Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 14 (8 page)

It was too late for Bill Drury or this committee or anybody short of God Almighty to bring Davey Finkel and Blinkey Leonard
to justice, because I already had. I’d shot them both on a lonely moon-washed beach on Pacific Coast Highway, the night they blew Ben Siegel away.

But I decided not to share that tidbit with the Crime Committee’s representatives.

“The witnesses recanted,” I said. “Except for the one that was murdered.”

Robinson blinked. “Doesn’t that make you…angry?”

“It makes me…cautious.”

“Mr. Heller, do you really want us to call you as a witness?” Halley lisped. “Wouldn’t you prefer to help us, behind the scenes?”

“Gentlemen, call me to testify if you like. My answers will fall into two categories: taking the fifth amendment, against self-incrimination; and invoking attorney-client privilege.”

Halley reacted like I’d thrown a drink in his face. “You’re not an attorney!”

“Individuals you might assume are clients of mine are, in most instances, actually the clients of attorneys I represent…. The attorney-client privilege pertains.”

All three of them were lawyers; none of them disagreed with me.

Kurnitz, though—who had stayed silent, thus far—seemed vaguely amused; his arms were folded—he was leaning back. “Where
do
you stand, Mr. Heller, where these gangsters are concerned?”

“You do criminal law around these parts, Mr. Kurnitz. I would imagine you just do your best to serve your clients’ interests and keep your head above these murky Chicago waters.”

Kurnitz smiled, arching an eyebrow.

“We can seriously embarrass you, Mr. Heller,” Robinson said, “if you force us to.”

“Mr. Robinson,” I said, “let me explain a couple things. First, the more sleazy and connected to gangsters you make me sound, the more desirable and glamourous I’ll seem to potential clients. Second, I’m a decorated veteran of the recent war, a Bronze Star winner. Maybe
you
boys would like to be embarrassed.”

“You were mustered out on a Section Eight,” Halley said.

I sat forward. “I was honorably discharged, after fighting on Guadalcanal—what’s your war record, Four-Eyes?”

Halley huffed, “I served my country,” but he didn’t say how.

“But thanks for reminding me,” I said. “I had amnesia, induced by battle fatigue, what they used to call shell shock. How’s that for a reason not to be able to recall this and that?”

“You’re a very unpleasant man, Mr. Heller,” Halley said.

“You’re not exactly Norman Vincent Peale yourself,” I said, and got up. “Thanks for the Coke…. By the way, that fella out in the hall, getting on the elevator when I arrived?”

They all frowned, but they knew who I was talking about.

“Jake Rubinstein?” I reminded them. “Is he the kind of informant you’re counting on?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your concern,” Robinson said.

“Just be careful, is all. Whoever advised you to fly that guy in from Dallas, take a close look at.”

Halley sneered. “And why is that, Mr. Heller?”

That sneer deserved a smirk in return. “Here’s one free tidbit I will give you. My understanding is Jake is the liaison between the local mob and the Dallas boys. I’ve known Rubinstein for years…or, what is it he’s calling himself these days?”

“Jack Ruby,” Kurnitz offered.

The other two lawyers glared at him.

“A rose by any other name,” I said. “Never take a guy like that at face value. Any ‘informing’ Jake’s doing is likely a cover for what he can find out about what you fellas are up to.”

“That’s the chance we take when we deal with these kind of people,” Robinson said stiffly. “By necessity, informers come from the ranks of the gangsters themselves.”

Pompous ass.

“Swell,” I said, “but Jake, or Jack, is an old union goon, with strong ties to Captain Dan Gilbert—you know…Tubbo? Do you really want somebody from Tubbo’s camp pretending to be your buddy?”

Robinson and Halley exchanged glances.

Kurnitz said, “You must be aware, then, that your friend Mr. Drury is investigating Gilbert.”

“Sure, hoping to expose him before the election—but
my
knowing that isn’t important. The key thing is, Tubbo knows.” I made a sweeping gesture with my fedora, then put it on, saying, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Lots of luck in your fine effort to wipe out gambling.”

O’Conner didn’t walk me out. I had a feeling he’d probably given me a pretty good build-up—friend of Drury’s, ex-cop who’d stood up against mobsters—and I’d made him look like an idiot.

When I got off the elevator in the lobby, the guy in the green snapbrim was still reading the
Herald-American
sports section, but he had moved to one of the round couches. I settled in beside him.

