You Bet Your Life: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Three) (20 page)

Kleinhans smiled at me, and I walked over to him, catching the end of the thin man’s sentence.

“—so what use would I have for such a thing like that?”

“I don’t know, Sophie,” said Kleinhans. “Maybe you can ask the judge that.”

“Aw, Sergeant,” the thin man said, his eyes filling with tears, “you’re not going to turn me over for a couple of pair of shoes? Left-footer soccer shoes. What the hell? The lock-up’s cold, Sergeant, and with my bursitis—”

“You win,” said Kleinhans, holding up his hand. “Your tale touched my heart, Soph. Those tears won me over. Get out of here, and don’t let me see you on the street for a month.”

The thin man fell into shock. His mouth dropped open. He looked at Kleinhans and then at me, but he didn’t move.

“I—I—I can just go?” he said. “No booking? You ain’t even going to rough me a little?”

Kleinhans shook his head.

“Naw, Soph, you’re little fish on the street today. This man’s public enemy number one.” He pointed at me, and Soph’s eyes turned up in confusion and awe. “Wanted in connection with four murders in the last week, and he’s turning himself over to me. What do you think about that?”

“It’s nice,” said the thin man, removing his battered hat, crumpling it and putting it on again.

“Right,” said Kieinhans, “and I don’t have time to write you up Soph, so move. Don’t say thanks, just move and remember you owe me.”

A smile twitched on Sophie’s face as he got up quickly and headed for the exit. He nearly hit Zasu Pitts, and she clutched her purse tighter as he dashed out the door.

“Have a seat, Peters,” said Kieinhans. “Want a cup of coffee?”

Not only couldn’t you see through his window, but the thin draft knifed across the desk. Kieinhans’ concession to the chill was a brown sweater over his shirt and tie. The sweater had a small hole on the right arm.

“No coffee,” I said.

“Well,” he said, stretching and putting his hands behind his neck, “you decided to make me a hero by turning yourself in to me. I appreciate that. It’ll take me off the desk for the day.”

“I haven’t had lunch,” I said. “Someplace we can go for a sandwich and some talk?”

“O.K.,” he said, getting up and putting on his coat. “I’ll introduce you to the best hot dog in the world.”

Kleinhans told one of the three laughing cops to watch his desk because he was going out to lunch. The cop nodded and turned back to the folder.

A uniformed cop stopped Kleinhans as we hit the Squad Room door. He wanted to know where he should put someone, or something, called Verese. Kleinhans looked toward the cop singing “Shine on Harvest Moon” and indicated that Verese should go to him.

On the street, the sun was shining and the wind was calm. The temperature had shot up to the very low thirties. I’d been in Chicago less than a week but it seemed like a balmy day to me. With his hands in his pockets, Kleinhans turned right on Maxwell Street and looked straight ahead. A cop car pulled up and Kleinhans nodded to the two guys who got out.

“Ever been on Maxwell Street?” said Kleinhans.

“No,” I said, “is it something to remember?”

He shrugged. Within half a block, the street was crammed with pushcarts. Some of them were as long as two Chevies, some were covered with canvas, but most were open for business with men, women, and boys hawking goods to each other and to bundled-up customers. The cars lined both sides of the two-way street and narrowed the area for driving to barely a car’s width. Behind the pushcarts, on either side of the street, were shops and stores with more men, women, and boys talking to passersby, shifting their legs to stay warm as they caught a potential customer, or lost him and went for a new one.

Signs were all over the place—hand-lettered, some with cartoons on them, some in Yiddish. The spelling was awful. The cardboard they were written on was flimsy, but the bargains were terrific providing you could use lots of slightly warped arrows, soiled suitcases, sox—pairs and nots—rope, screwdrivers with handles melted by a railroad fire, army pillows, suits—“perfect.”

“This bargain day?” I said.

“No,” said Kleinhans, “this is an off day, a slow weekday afternoon. You should come on a Sunday.”

