As I rounded the corner of Jackson, just before six-twenty, with half an hour to spare, moving to the crosswalk, I glanced down the street and there, in front of the Edison Building, was the backup car with Baby Face Nelson and Fred Barker sitting in it.
And if the backup car was in place, the Hudson — and Karpis and Floyd and Dillinger — wouldn’t be far behind.
40
I slowed my pace.
I couldn’t get lost in the crowd: there wasn’t one. The sidewalks weren’t empty, though — there were a few people around, so I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, either. I pulled the brim of my hat down, lowered my head, waited for the light and crossed Clark Street and walked toward the Banker’s Building. The backup car in front of the Edison Building was almost a block away. Far enough that I’d had to look hard to recognize Fred Barker behind the wheel of the car, a black Ford roadster.
So maybe they wouldn’t notice me. They certainly wouldn’t be looking for me.
Then again, I hadn’t been looking for them and I spotted ’em, easy enough.
I glanced at my watch: six-twenty.
Hoover’s powwow with Courtney and the police commissioner had been moved up, obviously, and the same inside source who’d leaked the original information had passed the change of plans along to Karpis and company. It had been a seven o’clock dinner, with the pickup to be made at ten till; my guess was it’d been moved up to six-thirty, in which case the next pickup time was right now.
The Hudson should be making its appearance, any time.
I walked by the Clark Street edge of the Continental Illinois Bank Building, and strolled down Quincy. Once the Banker’s Building was blocking me from the parked backup car’s view, I ran to the side door and found my way to the bank of elevators and punched the up button.
I gave the uniformed operator, a tall red-haired guy of about twenty-five, a buck and said, “Nineteenth floor and step on it.”
He yanked the handle so hard the box lurched, but he earned his dollar: within a minute we were on the nineteenth floor. I gave him another buck and told him to wait for me; he questioned that with his eyes, and I gave him another buck hurriedly and said there’d be a sawbuck for him if he kept his end up.
Then I was off the elevator and running down the hall to the Division of Investigation field office.
The door was shut.
Locked.
I banged on it.
“Hey, in there! Come on — somebody!”
Seconds that seemed an eternity passed and the door opened, and there was Cowley, his moon face somber as ever, then he squinted at me, which was his way of registering surprise.
“Heller?” he said. Like he couldn’t believe I was standing there; I was something he thought he’d put behind him.
“Is Hoover in there?”
He sighed through his nose and his mouth made a tight line, barely opening to say, “Is that any concern of yours?”
I pushed him out of the way, pushed inside the room.
“Hey! What do you—”
The room was full of desks and no people.
“Where’s Hoover?” I demanded.
“What business is it of yours?” He was indignant and condescending at the same time.
I liked Cowley, far as it went, but it didn’t go that far. I grabbed him by his coat and vest with two hands and said, “Where the hell is he?”
Cowley was bigger than me, and probably tougher, and armed, and a fed; but he forgot all about that and sputtered, “He and Purvis... they just went down in the elevator.”
I let go of him. “Shit!”
“You must’ve been coming up as they were going down. Why? What’s this about, Heller?”
“Grab a tommy gun and come with me — I’ll explain in the elevator.”
“Are you serious?”
“Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd and the rest of your public enemies’ list are in two cars down on the street, waiting for your precious goddamn director. Get a gun!”
He went to a closet and unlocked it quickly and grabbed a tommy gun from a rack and an extra magazine and didn’t ask any more questions, just followed me out in the hall.
My red-haired elevator guy was waiting; he grinned when he saw me coming, then the grin faded as he saw Cowley bringing up the rear with the Thompson.
We got on, and went down.
I filled him in quick: “There’s a fake state attorney’s car in front, to pick Hoover up. It’s a snatch. Three men in the car, including Alvin Karpis and Pretty Boy Floyd — two of ’em dressed as cops. There’s a backup car parked across the way, in front of the Edison Building, with extra firepower. Baby Face Nelson and Fred Barker are in that.”
The elevator guy was glancing over at me, swallowing.
Cowley said, “How’d you happen onto this?”
“Time for that later. When did they move Hoover’s dinner party up?”
Cowley squinted again, wondering how the hell I was so on top of all this. “They called before noon,” he said. “Courtney and the commissioner wanted it earlier. So they could just go over after work and not have to wait around.”
I was getting my gun out from under my arm.
Cowley touched my arm. “You just stay back. I’ll appreciate having you covering my butt, but you stay the hell back, understand?”
I grinned at him. “I wish you wouldn’t swear like that. I hate to hear it, coming from a good Mormon.”
He smiled, nervously, and the elevator guy set ’er down and opened the cage and Cowley took the lead, his footsteps slapping the marble floor as he headed toward the front door.
Where a short, slightly stocky man in a dark suit had his back to us — Hoover — with another short man in a straw hat and white pants and blue coat — Purvis — just about to go out the inner doors into the vestibule and out onto the sidewalk.
“Stop!” Cowley called, running, tommy gun in one hand, pointing up.
But they were through the doors, now, and moving across the vestibule, and Cowley sprinted, and I was right behind him.
He must’ve gone through the inner doors just seconds after Hoover and Purvis; I caught up a second or so later, and heard Cowley yell, “Hit the deck!”
And saw Hoover, a dark little man whose eyes were as white in his face as a minstrel’s, look back, and Purvis, reacting faster, reach for one of his arms to pull him down.
In a cop’s uniform, Dillinger, a.k.a. Sullivan, was holding open the back door of the black Hudson with the red and green headlights, for Hoover to get in.
All this I took in in a split second, ’cause that’s all it took for Purvis to yank the startled Hoover by the arm and flatten him unceremoniously on the pavement while Cowley opened up with the chopper.
The burst of bullets put a row of puckers across the heavily plated Hudson, kissed little spider webs into its bulletproof glass, and Dillinger caught at least one of the slugs, as he reared back from the impact, with a yowl, but tumbled in the back of the Hudson and the rider in front, Karpis, reached back and pulled the door shut and the Hudson pulled away, while Cowley moved forward, spraying it with slugs.
Purvis was up and his revolver out and he took some pot-shots at the fleeing car; Hoover, on his belly, looked up with wide, wild eyes and then got on his knees and, keeping low, scrambled for the doors, and shouldered them open and he cowered against the wall. I was standing there with my gun out, keeping an eye on Cowley’s butt, like I’d been told to. I looked at the shaking, sweating director of the Division of Investigation and he glared at me, said, “What are you looking at?”
I looked back outside.