Макс Коллинз - True Crime

And I could use Purvis and Cowley’s goodwill — I was involved in this just deep enough to need to explain myself, and better them than the Chicago cops, Christ! I was an accomplice in the murder of Dr. Joseph Moran, if you got right down to it. You could make a case — a convincing one — for me being part of the kidnap ring. But time was slipping away — if the snatch went down, I wouldn’t just be up shit creek, I’d be drowning in it. Maybe I should call the cops anyway; take my chances with Chicago’s finest — hell, I hadn’t been fed the goldfish in weeks.

The number at the Banker’s Building was still busy.

It was six-ten.

I got up and pulled the Murphy bed down.

“Jim! What are you doing?”

Now she thought I was a sex fiend.

“Are you sure this is all right with your friend ...?”

“It’s fine with him. And it ain’t whoopee time, so relax. You’re just going to take a rest. I have to step out for a while.”

“Where are you going?”

“Just a few blocks over. I got an appointment.”

“But what if your friend comes back?”

“It’ll be okay.” I sat her on the edge of the bed. “Just catch a nap. Okay?”

“Jim, I’m so confused... what’s going on? What’s this about?” She had tears in her eyes.

Shit.

Without knowing it, without meaning to, I’d joined the club: joined the ranks of men who’d abused this girl, pushed her around, hurt her. Damnit. Fuck. Shit.

I sat down on the bed next to her. Slipped an arm around her. “I won’t be gone long. Just stay here and take it easy. Tomorrow, I’m going to take you to see your daddy.”

“Do you think that’s for the best?”

“I do.”

“But you said I should leave the past behind me, Jim.”

“Some things you simply got to face before you can put ’em behind you. Now, I’m going to be with you, all the way. Right at your side. And then we’re coming back to the big city and find you some honest work. In fact, my friend who runs this office just might be able to use a secretary, at that. Would that suit you?”

She smiled, but it was forced. “Sure, Jim. Any friend of yours...”

I kissed her cheek, and she grabbed me, clutched at me. Kissed me hard on the mouth. There was more desperation than passion in it, and I held her close to me, hugged her close, and whispered in her ear, “I’m not going to hurt you, Louise — nobody’s going to hurt you anymore.”

I tucked her under the covers and smiled at her and she smiled at me, a brave-little-soldier smile, and turned on her side and shut her eyes.

I locked the office behind me, and got the hell out of there. It was six-fifteen. I was only a few blocks away from the Banker’s Building; three or four minutes by foot, five tops.

All I had to do, I thought as I walked briskly by Binyon’s, was head over there and take the elevator up to the nineteenth floor and tell ‘em the tale. It was late enough that most, maybe all, their agents would be gone for the day — but at least the call to the cops could be placed by Purvis or Cowley — at least they could initiate and coordinate the effort to stop the kidnapping and nab the kidnappers. Somehow I didn’t think Hoover would grab a gun, though.

I was walking by the Federal Building, now; sidewalks were all but empty, this time of day, and I could move right along. It felt good to be home, where the buildings were taller than the corn, where the cattle was lined up in the stockyards where it belonged. It would be over soon — already, I was out of the outlaw’s world and back in my own; and the girl I’d come to get was tucked safely away in my office. I almost smiled.

But around the next corner there was one last street to cross.

Maybe the feds, maybe Cowley anyway, could keep this thing from turning into a bloodbath. Just as I couldn’t allow myself to be party to Hoover’s kidnapping — even for twenty-five goddamn grand — a massacre of Floyd and Nelson and the others was nothing I cared to be part of, either.

As I rounded the corner of Jackson, just before six-twenty, with half an hour to spare, moving to the crosswalk, I glanced down the street and there, in front of the Edison Building, was the backup car with Baby Face Nelson and Fred Barker sitting in it.

And if the backup car was in place, the Hudson — and Karpis and Floyd and Dillinger — wouldn’t be far behind.

I slowed my pace.

I couldn’t get lost in the crowd: there wasn’t one. The sidewalks weren’t empty, though — there were a few people around, so I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, either. I pulled the brim of my hat down, lowered my head, waited for the light and crossed Clark Street and walked toward the Banker’s Building. The backup car in front of the Edison Building was almost a block away. Far enough that I’d had to look hard to recognize Fred Barker behind the wheel of the car, a black Ford roadster.

So maybe they wouldn’t notice me. They certainly wouldn’t be looking for me.

Then again, I hadn’t been looking for them and I spotted ’em, easy enough.

I glanced at my watch: six-twenty.

Hoover’s powwow with Courtney and the police commissioner had been moved up, obviously, and the same inside source who’d leaked the original information had passed the change of plans along to Karpis and company. It had been a seven o’clock dinner, with the pickup to be made at ten till; my guess was it’d been moved up to six-thirty, in which case the next pickup time was right now.

The Hudson should be making its appearance, any time.

I walked by the Clark Street edge of the Continental Illinois Bank Building, and strolled down Quincy. Once the Banker’s Building was blocking me from the parked backup car’s view, I ran to the side door and found my way to the bank of elevators and punched the up button.

I gave the uniformed operator, a tall red-haired guy of about twenty-five, a buck and said, “Nineteenth floor and step on it.”

He yanked the handle so hard the box lurched, but he earned his dollar: within a minute we were on the nineteenth floor. I gave him another buck and told him to wait for me; he questioned that with his eyes, and I gave him another buck hurriedly and said there’d be a sawbuck for him if he kept his end up.

Then I was off the elevator and running down the hall to the Division of Investigation field office.

The door was shut.

Locked.

I banged on it.

“Hey, in there! Come on — somebody!”

Seconds that seemed an eternity passed and the door opened, and there was Cowley, his moon face somber as ever, then he squinted at me, which was his way of registering surprise.

“Heller?” he said. Like he couldn’t believe I was standing there; I was something he thought he’d put behind him.

“Is Hoover in there?”

He sighed through his nose and his mouth made a tight line, barely opening to say, “Is that any concern of yours?”

I pushed him out of the way, pushed inside the room.

“Hey! What do you—”

The room was full of desks and no people.

“Where’s Hoover?” I demanded.

“What business is it of yours?” He was indignant and condescending at the same time.

I liked Cowley, far as it went, but it didn’t go that far. I grabbed him by his coat and vest with two hands and said, “Where the hell is he?”

Cowley was bigger than me, and probably tougher, and armed, and a fed; but he forgot all about that and sputtered, “He and Purvis... they just went down in the elevator.”