"And then Lady Astor, bless her," Dawes smiled, "saw through our ruse. For you see- "
"Leon Errol was the waiter," I said.
Dawes looked surprised. "You've heard the story?"
My uncle was giving me a look-to-kill.
I tried to cover. "My uncle told it to me. It's one of his favorites of your stories."
Dawes seemed faintly embarrassed. "You should have stopped me- "
"No," I said, "I wanted to hear it again, from the source's mouth. You tell it much better than my uncle."
Dawes beamed, and looked across the table at Uncle Louis. "I don't remember telling you that one before. Louis. Is that really one of your favorites?"
"Oh. yes," Louis said, beaming back.
"Mine, too," Dawes nodded. He turned his distant gaze on me. "I took the liberty' of ordering for you, Mr. Heller, since you were a bit tardy."
Tardy? What was this, fucking school?
"Not at all," I said. "What are we having?"
Dawes relit his pipe. "Mutton chops, of course. The specialty of the house."
Mutton? Jesus Christ!
"My favorite," I said.
"Mine, too," Uncle Louis nodded.
I was starting to understand why my father had hated Uncle Louis.
But I was wrong about the mutton chops- they were thick and juicy and good. And when the General ordered plum pudding for us, I didn't argue; I trusted his judgment about such things by now, and that too proved, as the General said, a culinary delight. The General had a way with words: he left no cliche unturned.
"Of course they lack the brandy so necessary in the making of proper plum pudding." the General said after we'd finished it. "But the law? is the law. Even in England, I refused to serve liquor at embassy functions, out of regard to the prohibition laws in force at home."
"But liquor wasn't illegal there," I said.
"I was a representative of the United States government." he said, matter-of-factly. As if that explained it.
"General," I said, "it was a wonderful lunch. I'm honored you asked me… though I'm still confused as to why."
When Dawes smiled, he smiled with his mouth closed; that's the way he was smiling now, at any rate.
"Is it such a surprise to you," he said, "that one public servant should want to meet, and honor, another?"
"I hope it won't be rude of me to say this," I said, "but neither one of us is a public servant, at the moment. We're both, you might say, in private business."
Uncle Louis shifted in his seat.
Dawes nodded. "That's fair. But you were recently honored by the city council for meritorious,
hazardous service, in the line of duty, as an officer of the law."
"Yes."
"And now you've chosen to leave the department."
Not again!
"Sir." I said, "my decision to leave the department is final."
He sat back, looked down his pipe at me. "Fine," he said. "I respect that." Then he leaned forward, just the slightest bit conspiratorial. "That, in fact, is why you are here."
"I don't understand."
Uncle Louis said, "Let him explain, Nate."
"Sure," I shrugged
We had been there an hour and a half, and the room was emptying out: with no liquor served on the premises, the long lunch hour for executives was less common. It had been this near-privacy in a public place that the General had been waiting for.
"You're familiar with President Hoover," he said, with no apparent humor.
"We've never met." I said, "but I have heard of him."
"Are you aware that he is the man who put Al Capone away?"
I grinned. "I always thought my friend Eliot Ness had something to do with that."
"Indeed he did." the General said, nodding sagely. "A good man. He is part of what I am talking about. You see, there were some of us here in Chicago… in positions of responsibility… who began to feel, a few years ago. that Mr. Capone and company were giving our city more than just a 'colorful' reputation. Chicago had come to be viewed as a happy hunting ground for gunmen and other criminals, and. while I undertook a European campaign to defend her good name, Chicago to a degree did deserve this stigma. This colony of unnaturalized persons, which Mr. Capone came to symbolize, had undertaken a reign of lawlessness and terror in open defiance of the law. My friends on Wall Street were beginning to ponder upon whether or not their money was safely invested here. The time had come to act."
The time had also come for me to ask a question, because the General paused dramatically, here, to light his pipe again.
So I said, "How does this make Herbert Hoover the guy who got Capone?"
He shrugged facially. "That is just a way of putting it. The efforts actually began before Mr. Hoover reached office, but it is well known that for many months, every morning, when he and Andrew Mellon would toss the medicine ball around on the White House lawn, the president would ask Andrew, who is a personal friend of mine and the secretary of treasury, if that man Capone was in jail yet. So it has been the interest and support of Mr. Hoover that made the end of Mr. Capone possible. You see. prior to Mr. Hoover reaching office, several of us here in Chicago had devised a two-part plan. First, a world's fair. What better way to restore Chicago's image in the eyes of the nation, of the world. What better way than to attract millions of people from around the globe to our fair city on the lake, to prove to them that the average person in Chicago never so much as sees a gangster."
I would've liked to have met that average person, but never mind.
"We felt we needed a good ten years to do the exposition up right. We would call it 'A Century of Progress,' and it would take place in 1937, the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the city- "
I interrupted. "But you're planning it now for this summer. And it's still called 'A Century? of Progress,' isn't it?"
"Yes," Dawes admitted, "but, after the Crash, the city needed the exposition more than it needed correct mathematics."
Uncle Louis said, "Fort Dearborn was a village in 1833. That's a century, isn't it?"
"Hey, it's okay with me," I said. "Hold it any year you like. I think it's a good idea. Good for the city; it'll bring some money in."
The General smiled and nodded, as if he hadn't thought of that before but it was a good idea.
Then he continued. "When we were first discussing the possibility of an exposition, we knew that for it to truly be a success, for the point we were seeking to make to be made. Mr. Capone would have to be excised. And then we would need to restore the law and order that preceded him."
"Excuse me. General." I said, "but Big Jim Colosimo and Johnny Torrio preceded Al Capone. not law and order."
My uncle gave me another sharp look; like a knife.
But the General only smiled enigmatically. "Shall we say the relative law and order that preceded Mr. Capone."
"All right?" I conceded.
"This was when some of us here in Chicago, who were concerned, and who had certain influence- and since I was, at that time, still vice-president of these United States, I did have influence- thought something should be done. I arranged for a special prosecutor, a Dwight Green, to begin dealing with Mr. Capone and company. A two-part attack was devised. Mr. Ness and his 'untouchables' would damage Mr. Capone financially, while Mr. Irey of the IRS attempted to put our income tax laws to a good use, for a change. The first of the gangsters to go to prison for tax evasion, you may remember, was one Frank Nitti, with whom I believe you are acquainted."
"Him I've met."