True Detective Page 5

  Janey was Jane Dougherty; we were engaged. So far.

  "You want another beer?"

  "What do you think?"

  "Buddy!" he said. He was talking to Buddy Gold, the retired heavyweight who ran the place for him and bartended. Then he looked at me with a wry little grin and said, "You're throwing money away, you know."

  I nodded. "Being a cop in the Loop is good money in hard times."

  Buddy brought the beer.

  "It's good money in good times." Barney said.

  "True."

  "This Nitti thing."

  "Yeah?"

  "It happened yesterday afternoon?"

  "Yeah. You saw the papers. I take it?"

  "I saw the papers. I heard the city talking, too."

  "No kidding. You serve lousy beer."

  "No kidding. Manhattan Beer, what you expect?" Manhattan Beer was Capone's brand name; his Fort Dearborn brand liquors weren't so hot, either. "When did you decide to quit, exactly?"

  "This morning."

  "When did you turn your badge in?"

  "This morning."

  "It was that easy, then."

  "No. It took me all day to quit."

  Barney laughed. One short laugh. "I'm not surprised," he said.

  The papers had made me out a hero. Me and Miller and Lang. But I came in for special commendation because I was already the youngest plainclothes officer in the city. That's what having an uncle who knows A. J. Cermak can do for you; that and if you help "crack" the Lingle case.

  The mayor was big on publicity. He had a daily press conference; made weekly broadcasts he called "intimate chats." inviting listeners to write in and comment on his administration; and kept an "open door" at City Hall, where he could be seen sitting in shirt sleeves, possibly eating a sandwich and having a glass of milk, just like real people, any old time- or till recently, that is. Word had it open-door hours had been cut back, so he could better "transact the business of the mayor's office."

  Today the papers had been full of the mayor declaring war on "the underworld." Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti was the first major victim in the current war on crime; the raid on Nitti's office was the opening volley in that war, Cermak said (in his daily news conference); and the three "brave detectives who made the bold attack" were "the mayor's special hoodlum squad." Well, that was news to me.

  All I knew was when I went to the station after the shooting, I wrote out my report and gave it to the lieutenant, who read it over and said, "This won't be necessary." and wadded it up and tossed it in the wastebasket. And said. "Miller's doing the talking to the press. You just keep your mouth shut." I didn't say anything, but my expression amounted to a question, and the lieutenant said, "This comes from way upstairs. If I were you, I'd keep my trap shut till you find out what the story's going to be."

  Well, I'd seen Miller's story by now- it was in the papers, too and it was a pretty good story, as stories went; it didn't have anything to do with what happened in Nitti's office, but it'd look swell in the true detective magazines, and if they made a movie out of it with Jack Holt as Miller and Chester Morris as Lang and Boris Karloff as Nitti, it'd be a corker. It had Nitti stuffing the piece of paper in his mouth, and Lang trying to stop him, and Nitti drawing a gun from a shoulder holster and firing; and I was supposed to have fired a shot into Nitti, too. And of course one of the gangsters made a break for it out the window, and I plugged him. Frank Hurt, the guy's name was- nice to know, if anybody ever wanted the names of people I killed. I was a regular six-gun kid; maybe Tom Mix should've played me.

  It was a real publicity triumph, made to order for His Honor.

  Only I was gumming it up. Today I told the lieutenant I was quitting; I tried to give him my badge, but he wouldn't take it. He had me talk to the chief of detectives, who wouldn't take my badge, either. He sent me over to City Hall where the chief himself talked to me; he. also, didn't want my badge. Neither did the deputy commissioner. He told me if I wanted to turn my badge in, I'd have to give it to the commissioner himself.

  The commissioner's office was adjacent to Mayor Cermak's, whose door was not open this afternoon. It was about three-thirty; I'd been trying to give my badge away since nine.

  The large reception room, where a male secretary sat behind a desk, was filled with ordinary citizens with legitimate gripes, and none of them had a prayer at getting in to see the commissioner. A ward heeler from the North Side went in right ahead of me and without a glance at the poor peons seated and standing around him, went to the male secretary with a stack of traffic tickets that needed fixing, which the secretary took with a wordless, mild smile, stuffing them in a manila envelope that was already overflowing, which he then filed in a pigeonhole behind the desk.

