike my report to Stege, I told her everything. The summer I’d spent with her had been a rough one—I’d been involved in the Dillinger case up to my ass, and she’d seen some of the rough stuff go down, or anyway saw the aftermath of the rough stuff, and had taken it in stride. She was a tough cookie, Sally, without being hard; and she was a good sounding board, had helped me figure some things out. She was smarter than me, I’d discovered. Probably still was.

  “Frank Nitti,” she said, shaking her head. “After all this time. You told me you intended to steer clear of him, for once and forever.”

  I shrugged. “It’s his town. In my line, I’m bound to bump up against his interests from time to time.”

  “He almost bumped up against you, this time.”

  “You’re telling me. He told me he owed me one, once. Maybe he forgot the debt.” I thought back. “Or maybe he remembered I forgave it without exacting payment.”

  The wide eyes narrowed. “You thought Nitti might have sent someone here, to your hotel suite, to…?”

  Another shrug. “Definite possibility.”

  “Why?” she said, indignantly. “What did you do?”

  “I spent time alone with O’Hare just before he died. They may think he told me something damaging, something I could carry to the cops or the papers.”

  “You talked to Captain Stege already, didn’t you? And told him nothing?”

  “Yeah. And Tubbo Gilbert will see Stege’s report, and Tubbo will tell the Outfit that I either don’t know anything, or chose to keep my mouth shut And the morning papers will show I haven’t talked to the press. So if I can just last the night, I may be all right.”

  She slipped tier arm in mine; sat very close to me. “We’ll just stay inside your cozy little place, then, just you and me. Have you had supper?”

  “No.”

  “I checked your Frigidaire. All you have is eggs and beer and half a loaf of bread. Is there an all-night grocery I could slip out to, and…”

  “You know what I’d like. Helen? One of those breakfasts you used to make me. Nobody makes an omelet better than Sally Rand.”

  “You’re right. It’s not exactly what I’m famous for, but you’re right.”

  Soon she was serving me half of a big fluffy omelet, serving herself the other half—like the Kingfish says on “Amos n’ Andy,” she even gave me the “bigges’” half; she also toasted up some bread and managed to round up some butter somewhere. We drank beer out of glasses. Real elegant like.

  We were midway through the meal when I finally asked her again.

  “Helen, what the hell are you doing here? I saw your bags near the bedroom door as I came in.”

  She ate some eggs. Between bites, blandly, she said, “I’m bankrupt.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve gone bankrupt. It’ll be in the papers soon enough.”

  “That’s crazy. You’re one of the top nightclub draws in the country!”

  She nodded. “Right after Sophie Tucker and Harry Richman. An
d nobody can touch me in vaudeville and the picture houses.”

  “So what happened?”

  She cocked her head; it was a shrug of sorts, but her expression was reflective, the big blue eyes searching. “Got too big for my britches, I guess.”

  “Helen, you don’t wear any britches in your business.”

  Now her smile was wistful. “You should’ve taken me up on my offer that time, and been my business partner. You’re more conservative than I am. You’d have stopped me.”

  “Stopped you from what?”

  “Overdoing. Maybe you heard, I put together a thing called Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch. We played the San Diego and Forth Worth fairs. Set record gates at both. Then for this San Francisco Exposition—which is trying to compete with the New York World’s Fair, you know—I went all out. Top-flight costumes, lighting, scenery, the works. Built and paid for my own buildings to house the show. Hired forty girls. Overextended myself.”

  “It could happen to anyone.”

  She shook her head. “Never thought it would happen to me. I have the reputation of being a savvy businesswoman, you know. Me and my shows have generated over three million bucks’ worth of business, the past six years, starting with the Century of Progress. I was making forty-five hundred a week, not so long ago.”

  Her weekly wage was a yearly wage many men would’ve killed for. And here she was broke.

  We’d finished eating now, but we stayed at the table. City lights winked at us through the adjacent window. She pushed the plates aside and reached out and held my hands in hers. “I had to let my girls go,” she said, as if apologizing to them through me. “I have to start over, as a single. The natural place to do that is Chicago, I got the right connections, I could find a top club easy enough. But I couldn’t even afford a room while I went about it.”

  “So you thought of me.”

  “I thought of you. Oh, I had a room lined up with a girl who used to be in my chorus line at the City of Paris, but it fell through ’cause she suddenly shacked up with some guy. Which recalled that summer when you were sleeping in a Murphy bed in your office, and how on so many nights you slept with me instead in my soft round bed in that fancy-ass suite at the Drake. I thought maybe you’d return me the favor.”

  I nodded toward the small sitting room. “This isn’t exactly your suite at the Drake.”

  “No, but it’ll do quite nicely, thanks. You do seem to be doing well, Nate. Business is good?”

  “It’s good. I don’t make forty-five hundred a week for dancing in my nothin’ at all, but…”

  “Neither do I, at the moment. And maybe I won’t be able to. I wasn’t appearing with the revue, you know.”

  “Sally Rand herself wasn’t in Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch?”

  “No. I staged and directed and, obviously, financed the show. But I wasn’t in it. I’m getting older.”

  “You’re afraid you won’t be able to make a comeback, huh?”

  “A little.”

  “You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think you’ll still be strutting around in your birthday suit when I’m in the old-age home. Looking good, and getting paid the same way.”

  “You’re sweet. You never married, Nate?”

  “Not yet. I’ve had a few close calls.”

  Her smile was tinged with sadness again. “Like me, for instance?”

  “Like you, for instance. You aren’t married, are you, Sally?”

  “Other than to my work? No. And I wish you’d keep calling me Helen.”

  “I think I can manage that.”

  Somebody knocked at the door.

