True Detective Read online

  Horner was the recently elected governor of Illinois- one of Cermak's more recent miracles: a Jew elected to the state's highest office. It was a cinch Cermak wasn't going along to help Horner write his inaugural address; they were probably going there to divy up patronage jobs.

  "You don't exactly travel light, do you?" I said.

  Cermak looked at me, pulled away from whatever strategy he was forming to use on me, and said, "Oh, that. I'm moving out of here. I'll be living in the Morrison Hotel after I get back."

  That's where Barney lived: small world.

  "Why? This is a terrific view."

  "There's a penthouse bungalow on top of the Morrison, with a private elevator. The security'll be better. I'm taking on a few extra bodyguards, too. You can't wage war on the goddamn underworld without getting 'em irritated at you. you know," and he save out a forced chuckle.

  "I'd imagine Nitti's pissed off." I admitted. Nitti was. after all. about the extent of this "war" Cermak kept talking about. The rest of the "war" seemed to be restricted to busting beer flats on the North Side, where private citizens were brewing suds in their apartments to make a few extra depression dollars.

  "Yeah." Cermak was saying, rather grandly, "they're fitting me for a bulletproof vest. I think that's going too far, but I suppose there is some small danger…"

  What was he trying for now? My sympathy? Maybe I was supposed to admire him; or maybe this was a role he liked to play just for himself.

  "I better be going, Your Honor," I said, getting up.

  He stood, too; put a hand on my arm. I could smell his breath: it smelled like Touhy's beer, not surprisingly. But his expression was sober, somber. "What will you be saying at the inquest tomorrow?"

  "The truth. I suppose."

  "Truth is relative. Even off the force, I can be of a little help to you, you know. Have you decided what line you'll be going in?"

  J WW

  I shrugged. "I only have one trade."

  Cermak looked surprised; he took his hand off my arm. "What do you mean?"

  "I'm a cop. a detective. I'm going private, that's all."

  "Who with? Pinkerton's? You got something lined up?"

  "My own little agency."

  "I see." He was smiling again; I didn't like that. "When were you planning to get started?"

  "Right away."

  He shook his head sadly, continuing to smile. "That's a shame, really it is."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Oh. the paperwork on these matters. A goddamn shame. The red tape. Sometimes an application for a license can be turned down for, oh, the most trivial of reasons. For no reason at all, actually."

  "So that's how it is."

  He pointed a finger at me like a gun. Til tell you how it is. You go out of the department under a cloud- you tie yourself up in a police scandal, where month upon month goes by. trial upon trial drags on, and you're not going to get a private detective's license, not till it's over, maybe not till never. I won't have to pull any strings to make that happen. You'll have made it happen."

  I thought it over.

  "You know I'm right" he said

  I nodded. "Suppose I agree to corroborate Lang and Miller's story."

  "You'll have a license tomorrow."

  I thought some more. "When the trial comes up, suppose I double-cross you. Suppose I tell a different story. Like maybe the real one."

  Cermak beamed. "You wouldn't do that. You're not a stupid man. Licenses can get revoked for no good reason, too, you know. The Lord giveth and He taketh the hell away, too, Heller."

  For the first time, I realized, Miller was looking at me; his body was still turned toward the window, but his head was turned my way, casually.

  "I'll do it." I said. "Goddamnit."

  "Good." He took his gaze off me. I felt he'd forgotten all about me already. He didn't look at me as he said. "I think you know the way out," and. with a faint grimace and with a hand on his stomach, went in the other room.

  Miller took me back down the way we'd come in; you know- the scenic route between my hotel and Cermak's: the alley. It was okay if you liked fire escapes, bricks and cement, and garbage. And Miller.

  Who delivered me to the front door of the Adams and, hands in his topcoat pockets, eyes unfathomable behind the glasses, said, "So you ain't as dumb as you look."

  I was getting fed up, and was beer-brave. I said, "Neither are you, and that's no compliment. Why don't you flap your ears and take a flying fuck, lardass?"

  His head tilted back; it was just the slightest movement, really, but it seemed sinister, somehow, coming from him. He said, "You ought to be on the radio, Heller. Cross us, and maybe you will be."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Cross us and see, wise guy."

