“Is that what’s happening?” I asked. “You’re putting an end to Dillinger?”
“Be careful what questions you ask me, kid — I might answer ’em.”
“That fed Cowley came to see me today.”
Nitti said nothing; pushed his plate away from him. There was still some food left, but he’d had all of it he could stomach.
I said, “I got the feeling he’d cut a deal with Zarkovich, agreeing to shoot Dillinger down. Rather than take him in.”
Nitti patted his mouth with a napkin.
“So it’s not enough for Dillinger to be captured,” I said. “He’s got to buy it. He’s got to die.”
Nitti cleared his throat. “Let me tell you something, kid. For a long time these fuckin’ outlaws could get away with what they’re doing. They were like stagecoach and train robbers in the Old West; fact is, most of ’em are dumb Okies who think they’re Jesse James. And they got away with it, for a while. ’Cause all they needed was fast flivvers and lots of back roads and plenty of hideouts. And they weaved all across the country, and the law couldn’t even cross state lines to chase ’em. They had a sweet little thing going. Long-term, however, it stunk. Which is why only suckers — farmers, dumb Okies like that — got in that business. But they had their time, I’ll give ’em that. Only their time is over.”
He sipped some milk. He seemed to be through with his speech, but I nudged him on. Carefully.
“You mean their time’s over, because of the feds,” I said. “Because now the feds can chase ’em across state lines.”
Nitti nodded, shrugged. “That’s it, that’s a big part of it. The rewards on their heads’ll smoke ’em all out eventually, too. But times are changing. You can only get away with that shoot-’em-up bullshit for so long.”
“You mean you can’t get away with too many Saint Valentine’s Day Massacres.”
“No. And you can’t shoot too many Jake Lingles. The public likes to make a hero out of somebody like Al or Dillinger, for a while. But when things get too bloody, when the headlines get too nasty, the public turns on you.”
“Frank, these outlaws — your Outfit’s had dealings with ’em over the years...”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“I hear things. I’m awake.”
“That’s a nice way to be, awake. You ought to hold onto that thought.”
I said nothing.
Then for some reason he continued. “Yeah, Al had a soft spot for that kind, particularly the bank robbers. Don’t ask me why. The suburbs, Cicero, Maywood, Melrose Park, they were always welcome there, where Al was concerned. There were always thieves hiding out there.”
“For a fee?”
“Nothin’s free, kid.”
“I’d guess a certain amount of fencing of goods and hot money by such thieves might also be handled through the Outfit.”
“Easy, kid.”
“And the guns those guys use, machine guns particularly, and explosives, they got to come from somewhere. And sometimes, like any small business, they’d need seed money, short-term loans. And Outfit sources are the natural place for both...”
Nitti was shaking his head, but not by way of denial. He said, “You better button it right there, kid.” Not mad; just fatherly advice.
I buttoned up.
Then Nitti couldn’t keep from saying: “It’s just better for some people to be dead, kid.”
He’d opened the door, so I took a breath and went on through.
“Well, uh, if somebody wanted Dillinger dead, why wouldn’t somebody just kill him? Why go to such elaborate lengths to have the feds do the job?”
Nitti’s mouth etched itself into an enigmatic little smile.
Then he said, “You’re operating here out of curiosity, Heller. Nothing else. No client. Just curiosity. And you know what happened to the goddamn cat.”
I knew.
“You played a part in this thing,” Nitti said. “Like I said, if I’d known they was planning to suck you in, I’d have stopped it. Only they did suck you in. Well, you played your role, now get offstage, go home. Stay out of it, and stay the hell out of the way.”
“What if Cowley or Stege or Purvis come around?”
“Why don’t you just report what you know to be true, and leave it go at that, in such event.”
“You mean, tell them about tailing Polly Hamilton and Jimmy Lawrence, and that Anna Sage says Lawrence is Dillinger.”
“Yeah. It starts and ends with that.”
“And I just stand by and let the poor shmuck get killed.”
He raised a finger in a cautionary fashion. “I’m not saying anybody’s going to get killed. But what skin off your ass is it if some fuckin’ Hoosier outlaw gets what he’s gonna get someday anyway?”
“Frank,” I said, “when I bitched about Cermak’s boys hitting you, the same argument was advanced. That Nitti was a guy who was going to meet a bullet one of these days anyway, so what the hell.”
He gestured with two open hands. “I’m a restaurant owner. Restaurant owners don’t get shot, not unless maybe some goddamn outlaw comes in and robs the till.”
“I don’t like being a part of this.”
“Good,” Nitti said. “Don’t be.” He reached in his right pants pocket and took out a money clip. The thickness of bills included a fifty on top, which he peeled off, then he peeled off another fifty. He smoothed them on the tablecloth before me; the two bills were spread out in front of me like supper. Like a six-course meal.
“I want to be your client,” Nitti said.
“You do?”
“Yeah, kid. That’s a hundred-dollar retainer. I want your services between now and Monday. I got something I want you to do for me till then.”
“What’s that, Frank?”
“Sleep,” he said. “Go home and sleep. Till Monday.”
I swallowed.
Then I took the money, because I didn’t dare not take it. Added it to the five and five ones on my own clip.
“This meeting between us, it never happened. Capeesh?”
“Capeesh,” I said.
“This is hard for you, ain’t it, kid?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I like you. I really do.”
And he did. He cared about me. The way you like and care about a character in a radio serial you follow. But if a streetcar ran me over in tomorrow’s episode, he wouldn’t lose any sleep that night.
“Is it okay if I go now, Frank?”
“Sure, kid. You don’t have to ask my permission to do things. You’re your own man. That’s what I like about you. Now, go.”
I went.
14
At my office that afternoon I couldn’t resist checking one last thing out. Frank Nitti or no, there was something I had to follow through on. In the bottom of my pine four-drawer file I had several out-of-town phone books, as well as two Chicago cross-directories (numbers first; addresses first). I took out the Gary, Indiana, book and looked in the Yellow Pages. There were six grain companies. I called the personnel departments of each; it took all the rest of the afternoon, and talking to two or three people each place, which ran my phone bill up, but I did it. And John Howard didn’t work for any of them.
Not that I’d expected him to. It was obvious, now, that my traveling-salesman client was a con artist hired to rope me into the play Zarkovich and Nitti were putting on. I felt like a chump. And with good reason: I was a chump.
I took the money clip out of my pocket, peeled off the two fifties Nitti had given me. A braver man would’ve tossed them in Nitti’s face. He’d also be a dumber man, and possibly a deader one. Maybe if I had the integrity Nitti was talking about, I’d turn the bills into confetti and toss them out my office window; or give ’em to the first down-and-outer on the street I ran across. But I needed a new suit, so I went out and bought one. The rest of the money could go for luxuries. Like eating and the phone bill.