17
A large homemade map of the Marbro Theater and its surrounding area, grease pencil on butcher paper, was pinned to the wall behind Cowley’s desk, which was in the opposite corner from Purvis’ currently empty one. A dozen or so agents in shirt sleeves and shoulder holsters were milling around the big open office, some of them sitting on the edges of desks, many of them smoking, the electric fans pushing the smoke around. Windows were open to let smoke out and let the cool night air in, only there wasn’t any cool air, just night. The college-boy agents had been here most of the day, waiting for Anna Sage to call.
I pulled up a chair, tossed my hat on the desk. My suitcoat, which I’d been lugging over my shoulder, I draped across my lap. “No call yet?”
Cowley’s gray face lifted from the cup of coffee he’d been staring into; his expression was one of frustration, but his eyes were just plain weary. He was in shirt sleeves and striped tie and shoulder holster.
“Worse than that,” he said. “She did call.”
“Hell! When?”
“A little after five.”
“What’s happened since then?”
He swallowed some coffee. “Nothing much yet. We had to send somebody over to the Biograph.”
“The Biograph? Why?”
Heavy sigh. “When she called she said Dillinger was there, at her apartment, and that they’d be leaving in five minutes — for either the Marbro or the Biograph. She wasn’t sure which.”
“Shit. The Biograph. That’s some wild card to get played this late in the game. What did you do?”
He told me. He’d quickly sent two men to the Biograph on the North Side to reconnoiter; they’d returned with notes on entrances and exits. A special agent had accompanied Zarkovich to the Marbro; and Purvis and another agent were staking out the Biograph. Each pair was to have one of its men phone in every few minutes with a report.
That had been an hour and a half ago.
“That’s a long five minutes,” I said, “especially if they’re going to the Biograph, walking from Anna’s apartment — the theater’s just around the corner from there, you know.”
“I know,” Cowley said glumly.
“Looks like it’s not going down tonight.”
“Looks like.”
“Just as well.”
“Why?”
“I’ve had some second thoughts about whether Jimmy Lawrence is really Dillinger.”
Cowley sighed again and looked upward, as if he would’ve thrown his arms in the air, if he’d had the energy. “You’re not going into that old song and dance again. What does it take to convince you, Heller?”
“Quite a bit, before I go pulling a trigger on a guy.”
“We’re not pulling a trigger on anybody — not unless he forces us to. And if it isn’t Dillinger, we’ll straighten it out after we’ve made the collar.”
“I thought you were going to supervise this yourself and make sure nobody got trigger-happy. Being a trained detective, I can tell right away you’re here sitting at a desk.”
He patted the air with his free hand, as he sipped his coffee. “I will supervise the capture. Don’t worry about that. When they spot Dillinger, I’ll be called and go straight to whichever theater it is.”
“They won’t take him as they see him go in?”
“Probably not.”
“Probably not?”
“With only two men at each site, we’d prefer to wait till our entire contingent has converged on the one correct theater.”
“Then what? Take him after he’s inside the dark theater?”
“Possibly. But only if there’s an open seat behind him and we could grab him from behind.”
I shook my head. “Not in this heat. There isn’t an empty seat in any air-cooled movie house in town, tonight.”
Cowley shrugged with his eyebrows. “Then we take him when he comes out.”
“Anna and Polly are with him?”
“The Sage woman and Miss Hamilton, yes.”
“Is Polly in on it?”
“We’ve been dealing with Mrs. Sage.”
“You mean Purvis has. You haven’t even met her.”
He scratched the side of his head, where it went from brown to gray. Didn’t look at me. “That’s right. But it’s not pertinent.”
“I think you should be very careful, if this does fall into place tonight. Particularly if you’re planning to let the East Chicago boys come along. Will they be a part of your ‘contingent’? All six of ’em?”
Stone-faced, Cowley just looked at me; then, slowly, reluctantly, he nodded.
I said, “Zarkovich is at the Marbro, I know. The rest of them, where are they now?”
Sarcasm etched itself into the corners of his eyes. “In our conference room down the hall, with some of my men, having sandwiches. Why, is there somebody you’d like to talk to?”
“Your conference room,” I said, my aches and pains suddenly coming back to me. “They ought to be comfortable, there. Isn’t that where you guys do your own rubber-hose work, and hang guys out the window till they talk and such?”
Cowley didn’t like that. But he just said, “That’s not the way we do things. Maybe it’s different in East Chicago.”
“So I hear. Anyway, be careful tonight, if you decide to go to the movies. Because the Outfit may be providing you with a fall guy for the main feature.”
“A fall guy.”
“A patsy. A ringer.”
He made a dry disgusted tch-tch sound. “And you think that would fool us. You think we could be fooled.”
“Well, Purvis could. He has been before.”
“Don’t start again, Heller...”
I shrugged elaborately, and it only hurt a little. “Hey, it’s your job on the line, not mine. Just don’t forget that you’re following through on something put in motion by Dillinger’s own lawyer.”
He swatted at the air with one thick hand, like my thoughts were flies. “That doesn’t mean anything. Piquett just double-crossed him, is all.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re falling in line with Piquett and doing Dillinger a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Getting him declared dead.”
Cowley, not a man given to smirks, smirked. “And what does John Dillinger do, once he’s ‘dead’? Disappear in thin air?”
“With the accumulated loot from his various bank jobs, sure. He could buy a fucking island.”
Cowley winced at “fucking.” He just didn’t like that kind of language; I knew he didn’t — that’s why I said it. Anything, to light a match under his Mormon butt.
“You’re a good man, Cowley,” I said. “Don’t get taken in.”
“Your confidence in me is an inspiration, Heller.”
The phone on his desk jangled and he grabbed it, the weariness in his face replaced with urgency.
Then his face fell, while at the same time he sat erect, as he said crisply, “No, sir. No developments... yes sir, immediately, sir... yes, sir, I quite agree. We’d reached that conclusion ourselves... yes, sir.”
He hung up.
“Hoover?” I said.
Cowley nodded. “He’s been calling every few minutes. From his home in Washington, D.C. Pacing his library, I gather.”
“This is a make-or-break moment for you guys.”
“Yes, and Hoover knows it. He was just vetoing the notion of taking Dillinger within the theater, by the way. He wants no gunplay in a crowded auditorium.”
“It occurs to me this sudden possible switch from the Marbro to the Biograph is a trifle suspicious.”
“Oh, really,” he said, with flat, almost disinterested skepticism. “Why is that?”
“It allows you to plan for one theater all day, and then pulls the rug out from under you at the last minute... besides scattering your forces between the two locations.”