Dark Blonde (21 page)

“Was anyone else in the house when you found Brockway?”

“I didn’t search the house. When I found him and examined the scene, I called the precinct.”

Wilson leaned back in his chair waiting for the strawberry-blonde to catch up. He kept his eyes on me and said, “People, if you don’t mind. I’ll talk to Mister Angel alone now.”

Burk looked even more ulcerous, if that’s possible, but made a point to follow the blonde out so he could get an eyeful of her backside. At least he knew where he was going, what he was after. Gerard didn’t look up; kept scribbling on his pad, probably writing all the things he’d say to the press for the late edition.

“I said alone,” Wilson said evenly down the length of the table at Gerard.

Gerard cocked his head up from the pad, fumbled with his briefcase and left the room in a little huff, glaring back over his shoulder at me. The door clicked to and the room took on an even more hollow feeling.

Wilson walked to the windows and stared down into the street. After a full minute he picked up a folder off a corner desk and walked back, pulled out a chair next to me, slapped the folder down under my nose, sat down and let me plumb into his hard eyes.

“Have a gander at this file, it’s a long one on our Mister French, alias Christy Scott Martin, alias Frenchy Calhoun. It goes back fifteen years with direct ties to the remnants of the Capone bunch.”

I flipped paper but with Wilson’s eyes boring down on me I suddenly became illiterate.

“The Outfit? Haven’t run into them in my couple of years here. Saw plenty of them growing up, back in Newark.”

“Yes. They’re still around. They wear more expensive suits, but they’re still a murderous pack of cowards. Take a good look at that photo of French — take one with you. We think he’s alive, changed his appearance in some way, but we don’t know just how. The rumor is the Outfit got him to Switzerland for plastic surgery. He might not look much like this now, but we know he’s back.”

I slipped one of the prints inside my jacket.

“Look, kid,” he said clamping a hand on my arm. “I met your father once at a police convention in New York. I read about his death, what was it, back in ’51? I also read how you dug into that Purple Gang remnant in Jersey and solved his murder. When your name came up I did some digging into my archives. I kept a lot of information on large urban gangs when I was in Wichita.

“Your dad was a good cop. Too bad you couldn’t have stayed with the force, but corruption can pull a good man down, I know all about it. I’ve fought to make police departments professional, tough and clean. Maybe your type is better off out there on your own. I might even envy you if I thought about it. But, we both have the same goals. We’re winning this war but it’s a long one, and the public’s short memory doesn’t help.”

I was off the hook. I swallowed and said a silent thanks to Dad again.

“I know a tad about you too, sir, there should be more like you. I appreciate the enormity of your job. That Summerdale mess would have been petty cash for the twenty-third in my day.”

“I think it was the straw for Chicago, and I’ll confess something to you. I’m not done cleaning up after that bunch yet. But Burk’s an honest cop, I’ll stake my office on that. Why aggravate him?”

I nodded and reached in my jacket. “He’s alright, I guess, but I don’t like him much. Mind if I smoke?”

“Go right ahead. I’ll join you.”

We sat there listening to the traffic buzz and occasional footsteps in the outer office, two tobacco brothers in arms. Even when Wilson smiled his face was a Sherman tank. I was happy we were on the same side of the law, and knew I couldn’t snow the man. I think he realized I was tiptoeing the line in defense of the Gateswoods, and respected that. He might have even suspected I hauled Julia out of the murder scene, though he didn’t say so. He was content with 80% of the truth.

“I know you’ve done some asking around about Christy French,” he said. “He’s one problem I thought we were rid of. That’s why I wanted to share the file with you, and anything else you need, as long as you keep me posted on what you find out when you get information.”

“If he’s alive then he’s first in line for the Gorovoy killing.”

“He is alive, if the conversation we picked up from our bug in Brockway’s office is legit. We suspected it at the time of the fire and the M.E. certification. We were looking into all that when the M.E. died. At first we thought it suspicious. Then we secretly exhumed French and verified. The man in that grave was a small time grifter from Detroit who’d had some dental work done in stir up there. We have an operative inside Brockway’s law office. You probably saw her when you called on him.”

“Leggy brunette or the redhead fluff?”

Wilson just smiled.

“Okay, I get it. You can’t or won’t say. That’s jake, I don’t need to know because I didn’t have the time to bed either one, although I’ve thought about going back sometime. But you’ve kept French’s being alive quiet? I suppose you have your reasons.”

“I can’t go into them with you, but, yes. We do. There’s more on this bunch we need. More you might help us with. More than Frenchy to nail.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong Superintendent, but if you know he’s alive you more than likely know his whereabouts but haven’t brought him in so you can catch even larger fish. Fish like Brockway?”

“We knew about Brockway’s firm representing French, but didn’t have anything we could stick on those bastards. We think there’s others besides Brockway involved. Mouthpiecing a hoodlum’s not the same as being a hoodlum, although at times it seems so. Every felon deserves legal representation, that’s our system. No, we think someone else has been helping French. It might even be a cop. Don’t spread that around, I’m trying to keep any operations on that strictly between Burk and myself. There’s been too much talk about bad cops, even though you’d expect that. Any information you might dig up I would personally appreciate.”

