Max Collins - Target Lancer

Where our tastes really differed was the collage on the wall next to his bed-a homemade artistic masterpiece consisting of newspaper and magazines clippings, all pertaining to JFK, whose face was inevitably doctored in various ways: red ink turning him into a devil, or an X through his face, or just plain scribbled out. Various threats were scrawled in margins, not that subtle-for example, “Bastard must die!” and that oldie but goodie by the ever-popular John Wilkes Booth, “Sic Semper Tyrannis.” Vallee misspelled the latter, however, as “Tyrranous.” Dinosaurs, presidents-just so they’re extinct, right?

Frau Peters was at my side suddenly. “Will he pay?”

I said, “Well, he has to actually try something before he can be arrested. This kind of thing is covered by freedom of speech.”

“No, I mean, will he pay for ruining my wallpaper?”

I almost laughed. “That’s between you and him, Mrs. Peters.”

She nodded, filing that away. She pointed, like the Wicked Queen in “Snow White” indicating which direction the huntsman should go. “There is something you should see in the closet.”

I figured one thing in the closet was Vallee himself, only not literally. But our Germanic landlady seemed to have a pretty good fix on what was in her tenants’ apartments.

And she was right to call it to my attention. In the closet, among Vallee’s spare work boots, a few other shoes, work clothes, and a single suit, were two rifles, leaned against the back wall.

I parted the clothes on their rung to get a better look.

The rifles were both M-1’s, the standard implement of war for the infantry. Gas-operated, semi-automatic, clip-fed. Using.30–06 rounds, in clips of eight. Speaking of which, on either side of the rifles were stacked ammunition boxes, twenty rounds per oblong box. About half Winchester, the other half Remington. Like maybe he’d bought out a store’s supply of one brand and had to start in on another.

Kneeling there, I counted fifty boxes.

On my feet again, I turned to see Mrs. Peters pointing to a dresser, the Ghost of Christmas Future indicating Scrooge’s gravestone.

She was right again. In the dresser, I found a.22 revolver. A Smith and Wesson model 22. Just one box of ammo, though, Remington brand …

… of 2,500 rounds.

“You will take away all of this contraband,” she said, at my side again.

“No. Actually, it’s not illegal, owning this stuff. It’s not even illegal to say you want to kill the President, though it does get the attention of certain people.”

“I no longer care that he pays his rent on time. I wish you to take him away.”

“You have every right to throw him out on his tail, you know. You don’t need a reason to ask a tenant to leave.”

Those curves of eyebrow were diagonals now, trying to form an upside-down V together. “What, and have that nice little man shoot me? I do not think so.”

I smiled. “Anyway, please don’t throw him out until after this weekend. We like knowing where he is.”

At the door, I gave her my card, after adding the Secret Service number under my regular ones.

“If you witness anything else suspicious regarding Mr. Vallee,” I said, “or odd in any way … you let me know.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Heller. If this happens, you will hear from me.”

She smiled, and the light blue eyes sparkled like sunlight on Lake Konigssee. At Berchtesgaden.

You may think that’s a cheap shot, but before I left, I let my hostess talk me into a cup of tea in her kitchen, which was down a hallway where family photos finally kicked in, and I swear I glimpsed a framed Hitler Youth photo. You could never be quite sure about these German DP’s.

But I still kind of dug her.

* * *

When I got back to the Secret Service office, I found Chief Martineau with my friend Dick Cain in the former’s office. They were preparing to go to another presidential trip meeting, this one in the auditorium of police HQ at Eleventh and State.

“It’s a special security coordination conference,” Martineau said, “with the sheriff, PD and us. I really don’t have time to hear your report right now, Nate.”

I pulled up a chair next to Dick and sat.

“Yes, you do,” I said, and filled him in quickly and thoroughly about the breakfast conversation with Vallee and my visit to his rooming house.

“It does sound serious,” Martineau allowed. “But your loon is not one of the suspects the FBI gave us that your friend the AG wants us to concentrate on.”

“Well, I can see ignoring this,” I said lightly. “It’s just a guy with a kill-Kennedy collage on his walls and a couple of M-1 rifles in his closet and thousands of rounds of ammo. Nothing to sweat bullets over, right?”

Dick-who’d been studying me with that disconcerting gaze of his, with the one milky eye-said, “Nate’s right, Marty. You need to put this joker under surveillance.”

“I can’t spare the men,” Martineau said, his frustration palpable. “How about loaning me a couple of your guys from the SIU, Dick?”

The sheriff’s man shook his head. “No-we’re short-staffed, too, working on stadium and street security. But I know a couple of guys from your old bailiwick, Nate-the Pickpocket Detail? Dan Gross and Pete Shoppa. I could get them for you.”

“I know them a little,” I said. “But they’re way after my time on the Pickpocket Detail.… Still, anybody with that kind of training is perfect for surveillance.”

Martineau seemed almost amused. “The sheriff’s chief investigator is making PD assignments now?”

I reminded him, “Dick was on the PD for a lot of years.”

Cain was sitting forward. “I can approach Captain Linsky about it- he’d have to make the assignment. But I’m sure I can swing it.”

“Swing it then,” Martineau said, rising to go out. Dick was also on his feet. “And when I get back, I’ll get the Washington office on rounding up information for us on this Vallee character. We have till Saturday, after all.”

Right.

Less than three days.

In downtown Chicago, after dark, the two most brightly illuminated buildings were easily the Wrigley Building and the Silver Frolics nightclub, unlikely neighbors on the north bank of the Chicago River. Unlikely but fitting, since what was more American than chewing gum and sex? Particularly when you factored in the Doublemint Twins.

And if the Wrigley Building on Michigan Avenue was the heart of Chicago commerce, the Silver Frolics-in its shadow to the west-was the city’s navel, or the glittering costume jewel in it, anyway.

That jewel liked to call itself “Paris in Chicago,” but “Chicago in Paris” was more like it. The gaudy neons outside and the billboard-like come-on painted on the former warehouse’s side promised FOLLIES INTERNATIONAL, 35 ARTISTS, GLAMOUROUS GIRL REVUE, and (best of all) NO COVER, NO ADMISSION. Thousands of conventioneers and small-town visitors, and even the occasional local, learned soon enough that the ballyhoo omitted the four-buck minimum. And the only resemblance to the French capital would be limited to froufrou decor and one Parisian production number per show.

Few complained, however, as the Silver Frolics’ exotic dancers were unanimously considered the best-looking in town-young, well-built, and pretty, and exclusive to the venue, appearing in a revue elaborate enough to rival Broadway, including a chorus line and the kind of acts (comic magician, contortionist, ventriloquist) that Ed Sullivan on TV made you sit through Sunday night waiting for the really big show.

This was no 606 Club-nothing so crowded or poorly ventilated, no pockmarked tables or pockmarked dancers, either, the former wearing white linen, the latter elaborate costumes, to start with, at least. The clientele was classy for a strip joint, too, men in suits, the few women in smart dresses, attire appropriate for the most plush legit nightclub. Which the Frolics resembled, seating perhaps 250, tables for four arranged so that none was more than two or three rows away from the large stage, which bumped up against a dozen ringside seats.