“Well?” said Boston, his hands folded in front of him.
“The drug is scapalomine,” said a voice in the back of the room. “Dr. Derry doesn’t want to mention it because he and I are still conducting experiments in Capetown.”
Groucho Marx stood up and continued. “I’m the chief of staff at Dr. Derry’s hospital in Capetown, and I suggested that he not give the information, but under the circumstances and with the warning I’ve just given, I think it will do no harm now.”
“Dr.-” Boston began.
“Hackenbush,” said Marx seriously. I expected a roar of laughter or recognition, but there was none. Maybe the doctors never went to the movies. “And now, gentlemen, I’d like to talk to Dr. Derry in the hall for a moment. I know this is unprecedented, but if you’ll just bear with us, I think I can persuade Dr. Derry to reveal something that will be of great scientific interest.”
Agabiti looked confused and gazed around the room. No one appeared to know what to do.
“I don’t think you can convince me, Dr. Hackenbush,” I said somberly, “but I’ll listen. I’ll be right back.”
I hurried quickly through the door with Marx and whispered to him as we got in the hall.
“Where did you get that scapalomine business?”
“It’s true,” said Groucho, “I read this quack Derry’s book and asked some questions out at U.S.C. The drug is probably scapalomine.”
“You read medical books?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m a doctor, aren’t I? Now what were you doing in there?”
I explained about Nitti’s boys as we passed the Andrew Sisters, who looked surprised to see me out so early. There was no one else in the twelfth floor lobby. Everyone was in the various meeting rooms. In one room, there would be a long wait for Dr. Derry and Hackenbush to return.
“My advice as your physician,” whispered Marx, “is to get the hell out of here. Let’s get back to our room and shove you under the bed.”
We pushed the button for the elevator, and Marx kept going through the pantomime of serious conversation. Our chances looked good. Nitti’s men weren’t in the lobby, and they had a lot of territory to cover. A few seconds later I drastically revised our chances. Costello was in the elevator. He stood back against the wall with his hand in his coat pocket. There was no running from him. I nodded toward Costello so Groucho would know, and we stepped in as the doors closed.
I wondered if Costello would shoot Marx, me, and the blissfully unaware elevator operator, or try to get me out where he could handle my demise slowly and painfully. I thought that painful demises were more his style.
He leaned over my shoulder with familiar garlic breath.
“I got a message,” he whispered. “Tonight at eleven, you be at the New Michigan with Marx. Servi will be there. You got the message?”
“I got the message.”
“Good,” he said. “Things don’t go right, I get you.”
Groucho and I rode down with Costello to the lobby and watched him leave with the other two.
He had probably thought Groucho was Chico.
“What was that all about?” asked Groucho as we got back in the elevator.
“My pal Al Capone remembered me,” I said.
9
O.K., I told myself. Assuming Servi does get Chico off the hook, you still have two questions. First, who killed Bistolfi, Morris Kelakowsky, and Canetta? The second problem was tied to the first-how to get the Chicago cops to unlist me as public enemy number three or four and moving up fast. The most obvious solution to problem one was that at least four people were involved in some scheme to cheat the mob and Nitti out of $120,000. The killer was determined not to split that money into smaller chunks. Maybe Killer was worried about my getting too close. That led to an obvious conclusion. Killer might want me dead now unless there wasn’t anyone left for me to get information from.
He might also realize, if he was a member of either Nitti’s or Capone’s group, that as soon as Servi cleared Chico, Nitti might start looking for him.
That got me just about nowhere, so I decided to solve problem number two. I got directions and headed South on Michigan Avenue. The wind knocked over an old lady in a black coat. She didn’t break her fall when the blast of iced air threw a block under her. The wind deserved a fifteen yard penalty for clipping. Instead, the old lady lost about three yeards. She got up, determined. The first and ten looked like it might be the Old Water Tower I passed on Chicago Avenue. I never found out. The old lady was still half a block back, struggling against the blast. I was a foreigner and more determined. Chicago had thrown its best flu at me, and I had made it through almost five days. I adjusted my ear muffs and leaned my way down Michigan, past book shops and fancy women’s stores with stiff-backed mannequins in their windows. In ten minutes, I made it past the Tribune Tower and across a bridge over the Chicago river. Ten minutes beyond that I was at City Hall on Clark. When I got to the one-block square lump, I kept my head down, pretending to fight the wind but really keeping my face covered from the cops who were walking in and out.
I headed for the mayor’s office, not that I expected to get in to the mayor, but because I needed information I could get there. A receptionist sat inside the door marked “Mayor.” She looked young, red-haired and Irish. Her teeth were small and her smile long gone for the likes of me.
“Yes sir,” she said.
“I’d like to see the mayor’s secretary,” I said.
“Do you have an appointment?” she said, looking past me for someone who was expected.
“No,” I said, “but I have only one question and I’m a busy man.” I looked at my watch. “If Chicago won’t help me, Detroit will.”
She was unimpressed, so I went on.
“I’m from Metro Goldwyn Mayer studio,” I whispered. “We’re thinking seriously of shooting a picture here next year about the Chicago Fire-a big thing, millions of dollars.”
She was suspicious, but she couldn’t afford to make the kind of mistake that might happen if she kicked me out.
“Did you see Mr.-”
“No,” I said with a patient smile. “I saw no one. This is to remain strictly confidential until I get some reassurances from the Mayor’s office directly.”
She could have asked why I was telling her, but she didn’t look that sharp. She wasn’t.
“Let me check, Mr.-”
“Pevsner,” I said. “Tobias Pevsner. If you’d like to call Mr. Mayer’s office, I’ll be glad to give you the number, Miss-”
“Kelly,” she said with a small smile.
I had discovered from the directory in City Hall that the Mayor’s name was Kelly, but I didn’t think it was the moment to note the coincidence.
“Kelly,” I mused. “A good name for a lovely young lady. You remind me very much of Vivien Leigh. Hey. Viv will be starring in the Chicago picture and she’ll have a younger sister. Ever done any acting?”
Her mouth dropped and closed.
“A little, in a school play, Arsenic and Old Lace. I played the girl.”
I pulled out my black expense book and gnawed pencil.
“Your first name?”
“Maureen, Maureen Kelly.”
I wrote an expense item for a fifty cent breakfast and closed the book. She left and I looked around the bare little office with a single window facing nothing. It was a dreary place, and the man Maureen Kelly led out to see me fit perfectly. He was a prune of a man, pinched in by what must have been an enormous, tight rubber band under his jacket. Bowel movements must have been torture for him. His words fit the image-brief, clipped darts of words that traveled straight and allowed no echo.