“But you can stay, Heller—run a tab on the house. Some decent girls are comin’ out. You see anything you like, just tell Fred…the bartender.”
“Well, thanks, Sam…”
“But they’re not hookers, understand. Lay a double saw-buck on ’em in the morning, as a kind of gift, and you’ll have a friend for life.”
Giancana walked toward the exit, and his bodyguard— Sally—scampered after him, like a two-hundred-fifty-pound puppy. It was still daylight out there, and a slice of it knifed into the smoky joint, as the gangster and his thug slipped out.
I finished my drink, but I didn’t stick around, and I sure as hell didn’t take him up on his offer of my pick of the girls. It wasn’t that I was above that sort of thing; but I wasn’t sure I wanted a friend for life.
Particularly one named Sam Giancana.
My neighbor the Federal Building (which was also the United States Courthouse) was a cross-shaped eight-story structure perched on Dearborn, between Adams and Jackson, extending to Clark, with an octagonal domed central tower adding another seven imposing stories. The grim splendor of the building’s ornate Roman Corinthian design seemed an apropos setting for dramatic trials of national note, like the $29 million judgment against Standard Oil and the Al Capone tax case…both matters of big business, after all.
In addition to the impressive courtrooms—with their William B. Van Ingren murals depicting the development of law over the ages—the Federal Building was also a rabbit’s warren of hearing rooms, offices, and conference chambers, as well as cubbyholes where distinguished lawyers and jurists could cut their sleazy deals.
Kefauver had been given one of the cubbyholes: a modest, windowless room to set up his temporary office, with space for a desk, a few hard chairs, and a bookend-style pair of file cabinets, with cardboard boxes of file folders stacked precariously along the plaster walls. It was as if the senator had been assigned a storage room that happened to include a desk.
I was sitting across from the Democratic congressman from Tennessee, who—when I’d stuck my head in the open door of his cubicle—had stood behind the file-cluttered desk, rising to an impressive six foot three or maybe four, extending me not only his hand but a wide, ingratiating grin.
In his rolled-up shirt sleeves and suspenders, his blue-and-red patterned tie loose under a prominent adam’s apple, Kefauver gave an immediate impression of unpretentiousness, a tall, angular, lanky individual with searching eyes behind round-framed tortoise-shell glasses and a beaky nose that swooped to a peak; facially, he struck me as a cross between Abe Lincoln and Pa Kettle.
“Mr. Heller,” he said, in an easy, drawling, soft-spoken manner (he didn’t have to be wearing his coonskin cap for you to guess he came from the South), “I am very grateful to you for agreeing to see me at such short notice…and on a Saturday.”
I’d received the message toward the end of business, yesterday—Kefauver was arriving from Kansas City that night, and requested a one-on-one meeting with me, Saturday morning.
I was sitting with my raincoat and fedora in my lap. “That’s all right, Senator—my office is just across the street, and I was planning to come in, anyway. I often save paperwork and letters for Saturday mornings, when the phone doesn’t ring.”
“And I wanted to speak to you without my staff present,” he said with a gesture of a frying-pan hand. “They’re great people, but you know, lawyers—particularly prosecutors—are sometimes, well, deficient in social skills.”
“I don’t think we could pack your staff in here, if we tried.”
Kefauver chuckled once, but his grin was endless. He gestured with both big hands. “I know—beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. I never did figure to be popular in Chicago…. But we do have the use of a conference room, and we’ll have hearing room space, as well.”
“I understand you’re getting started soon.”
“Next week…. And I understand you’re reluctant to testify.”
I shrugged, grinned back at him. “Let’s just say I’m not anxious—on the other hand, I haven’t come down with a case of Kefauveritis.”
A nod and another wide smile. “Ah yes—that mysterious new ailment…the most pronounced symptom of which is an irresistible urge to travel.”
“But I do know my constitutional rights, Senator—I can decline to answer on the fifth amendment; and I can protect my clients on grounds of confidentiality.”
He nodded some more; his goofy-looking combination of hayseedish and professorial qualities was oddly appealing. “That’s true—as I understand it from my associates, your standard operating procedure with criminal cases is to work for the attorneys of the client, not the clients themselves.”
“That’s right.”
“Well that’s a very clever approach. You’re serving your clients effectively, and that’s exactly what you’re supposed to be doing…. You can’t be faulted for that. And I wouldn’t dream of asking you to betray your profession’s code of ethics.”
I tried to find sarcasm in that, without success.
“Senator, if I might explain myself further…?”
“Certainly.”
“I don’t mean to be a hostile witness. It’s just that I don’t approve of your committee’s methods. Your traveling circus rolls into town, you make a lot of noise, cause a lot of trouble, and move on, leaving the rest of us to clean up after the elephants.”
He was sitting back in his swivel chair, arms folded; friendly though his expression was, he was clearly appraising me. “I can understand your point of view, Mr. Heller—but you need to understand mine: my aim is to expose the influence of the underworld on American life.”
“That simple, is it?”
“And that complex. This is the fullest, most public investigation of organized crime ever attempted in America—and we have captured the attention, and more importantly the imagination, of the press and the public. By the time we hit New York—the climax of our ‘circus’—we will be fully televised. The average American, for the first time, will be aware of the national crime syndicate—thanks to our efforts, the word ‘Mafia’ is already entering the national vocabulary.”
I sighed. “I don’t mean to knock you off your high horse, Senator—but if you really meant that, you’d be going after more than just gambling.”
Sitting forward, he fixed a penetrating gaze on me. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Heller—it’s the tie-up between crime and politics that most makes me sick…the rottenness in public life. But from what I hear and read about you, you’re a pragmatic man…and you’ll understand that I have to start somewhere.”
“Plus you don’t want to alienate these political machines that you’re gonna depend on when you run for the presidency.”
He grunted a humorless laugh. “Oh, I already have alienated them—and will further, here in Chicago, by moving the hearings up before the election.”
“Well…I have to admire your balls for that. Senator. If you’ll excuse the crudity.”
“I appreciate the compliment. Also, that you seem to understand what’s at risk for me, personally.”
I shrugged. “You may do fine without the political machines—after all, the public dearly loves a gangbuster.”
That seemed to amuse him, and he leaned his elbow against the desk and his chin against his hand. “Would it surprise you, Mr. Heller, to find out I’m a gambler myself? I do relish a good horse race.”
“I’ve heard that, Senator.” I didn’t mention I’d also heard this father of four had an eye for the skirts.
“So you might think I’m a hypocrite.” He leaned back in the chair again, rocking a little. “But it’s a bit like the situation your friend Eliot Ness was in, back in Prohibition days. Mr. Ness, I understand, likes to take a drink now and then.”