Max Collins - Neon Mirage

“Two hundred grand is chicken feed,” Jim said, sneering.

“It is?”

“My business is worth $2 million a year.”

“It is if you’re alive,” I said, not showing how impressed I was by that figure, mentally raising his daily rate. “Why not quote Guzik a price? Tell him what you would settle for.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Mostly mine. Then yours. Not Guzik’s at all.”

Jim laughed. “At least you’re honest, lad.”

“Don’t let it get around. It’s bad for business.”

“Do you think Greasy Thumb could be tellin’ the truth? Do you think this-” he gestured with his left hand toward his bandaged right arm “-could be the work of that crazy Jew bastard instead?”

“Siegel? Sure. It could be.”

“Are you looking into it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you trying to find out who did this to me?”

“Not really. I’m mostly just trying to keep you alive. I have been cooperating with Drury, who’s doing his best to find the shooters.”

“You think he’ll get the job done?”

“Stranger things have happened.” I told him about the trip to Bronzeville and the witnesses that Two-Gun Pete turned up for Drury.

“If the shooters are Outfit,” Jim said, almost gleefully, “that will prove it was Guzik behind it.”

“No it won’t. There are plenty of people in this town who do work for Guzik who also take on freelance work, from time to time.”

“But if it’s out-of-town talent who did it, that would clear Guzik, and point to Siegel.”

“Not necessarily. Frank Nitti used to hire out of town talent all the time, for his hits; just to confuse the issue. That’s what he did where Tommy Malloy was concerned, and O’Hare, too.”

“Damnit, Nate!” He pounded his bed with his good hand. “Give me some good news!”

“Take it easy, Jim. The good news is you’re alive. The good news is Guzik wants to buy you out, not kill you.”

“He says.”

“It’s his style. You’re not dealing with Ricca or Campagna or Accardo, here. Guzik’s favorite weapon is money.”

“How can I do business with a man if he tried to have me killed?”

“You don’t know that he did.”

“I don’t know that he didn’t. Find out for me.”

“What?”

“I want to look into it-work with Drury, but work on your own, as well. You have your contacts, your ways. Find out whether it was Guzik or Siegel who did this; I’ll pay a fancy fee.”

“I just love fancy fees, but I don’t want that job. Jim, I can get away with playing your bodyguard. I have enough clout with Guzik to manage that. But if I go snooping in Outfit business, it could get me killed.”

The features of his face squeezed tight as a fist. “You’ve been saying you think I should sell-well, I’m seriously considering it, now. But I’ll only do it, if it’s that crazy bastard Siegel who put the hit out on me. How can I sell to Guzik, if he took out the contract?”

“What’s the difference who took out the contract? Guzik’s willing to buy you out and, apparently, let you walk. Maybe those affidavits of yours, your ‘insurance policy,’ is working.”

Jim rubbed his chin. “That would explain it. Siegel could care less about those affidavits coming out. They’re no skin off his ass…”

“True. And if Siegel’s the one gunning for you, well, once you’ve sold out to Guzik, the heat’s off. Siegel would no longer have reason to want you dead. No matter how crazy he is.”

“Damnit, Nate! Find out for me! Find out whicha them bastards tried to kill me. Tried to kill us !”

I stood. “Jim I’m just upsetting you. I’m going to have to go. I’ll be outside the door, if you need me, till noon. That’s when another of my ops comes on for me.”

His expression pleaded with me; so did his words: “Nate…take the assignment. There isn’t a private dick in town, in the country, that knows these Outfit bastards better than you. You’re the only man for the job, lad…”

“Jim, you’re my friend, and more important, my client, and I’m doing my best to keep you alive. It ends there.”

And I went out in the hall. Breathed out some air. I felt battered. Even with a clipped wing, that Irish son of a bitch was a handful.

I went down to the lounge area where I’d spoken to Peggy last Monday night and, after bumming a cigarette off a passing doctor, sat and smoked. I don’t smoke, as a rule-I picked the habit up overseas, in the Marines, and dropped it when I got back. But now and then I got the craving. Usually when I started getting the combat jitters. I’d been smoking off and on all week.

A few minutes later, just as I was standing up, grinding the cigarette under my heel, ready to go back and help guard Ragen’s door, an orderly approached me, a colored kid of maybe twenty with a light brown complexion and dark close-cropped brown hair.

“Are you one of the detectives watching Mr. Ragen?” he asked.

I said I was.

“I think I have something I oughta tell you about.”

“Well why don’t you, then.”

He swallowed. “Okay. After work yesterday, I was playing ball over at the recreation grounds. At Wentworth Avenue? I was playing softball. I saw these men looking at me in particular. They was watching us play ball, I thought, but they was looking at me. I had my badge on that shows I’m an employee here at the hospital.” He swallowed again.

“Go on, son.”

“Well, one of them come up to me and asked if I work at the hospital. I say I did. He ask me some questions about Mr. Ragen’s condition. He say he was a reporter. Anyway, he ask where Mr. Ragen’s room was. I…I told him.”

“He gave you money, didn’t he?”

The boy looked at the floor and nodded.

“Did you tell him?”

“Just that Mr. Ragen was on the third floor away from the fire escape.”

“What did these men look like?”

“White men-real white. One had dark hair, real curly. The other had glasses and was kind of bald. They were both kinda big.”

Well, what do you know.

“What happened then, kid?”

“The man had some more questions-he was the one that didn’t have no glasses-and I said I didn’t think I wanted to talk to him anymore. Last night I was thinking about it, and I thought, what if he wasn’t a reporter? Those men didn’t look like reporters. I didn’t sleep so good.”

“Have you told anybody else about this?”

“No, sir. I heard you was a private detective and not city. So I waited to tell you. I didn’t want Mr. Ragen to get hurt, but I didn’t want to get myself in trouble, neither.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “You were smart to come to me.”

“I don’t want any money from you, mister.”

“Good, ’cause I’m not going to give you any. Now go back to work.”

I went down to the second floor, to the nearest phone booth, and tried to call Drury at home; his wife said he was still asleep and I told her not to wake him-I’d call back around noon. Then I walked back toward Ragen’s room and plopped myself down in a straightback chair next to the cop. He was reading the morning Tribune . I told him he ought to be more alert than that, and took it away from him, read it myself. But all I could think about was the two guys the orderly had seen.

About eleven o’clock I glanced down the hall and noticed the fire-escape cop was gone.

“Where’s your pal?” I asked the cop next to me.

“How should I know? Takin’ a dump?”

“I’m going to cover the fire escape till he gets back.”

I went down there and looked out the window. Down through the grating of the fire escape I could see a few psyche ward patients, in their green pajamas, enjoying the view of the I.C. tracks from their perch.