I was on my feet ready for a heroic rush at White Shirt, whose gun was just coming out, when-something popped in the Englishman’s fountain pen and a thin blast of what looked like steam and liquid hit White Shirt in the face. By the time I had taken two steps, White Shirt was choking in pain with his hands covering his face. I was near enough so some of the gas made me feel clammy and a little sick. Unable to see, White Shirt let loose with a couple of wild shots in our direction. One of them hit Costello, who was in a sitting position a dozen feet away. His right hand went to his shoulder and he yowled.
With his neat handkerchief over his mouth, the Englishman walked up to White Shirt and hit his gun hand with an open palm. The gun skidded across the floor and let out another protest shot on its own. The shot cracked the metal hide of a slot machine, sending it berserk.
“Think that’s about it, don’t you?” said English, putting his handkershief back in his pocket and picking up his coat. He seemed in no hurry, but I was. Somewhere in the dark, Chaney was probably on his hands and knees reaching for his gun.
We stepped over the juke box man’s groaning body, went through the two doors and into the night. I was sweating. The cold air hit me like dry ice. English pointed to a small foreign car right at the door, and I hurried in. My coat was on the seat.
When he had gotten in his side slowly and straightened his coat, he lit a cigarette, placed it in his pearl holder, and explained, “Only coat left. I assumed it must be yours.”
“It is,” I said, throwing a look at the door of the Fireside. Chaney staggered out into the cold, looked our way and lifted his gun. English glanced at him casually and pulled away, kicking up gravel as a bullet spat through the side window a foot from his head. He didn’t seem to notice. We were out of range when the second shot came.
“Now,” he said with a smile. “Where am I to take you?”
“LaSalle Hotel on LaSalle as fast as you can get there. I’d better check out and find someplace safer. Thanks for what you did back there.”
“My pleasure,” he grinned, raising an eyebrow.
“You were pretty cool.”
“Was I?” he said happily. “I was petrified. Never did anything like that before, but it doesn’t do to let the enemy know, and it was damned exhilarating, wasn’t it?”
The way back was through Cicero and the South Side of Chicago, with the sun just thinking about coming up. We sped past low wooden homes with early morning smoke coming from their brick chimneys and heavy-faced men with lunch pails waiting for streetcars. I watched and told English my tale of Hollywood, Capone, the Marx Brothers, and the Nitti acting society.
I said it had all been great fun and told him some of my other fun in the private detective business. We exchanged further tales. My tale was something out of Dime Detective. The story he told sounded like Beau Geste.
He was the second of three brothers from a rich banking family. His father had been a member of Parliament and had been killed in the last war. His mother had sent him to Eton, where he had been a pretty fair athlete and had broken his nose in a soccer game. Then things had gone downhill. He was booted out of a place called Sandhurst for chasing girls and sent someplace in the Austrian mountains where he found more girls, learned German, French, and Russian, and took up skiing.
Then he moved on to a short shot at banking, gave up, became a reporter, and found his calling just when England went to war with Germany. He had been recruited by British Naval Intelligence and was now a Lieutenant in the Special Branch of the Royal Naval Volunteers. At present he was stationed someplace in Canada he couldn’t tell me about.
He pulled up next to the LaSalle. Before getting out, I struggled into my coat and looked around for a waiting car or suspicious face. I saw none. I opened the door and reached over to shake English’s hand.
“My name’s Peters,” I said, “Toby Peters.”
“Good to meet you, Toby Peters,” he said. “I’m staying at the Ambassador if you need someone to share any further adventures. My name’s Ian Fleming.”
6
There was no one in the LaSalle Hotel lobby except a drowsing bellhop whose uniform buttons needed polishing. Curtis Katz was at the desk looking just slightly wilted at the end of an all-night shift. He gave me the hint of a smile.
“I’m checking out,” I said. “Get my bill ready. I’ll be right down.”
“I hope it wasn’t-”
“No,” I said, hurrying to the elevator. “Urgent business back in Hollywood. Gable needs me. You know how it is.”
Katz knew how it was. The elevator boy put his newspaper down and brought me up to six. By the time I reached my door, the power of Ian Fleming’s elixir had just about worn off. I turned the key and kicked the door open with my foot. No one shot at me. I switched on the light, did a quick check of the bathroom and closet, put on my holster and.38, and snapped one of the locks of my suitcase (the other was broken when I bought it). Since I had never unpacked, the whole process took me about two minutes.
I paid Katz with a check when I got back to the lobby. My account in L.A. might just barely cover it, and I couldn’t afford to give up any cash. I was heading for the door when Katz called, “Wait.”
“Yes?” I said nervously, looking down through the pattern of scratches on my watch, to show I was in a hurry.
“You have a message.” He got the message while I watched the entrance doors for a familiar face with a machine gun under it.
“Mr. Marx called from Las Vegas,” preened Katz. “Said he and his brothers would arrive at Midway Airport here at noon. I presumed you’d know who Mr. Marx was.”
“I do know, Curtis,” I said, leaning over the counter confidentially. “I can call you Curtis, can’t I?”
“Certainly,” he smiled.
“Good,” I beamed back. “Mr. Marx is a producer. We’re thinking of shooting a movie with Gable here in Chicago. It’s important that no one know Mr. Marx is in town. So if anyone comes looking for me, don’t give them the information. Might be reporters or a rival studio. You know how those things are?”
He knew how those things were. I strongly suggested that his cooperation would be borne in mind when the decision was made to shoot the picture. There would be good jobs and small roles for friends.
There were no cabs around, and the morning sun was already high enough by now to keep the streets from having any good shadows to jump into. There were some people on the streets, probably hotel workers, pickpockets, and confused drunks who had lost their way. I didn’t think the presence of a few people would stop Nitti’s friends from gunning me down on LaSalle Street.
I ran across the street. My suitcase bounced as if it was about to split, and my holster and gun put a weight on my chest I didn’t like. I pushed through the nearest revolving door.
Stepping back into the lobby of an office building, I watched a familiar big black Cadillac pull up in front of the LaSalle. Two men jumped out. One was Costello, with his right arm in a sling. The other was the juke box man. Chaney was at the wheel of the car. He looked right at the building I was in, but I was sure the lobby was dark enough.
Two things had probably given me the time to get out of the LaSalle. I had hoped for one or both and had been rewarded. Costello was whatever brains the group of muscle had, and he didn’t have much. He didn’t want to call Nitti or Servi and tell them that I got away if he didn’t have to. He probably could have put in a call and had someone waiting for me when Fleming and I drove up at the LaSalle, but Costello was counting on getting me without help and without admitting a failure. He had also stopped to get his arm bandaged and put in a sling.