  “Get on the floor,” I told her.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Do it! Get under that table.”

  She made a face but she did it.

  I got up and got the automatic and unlatched the door and, standing to one side of it, reached over and flung it open.

  And shoved my gun right in the chest of a short but massive man in a brown suit and hat; the eyes in the lumpy face were dark and cold and unimpressed. He had an envelope in his hand, and, while I sensed he might be playing messenger, he sure wasn’t Western Union.

  I was pointing my automatic at Louis “Little New York” Campagna. Frank Nitti’s right-hand man. A powerful man in every sense of the word—a killer who had moved up the ranks into management in the business of crime.

  I backed off, but my gun was still pointed at him.

  “That’s something you don’t want to do,” he said, pointing a finger at me gently. His finger seemed far more menacing than my gun.

  I lowered the gun but kept it in hand. I did not ask him in.

  I said, “I was almost killed today.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m here.” He handed me the envelope.

  I took it; I peeked out into the hall, to see if he was alone. He seemed to be.

  “Put the rod away,” he said, “and look in the envelope.”

  I let some air out. I stuck the gun in my waistband and looked in the unsealed envelope. Ten fifty-dollar bills. Five hundred dollars.

  “Is this what Nitti thinks my life’s worth?” I said. Anger made my voice tremble. Fear, too.

  “No,” he said. “Who could put a price on a life?”

  “Some people do it everyday.”

  He lifted his shoulders and set them down again. “Some people put a price on death. That’s different.”

  Now I was arguing semantics with Little New York Campagna. Well, it’s an interesting life.

  “Frank would like to thank you for showing such good sense,” he said, “where the cops was concerned.”

  Tubbo had acted fast.

  “And if you could keep your story simple for the papers, Frank would be grateful. Can you manage that?”

  He touched his hat by way of bidding me good-bye and started off.

  I stepped out into the hall. “Don’t you want my answer?” I said.

  Stupid question.

  Campagna turned back and smiled at me; it was like a crack in a stone wall. “I got your answer. I got your number, too, Heller.” He turned and walked away. Then he turned back and, almost reluctantly, said, “Uh, Frank said to say he’s pleased you are still amongst us.”

  “Well. Thank Frank for his concern.”

  “Sure. Beats being dead, don’t it?”

  And then he was gone.

  I shut the door, latched it, put the gun back on the chair. Seemed as good a place as any.

  Sally crawled out from under the table, straightening her clothes. “Sounds like you’re going to be okay, where the boys are concerned.”

  “Sounds like,” I nodded, tentatively. “Campagna isn’t an errand boy, anymore. Sending him was a gesture from Nitti of how serious he takes this.”

  “Is that a good sign or bad?”

  “You got me. Look, Sally. Helen. You’re welcome to stay. You’re most very welcome to stay. But there’s no, uh, rent here. No strings. No obligations. By which I mean to say, you’re welcome to my bed and I’ll sleep out here on the couch.”

  “Shut up,” she said, and began unbuttoning her blouse.

  I didn’t make it into the office the next morning till almost ten-thirty. We’d had another breakfast, Sally and I, and I don’t mean anything racy by that: simply that I bought her some breakfast, this time, in the Morrison’s coffee shop. And we sat drinking orange juice and putting pancakes away and then cup upon cup of coffee as we filled each other in on our lives for the past five years. Then she noticed the time and remembered she had an eleven o’clock appointment with the manager of the Brown Derby and was off.

  And I walked to the office, where Gladys greeted me, if “greeted” is the word, with a disgusted expression and a hand outthrust with another stack of memos.

  “Reporters,” I asked, only it wasn’t really a question.

  “Reporters,” she said. She had on a pale blue blouse and a navy skirt with a wide black patent le
ather belt and was everything a man could want in a woman except friendly. “Do you realize Westbrook Pegler’s been trying to call you?”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. I went on through to my office.

  I was sitting behind the desk, glancing at some insurance adjusting reports that Gladys had typed neatly up, when herself was standing in the doorway—never leaning, that wasn’t her style—and saying, “He really has been calling. Three times already today.”

  “Who?”

  “Westbrook Pegler! The columnist!”

  “Gladys, my dear, you’re mistaken—you’ve apparently never read him. Pegler’s no Red.”

  She did a slow burn. “I said columnist, not communist.”

  I kept trolling for a sense of humor with the girl and coming up old rubber tires.

  “My dear,” I started again, and she reminded me humorlessly that she wasn’t my dear. She reminded me further that she preferred “Miss Andrews,” to which I replied, “Gladys—that’s Hal Davis of the Daily News calling, needling me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why would Westbrook Pegler be in Chicago, for Christ’s sakes, and if he was, why would he be calling about some Chicago racetrack tycoon getting pushed?”

  “Pushed?”

  She hadn’t been affiliated with the detective business long.

  “Killed,” I explained. “Shot. Rubbed out. Liquidated. Mob style.”

  “If you say so,” she said, disinterested but lingering.

  “Shoo. Go file.”

  “Yes, Mr. Heller.”

  God, what I wouldn’t have given for even some sarcasm out of that kid. She was cute as lace panties but not nearly so much fun.

  A client kept an eleven o’clock appointment, the office manager from the Swift Plant; he was white collar, but he brought the fragrance of the stockyards with him. He had a recurring pilferage problem—desks, lockers, cabinets forced open, pocketbooks gotten into. I explained how we could plant valuable articles in obvious places, as decoys to invite theft, articles to which thief-branding dyes would be applied. I was explaining how I preferred dry dyes of the sort that didn’t immediately stain, but that perspiration would soon bring out, when Gladys leaned in and interrupted.