“I thought that was you,” I told the guy.

Sam Giancana looked over at me from behind the paper, lowered it to his lap, and under the brim of the green hat, his gray-complected oval face, with its lumpy beak and close-set mournful eyes, gave me no clue to how he was reacting.

They called the little hoodlum Mooney because of his crazy unpredictability. The former chauffeur/bodyguard of Tony Accardo, and Paul Ricca’s likely heir as Chicago mob boss, Giancana was a quietly self-confident psychopath.

He smiled. “That’s what I like about you, Heller.”

“What is, Sam?”

“That you’re not afraid of me.”

“Maybe I’m just not afraid of you in the lobby of the Stevens at lunchtime.”

He laughed; it was a raspy, death rattle of a laugh. “That’s the other thing I like: you’re a funny guy. Natural fuckin’ wit.”

What he really liked about me was my discretion. I had done a job for him a couple of years ago, getting an embarrassing photograph back. He had paid well, and hadn’t forgotten I’d done right by him.

Also, he was probably comfortable with me because we were both Westside boys, though he wasn’t a Maxwell Street kid like Barney and me (and Jack Ruby); he was a product of the Near Northside’s infamous Patch, and a veteran of the vicious street gang, the 42s. His legend was based upon having endured an abusive father until he finally grew up, beat the shit out of the old man, and took over the household.

I said, “I hope you don’t mind my sitting down to say hello.”

“Not at all.” He folded the paper and put it next to him on the tufted couch. “You weren’t upstairs long. Having a quick one? What’s her name?”

“Kefauver.”

He twitched a sick smile. “I didn’t think ‘she’ was in town.”

“No, but her sisters are.”

“Good-looking girls?”

Now I twitched a smile. “Sam, don’t ask me to tell you who I talked to up there.”

“Did I ask? I don’t remember asking.”

“You see, the way this works, Sam, is I don’t inform on anybody, on either side. I’m not playing—I’m not even in this game.”

One shoulder shrugged. “If you don’t want to tell me you talked to Robinson and Halley and Kurnitz and Drury’s pal O’Conner, that’s fine. But I would like to know what you told them.”

I shrugged both mine. “I told them if they’re dumb enough to call me as a witness, my amnesia will recur. Or I’ll plead the fifth, or attorney-client privilege.”

The cold eyes were studying me. “That’s all you told them?”

“That’s all…. Well—you saw Rubinstein, I take it?”

“Am I gonna not notice another Westsider? I saw the prick.”

“Well, I told them Jake went way back with Tubbo, and if he told ’em anything, they should consider the source. And that’s all the help I gave them,”

“That’s all?”

“That’s the boat.”

He nodded slowly. “I appreciate this. Your frankness.”

“Can I ask a favor?”

“Ask.”

“I told Charley Fischetti I wasn’t going to cooperate with these clowns; I think he knows I can be trusted. Sam, would you make sure Guzik knows? And Accardo, and Ricca?”

“I can do that.”

“I don’t need anybody thinking I’m a problem.”

“Like your friend Drury is a problem?”

“Like that.”

“What
about
your friend Drury?”

“He’s still my friend, Sam. But you probably heard, I fired him.”

“I did hear. That’s for real?”

“That’s for real.”

“Okay. Appreciate it.”

I knew this friendly, even charming little man could turn on a dime, but I had to risk it….

“Sam—these guys, these Crime Committee guys, you know they’re not worth killing anybody over.”

He had his shark eyes fixed on me. “What are you trying to say, Heller?”

“Bill Drury—and Tim O’Conner, for that matter—are just a couple of cops trying to get their badges back. Bill’s still flogging the Ragen shooting. Two of the shooters are long since missing, and the other one, well…that’s your world, not mine.”

“Seems like yesterday’s news to me.”

“I’m just saying, these committee guys—they got no power of arrest. The FBI wants no part of them. All Kefauver can do is turn what they find over to local law enforcement. So suppose they come up with some stuff, and then what? Turn the evidence over to Tubbo Gilbert?”

Giancana laughed, once. “You make a good point. But these things sometimes got a way of getting out of hand.”

“Well, Frank Nitti used to say, ‘Don’t stir up the heat.’ That’s good advice, Sam. ’Cause if this turns bloody, all bets are off.”

