I left after a little more talk. I had the feeling everything was all right on that angle. They had a good case and they were going to send him away.
That much was all right but I had other things on my mind. When I left the courts building and started downtown the blue Nash picked me up and followed me into the Loop. I stopped at a little dice joint on Jackson Boulevard and the blue Nash went past and I saw two men in the front seat. I knew by this time they were Banghart’s way of protecting his nine thousand dollars. My chances of taking any sudden trip out of Chicago were pretty slim.
I went into the dice joint and that’s where I learned the news had spread. A card game broke up when I came in and a couple of guys I knew pretty well said hello kind of nervously and then left in a hurry. The word was around town that I’d gone short on a big bet and a guy in that spot isn’t too healthy to have around.
I bought a pack of cigarettes and got out of there. I went back to my room and there weren’t any calls and there weren’t any bets and I knew that everyone was laying off me until I got myself back in the clear.
There wasn’t any use hanging around waiting for the phone to ring so I went out to a show and killed the afternoon. The picture was about a guy who gets shipwrecked on a little island where there aren’t any people except the natives. They were nice simple people and they brought him fruit and water and pretty soon he was all fixed up with the chief’s daughter. There was a lot of trouble later on because guys from the ship found the island and they got the idea of making slaves out of the natives. There was a lot of fighting but finally everything turned out all right.
When I came out the heat hit me hard so I ducked into an air-conditioned bar and had a couple of drinks. The picture had gotten my mind off everything for a while, but now it was all starting to come back. What I needed was an island like the guy in the picture, some place I could hole up and forget about everything.
There was the blonde. She had to go and I was afraid to try anything. There was Banghart. I had to get him off my back by Sunday night or I’d be through in town for good. His boys in the blue Nash wouldn’t be just watching me: they’d be looking for me.
I finished my drink and went back to my room and stretched out on the bed. I tried to push all thoughts out of my head but it wasn’t any good.
The phone rang after a while and it brought me up on one elbow, shaking with fear. I waited until it rang a third time and I picked it up and said, “Yes?”
It was Alice. I was excited and scared at the same time.
“Where are you?”
“It’s all right. I’m phoning from the drug store.”
Some of the tightness went out of me and my breath started coming evenly again. “I’m glad you called. What’s happening?”
“Nothing. I’ve been down at the station all day.” She sounded tired. “I keep wondering how long this is going to last.”
“What did the police want?”
“The whole story, over and over.”
“Keep giving it to them, baby. Over and over. And you’d better ask them to let you see Frank.”
“I don’t want to see him,” she said.
“Do what I tell you. You’ve told the cops you weren’t thick with Lesser. They might think it’s funny if you don’t want to see your husband.”
I knew what I was saying was right but I had the uncertain feeling that I was trying to pull too many strings at the same time.
“All right,” she said. And I suddenly understood that she felt the same way. “Can’t I see you some night?”
I wanted to see her, bad. I knew it was dangerous but I had to be with her soon or I’d go crazy. “I’ll fix things and call you,” I said. “Don’t call me anymore. We’re too close to what we want to take any chances.”
“All right, Johnny.”
She hung up and I turned my face into the pillow. I had a date with the blonde in about an hour and it had me scared. I hated to go out of the room. I wanted to be alone in the dark with enough to drink to make me forget everything.
But the date with the blonde was important. I had to keep her happy until I figured out how to shut her up for good.
I changed my shirt and went down to gan put his feet on the desk and looked at his hands. His face was tired and lined and he needed a shave, but his eyes still had that quick bright look. Morowitz sat down, too, and just looked at me without any expression at all on his face.
The office was hot and close. There were butts on the floor and there was a rip in the window shade that let a bar of dusty sunlight fall across the floor.
“Any time you’re ready,” Harrigan said.
The court reporter had his book open and a pencil ready, so I went through the story. I almost had it memorized by this time. I had the funny feeling I’d never talked about anything else in my life.
When I got through Harrigan looked over at Morowitz. “Got any questions?”
Morowitz shrugged. He was a short stocky guy with black hair and sharp eyes. “It all seems pretty clear.” He looked at me then and said, “When did you say you talked to Lesser, Ford?”
“About him going up to her place Sunday night? That was Friday afternoon.”
“About what time?”
“Pretty early, I guess. We were having lunch.”
“I see. And what time did you leave Olsen that night?”
“Around eight-twenty.”
“We’re sure of that,” Harrigan said. “He was in his hotel room at eight-thirty. I talked to the person who was with him at that time.”
The court reporter was still taking everything down and I had a feeling of relief. One thing had bothered me about getting rid of the blonde. That was because she was my cover-up on that time angle. But now it was in an official record, in Harrigan’s words. That would be just as good a witness as the blonde.
There weren’t any more questions for Morowitz and we talked about nothing in particular for a while. I asked them how the case against Frank was going and Harrigan shrugged his shoulders.
“He claims he didn’t do it. The State’s Attorney says he did. It’ll be up to a jury.”
“Have you got a decent case against him?” I said.
Morowitz said, “We’ve got a decent circumstantial case. We can establish the fact that he had been quarreling with his wife for a week before the murder. We can prove he knew his wife was seeing Lesser that night. And we can place him, by his own admission, in the apartment at eight-thirty, which was the time the neighbors heard the shots fired. It all adds up.”
I left after a little more talk. I had the feeling everything was all right on that angle. They had a good case and they were going to send him away.
That much was all right but I had other things on my mind. When I left the courts building and started downtown the blue Nash picked me up and followed me into the Loop. I stopped at a little dice joint on Jackson Boulevard and the blue Nash went past and I saw two men in the front seat. I knew by this time they were Banghart’s way of protecting his nine thousand dollars. My chances of taking any sudden trip out of Chicago were pretty slim.
I went into the dice joint and that’s where I learned the news had spread. A card game broke up when I came in and a couple of guys I knew pretty well said hello kind of nervously and then left in a hurry. The word was around town that I’d gone short on a big bet and a guy in that spot isn’t too healthy to have around.
I bought a pack of cigarettes and got out of there. I went back to my room and there weren’t any calls and there weren’t any bets and I knew that everyone was laying off me until I got myself back in the clear.
There wasn’t any use hanging around waiting for the phone to ring so I went out to a show and killed the afternoon. The picture was about a guy who gets shipwrecked on a little island where there aren’t any people except the natives. They were nice simple people and they brought him fruit and water and pretty soon he was all fixed up with the chief’s daughter. There was a lot of trouble later on because guys from the ship found the island and they got the idea of making slaves out of the natives. There was a lot of fighting but finally everything turned out all right.