Neon Mirage Page 3

  “That’s where Eppy met me,” she said, finally letting go of my hand, her smile a self-satisfied one.

  “I heard,” I said, with an appreciative nod for her accomplishment. “You been seeing a lot of him, huh?”

  “He’s a wonderful guy, Eppy. A real genius.”

  “Where did he find these girls? They look a little young and fresh to be pros.”

  Barney and his pals were mixing with the quiff. Drinks and dancing and laughter. Loud men and giggly girls.

  “Skilled amateurs,” she explained, walking me to a nearby bar, behind which a colored bartender in a red vest mixed drinks dispassionately. “Party girls.”

  “Secretaries and business-college gals and the like, you mean.”

  She nodded. “Get you something?”

  “Rum,” I said.

  “Ice?”

  “No ice. No nothing. Rum.”

  “Rum,” she said, shrugging, smiling, nodded at the bartender, who poured me a healthy snifter.

  “Just girls who want a good time, huh?” I asked.

  “Some of ’em might take some money if you forced it on ’em. Why?”

  “Some of ’em look a little young to me. You can go to jail for having too much fun, you know.”

  She shrugged. “Most of these girls have been around some. They all do some modeling on the side.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. For the local calendar artists. A friend of mine’s tight with the boys who run Brown and Bigelow, the St. Paul advertising firm?”

  I nodded. “They put out all those calendars.”

  “Right. Several of their regular artists are here in Chicago, and I scout up models for ’em.”

  “These little dishes look like they walked off them calendars, I’ll grant you that.”

  “See one you’d like to meet?”

  “I sure do.”

  And the girl had been one Peggy Hogan, who was a little sloshed when we were introduced, but very cute nonetheless. She told me about her ambitions to be an actress, despite her family’s insistence that she go to business school, and I listened. I was a little sloshed myself by the time we wandered into the Morrison Hotel, where I kept a residential apartment, and she was more than a little sloshed when we tumbled into bed together. Despite my condition, that sweet roll in the hay was a memorable one, one I can look back on fondly even now, practically smell her perfume, which was like roses; but the next morning I had been hung over, guilty, and took it out on the girl.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” I told her.

  She’d looked at me sad-eyed, sitting up in bed, covers gathered around her, her eye make-up smeared from sleep, putting racoon circles around the impossibly violet eyes.

  “I had help,” she pouted.

  “I’m not proud of myself, either,” I said. I was standing next to the bed, looming over her like God in His underwear. “You’re a nice kid. You shouldn’t oughta sleep with strange men. Where are you from, anyway?”

  “I live on the North Side.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you got one of them flats behind the Gold Coast, right? Right. But where’s your family live?”

  “Englewood.”

  “That’s a nice little neighborhood. White lace Irish. Your father own his own business?”

  She nodded.

  “And he’s sending you to business school, so you must’ve finished high school.”

  She nodded. “With honors.”

  “Figures. You’re a smart kid, so you can go to parties every night and still cut the mustard in your classes. You oughta be ashamed.”

  She swallowed.

  “This is no life for you. That guy Epstein, he’s a glorified bookie.”

  Ingenuously she said, “I thought he was an accountant.”

  “He is. From what I hear, he works for the Capone mob, on the side—helping Jake Guzik with the books. Making sure nobody else goes to jail over income tax.”

  She smiled a little. “I met Al Capone before.”

  That didn’t make any sense. Capone was sent up in ’32. She was about nineteen years old.

  “We go to the same church,” she explained. “I’ve seen his wife a lot. St. Bernard’s. I dated one of her bodyguards.”

  “Swell! That sort of life appeals to you, huh? Do you know my name?”

  She thought hard. Then she said, “Nat?”

  “Close but no cigar. Nate. Don’t sleep with strange men. My name’s Nathan Heller, and I’m a private detective. I carry a gun sometimes.”

  She smiled, showed me her wonderful white teeth; first thing in the morning and they looked brushed without brushing. “Really?”

