Miller just looked at me.
"Sure you have." I said. "I saw in the papers where there's a police guard on Lang's house. Watching the wife and kid. Seems there were threatening phone calls."
Then he said, "They wouldn't kill cops."
That rated a laugh. "Right. Like noboby would dare kill a state prosecutor. Only Capone killed McSwiggin. And nobody would dare kill a reporter. But Jake Lingle is real dead. We can be real dead, too, and in the wake, you should pardon the expression, the papers'll be full of us, full of how dirty we were, full of how we were on the take, and most of it'll be true. And then it won't be cops dead. It'll be crooked cops dead, and who'll give a damn?"
We stood and looked at each other in the darkness.
And when I got tired of looking at him. which didn't take long at all. I dumped the slugs out of the revolver's cylinder and they rained on the pavement. Then I kicked 'em away. Handed him the gun.
"Fly home. Miller. Sleep. Dream."
He glared at me. As much as that owl mask could glare. He said. "You haven't heard the end of this. Heifer."
"Touch me. and I'll tell the world the real story. Kill me. and a lawyer will open the envelope I left him. in case something happened to me. The envelope with my statement in it." That last part was a bluff, of course, but by tomorrow afternoon it wouldn't be.
Miller cleared his throat, spat a clot of something to the right of me.
"Get out of here, Miller."
He did.
Pretty soon I was in my one-room apartment in the Hotel Adams, on my back in my underwear on top of the blankets; the radiator in the little room was overambitious tonight, so there was no need to climb under the sheets. The lights were out. but some neon pulsed in from out on the street, three floors below. I was on the third floor, just like Cermak. And, like the mayor, I was getting ready to move out- only / couldn't afford the secluded suite atop the Morrison, though Christ knows I could've used the protection.
What I'd told Miller was right: there was good reason to expect a reprisal from the Nitti forces. I hadn't told it to anyone- not the commissioner or the hundred other people I tried to turn my badge into, not the mayor, not even Barney or my girl Janey when I had called her last night, briefly, to assure her everything was all right- but one of the main reasons I turned my badge in was to send a message to Nitti: To let him know I was unhappy about being sucked into something I had nothing to do with. If he and his boys had been paying attention yesterday at the Wacker-LaSalle, they might have picked up on that. And my quitting the department over the incident would confirm it. I hoped, and might indicate my intention to tell the truth at Nitti's trial.
Except my intention to tell the truth at the trial had changed. I'd done a deal with the mayor, to tell the story his way. Otherwise, no op's license. I could lie now. to the mayor, and tell the truth later on the witness stand. But. as Cermak had pointed out. my license could then be revoked, if for no other reason than I'd waited all that time to change my story. If I had to corroborate Miller and Lang's story at the inquest tomorrow, under oath, and then went back on it later, that'd be perjury. Testifying against Nitti could get me killed, however, in which case not having an op's license would be something I'd get over.
I was tired. It had been a long, draining day, but my brain kept buzzing; it buzzed about half an hour, anyway, at which time (approximately these things are hard to pinpoint) I went away. I dreamed about Nitti and Cermak and Miller and Lang and Little New York Campagna and all sorts of people, and I won't go into it, but it wasn't a nice dream, and it climaxed with somebody grabbing me upright in bed, by the front of my T-shirt, only that part wasn't a dream, I finally began to realize.
My first thought was Miller: He'd come back to beat the crap out of me, despite my threats of envelopes and attorneys. Then somebody turned on the lamp on the dresser next to my bed, and I saw two guys in gray topcoats with black Capone hats with pearl bands; they would've looked like twins, only they were a Mutt and Jeff pair. Jeff was particularly unimpressive, one of those guys who when he needs a shave looks like his face is dirty. Mutt, unfortunately, a big swarthy guy with a wart on his cheek the size of a knuckle, was the one hoisting me up by my T-shirt.
"You're coming with us. Heller," he said, and goddamnit, that was enough. How many flicking times were people going to grab me and take me someplace I didn't want to go, and since the place these guys were going to take me was probably for a ride, I got my hand on my spare pillow and slapped the guy with it.
It surprised him, anyway, and knocked his hat off. It didn't hurt him much, but it did give me time to take the automatic out from under my other pillow and show him, and Jeff.
They were tough guys; probably as tough as Miller and Lang, maybe tougher.
But they had woken up a guy in his sleep who had been pushed once too often in too short a time, and I must've had a look on my face that said they might die, because they put their hands up and Mutt said, "Heller! Please. This ain't that way. We ain't even armed."
That didn't sound right.
"It's true," Jeff said. "Can I take my coat off?"
I was off the bed now, standing on the floor: the wood was cold against my bare feet.
"Slip out of it"- I nodded "but nice and easy. I haven't killed anybody all day. Help me keep it that way."
Jeff slipped out of the coat, no tricks at all. and held his dark gray suitcoat open and there was no shoulder holster.
"You do what he did," I told Mutt.
Mutt slipped out of his topcoat; his suit was a blue pinstripe, but there seemed to be no gun under there, either. I had them both put their hands against the wall, or actually one of them put his hands against the door, because there wasn't wall space enough in that room for two people to be frisked against any one wall; and. standing there in my underwear. I frisked them, and they were clean.
"Sit on the bed" I told them.
They sat on the bed.
"Tell me what this is about." I said, and got my pants on, taking my time, keeping the gun on them, buttoning my fly one-handed.
"Mr. Nitti wants to see you," Mutt said.
"Oh, really? Isn't he a little under the weather to be having visitors?"
Jeff said, "He's gonna be okay. No thanks to you coppers."
I motioned with both hands, including the one with the gun in it "Hey. I'm not a copper anymore. And I wasn't in on it."
"You was there." Jeff said accusingly.
"And that was the extent of it," I said.
"Maybe so." Mutt said, "but Mr. Nitti wants to see you."
"So you come break in my apartment and put the muscle on me."
Mutt pursed his lips and moved his head from side to side slowly. "We got the key from the guy at the desk. It only cost a buck. You got great security here, pal."
"It's okay. I'm moving tomorrow. You boys can go now. Tell Mr. Nitti I'll talk to him when he's feeling better."
Mutt said. "This is a friendly gesture. He just wants to talk. That's why we didn't come heeled."
I thought about that.
"I still don't like it," I said.
"Look," Mutt continued, "you know if Mr. Nitti wants to see you, Mr. Nitti's gonna see you. Why not do it now. when you got a gun on us, and when he's on his back in a hospital bed?"
I nodded. "Good point. Car downstairs?"
Jeff smiled a little. "You bet."
"Okay," I said. "Let me get my shoes and socks and shirt on."
They watched me dress; it wasn't that easy to do while keeping a gun on 'em. but I did it and Mutt sat in back of the big black Lincoln with me. as we took Monroe Street over to the near West Side, to Jefferson Park Hospital.
There were four more guys in topcoats and hats in the corridor on the third floor where Nitti had his private room. The lighting in the corridor was subdued- it was roughly three in the morning now and I saw no doctors and only one nurse, a woman about thirty-five, stocky, dark-haired, scared shitless. Nitti's room was halfway down the corridor, and I stood outside with Jeff while Mutt went in.