Chicago Lightning

“Then Bolton does live at the Van Buren Hotel, here?”

“Yes. My brother and I have known Mr. Bolton for years. My son Charles came up to Chicago recently, to find work, and Joe-Mr. Bolton-is helping him find a job.”

“You’re, uh, not from Chicago?”

“I live in Woodstock. I’m a widow. Have you any other questions?”

“Excuse me, ma’am. I’m sorry about this. Really. My client misled me about a few things.” I tipped my hat to her.

She warmed up a bit; gave me a smile. Tentative, but a smile. “Your apology is accepted, mister…?”

“Heller,” I said. “Nathan. And your name?”

“Marie Winston,” she said, and extended her gloved hand.

I grasped it, smiled.

“Well,” I said, shrugged, smiled, tipped my hat again, and headed back for my office.

It wasn’t the first time a client had lied to me, and it sure wouldn’t be the last. But I’d never been lied to in quite this way. For one thing, I wasn’t sure Mildred Bolton knew she was lying. This lady clearly did not have all her marbles.

I put the hundred bucks in the bank and the matter out of my mind, until I received a phone call, on the afternoon of June 14.

“This himrie Winston, Mr. Heller. Do you remember me?”

At first, frankly, I didn’t; but I said, “Certainly. What can I do for you, Mrs. Winston?”

“That…incident out in front of the Van Buren Hotel last Wednesday, which you witnessed…”

“Oh yes. What about it?”

“Mrs. Bolton has insisted on pressing charges. I wonder if you could appear in police court tomorrow morning, and explain what happened?”

“Well…”

“Mr. Heller, I would greatly appreciate it.”

I don’t like turning down attractive women, even on the telephone; but there was more to it than that: the emotion in her voice got to me.

“Well, sure,” I said.

So the next morning I headed over to the south Loop police court and spoke my piece. I kept to the facts, which I felt would pretty much exonerate all concerned. The circumstances were, as they say, extenuating.

Mildred Bolton, who glared at me as if I’d betrayed her, approached the bench and spoke of the young man’s “unprovoked assault.” She claimed to be suffering physically and mentally from the blow she’d received. The latter, at least, was believable. Her eyes were round and wild as she answered the judge’s questions.

When the judge fined young Winston one hundred dollars, Mrs. Bolton stood in her place in the gallery and began to clap. Loudly. The judge looked at her, too startled to rap his gavel and demand order; then she flounced out of the courtroom very girlishly, tossing her raccoon stole over her shoulder, exulting in her victory.

An embarrassed silence fell across the room. And it’s hard to embarrass hookers, a brace of which were awaiting their turn at the docket.

Then the judge pounded his gavel and said, “The court vacates this young man’s fine.”

Winston, who’d been hangdog throughout the proceedings, brightened like his switch had been turned on. He pumped his lawyer’s hand and turned to his mother, seated behind him just beyond the railing, and they hugged.

On the way out Marie Winston, smiling gently, touched my arm and said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Heller.”

“I don’t think I made much difference.”

“I think you did. The judge vacated the fine, after all.”

“Hell, I had nothing to do with that. Mildred was your star witness.”

“In a way I guess she was.”

“I notice her husband wasn’t here.”

Son Charles spoke up. “No, he’s at work. He…well, he thought it was better he not be here. We figured that woman would be here, after all.”

“That woman is sick.”

“In the head,” Charles said bitterly.

“That’s right. You or I couldbe sick that way, too. Somebody ought to help her.”

Marie Winston, straining to find some compassion for Mildred Bolton, said, “Who would you suggest?”

“Damnit,” I said, “the husband. He’s been with her fourteen years. She didn’t get this way overnight. The way I see it, he’s got a responsibility to get her some goddamn help before he dumps her by the side of the road.”

Mrs. Winston smiled at that, some compassion coming through after all. “You have a very modern point of view, Mr. Heller.”

“Not really. I’m not even used to talkies yet. Anyway, I’ll see you, Mrs. Winston. Charles.”

And I left the graystone building and climbed in my ’32 Auburn and drove back to my office. I parked in the alley, in my space, and walked over to the Berghoff for lunch. I think I hoped to find Bolton there. But he wasn’t.

I went back to the office and puttered a while; I had a pile of retail credit-risk checks to whittle away at.

Hell with it, I thought, and walked over to Bolton’s office building, a narrow, fifteen-story, white granite structure just behind the Federal Reserve on West Jackson, next to the El. Bolton was doing all right-better than me, certainly-but as a broker he was in the financial district only by a hair. No doubt he was a relatively small-time insurance broker, making twenty or twenty-five grand a year. Big money by my standards, but a lot of guys over at the Board of Trade spilled more than that.

There was no lobby really, just a wide hall between facing rows of shops-newsstand, travel agency, cigar store. The uniformed elevator operator, a skinny, pockmarked guy about my age, was waiting for a passenger. I was it.

“Tenth floor,” I told him, and he took me up.

He was pulling open the cage doors when we heard the air crack, three times.

“What the hell was that?” he said.

“It wasn’t a car backfiring,” I said. “You better stay here.”

I moved cautiously out into the hall. The elevators came up a central shaft, with a squared-off “c” of offices all about. I glanced quickly at the names on the pebbled glass in the wood-partition walls, and finally lit upon BOLTON AND SCHMIDT, INSURANCE BROKERS. I swallowed and moved cautiously in that direction as the door flew open and a young woman flew out-a dark-haired dish of maybe twenty with wide eyes and a face drained of blood, her silk stockings flashing as she rushed my way.

She fell into my arms and I said, “Are you wounded?”

“No,” she swallowed, “but somebody is.”

The poor kid was gasping for air; I hauled her toward the bank of elevators. Even under the strain, I was enjoying the feel and smell of her.

“You wouldn’t be Joseph Bolton’s secretary, by any chance?” I asked, helping her onto the elevator.

She nodded, eyes still huge.

“Take her down,” I told the operator.

And I headed back for that office. I was nearly there when I met Joseph Bolton, as he lurched down the hall. He had a gun in his hand. His light brown suitcoat was splotched with blood in several places; so was his right arm. He wasn’t wearing his eyeglasses, which made his face seem naked somehow. His expression seemed at once frightened, pained, and sorrowful.

He staggered toward me like a child taking its first steps, and I held my arms out to him like daddy. But they were more likely his last steps: he fell to the marble floor and began to writhe, tracing abstract designs in his own blood on the smooth surface.

I moved toward him and he pointed the gun at me, a little .32 revolver. “Stay away! Stay away!”

“Okay, bud, okay,” I said.