"Only six hundred seats."
"All right. We can cover that. We'll just run tight security."
"Otherwise. I'll stay at my son-in-law's. With my bodyguards. I have some people to see. but they can come see me."
"Good." I said. "Nitti won't expect that. He won't expect you to lie low. And I don't think he'll hit you at home. I think it has to be a public appearance, to make it look like something the Syndicate wasn't part of."
"Then we've just got two events to deal with. The Biltmore dinner for Farley. Saturday; and Bayfront Park, Wednesday."
"What?"
Cermak pointed off to his left. "Bayfront Park. That's where Roosevelt is speaking."
"You really ought to take a rain check on that one, Mayor."
For the first time, the cold eyes softened a bit, and the smile seemed genuine. "I undere^ didn't I. Heller?"
"Maybe not. Maybe I'm just coming into my own."
"Maybe."
"Where are you headed next?"
"To the toilet," he said, standing, grimacing, holding his gut.
This time I followed him, and he motioned Miller to stay put.
His Honor was washing his hands when I said, "You got to tighten your security up on the home front, too."
"What do you mean?"
"I told your gardener I was with the Herald and he told me everything but your date of birth."
Cermak dried his hands on a paper towel; he shrugged with his face. "We don't have a gardener."
"What?"
"Not really. Some neighbor kid does it: when my son-in-law's down, he does it himself. Relaxes him."
"Your neighbor's kid isn't Cuban, is he?"
"Not hardly. Why?"
"Some Cuban was trimming your shrubs the other day."
Cermak shrugged again, this time with his shoulders. "My son-in-law probably hired somebody else to do the yard, to get it ready for when I got here."
"Yeah. You're probably right."
Anyway, it wasn't a Cuban I was looking for. Not unless it was a blond Cuban. But my blond could have a Cuban backup man, couldn't he?
"We'll call long distance and check on it," Cermak said, "if it'll make you feel better."
"Please," I said.
"Now," Cermak said, "let's go break the news to Miller and Lang that you're pals."
A Goodyear blimp glided overhead. Out on a strip of land opposite the park, pelicans and gulls came in for flapping landings, then took off again. It was late Wednesday afternoon and sultry, and couples of varying ages strolled around Bayfront Park, sometimes stopping for a game of shuffleboard or to sit on a bench and watch the blue bay and the white boats.
I about tripped over one of the nearly invisible guy wires anchoring a big palm against the wind; those wires were a danger you could overlook, in this peaceful, lushly landscaped park. The main promenade, from the foot of East Flagler to the bay. was lined with flower beds, clipped pine hedges, royal palms, and couples on benches. It made me wonder what Mary Ann Beame was doing; it made me wonder if she was thinking about me at all, while I was down here trying to keep Chicago's mayor alive.
Other than the guy wires, the park seemed free from hidden danger. I strolled all forty acres of it, forty acres that had been pumped from the bay less than a decade ago and turned into a tropical paradise. I didn't see the blond anywhere; the automatic was under my shoulder, and the Police Special was nudging my middle, and if he came early, to look over what might be the scene of his crime, I might still get to plant the.38 on him and get this over with, before it started.
With the sun still sharing the sky with the blimp and a few lazily soaring planes, I took a seat in the front row of the amphitheater. Green benches that would seat eight thousand sloped down in a wide semicircle to face the band shell. The central dome of the stage was painted a garish red, orange, yellow, and green design, vaguely oriental, and on either side of it were two towers with acorn domes decorated in bands of silver, green, yellow, orange, and red. It looked like a Shriner's idea of Egypt, right down to the yellow stucco stage with its blue platform, red-fringed brown curtain, and paintings of Cairo street scenes on either side of the proscenium. On the stage, a makeshift wooden reviewing stand had been assembled, six rows high, with room for maybe twenty-five or thirty dignitaries, of which Cermak would be one. He was, in fact, to be in the front row.
Fortunately, the public wouldn't be able to get close enough to the stage for anybody to take a shot at His Honor, not unless it was with a rifle, and short of climbing one of the royal and coconut palms separating the amphitheater from the Miami skyline, Cermak should, even in the first row, be safe. Because the area in front of the bandstand, a semicircular paved area, was where the president-elect would be speaking, from his car.
I sat there studying the situation, and began hearing muffled conversation behind me; I turned and looked and, though it was barely five o'clock, the green benches were starting to fill up. I got up and had a walk around, but didn't see the face I was looking for. By five-thirty, I realized I needed to stay put, if I wanted to hold onto my ringside seat.
A little after six some Secret Service guys began having a look around. I identified myself to one of them as one of Mayor Cermak's bodyguards, showed some identification, and another of them checked a list on a clipboard, found my name there, nodded, and let me be. As twilight settled in, there wasn't a seat to be had in the joint- and FDR wasn't set to talk till nine-thirty.
Of course, if this mixture of Miamians and tourists had read the paper, like I had, they'd known downtown traffic was going to be stopped at eight-thirty, and had decided to get down here while some parking- for their cars and their backsides-- was still available. A parade would be leaving the pier where Astor's yacht. Nourmahal would dock, around nine, and hundreds of local cops, by foot, motorcycle, and motorcar, would accompany Roosevelt and his people and some local dignitaries along Biscayne Boulevard to the band shell. They'd be preceded by various drum-and-bugle corps, and the press would bring up the rear.
I was nervous about Cermak making this public an appearance. But the blond killer was a pro, and he'd have to know this was a suicidal situation- with FDR here, the place would be swarming with security: cops and Secret Service and bodyguards. And here it was barely seven, and the areas to either side of the sloping benches were already filling with people. The crowd might give him a certain anonymity, but it would be impossible to move through quickly. Of course, if he used a silencer, his slug could take Cermak down before anyone knew what happened; and he might be able to disappear into the throng. The street was close by; Miami was close by. It could be done. But it was hardly ideal.
I was beginning to think either Capone's information was wrong, and the blond had never come at all; or my efforts to have Cermak lie low had paid off. His only public excursion had been the Farley banquet, which I attended in black tie and shoulder holster, and I'd stood by the doorway within the Biltmore Country Club and watched every dignitary and his lady enter, and there was no ringer; nor was any of the Biltmore help a blond hired killer posing as a busboy or waiter. I sat in the front, facing the head table, and Cermak's four bodyguards were variously placed- one on either side of the banquet room, standing, and the other two outside, one in front of the building, one in back. I'd given Lang, Miller, and crew a description of the blond and figured them competent enough to spot him, should he try to party-crash.
But he didn't, and I suffered through a night in a monkey suit, swallowing cigar smoke and dull speeches and tough beef, for nothing.
The rest of the time Cermak stayed at home; I kept a watch from outside, sitting in my forty-buck Ford, stopping in a couple times a day to report to the mayor, and keep track of his itinerary. He entertained various Demos, and an alderman from Chicago, James B. Bowler, showed up, and various millionaire Chicagoans who kept winter homes in Greater Miami called on him; but he made no public appearances. It turned out his son-in-law had hired a gardener to get the place beautiful for the mayor, so the bushy-haired bowlegged guy, while not the neighbor's kid, was apparently legit.