 
I finished my cigarette and expected more drilling. It was like going in for a root canal and finding out the dentist had switched the x-rays so you got off with a cleaning.

“I have your statement. I’m sure as far as it goes it’s mostly the truth. If you’d suspected Mrs. Gateswood to be in the house I’m sure you would have searched it.” Something flickered in his eyes. “She’s a nice one, I hear.”

“That’s true. But as far as I knew the Gateswoods had only met Brockway in passing. I was more interested in finding out Brockway’s connections to the thugs working for Whipple.”

“Any names there?”

“Marv is the only one I know; Don’t have a last name. He and his cadaver buddy twisted my arm to ride along and visit Brockway’s basement torture room with Whipple. Gave me this affectionate colored souvenir before I could bluff my way out with a lie about where those photos were.” I bent my neck to show him the artwork there.

“Yes, Mister Angel, we know Marvin Nixon and his bunch who work part time for Brockway and others. Freelancers. Nixon shared a Joliet cell with French in the late 40s. Most of these rats wallow in the same filth at one time or another. I aim to bring them all in. Now, before you go, answer me this: do you have any firm proof who killed Gail Gorovoy? One of these rats or someone else?”

“Not yet. French has motive extraordinary, but he might have had help.”

“If you close in on French or the others, I want you to give me a call. Don’t play hero for fifty dollars a day plus expenses.” He grinned. “At least raise your rates to a hundred.”

He took out a card, wrote a number on the back and handed it to me.

“That’s my home private line. Call at any hour if you need me. And don’t piss off Burk or Gerard any more than you have to. I have enough grief with them now and hate hearing them whine. They’re good men but sometimes can’t get beyond their own importance. Police work does that to some men, but it’s the best we can do now.”

I headed for the door and he said, “One more thing — I don’t care if you’re dicking Julia Gateswood, or if you’re dicking Brockway’s office help, but please keep it zipped around this office. I saw her wink at you.”

I looked at his tough face and stopped up short. He laughed.

When I walked out of Wilson’s office, he wore a benevolent expression. Burk was leaning over the blonde’s desk babbling suggestions and trying not to drool down her cleavage. She was placid as a sleeping calico and twice as patient, but obviously wasn’t interested. Gerard hadn’t waited around, no doubt a photo opportunity was being held somewhere. Burk looked up and Wilson signaled him in. I grinned at Burk when I passed him but he acted like he didn’t see me. He was good at that.

Relief — I was off the hook and hadn’t put Julia in jeopardy. Wilson was a decent man who’d cleaned up the Wichita gangster nest in the 20s and 30s. He was only a couple of years into pulling Chicago out of the Outfit’s grasp and ridding the department of the bad apples. I felt he understood why I didn’t tell the whole truth, and was willing to trust me on the rest, at least for a time. If I ever had more respect for a government official, I couldn’t remember when. But if it turned out I was wrong, and Julia had killed Brockway, my respect for Wilson would be confined to a six-foot cell.

Andresson waggled a toothpick and leaned next to the water fountain when I made my way down the hall from Wilson’s office. Rick chatted down the hall with the slender receptionist under the large “INFORMATION” sign.

As a long-time detective, Rick garnered respect from Burk and his fellow detectives that I lacked. To them I was an abrasive youngster who should go peddle papers somewhere. They resented the in I had with Kup at the
Sun-Times
through Molly, and would resent even more that Wilson let me off the hook.

I nodded to Rick. He left his card with the receptionist and stretched those long marching legs out to catch up with me. Andresson was still gaping at me and digging at his molars when Rick and I stepped onto the elevator, one of those new automatic jobs, the kind putting more than a few operators out of work. Unions fought automatic elevators in public buildings, but it was a losing battle. In a town like Chicago, with all the tall buildings, they might as well have argued for more buggy-whip manufacturers.

We were alone in the car. I pressed the little square that said “G” and it lit up orange. No elevator operators meant one less information source. At least I still had bar tenders and taxi hacks.

“I see you still have all your limbs. What’s your in-depth analysis of the Superintendent?”

“If every chief were like him, at least we’d know good guys from bad.”

“True. I talked to Ira Burbank for about an hour earlier, the Omaha investigator you asked me to call. He’s retired now, a tightlipped old badger, at least at first. But when I gave him our history, he’d heard about your father’s death. He was a patrolman back in the 20s in Flatbush. Knew all about the Summerdale scandal up here too.”

“He cough up anything helpful on the Gorovoy sisters? His work for Julia?”

