Max Collins - Chicago Lightning

“Nate? It’s Jake.”

“Jake, I’m sorry I didn’t call you or anything. I didn’t have any number for you but the union hall. You know about what went down?”

“Do I. I’m calling from the Marquette station. They’re holding me for questioning.”

“Hell, you weren’t even there!”

“That’s okay. I’m stalling ’em a little.”

“Why, for Christ’s sake?”

“Listen, Nate-we gotta hold this thing together. You gotta talk to Martin.”

“Why? How?”

“I’m gonna talk to Cooke. Cooke’s the guy who hired me to work for the union in the first place, and…”

“What? Cooke hired you?”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, I’ll go see Cooke first thing in the morning-that is, if you’ve seen Martin tonight, and worked a story out. Something that’ll make this all sound like an accident…”

“I don’t like being part of cover-ups.”

“This ain’t no fuckin’ cover-up! It’s business! Look, they got the state’s attorney’s office in on this already. You know who’s taken over for Stege, already?”

“Tubbo Gilbert?”

“Himself,” Jake said.

Captain Dan “Tubbo” Gilbert was the richest cop in Chicago. In the world. He was tied in with every mob, every fixer in town.

“The local will be finished,” Jake said. “He’ll find something in the books and use that and the shooting as an excuse to close the union down.”

“Which’ll freeze wages at current levels,” I said. “Exactly what the likes of Billy Skidmore would want.”

“Right. And then somebody else’ll open the union back up, in six months or so. Somebody tied into the Nitti and Guzik crowd.”

“As opposed to Druggan and Moran.”

“Don’t compare them to Nitti and Guzik. Those guys went straight, Nate.”

“Please. I just ate. Moran got busted on a counterfeit railroad-bond scam just last week.”

“Nobody’s perfect. Nate, it’s for the best. Think of your old man.”

“Don’t do that to me, Jake. I don’t exactly think your union is what my pop had in mind when he was handing out pamphlets on Maxwell Street.”

“Well, it’s all that stands between the working stiffs and the Billy Skidmores.”

“I take it you know where Martin is hiding out.”

“Yeah. That secretary of his, her mother has a house in Hinsdale. Lemme give you the address…”

“Okay, Jake. It’s against my better judgment, but okay…”

It took an hour to get there by car. Well after dark. Hinsdale was a quiet, well-fed little suburb, and the house at 409 Walnut Street was a two-story number in the midst of a healthy lawn. The kind of place the suburbs are full of, but which always seem shockingly sprawling to city boys like yours truly.

There were a few lights on, downstairs. I walked up onto the porch and knocked. I was unarmed. Probably not wise, but I was.

The secretary answered the door. Cracked it open.

She didn’t recognize me at first.

“I’m here about our dinner date,” I said.

Then, in relief, she smiled, opened the door wider.

“You’re Mr. Heller.”

“That’s right. I never did get your name.”

“Then how did you find me?”

“I had your address. I just didn’t get your name.”

“Well, it’s Nancy. But what do you want, Mr. Heller?”

“Make it Nate. It’s cold. Could I step in?”

She swallowed. “Sure.”

I stepped inside; it was a nicely furnished home, but obviously the home of an older person: the doilies and ancient photo portraits were a dead giveaway.

“This is my mother’s home,” she said. “She’s visiting relatives. I live here.”

I doubted that; the commute would be impossible. If she didn’t live with Martin, in his nifty little bungalow on South Wolcott, I’d eat every doilie in the joint.

“I know that John Martin is here,” I said. “Jake Rubinstein told me. He asked me to stop by.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.

Martin stepped out from a darkened doorway into the living room. He was in rolled-up shirt sleeves and no tie. He looked frazzled. He had the gun in his hand.

“What do you want?” he said. His tone was not at all friendly.

“You’re making too big a deal out of this,” I said. “There’s no reason to go on the lam. This is just another union shooting-the papers’re full of ’em.”

“I don’t shoot a man every day,” Martin said.

“I’m relieved to hear that. How about putting the heater away, then?”

Martin sneered and tossed the piece on a nearby floral couch. He was a nasty man to have a nice girl like this. But then, so often nice girls do like nasty men.

I took it upon myself to sit down. Not on the couch: on a chair, with a soft seat and curved wooden arms.

Speaking of curves, Nancy, who was wearing a blue print dress, was standing wringing her hands, looking about to cry.

“I could use something to drink,” I said, wanting to give her something to do.

“Me too,” Martin said. “Beer. For him, too.”

“Beer would be fine,” I said, magnanimously.

She went into the kitchen.

“What’s Jake’s idea?” Martin asked.

I explained that Jake was afraid the union would be steam-rolled by crooked cops and political fixers, should this shooting blow into something major, first in the papers, then in the courts.

“Jake wants you to mend fences with Cooke. Put together some story you can both live with. Then find some way you can run the union together, or pay him off or something.”

“Fuck that shit!” Martin said. He stood up. “What’s wrong with that little kike, has he lost his marbles?”

“A guy who works on the West Side,” I said, “really ought to watch his goddamn mouth where the Jew-baiting’s concerned.”

“What’s it to you? You’re Irish.”

“Does Heller sound Irish to you? Don’t let the red hair fool you.”

“Well fuck you, too, then. Cooke’s a lying little kike, and Jake’s still in bed with him. Damn! I thought I could trust that little bastard…”

“I think you can. I think he’s trying to hold your union together, with spit and rubber bands. I don’t know if it’s worth holding together. I don’t know what you’re in it for-maybe you really care about your members, a little. Maybe it’s the money. But if I were you, I’d do some fast thinking, put together a story you can live with and let Jake try to sell it to Cooke. Then when the dust settles you’ll still have a piece of the action.”

Martin walked over and pointed a thick finger at me. “I don’t believe you, you slick son of a bitch. I think this is a set-up. Put together to get me to come in, give myself up and go straight to the lock-up, while Jake and Cooke tuck the union in their fuckin’ belt!”

I stood. “That’s up to you. I was hired to deliver a message. I delivered it. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

He thumped his finger in my chest. “You tell that little kike Rubinstein for me that…”

I smacked him.

He don’t go down, but it backed him up. He stood there looking like a confused bear and then growled and lumbered at me with massive fists out in front, ready to do damage.

So I smacked the bastard again, and again. He went down that time. I help him up. He swung clumsily at me, so I hit him in the side of the face and he went down again. Stayed down.

Nancy came in, a glass of beer in either hand, and said, “What…?” Her brown eyes wide.

“Thanks,” I said, taking one glass, chugging it. I wiped the foam off my face with the back of a hand and said, “I needed that.”

And I left them there.

The next morning, early, while I was still at the Morrison, shaving in fact, the phone rang.