  “You think that’s swell, I suppose?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t see why life has to be dull.”

  “Take my advice,” I said, throwing her blue satin gown at her. “Go to school. Find a job. Find a husband. Stay away from Virginia Hill. She’ll make a whore out of you.”

  That made her mad.

  She got out of bed and stood there stark naked and shook her finger at me. I’d never seen a girl—or a woman for that matter— just stand before me naked like that without a thought about it. As she shook her finger, her delicately-veined, perfect little breasts bobbled. Her pubic triangle was bushy and near black and a gentle trail of hair tickled its way up to her belly button.

  “Don’t you call me a whore, you crummy louse. I never took a dime from any man.”

  I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Watching her was having an effect on me. She noticed and stopped being mad. She smiled, covered her mouth, catching the laugh.

  “You’re pretty self-righteous, aren’t you, Nathan Heller—for a man whose dirty mind is sticking out.”

  That embarrassed me, and I went in the other room and got dressed. She came out a few minutes later, wearing the flimsy satin blue gown, sweet little boobs bobbling, and said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a car, would you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but it’s parked behind my office. That’s only a couple blocks from here, though.”

  “Would you pick me up out front, and take me home? I can’t hop a streetcar like this”—she gestured sweepingly toward herself—” and I don’t have cab fare.”

  “I could give you cab fare.”

  Her jaw tightened. “I don’t want any money from you, Nat. Nate.”

  “Sure I’ll give you a ride.”

  She smiled; no teeth, but plenty of dimples. She had a face like an angel and a hell of a body.

  “Sorry I was so rough on you,” I said, later, picking her up out front, as she slid in on the rider’s side of my ’32 Auburn.

  “It’s okay. It’s nice that you care.”

  “You should stay away from these gamblers and gangsters. And Virginia Hill.”

  “You were friendly enough with her.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a lowlife. You find some other social circle to move in. Don’t go taking off your clothes posing for no calendar artists, either.”

  “It pays pretty good money. Times are hard.”

  “You’ve done okay. I don’t imagine your family fell on hard times much. I bet you get an allowance.”

  “Is that what you think.”

  “I think you’re a spoiled brat, is what I think.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. And check back in with me after you grow up.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d like to spoil you a little myself.”

  And I’d dropped her at her flat, young Peggy Hogan, and hadn’t seen her since, though I’d thought of her from time to time, and her perfume that smelled like roses.

  Now here she was, some eight years later, looking older but not much older. She did seem wiser. That was my impression, anyway. Later I’d learn better.

  For right now, I sat across from her desk in the lawyer’s cramped outer office and said, “You look like you took my advice about school.”

  “Yes—but I didn’t find a husband.”

 
Yet hung in the air. It didn’t scare me. If she was on the lookout for a husband, I could think of worse ways a man could invest his fife.

  “Well,” I said, “you did find a right proper job.”

  She smiled sadly. “It took me a while. I’ve only been working a little over two years.”

  “Oh?”

  “Only since Dad’s first stroke. I tried to be an actress, after I graduated from Sawyer Secretarial. Lived in an apartment in Tower Town; made the Little Theater scene.”

  That made me flinch. “I, uh, used to have a girl down there who did the same thing.”

  “Oh? Who?”

  I told her; it was an actress whose name she recognized.

  “I’ve seen her pictures!” she said, the violet eyes getting even larger.

  “Me too,” I admitted. “When did you give up acting?”

  “Like I said—when Dad died. I have five sisters, Nate, of which I’m the oldest. I had one brother.”

  “I know. Your uncle mentioned it. I’m sorry.”

  She nodded gravely. “Johnny was the valedictorian of his class. He was all set to go to college and the war came along.”

  “He was drafted.”

  “Enlisted.”

  “I suppose your dad intended for him to take over the business.”