  The male secretary, seeing me, motioned toward a wall where all the chairs were already taken.

  I said, "I'm Heller."

  The secretary looked up from his paper work as if goosed, then pointed to a door to his right; I went in.

  It was an anteroom, smaller than the previous one, but filled with aldermen, ward heelers, bail bondsmen, even a few ranking cops including my lieutenant, who when he saw me motioned and whispered, "Get in there."

  I went in. There were four reporters in chairs in front of the commissioner's desk; the room was gray, trimmed in dark wood: the commissioner was gray. Hair, eyes, complexion, suit; his tie was blue, however.

  He was referring to daily reports on his desk, and some Teletype tape, but what the subject was I couldn't say, because when he saw me, the commissioner stopped in midsentence.

  "Gentlemen," he said to the reporters, their backs to me, none yet noticing my presence. "I'm going to have to cut this short… My Board of Strategy is about to convene."

  The Board of Strategy was a "kitchen cabinet" made up of police personnel who gathered in advisory session. I wasn't it, though I had a feeling the commissioner and I were about to convene.

  Shrugging, the reporters got up. The first one who turned toward me was Davis, with the News, who'd talked to me more than once on the Lingle case.

  "Well," he grinned, "it's the hero." He was a short guy with a head too big for his body. He wore a brown suit and a gray hat that didn't go together and he didn't give a shit. "When you going to brag to the press, Heller?"

  "I'm waiting for Ben Hecht to come back to Chicago," I said. "It's been downhill for local journalism ever since he left."

  Davis smirked; the others didn't know me by sight, but Davis saying my name had clued them in. But then when Davis wandered out without pursuing it, they followed. I had a feeling they'd be waiting for me when I left, though; Davis, anyway.

  I stood in front of the commissioner's desk. He didn't rise. He did smile, though, and gestured toward one of the four vacated chairs; his smile was like plaster cracking.

  "We're proud of you, Officer Heller," he said. "His Honor and I. The department. The city."

  "Swell." I put my badge on his desk.

  He ignored it. "You will receive an official commendation; there will be a ceremony at His Honor's office tomorrow morning. Can you attend?"

  "I got nothing planned."

  He smiled some more; it was a smile that had nothing to do with pleasure or happiness or even courtesy. He folded his hands on the desk and it was like he was praying and strangling something simultaneously.

  "Now," he said slowly, carefully, looking at the badge on his desk out of the corner of an eye. "What's this nonsense about you… leaving us."

  "I'm not leaving," I said. "I'm quitting."

  "That is quite ridiculous. You're a hero, Officer Heller. The department is granting you and Sergeants

  Lang and Miller extra compensation for meritorious service. The city council, today, voted you three the city's thanks as heroes. The mayor has hailed you publicly for helping score a major victory in the war on crime."

  "Yeah, it was a great show, all right. But two things flicked it up."

  He squirmed visibly at having th
e word "fuck" said in his office, and by a subordinate; this was 1932 and school children weren't using the word at the dinner table yet. so it still had mild shock value.

  "Which are?" he said, struggling for dignity'.

  "First, I killed somebody, and I wasn't planning to kill anybody yesterday afternoon. Let alone a kid. Nobody seems too concerned about him. though. Nitti's boys say he has no relatives in the city. Claim he's from the old country, an orphan. But that's all they claim: they aren't claiming the body. That goes into potter's field. Just another punk. Only I put him there. And I don't like it."

  The smile was gone now: a straight line took its place, a pursed straight line. "I understand." the commissioner said, "you weren't so self-righteous one other time."

  "That's right. I helped cover something up, and it got me some money and a promotion. I'm from Chicago, all right. But awhile back I decided there's a line I don't go over anymore. And Miller and Lang forced me over that line yesterday."

  "You said two things."

  'What?

  "You said two things got… gummed up. What's the second?"

  "Oh." I smiled. "Nitti. We went up there to kill him yesterday. I didn't know that, but that's what we were up there for. And he fooled all of us. He didn't die. He's in the hospital right now. and it's beginning to look like he's going to pull through."

