Макс Коллинз - True Crime

“I think you’re right.”

“I’m getting off the rum, that much I promise you. I seen too many guys sitting in doorways in rags sucking a bottle in a bag. I’ll eat my piece before I go that route.”

“You’re no suicide, Heller. You’re not the type.”

“My father was.”

“Maybe that’s why you aren’t.”

Seth Pearson had been. Louise’s husband. I’d sat in the De Kalb County Sheriff’s Office that Saturday afternoon, for hours, giving a statement, and gathered that everybody in town knew Seth was crazy with jealousy, rage and sorrow over his runaway wife, though the sheriff’s people, at least, were surprised it had gone this far. I didn’t tell them anything about retrieving Louise from the outlaw life; just that Pearson, posing as Joshua Petersen, had come to me so I’d find his “daughter.” The real Joshua Petersen, I was told, had died several months ago.

The story got little play in the Chicago papers, just an item buried on the inside — any crime of passion in the state was bound to get at least that much ink. Louise’s outlaw past did not catch up with her, or it’d have got more, much more.

“She almost told me,” I said, shaking my head. “She was surprised that the photo I had of her came from her father — it was a picture of her and the husband, you see. But I didn’t pick up on it. I was too thick, too eager to make that grand.”

“You got to quit punishing yourself! That girl was a lost cause before you met her. Her fate, as we say in the theater, was sealed. You couldn’t have prevented it. Some things you can’t prevent, Nate. Some things you can’t control, or stop. You’re just a man.”

“I’m a cop. A detective.”

“Yes, right, and that’s why you are a detective — you want to put this messy world in some kind of recognizable order. And that’s of course impossible. But you do seem to manage to tidy up an occassional corner, now and again, you know. Give yourself a little credit. You saved J. Edgar Hoover’s life, didn’t you? Or at least his dignity.”

“Barney told you about that, too, did he?”

“Yeah. You managed that one pretty well, wouldn’t you say, Heller?”

“Ten of Hoover isn’t worth one of her.”

“Well, it doesn’t work that way, that isn’t the way life plays, is it?” She got out of bed and went over to the window and pointed. “Before you know it, winter’ll be here, and those rich Gold Coast bastards’ll wear mink coats while a couple blocks away people’ll be freezing to death in the street. Is that fair?”

“No. But wouldn’t you like to change it?”

“Sure. In my small way, I try. But I’m not going to fling myself out the window. I’m not going to throw my mink coat out, either, or give it to a peddler. Or cry in my beer.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Survive. Best I can. Do my job. Best I can. Remember telling me that?”

I was smiling. Just a little; but it didn’t feel unnatural, anyway.

She came back and got in bed, sitting up. “Why don’t you quit depressing yourself with the what-ifs and the why-didn’t-Is. Why don’t you tell me about meeting Dillinger.”

Barney really did tell her everything.

“I swore that little SOB to secrecy!”

“You’re keeping secrets from me , Heller? Don’t even bother trying.

So I told her about meeting Dillinger.

And I told her about how Cowley pretended to think the man named Sullivan I’d met was only bullshitting about being Dillinger — since Dillinger was obviously dead. The headlines had made Dillinger’s death at the Biograph true. What was really going on in Cowley’s mind, and Purvis’, and even Hoover’s, was then and is now beyond me. They had to know, or strongly suspect, that I was right. That Dillinger was alive. But they stuck to the party line. Hoping Dillinger would stay underground and dead; or, if he went back on the outlaw trail, turn up dead with a new face and end up in some potter’s field unidentified. Underground or under the ground — either way was fine.

Their odds weren’t bad, actually. Dillinger struck me as cagey enough to stay dead. If he survived that tommy-gun burst in front of the Banker’s Building, he’d be careful as hell before sticking his neck out again — attached as it was to that new face of his.

Cowley also agreed to keep my name out of it; the press never heard about my role in the action, and the kidnapping aspect was quashed, as well. The way it was given to the press (and they bought it) had Hoover, Purvis and Cowley stumbling onto the Continental Bank being cased for a heist. Rumors of the heavyweight public enemies involved did make the papers, but the Division of Investigation wouldn’t confirm them. Losing a catch that included Nelson, the Barkers, Floyd and Karpis would’ve made the division guys look like saps, so they withheld the names. The “gang” members were unidentified, the official release went.

The papers ate the story up (G-MEN IN LOOP GUN BATTLE) and Hoover was portrayed as the hero of the piece.

I didn’t care. My concern was keeping out of the papers, so Dillinger/Sullivan, if he had survived, wouldn’t think I betrayed him; he might strongly suspect, but he wouldn’t know. Nobody had seen me there, despite my having leaned out the door to fire a few shots over Nelson’s head, late in the fray. All Dillinger could know for sure was what the rest of them knew: that I skipped with the girl. The only difference was he knew why.

And to Nelson and the others, of course, I wasn’t Nate Heller: I was Jimmy Lawrence.

And Jimmy Lawrence was, effectively, dead. Frank Nitti had assured me of that. He had sent for me Monday afternoon, to ask me what really went down at the Banker’s Building. When I told him I’d defused that situation, he was pleased with me, and furious with everybody else.

“Kidnap Hoover! Crazy bastards. The heat that’d bring down woulda made this summer look like the North Pole. I owe you one, Heller.”

“No, Frank — you don’t owe me anything. No more debts either way, between you and me.”

“What d’you mean, kid?”

“I mean, I asked for a favor, and you did me one — but at the same time you used me to finger Doc Moran. I was there when he was killed, Frank. I was part of it — just like when Cermak’s boys tried to gun you down. Remember?”

“Only when I breathe. Look, Moran was already dead. He was walking around, but he was long dead. You had nothin’ to do with it.”

“Sure. Fine. Just I don’t owe you anything, and you don’t owe me anything. Clean slate. Okay?”

“Sure, kid. Except for one last favor I’m gonna do you.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m gonna spread the word Jimmy Lawrence went swimming in cement shoes. Just to keep those crazy bastards from comin’ lookin’ for you.”

“That I would appreciate, Frank.”

“My pleasure. And you don’t owe me nothin’. And, Heller?”

“Yeah?”

“Get a shave. Take a bath — you smell like a brewery.”

Sound advice, touching as it did on two of Nitti’s fields of endeavor.

And today, almost a week later, I’d taken it. Bathed. Shaved. Stopped the sauce. And come to see Sally.

“It’ll pass, Heller.”

“I keep seeing her eyes, Helen. In my dreams. That’s why I kept drinking; when I was passed out, I didn’t dream. Not that I can remember, anyway. But if I sleep, I see her eyes. The dead way.”

“Shhh. Shhh.”

“Helen.”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you hold me.”

“Why don’t I.”

She held me, and I slept. No dreams.

No Sally, after November.

She left soon after the fair closed; it had disturbed her, what happened then. It was our last night together — that is, the last night of our long summer together. She’d looked out the window at the Gold Coast and said, “Today they completely demolished the Century of Progress. They tore down flags, they tore down streetlights, they tore down walls. It started out being souvenir hunters, but it turned into mass vandalism. It was terribly frightening, Nate... Nate? Nate, this time why don’t you hold me ?”