He was unquestionably a wheeler-dealer, and a financial wizard; the mob’s “one-man brain trust,” the papers called him.
But today, as I entered his office at Sportsman’s Park in Stickney, he was just a nervous little heavyset man in a gray vested suit and blue-and-gray-speckled tie, sitting at his big mahogany desk atop an elaborate Oriental rug, cleaning and oiling an automatic pistol. A foreign make, I’d say.
“Nate Heller!” he said, with a big grin, standing behind the desk to extend a hand, like I was an old friend, an unexpected and welcome guest who just happened to drop by. Never mind that I’d known him since yesterday and was here at his paid request.
I shook his hand; the other one held the automatic. There was a little 2-in-l oil on the hand that firmly gripped mine, and when I took a handkerchief out of my pocket to wipe off my palm, he apologized for this uncharacteristic messiness.
“Sorry,” he said. “A man can’t be too careful.” He meant the gun, which he now lay gently on the desk.
“I’ve already had a walk around your facility, Mr. O’Hare,” I said, hanging my topcoat and hat next to his on the tree in one corner. “I hope you don’t mind my taking the liberty.”
“Not at all, and I asked you yesterday to call me Eddie.”
“Fine, Eddie. Call me Nate.” He already had, actually.
“Pull up a chair,” he said, and I did, glancing around the office, which-like O’Hare-was small but plush. Dark wood paneling, a wall of framed photos to my left, a built-in bookcase at right. The wall of photos-from which I took a chair-showed O’Hare in the presence of various civic leaders and Chicago celebrities, here at Sportsman’s Park, lots of big smiles and arms around shoulders, his Outfit associates conspicuous in their absence. My favorite picture was one of him with Mayor Cermak at the opening of the park, His Honor and O’Hare standing on either side of the winning jockey who was atop his horse, with a huge floral horseshoe draped around them all. Behind him at his desk was a gigantic framed photograph of Sportsman’s Park, from a slightly overhead angle that got both the grandstand and the track in, in color, pastel tints. On the desk, at either side, were clusters of framed family photos. The bookcase at right was brimming with volumes, some leather-bound, interspersed with an occasional fancy crystal glass piece and various busts of various sizes of Napoleon.
He must have noticed me taking in the Napoleon busts curiously, as he smiled, rather proudly, and said, “An interest of mine. Those books, all of them, are on the Little General. A small sampling of what I daresay is the largest collection of Napoleonana in the United States.”
“Really?”
He had a distant expression as he looked at the wall of Napoleon stuff. He said, “Napoleon was a little man.”
“Uh, yeah. So I heard.”
“But he was the biggest general history ever saw.”
“No argument there.”
He turned his attention back to the gun he was cleaning; he had a pipe cleaner stuck down the barrel at the moment. He said, “He always made the right decision when it counted.”
“Who?”
A little crossly he said, “Napoleon.” Then wistfully: “Once he had to decide whether to carry fifteen hundred prisoners of war or have them killed.”
“Really.”
He gestured with a fist, suddenly firm. “He had them shot, making the decision in five minutes.”
What decisions had Eddie O’Hare been making in this office, of late?
“Mr. O’Hare. Eddie. I’ve looked over your plant, and can see no insurmountable problems, assuming your security staff numbers twenty or more.”
“Few problems regarding what?”
“Your pickpocket situation. The grandstands themselves are too large to effectively control, but I doubt the dips would hit there much, anyway. It’s down by the cashier windows that they’ll make their move. And at your concession stands.”
He nodded, a strained look on his face, as if the relevance of all this was something he couldn’t really grasp.
“At any rate,” I said, “I think a few weeks before the next season begins, we can give your staff some pointers, and not just the security people. Ushers and concessionaires and all. Do you have any questions?”
“How did you come?”
“What?”
“Did you drive out here?”
“No. I took the El to Laramie and hopped a streetcar. One of my other operatives needed my car. Why?”
“Good.” He smiled, but more to himself than to me. “I’ll give you a ride into the Loop.”
“That isn’t really necessary.” Just as this trip out to Sportsman’s Park wasn’t really necessary.
“No! I insist.”
A knock came at the door.
“Yes?” O’Hare said.
A small, boyish, nattily dressed man with graying hair entered, smiled pleasantly, said, “Excuse me, gentlemen. Is this a private conference?”
“Not at all, Johnny,” O’Hare said, half rising, gesturing for him to come in with one hand, continuing to clean his automatic with the other.
I stood and shook hands with the little man.
“This is Nate Heller, the private detective,” O’Hare said. “Nate, this is-”
“I recognize His Honor,” I said, trying not to sound tongue in cheek.
I had recognized him at once, though I’d never met him: Johnny Patton, the boy mayor of Burnham. The “boy” mayor was well over fifty now, but he’d supposedly been fourteen when he opened his first saloon and wasn’t yet twenty when first elected mayor of Burnham, another of the mob-dominated southwest suburbs like Stickney and Cicero. Once upon a time he’d been Johnny Torrio’s boy; in recent years he’d been snuggled comfortably in Frank Nitti’s pocket.
He was also O’Hare’s chief partner in Sportsman’s Park. That is, excluding the silent ones.
“Oh yes, Nate Heller,” Patton said, nodding for me to sit back down, but not taking a seat himself. “You’re going to help us lick our pickpocket problem.”
“I’m going to try,” I said.
“I’m sure you’ll come through for us. I’ve heard good things about you.”
Nitti again? I wondered to myself. I had presence enough of mind, this time, not to blurt it out.
He turned his attention to O’Hare. “Could you step in my office, E. J.? Bill and I have the last of that publicity material ready-you need to take a look at it.”
“Certainly,” O’Hare said, and rose. “Wait here a moment, will you, Nate? I’ll give you a lift back to the Loop.”
“Fine,” I said.
Patton said, “You’ll be riding back with E. J.?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I see,” he said.
Then, slipping an arm around O’Hare’s shoulder, Patton and O’Hare exited.
Not long after, Miss Cavaretta came in; she was in another mannish suit, and it fit her curves snugly, in a most unmannish manner. An attractive woman, all right, although she had a certain West Side hardness, and she’d seen the last of thirty-five. She seemed a little startled to see me; or anyway as startled as a cool customer like her could seem.
“Well hello,” she said. In that throaty purr.
“Well hello,” I said.
“I didn’t know you were here.”
“I seem to be. I’m surprised this is the first I’ve seen of you today. I expected you’d be taking notes while Mr. O’Hare and I spoke.”
“Yes, uh-Ed has been having me keep minutes of his business meetings of late. But I just got back from lunch.”
In the midst of the wall of photos was a square clock with roman numerals.
“Mr. O’Hare must be a pretty soft touch, as bosses go,” I said, nodding toward the clock. “Here it is a quarter till two and you’re just back from lunch.”