Max Collins - Chicago Lightning

“That’s not a stupid approach.”

“You don’t think sticking up innocent merchants is stupid, Heller?”

“Sure. My old man ran a bookshop on the West Side, remember? Anybody kills a shop owner for what’s in his till, I’d like to take their tonsils out with a penknife. But by making a big commotion, intimidating their victim? It can make turn the whole thing into a big blur. Hard to get a good identification out of somebody who’s been put through that. What was the woman’s role?”

Stege shrugged. “Like I said, she was part of the show. Apparently she’d come in with a big handbag and the man would dip into it and that’s where the gun came from. She was the one waving the blackjack around, and some victims claimed they’d been struck by it.”

“They’d clean out the cash drawer?”

“Yeah, and sometimes help themselves to some merchandise. This woman, in clothing shops with female apparel, she’d pick herself out some pretty things and take ’em along.”

“Women do love to shop.”

Stege grimaced; helping me was hard on him. “I don’t want you bothering the dicks on this case. They’re good boys. I’m afraid all this pressure for arrests and publicity may have got the better of ’em, is all.”

“I won’t even talk to them,” I said. “Who I want to talk to are the Tigress’s little cubs-George Dale and Leo Minneci.”

The little round-faced copper nodded and reached out his pudgy little fingers for the phone.

Within an hour I was sitting in another interrogation room, smaller but also wit brick walls, barred windows and a scarred table. I might have still been at the First District Station, but I wasn’t: this was the Cook County Jail on Dearborn, and a cell block guard was ushering in the first name on my dance card: George Dale.

Dale was tall, maybe six two, a good-looking guy with an athletic build; he had a certain Lothario look undercut by thinning brown hair. Dale was in a white shirt, open at the collar, and brown suit pants with dark shoes and white socks.

The guard deposited him across the table from me. Dale wasn’t in handcuffs or leg irons or anything-just a big guy with a friendly face, unless you knew how to read the coldness of his dark eyes. And I did. I was glad I wasn’t packing my nine millimeter, because this character could have made a reasonable go of taking it off me.

“What’s the idea?” Dale asked. “Where’s my lawyer? If I’m talking to another copper, I want my lawyer.”

“My name’s Heller, private operative. Working for your sweetheart’s attorney.”

He sat forward, some life coming into the hard eyes. “How is Eleanor? Is she doing all right?”

“She’s sweating the hot seat like you are. I think I can help get her out of this, if you can confirm she wasn’t an accomplice.”

“She’s innocent as a newborn baby!”

“Well, let’s not get carried away, George….”

“Look, Heller, I’m no stick-up man. I’m a gambler. I make my money on dice and poker, you ask around. This is all just a terrible misunderstanding. An accident.”

“An accident.”

“Yeah. That old man was crazy! I wanted to buy some shirts, and I wanted ’em in quantity-said I’d buy half a dozen if he’d give me a decent discount. He said his price was firm and I tried to haggle and he just shook his head and gave me a nasty look. I had this box of shirts in my hands, and he yanked it away, and I yanked back, and he shoved me, and I shoved him back.”

“Across the counter, this is?”

“Yeah!”

“He was seventy, wasn’t he?”

“So they say, but he was a wild man! After I shoved him, he pulled the gun out from under the counter and came around and chased me, waving the thing. It was, you know, close quarters, and I tried to grab it away from him, and it went off and shot Leo through the hand. Then we ran out on the street-Eleanor was in back of the store and came running up behind us. The old fellow and me, we were struggling over the gun, and Eleanor was pounding him on the back, and he kind of tossed her off, like you’d toss off a kid that jumped you. Then the gun just…went off.”

“Just went off. Twice.”

“Well…yeah. I was scared. He was vicious.”

“Okay, George. Maybe we should start over.”

He shook his head. “Look, I didn’t pull any stick-up. They found fourteen bucks in the cash drawer, you know.” height="0%"›

“Right. But you had a roll of bills in your pocket adding up to three hundred bucks.”

“That was my money! I don’t deny I shot the old man. But it was an accidental type thing.”

“George. Don’t kid a kidder-you’re a seasoned stick-up artist, and you stopped at that clothing store for a smash and grab.”

He just sat there, the eyes going hard again. “I don’t say I’m a saint. But Eleanor was never in on anything illegal I ever done, and these witnesses that say we were some kind of gang, the three of us, it’s a goddamn lie. The cops are just looking to clear a bunch of robberies off their books, in one fell swoop.”

“The three of us, you said. Where does Minneci figure in?”

“He was just along for the ride. I’m sorry he got his hand shot up.”

“Going to the Cubs game.”

“Right.”

I didn’t press. The story held water like a paper sack, but it was close enough to Eleanor’s to make them both look credible. Of course, they’d known for several days that the cops were after them and had had time to get their stories straight before getting hauled in.

Leo Minneci was a dark, handsome guy, or anyway handsome if you didn’t mind the cauliflower ears and the flattened nose. I never met him before, but I remembered him from his pug days-he’d been a pretty fair heavyweight, going up against Tuffy Griffiths and other headliners.

He wore a blue workshirt, sleeves rolled up, and blue jeans with his left hand bandaged. He had a confused expression, like a stranger had called to him from across the street.

Seated opposite me, he asked, “What’s this about? You another cop?”

“I’m a private dick working for Eleanor Jarman’s attorney. I’d like to get your version of what happened at that clothing shop.”

He shrugged. “Listen, I’m one of them victims of circumstance you hear about.”

“Really. I always wanted to meet one of those.”

“This has nothing to do with me. It’s Dale and that dame of his. I was just riding with them to a ball game. We was running a little early, and I said I could use a shirt and we stopped at that place. We were only in there a coupla minutes before Dale pulled a gun and stuck up the old guy. I tried to keep George from shooting the geezer and I, you know, wrestled with him, and the thing went off and…” He raised his bandaged mitt. “…got a bullet through the hand.”

“Did Eleanor know anything about the stick-up?”

He shook his head. “I think it was, what you call it, spur of the moment on George’s part. Look, I got a wife and two kids. I do all right with day labor, and I wouldn’t risk putting them in a bad spot.”

“What’s your wife’s name?”

“Why?”

“I’m just gathering information, Leo. Don’t get jumpy.”

“It’s Tina. You want the address?”

I wrote that down.

I left the jail feeling better about my client. George Dale might or might not be a stick-up artist, and Leo Minneci might or might not be his accomplice; but their stories both put Eleanor Jarman on the sidelines.

I talked to half a dozen of the merchants on the witness list. Advertising that I was working for the Tigress would have turned them into clams, so I would just tell them I was a detective, and flash my little private investigator’s badge, and that’d do the trick.