you were all right, to see if you were in trouble….”
Oh shit.
“Well, that was sweet, Evalyn, but…”
“Sweet! The first thing the operative discovered was that you’d made a phone call from my house to a number in Chicago. The number was that of a business, a ‘cigar stand,’ owned by a certain Mr. Campagna, who is a Chicago mobster, as you well know.”
“Evalyn.”
The husky voice sounded strangely brittle, now. “You lied to me. You were reporting back to them, weren’t you?”
“This isn’t anything you should pursue, Evalyn. It could be dangerous for you, if you did.”
“Are you threatening me, now?”
“No! Hell, no…I just don’t want you to get yourself in trouble.”
“You were in the hospital, all right. And I know it was a gunshot wound, and I was concerned, I am concerned, and maybe there’s a good explanation, maybe you can make me feel good about you again, but can you answer one thing?”
I sighed. “What’s that, Evalyn?”
“Why were you in a hospital where the chief of surgery is the in-law of some top gangster?”
“Your private detective found this out, did he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Evalyn, those ‘gangsters’ run Chicago. It’s just a coincidence. Don’t make it something it’s not.”
“Do they run you?”
“Sometimes, yes. When they want to. And when I want to keep breathing. I sometimes accommodate them.”
“Bruno Richard Hauptmann is dead.”
“So I hear. What exactly can I do about that at this juncture?”
“Nothing. Nothing.”
“Evalyn. Evalyn, are you crying?”
“Fuck you, Heller! Fuck you, Heller.”
Most women get around to saying that to me, eventually. Even the toney ones.
“I’m sorry, Evalyn. I’m sorry I’m not what you’d like me to be.”
“You still could be. I know you’re a good man, underneath it all.”
“Oh, really? Does that mean the chauffeur’s position is still open?”
“Now you’re being cruel,” she said, and I’d hurt her. I’d meant to, but I was sorry.
I told her so.
The earnestness of her voice would’ve broken my heart, if I’d let it. “Nate, that little boy is out there somewhere…I just know he is. If we can find him, we can clear Richard Hauptmann’s name.”
“A posthumous pardon will leave him just as dead as he is now. Maybe history will clear the poor bastard; but I’m not going to. Besides, I’m not so convinced that kid is alive.”
“I’m going to keep looking, Nate. I’ll never stop.”
“Yes, you will, Evalyn. You’ll find some new cause. There’s always another cause to support, just like there’s always another diamond to buy.”
“You are cruel.”
“Sometimes. But not foolish. Goodbye, Evalyn.”
And I hung up.
I just sat there for a while, and then I slammed my fist on the desk, and the phone jumped, and I split a fucking stitch. It hurt like hell. I unbuttoned my shirt and there was blood on the bandage. I’d have to go back to the hospital for a little outpatient number. God, it hurt. I started to cry.
I cried like a baby for several minutes.
I told myself it was the wound. But there are all kinds of those.
EPILOGUE
1936–1990
42
I never saw Evalyn again.
She continued investigating the case, and wrote a series of articles about her experiences for
