Стивен Хантер - G-Man

That set him up for his second job, the dinner he would have at Sam’s place that night in Evanston. In the big new car, the drive was easily handled, pleasant. No traffic on the Outer Drive. The city fathers were glamorously developing the lakefront, and new hotels, including a pink thing called the Edgewater Beach, were rising, turning the zone into a kind of Miami.

At Belmont, the drive turned into the traffic-light-stunted Sheridan Road, and Charles poked through the edge of the North Side until he reached a cemetery, said to be a holding spot for gangsters waiting to get into hell, that marked the passage between Chicago and the pleasant city of Evanston. Evanston had elms, lots of them, and old, big houses, lots of them, and colleges, lots of them, and traffic, not so much of it. Within a few minutes, he found the intersection of Sheridan and Noyes, turned left, and halfway down the block came to 624, a vast place roughly thrown together of brown timber and sandstone boulders. It had porches everywhere and a roof line as complicated as Texas history, with gables and mansards and crests somehow forming a whole, which seemed to indicate an interior rich in passageways, secret rooms, unexpected stairways, closets everywhere, odd-shaped bedrooms, as if sort of invented on the spot, not drawn from any plan. The house sat under trees, between Sheridan and the next main stem, an Orrington Avenue, on a large chunk of land, guarded by a front porch that looked like the entrance to a castle of some sort. The whole thing in fact was a castle or fortress in mentality, presumably unassailable by anything short of Big Bertha or some other piece of Krupp hellaciousness.

He parked, went up the stairs, knocked, and Sam opened, immaculate in three-piece and tie, and brought him in. Charles was glad he’d worn his own suit, though he didn’t ever not wear it.

If the atmosphere outside was Medieval, the atmosphere inside was childish. Children lived here, lots of them, and their smell, clutter, noise, and business were everywhere. Sam led him through a foyer to a grand living room that ran half the length of the house, uttering pleasantries.

“Thanks so much for coming up, Charles. I hope it wasn’t difficult.”

“No problem, a nice night for a drive.”

“Pardon the mess, but having six children is like having six horses under the same roof. You never get it cleaned up, you just get the mess under control, temporarily. Here, meet the brood and the heroic brood mare. KIDS!” he yelled.

They seemed to come out of holes in the walls, from under the furniture, through windows, down chutes and up ladders, more or less assembling themselves into a skittish mass of constrained energy and temporary attention. He was introduced one by one to towheaded boys and girls cut from the same perfect mold, running from fourteen years down to fourteen months, all more or less clean, more or less civil, but minds clearly set on adventures and mischief, not the tall, stolid figure before them.

Then the Mrs. Her name was Betty, still a beauty, tawny, blond, and sturdy. She’d been cooking but disengaged easily enough and greeted Charles graciously, making him feel her whole purpose in life was to ease his way. She was like one of those good officers’ wives he’d met in the war stateside, a campaigner, game, tough, worked like a dog without a complaint, and always there for everybody who needed her.

It wasn’t lost on Charles that this was a life worth aspiring to: respect, progeny, the best in shelter, prosperity, the best that America had to offer a man from nowhere, as he was, as Sam was.

“I’ll spare you the tour,” Sam said. “Unless you like socks, dirty underwear, unmade beds, broken toys, dolls missing heads, single shoes, and the odor of a monkey den.”

Charles laughed.

“Sounds like a few barracks I’ve been in,” he said. “Don’t think it would faze me much.”

“Actually, now that we’ve got a little time, I’d like to talk to you. Away from the office, so that no one will worry about it and spread rumors and Hugh Clegg won’t panic and wire the Director and Mel won’t figure it’s about him and call a news conference.”

“Sure,” said Charles.

“I could use a drink. I’m Mormon, but since I’m also an Elder, I grant myself one day’s dispensation. Not sure you’re a drinker.”

“I had a bad spell with the hooch when I got back from the war. But I got myself straightened out. I don’t drink the hard, but I can handle a beer or two.”

“Sounds good. Honey, can you open a couple Schlitzes? We’ll be on the patio.”

“Be right out,” Betty called, cheerily, from the kitchen.

Sam led him out a rear door, where they found a patio raised above ground level, a little redoubt from which a lord could survey his fief. The backyard seemed immense and it opened all the way around the side of the house. But as usual, trees everywhere, shrubs, the whole range of chlorophyll-kingdom enterprises, lurking, climbing, blossoming. Through the foliage, other equally prosperous houses were visible.

“Very nice here,” said Charles.

“I didn’t want the kids in the city. Evanston turned out to be perfect. They have a six-block walk to school, up Orrington Avenue. It’s a great school, I’m told, equal to anything in the East.”

“Beautiful place,” said Charles.

“The traffic isn’t bad if I drive, but mostly I just take a two-block walk to the El. Straight up Noyes. Gets me downtown in forty minutes.”

“That’s why you keep such long hours, I guess,” Charles said.

“I hope you like steak, Charles. Betty’s got three of the best rib eyes out there I’ve ever seen. She’ll get the kids down — we won’t put you through our mess-hall family-dinner ordeal, nobody deserves that.”

“It sounds great, Sam. Thanks so much for having me. I was getting tired of diner cooking.”

Betty came out and served the two beers in tall glasses, frosty up top, glistening with dew, yearning to be consumed. Charles lifted his, clanked a toast with Sam, who said, “To the end of the journey,” and each took a draught.

It was good, as Charles knew it would be, and it opened longings that he felt but knew he was strong enough to withstand. Now, what was this going to be? Had someone seen him with the known Italian Uncle Phil? Was he in trouble? Had Hugh Clegg brought off some coup to have him exiled, which was the same as having him fired, since he wouldn’t stay in the Division without Sam? Had some rumor, a suspicion, about a favor he may or may not have done for someone in Hot Springs in 1926 emerged? What the hell would this be?

“Charles, first off, between us, I just wanted to thank you for what you’ve brought to the office. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am.”

“Sam, I’m just doing my duty. Nothing special—”

“No, no, hear me out. You see, one of the things I have to know about is weakness. And I know my own as well as I know Clegg’s scheming bitterness and Mel’s vanity and Ed Hollis’s lack of a first-class brain. Here’s mine, Charles: I don’t like the violence. To be honest, it scares me. Maybe I’ve got too much to lose, unlike some of the others—”

“Sam, nobody likes the violence.”

“Well, I really don’t like it. So it was important to me that I find somebody who knew it, could lead the boys through it and bring most of them home, who was as brave as he was honorable, who would be the me I could never be. I couldn’t have done better. My first choice, Frank Hamer, with his big ways and hunger for glory, would have been a disaster, I see that now. Charles Swagger has been my finest triumph.”

“We’ll get you trained on the guns, and when you know how to shoot, the ugly stuff won’t be a problem. The guns will get you through it.”