Max Collins - Neon Mirage

“Hey, I think it’s cute. She’s dedicated to her family. That’s a good thing. It’s like friendship. You can’t put a price on it. Take her back to Chicago, Nate, and marry the girl, before she goes all career girl on you and you’re shit out of luck. Take my advice. I know my women.”

I bet he did.

“Come on,” he said, taking me by the arm, “let’s go back and get you two kids back together. I’m a sucker for a good love story.”

Siegel ushered me into the casino, me on his arm like the starlet on Raft’s, and with his big winning smile stopped at the crap table where Virginia Hill, having finally crapped out, was waiting for another turn, sipping one of a succession of stingers, holding her own purse while Peggy looked dutifully on.

Only now that she saw me, Peggy’s mouth was, as they say, agape, which amused La Hill no end.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked Peggy. “Aren’t you glad to see your little boy friend?”

“Nate,” Peggy said, her always pale face downright ashen now, violet eyes round and wet and tragic, “what are you doing here?”

Miss Hill pressed hand to generous bosom and laughed like a braying mule, managing to say, “I don’t think she’s glad to see you, Heller!”

Siegel let go of my arm and went to Peggy, who suddenly looked very frightened. He touched her arm, gently, and she flinched. He didn’t let go, however.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he told her. “Nate’s a friend of mine. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine. He’ll tell you all about it.”

He let go of her arm and nodded to me. The eyes of the nearby crowd were on us. I felt like I was wearing a fig leaf and it slipped. Nonetheless, I moved to her and she looked at me angry and hurt and confused, but I put my arm around her and walked her away from the table, from the crowd, toward the bar, where Raft looked at us, lifted his eyebrows, put them back down, and looked away.

“Come with me,” I said. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Nate, I…I don’t know what to say…does he know about me?”

“Yeah.”

“You mean, that I was trying to find out…”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. Look, there’s a launch every half hour. We’ll catch the next one.”

In fact, the next launch took off in less than five minutes, and we made it, leaving the Lux behind, a fading blue neon-trimmed shape whose searchlight still fanned the dark sea. We sat with a few other couples, who were nuzzling, but we didn’t nuzzle; we sat close, but didn’t nuzzle.

The ride back was rougher; we felt the spray almost constantly, squinting into it, wiping it from our faces occasionally. We had to speak up to be heard over the motor.

“I figured you’d be mad,” she said, mad. “I don’t blame you for being mad. But how could you come out here and endanger me like this…”

I laughed harshly. “It’s a little late for you to be worried about the danger factor, baby. Now why don’t you shut up and I’ll fill you in.”

She gave me an exasperated look, but sighed and shut up and I filled her in. I told her I’d indeed come out here to retrieve her, but that I’d been careful not to tip her hand where her uncle’s interests were concerned-none of which mattered a whit, I said, considering what Siegel had just told me on the deck of the Lux, and filled her in on that, as well.

She, like me, was stunned.

“Do you believe him?” she asked.

I sighed. Shook my head no, not believing I could be saying, “Yes.”

She swallowed. “I do too.”

“Why?” I had reasons for my opinion; what did she have?

“Ben’s a good man, Nate. He’s gone straight. He just couldn’t have done it.”

Oh. She had opinions for her reason.

And she had more: “He’s an honest man.”

“Well, that’s rich.”

“Well, he is! He reminds me…”

“Don’t tell me. Of your Uncle Jim.”

“Well, he does! I’ve spent a lot of time with him this week, in Vegas, at the Flamingo. He works hard. He’s really…a very nice guy. People around him love him. He’s so…dedicated to what he wants. He’s like a…visionary.”

“He’s like a gangster, Peg.”

The boat lurched and I held her, one hand on the padded shoulder of her Eisenhower jacket. She let me. She didn’t seem to like it, but she let me.

“I find him charming, too,” I admitted. “I think I might even like the guy, given half the chance. But he came up the hard way. Don’t ever forget that. He kills people.”

“I don’t believe it. It’s just stories.”

“Well, the stories I’ve heard, and they’re not stories, are that he likes getting into the rough stuff, personally. A boss is supposed to limit himself to ordering hits-he’s supposed to plan ’em out, then get the hell to someplace where his alibi is ironclad. But don’t-call-him-Bugsy went out on a contract personally a few years back; just couldn’t resist, I guess, and went along with the boys to make sure it was done right, and pulled the trigger himself, and he almost went to the gas chamber over it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“The only reason he didn’t is because one witness got shot to death, a guy who happened to be Ben’s brother-in-law, in case you’re wondering why a charming guy like that is divorced. And also there was this hitman turned witness who got pushed out a hotel window at Coney Island a while back. Guy named Abe Reles. Murder Incorporated? Remember that from the papers?”

She folded her arms across her chest; she was squinting, not just from the sea spray that was hitting her, but from inward stubbornness. “He just doesn’t seem like that kind of man to me. And, anyway, I think he’s trying to make a new start of it. You should see this resort he’s building. It’s going to be fabulous. It’s exciting just to be around it, to be any small part of it.”

“Christ, you come out here to see if this guy tried to kill your uncle, and wind up president of his fan club! Did he do anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you sleep with him?”

She pulled away from me, glared at me. “How can you ask that?”

“I was gonna ask if he screwed you, but I thought that might be a little on the crude side.”

Working our voices up over the motor like we had to meant some of our nuzzling co-passengers heard an occasional word of ours; several of them were looking at us now and I gave them a big sarcastic insincere smile and they looked away.

She huddled to herself. “You’re terrible. He was a perfect gentleman.”

“You walked out on me.”

“I left word.”

“I ought to throw you off this goddamn boat.”

She made a face at me. “Why don’t you just try?”

“I oughta belt you.”

“You really know how to win a girl back, Heller.”

“I didn’t know I’d lost you.”

“I don’t think you quite have, yet. But keep trying.”

We sat in silence for a while-silence but for the launch’s motor and the boat riding through the whitecaps. And some of our fellow passengers whispering about us. I hadn’t had so much fun on a boat since the landing on Red Beach at Guadalcanal.

Then I said: “The point here is that we both believe Siegel is not who paid those guys in the truck to hit your uncle.”

She nodded.

“For me it’s woman’s intuition,” she said, putting her anger away, if not her poutiness. “What’s your detective’s instinct say?”

I ignored her smart-ass tone, saying, “It’s more than instinct. Siegel laid it out perfect-he’s better off with Jim alive. So, logically, Siegel’s not the guy who hired the hit.”