Kefauver wouldn’t even have been in the crime-busting business if somebody—probably Charley Fischetti—hadn’t ordered the slaying of slimy politico Charley Binaggio in Kansas City, last April. Binaggio had failed to deliver a post-’48-election wide-open K.C. to his out-of-town mob investors. The classic gangland hit—Binaggio and his top goon were found with two bullets in the head each, in the straight-row “two deuces” formation that signified a mob welsher’s ultimate payoff—made embarrassing national headlines…in part because the bodies were found in the local Democratic headquarters under Harry Truman’s picture.

“Are you saying if Drury has an accident,” Sam asked, “your attitude toward testifying might change?”

“Draw your own conclusions, Sam.”

Giancana reached out and gripped me by the arm. He was smiling and his voice hadn’t changed tone…he was still his charming self…letting his words convey the menace.

“You want to be careful, Heller, about threatening me. I like you, you’re a smart guy, and I like that smart mouth; it’s cute. But you don’t want to fuckin’ threaten me.”

I don’t know where he came from; I don’t know if he was staking out the lobby himself, or was on his way up to join his friend O’Conner with the Kefauver advance team.

But suddenly Bill Drury was yanking Sam Giancana to his feet, Giancana’s hat flying off, his grip on my arm popping open, just like the gangster’s eyes were popping when he saw the brawny Drury—in topcoat and homburg—right on top of him, all but screaming in his face.

“Are you getting rough with my friend?” Drury asked Giancana, gripping him by a bicep, looming over him.

I got up, saying, “Jesus, Bill—back off!”

Drury’s flushed Irish puss made a stark contrast with Giancana’s grayish Sicilian pallor. “You don’t want to get rough with my friends, Mooney.”

Giancana’s teeth were bared, like a growling dog. “You’re not a cop anymore, you dumb mick!”

Drury clutched Giancana’s other bicep, holding it as if to shake him. “I’m a licensed private investigator, Mooney. I’m an officer of the court. Are you packing? Care to stand for a frisk?”

I grabbed onto Drury and pulled him away from Giancana, whose eyes were wide and wild. I said, “Don’t do me any goddamn favors, Bill!”

People in the lobby, guests getting off the elevator, were noticing this, some frozen, others moving quickly on, but all of them wide-eyed and murmuring.

I turned to Giancana. “Sam, I apologize.”

His suit rumpled from Drury’s hands, Giancana was breathing hard, trembling with rage. He wasn’t looking at me: his crazed glazed gaze was strictly on the grinning Drury.

Giancana’s voice was soft—a terrible kind of softness: “You ain’t at fault, Heller. It’s your friend who has the problem.”

With me standing between them, my arms out like a ref who broke up a basketball court scuffle, Drury shouted at Giancana. “You’re goddamn right! I’m your problem, and all of you Sicilian sons of bitches better pack your bags, ’cause you’re either going to jail or back home to the motherland!”

Giancana picked up his hat, dusted it off.

I reached a hand out and said, “Sam….”

Snugging the snapbrim down over his bald pate, Giancana said, “Heller—you’re not to blame. You’re not to blame.”

And then the little gangster made a beeline through the white marble lobby, toward the Michigan Avenue exit, leaving his sports section behind.

Drury looked at me with concern. “Are you okay, Nate?”

“Am I okay? Are you drunk? Are you fucking crazy? That’s the looniest homicidal son of a bitch in the city! If you want to die, that’s your business—leave me the hell out of it!”

A hotel employee approached, a youngish man in a blue Stevens blazer. “Gentlemen—I’m afraid we can’t have a scene…. You’ll have to leave.”

Scowling, Drury got out his badge—his P.I. badge—and flashed it and said, “I’m a cop. This is police business. You just get back to your desk.”

“Yessir,” the hotel guy said, and scurried.

I sat back down on the round couch, and flopped back, stunned.

Drury plopped down next to me, grinning, pleased with himself. “They’re all cowards at heart…. Are you all right, Nate?”

“No, I’m not all right! What the hell was the idea?”

“That bastard was getting tough with you.”

“Do I look like I need you to defend me? If I want saved, I’ll go to a goddamn revival meeting. Jesus! Stay away from me, Bill—just stay away. I don’t want to be in your line of fire.”

Drury was spreading his hands. “What? What did I do?”

“You’re not a cop, anymore, Bill. They can shoot at you now—get it?”

He patted beneath his arm, where his shoulder-holstered .38 lived. “Let ’em try.”

“Oh, they will,” I said. “They will.”