The air smelled as if everything on sale had been grilled in onions—sweet and just this side of nauseating. A thin kid no more than thirteen, who should have been in school, grabbed my arm and shouted in my face.

“Ties, ties! Yours got dirt all over. Look at these ties.” He held up a handful of ties that looked like they were stolen from the Ringling Brothers clowns during intermission.

“Sorry,” I said. The kid was going to try again, but he saw Kleinhans and recognized him. The kid turned to another prospect.

Then Kleinhans grabbed my arm, grinned and pointed across the street. We moved between two carts and in front of a grey Buick that was inching its way up the street. I wondered what would happen if a car came the other way.

The small cart in the middle of the block was a white square with a hot dog painted on the side. The paint was peeling, and the dog had begun to show blue under the red.

“Tony’s gonna be famous some day,” said Kleinhans, ordering two dogs “with everything.” Tony was a little round man with a dark face, an apron, and a serious professional look.

“I’ll take ketchup instead of mustard,” I said, “and no peppers.”

Tony nodded, businesslike, and worked with a flourish.

Kleinhans handed me a hot dog sandwich wrapped in a napkin and gave Tony two quarters.

“On me,” he said.

A shot of wind came along, and Kleinhans pointed to a doorway with his hot dog. He had already taken a bite out of it that reduced the sandwich by a third.

In the doorway, I took a bite and admitted it was a damn good dog.

“You want to talk business?” I asked with a mouthful of dog and onion. There were little seeds on the bun, and it was hot and soft. Kleinhans’ mouth was full, and a mustard-covered onion fell from it as he nodded that talking was all right with him.

“I think I know who killed Servi and the others,” I said.

He nodded and kept eating.

“At least,” I went on, “I know who killed Servi and I have a pretty good idea who killed the others.”

“Who?” he said, chomping down the last bit of his sandwich. “I think I’ll get another one. You want a second?”

“Not through with my first,” I said, “but it is the best dog I ever ate. Don’t you want to know who the killer is?”

“I said, ‘Who?’, didn’t I?” he said, cleaning his Fingers with the napkin and throwing it toward the sidewalk where it hit a Mexican woman walking by.

“You,” I said, pausing on my way to indigestion.

Kleinhans looked at me and shook his head.

“No,” I said. “I mean it. Harpo Marx gave me the idea. I should have figured it out, but I kept putting the idea away. Too much coincidence. Then I asked myself whether it was coincidence.”

“I don’t get it,” said Kleinhans.

“When you met me at the station the day I arrived,” I explained, “you said your boss had sent you to work with me. I figured your boss was a cop who had a call from the Miami police, possibly an overly-conscientious county cop named Simmons. Otherwise who could have called your boss? I called Simmons this morning. He didn’t call anyone in Chicago about my coming. He checked around and none of his people called. The way I figure it, Bistolfi called someone in Chicago, probably Servi, to say I was on my way. Then Servi got in touch with you and told you to stick with me. Should I keep going or you want to give me some help?”

Kleinhans kept smiling. “Go on,” he said.

“I talked to one of Nitti’s boys this morning and asked if he knew a cop named Kleinhans. He didn’t say, but he got quiet fast. The way I figure it, you were in on this with Servi, working for him, giving him protection. Then he got the idea of taking Nitti and the mob for a bundle and letting you in on it. He needed you to keep any investigation from starting. If Nitti smelled something, Servi would suggest that you look into it. Since you were already part of the deal, you’d find nothing or a fall guy. Everything looked good. Morris won a bundle.”

“Won and lost,” corrected Kleinhans. “He played five different places on Chico Marx’s tab. He lost 120 grand and almost won 100 grand. He took the $100,000 in cash from the places he won and left markers for the $120,000 he lost.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Kleinhans shrugged.

“What the hell. You gotta take risks sometimes to make a buck.”

“Bistolfi figured out what was going on and wanted a piece of it?” I guessed. Kleinhans nodded.