  I hit him in the stomach. With every fucking thing I had.

  And he went down. It was like seeing a building fall under a demolition ball. It was beautiful.

  When he was on the pavement, I reached inside his jacket, and tugged his.45 revolver, the same one he carried into Nitti's office, out of his shoulder holster, and stuffed the barrel in his fat gut. I stayed in close to him, right on top of him, not letting the gun show, just in case somebody going by on foot or in a car or something might take notice and stop. Not that that would happen: Harrison wasn't particularly busy this time of night (it was about eleven); it was also Chicago, and not a great place to go wading into something that looked dangerous.

  "What the hell are you doing, Heller?" he said. His monotone voice was breathy; there was fear in it. I liked that.

  "Telling you to get your butt off the pavement and walk around the comer, back in the alley."

  He had nothing smart to say; the remark about radio had about used up his wit inventory' for the night. He gave me that mean owl look and got up, slowly, as I kept right with him, my free hand in the crook of his arm, the revolver buried in his side now', and I noticed for the first time that he smelled of lilac water. It didn't do much for him. I walked him around the comer into the alley, and we stepped back into a small, courtlike area back of the Adams.

  It was dark, but light from the street let us see each other, not that either of us were wild about it. The El rumbled in the background, like an earthquake happening a country over. I didn't make him back up against a wall; I'd already taken this too far, thanks to the beer, and the crap I'd had to take these last couple days. But I had something to say, and I said it.

  "I made a deal with Cermak," I said, "and I'll stick to it. When Nitti's trial comes up, I'll be playing parrot to you and Lang. Don't worry about it."

  "Then what's this about?" Miller asked.

  "Cermak wanted to know why I turned my badge in. Everybody wants to know why I'm so upset over Frank Nitti getting shot. I couldn't care less about Nitti. I don't like being put in a position where I have to kill some damn kid, but never mind. You and Lang are the ones who fucked me over. You pulled me in on something and didn't tell me what the score was. People get killed in this town for any old reason- no reason sometimes. So I don't appreciate you pulling me in unawares on a raid that turned out to be a hit- on Frank Nitti. no less. Thanks to you, my life isn't worth a plug nickel. Nitti'll probably have all three of us hit. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

  Miller just looked at me.

  "Sure you have." I said. "I saw in the papers where there's a police guard on Lang's house. Watching the wife and kid. Seems there were threatening phone calls."

  Then he said, "They wouldn't kill cops."

  That rated a laugh. "Right. Like noboby would dare kill a state prosecutor. Only Capone killed McSwiggin. And nobody would dare kill a reporter. But Jake Lingle is real dead. We can be real dead, too, and in the wake, you should pardon the expression, the papers'll be full of us, full of how dirty we were, full of how we were on the take, and most of it'll be true. And then it won't be cops dead. It'll be crooked cops dead, and who'll give a damn?"

  We stood and looked at eac
h other in the darkness.

  And when I got tired of looking at him. which didn't take long at all. I dumped the slugs out of the revolver's cylinder and they rained on the pavement. Then I kicked 'em away. Handed him the gun.

  "Fly home. Miller. Sleep. Dream."

  He glared at me. As much as that owl mask could glare. He said. "You haven't heard the end of this. Heifer."

  "Touch me. and I'll tell the world the real story. Kill me. and a lawyer will open the envelope I left him. in case something happened to me. The envelope with my statement in it." That last part was a bluff, of course, but by tomorrow afternoon it wouldn't be.

  Miller cleared his throat, spat a clot of something to the right of me.

  "Get out of here, Miller."

  He did.

  Pretty soon I was in my one-room apartment in the Hotel Adams, on my back in my underwear on top of the blankets; the radiator in the little room was overambitious tonight, so there was no need to climb under the sheets. The lights were out. but some neon pulsed in from out on the street, three floors below. I was on the third floor, just like Cermak. And, like the mayor, I was getting ready to move out- only / couldn't afford the secluded suite atop the Morrison, though Christ knows I could've used the protection.

