"What?"
"You know. Get back with the department. Be a sergeant, a deputy coroner; be on one of his special squads."
"On one of the hoodlum squads? You want to hear something about the mayor's hoodlum squads?"
I told her about the Nydick shooting.
"I don't see how that has anything to do with you." she said afterward.
"The hoodlum squads are vile even for Chicago. Janey. I don't mind a little honest graft, but this has got out of hand. Janey. You know how my father died."
"He killed himself with your gun. It was a long time ago, Nate. It's time to let go of that."
"It wasn't that long ago. It was a year and a half ago. He did it because I gave him money."
"I know. I know. You wanted him to be able to renew the lease on his store, and you gave him the thousand dollars you got. along with your promotion, for testifying in the Lingle case. It's an old story. Nate. You got to let go of it."
"I gave him the money and told him I saved it, but he found out from somebody where it came from and he killed himself with my gun."
"I know, Nate."
"And now I've killed somebody with that gun. Somebody I didn't even know, all because my reputation as somebody you can buy in a murder case preceded me. Everybody in town thinks I'm for sale."
"Everybody in this town is for sale."
"I know that. I'm no virgin."
"You aren't?"
"Cut it out. I just got to live with myself."
"I thought you wanted to live with me."
"I do. I want to live with you, marry you. have babies with you, live happily ever after with you."
"That's a nice dream. It's a dream that could come true real easy, if you just took one of those offers."
"What offers?"
"Cermak's offer. Or Dawes'. Dammit, Nate, even Frank Nitti offered you a job. That would've been money, too."
"Are you saying you'd approve of that?"
"It's not my business how you make your living. If I'm going to be your wife, it's my business to give you moral support."
Say good night. Gracie.
"Look." I said, "I've always wanted to be a detective. The cops turned out not to be the place to do that. Now I've got a chance to try it on my own. for real. It may not pan out. But can't you let me try? Can't you give me. say, a year? Just put that moral support you're talking about behind Nathan Heller, President, A-l Detective Agency, for a year, and if I'm not at least matching my income as a member of the Chicago P.D., I'll hang it up and go to Uncle Louis and beg for a job. Fair enough?"
She thought about that, then nodded. Smiled. "Sure."
She cuddled to me awhile.
Then she said, "You know, working at the county treasurer's office is really interesting. You see a lot of important people; you see a lot of important things happening. Take my boss, Mr. Daley. He's about your age, Nate. Just a couple years older. He's so dynamic. He's involved with the tax end of things, sure, but mostly he's involved in the political end. I pick up on more of that than most people, you know, because my father's a precinct captain, you know. And Mr. Daley, he's just a little older than you, and there he is, in there distributing the jobs, handling the ward committeemen from all over the city, dealing with powerful men, in a powerful way. And then at night he takes night school, can you imagine? He'll be a lawyer before you know it. He lets me help him more than most of the others, because he blows my father so well, and he knows I'll cover for him, if he needs it, when his night school cuts into his duties."
"It's too bad you're already engaged," I said. "Then you could marry the little Mick."
"Oh. he's engaged, too. you know that." she said distantly. Then, catching the slight, wrinkled her chin and said, "Nate. I'm just trying to make a point."
"Which is?"
"Daley's going places."
"He can go to hell, as far as I care."
"You're jealous."
"Pissed off is more like it."
"Oh. Nate. I'm sorry… I just want more for you. I just want you to live up to your potential."
I didn't say anything.
She studied me in the near dark.
She kissed me on the mouth; I didn't kiss back.
"What's wrong?" she grinned, impishly. "Did I take it all out of you?"
I couldn't help grinning back. "Let me do it without using anything."
She kept smiling, then said. "All right." and started climbing on top of me.
"No." I said. "I want to be on top. Janey."
"Okay, Nate. I want you on top. too."
I got on top; I got in her. I'd never been in her without a Sheik before; it was wonderful. It was sweet. It was warm and sweet and wonderful and I pulled out. Rolled over on my back.
"Nate!" She put her hand on my chest. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Janey. would you mind getting your clothes on?"
"What?"
"Please."
"What did I…?"
"Nothing. Please. Just do it."
She got out of the bed slowly. There were tears in her eyes; she dressed quickly. Put on her alpaca coat. I was dressed by now myself; I got my topcoat on and walked her out of the building and to the El.
We stood and waited for the next train in silence.
Just as it was pulling in. I said. "Janey, I'm sorry. It's just that… well. I've had people trying to control me. to manipulate me all week. I've been bribed just once too many times this week."
She looked at me; the brown eyes were wet, the bee-stung lips were tight, trembling. She took her gloves off, removed the engagement ring, pressed it into my hand.
"Merry Christmas, Nate," she said, and turned toward the waiting train.
Then she turned back, quickly, and kissed my cheek, and got on the train and was gone.
I went back to my office and sat behind the desk, looking at the rumpled bed, smelling her in the room, the flowery perfume scent, the musky scent, too. I could've opened a window and got rid of it. But I didn't. I figured I'd be rid of it soon enough as it was.
It was only nine-thirty. I called Eliot and said I'd be over for Christmas.
The Long Bellyache January 7- April 8,
The body was in a ditch near a telephone pole. No snow. Tall brown weeds leaned in the wind, and the ground was mostly sand with pebbles mixed in. so that our feet made a crunching sound as we approached. The nearby road was gravel, and there were ridges of sandy mud near the ditch, creased with tire tracks, pocked with footprints. A small middle-aged man in a cap and a heavy brown jacket stood near the body, as if claiming it for his own. Next to him was a heavyset man in a western-style hat and a hunting jacket with a badge pinned on it- the sheriff, apparently. Otherwise there was no one around: just the body in the ditch.
Back of the two men and the body, sand dunes rose. The dunes were spotted with khaki-color brush, like gigantic scalps with the hair mostly fallen out. leaving only occasional sick patches behind. Bare trees, skinny, black against a sky such a faded blue it might have been wearing out, stood close together, watching from atop the dunes, some of which ran to a hundred feet; skeletal branches touched to form a black-lace pattern against the horizon. The bitter cold air and the desert-like dunes mocked each other, and the wind blew like a bored fat man with a sense of irony.
We were on a back road near Chesterton, Indiana, about fifteen miles east of Gary, five miles west of nowhere. It was Saturday morning, about seven, and I would rather have been sleeping. But Eliot called and said he was picking me up; there was something he wanted me to see.
The something was the body in the ditch.
Eliot bent over the body, which was sprawled on its side, wearing an overcoat, a hat partially covering the face; he lifted the hat off. set it easily to one side.
"It's Ted Newberry- all right" he said to me.
The man who seemed to be the sheriff thought that was meant for him. "Thought as much." he said. He was about fifty-five with a vein-shot nose that indicated he didn't keep all the laws he was theoretically hired to enforce.