Max Collins - True Detective

Nitti didn’t say anything; he looked straight ahead, at the wall, not at me.

“Cermak had me in for a talk,” I said.

Nitti turned his head to look right at me; it had to be painful — he moved like the Man in the Iron Mask. His teeth were together when he said, “Cermak.”

“I’m opening up a little private agency. Cop is the only trade I got. Cermak’ll block my license if I don’t play ball.”

Nitti turned his head back and looked toward the wall again. “Cermak,” he said again.

“And I killed a guy up there, Frank.”

Nitti’s mouth twitched in a one-sided smirk. “Nobody important.”

“Not to you, maybe. I didn’t like doing it. And since I’m the only copper up there who managed to kill somebody, I’m the one to take the fall if the stories don’t jibe.”

Nitti didn’t say anything.

“If you have any other ideas, I’m open,” I said.

Nitti said, “I don’t suppose you’d want something with my outfit.”

I shook my head. “It’d be no different than the cops. It’s something I want out of altogether. Thank you, though, Frank.”

Nitti’s eyes looked at me. They were amused. “You’re a pal of Ness’, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling a little, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “But I ain’t no Boy Scout.”

“I know,” Nitti said. “I remember the Lingle case.”

A voice behind me said, “Frank. Please.” It was Dr. Ronga.

“Un momento, Papa,” Nitti said.

Ronga shook his head, shut the door, and Nitti and I — and Mutt, who was seated over in the corner — were alone again.

“I want you to know,” Nitti said, “that I hold you no grudge. I understand your position. No reprisals will be taken against you. At this time, I don’t even think reprisals will be taken against Lang and Miller. The bastards. They are not worth the trouble. As Al used to say, ‘Don’t stir up the heat.’”

I smiled a little. “Did he say that before or after Saint Valentine’s Day?”

Nitti smiled a little, too. “After kid. After.”

“I better be going. You get some rest. If you want to see me again, just call. You don’t need to send anybody for me.”

“Good. But stay a few moments. There are some things you need to know.”

“Oh?”

“You know Cermak was ours, don’t you? Al helped get him in, you know.”

I nodded. Cermak’s association with the Capone gang went back at least as far as when Tony was “mayor of Cook County,” and let Cicero happen.

“But now this fair is coming in. This world’s fair. And there’s gonna be a lot of money to be made. People coming from all over. Hicks and high-hats and everybody between. And they’re gonna want things. They’re gonna need things. And somebody’s gonna provide things. Whores. Gambling. Beer — on the fairgrounds if it’s legal by then, in the speaks if not. Either way, it’ll be our beer they’re drinkin’. Lot of money to be made. I ain’t telling you nothing you don’t already know.

“But the bankers and the other swells, they know Chicago’s got a bad rep. In fact, this fair they’re throwing is supposed to bring people back here, to see what a great place this is, safe, wonderful, and all. So how can somebody like Ten Percent Tony clean the city up and still give the people what they want — like whores and gambling and booze — and keep his pockets nice and full, too? By putting the screws to us, the old Capone mob. The feds got a lot of mileage out of sending Al up. Your pal Ness got lots of press, ‘Eliot Press’ we call him, the fed who announces his next raid in the papers.” He laughed, and flinched just a bit.

I said, “So Cermak’s connecting with the smaller mobs, then. Roger Touhy. Ted Newberry. Small fry he can control, manipulate.”

Nitti looked at me so hard it about knocked me over. “And throw us to the goddamn wolves. The people who made the son of a bitch.”

“You’re probably right, Frank. But what does it have to do with me?”

Nitti smiled. “I just thought you’d like to know that Ted Newberry put up fifteen thousand dollars for anybody who’d bump me off.”

I leaned forward. “You’re sure of this?”

“Dead sure. And added to all the other ways those sons of bitches Miller and Lang screwed you is they weren’t gonna cut you in.”

I just sat there.

“Just thought you’d like to know,” Nitti said.

I stood. “Thanks, Frank. I hope you get well.”

“You know,” Nitti said, “I believe you do.”

The fix was in at the inquest. It was held in a meeting room at the morgue, presided over by the coroner. Since all the cops on Cermak’s hoodlum squad were officially deputy coroners, the phrase “conflict of interest” might come to mind. But not in Chicago.

Cermak had covered himself, where I was concerned: I was never asked to give my version — or any version — of Frank Nitti being shot. A signed statement by the still-hospitalized Lang was entered, which covered the Nitti shooting, and Miller testified to his part in the proceedings and backed up Lang’s story (though he had not been in the room with us). The questions the coroner asked me were limited to the second, fatal shooting, with the foregone conclusion that the truth on the Nitti matter had already been entered into the record.

The rest of the (you should excuse the expression) gang from the office at the Wacker-Lasalle all testified as well: Palumbo, Campagna, the accountant, the two runners. None of them were asked anything about the Nitti shooting — and, in fairness, none of them had been in the room when it happened, so why should they — and all of them confirmed my version of the death of one Frank Hurt (which sounded like something Nitti might’ve muttered deliriously on his way to the hospital). Hurt panicked, Palumbo said; the kid had commented on having an out-of-state warrant against him and not wanting to go in for a showup, and Campagna had suggested he take the ledge over to the fire escape while he had the chance. And I’d come in and somebody had thrown him a gun and I’d shot him. Everybody told it the same; nobody (including me) seemed to know where the gun had come from.

I think Nitti had put the fix in, too; I was starting to be glad he and I’d had that little talk. Both he and Cermak had made the inquest easy for me.

So it was cut-and-dried. But it didn’t start till ten-thirty, and with all those witnesses, it dragged on, and I missed a lunch date with Janey. I caught her in the office at the county treasurer’s at City Hall by phone, about two, and apologized for standing her up.

“Did it come out okay?” she said. There was just the slightest edge of irritation in her voice. “The inquest?”

“Yeah. I came out smelling like a rose. So why do I feel like I need a shower?”

“There’s a shower at my place,” she said, sounding friendlier.

“Yeah, I remember.”

Janey, incidentally, was a lovely girl of twenty-five years and 125 well-placed pounds; with darkish blond hair worn short and wavy, and dark brown eyes highlighted by long, standing-at-attention lashes. She was smart as she was beautiful, and she let me sleep with her once a week or so, as soon as I started talking marriage. We’d been talking marriage for almost three years now, and I’d given her a little diamond last year. I only had one problem with Janey: I wasn’t sure if what I felt for her was love, exactly. I also wasn’t sure if it mattered.

“I’ll make lunch up to you,” I said.