  What I'd told Miller was right: there was good reason to expect a reprisal from the Nitti forces. I hadn't told it to anyone- not the commissioner or the hundred other people I tried to turn my badge into, not the mayor, not even Barney or my girl Janey when I had called her last night, briefly, to assure her everything was all right- but one of the main reasons I turned my badge in was to send a message to Nitti: To let him know I was unhappy about being sucked into something I had nothing to do with. If he and his boys had been paying attention yesterday at the Wacker-LaSalle, they might have picked up on that. And my quitting the department over the incident would confirm it. I hoped, and might indicate my intention to tell the truth at Nitti's trial.

  Except my intention to tell the truth at the trial had changed. I'd done a deal with the mayor, to tell the story his way. Otherwise, no op's license. I could lie now. to the mayor, and tell the truth later on the witness stand. But. as Cermak had pointed out. my license could then be revoked, if for no other reason than I'd waited all that time to change my story. If I had to corroborate Miller and Lang's story at the inquest tomorrow, under oath, and then went back on it later, that'd be perjury. Testifying against Nitti could get me killed, however, in which case not having an op's license would be something I'd get over.

  I was tired. It had been a long, draining day, but my brain kept buzzing; it buzzed about half an hour, anyway, at which time (approximately these things are hard to pinpoint) I went away. I dreamed about Nitti and Cermak and Miller and Lang and Little New York Campagna and all sorts of people, and I won't go into it, but it wasn't a nice dream, and it climaxed with somebody grabbing me upright in bed, by the front of my T-shirt, only that part wasn't a dream, I finally began to realize.

  My first thought was Miller: He'd come back to beat the crap out of me, despite my threats of envelopes and attorneys. Then somebody turned on the lamp on the dresser next to my bed, and I saw two guys in gray topcoats with black Capone hats with pearl bands; they would've looked like twins, only they were a Mutt and Jeff pair. Jeff was particularly unimpressive, one of those guys who when he needs a shave looks like his face is dirty. Mutt, unfortunately, a big swarthy guy with a wart on his cheek the size of a knuckle, was the one hoisting me up by my T-shirt.

  "You're coming with us. Heller," he said, and goddamnit, that was enough. How many flicking times were people going to grab me and take me someplace I didn't want to go, and since the place these guys were going to take me was probably for a ride, I got my hand on my spare pillow and slapped the guy with it.

  It surprised him, anyway, and knocked his hat off. It didn't hurt him much, but it did give me time to take the automatic out from under my other pillow and show him, and Jeff.

  They were tough guys; probably as tough as Miller and Lang, maybe tougher.

  But they had woken up a guy in his sleep who had been pushed once too often in too short a time, and I must've had a look on my face that said they might die, because they put their hands up and Mutt said, "Heller! Please. This ain't that way. We ain't even armed."

  That didn't sound right.

  "It's true," Jeff said. "Can I take my coat off?"

  I was off the bed now, standing on the floor: the wood was cold against my bare feet.

  "Slip out of it"- I nodded "but nice and easy. I haven't killed anybody all day. Help me keep it that way."

  Jeff slipped out of the coat, no tricks at all. and held his dark gray suitcoat open and there was no shoulder holster.

  "You do what he did," I told Mutt.

  Mutt slipped out of his topcoat; his suit was a blue pinstripe, but there seemed to be no gun under there, either. I had them both put their hands against the wall, or actually one of them put his hands against the door, because there wasn't wall space enough in that room for two people to be frisked against any one wall; and. standing there in my underwear. I frisked them, and they were clean.

  "Sit on the bed" I told them.

  They sat on the bed.

  "Tell me what this is about." I said, and got my pants on, taking my time, keeping the gun on them, buttoning my fly one-handed.

  "Mr. Nitti wants to see you," Mutt said.

  "Oh, really? Isn't he a little under the weather to be having visitors?"

  Jeff said, "He's gonna be okay. No thanks to you coppers."

  I motioned with both hands, including the one with the gun in it "Hey. I'm not a copper anymore. And I wasn't in on it."

  "You was there." Jeff said accusingly.

  "And that was the extent of it," I said.

