Макс Коллинз - True Crime

He smiled sadly. “What was it you said about your job? That it beat having people bash your head in?”

“Didn’t lay a... glove on my head.”

“No more talk. Get some rest.”

He went over to the washroom and got a towel and cleaned up the puke. He was on the floor doing that, in fact, when Sally showed up.

“What the hell is going on here?” she demanded. She had a white dress on. She seemed angry. And afraid.

Barney told her.

I passed out about then. When I woke up she and Barney were helping me out of bed and then out of my office and down the hall and even, God help us, down the steps. She seemed almost as strong as Barney. An athlete, too. Dancer.

Then they were putting me in the back of a cab.

I heard Barney say to her, “Are you going to be all right?”

“Fine. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Sally got in, told the cabbie, “The Drake,” and we were moving.

“What...?” I said.

“You’re staying with me at my place, tonight,” she said. “No one’s going to hurt you there.”

I went to sleep in her arms; my last conscious thought was how nice she smelled. Talcum powder...

A bell was ringing.

I opened my eyes slowly. The round chrome clock on Sally Rand’s nightstand said it was four-oh-seven. Sun streamed in through sheer curtains. I was bathed in sunshine and pain.

The bell kept ringing.

I managed to sit up, but it took a while. The pain was general. Everything from the neck down ached. A long slow dull ache. I’d been sleeping since late morning. I’d been awake for a few hours early this morning, I remembered; Sally had fed me some breakfast and some aspirin. She’d given me some aspirin the night before as well, she said, but I didn’t remember that. And I’d been awake awhile mid-morning, too: a doctor had come round — Barney’s doing — and recommended more aspirin. And sleep. And I’d slept.

The bell kept ringing. In a brilliant intuitive flash — even battered I was still a detective — I realized it was a doorbell.

I swung my legs over to the side of the bed. Lowered them to the floor. The pain became specific. My eyes teared, but I didn’t wipe them dry. I didn’t want to make the effort because my arms hurt worse than my legs. I looked down at my legs and they were splotched with black-and-blue bruises of various sizes — from as small as a dime to as large as a saucer, though they were oblong dimes and saucers. I was in my shorts, I noticed, and my undershirt. My arms had odd-shaped bruises, too. No small ones, though. Large black-and-blue patches, strips of black and blue from the rubber hose.

The bell kept ringing.

I stood. My legs started to buckle but I forced myself not to fall; if I fell, I wouldn’t be able to get up, and that would hurt even worse than standing. Moving across the soft carpet with the slow pathetic urgency of a very elderly man walking toward a bathroom that he has little chance of reaching in time, I found my way into the living room and, eventually, to the front door of the suite.

Facing the white door, the bell louder here (but I was used to it by now — in fact, I couldn’t remember a time when that bell wasn’t ringing), I decided to see if I could speak.

“Who?” I said. It didn’t hurt much to talk. I didn’t have a headache; the aspirin had done that much for me.

“Inspector Cowley, Mr. Heller. Sam Cowley. Could I speak to you?”

There was a night-latch, which I left in place, as I cracked the door open.

“Mr. Heller? Could I come in?” His round, somber, earnest face under the gray hat was damp with sweat.

“Another hot day?” I asked.

A tiny smile creased his face. “Hottest yet.”

“Another good reason for me to stay inside.”

“Could I come in?”

“That putz Purvis with you?”

“No. Nobody’s with me. Nobody knows I’m here.”

“I know you’re here.”

“Nobody at the office.”

I let him in.

The pain turned general again. A neck-to-toe ache. It felt like a cross between the flu and having fallen off a building.

Cowley took off his hat; he had on the same gray suit as before, and the same gray complexion. He wiped his face with a hanky, put it away, looked me over and shook his head slowly.

“My God,” he said. “You took a hell of a beating, didn’t you?”

“They wouldn’t serve me at a lunch counter down South, would they?”

“Your friend Mr. Ross told me you took a beating, but I didn’t imagine...”

“That’s how you found me? Through Barney?”

He nodded. “When I couldn’t reach you at your office this morning, I called around. Ross wouldn’t tell me where you were on the phone. So I went and saw him in person and he finally consented.”

“He’s a good judge of character.”

“Does that mean you don’t mind seeing me?”

“No. I don’t mind. I wanted to talk to you anyway, and it’s better for my health if you come to me. There are people who wouldn’t appreciate my going to see you.”

“The people who did this to you?”

“Among others. Could we sit down? Or would you prefer to wait till I collapse?”

Looking genuinely concerned, he said, “Oh, hell, I’m sorry — you need some help?”

“No. Just let me take it at my own pace. Let’s sit in the kitchen. It’s through there...”

In the small white modern kitchen, there was coffee on the stove. Bless Sally’s heart. She’d be doing her matinee about now. Dancing with a bubble.

I sat at the table while Cowley, at my direction, poured us some coffee. He put a cup in front of me and sat and sipped his own.

With a disgusted look, he said, “I know the aftermath of a rubber-hose session when I see one.”

“Well, you’re a cop. You’ve probably administered a few.”

He didn’t take offense; he didn’t even deny it. “Never to an innocent man.”

I laughed, and it hurt. “I been called a lot of things, but innocent?”

Cowley’s laugh was short and gruff, like he didn’t do it much. “More or less innocent, then. Was it cops?”

“Yeah. East Chicago boys, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Zarkovich and O’Neill?”

“Not personally. Zarkovich was behind it, I’m sure. Did he bring any men to town with him?”

The disgusted expression returned as he nodded. “A contingency of four, not counting him and his captain.”

“I didn’t get a very good look at the bastards who did this to me, but with that small a field to choose from, I might get lucky.”

“What was this about, Heller?”

I sighed. It hurt. “They wanted me out of commission. They weren’t trying to kill me or anything. Just hurt me bad enough to put me on the sidelines for a few days. Take me out of the action.” I sipped the coffee. It was hot, black, bitter; I liked it. “I’d served my purpose.”

“Which was?”

“To finger Dillinger for them. Specifically, to contact you guys. The feds.”

Cowley did a slow burn, like Edgar Kennedy. “Would you mind telling me the rest of it, in your view? I think I know most of it. But I’d like to hear your thoughts.”

“First, why don’t you tell what’s been going down on your end, where Mr. Dillinger’s concerned?”

He thought about that, then said, with finality and formality, “A few hours ago, in the lobby of my hotel — the Great Northern on Dearborn, to be exact — Melvin Purvis and I met with Martin Zarkovich.” It was like he was writing his field report. “We’ve set up a meeting with Anna Sage. For tonight.”

“And she’s going to give you Dillinger.”

“Apparently, yes.”

I thought about giving him Jimmy Lawrence’s Park Grove address. I thought about Frank Nitti telling me to stay in bed. I thought about the rubber hose swishing in the air.