The insurance salesman cop was saying, “Are you sure, Mr. Castelli? The man you just identified is Tony Accardo. I don’t think he’d be likely to con you out of five bucks on a street corner.”
“I think it’s him,” said Castelli.
“Let me put it to you this way, Mr. Castelli,” said the insurance cop, “if I thought Accardo conned you, I’d be happy to pull him in, but I don’t think he did, and I think I should tell you he’s not a con man. He’s a mobster.”
“I’m probably wrong,” said Castelli, looking at the picture again.
“Probably,” said the cop. “Let’s look at some more.”
They looked at some more, and I looked around the room for Kleinhans. A cop at one desk was typing a report and singing “Shine on Harvest Moon.” His hair was clipped short, and he had a red bull neck with bristles on it that rubbed against his collar. The woman sitting at the chair near his desk wasn’t singing. She was holding on to her purse with two hands and trying to read what the cop was typing. She looked like a scared bird or Zasu Pitts. At another desk, three cops were looking at something in a folder and laughing. It was loud dirty laughter. I felt at home. It was like most of the police stations and precinct houses I had been in and out of since I was twenty.
Kleinhans was seated at the desk furthest back, near a drafty window covered with bars and so dirty you couldn’t see through it. It was the choice location in the room. Kleinhans saw me before I saw him. He was talking to a thin man with a day’s growth of beard and a brown hat that had gone mad trying to keep its shape. It may have been driven over the brink by the hole in the crown that looked like it came from a bullet. The thin man’s hands were moving furiously in explanation, anguish, pain, and plea bargaining.
Kleinhans smiled at me, and I walked over to him, catching the end of the thin man’s sentence.
“-so what use would I have for such a thing like that?”
“I don’t know, Sophie,” said Kleinhans. “Maybe you can ask the judge that.”
“Aw, Sergeant,” the thin man said, his eyes filling with tears, “you’re not going to turn me over for a couple of pair of shoes? Left-footer soccer shoes. What the hell? The lock-up’s cold, Sergeant, and with my bursitis-”
“You win,” said Kleinhans, holding up his hand. “Your tale touched my heart, Soph. Those tears won me over. Get out of here, and don’t let me see you on the street for a month.”
The thin man fell into shock. His mouth dropped open. He looked at Kleinhans and then at me, but he didn’t move.
“I–I-I can just go?” he said. “No booking? You ain’t even going to rough me a little?”
Kleinhans shook his head.
“Naw, Soph, you’re little fish on the street today. This man’s public enemy number one.” He pointed at me, and Soph’s eyes turned up in confusion and awe. “Wanted in connection with four murders in the last week, and he’s turning himself over to me. What do you think about that?”
“It’s nice,” said the thin man, removing his battered hat, crumpling it and putting it on again.
“Right,” said Kieinhans, “and I don’t have time to write you up Soph, so move. Don’t say thanks, just move and remember you owe me.”
A smile twitched on Sophie’s face as he got up quickly and headed for the exit. He nearly hit Zasu Pitts, and she clutched her purse tighter as he dashed out the door.
“Have a seat, Peters,” said Kieinhans. “Want a cup of coffee?”
Not only couldn’t you see through his window, but the thin draft knifed across the desk. Kieinhans’ concession to the chill was a brown sweater over his shirt and tie. The sweater had a small hole on the right arm.
“No coffee,” I said.
“Well,” he said, stretching and putting his hands behind his neck, “you decided to make me a hero by turning yourself in to me. I appreciate that. It’ll take me off the desk for the day.”
“I haven’t had lunch,” I said. “Someplace we can go for a sandwich and some talk?”
“O.K.,” he said, getting up and putting on his coat. “I’ll introduce you to the best hot dog in the world.”
Kleinhans told one of the three laughing cops to watch his desk because he was going out to lunch. The cop nodded and turned back to the folder.
A uniformed cop stopped Kleinhans as we hit the Squad Room door. He wanted to know where he should put someone, or something, called Verese. Kleinhans looked toward the cop singing “Shine on Harvest Moon” and indicated that Verese should go to him.
On the street, the sun was shining and the wind was calm. The temperature had shot up to the very low thirties. I’d been in Chicago less than a week but it seemed like a balmy day to me. With his hands in his pockets, Kleinhans turned right on Maxwell Street and looked straight ahead. A cop car pulled up and Kleinhans nodded to the two guys who got out.
“Ever been on Maxwell Street?” said Kleinhans.
“No,” I said, “is it something to remember?”
He shrugged. Within half a block, the street was crammed with pushcarts. Some of them were as long as two Chevies, some were covered with canvas, but most were open for business with men, women, and boys hawking goods to each other and to bundled-up customers. The cars lined both sides of the two-way street and narrowed the area for driving to barely a car’s width. Behind the pushcarts, on either side of the street, were shops and stores with more men, women, and boys talking to passersby, shifting their legs to stay warm as they caught a potential customer, or lost him and went for a new one.
Signs were all over the place-hand-lettered, some with cartoons on them, some in Yiddish. The spelling was awful. The cardboard they were written on was flimsy, but the bargains were terrific providing you could use lots of slightly warped arrows, soiled suitcases, sox-pairs and nots-rope, screwdrivers with handles melted by a railroad fire, army pillows, suits-“perfect.”
“This bargain day?” I said.
“No,” said Kleinhans, “this is an off day, a slow weekday afternoon. You should come on a Sunday.”
The air smelled as if everything on sale had been grilled in onions-sweet and just this side of nauseating. A thin kid no more than thirteen, who should have been in school, grabbed my arm and shouted in my face.
“Ties, ties! Yours got dirt all over. Look at these ties.” He held up a handful of ties that looked like they were stolen from the Ringling Brothers clowns during intermission.
“Sorry,” I said. The kid was going to try again, but he saw Kleinhans and recognized him. The kid turned to another prospect.
Then Kleinhans grabbed my arm, grinned and pointed across the street. We moved between two carts and in front of a grey Buick that was inching its way up the street. I wondered what would happen if a car came the other way.
The small cart in the middle of the block was a white square with a hot dog painted on the side. The paint was peeling, and the dog had begun to show blue under the red.
“Tony’s gonna be famous some day,” said Kleinhans, ordering two dogs “with everything.” Tony was a little round man with a dark face, an apron, and a serious professional look.
“I’ll take ketchup instead of mustard,” I said, “and no peppers.”
Tony nodded, businesslike, and worked with a flourish.
Kleinhans handed me a hot dog sandwich wrapped in a napkin and gave Tony two quarters.
“On me,” he said.
A shot of wind came along, and Kleinhans pointed to a doorway with his hot dog. He had already taken a bite out of it that reduced the sandwich by a third.
In the doorway, I took a bite and admitted it was a damn good dog.
“You want to talk business?” I asked with a mouthful of dog and onion. There were little seeds on the bun, and it was hot and soft. Kleinhans’ mouth was full, and a mustard-covered onion fell from it as he nodded that talking was all right with him.