“It’s a long story,” I said.
“I like long stories.”
I told her about O’Hare. Unlike my report to Stege, I told her everything. The summer I’d spent with her had been a rough one-I’d been involved in the Dillinger case up to my ass, and she’d seen some of the rough stuff go down, or anyway saw the aftermath of the rough stuff, and had taken it in stride. She was a tough cookie, Sally, without being hard; and she was a good sounding board, had helped me figure some things out. She was smarter than me, I’d discovered. Probably still was.
“Frank Nitti,” she said, shaking her head. “After all this time. You told me you intended to steer clear of him, for once and forever.”
I shrugged. “It’s his town. In my line, I’m bound to bump up against his interests from time to time.”
“He almost bumped up against you, this time.”
“You’re telling me. He told me he owed me one, once. Maybe he forgot the debt.” I thought back. “Or maybe he remembered I forgave it without exacting payment.”
The wide eyes narrowed. “You thought Nitti might have sent someone here, to your hotel suite, to…?”
Another shrug. “Definite possibility.”
“Why?” she said, indignantly. “What did you do?”
“I spent time alone with O’Hare just before he died. They may think he told me something damaging, something I could carry to the cops or the papers.”
“You talked to Captain Stege already, didn’t you? And told him nothing?”
“Yeah. And Tubbo Gilbert will see Stege’s report, and Tubbo will tell the Outfit that I either don’t know anything, or chose to keep my mouth shut And the morning papers will show I haven’t talked to the press. So if I can just last the night, I may be all right.”
She slipped tier arm in mine; sat very close to me. “We’ll just stay inside your cozy little place, then, just you and me. Have you had supper?”
“No.”
“I checked your Frigidaire. All you have is eggs and beer and half a loaf of bread. Is there an all-night grocery I could slip out to, and…”
“You know what I’d like. Helen? One of those breakfasts you used to make me. Nobody makes an omelet better than Sally Rand.”
“You’re right. It’s not exactly what I’m famous for, but you’re right.”
Soon she was serving me half of a big fluffy omelet, serving herself the other half-like the Kingfish says on “Amos n’ Andy,” she even gave me the “bigges’” half; she also toasted up some bread and managed to round up some butter somewhere. We drank beer out of glasses. Real elegant like.
We were midway through the meal when I finally asked her again.
“Helen, what the hell are you doing here? I saw your bags near the bedroom door as I came in.”
She ate some eggs. Between bites, blandly, she said, “I’m bankrupt.”
“What?”
“I’ve gone bankrupt. It’ll be in the papers soon enough.”
“That’s crazy. You’re one of the top nightclub draws in the country!”
She nodded. “Right after Sophie Tucker and Harry Richman. And nobody can touch me in vaudeville and the picture houses.”
“So what happened?”
She cocked her head; it was a shrug of sorts, but her expression was reflective, the big blue eyes searching. “Got too big for my britches, I guess.”
“Helen, you don’t wear any britches in your business.”
Now her smile was wistful. “You should’ve taken me up on my offer that time, and been my business partner. You’re more conservative than I am. You’d have stopped me.”
“Stopped you from what?”
“Overdoing. Maybe you heard, I put together a thing called Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch. We played the San Diego and Forth Worth fairs. Set record gates at both. Then for this San Francisco Exposition-which is trying to compete with the New York World’s Fair, you know-I went all out. Top-flight costumes, lighting, scenery, the works. Built and paid for my own buildings to house the show. Hired forty girls. Overextended myself.”
“It could happen to anyone.”
She shook her head. “Never thought it would happen to me. I have the reputation of being a savvy businesswoman, you know. Me and my shows have generated over three million bucks’ worth of business, the past six years, starting with the Century of Progress. I was making forty-five hundred a week, not so long ago.”
Her weekly wage was a yearly wage many men would’ve killed for. And here she was broke.
We’d finished eating now, but we stayed at the table. City lights winked at us through the adjacent window. She pushed the plates aside and reached out and held my hands in hers. “I had to let my girls go,” she said, as if apologizing to them through me. “I have to start over, as a single. The natural place to do that is Chicago, I got the right connections, I could find a top club easy enough. But I couldn’t even afford a room while I went about it.”
“So you thought of me.”
“I thought of you. Oh, I had a room lined up with a girl who used to be in my chorus line at the City of Paris, but it fell through ’cause she suddenly shacked up with some guy. Which recalled that summer when you were sleeping in a Murphy bed in your office, and how on so many nights you slept with me instead in my soft round bed in that fancy-ass suite at the Drake. I thought maybe you’d return me the favor.”
I nodded toward the small sitting room. “This isn’t exactly your suite at the Drake.”
“No, but it’ll do quite nicely, thanks. You do seem to be doing well, Nate. Business is good?”
“It’s good. I don’t make forty-five hundred a week for dancing in my nothin’ at all, but…”
“Neither do I, at the moment. And maybe I won’t be able to. I wasn’t appearing with the revue, you know.”
“Sally Rand herself wasn’t in Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch?”
“No. I staged and directed and, obviously, financed the show. But I wasn’t in it. I’m getting older.”
“You’re afraid you won’t be able to make a comeback, huh?”
“A little.”
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’ll still be strutting around in your birthday suit when I’m in the old-age home. Looking good, and getting paid the same way.”
“You’re sweet. You never married, Nate?”
“Not yet. I’ve had a few close calls.”
Her smile was tinged with sadness again. “Like me, for instance?”
“Like you, for instance. You aren’t married, are you, Sally?”
“Other than to my work? No. And I wish you’d keep calling me Helen.”
“I think I can manage that.”
Somebody knocked at the door.
“Get on the floor,” I told her.
“Don’t be silly.”
“Do it! Get under that table.”
She made a face but she did it.
I got up and got the automatic and unlatched the door and, standing to one side of it, reached over and flung it open.
And shoved my gun right in the chest of a short but massive man in a brown suit and hat; the eyes in the lumpy face were dark and cold and unimpressed. He had an envelope in his hand, and, while I sensed he might be playing messenger, he sure wasn’t Western Union.
I was pointing my automatic at Louis “Little New York” Campagna. Frank Nitti’s right-hand man. A powerful man in every sense of the word-a killer who had moved up the ranks into management in the business of crime.
I backed off, but my gun was still pointed at him.
“That’s something you don’t want to do,” he said, pointing a finger at me gently. His finger seemed far more menacing than my gun.
I lowered the gun but kept it in hand. I did not ask him in.
I said, “I was almost killed today.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.” He handed me the envelope.
I took it; I peeked out into the hall, to see if he was alone. He seemed to be.
“Put the rod away,” he said, “and look in the envelope.”
I let some air out. I stuck the gun in my waistband and looked in the unsealed envelope. Ten fifty-dollar bills. Five hundred dollars.
“Is this what Nitti thinks my life’s worth?” I said. Anger made my voice tremble. Fear, too.