  “Yes he did. Dad always liked a drink of whiskey, but after we lost Johnny, he…he got to like it a little too much. The business slipped, and pretty soon Dad was gone. Stroke. Two strokes, actually. The second one killed him.”

  She was telling this flatly, not the faintest quaver in her voice; but her eyes were close to overflowing.

  “So your uncle helped you out,” I said. “Got you this job.”

  “Yes,” she said, brightening, using a tissue from a box on her desk to dab her eyes. “I’d never used the skills I’d learned, way back at Sawyer…and I’ve been surprised to find out I still have those skills, surprised more than that to find I enjoy using them.”

  “That’s nice. I’m glad things are working out for you.”

  “If things were working out, Nate, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

  “I guess not. You want to tell me about the notes, and the phone calls?”

  “I can show you the notes,” she said, getting into a desk drawer. Very business-like, she had them in a manila file folder.

  There were three of them; your standard ransom-style, letters-cut-from-papers-and-magazines threats: DROP THE RAGEN CASE OR ELSE; LAY OFF THE BLUE SHEET OR WAKE UP DEAD; FIND A NEW CLIENT OR DIE. Not very original, but the point came across.

  “None of these are addressed to you,” I said.

  “I’ve been on the end of the phone calls. Most of them have been messages for Mr. Levinson. But they’ve from time to time threatened me, too.”

  She didn’t seem very bothered.

  “If it’s not too difficult for you, what have they said?”

  “Oh, no death threats, not at me. Just that they’ll cut my face up. That kind of thing.”

  She was pretty blasé about it, and looking at her close, I didn’t think it was a pose. This little dame had balls. So to speak.

  “What would you think about me tagging along with you,” I said, “for the next week or so?”

  She smiled wryly; one deep dimple. “I’d like that fine. I don’t have a boy friend…at the moment. So you wouldn’t be getting in the way of anything.”

  “I’m going to put a man right here in the office with you. I’m personally going to escort you to and from work. We’ll go out for lunch and supper together, too.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Dutch treat?”

  “Your uncle’s buying. I’m on an expense account.”

  “You know, I’m living at home, now. In Englewood. I’ve been taking the streetcar to work…”

  “We’ll put you up at the Morrison.”

  “You don’t still live there?”

  “Actually, yes. Different room, though. I moved in when I got back from service, temporarily, and I’m still there. I’m looking for something else, but you know the housing situation.”

  She nodded. “Do you have a couch?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could move in with you.”

  “That’d be ideal, really. If you think you could trust me…”

  “Do you think you could trust me, is the point?”

  “I could find out.”

  We began sleeping together that night. She made me promise not to tell her uncle. I accepted those terms; I wasn’t crazy. I took his hundred bucks a day, charged him expenses, and slept with his niece. I said I was a lowlife.

  On the fourth of our days together, we had just dined at the Berghoff and were walking down West Adams, heading back to the Morrison, when a figure stepped out of the alley. He meant to scare us, and he did, planting himself like an ugly tree before us. He was big and he was pasty-faced and hook-nosed, wearing an ugly blue and white checked sportcoat over a white sportshirt and baggy light blue pants. He looked like a bouncer in a circus museum.

  “Tell your boss to drop the case,” he said, and he jerked a thumb at the alley. “Or the next time I come outa one of these, I’m gonna drag yas back in.”

  He didn’t seem to know me; hell, he didn’t seem to notice me. I didn’t know him, either, but you didn’t have to be Jimmy Durante to smell mob on this guy.

  I eased myself in front of Peg, gently pushing her behind me, shooing her back toward and into the Berghoff, and as I did, the guy frowned at me, as if trying to place me.

  Both his big hands were at his side, so there was little risk when I pulled the nine millimeter out from under my shoulder and shoved it in his fat gut and said, “Let’s you and me go in the alley, right now, bozo.”

