Max Collins - True Detective

“I know you will,” she said, like a threat.

“How about tonight? I’ll take you someplace expensive.”

“I’m working late tonight. You can come out to my place if you want. About nine-thirty. I’ll fix sandwiches.”

“Okay. And tomorrow night, we’ll take in the Bismarck dining room.”

“I’d settle for the Berghoff — that’s expensive enough.”

“We’ll do the Bismarck. It’s a special night. I have something special to tell you.”

Real special: I hadn’t broken it to her yet that I’d quit the department.

“I already know, Nate,” she said.

“What?”

“It was in the papers today. Just a little footnote to one of the follow-up articles on the shooting. That officer Nathan Heller had resigned to pursue a career in private business.”

“I, uh — I wanted to tell you about it myself.”

“You can, tonight. I’m not crazy about you quitting the department, but if your uncle Louis has offered you a position, I think that’s fine.”

Janey was like that: jumping to conclusions based upon her own desires.

“Yeah, well, let’s talk about it tonight,” I said.

“Good. I love you, Nate.”

She didn’t whisper it, which meant she was in the office alone.

“Love you, Janey.”

That afternoon I moved out of the Adams and into the office in Barney’s building. Barney had moved fast: a big brown box was against the right wall as you came in, next to the closet door. The box was a Murphy bed; he’d even got sheets and blankets for me, which were in a drawer at the bottom of the box, under where the bed fell down out of it when you pulled the latch, which I did. It was a double bed, no less; Barney was being optimistic for me. I stretched out on the bare mattress. It wasn’t as comfy as Janey’s bed, but it beat the hell out of what I had at the Adams. I studied where some paint was starting to peel on the ceiling, for a while, then got up; put the bed back up and in.

The closet was hardly spacious, but it was roomy enough for my three suits. And I had a box of books and other personal junk, which I slid onto the shelf at the top of the closet; it just fit. My suitcase went on the floor in there; I figured to live out of the suitcase, till I got some kind of dresser or something.

Which presented a problem: How could I make this place look like an office and not a place I lived in? I didn’t think that would impress prospective clients much: an office with a dresser and a Murphy bed in it, an office that was obviously where this poverty-stricken private dick was forced to live. It wouldn’t inspire confidence.

Well, the Murphy bed I couldn’t do anything about; but I could get around the dresser. I’d get ahold of a couple filing cabinets, or maybe one big multi-drawer one, and file my clothes and such in the bottom drawers. And speaking of bottom drawers, I could then file my underwear under U , I supposed. I smiled to myself, shook my head; this was ridiculous. What was I thinking of, giving up the cops and a life of crime for this? I was sitting on the edge of the desk, laughing silently at myself, when I noticed the phone.

A black, candlestick phone with a brand-new Chicago phone book next to it. My flat-nosed Jewish mother, Barney Ross, did work fast. Bless him.

So I sat behind the desk and I tried it out. I called my uncle Louis at the Dawes Bank. He and I weren’t particularly close, but we kept in touch, and I hadn’t talked to him since this mess began, and I thought I should. I also thought he might be able to get me a couple file cabinets wholesale.

I had to go through three secretaries to get him, but I got him.

“Are you all right, Nate?” he said. He sounded genuinely worried. But this was Wednesday, and the shooting was Monday, and I didn’t exactly remember Uncle Louis calling on me at the Adams to express his concern.

“I’m fine. They had an inquest today, and I’m completely in the clear.”

“As well you should be. You deserve a medal for shooting those hoodlums.”

“The city council’s giving me three hundred bucks. Me and Miller and Lang, each of us get that. And commendations. That’s like getting a medal, I suppose.”

“You should be honored. You don’t sound it.”

“I’m not. I quit the department, you know.”

“I know, I know.”

“You saw it in the papers, too, huh?”

“I heard.”

Where would Uncle Louis have heard?

“Nate,” he said. “Nathan.”

Something was coming; otherwise it would’ve just been Nate.

“Yes, Uncle Louis?”

“I wondered could I have lunch with you tomorrow.”

“Certainly. Who’s buying?”

“Your rich uncle, of course. You’ll come?”

“Sure. Where?”

“Saint Hubert’s.”

“That’s pretty fancy. My rich uncle’s going to have to pick up the tab if we go there. I never been there before.”

“Well, be there tomorrow, promptly at noon.”

“Promptly, huh? Okay. You’re the boss; you’re the only rich relative I got.”

“Dress nice, Nate.”

“I’ll wear the clean suit.”

“I’d appreciate that. We won’t be dining alone.”

“Oh?”

“There’s someone who wants to meet you.”

“Who would that be?”

“Mr. Dawes.”

“Yeah, sure. Rufus or the General?”

“The General.”

“Say, you aren’t kidding, are you?”

“Not in the least.”

“The biggest banker in Chicago wants to see me? Former vice-president of these United States meets former member of the downtown division’s pickpocket detail?”

“That’s correct.”

“Why, for Christ’s sake?”

“Can I count on you for noon, Nathan?”

Nathan again!

“Of course you can. Hell. Maybe we can stick Dawes for the check.”

“Noon, Nathan,” Uncle Louis said humorlessly.

I sat looking at the phone, after hanging up, for maybe ten minutes, trying to figure this. And it just didn’t figure. Cermak and Nitti wanting to see me was one thing; Dawes was something else again. I couldn’t work it out.

And I had forgot to ask about the file cabinets.

At about six, I went down onto the street and found another cool evening waiting for me — the day had been cloudy, no snow, a little rain, and the sidewalk was shiny, wet. Van Buren Street itself, though, sheltered by the El tracks, looked dry. A streetcar slid by, obscuring the store across the way — Bailey’s Uniforms — for just a moment. I walked to the restaurant around the corner from Barney’s building; it was a white building with a vertical sign that spelled out

B

I

N

Y

O

N

’

S

in neon-outlined white letters against black, with the word “Restaurant” horizontally below in black cursive neon against white. Not a cheap place, but they didn’t rob you either, and the food was good, and since I’d missed lunch I decided I could afford something better than a one-arm joint.

I couldn’t afford it, really: I’d get one more paycheck from the department and then would have to dig into the couple thousand I had salted away — a combination of the remainder of the small estate my pa left and money I’d been putting aside for a house for after Janey and I got married.

I had about an hour to kill before hopping the El to go out to Janey’s flat on the near North Side, so I hit Barney’s blind pig again, and Barney was in there, sitting in a booth with a hardly touched beer; he lit up like July 4 when he saw me.

I was embarrassed. What can you say when somebody goes that far out of his way for you?

“Might’ve made up the bed, you thoughtless bastard,” I said, with a sour smile.

“Go to hell,” he said pleasantly.