Макс Коллинз - Road to Purgatory

Right now it was Sunday afternoon in Chicago, at the Art Institute, that massive Italian Renaissance — style building with its famous bronze lions guarding broad steps facing Michigan Avenue. On the second floor, in chronologically arranged galleries, were the paintings of masters from the thirteenth century to the present.

Ness was no intellectual, but he found the museum interesting and restful, and this particular painting was at once impressive in its majestic size and soothing in its subject matter. Rounded shapes from the sloping bank to the bustles of the ladies with their parasols pleased his eyes, people strolling, sailing, fishing, lounging; you could look at it for a long time without being bored.

The museum was not busy; people in Chicago were out and about on beaches on this sunny July day, up to the same kind of things as painter Georges Seurat’s subjects.

And no one at all was around when Michael Satariano sat next to Ness on the bench.

“In the future we’ll minimize these public meetings,” Ness said quietly. “Just find a public pay phone.”

“All right.” Michael wore a sport shirt and chinos; he looked like a college boy — undergrad. “I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to tell you.”

Ness was disappointed but not surprised to hear that Nitti was shutting down his brothels in anticipation of the G-man mounting raids. He was also not surprised to hear that he himself was a topic of conversation among the hoodlums.

“They say you resigned from your Cleveland police job,” Michael said, “in disgrace.”

He shifted on the bench, a little. “It was a matter of politics. I was an appointee of the previous administration.”

“Not ’cause of some hit-and-run thing.”

“That’s an overstatement and oversimplification.”

Michael shrugged. “I’m just telling you what they talk about. They think you’re trying to use them to recapture a past glory.”

“What do you think, Michael?”

Michael’s unreadable gaze switched from the painting to Ness. “I think they’re a step ahead of you. Frank Nitti is a smart man.”

“Very smart. Listen, Mike... there’s a place on Rush Street called the Colony Club — I want you to check it out. Big-scale prostitution operates out of there.”

A faint smile tickled the boy’s lips. “Already been there — Campagna and I called on Estelle Carey. I don’t think that’ll take you very far.”

“Why not?”

“First off, it’s a high-hat joint. That’s one expensive, tony place. I didn’t see one serviceman. And it’s not exactly a defense worker hangout, either.”

“But there is prostitution.”

Michael shrugged. “If that’s what you’d call it. From what I understand, these 26 girls and some other hostesses just latch onto a high roller, and if he goes bust, give him one more free roll... in the hay, this time.”

“It’s still prostitution.”

“I’m not going to tell you your business. But you raid that place, you’ll make all kinds of enemies. I saw politicians there, and rich people. And with that wide-open casino, you know the cops are protecting them.”

Ness said tersely, “Let me worry about that. What’s the story on Calumet City?”

Michael told him how Nitti had laid down the law; there’d no doubt be individual girls selling their wares, but the Cal City cathouses were closing down.

“Kinda rough around there, I hear,” Ness said.

“I don’t follow.”

“Don’t you? Surely you saw the papers. Frankie Abatte turned up on a roadside outside Hot Springs, Arkansas — nude and with a bullet in his head.”

“Wonder what he was doing down that way?”

“Yeah, and without his two watchdogs, Vitale and Neglia. Of course, you probably saw that in the paper, too — how Vitale turned up dead in a sewer, and Neglia was found in a trunk on La Salle Street, also dead.”

Michael made a clicking sound in one cheek. “Wages of sin.”

“Tell me you weren’t responsible, Michael.”

“For hauling Abatte down to Hot Springs? And stuffing those other guys... what were their names? In a sewer, and a trunk? Hell no!... You mean a car trunk, or a steamer trunk?”

Ness studied the blank face, looking for sarcasm, because there hadn’t been any in the tone.

“Car,” Ness said patiently. “Michael, I told you when we began this undertaking—”

“Poor choice of words, Mr. Ness.”

“I told you that your status as an operative does not extend to committing crimes, just to stay credible among these lowlifes.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Any crime you commit, if you’re called to an accounting, you’ll stand for.”

“I know.” He looked at Ness, his boyish face hard. “Hypothetically, let’s say, if I were in a situation where gunmen had me cornered... would responding in kind be out of line?”

“In self-defense, you mean.”

“Self-defense, let’s call it.”

“Well...”

“Or should I, in such a case, pull the plug on the operation? Go to the police, and explain that I was undercover and had to defend myself?”

“...If it was self-defense, then... well.”

“Hypothetically, Mr. Ness.”

“Hypothetically... I wouldn’t expect you to break your cover, no.”

They sat and looked at the painting for a while. Michael had to move his head to take in the big painting, due to his mono-vision.

The young man nodded toward the vast canvas. “Lovely, isn’t it? It’s all made out of little dots.”

“Yes. The eye kind of blurs them into colors and shades.”

Michael nodded, saying, “But the artist really just made a lot of little points... and they added up to something meaningful. That’s nice, isn’t it?”

“It’s a nice painting.”

“Just goes to show you. Sometimes you have to make a point, to make an impression.”

Ness, not liking the sound of that, moved on to a new subject. “I’m going to be out of town for a week,” he said. “Possibly two. I have eleven other offices around the country to supervise, you know. You have Lieutenant Drury’s number, if you need something, or learn something.”

“Actually, I may be out of town, myself.”

Ness frowned. “Oh?”

“Nitti’s meeting with Capone, soon, in Miami Beach. He’s talking about sending me down there, as a sort of advance agent.”

Urgency in his voice, Ness said, “Try to get a good look at Capone. Get close to him.”

Michael said, “I intend to... What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing, really. Our people down there have seen damn little of him, lately. He’s more and more reclusive.”

“Don’t worry,” Michael said, “I plan to get very dose to Capone.” He rose. “Good afternoon, Mr. Ness.”

Ness remained for another five minutes, not wanting to be seen exiting with Michael. He just sat and stared at the huge painting and wished he could walk into it, and feel the sunshine, and hear the lap of the river, and disappear into a simpler time.

Behind the wheel of his rented ’39 Packard convertible, heading out the causeway linking Miami with the face-lifted sandbar of Miami Beach, Michael wondered if the salt breeze was conspiring with the golden-white sunshine to make him feel more relaxed than was, under the circumstances, wise.

He was tooling down Palm Avenue, which bifurcated Palm Island — villas on either side, their backs to Biscayne Bay — on his way to the Capone estate, on this three-quarter-mile-long, man-made key the shape of one of Big Al’s trademark cigars.

In the company of numerous servicemen, he had arrived on the Dixie Flyer this morning at seven. On Flagler Street, he selected sunglasses in a curio shop, purchased a tropical white suit and panama-style fedora at a department store, at a pawn shop picked up a spare army Colt .45, and bought white wing tips with black toes at a shoe store and two boxes of .45 ammo at a sporting goods shop.