  Nitti had been taken to the hospital at Bridewell Prison, but his father-in-law. Dr. Gaetano Ronga, had him transferred to Jefferson Park Hospital, where Ronga was a staff physician. Ronga had already issued statements to the effect that Nitti would live, barring unforeseen complications.

  The commissioner stood: he wasn't very tall. "Your allegations are unfounded. The address at the Wacker-LaSalle Building was believed to be the headquarters for the old Capone gang, now under Frank Nitti's leadership."

  "It was a handbook and wire room."

  "An illegal gambling den. yes, and in the course of your raid. Frank Nitti pulled a gun."

  I shrugged Got myself up. "That's the story," I said.

  "Keep that in mind," the commissioner said There was a tremor in his voice; anger? Fear.

  'I will." I said.

  I turned and headed out.

  "You've forgotten something."

  I glanced back; the commissioner was pointing to my badge, where I'd laid it on his desk.

  "No I didn't," I said and left.

  "So what's bothering you?" Barney said. "Killing some innocent kid?"

  I sipped at my third beer. "Who's to say he was innocent? That isn't the point. Look. I held on to this goddamn thing"- I patted under my arm, where the automatic was- "because my father blew his brains out with it. Anytime I take it out of its harness, somewhere in my brain I keep the thought of that. So that I won't take using it lightly. Only I did use it, didn't I?"

  "Yeah." He patted my drinking ami. "But you ain't takin' it lightly."

  I found a smile. "I guess not."

  "So where do you go from here?"

  "To all one rooms of my apartment. Where else?"

  "No, I mean, what kind of trade you gonna take up?"

  "I only got one trade. Cop. For what it's worth."

  We'd talked about it plenty of times. Barney and me. That one day I'd quit the department and open my own agency. I'd talked about it with my friend Eliot, too; he'd encouraged me to do it. said he'd help line some business up. But it had always been a pipe dream.

  Barney stood up and got a funny little smile going, a little kid smile, and motioned with a curling forefinger. "Come with me," he said.

  I just sat there with half a beer in my hand, giving him a "what the______" look.

  He grabbed me by the coat sleeve and tugged till I got up and followed him, back through the deli and out onto the street, where the snow had stopped and the city had got quiet, for a change. There was a door between the blind pig and the pawnshop next door. Barney searched for keys, found some, and unlocked the door. I followed him up a flight of narrow stairs to a landing, and then did that two more times, and we were on the fourth floor of his building, which ran mostly to small businesses, import/ export, a few low-rent doctors and lawyers and one dentist. Nothing fancy, certainly. Wood floors, glass-and-wood office walls, pebbled glass doors.

  At the end of the hall the floor dead-ended in an office that bore no name. Barney fished for keys again and opened the door.

  I followed him in.

  It was a good-size office, cream-color plaster walls with some wood trim, sparsely furnished: a scarred oak desk with its back to the wall that had windows, a brown leather couch with some tears repaired by brown tape, a few straight-back chairs, one in front of the desk, a slightly more comfortable, partially padded one behind it. The El was right outside the windows. It was a Chicago view, all right.

  I ran a finger idly across the desk top. Dusty.

  "You can find a dustcloth. can't you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, it's your office. Leave it filthy if you want."

  "My office?"

  "Yeah."

  "Don't go meshugge on me. Barney."

  "Don't go Yiddish on me. Nate. You can't pass."

  "Then don't go Jewish on me when you tell me the rent."

  "For you, nothing."

  "Nothing."

  "Almost nothing. You gotta live here. I can use a night watchman. If you ain't gonna be here some night, just phone in and I'll cover for you somehow."

  "Live here."

  "I'll put a Murphy bed in."

  He opened a door that I thought was a closet. It wasn't. The office had its own washroom: a sink, a stool.

  "Not all the offices have their own can," he said, "but this was a lawyer's office, and lawyers got a lot to wash their hands over."

  I walked around the room, looking at it; it was kind of dingy-looking. Beautiful-looking, is what it was.

  "I don't know what to say, Barney."

