Then it opened.
Standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, was a man who was unmistakably Frank Nitti. I'd never met him, though he'd been pointed out to me a few times: but once having seen him, you couldn't miss him: handsome, in a battered way, fighter's nose, thin inverted-V mustache, faint scar on his lower lip: impeccably groomed, former barber that he was, slick black hair parted neatly at the left; impeccably dressed, in a gray pinstripe suit with vest, and wide black tie with a gray-and-white pattern. He was smaller than Frank Nitti was supposed to be, but he was an imposing figure just the same.
He closed the door behind him.
There was a look on his face, upon seeing the two Harrys, that reminded me of the look on that uniformed cop's face. He seemed irritated and bored with them, and the fact that guns were in their hands didn't seem to concern him in the least.
A raid was an annoyance; it meant getting booked, making bail, then business as usual. But a few token raids now and then were necessary for public relations. Only for Nitti to be involved was an indignity. He'd only been out of Leavenworth a few months, since serving a tax rap; and now he was acting as his cousin Capone's proxy, the Big Fellow having left for the Atlanta big house in May.
"Where's Campagna?" Lang said. He was standing with Miller in front of him. partially blocked by him. Like Miller was a rock he was hiding behind.
"Is he in town?" Nitti said. Flatly.
"We heard you were siccing him on Tony," Miller said.
Tony was the mayor: Anton J. Cermak. alias "Ten Percent Tony."
Nitti shrugged. "I heard your bohunk boss is sleeping with Newberry," he said.
Ted Newberry was a Capone competitor on the North Side, running what was left of the old "Bugs" Moran operation.
Silence hung in the room like the smell of wet paint.
Then Lang said to me, "Frisk the help."
The two hoods stood; I patted them down with one hand. They were unarmed. If this was a handbook and wire-room setup, as I suspected, their being unarmed made sense; they were serving as runners, not guns. Lang and Miller taking their time about getting into the next room also made sense: most raids were conducted only for show, and this was giving the boys inside time to destroy the evidence.
"Let's see if Campagna's in there." Lang said finally, nodding toward the closed door.
"Who?" Nitti said, with a faint smile.
Then he opened the door and went in, followed by his runners, then by Miller, Lang, and me.
The inner room was larger, but nothing elaborate: just a room with a table running from left to right, taking up a lot of the space. At right, against the wall, was a cage, and a guy in shirt sleeves wearing a green accountant's shade was sitting in there with a bunch of money on the counter; he hadn't bothered putting it away. Perhaps it wouldn't all fit in the drawer. At left a young guy stood at a wire machine with a ticker tape in his hand, only this wasn't the Board of Trade by a long shot. Two more sat at the table: another one in shirt sleeves, his back to us, suitcoat slung over the chair behind him, four phones on the table in front of him; and across from him, a hook-nosed hood wearing a pearl hat with a black band at a Capone tilt. There were no pads or paper of any kind on the table, though there were a few scattered pens and pencils. This was a wireroom, all right. The smoking wastebasket next to the table agreed with me.
The guy in shirt sleeves at the table was the only one I recognized: Joe Palumbo. He was a heavyset man with bulging eyes and a vein-shot nose; at about forty-five, the oldest man in the room with the exception of Nitti, who was pushing fifty gracefully. The hood in the Capone hat was about thirty-five, small, swarthy, smoking- and probably Little New York Campagna. The accountant in the cage was in his thirties, too; and the kid at the ticker tape, with curly dark hair and a mustache, couldn't have been twenty-five. Lang ordered the accountant out of the cage; he was a little man with round shoulders and he took a seat at the table, across from Palumbo, next to the man I assumed (rightly) to be Campagna, who looked at the two Harrys and me with cold dark eyes that might have been glass. Miller told the runners to take seats at the table; they did. Then he had the others stand and take a frisk, Campagna first. Clean.
"What's this about?" Nitti asked. He was standing near the head of the table.
Lang and Miller exchanged glances; it seemed to mean something.
My hand was sweating around the automatic's grip. The men at the table weren't doing anything suspicious; their hands were on the table, near the phones. Everyone had been properly searched. Everyone except Nitti, that is, though the coat and vest hung on him in such a way that a shoulder holster seemed out of the question.
He was just standing there, staring at Lang and Miller, and I could feel it starting to work on them. Campagna's gaze was no picnic, either. The room seemed warm, suddenly; a radiator was hissing- or was that Nitti?
Finally Lang said "Heller?"
"Yes?" I said. My voice broke, like a kid's.
"Frisk Nitti. Do it out in the other room."
I stepped forward and, gun in hand but not threateningly, asked Nitti to come with me.
He shrugged again and came along; he seemed to be having trouble deciding just how irritated to be.
In the outer office he held his coat open as if showing off the lining- it was jade-green silk- and I patted him down. No gun.
The cuffs were in my topcoat. Nitti turned his back to me and held his wrists behind him while I fished for the cuffs. He glanced back and said. "Do you know what this is about, kid?"
I said. "Not really," getting the cuffs out, and noticed he was chewing something.
"Hey," I said. "What the hell are you doing? Spit that out!"
He kept chewing and, Frank Nitti or not, I slapped him on the back and he spit it out: a piece of paper: a wad of paper, now. He must've had a bet written down and palmed it when we came in: hadn't had a chance to burn it like the boys inside did theirs.
"Nice try. Frank," I said, grasping his wrists, cuffs ready, feeling tough, and Lang came in from the bigger room, shut the door, came up beside me and shot Nitti in the back. The sound of it shook the pebbled glass around us; the bullet went through Nitti and snicked into some woodwork.
I pulled away, saying, "Jesus!"
Nitti turned as he fell, and Lang pumped two more slugs into him: one in his chest, one in the neck. The.38 blasts sounded like a cannon going off in the small room; a derby dropped off the coatrack. Worst of all was the sound the bullets made going in: a soft sound, like shooting into mud.
I grabbed Lang by the wrist before he could shoot again.
"What the hell are you"
He jerked away from me. "Easy, Red. You got that snubnose?"
I could hear the men yelling in the adjacent room; Miller was keeping them back, presumably.
"Yes," I said.
Nitti was on the floor; so was a lot of his blood.
"Give it here." Lang said.
I handed it to him.
"Now go in and help Harry," he said.
I went back in the wire room. Miller had his gun on the men. all of whom were standing now. though still grouped around the table.
"Nitti's been shot," I said. I don't know who I was saying it to, exactly.
Campagna spat something in Sicilian.
Palumbo, eyes bulging even more than usual, furious, his face red, said, "Is he dead?"
"I don't know. I don't think he's going to be alive long, though." I looked at Miller; his face was impassive. "Call an ambulance."
He just looked at me.
I looked at Palumbo. "Call an ambulance."
He sat back down and reached for one of the many phones before him.
Then there was another shot.
I rushed back out there and Lang was holding his wrist; his right hand was bleeding- a fairly deep graze alongside the knuckle of his forefinger.