She stirred. "What woke you?"
"I remembered something."
She sat up; the covers were around her waist. Her breasts looked at me curiously.
I said. "I remembered I haven't made love to you tonight."
She gave me that impish grin. "It's too late. It's morning already."
I felt my face turn serious; I couldn't make it do anything else. "It's not too late." I said, and went to her.
I came inside her. It was the only time I ever did that, came without using something, without pulling out. I came inside her and it was wonderful. We were both crying when we came.
We lay in each other's arms.
"That can lead to little Nathans and Mary Anns, you know," she said, looking over at me, with a faint smile.
"I know," I said.
The next morning I told her. Not the truth, exactly, but something close to it. I woke, and she was making tea, and I went into the kitchen and she smiled, standing there in that black kimono with red and white flowers she'd worn the first night, and poured me tea and I told her.
"Jimmy's dead"
She put a hand on her chest. Then she sat slowly down.
"Your brother was working for gangsters. With gangsters. He may have been doing it to get material for a story, to try and make his dream about being on the Trib come true. But that doesn't matter now. The point is he was working for gangsters and he got killed."
She raised the back of a fist to her face and bit her knuckles; her eyes were very, very wide. She looked about eleven years old.
"That's why I got pushed off that tower last night. I've been snooping around and it almost got me killed. I didn't tell you, but I was shot at night before last; a man I was with, a man who knew your brother, was killed. Standing right next to me. Killed."
She was shaking. I pulled my chair around and put an arm around her. She was staring straight ahead; it was like I wasn't there.
After a while I said, "There's nothing we can do.'
"But- how- when- where's his- I"
She got up, pushing me and the chair away, rushed out of the room.
I went after her.
She was in the bathroom, kneeling over the stool.
When she was through. I helped her out into the studio. Sun streaked down through the skylight. Alonzo's mattress had been moved out and a secondhand sofa put in its place; we sat there. Dust motes floated.
"Do the authorities know?" she asked. It was a strain for her to keep her voice from cracking.
"No." I said. "I can't even prove it happened."
She looked at me sharply, contused. "You can't- what?"
"I don't even know where he's buried."
"Then how do you know he's really dead?"
"Frank Nitti told me."
"Frank Nitti…?"
"That's where I went last night. From the fair. I thought that man had been sent by Nitti to kill me. I was wrong, but never mind. I'll try to explain. A gangster named Ted Newberry tried to have Frank Nitti killed; your brother died as a result."
Her eyes narrowed as she tried to think, tried to make sense of it. "Newberry," she said. "He's dead, isn't he? Wasn't it in the papers? He was the man responsible for Jimmy's death?"
That was only vaguely true, but I nodded.
"Shouldn't we do something? What can we do, Nathan?"
"There's nothing we can do. Newberry's dead. Nitti disposed of your brother's body. Nothing can be proved. I'm sorry. It's ugly, but you're going to have to learn to live with it."
"We should tell somebody. The police. The newspapers. Somebody..."
I held one of her hands in both of mine. "No. Your brother would be made out to be a dead gangster. Is that something you want to cany- with you? You've got a career, Mary Ann…"
"Do you think I'm that crass?"
"I'm sorry."
"I have to- have to at least- tell Daddy."
"I wouldn't."
She looked at me, confused again.
I said. "I think it'd just about kill him. Let him think Jimmy's riding the rails someplace. Let him think his son will rum up one of these days. It's kinder."
"I- I don't know."
"Mary Ann, believe me. there are some things people are just better off not knowing."
She thought about that. said. "I suppose so." and got up.
With her back to me. she said. "Nathan, could you leave me alone for a while? I think I need to be alone for a while."
I got up. "Sure."
I went out of the room.
I was going out the door when she caught me; she wasn't crying, but she was close to it. She hugged me again.
"Call me tonight," she said into my chest. "I love you. Nathan. I still love you. This doesn't change anything. Not anything."
"I love you too, Mary Ann."
She looked up at me. "I told you never to hold anything back from me. No secrets. No deceptions. You could have hidden this from me, but you didn't. That was brave of you. Nathan. That was very brave. I want you to know I respect you for it."
I kissed her on the forehead and went out; I could feel her eyes on me as I went down the steps.
Well. I had her respect; I didn't deserve it, but I had it. As for her love, that was already fading. Try as she might to turn me into a brave knight who had the courage to tell his fair lady the bitter truth. I knew I would never again be the same in her eyes. She didn't know I killed her brother; but she might as well have.
I killed her romantic notions about me. and that was just as bad. I killed the dream that I was the true detective who would find the heroine's brother and make the world right again.
I killed the happy ending.
The Big Fall September 1,
I was sitting working up some insurance reports, rain pelting the office windows behind me. when Eliot came in. dripping wet. not wearing a raincoat.
"Damn rain came out of nowhere." he said, coming over and taking the chair across my desk from me.
"Glad to see you know enough to come in out of it," I said.
"Looks like you're keeping busy."
"I'm having a good first year."
"Job at the fair alone made it a good year."
I nodded. Put my pen down. "So. You're leaving tomorrow."
"Morning. Me and Betty and a Ford full of belongings."
"What exactly did you do to the Treasury Department to deserve Cincinnati?"
"Well." he shrugged, "where else are they going to send a prohibition agent when Prohibition's winding down? I'm supposed to clean up the 'Moonshine Mountains.' Think I'm up to it?"
"A hillbilly's squirrel gun can kill you just as dead as a machine gun."
"I suppose. Still, I never pictured myself as a 'revenooer.'"
"'Still' is right."
That made him laugh a little. But he seemed kind of sad. I knew how he felt.
He said, "See if you can't get out Cincinnati way. one of these days."
"Will do. Your folks are here. I imagine you'll be getting back now and then."
"I imagine."
"Was it worth it Eliot?"
"What?"
"Fighting the good fight. Putting Capone away. All that."
"Putting Capone away was satisfying. Trouble is. nobody's doing a damn thing about Nitti. The FBI's busy running after outlaws like Dillinger. because the public sees what the likes of that breed does."
"Then you figure Melvin Purvis'll take care of Chicago while you're gone."
"That jerk! That pip-squeak doesn't know his dick from a doughnut."
Then Eliot realized I was baiting him and we both sat grinning at each other.
He said. "I stopped in downstairs and Barney wasn't around."
"He's at his training camp in the Catskills. Canzoneü rematch is coming up in a few weeks."
"Speaking of rematches. I wish I could be around to see the Lang trial."
That was coming up in a few weeks, too.
"Won't be much to it." I said. "I don't imagine much'll come of it other than Lang and Miller getting good and kicked out of the department." Both were on suspension at the moment.
"Well, just the same. I'd like to be there. Have you heard from Mary Ann lately?"