For Heller to develop as a character in his historical context, I considered it necessary for him to leave the ’30s and ’40s behind and move into the ’50s and ’60s. Since The Million-Dollar Wound (1985), in which real-life police hero William Drury was first introduced as a recurring figure in Nate Heller’s life, I have known that the Kefauver inquiry—Drury’s role in which led to his murder—was a necessary (and potentially powerful) subject for exploration in these memoirs.
This novel serves as an introduction to—and a bridge into—the 1950s and ’60s, should my readers (and the publishing industry) be interested in following my detective and me into these fascinating, suitably crime-filled eras. Thus this novel centers not on a famous crime so much as a famous time in crime, when the TV-fueled shadow of congressional inquiries…not only Kefauver’s beneficial one but McCarthy’s injurious one…fell across the American landscape. The unsolved murder of William Drury—the theory behind the solution of which I, as usual, stand behind—may not have the household-name familiarity of some of Heller’s previous cases; but it remains an historically significant, important, even pivotal crime.
My research assistant George Hagenauer and I began gathering material for this novel in 1985—and our first hurdle, sixteen years later, was locating the research materials we’d assembled for a book we had both back in ’85 assumed would be happening soon; and our second one was refamiliarizing ourselves with that material, specifically, and with Chicago mob history, in general.
I had the additional chore of renewing my general Chicago chops (George, born and raised in Chicago, has this stuff in his blood). I always thank George for his help, but this time I really should shout that gratitude from a rooftop. (Also, though he hasn’t taken an active role in the research in some time, Mike Gold was one of the original architects of the Heller Chicago/mob history; thanks, Mike.)
Much of what George gathered for Chicago Confidential was original newspaper material, and he also scoured the bound volumes of the Kefauver Crime Committee testimony, sending along to me reams of photocopied material from both sources. This book draws more than anything on the original coverage in the Chicago press and those bound volumes of testimony. The scene involving Dan “Tubbo” Gilbert’s appearance before the Kefauver Committee incorporates material from a Gilbert appearance before the Chicago Crime Commission as well as newspaper interviews.
As indicated in the text, the lively journalism of Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer was key to this work; if my portrait of Mortimer was in any way unflattering, chalk that up to his karma…but know that I love reading the Lait/Mortimer Confidential books, which have had a huge influence on the Heller memoirs, never more so than this time around. Chicago Confidential (1950), Washington Confidential (1951), and U.S.A. Confidential (1952) all extensively cover the Chicago mob, the Drury story, and the Kefauver inquiry. I also consulted an imitation of their successful series, Washington Lowdown (1956), by Larston D. Farrar.
Most of the characters in this book are real-life figures and appear under their actual names. Jackie Payne is a fictional character, however, suggested by Rocco Fischetti’s documented wenching and woman-beating, including throwing a former Miss Chicago out of the Barry Apartments penthouse, leaving her and her bags on the nearest street corner. Fred Rubinski is a fictionalized Barney Ruditsky, a real-life ex-cop turned private eye in Los Angeles. Tim O’Conner is a fictional character, as is lawyer Kurnitz; both have historical counterparts, though I do not mean to impart the sins of the fictional characters upon the real people. O’Conner is designed to suggest that traitors existed on the police force, while Kurnitz suggests the not too radical theory that criminal lawyers are sometimes as much criminal as lawyer.
My portrait of Estes Kefauver is drawn primarily from the following sources: Estes Kefauver: A Biography (1980), Charles L. Fontenay; Kefauver (1971), Joseph Bruce Gorman; The Kefauver Story (1956), Jack Anderson and Fred Blumenthal; and Standing Up for the People: The Life and Work of Estes Kefauver (1972), Harvey Swados.
Two books relating to Kefauver, however, must be singled out as particularly key to this noveclass="underline" the first-rate scholarly work The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime, 1950-1952 (1974), William Howard Moore; and the senator’s own Crime in America (1951), Estes Kefauver. Also, in addition to photocopies of actual testimony, I used the government document The Third Interim Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce (1951).
I am an enormous Frank Sinatra fan, with an extensive library of books on the singer, his life, and his art; the portrait in this novel—meant to be fair and even affectionate, without ducking certain realities—was primarily drawn from Frank Sinatra: An American Legend (1995, 1998), Nancy Sinatra; Frank Sinatra: Is This Man Mafia? (1979), George Carpozi, Jr.; His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra (1986), Kitty Kelley; Sinatra: Behind the Legend (1997), J. Randy Taraborrelli; and The Sinatra Files: The Secret FBI Dossier (2000), Tom Kuntz and Phil Kuntz, editors. Some Sinatra fans may object to my using the Kelley book as a source; I feel this is balanced out by the Nancy Sinatra biography, which has an excellent year by year (sometimes day by day!) breakdown of her father’s remarkable life.
Jayne Mansfield and her first husband Paul are, obviously, real people; I remind my readers that these are, like all of the characterizations in this novel, fictionalizations. The story Vera tells in this novel about her rape is one reported in several books and something she apparently told from time to time; but I have reason to disbelieve it—and its suggestion about the paternity of her first child. Also, the events in her life described herein—including her studying at UCLA and her attempt to become Miss California, as well as Paul’s objections to both— have been moved in time a few months, to accommodate the needs of this narrative. Consulted were Jayne Mansfield’s Wild, Wild World (1963), Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay; Jayne Mansfield (1973), May Mann; Sexbomb: The Life and Death of Jayne Mansfield (1988), Guus Luijters and Gerard Timmer; The Tragic Secret Life of Jayne Mansfield (1974), Raymond Strait; and Va Va Voom! (1995), Steve Sullivan. Strait also published Here They Are—Jayne Mansfield (1992), with a new copyright and no mention of the earlier Tragic Secret Life, although they appear to be substantially the same book with different pictures.
Major sources for the Drew Pearson characterization were Confessions of a Muckraker (1979), Jack Anderson with James Boyd, and Drew Pearson: An Unauthorized Biography (1973), Oliver Pilat. Although I have gathered numerous books on Joseph McCarthy and the McCarthy Era, his characterization here primarily depended upon The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy (1982), Thomas C. Reeves, and McCarthy—the Man, the Senator, the “Ism” (1952), Jack Anderson and Ronald W. May. Jack Anderson wins the M.V.P. award for writing three of the books I used as sources on three different subjects touched upon (in addition to being a character—albeit an offstage one) in this novel.
Three books on Chicago crime were very helpfuclass="underline" Barbarians in Our Midst (1952), Virgil Peterson (with a Kefauver introduction); Syndicate City (1954), Alson J. Smith; and To Serve and Collect (1998), Richard C. Lindberg. The latter covers the Drury case in some depth, as does George Murray’s The Madhouse on Madison Street (1965), a book on Chicago newspapermen in which Drury is viewed in the context of his journalistic endeavors.