Max Collins - Chicago Lightning

Jesus.

Finally I said, “What do you did do?”

“They told me to wait for ’em. Keep the bar open. They came back in, laughing like hyenas. Rooney says to me, ‘You want to see the way he keeled over?’ And I says, ‘Who?’ And he says, ‘The guard at Goldblatt’s.’ Berry laughs and says, ‘We really let him have it.’”

“That kid was twenty-one, Alex. It was his goddamn birthday.”

The bartender was looking down. “They laughed and joked about it till Berry passed out. About six in the morning, Rooney has me pile Berry in a cab. Rooney and the twist slept in his office for maybe an hour. Then they came out, looking sober and kind of…scared. He warned me not to tell anybody what I seen, unless I wanted to trade my job for a morgue slab.”

“Colorful. Tell me, Alex. You got that girl’s phone number in Berwyn?”

“I think it’s upstairs. You can put that gun away. I’ll help you.”

It was dark, but I could see his face well enough; the big man’s eyes looked damp. The fear was gone. Something else was in its place. Shame? Something.

We went upstairs, he unlocked the union hall and, under the bar, found the matchbook with the number written inside: Berwyn 2981.

“You want a drink before you go?” he asked.

“You know,” I said, “I think I’ll pass.”

I went back to my office to use the reverse-listing phone book that told me Berwyn 2981 was Rosalie Rizzo’s number; and that Rosalie Rizzo lived at 6348 West 13 thStreet in Berwyn.

First thing the next morning, I borrowed Barney’s Hupmobile and drove out to Berwyn, the clean, tidy Hunky suburb populated in part by the late Mayor Cermak’s patronage people. But finding a Rosalie Rizzo in this largely Czech and Bohemian area came as no surprise: Capone’s Cicero was a stone’s throw away.

The woman’s address was a three-story brick apartment building, but none of the mailboxes in the vestibule bore her name. I found the janitor and gave him Rosalie Rizzo’s description. It sounded like Mrs. Riggs to him.

“She’s a doll,” the janitor said. He was heavy-set and needed a shave; he licked his thick lips as he thought about her. “Ain’t seen her since yesterday noon.”

That was about nine hours after Stanley was killed.

He continued: “Her and her husband was going to the country, she said. Didn’t expect to be back for a couple of weeks, she said.”

Her husband.

“What’ll a look around their apartment cost me?”

He licked his lips again. “Two bucks?”

Two bucks it was; the janitor used his passkey and left me to it. The well-appointed little apartment included a canary that sang in its gilded cage, a framed photo of slick Boss Rooney on an end table, and a closet containing two sawed-off shotguns and a repeating rifle.

I had barely started to poke around when I had company: a slender, gray-haired woman in a flowered print dress.

“Oh!” she said, coming in the door she’d unlocked.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“Who are you?” Her voice had the lilt of an Italian accent.

Under the circumstances, the truth seemed prudent. “A private detective.”

“My daughter is not here! She and her-a husband, they go to vacation. Up north some-a-where. I just-a come to feed the canary!”

“Please don’t be frightened. Do you know where she’s gone, exactly?”

“No. But…maybe my husband do. He is-a downstairs….”

She went to a window, threw it open and yelled something frantically down in Italian.

I eased her aside in time to see a heavy-set man jump into a maroon Plymouth with a silver swan on the radiator cap, and cream colored wheels, and squeal away.

And when I turned, the slight gray-haired woman was just as gone. Only she hadn’t squealed.

The difference, this timewas a license number for the maroon coupe; I’d seen it: 519-836. In a diner I made a call to Lou Sapperstein, who made a call to the motor vehicle bureau, and phoned back with the scoop: the Plymouth was licensed to Rosalie Rizzo, but the address was different-2848 South Cuyler Avenue, in Berwyn.

The bungalow was typical for Berwyn-a tidy little frame house on a small perfect lawn. My guess was this was her folks’ place. In back was a small matching, but unattached garage, on the alley. Peeking in the garage windows, I saw the maroon coupe and smiled.

“Is Rosalie in trouble again?”

The voice was female, sweet, young.

I turned and saw a slender, almost beautiful teenage girl with dark eyes and bouncy, dark shoulder-length hair. She wore a navy-blue sailor-ish playsuit. Her pretty white legs were bare.

“Are you Rosalie’s sister?”

“Yes. Is she in trouble?”

“What makes you say that?”

“I just know Rosalie, that’s all. That man isn’t really her husband, is he? That Mr. Riggs.”

“No.”

“Are you here about her accident?”

“No. Where is she?”

“Are you a police officer?”

“I’m a detective. Where did she go?”

“Papa’s inside. He’s afraid he’s going to be in trouble.”

“Why’s that?”

“Rosalie put her car in our garage yesterday. She said she was in an accident and it was damaged and not to use it. She’s going to have it repaired when she gets back from vacation.”

“What does that have to do with your papa being scared?”

“Rosalie’s going to be mad as H at him, that he used her car.” She shrugged. “He said he looked at it and it didn’t look damaged to him, and if mama was going to have to look after Rosalie’s g.d. canary, well he’d sure as H use her gas not his.”

“I can see his point. Where did your sister go on vacation?”

“She didn’t say. Up north someplace. Someplace she and Mr. Riggs like to go to, to…you know. To get away?”

I called Sgt. Pribyl from a gas station where I was getting Barney’s Hupmobile tank re-filled. I suggested he have another talk with bartender Alex Davidson, gave him the address of “Mr. and Mrs. Riggs,” and told him where he could find the maroon Plymouth.

He was grateful but a little miffed about all I had done on my own.

“So much for not showboating,” he said, almost huffily. “You’ve found everything but the damn suspects.”

“They’ve gone up north somewhere,” I said.

“Where up north?”

“They don’t seem to’ve told anybody. Look, I have a piece of evidence you may need.”

“What?”

“When you talk to Davidson, he’ll tell you about a matchbook Rooney wrote the girl’s number on. I got the matchbook.”

It was still in my pocket. I took it out, idly, and shut the girl’s number away, revealing the picture on the matchbook cover: a blue moon hovered surrealistically over a white lake on which two blue lovers paddled in a blue canoe-Eagle River Lodge, Wisconsin.

“I suppose we’ll need that,” Pribyl’s voice over the phone said, “when the time comes.”

“I suppose,” I said, and hung up.

Eagle River was a town of 1,386 (so said the sign) just inside the Vilas County line at the junction of US 45 and Wisconsin State Highway 70. The country was beyond beautiful-green pines towering higher than Chicago skyscrapers, glittering blue lakes nestling in woodland pockets.

The lodge I was looking for was on Silver Lake, a gas station attendant told me. A beautiful dusk was settling on the woods as I drew into the parking of the large resort sporting a red city-style neon saying, DINING AND DANCE. Log-cabin cottages were flung here and there around the periphery like Paul Bunyan’s tinker-toys. Each one was just secluded enough-ideal for couples, married or un-.

Even if Rooney and his dark-haired honey weren’t staying here, it was time to find a room: I’d been driving all day. When Barney loaned me his Hupmobile, he’d had no idea the kind of miles I’d put on it. Dead tired, I went to the desk and paid for a cabin.