“But there wasn’t enough yet to make splitting worthwhile,” he said. “And Bistolfi had ties to Capone. It wasn’t worth the risk.”

“So you gunned him in my room?”

Kleinhans nodded yes.

“We thought a stiff might send you back to California.”

“Why didn’t you just put some holes in me?” I said.

“Besides the fact that I liked you,” he said, looking out and waving at a pair of old men who walked by, “it wouldn’t have done much good. Whoever paid you could have paid another private cop who might be even smarter than you. No. Servi figured the way to go was to get rid of anyone who could lead you to us.”

“Makes sense,” I agreed.

Kleinhans chuckled deep.

“Almost made a mistake with you, though,” he said, blowing his nose. “I sent you to Canetta’s place on the West Side and came damn near not beating you there. I got called in to identify a guy after I called you. Had to really move my ass to get there ahead of you. You almost made it a tie.”

“You took a shot at me.”

He laughed.

“If I wanted to hit you, I would have done it you came in the door. We didn’t want you dead if we could help it. We just wanted you tied up as a suspect.”

“Canetta tried to tell me you shot him. He said ‘cop.’ I think he was trying to tell me a cop or cops shot him. I thought he wanted me to get the cops.”

“See what I mean about a smarter private eye?” said Kleinhans.

“Yeah, I wasn’t very smart about Servi,” I said. “I told you I had the meeting set up with Servi and Marx. You knew Servi couldn’t bluff his way through it. If Servi went down, you’d go down, so you waited for Servi at the New Michigan—”

“No,” he said. “I picked him up at the Fireside and drove him to the New Michigan. I pulled up behind your cab. The kid wasn’t in it. I put one between Gino’s eyes, pried open the cab trunk, dumped him in, and followed you to the Ambassador.”

We didn’t say anything else for a minute or so. It looked as if everything had been said.

“You know what a cop’s home is like in Chicago?” he said.

“You’re not looking for sympathy, are you, Kleinhans?”

“Hell no,” he said. “I’m explaining. You know what it’s like to have a kid brother who’s up to his ass in money from business deals while you don’t make enough to pay the milkman? Ever been offered a second rate job by your own brother? I’ve had blood on my suit and had to scrape it off and douse it in cold water because I couldn’t pay the cleaning bill. I’ve got four kids. One in college. One who’s deaf. You know what all that costs?”

“Enough to make you kill four people?”

“Those weren’t people, Peters. They were garbage. Bistolfi was a cheap triggerman. Servi was covered in other people’s blood. Canetta was a knife who picked pockets. He got in the way. When Bistolfi told us you were on the train, I called Canetta in Jacksonville, where he was running an errand for Servi. He wanted to put a knife in you on the train.”

I remember being asleep next to Canetta on the train. Now I knew he had been dreaming of putting a blade through my only suit.

“What about Morris Kelakowsky?” I said. “He a killer, too?”

Kleinhans shrugged.

“He knew what he was getting into.”

“I doubt it,” I said.

“I’ve got a couple for you, Peters. What the hell did you go to the mayor’s for?”

“Something a smarter private cop wouldn’t have done. I wanted to put some pressure on City Hall with promises from Hollywood. I figured a right word would get you and the Chicago cops off my back while I saved Chico. It was dumb. Not the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, though. My ex-wife thinks I do things like that because I like to live dangerously. Makes me feel alive. That’s why she left me. Or one reason, anyway.”

“Maybe she’s right,” Kleinhans suggested. “Look what you just did. You walked right into my doorway. You could have gone to your local police station or to one of the guys who pulled the strings to get you time yesterday.”

“I’d rather think she’s right than I’m stupid.”

“I said I had a couple of things,” Kleinhans said, looking toward the street. “You want the other one?”

“Shoot,” I said. And he did.

The bullet ripped through the last piece of sandwich in my hand and hit me in the side. The sound wasn’t too loud. A few people looked toward us, but Kleinhans reached over and held me up like we were old pals. I was looking down at a bloody hot dog and a dark wet hole in my jacket.