  He swallowed and we did. I smacked him once with the automatic, along one side of his head, and he went down and sat amongst the garbage cans and was out, or pretended to be. His ear was bleeding. He had a gun, too, which I took from under his arm and tossed down the alley, skittering on the bricks into the darkness. I took out one of my business cards and, before sticking it in the guy’s breast pocket, jotted a note on the back of it: ASK GUZIK TO CALL ME.

  The next morning Guzik did.

  “You slapped the Greek around,” Guzik pointed out in his detached monotone.

  “If you’d seen how he was dressed, you’d have helped.”

  Guzik grunted; it seemed to be a laugh.

  I said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d lay off the girl.”

  I didn’t ask him to lay off Ragen. That would be going too far; that wouldn’t be my business.

  “She’s your girl?” Guzik asked.

  “She’s mine. I’ll kill anybody who touches her.”

  Long pause.

  Then: “I’ll see to it she’s left alone.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Guzik.”

  Guzik grunted and hung up.

  So did I, trembling.

  Peg’s lawyer boss didn’t make it to court: he had a nervous breakdown first. But Ragen found somebody else to take the case (which was still in litigation at the time of the shooting at State and Pershing) and gave Peg a job in his own office in the meantime. We’d been seeing each other, off and on, since then; but with Peg living at home, being the dutiful daughter, and under her uncle’s watchful eye at work and all, we were taking it slow.

  And that’s why I went along, when Jim Ragen leaned on me to provide him protection in his ill-advised struggle with the Outfit: I was in love with his goddamned niece.

  Ragen wasn’t dead; just unconscious. But the way he was bleeding, he’d be dead soon enough if Walt Pelitier and me didn’t move our couple of asses.

  First things first: I crossed State to a corner barber shop, where (now that the shooting was over) coloreds were milling, murmuring amongst themselves, pointing over at the shot-up cars. None of them spoke to me, possibly because I still had a gun in my hand. It was a bus stop, and there was a bench; several colored youths were standing on it, to g
et a better look. No cops had shown yet. This neighborhood wasn’t patrolled much—that no doubt was one of the reasons why it had been chosen to host the hit. I walked quickly to the modest newsstand along the Pershing side of the barber shop and handed the boy a buck and grabbed a bunch of papers. Then I went out into the street and got in on the pellet-puckered rider’s side of the Lincoln, having to yank at the mangled door some to do it, and began wrapping the bloody, unconscious Ragen’s wounded right arm in newspapers, like the limb was a big dead fish. The papers soaked up the blood. Black and white and red all over.

  I used a few pages to clean the blood off my hands. Then I left Ragen with Walt and danced back through the moderate State Street traffic, most of which was slowing for a look (but not stopping—whites didn’t stop in this neighborhood unless, like me, they were shot at or something), and ducked into the drug store, where a thin, white-haired, colored gentleman in a white smock and wire-frame glasses stood behind the prescription counter. He seemed damn near serene, as if his window got shot out every day.

  “Has anybody in here called the cops yet?”

  The druggist nodded, slowly. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I did.”

  “When they get here,” I said, handing him one of my business cards, “give ’em this, and tell ’em I’m driving the victim to the nearest hospital.”

  “All right,” he said, still nodding, not glancing at the card.

  “That’d be Michael Reese, right?”

  He just kept nodding, and I went out, the glass of his window crunching under my shoes.

  Michael Reese Hospital was at 29th, a little over ten-block drive, and we’d have to head back north to get there. We took Ragen’s Lincoln—the bodyguard car’s windshield was shattered, and a tire had been flattened, though I was able to pull it over to the curb and park it—and this time I drove while Walt rode figurative shotgun, Ragen between us, leaned against Walt. I turned left on Pershing and floored it and ignored traffic lights, just slowing a tad as I crossed the intersections while oncoming cars climbed curbs and screeched to stops to allow my passage, and I was going fifty, six blocks later, when I took a hard, careening left on South Park Avenue, a wide boulevard with a parkway down the middle where colored kids paused in their play to look with wide eyes upon the shot-up car full of white people that went streaking by.