“I figured it was a stage name, but it’s the only name I knew him by.”
“He was born Peter Tessitorio,” Miller said, “in New York. He had a criminal background-two burglary raps.”
“I never knew that.”
Carstensen asked, “You’re a former police officer?”
“Yeah. I was a detective on the Chicago P.D. pickpocket detail till ’32.”
Miller asked, “You spent the afternoon with Clifton, in the company of two girls?”
“Yeah.”
“What are their names?”
“Peggy Simmons and Janet Windom. They live in an apartment house on Jefferson…I don’t know the address, but I can point you, if you want to talk to them.”
The two men exchanged glances.
“We’ve already picked them up,” Miller said. “They’ve been questioned, and they’re alibiing each other. They say they don’t know anybody who’d want to kill Clifton.”
“They’re just a couple of party girls,” I said.
Carstensen said, “We found a hypo and bottle of morphine in their apartment. Would you know anything about that?”
I sighed. “I noticed the tracks on the Simmons’ kid’s arms. I gave Pete hell, and he admitted to me he was giving them the stuff. He also indicated he had connections with some dope racketeer.”
“He didn’t give you a name?” Miller asked.
“No.”
“You’ve never heard of Leo Massey?”
“No.”
“Friend of Clifton’s. A known dope smuggler.”
I sipped my iced tea. “Well, other than those two girls, I don’t really know any of Clifton’s associates here in Miami.”
An eyebrow arched in Carstensen’s craggy puss. “You’d have trouble meeting Massey-he’s dead.”
“Oh?”
“He was found in Card Sound last September. Bloated and smellin’ to high heavens.”
“What does that have to do with Pete Clifton?”
Miller said, “Few days before Massey’s body turned up, that speedboat of his-the Screwball-got taken out for a spin.”
I shrugged. “That’s what a speedboat’s for, taking it out for a spin.”
“At midnight? And not returning till daybreak?”
“You’ve got a witness to that effect?”
Miller nodded.
“So Pete was a suspect in Massey’s murder?”
“Not exactly,” the State Attorney’s investigator said. “Clifton had an alibi-those two girls say he spent the night with ’em.”
I frowned in confusion. “I thought you had a witness to Clifton takin’ his boat out…”
Carstensen said, “We have a witness at the marina to the effect that the boat was taken out, and brought back-but nobody saw who the captain was.”
Now I was getting it. “And Pete said somebody must’ve borrowed his boat without his permission.”
“That’s right.”
“So, what? You’re making this as a gangland hit? But it was a woman who shot him.”
Miller asked, “Did you see that, Mr. Heller?”
“I heard the woman’s voice-I didn’t actually see her shoot him. Didn’t actually see her at all. But it seemed like she was agitated with Pete.”
Other witnesses had heard the woman yelling at Pete; so the cops knew I hadn’t made up this story.
“Could the woman have been a decoy?” Carstensen asked. “Drawn Clifton to that car for some man to shoot?”
“I suppose. But my instin is, Pete’s peter got him bumped. If I were you, fellas, I’d go over that apartment of his and look for love letters and the like; see if you can find a little black book. My guess is-somebody he was banging banged him back.”
They thanked me for my help, told me to stick around for the inquest on Tuesday, and turned me loose. I got in my rental Ford and drove to the Biltmore, went up to my room, ordered a room service supper, and gave Frank Nitti a call.
“So my name didn’t come up?” Nitti asked me over the phone.
“No. Obviously, I didn’t tell ’em you hired me to come down here; but they didn’t mention you, either. And the way they were giving out information, it would’ve come up. They got a funny way of interrogating you in Florida-they spill and you listen.”
“Did they mention a guy named McGraw?”
“No, Frank. Just this Leo Massey.”
“McGraw’s a rival dope smuggler,” Nitti said thoughtfully. “I understand he stepped in and took over Massey’s trade after Massey turned up a floater.”
“What’s that got to do with Clifton?”
“Nothin’ much-just that my people tell me McGraw’s a regular at the Chez Clifton. Kinda chummy with our comical late friend.”
“Maybe McGraw’s the potential investor Clifton was talking about-to take your place, Frank.”
Silence. Nitti was thinking.
Finally, he returned with, “Got another job for you, Nate.”
“I don’t know, Frank-I probably oughta keep my nose clean, do my bit at the inquest and scram outa this flamingo trap.”
“Another three C’s in it for you, kid-just to deliver another message. No rush-tomorrow morning’ll be fine.”
Did you hear the one about the comic who thought he told killer jokes? He died laughing.
“Anything you say, Frank.”
Eddie McGraw lived at the Delano, on Collins Avenue, the middle of a trio of towering hotels rising above Miami Beach like Mayan temples got out of hand. McGraw had a penthouse on the eleventh floor, and I had to bribe the elevator attendant to take me there.
It was eleven a.m. I wasn’t expecting trouble. My nine millimeter Browning was back in Chicago, in a desk drawer in my office. But I wasn’t unarmed-I had the name Frank Nitti in my arsenal.
I knocked on the door.
The woman who answered was in her late twenties-a brunette with big brown eyes and rather exaggerated features, pretty in a cartoonish way. She had a voluptuous figure, wrapped up like a present in a pink chiffon dressing gown.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Is Mr. McGraw home?”
She nodded. The big brown eyes locked onto me coldly, though her voice was a warm contralto: “Who should I say calling?”
“I’m a friend of Pete Clifton’s.”
“Would you mind waiting in the hall?”
“Not at all.”
She shut the door, and a few seconds later, it flew back open, revealing a short but sturdy looking guy in a red sportshirt and gray slacks. He was blond with wild thatches of overgrown eyebrow above sky-blue eyes; when you got past a bulbous nose, he kind of looked like James Cagney.
“I don’t do business at my apartment,” he said. His voice was high-pitched and raspy. He started to shut the door and I stopped it with my hand.
He shoved me, and I went backward, but I latched onto his wrist, and pushed his hand back, and pulled him forward, out into the hall, until he was kneeling in front of me.
“Frank Nitti sent me,” I said, and released the pressure on his wrist.
He stood, ran a hand through slicked back blond hair that didn’t need straightening, and said, “I don’t do business with Nitti.”
“I think maybe you should. You know about Pete’s killing?”
“I saw the morning paper. I liked Pete. He was funny. He was an all right guy.”
“Yeah, he was a card. Did he by any chance sell you an interest in the Chez Clifton?”
McGraw frowned at me; if he’d been a dog, he’d have growled. “I told you…what’s your name, anyway?”
“Heller. Nate Heller.”
“I don’t do business at my apartment. My wife and me, we got a life separate from how I make my living. Got it?”
“Did Pete sell you an interest in the Chez Clifton?”
He straightened his collar, which also didn’t need it. “As a matter of fact, he did.”
“Then you were wrong about not doing business with Frank Nitti.”
McGraw sneered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mr. Nitti would like to discuss that with you himself.” I handed him a slip of paper. “He’s in town, at his estate on Di Lido Island. He’d like to invite you to join him there for lunch today.”
“Why should I?”
I laughed once, a hollow thing. “Mr. McGraw, I don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t put your hands on me again. I’m just delivering a message. But I will tell you this-I’m from Chicago, and when Frank Nitti invites you for lunch, you go.”