  "Say you'll do it. Now, in the morning, you want a shower, you walk over to the Morrison." The Morrison Hotel was where Barney lived. They had a traveler's lounge for regular patrons who were in town for the day and needed a place to freshen up or relax- sitting rooms, shower stalls, exercise rooms- one of which had been converted into a sort of mini-gym by Barney, with the hotel's blessing.

  "I'll be working out there most mornings," Barney continued, "and at the Trafton gym most afternoons. You're welcome both places. I'm training, you know."

  "Yeah, somebody's got to pay for all this."

  Barney was known for being a soft touch: a lot of the guys from the old neighborhood had taken advantage of him, hitting him for loans of fifty- and a hundred like asking for a nickel for coffee. I didn't want to be a leech; I told him so.

  "You're makin' me mad, Nate," he said expressionlessly. "You really think it's smart to make the next champ mad?" He struck a half-assed boxing pose and got a laugh out of me. "So what do you say? When do you move in?"

  I shrugged. "Soon as I break it to Janey, I guess. Soon as I see if I can get an op's license. Jesus. You're Santa Claus."

  "I don't believe in Santa Claus. Unlike some people I know, I'm a real Jew."

  "Yeah, well drop your drawers and prove it."

  Barney was looking for a fast answer when the El rumbled by like a herd of elephants on roller skates and provided him with one.

  "No cover charge for the local color," he said, speaking up.

  "Don't you know music when you hear it?" I said. "I wouldn't take this dump without it."

  Barney rocked on his heels, smiling like a kid getting away with something.

  "Let's get out of here." I said, trying not to smile back at him, "before I start dusting."

  "Nightcap?" Barney asked.

  "Nightcap," I agreed.

  I was having one last beer, and Barney, staying in training, was just watching, when a figure moved up to the booth like a truck parking.

  It was Miller; the eyes behind the Coke-bottle glasses looked bored, half-asle
ep.

  "How's the fight racket, Ross?" Miller asked, in his off-pitch monotone, hands in his topcoat pockets.

  "Ask your brother," Barney said, noncommitally. Miller's brother Dave, also an ex-bootlegger, was a prizefight referee.

  Miller stood there for a while, his capacity for making small talk exhausted.

  Then moved Iris head in a kind of sideways nod, toward me, and said, "Come on."

  "What?"

  "You're coming with me. Heller."

  "What is it? Visiting time at Nitti's hospital room? Go to hell, Miller."

  He leaned over and put a hand on my arm. "Come on. Heller."

  "Hey, pal, this is where I came in."

  Barney said, "I'm going to land you on your fat ass, Miller, if you don't take your hand off my friend."

  Miller thought about that, took the hand off, but out of something closer to boredom than fear from Barney's threat.

  "Cermak wants to see you," he said to me. "Now. Are you coming, or what?"

  I'd never spoken to Mayor Cermak, but I'd seen him before; almost every cop in Chicago had. His Honor liked to pull surprise personal inspections on the boys in blue and then cany his criticisms to the press. He claimed he wanted to weed the deadweight out of the department, to cut down on the paperwork, to have a maximum number of men out on the streets at all times, battling crime. All this from a mayor with the behind-his-back nickname Ten Percent Tony, whose political life seemed a study in patronage; who as Cook County commissioner (a position also known as "mayor of Cook County?") had given Capone free reign (well, not exactly "free") to turn the little city of Cicero into gang headquarters, with it and nearby Stickney becoming the wettest of the wet in this dry land, as they were simultaneously overrun with slot machines, whores, and gangsters. Cook County, where two hundred roadhouses had been personally licensed by Tony; where Capone dog tracks flourished thanks to an injunction by a Cermak judge; where Sheriff Hoffman permitted bootleggers Terr Druggan and Frankie Lake to leave his jail most anytime they pleased, and they consequently spent more time in their luxurious apartments than behind bars, though Hoffman eventually landed behind bars himself- for thirty? days- after which Cermak gave him a post with the forest preserves at ten grand per annum; and, well, all this "reform" talk coming from Cermak sounded like a crock of shit to most Chicago cops.