Max Collins - Target Lancer

He blinked. “Well, sure, but … I have to tell you, Nate, I damn near cut out of this town, when I saw that squib in the paper. And to hell with business.”

“You mean about Tom Ellison getting murdered in his room at the Pick? That squib?”

He nodded nervously. “Is that why you come looking for me, Nate?”

“I didn’t come looking for you. I’m here with Sally Rand, trying to help her get a booking.”

“Maybe she’d like to work the Carousel!”

“I’ll relay the interest. What kind of business has you hanging around Chicago, Jack?”

“Checking out the local talent, like I said. Also selling a couple of items.”

“Such as?”

“I designed this Twist board.”

“This what?”

“It’s a board you stand on when you’re doing the Twist. It improves your dancing. You should try it. The chicks go wild. And then there’s my specially designed pizza ovens for restaurants.”

“You’re selling pizza ovens in Chicago.”

“Damn right. I sold two so far. How’s that for ice to Eskimos?”

“Not bad.” We were having a fine little chat. “Jack, what do you know about Tom Ellison’s murder?”

“Nothing! Not a damn thing. What do you know about it?”

“I know that somebody framed it, kind of shittily, to look like a pickup or hooker kill. It was a murder, all right. And I want to know if it had anything to do with that envelope of cash-you know, Jack … the one Tom handed off to you?”

He had started shaking his head halfway through my little speech. “Far as I know, didn’t have a thing to do with it. He wasn’t a made guy or anything, your pal. Wasn’t Outfit. He was a civilian.”

“Did that make him a loose end?”

“How should I know? You should check out his private life. Maybe something in his personal life or business got him whacked.”

“Or did he get to be a loose end because of me? Did I get him killed, by coming along with him? Did somebody think that Tom talking to me meant he couldn’t be trusted?”

His eyes were wide and round, like white marbles with a big black dot at each center. “You ask me this stuff like I know the answer! I don’t. If he’s a loose end, then maybe I’m a loose end. Should I be looking over my shoulder, Nate?”

“Should I ?”

“He got it Sunday, right? Has anybody made a move on you, since then?”

“No.”

“Me neither. So maybe we ain’t loose ends. It’s been a few days, right?”

Either he was telling me the truth, or was a hell of a lot better an actor than I gave him credit for.

I played a tricky card. “That kid you introduced me to at the 606-Lee?”

“What about him?”

The FBI’s informant on the four Cubans had been called Lee.

“Is there any chance he’s an FBI informant?”

He laughed. “Well … define ‘FBI informant.’ Who hasn’t passed along a little worthless information to those sons of bitches, just to get a pass on something or other?”

“Okay. Let’s try this. You been doing any business with Cubans since you been in town?”

“Cubans? Why Cubans? I’m here looking for strippers for my club! I guess I could use a Cuban girl, if I called her exotic. Some of my patrons might just call her a nigger. I have to put up with some low-type people, you know, to make a living.”

“You used to visit Cuba, didn’t you, Jack? Passing messages to Santo? Not to mention a little gunrunning?”

“Ancient history.”

“And there’s Operation Mongoose. Lots of Cubans in that. Exile types. You got any Cuban friends, Jack? Maybe back in Dallas?”

“I don’t even have any Cuban cigars!”

I kept trying. “Did you know Jimmy Hoffa is in town? Or anyway, he was.”

Ruby held his palms up- What, me worry? “What does Jimmy Hoffa have to do with me? I never met the man. I admire him, sure, they say he’s a stand-up guy, but I never met him. We got mutual friends and acquaintances, but himself? Way out of my league. What the hell is this about, Heller?”

I didn’t know, really.

Seeing Ruby made me want to connect that money drop and Tom’s murder and Hoffa to those missing Cubans with their high-power rifles. Nobody on the planet hated the Kennedys more than Jimmy Hoffa. But the connections were too vague-I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell Martineau about them, let alone Bob Kennedy.

Opened too many embarrassing doors on all sides.

I said to the stocky little man, “I’m not sure what the hell it’s about, Jack. I accompany my client to a money drop at a club like this one. Well, not this nice, but a strip club, and two nights later, he’s stabbed to death in his hotel room. You and I have both, in our time, run in some rough circles. Sometimes the same circles. If you know something, anything, about Ellison’s murder, you tell me, and I’ll give you a free pass. Just like the FBI.”

His face got red. “Are you accusing me of something?”

“Where were you Sunday night, Jack?”

He threw a punch. He was that kind of guy, an impulsive hothead. But because he was that kind of guy, I was half expecting it, and ducked it.

Good thing, too, because he was a bull-thick-necked, a lot of muscle in that upper torso, enough to almost pop the seams on that Bobby Darin sharkskin suit of his.

But if I hit him back, we’d have had a brawl right there in the Silver Frolics lobby, giving the police commissioner another excuse to shut the joint down, and that wouldn’t be fair to Ben Orloff.

So instead of slugging him, I slapped him. Twice. Once per cheek. Like I was his date and he got fresh with me.

This surprised him. Stopped him, both his hands coming up to cheeks flaming with pain now, not flushed with anger. His eyes were moist.

Though no one had seen it, I’d humiliated him.

“Throw another punch at me, Jack, and see what happens. I’m not some drunk at the Carousel you can rough up to impress the customers. I’m not some stripper’s lowlife leech husband you can pummel to show the girls who’s boss. Get tough with me again and I will make your life miserable, or maybe just end it. Understood?”

He swallowed. His eyes weren’t angry-they were frightened.

Good.

“Let’s hear it, Jack.”

“Understood,” he muttered. His chin was quivering.

“Okay. Before we go back in and enjoy the show, is there anything else you know about this situation that I should know? That I would like to know? Because if you’re holding out on me…”

I didn’t have to finish it.

He shook his head. He was almost crying. He seemed hurt-not hurting … hurt.

“I thought we was friends,” he said, and swallowed and I followed him in where the little orchestra was starting up a bump-and-grind symphony.

I was shaking my head, grinning, but kind of pissed off, too.

How I hate a fucking hothead.

Thursday, October 31, 1963

Just after nine A.M., at the Secret Service office, the two Pickpocket Detail cops recommended by SIU chief Dick Cain arrived for a meeting with Chief Martineau.

I knew Lieutenant Dan Gross and Sergeant Pete Shoppa, but not well. They had reputations as smart, tough detectives, both in their late thirties, with the vaguely bored yet somehow alert eyes all seasoned cops seemed to possess.

Shoppa was a blocky, pockmarked and balding cigar smoker, and his blue suit was something J.C. Penney sold him several seasons ago, the blue and white paisley tie probably a Christmas present from around ’59. Horse-faced, sandy-haired Gross was tall, or at least taller, and better dressed-his brown J.C. Penney suit was this year’s model, his tie properly narrow and a darker brown. No law required that Chicago detective teams always be Mutt and Jeff pairs, but if there had been, Gross and Shoppa didn’t break it.