Стивен Хантер - G-Man

“Is that a Monitor number?”

“It is. I have a guy big in collecting circles with a contact at Colt. Called him, he made the call, called me back. It was a Monitor, one of a run of a hundred and twenty-five made in 1931, sold to Dallas Mercantile and Security in February of 1932. No further information.”

“And Jimmie is Nelson.”

“Yeah, because he’s down as buying a .38 Super Colt machine pistol from Mr. Lebman in mid-1932, and that gun was found in a Dillinger arms cache in St. Paul in ’34. Testimony from gang associates puts it as a gift from Nelson to his hero, Johnny.”

“Solid,” said Nick.

“But we can’t prove the comp in Charles’s strongbox was the comp on the Monitor sold to Baby Face. It’s not a serial-numbered part. Still, it strongly suggests that Charles had an interaction with Baby Face in 1934 and somehow came into possession of the comp, maybe the whole gun. As I said, circumstantial, provocative — it certainly would follow that Charles could have that interaction only as a member of the Bureau. But… it don’t prove nothing.”

“And now for the bad news,” said Nick.

“Wait, I missed the good news,” said Bob.

“You ID’d the muzzle brake. You made it to Baby Face, then to Charles. It’s getting tighter and tighter. Tight enough for public consumption. Well, I came up with something too. Or, rather, our senior historian came up with it and sent it on to me.”

“Bad news?”

“Probably not. But you should know, it should be in the air, and it’s something we should look to disprove.”

“You’ve got me all tangled up.”

“Come over here.”

Nick led him to his computer, where he opened email, selected a message topic-lined “Recording,” from the official Bureau address, and opened it.

“He came across a cardboard box marked ‘Arkansas.’ Went through it, nothing of note but an old reel of magnetic-tape recording. He played it. Nothing on it but a recording someone had made in early December of 1934 of the Walter Winchell Show . Know him?”

“Some big news guy?”

“Gossip, more like. Claimed to have the inside scoop. New York columnist, syndicated all over the place, got a network radio show when network radio was the TV of America. He was pals with lots of big shots, including a certain Director of the FBI, which wasn’t even the ‘FBI’ until six months later.”

“Okay. It has to do with Arkansas? So what?”

“Let me play it for you. If the voice is familiar, it’s because you’re old enough to have watched The Untouchables as a kid, and Winchell was the narrator on that show.”

Nick moved the cursor to an icon in the text of the message, hit “Enter,” and a voice emerged from eighty-odd years ago over the speakers, stentorian, witless, full of rectitude and certainty.

“Now, I’ll never criticize Mr. J. Edgar,” said Winchell into a radio mic the size of a hubcap in a studio in Manhattan on that cold December night, and Nick and Bob listened to it through technology Winchell couldn’t have imagined eighty-three years later, “and the job he and his boys are doing against vermin like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson, Public Enemies Number One, who are now Public Enemies Number Dead. But even J. Edgar makes mistakes. It seems one of the boys wasn’t up to the task of going gun to gun against the Tommy-toting gangsters and he cut and ran — all the way to Hicktown, Arkansas, where he came from. Quitters never win and winners never quit. What that shows is two things: first, Mr. Hoover is capable of making a mistake. He’s human too, after all, and admits it. Second, there’s no room for yellow among the red, white, and blue.”

“Can’t be Charles Swagger,” said Bob. “That old bastard didn’t have any run in him.”

“I’m not saying it is,” said Nick. “But it could be aimed at Charles. It meant to destroy him. Someone in high places used Winchell to smear the only man in Arkansas who’d been in the Division. Really, to crush him. It’s like erasing. I don’t know what he did, but he managed to get folks real angered.”

“A coward? No,” said Bob, but, even so, he didn’t like the feel, the sound, the direction. He shuddered. “A bastard. A crook, maybe. A drunk, absolutely. But a coward? No way.”

CHICAGO

August 1934

Another stakeout. This one was off a Purvis tip, so Purvis ran it. It was pure theater. Charles knew that he’d hear about Baby Face from Uncle Phil alone, and any other source was almost certainly bogus. But protocols had to be observed and so he and a team of young fellows set up in cars on the North Side, around a joint called The Yellow Parrot, once a favorite of Big Al’s, and said, for tonight at least, to be a spot where Baby Face might make his presence known. In the cars was enough heavy artillery to make him regret the decision.

Charles, a Thompson with a fifty-round drum in his lap pressing heavily against his legs, sat breathing through a tailor-made in Division car number 13, a big Hudson, with Ed Hollis behind the wheel, his Browning rifle in the backseat for a fast grab if it happened, which it wouldn’t. They smoked, they felt their wristwatches ticking the night away, they watched the occasional drunk stagger this way or that from one North Side gin joint to another, they tried to stay alert and ready.

“It’s not going to happen, is it, Sheriff?” asked Ed.

“Probably not.”

“I thought Baby Face was a homebody. He’d be screwing Helen, not prowling jazz cribs on the North Side.”

“That’s what they say. But maybe it’s a professional meet, a job-planning session. That might get him out on the town.”

“Wouldn’t you see other faces on the wall in there by now?”

“You would. Inspector Purvis said he got this from a State Police informant inside a downstate car-theft ring, who’s known to sell heaps to the bank gangs. It could be legit. It ain’t, but it could be.”

Both men sighed, smiled, and settled back. These things were usually called off around 2 a.m. And that was an hour away, so there was nothing to do but squirm after comfort, stretch cramping neck muscles, keep the hands loose and flexible, and eat up time diddling with the makings of yet another tailor-made.

Suddenly a phantom swept before Charles on the right. It was Purvis. Charles rolled down the window.

“Charles, can you do me a favor?”

“Sure thing,” said Charles. “Name it.”

“I owe a reporter a favor. I also owe myself a favor because everyone thinks I’m just out promoting myself. So this guy from the Herald-Examiner got wind of tonight’s operation, and he’s showed up. Can you chat with him a few minutes? He’s pretty solid, can be trusted, okay?”

“Sure,” said Charles, “but I don’t know what I could tell him.”

“Tell him Dillinger’s last words. It’s something we haven’t released yet. He’ll appreciate it. It’s Page One for him. Then tell him you’ll return his phone calls. But of course never return his phone calls.”

“I never do,” said Charles.

He set the Thompson down, after pushing the SAFE lever into position, and slipped out of the Hudson. His legs issued distress as they unfolded and found themselves required to perform labor again. He twisted, stretched his back, and followed Purvis down the dark street and into an alley, where a man awaited.

Purvis handled the intros, and the fellow was a Dave Jessup, Chicago Herald-Examiner , one of the more respectable rags, and immediately impressed Charles as someone never to play poker with. Feral, over-alert, a little nervous. City rat, knew the angles, the deals, where the bodies rotted. Oh, and of course wiseguy. Smart aleck. Fast lip. Wanted to write movies and hang out with stars.