  "Maybe so." Mutt said, "but Mr. Nitti wants to see you."

  "So you come break in my apartment and put the muscle on me."

  Mutt pursed his lips and moved his head from side to side slowly. "We got the key from the guy at the desk. It only cost a buck. You got great security here, pal."

  "It's okay. I'm moving tomorrow. You boys can go now. Tell Mr. Nitti I'll talk to him when he's feeling better."

  Mutt said. "This is a friendly gesture. He just wants to talk. That's why we didn't come heeled."

  I thought about that.

  "I still don't like it," I said.

  "Look," Mutt continued, "you know if Mr. Nitti wants to see you, Mr. Nitti's gonna see you. Why not do it now. when you got a gun on us, and when he's on his back in a hospital bed?"

  I nodded. "Good point. Car downstairs?"

  Jeff smiled a little. "You bet."

  "Okay," I said. "Let me get my shoes and socks and shirt on."

  They watched me dress; it wasn't that easy to do while keeping a gun on 'em. but I did it and Mutt sat in back of the big black Lincoln with me. as we took Monroe Street over to the near West Side, to Jefferson Park Hospital.

  There were four more guys in topcoats and hats in the corridor on the third floor where Nitti had his private room. The lighting in the corridor was subdued- it was roughly three in the morning now and I saw no doctors and only one nurse, a woman about thirty-five, stocky, dark-haired, scared shitless. Nitti's room was halfway down the corridor, and I stood outside with Jeff while Mutt went in.

  Mutt didn't come out: a doctor did. A rather distinguished-looking man in his late fifties or early sixties, short, medium build with a paunch, gray-haired with a gray mustache. He had a near-frown on his face when our eyes met; he didn't approve of my being here, I could tell already. In fact I could tell he didn't approve of me, period

  "I consider this ill-advised," he said, as if my being here was my idea. I told him it wasn't.

  "Frank being here is your idea, though, isn't it?" he snapped, in a whisper.

  "Actually, no." I said. "I got pulled into this by the short hair."

  "You're the one who killed the boy."

  I n
odded.

  He sighed. "My son-in-law insists on seeing you."

  "You're Dr. Ronga?"

  "That's right." He didn't offer a hand to shake; I thought it best not to offer mine. "I wouldn't have agreed to this at all if I couldn't see that Frank might get agitated if we refused him. and he does not need to get agitated right now."

  "He is going to live?"

  "No thanks to you people, I would say he is. I would say he's got as much chance to live as you do to drive back across town safely."

  I glanced sideways at Jeff. "That could depend on who's driving, Doc."

  Ronga said, "Frank needs rest and quiet. Absence of worry and shock." He pointed a finger at me.

  "Which might open the wounds and cause a hemorrhage- if that happens it could'prove fatal."

  "Doctor, I have no intention of agitating Mr. Nitti. I promise. Whether or not Mr. Nitti has any intention of agitating me is another story."

  Ronga gave out a terse, humorless laugh and held out an open, yet somehow contemptuous, hand in a gesture that said. Go on in.

  I went in.

  Nitti was sitting up in bed; his reading lamp was on, otherwise the room was dark. He wasn't hooked up to tubes or anything, but he didn't look well; he was even paler than usual and seemed to have lost about fifteen pounds since I saw him last- yesterday. He gave me a little smile; it was so little his mouth curved but his mustache didn't.

  "'Cusa me if I don't get up," he said. His voice was soft, but there was no tremor in it.

  "It's okay, Mr. Nitti."

  "Make it 'Frank.' W^e're going to be friends, Heller."

  I shrugged. "Then make it "Nate.'"

  "Nate.

  Mutt was standing on the other side of Nitti's bed; he came around to me before I could approach Nitti's bedside, and said, in an almost gentle way, "You're going to have to let me have your gun."

  "This isn't a great place for a scene, pal."

  "There's six of us here, Heller, me and five guys out in the hall, plus I think Dr. Ronga would be willin' to take your appendix out with a pocketknife."

  I gave him the gun.

  Nitti made a little gesture that meant I was to sit down in the chair that had been provided for me next to his bed.