Max Collins - Chicago Lightning

And Mrs. Bolton was standing nose to nose with the startled woman, saying defiantly, “I am Mrs. Bolton-you’ve bup to see my husband!”

“Why, Mrs. Bolton,” the woman said, backing away as best she could. “Your husband is not in his room.”

“Liar!”

“If he were in the room, I wouldn’t have been in there myself, I assure you.”

“Lying whore…”

“Okay,” I said, wading in, taking Mrs. Bolton by the arm, less gently this time, “that’s enough.”

“Don’t talk to my mother that way,” the young man said to Mrs. Bolton.

“I’ll talk to her any way I like, you little degenerate.”

And the young man slapped my client. It was a loud, ringing slap, and drew blood from one corner of her wide mouth.

I pointed a finger at the kid’s nose. “That wasn’t nice. Back away.”

My client’s eyes were glittering; she was smiling, a blood-flecked smile that wasn’t the sanest thing I ever saw. Despite the gleeful expression, she began to scream things at the couple: “Whore! Degenerate!”

“Oh Christ,” I said, wishing I’d listened to my old man and finished college.

We were encircled by a crowd who watched all this with bemused interest, some people smiling, others frowning, others frankly amazed. In the street the clop-clop of an approaching mounted police officer, interrupted in the pursuit of parking violators, cut through the din. A tall, lanky officer, he climbed off his mount and pushed through the crowd.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“This little degenerate hit me,” my client said, wearing her bloody mouth and her righteous indignation like medals, and she grabbed the kid by the tie and yanked the poor son of a bitch by it, jerking him silly.

It made me laugh. It was amusing only in a sick way, but I was sick enough to appreciate it.

“That’ll be all of that,” the officer said. “Now what happened here?”

I filled him in, in a general way, while my client interrupted with occasional non sequiturs; the mother and son just stood there looking chagrined about being the center of attention for perhaps a score of onlookers.

“I want that dirty little brute arrested,” Mrs. Bolton said, through an off-white picket fence of clenched teeth. “I’m a victim of assault!”

The poor shaken kid was hardly a brute, and he was cleaner than most, but he admitted having struck her, when the officer asked him.

“I’m going to have to take you in, son,” the officer said.

The boy looked like he might cry. Head bowed, he shrugged and his mother, eyes brimming with tears herself, hugged him.

The officer went to a call box and summoned a squad car and soon the boy was sent away, the mother waiting pitifully at the curb as the car pulled off, the boy’s pale face looking back, a sad cameo in the window.

I was at my client’s side.

“Let me help you get home, Mrs. Bolton,” I said, taking her arm again.

She smiled tightly, patronizingly, withdrew her arm. “I’m fine, Mr. Heller. I can take care of myself. I thank you for your assistance.”

And she rolled like a tank through what remained of the crowd, toward the El station.

I stood there a while, trying to gather my wits; it would have taken a better detective than yours truly to find them, however, so, finally, I approached the shattered woman who still stood at the curb. The crowd was gone. So was the mounted officer. All that remained were a few horse apples and me.

“I’m sorry about all that,” I told her.

She looked at me, her face smooth, her eyes sad; they were a darker blue than her son’s. “What’s your role in this?”

“I’m an investigator. Mrs. Bolton suspects her husband of infidelity.”

She laughed harshly-a very harsh laugh for such a refined woman. “My understanding is that Mrs. Bolton has suspected that for some fourteen years-and without foundation. But at this point, it would seem moot, one would think.”

“Moot? What are you talking about?”

“The Boltons have been separated for months. Mr. Bolton is suing her for divorce.”

“What? Since when?”

“Why, since January.”

“Then Bolton does live at the Van Buren Hotel, here?”

“Yes. My brother and I have known Mr. Bolton for years. My son Charles came up to Chicago recently, to find work, and Joe-Mr. Bolton-is helping him find a job.”

“You’re, uh, not from Chicago?”

“I live in Woodstock. I’m a widow. Have you any other questions?”

“Excuse me, ma’am. I’m sorry about this. Really. My client misled me about a few things.” I tipped my hat to her.

She warmed up a bit; gave me a smile. Tentative, but a smile. “Your apology is accepted, mister…?”

“Heller,” I said. “Nathan. And your name?”

“Marie Winston,” she said, and extended her gloved hand.

I grasped it, smiled.

“Well,” I said, shrugged, smiled, tipped my hat again, and headed back for my office.

It wasn’t the first time a client had lied to me, and it sure wouldn’t be the last. But I’d never been lied to in quite this way. For one thing, I wasn’t sure Mildred Bolton knew she was lying. This lady clearly did not have all her marbles.

I put the hundred bucks in the bank and the matter out of my mind, until I received a phone call, on the afternoon of June 14.

“This himrie Winston, Mr. Heller. Do you remember me?”

At first, frankly, I didn’t; but I said, “Certainly. What can I do for you, Mrs. Winston?”

“That…incident out in front of the Van Buren Hotel last Wednesday, which you witnessed…”

“Oh yes. What about it?”

“Mrs. Bolton has insisted on pressing charges. I wonder if you could appear in police court tomorrow morning, and explain what happened?”

“Well…”

“Mr. Heller, I would greatly appreciate it.”

I don’t like turning down attractive women, even on the telephone; but there was more to it than that: the emotion in her voice got to me.

“Well, sure,” I said.

So the next morning I headed over to the south Loop police court and spoke my piece. I kept to the facts, which I felt would pretty much exonerate all concerned. The circumstances were, as they say, extenuating.

Mildred Bolton, who glared at me as if I’d betrayed her, approached the bench and spoke of the young man’s “unprovoked assault.” She claimed to be suffering physically and mentally from the blow she’d received. The latter, at least, was believable. Her eyes were round and wild as she answered the judge’s questions.

When the judge fined young Winston one hundred dollars, Mrs. Bolton stood in her place in the gallery and began to clap. Loudly. The judge looked at her, too startled to rap his gavel and demand order; then she flounced out of the courtroom very girlishly, tossing her raccoon stole over her shoulder, exulting in her victory.

An embarrassed silence fell across the room. And it’s hard to embarrass hookers, a brace of which were awaiting their turn at the docket.

Then the judge pounded his gavel and said, “The court vacates this young man’s fine.”

Winston, who’d been hangdog throughout the proceedings, brightened like his switch had been turned on. He pumped his lawyer’s hand and turned to his mother, seated behind him just beyond the railing, and they hugged.

On the way out Marie Winston, smiling gently, touched my arm and said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Heller.”

“I don’t think I made much difference.”

“I think you did. The judge vacated the fine, after all.”

“Hell, I had nothing to do with that. Mildred was your star witness.”

“In a way I guess she was.”

“I notice her husband wasn’t here.”