Макс Коллинз - True Crime

I figured he held this opinion because I’d quit the force after Mayor Cermak’s two police bodyguards had taken me along, unawares, into what turned out to be an assassination attempt on Nitti’s life.

“And you got balls,” he said, picking at one of the potatoes with his fork. “You’re smart and honest — though not so honest as to be a problem — and you got integrity. So that’s why I like you.”

I risked a wisecrack. “This is starting to sound like a testimonial,” I said. “Maybe we should move over to the banquet table, and invite those guys who brought me up here to join us.”

He tolerated that, even smiled again, then frowned and quickly said, “They didn’t get nasty, did they? I told ’em you were to be my willin’ guest. Nothin’ nasty.”

“They weren’t nasty, Frank. But they didn’t have to be. Where’d you get those guys, Lincoln Park Zoo?”

He drank some milk and this time when he smiled he had a milk mustache, which he wiped off with a thick hand on which rested a gold ring that must’ve weighed half a pound.

“Healthy-looking boys, ain’t they?” he said. “I beefed up my security after the Cermak hit.”

I didn’t know if he was referring to the attempt on his life by Cermak’s two cops, or the subsequent assassination of Mayor Cermak in Miami last summer, which he’d directed. And I didn’t ask.

“Would you like something to eat?” he asked, gesturing to the empty place in front of me.

Actually, I hadn’t eaten all day. But somehow I didn’t have much of an appetite, and declined.

“You’re wondering why I asked you up here,” he said.

“I think I know, Frank.”

He looked up from his boiled beef, with an almost pop-eyed look. “Really?”

“Well, let’s just say that I’ve figured out that Piquett kept me waiting in his office for half an hour so he could call you and you could send some people over.”

Nitti didn’t confirm or deny that.

He just said, “You’re involved in something. And I’m sorry as hell about it.”

He cut his beef with the side of his fork, leaving a pause for me to fill, but I couldn’t find anything to fill it with.

He ate a bite, and went on. “This thing that’s about to go down, I’m on top of it — it’s happening with my approval, even my guidance. But I’m an executive, kid. I don’t handle the detail shit, you know?”

“I can understand that, Frank.”

“I didn’t know they were going to pull you into this. And if I’d known, I’d have stopped ’em.”

“Who, Frank?”

“Don’t ask questions, kid. Just listen.” He paused to see if I was going to pay heed, and I was.

“I want you to get out of this,” he said. “And stay out. Just let things take their course.”

He ate his boiled beef.

“Is that all, Frank?” I said.

“Sure. You wanna go, go ahead. It was good to see you again.”

He’d been very careful in choosing his words — everything vague, all references couched in euphemism.

“Frank, we are talking about setting John Dillinger up, aren’t we?”

He shrugged, chewed, watched me with eyes that warned me not to go too far.

I went ahead anyway. Just a step at a time.

“It makes sense that you and your associates might like to be rid of a guy like this,” I said. Carefully. “Having the likes of Dillinger in town — and he seems always, eventually, to come back to Chicago to hide out — stirs up all kinds of heat. Local and federal.”

Nitti nodded, chewing.

I shook my head sympathetically. “Cops and feds can’t put out the dragnet for Dillinger and his ilk without disrupting your Outfit’s activities, of various kinds, in the process. Public outcry over gangsters like Dillinger leads to mass arrests — which your people get caught up in. Dillinger’s bringing down too damn much heat on the Outfit.”

Nitti narrowed his eyes and said, “Last December three of my best people were killed. It was a raid on a flat on Farwell Avenue by Stege’s Dillinger Squad; those trigger-happy sons of bitches mistook my guys for Dillinger and two of his pals. Shot ’em dead. Didn’t know they had the wrong men till they took their fingerprints, hours later.” Disgusted, Nitti sipped his milk. “It’s gotta end.”

“Is that what’s happening?” I asked. “You’re putting an end to Dillinger?”

“Be careful what questions you ask me, kid — I might answer ’em.”

“That fed Cowley came to see me today.”

Nitti said nothing; pushed his plate away from him. There was still some food left, but he’d had all of it he could stomach.

I said, “I got the feeling he’d cut a deal with Zarkovich, agreeing to shoot Dillinger down. Rather than take him in.”

Nitti patted his mouth with a napkin.

“So it’s not enough for Dillinger to be captured,” I said. “He’s got to buy it. He’s got to die.”

Nitti cleared his throat. “Let me tell you something, kid. For a long time these fuckin’ outlaws could get away with what they’re doing. They were like stagecoach and train robbers in the Old West; fact is, most of ’em are dumb Okies who think they’re Jesse James. And they got away with it, for a while. ’Cause all they needed was fast flivvers and lots of back roads and plenty of hideouts. And they weaved all across the country, and the law couldn’t even cross state lines to chase ’em. They had a sweet little thing going. Long-term, however, it stunk. Which is why only suckers — farmers, dumb Okies like that — got in that business. But they had their time, I’ll give ’em that. Only their time is over.”

He sipped some milk. He seemed to be through with his speech, but I nudged him on. Carefully.

“You mean their time’s over, because of the feds,” I said. “Because now the feds can chase ’em across state lines.”

Nitti nodded, shrugged. “That’s it, that’s a big part of it. The rewards on their heads’ll smoke ’em all out eventually, too. But times are changing. You can only get away with that shoot-’em-up bullshit for so long.”

“You mean you can’t get away with too many Saint Valentine’s Day Massacres.”

“No. And you can’t shoot too many Jake Lingles. The public likes to make a hero out of somebody like Al or Dillinger, for a while. But when things get too bloody, when the headlines get too nasty, the public turns on you.”

“Frank, these outlaws — your Outfit’s had dealings with ’em over the years...”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I hear things. I’m awake.”

“That’s a nice way to be, awake. You ought to hold onto that thought.”

I said nothing.

Then for some reason he continued. “Yeah, Al had a soft spot for that kind, particularly the bank robbers. Don’t ask me why. The suburbs, Cicero, Maywood, Melrose Park, they were always welcome there, where Al was concerned. There were always thieves hiding out there.”

“For a fee?”

“Nothin’s free, kid.”

“I’d guess a certain amount of fencing of goods and hot money by such thieves might also be handled through the Outfit.”

“Easy, kid.”

“And the guns those guys use, machine guns particularly, and explosives, they got to come from somewhere. And sometimes, like any small business, they’d need seed money, short-term loans. And Outfit sources are the natural place for both...”

Nitti was shaking his head, but not by way of denial. He said, “You better button it right there, kid.” Not mad; just fatherly advice.

I buttoned up.

Then Nitti couldn’t keep from saying: “It’s just better for some people to be dead, kid.”

He’d opened the door, so I took a breath and went on through.