He chuckled. “Lotta people think Slap is retired, but I get the feeling he still has a job.”
“Why’s that?”
“He ain’t goin’ without.”
“They held a benefit for him, remember?”
“Yeah, I was there. Musta collected about, oh, nine hundred bucks. You could live for a year on that.”
“What are you driving at?”
“Slap carries water for Harry Ford.”
I can’t say something of that nature hadn’t crossed my mind, but blood is thicker than water, so I didn’t disguise my displeasure. “You saying Slap is bent?”
“Hey, the man has to live. You sell what you got, to whoever is buyin’. I’m puttin’ two and two together, that’s all.”
“Four.”
What?”
“Two and two is four. I learned that in the first grade.” I tapped the bills. “Information, please. If all you have is theories I’ll keep the cash, and if all you have is theories that insult my family we’ll be stepping outside.”
“Okay, okay, relax. But that sheeny torpedo would’ve squealed unless he was paid to shut up. Somebody put a bundle down, and who but Harry Ford has that kinda money?”
“Another theory.” I knocked back my shot, and picked up the bills.
“Hold it,” he said. “The name Wicky Hanson mean anything to you?”
It did indeed. Harry Ford was known for hiring ex-cons, one more feather in a cap festooned with plumage. Most of them were nobodies, but Hanson’s reputation preceded him when he came to work on the Warren assembly line. He’d been a Thompson-gunner for Capone in Chicago.
“What about him?”
“He’s another guy lives beyond his means. He’s learnin’ to crack safes, but he still works the old trade occasionally. He was in on the Thornton hit. He knows Ford, he knows Shay Tilsen. Maybe he put’em together.”
“Any chance he’d talk to me?
“He owes me a favor. You could buy it.” He glanced down at the bar. “Not for eighteen bucks though.”
A fight broke out on the other end of the bar, but we didn’t let it distract us, and soon struck a deal. I’d be ashamed to say how much it cost in view of the fee arrangements on this matter. Jimmy said he’d be in touch. I ignored Maggie Quinn again on the way out. I’d decided to pay a call on the widow Thornton soon, with an update and a dozen roses.
I phoned Slap to tell him how things were going. “Jimmy B. says he can put me together with a member of the Thornton hit squad,” I told him. “I didn’t find out much in Minneapolis. Met Lou Rothman, but he had nothing to say.”
“You didn’t see who Tilsen talks to?”
“His palookas. Nobody else. Only interesting thing, he gave Rothman some cash for the widow. Maybe he feels guilty.”
“He just handed the money over without a word, did he?”
“A few words.”
“So he talked to somebody.”
“That was nothing. Hell, he said a few words to me when Rothman introduced us.”
Slap sighed audibly. “Well, press Wicky Hanson hard, Martin. He might have something.”
“How do you know it’s Hanson I’m seeing?”
He laughed. “Jimmy B.’s helping Wicky with his schooling.”
Not much gets by Slap.
I didn’t work the next few days, just waited for Jimmy’s call, and planned my meeting with Margaret. There was a picture in my mind of her soft blue eyes, her cute freckled nose, and an expression on her face that was all yes. As it turned out, that picture was pretty accurate.
I’d decided to surprise her Sunday afternoon. I thought she and her mother would be finishing dinner around 3 p.m. That left a few hours of daylight, and I prayed for a nice afternoon. I thought we’d drive over to Como Park, maybe stop by the lake. I bought a dozen roses and kept them in the icebox Saturday night. Jimmy B. called that evening and said I could meet Hanson the next day. I told him I was indisposed.
“Christ, Martin, I thought this was important,” he said.
“I’ve got something else going. What about Monday?”
“The guy works for a living.”
“Maybe Harry Ford’ll give him the day off. You know I work nights, Jimmy—anywhere he wants, Monday evening.”
Sunday dawned mild and sunny, a September morn in November. Jimmy called about the time both of us should’ve been at Mass, and said to meet Hanson at Chan’s, next evening around 7:00. I had to write it down I was in such a tizzy. This is very unlike me, I thought. I started slicking up for the occasion about noon, and looked my Sunday best when I pulled in front of the Gallagher residence a few minutes before 3:00. I was about to step out of the bucket, when the front door of the house opened and Margaret walked out arm in arm with Lou Rothman.
I processed this as quickly as possible under the circumstances. All I could think of was ducking those roses before they spotted me, but that was unnecessary. They only had eyes for each other. Hers were exactly as I’d pictured them. They walked past me in the general direction of Como Avenue. Margaret looked back when they reached the corner, probably to see if her mother was watching, then kissed him on the cheek.
I cursed the Sunday closing laws, and headed for the back door of a blind pig where a colored man sold me a bottle of something like whiskey. I made good enough use of it that I had a terrible hangover when Monday came. I also had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that had nothing to do with imbibing. Worse yet, although our pitifully one-sided romance was kaput, my business with Margaret was far from finished. She still wanted to know who was behind her husband’s murder. The best I could do was suck it up and come out of this with my reputation intact.
Sorry as I felt for myself Monday evening, I still had some pity to spare for Walter Thornton. He’d stepped out of his flivver anticipating his wife’s lovely face and welcoming arms. Instead, the pockmarked mug of the man across the booth from me ushered him into the next world.
“I could use a drink,” said Wicky Hanson.
“So buy one,” I replied.
“Jeez, I thought you wanted info.”
“I do, and I already paid for it,” I said, but what he told me almost made me sorry I’d been so short.
Hanson cautioned that Tilsen didn’t confide in the non-Jews he occasionally hired, so all he knew was what he overheard. But he had sharp ears and a good memory. He explained that the mood among the five torpedoes on the hit was about what you’d figure—tense and silent on the way, relieved and talkative afterward. Tilsen was the wheel-man.
“There was this one mockie in the front seat next to him,” he said. “Wasn’t no dropper, even though he looked like one—hard guy with a fag in his mouth—but there strictly to finger Thornton. So we’re waiting, car pulls up, guy opens the door, finger-man says, ‘That’s him,’ jumps out, and motions us to follow. We step out and I overhear the mark say to the finger-man, ‘Meyer, what’re you doing?’ And he says, ‘Sorry, Walter, I’m an agent of history.’ Then we start blastin’ and his wife runs out screamin’. That’s about it.”
“You’re sure his name was Meyer, and that’s exactly what he said?”
Hanson nodded.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. When we’re drivin’ away, we’re all laughing and crackin’ wise, even Tilsen. He turns around and says, ‘May not look that way, but we changed the world today, boys.’ Then he nods to this Meyer character. ‘Make sure you tell him we said that,’ he says.”
I put my head in my hands and thought hard. “That it?”
“Well, Jimmy B. says you want facts, not theories.”
“From Jimmy. If you’ve got a theory, go ahead.”
“It’s just that the finger-man probably wasn’t the guy ordered the hit. Tilsen told him to tell someone about this changin’-the-world joke he made. That’s who was behind it.”