"Like the true story, you mean."
He shrugged. "You might want to consider it. Newberry's an example of how Nitti operates. And Newberry's also an example of Cermak's current lack of strength in mob circles."
"So, what? You're saying if I stick with Cermak's team. I'm ditch-bound? That's bullshit. Eliot. Nitti knows I'm an innocent bystander in this. You notice that was Newberry dead back there, not Lang or Miller. Frank Nitti doesn't kill the messenger; he kills the guy who sent the message."
Eliot just drove.
I kept talking. "Just because Cermak isn't aligned with a gang of any power, at the moment, doesn't mean he isn't going to be again, soon. He's been playing this game a long time, you know. And if I cross Cermak, I'll get my op ticket, and my gun permit, pulled. Get serious, Eliot."
Eliot didn't say another word to me till he pulled up in front of my building on Van Buren; not until I was getting out, feeling just a little irritated with him.
"Sony, Nate," he said. "I just thought you should see that back there."
I could feel my face was red, and it wasn't the cold. "Christ, Eliot, what is it you want out of me? Are you such a goddamn Boy Scout you expect me to tell the truth because it's the truth? You been in Chicago too long to be that naive."
Which was a lousy thing for me to say, because Eliot might have been a lot of things, but naive about the Chicago facts of life he wasn't.
He gave me a sad little smile.
And said, "I just don't like the idea of you getting on a witness stand and perjuring yourself."
He didn't add "again," but the word hung in his eyes, and it was that flicking Lingle case again, wasn't it? Coming back to haunt me.
I nodded at him to let him know I understood he meant well, and shut the door on the Ford, and he drove off.
It was a little after eleven, and I hadn't had any breakfast, so I went into the deli on the corner for an early lunch. I ate my usual pastrami sandwich but, despite my hunger, barely got it down. Eliot had bothered me, whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not. I sat nibbling dill pickles absently for maybe half an hour, sipping at a ginger ale, when Barney came in through the door that connected the deli with his speak, noticed me, and got this silly grin, like it just occurred to him that he was top contender.
"There's somebody you got to meet," he said, leaning against the table, not sitting down, pointing with a thumb back at the door he'd just come through.
"Does she have nice pins?" I asked.
"It ain't a woman. Nate."
"Then I ain't interested."
"Nate, it's a famous guy."
"Barney,you're a famous guy, and I'm not interested."
"Some mood you're in."
"You're right. I'm sorry. I better start being nice to you or you'll start charging me rent. Who do you want me to meet? Some other goddamn fighter?"
His grin got silly again. "You'll see. Come on."
I finished off the last dill pickle and got up and followed him into the speak. The place was about half-full, and the patrons, all of them men, were craning their necks back to see the far corner booth by the boarded-up street windows, talking among themselves as they did. We headed to the booth that was causing the commotion.
For a second, just a second, I thought it was Frank Nitti. The same slicked-back blue-black hair, the same swarthily handsome, hooded-eyed look, though this guy lacked Nitti's vaguely battered quality, sported no pencil-line mustache, and was younger, thirty-five or fort)'. Like Nitti, he was immaculately groomed, in fact was a snappy dresser, sporting a dark gray pinstripe with lavishly wide lapels, and a black shirt with white tie. And. like Nitti, he wasn't a big man; he was sitting down, but you could tell standing up he wouldn't be more than five six or so. This was a more conventionally handsome Frank Nitti. with a little Valentino tossed in.
Barney and I stood next to the booth and the man smiled at us. rather remotely, while Barney introduced us.
"Georgie," he said, "this is a childhood pal of mine. Nate Heller. Nate, this is George Raft.1'
We sat in the booth across from Raft, and I smiled at the actor and said, "I'm embarrassed. I should've recognized you."
Raft shrugged, barely perceptibly, smiled the same way. "Maybe if I been flipping a coin."
I nodded. "I saw that picture. Pretty wild."
We were talking about Scarface, the big hit of the year before, which had made Raft a star; it had caused a lot of controversy in Chicago, opening months later than anywhere else in the country, the local censorship board having fits over its depiction of their city (even though it was Chicago's own Ben Hecht who wrote the picture).
"I hear good things about it," Raft said. "I didn't see it myself"
Barney explained. "George never looks at the pictures he's in."
"Why's that?" I asked Raft.
"Who needs it?" he said. "I probably look terrible. My face'd scare babies."
He didn't seem to be kidding. I suddenly realized his remoteness wasn't a tough-guy pose, but a sort of shyness.
"Georgie's in town doing some personal appearances," Barney said. "What's the name of the new picture?"
"Undercover Man," Raft said noncommittally.
"Oh?" I said "Where you appearing?"
"At the Oriental Theater." Raft said. "I come out and talk to the folks, the orchestra plays, and I do some dancing. Did you see Night After Night?"
"Sorry, no," I said.
"That was a pretty good one. Not so much gangster shit. Got to do some dancing."
"Mae West was in that." Barney said, eating this up.
"Yeah " Raft said, smiling faintly, "and she stole everything but the camera."
"How do you two happen to know each other?" I asked Barney, nodding at Raft
"Oh. Georgie's a big fight fan," Barney said. "He was a fighter himself, weren't you, Georgie?"
Raft laughed a little. "Seventeen bouts and ten knockouts."
"That's a good record," I allowed.
"Not when it's you getting KO'd," Raft said.
"You won a few," Barney said.
"Three," Raft said, holding up three fingers.
Buddy Gold came over for my order. I asked for a beer. Neither Barney nor Raft was drinking anything. I knew why Barney wasn't drinking: he had a fight coming up later this month in Pittsburgh, with Johnny Dato.
"Don't you want anything, George?" I asked him.
"I don't drink," Raft said. "Bring me a coffee, would you, Buddy?"
"Sure thing, Mr. Raft."
Raft looked my way and said. "I been following Barney's career real close. He's won me some money. I admit to knowing more about boxing out of the tins than I did in it. I was a fight manager for a while. Discovered Maxie Rosenbloom."
Something was ringing a distant bell in my mind; like the round-ending bell in the ears of a canvas-prone lighter who's just been saved by it.
■ -
"Weren't you involved with Primo Camera?" I asked.
Raft seemed to flinch at that, again, barely perceptibly. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Barney's grin disappear. I'd opened a door better left closed I'd been rude to Barney's guest. But I let it ride.
"Not really." Raft said. "A friend of mine owned a piece of him."
"Owney Madden, you mean," I said.
"Yes," Raft said.
I could tell this was making Barney uneasy, so I didn't pursue it. It was natural that an honest fighter like Barney would be embarrassed by one of his friends being connected to Primo Camera and Owney Madden. Primo Camera was the big, lumbering heavyweight brought over from Italy who, through a succession of fixed fights and sportswriters on the take, was elevated to the Championship of the World. Camera was a slow, awkward giant with a glass jaw, but he made good show business, until a real fighter, Max Baer, took the championship away from him, and damn near killed the poor clown in the doing. New York gangster Owney Madden owned Camera, and Madden and George Raft were lifelong friends. The story I'd heard had Raft, just prior to his Hollywood days, slipping a mickey to "Big Boy" Eddie Petersen, a fighter who had refused to take a dive; Raft's mickey had paved the way for Camera's first major victory'- at Madison Square Garden, no less.