“And you had a new profitable client.”
“I did. Before long, I realized that furniture firm was in the pocket of the Teamsters. And those European clients also had ties to the Teamsters. Then there was a fleet of trucks in Florida that I represented that-”
“I get the picture.”
Had he figured out that Harry striking up a conversation with him at high tea hadn’t been serendipity? I didn’t bother asking.
Instead I just said, “So you’re having a case of conscience. You like to think of yourself as a legitimate businessman, and now you’re doing business with Jimmy Hoffa, who has more mob ties than you have silk ones.”
But Tom was shaking his head. “I’m a big boy. I am legitimate. Nothing I’ve done for Hoffa or any of the firms he’s hooked me up with has been remotely shady. Hoffa of course doesn’t like having his associations advertised, but that’s not a problem. I know how to get attention for my clients. But I’m also happy to be discreet.”
I shifted feet on the brass rail. “So what is the problem?”
“Well…” His boyish face clenched in thought; his eyes were searching. “… I’m a football fan.”
I pretended that wasn’t a non sequitur. “If you’re a Bears fan, you’re in luck. Looks like they’re on their way to an NFL championship.”
His eyes brightened. “The Bears are playing the Philadelphia Eagles this weekend.”
“Are they?” I was a fight fan.
“Well, like you said, they’re on a roll, and good seats for any home game are at a premium. Particularly at late notice. So this morning, at the Bismarck, I had breakfast with Harry Gordon.”
“Okay,” I said, like I was following him, which I wasn’t.
“I figured for once it was nice that I had this kind of, well, underworld connection…’cause who else could get me Bears tickets at this late notice?”
“Ah.” Now I was following. But I was wondering who Harry Gordon was. Not that I knew everybody Hoffa worked with-he had an army. Make that armies.
Tom held out his hands, palms up. “So I ask Harry if he can land me some tickets, and he says, ‘Piece of cake.’ Then he gets thoughtful, actually thinks for maybe twenty, thirty seconds before he says, ‘But there’s a favor you can do me.’”
“Which was?”
“Well, he takes this number-ten business envelope out of his inside jacket pocket, and he holds it down between us, where only we can see it, opens the flap, and runs his thumb through a stack of crisp one-hundred-dollar bills … at least an inch thick worth.”
That was my cue to whistle, but I didn’t.
Tom paused for a gulp of beer. Then: “After that, he brings the envelope up and licks the flap shut and hands me the fat thing and smiles like a kid sharing a secret. ‘Deliver that to the 606 Club tonight,’ he says. ‘To a guy named Jake who will approach you after you sit down and order a drink. He’ll be a stocky little guy in a nice dark suit with a white carnation.’”
Maybe Ian Fleming should have been sending those nickels to Harry Gordon.
Tom was saying, “I asked him how this Jake character would know me, and he said, ‘You’re a distinctive-looking fella, Tommy. I’ll describe you. Not to worry.’ Not to worry, he says.” He shuddered.
I said, “What did you tell your pal Harry?”
“I told him … fine. What else could I say? I was out on business all morning, but then after lunch, when I stopped at the desk at the Pick? Another envelope was waiting-this one with a Bears ticket in it. Fifty-yard line, Nate.”
“Expensive seating.”
Tom rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but how expensive? What the hell have I got myself into? The 606 … I’ve never been there, but isn’t that some kind of strip joint? A dive over by Skid Row?”
“It’s only a few blocks from here, really. Normally I’d say it wouldn’t be that dangerous.”
“Normally. This isn’t ‘normally.’”
“No. You’re by yourself, packing an envelope with maybe-seven to ten grand in it? No. And that’s why you’re buying me another beer, right? Because you want me to back you up?”
“I’d feel safer with you as my bodyguard, yes.”
Obviously he hadn’t checked in with Mayor Cermak or Huey Long. Not that he could have, short of a Ouija board.
“I haven’t seen a naked woman in over a week,” I said. “Be my pleasure.”
The plan was I’d arrive at the 606 ten minutes in advance of Tom. We’d both take cabs (staggering the departure time) from the Pick-Congress, where the PR exec was staying.
A chill rain had let up, but the street in front of the neon-announced nightery was as slick and shiny as black patent-leather shoes. I stepped from the cab with an olive Cortefiel double-breasted raincoat over my nifty charcoal-gray worsted, tailored to conceal the nine-millimeter shoulder-holstered under my left arm. Browning, for those of you keeping track of brand names.
I didn’t often carry the nine-mil, these days. It was damn near as much of an antique as I was, being the gun I’d carried as a kid back on the Pickpocket Detail in the early thirties. It was also the gun my leftist father had used to blow his brains out in disappointment after I joined the Chicago PD. I’d never carried any other gun regularly, since I viewed it as the only conscience I had.
“Nathan Heller!” a familiar gravelly voice called out.
I wheeled to see the white-haired dwarf-like owner of the 606, Lou Nathan, trotting over. He wore a snappy brown suit, too-wide-for-the-fashion tie, and his trademark fedora with its unturned brim (to my knowledge, no one had ever seen him out of that hat), with his friendly features-slit eyes, knob of a nose, and slit mouth-aimed right at me.
Lou was one of those guys who always seemed to be headed somewhere else. On his way to chat up patrons, check on the bar, supervise the kitchen downstairs, make a surprise inspection of the communal dressing room (in the basement, where the strippers tried to avoid the heating pipes).
His favorite haunt, however, was the taxi stand out front of the club, where he would chin animatedly with the cabbies till his restless feet got the best of him.
Right now those feet were bringing the gregarious little guy over to me.
“Whatever have I done for such an honor?” Lou asked facetiously. “To have the famous Nate Heller drop by my humble establishment.”
I shook his firm little hand. “Been too long, Lou.”
“I thought maybe my girls weren’t good enough for you anymore,” Lou said. “They say these days you only date the showgirls at the Chez Paree and Empire Room.”
I grinned at him. “Maybe I just know you watch your fillies too close for a guy like me to ever get lucky.”
Lou didn’t allow his dancers to hustle for drinks between sets. A rarity in Chicago strip joints.
“With that handsome mug of yours,” Lou said, pawing the air, “all you ever have to do is flash a smile, and their legs spread like a wishbone.… Come on in, I’ll buy you your first drink.”
He did, and sat with me.
Patting my shoulder, he asked, “I ever tell you about how Jackie Gleason used to come in, every night, looking for cooze and watching my comics?”
“You mean, how the Great One wanted a job, only you turned him down because you didn’t think he was funny?”
“Yeah!”
“No, I don’t believe you ever did.”
He laughed, though that gag setup went out with the Bowery Boys. Then the slitted eyes gave my torso a glance, and I didn’t figure he was checking me out for a slot on the bill.
“That suit’s cut vurry nice.”
“Yeah. M.L. Rothschild’s top guy tailored it for me.”
“Vurry nice job. But a guy who’s been around, like possibly … me? He looks at you close and hopes that’s something harmless under your left armpit. Like maybe a tumor.”