“Seems the aunt wasn’t really one, something he put in his final report. She took in strays, ran a boarding house of sorts, rumored also to be an underground house for criminals on the lam, which is how she bought groceries. Ira says Gail was abandoned on the steps of a convent. He interviewed a 90-year-old nun who remembered the girl and used to visit her after they placed her with the aunt, so most of the rumors and perspectives came from her. She’d be 93 now, if she’s still counting her beads. Back in those days foundlings were often taken in without formal adoption. He hit a dead end before that.”

The elevator kissed the ground floor and the doors opened so smoothly I didn’t realize it until a couple of babbling young females in business suits soaked in cheap perfume got on waving bright orange fingernails and filling the air with she-said’s and he-said’s. We stepped off and headed for the street.

“And Julia?”

“He thinks Julia’s real mother died in an asylum when she was two. He didn’t put that in his report to her because he only had third party accounts of it. The same woman she called Aunt Jenny took her and Gail in. Raised them until they left home and then passed away.”

We got to the Buick just as a cop was licking his pencil getting ready to write the ticket. I flashed my wallet shield and said I was sorry. His brow furrowed and he slapped the ticket folder together and moved to the car in front of us. When he checked the meter his eyes lit up and he hummed a tune that sounded like Ravel’s
Bolero
as he wrote the next ticket. Some tunes you can’t scrub from your mind. We got in and I steered for the office.

“What else?”

“Julia told him they ran away from her beatings when they were sixteen. They were a step away from the gutter when Julia was befriended by a J.W. Nance, an attorney who hired Julia as a stenographer. Gail got on the wrong side of the law when she cozied to one of the Outfit’s boys, a thug who ran the Omaha district, used to visit the house and had an eye on her from a young age — Phil “Fingers” Diamond, died in state prison a year later. Stabbed by his cellmate. Ira’s sending us a full written report and asked that we share it with Julia. She stopped paying him in the middle of his work and said she wasn’t interested in finding out more, but he’s hoping she’ll send him something.”

“Or we can. Chicago’s Outfit had a branch in Omaha?”

“Not exactly. Ira claims it was the Pendergast bunch, Kansas City. It’s not far fetched, knowing the tentacles the mob had from Capone’s days. Detroit’s Purple Gang, if you remember, had agents in Jersey and New York.”

“This scar won’t let me forget.”

“Well I’m not sure any of that helps find Gail’s killers. Sorting out her mob connections and ex-boyfriends might take a hundred years and turn up a thousand suspects. Anything more on that Antigone angle?”

“I talked to the head father at DePaul, and he put me in the capable hands of the school’s archivist. Henry Gateswood taught two classes at DePaul over three semesters. One in public speaking and one in classical literature.”

“Funny Henry wouldn’t have mentioned that. Did he teach Antigone? Can you get a syllabus and roster of that lit class?”

“The school doesn’t keep syllabi on file. Henry might still have one. Roster — can and did, my young sleuth. Here’s the bomb — Gail Gorovoy was in that class, no doubt sans panties in the front row.”

“Skirt hiked up to her muff, I’d bet. Any other interesting names?”

“Well, the class roster listed only twelve. I got the final grades. Our girl got an A of course, the only one, probably earned it on her back, in keeping with her character. One fellow flunked. Elmore Duque. The archivist came up with a 3 year old address. Apartment on the South Side. It might be worth a look.”

“Duque. What sorta name is Duque?”

“French, possibly, or Spanish.”

“So, Henry flunks Elmore, gives Gail an A while he’s shtupping her. I wonder when Julia found out about the affair. If Henry hadn’t told Julia the full extent of the affair, it might answer why he wasn’t forthcoming. Was pretty blasé about it, as was Julia. And, if Elmore had a thing for Gail, there’s your motive, especially if the triangle was still going on at the time of her murder. Anything on this Duque?”

“He isn’t listed in the directory. The archivist said he’d dig through some old alumni bulletins for me.” Rick tamped his briar and chimneyed a cloud of cherry blend. “Hard to believe that Henry could do the bone dance with his wife’s sister, a knock-out wife, so built and polished.”

I cracked the window. “Who can fathom a man’s sexual tastes? Aren’t all politicians perverts? It must be all those boring committees they suffer through. Henry wouldn’t be the first idiot to play with snakes when he has a swan at home.”

“Then there’s older private investigators like myself who enjoy watching.”

“What’s that old saw? Those who can’t do, watch? I’m guessing there’s more to Henry’s little dalliance than we know. Gail turned on French to save her own skin, I’m betting she might have turned on Henry.”

“Who has the world’s best alibi? — speaking on the floor of the House about the time Gail was murdered in Chicago.”

“French, Duque, Henry with an accomplice, plus any of a hundred thugs Gail might have bedded. Antigone is more than a reference to a Greek tragedy, it’s a connection, the killer spitting in the face of Henry. He wouldn’t have directed someone else to kill Gail and put up a billboard on her severed head to incriminate himself. I doubt if Henry could kill a fly if it landed on his nose. He’d offer it some expedient compromise, like going outdoors with it riding there and then talking it to death. Make sense, Sherlock? And can you dump that stack? Cherry blend’s clogging my pores.”