Max Collins - Target Lancer

“Not bad for a couple of old farts, huh, Heller?”

“Not bad at all. So. What was the career setback?”

“The world’s fair.”

“What world’s fair? Century of Progress has been over a while, you know.”

“Not that fair. And not the one on Treasure Island at San Fran a lifetime ago. This current one.”

New York World’s Fair.

She blew a smoke ring and watched it dissipate. “There was a lot of talk, a lot of press, about me appearing there. Bringing everything full circle, you know? I was the toast of Chicago, probably the one thing everybody remembers about that fair. And people associated with the new fair…”

She gestured grandly, and her tone grew arch as she spoke an official name.

“… the New York City Planning Commission … were talking to me about it. I had that booking right in my fingertips when that stuffy prick Robert Moses snatched it away. I wasn’t dignified enough. I would … ‘send the wrong message.’”

“Shame, Sal.” She was Sally Rand at the moment, so that’s what I called her.

“Now, they aren’t even gonna have a damn midway! This Moses character may know how to build a bridge, but he knows jack shit about putting on a world’s fair. People go to a fair to have fucking fun ! And the midway is where the most fun is.”

“Their loss.”

She sighed smoke. “It’s gotten a little tough, Nate. I’m still working forty weeks a year, you know … mostly one-night stands. But not once in all that time a strip joint. Not once -always legit theaters and supper clubs and nightspots. You know, I always travel with half a dozen girls, trained dancers, who do a fan-dance ballet before I come out. Real lookers. I know I look good for my age…”

“Yes you do.”

“… but it doesn’t hurt to give the younger fellas some nice fresh firm female flesh to look at, before I do my classic routine.”

“I take it bookings are slow.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s how this setback hurt. I got a lot of publicity about being considered for the new fair … but also a lot for being rejected. Plus, the landscape out there’s changed, Nate. Lot of venues dead and dying.”

“What can I do?”

The blue-green eyes batted at me. “What about your pal Hefner?”

Suddenly she remembered his name.

“Maybe,” she said, anxious, eager, “he’d do a layout on the living legend that is Sally Rand. He seems to have a sense of history. Nostalgia’s a big thing lately.”

“I don’t know, Helen. Hef’s all about the girl next door. Sweet young things who wanna fuck you silly. I don’t know if he’s capable of admitting a woman your age can still be sexually appealing.”

She smirked. “You’re probably right.” Her eyes tightened. “But you know, Nate, this is the thirtieth anniversary of the real world’s fair. The Century of Progress. Maybe that still means something in this town. Maybe you could … could you … think of something?”

Had I been used? Had Helen-or rather Sally Rand-blewed, screwed, and tattooed her old pal just to get his help in landing some decent Windy City bookings?

Probably, but I didn’t give a damn. I was glad to help her out. And I was glad to have that kind of wild sex, at any age.

“I could talk to the guy at the Chez Paree,” I said. Michael Satariano was running it for the Outfit, and I knew him pretty well. “And the Empire Room’s always a possibility.”

She brightened, her smile splitting her face, but in a good way. “Would you do that, Nate? Could you do that?”

That was when the sound of somebody banging on the door downstairs interrupted us.

“What the hell,” I said.

The banging, clearly a fist hammering at the door, continued. Rattling the hell out of it.

I got out of bed, tossed on my slacks without my shorts, and got the nine-millimeter off the dresser.

“Nate!” she said.

“Just a precaution.” That business with Tom Ellison and Jack Ruby had made me paranoid, I guess. “You stay.”

I padded down the spiral staircase into the living room, as the banging kept up, but realizing now that whoever it was was not at the front door of my apartment, rather the door below, to the safe house.

Which nobody was staying in right now.

Somebody was assuming that that door was mine-it was ground-level, after all, snugged under the wrought-iron stairway that led to my actual entry.

I went to the front row of windows, kneeling on the couch where Helen and I had earlier sat. Drew back the curtain. I could get an angle down on the guy knocking.

And he was still going at it, hammering.

“I know you’re in there, Heller!” he said, speaking for the first time. His voice was low-pitched and not happy. Also not elegant.

Very quietly, I opened my front door, sticking my head out into the crisp fall night, looking down through the crosshatch of the wrought-iron porch to see if my caller noticed me coming out.

He didn’t.

Who he was remained a mystery-the top of his hatless head wasn’t all that expressive-but he was yelling at me to answer him, loud enough for me not to be heard slipping down those stairs to come up behind him in my bare chest and bare feet and hastily half-zipped trousers and put the nose of the nine-millimeter in the back of his neck.

“You wanted something?” I said.

“… Is that a gun?”

“Part of one. The part the fire and bullet come out.”

“Are you Heller?”

“Yeah. Who are you?”

He put his hands up. He was just a big dark shape in a big dark topcoat. His hair was black and cropped short and his neck was no bigger around than an oak tree.

In his upraised left hand was an envelope.

“What the hell,” I said. “Are you a process server?”

“No,” he said. “I’m just an unlucky working stiff who got tagged for an errand on a Saturday night.”

“Stop or I’ll bust out crying. Who the fuck are you?”

“We ain’t met. I’m just a guy that works for a mutual friend. Could I please turn around? And could you please take that gun out of my fuckin’ neck? Please?”

I did, and he did.

He was right-I didn’t recognize him. He was just a goon with a nose that had been broken frequently enough to call into question it being a nose at all anymore. His eyes were big and wide-set and his mouth was tiny, giving him an odd look, like the Keane kid paintings at George Diamond’s.

“This envelope is for you,” he said.

I took it with my left hand.

Very carefully, still with my left, I opened it, the nine-mil trained on my guest. He seemed relaxed now, but I wasn’t.

I peeked in at its contents.

“Tickets?” I said.

“Tickets, yeah.”

“To the Bears game tomorrow?”

The guy grinned, as much as his tiny mouth allowed, anyway. “That’s two tickets, you will note. In case you should wanna bring somebody with.”

“Who sent these?”

“Didn’t I say? That’s completely my fault. Those are box seats, Mr. Heller. You’ll be joining the boss with his compliments.”

I winced and said, “Don’t tell me…”

But, right before he put his hands down and slipped by me with a jaunty little salute, he did.

“Mr. Hoffa looks forward to seein’ you there.”

Sunday, October 27, 1963

Late morning at Wrigley Field, sunny but cool with typical gusts off the lake, made for perfect football weather-about sixty degrees, pleasantly crisp, just right for light jackets. But with a noon game, you saw plenty of guys salted around the stands in ties and suits or sport coats, having come directly from church. And everybody, including me, wore a hat.