“Nitti gave it to me to use. I’m helping
Dillinger flicked the stub of his cigarette away, smiled mildly, said, “Nitti’s smart. Too fuckin’ smart for his own good. He’s gonna die of being smart someday.”
“He plays people like a hand of cards, I’ll give you that. As for why I’m here, it’s strictly a mission of mercy— and it’s with Nitti’s full okay.”
“Make me believe that.”
I told him, in enough detail to convince him, that I was here to retrieve Candy Walker’s moll Lulu for her ailing farmer father.
He seemed to buy it, farmer’s kid that he was himself; but he said, “I can check on this with a phone call.”
“I know you can. But do you really want Nitti to know you’re in the neighborhood? He’s not exactly going to be tickled pink about what you’re planning for tomorrow, you know.”
Dillinger got out a new cigarette, lit it up; in the orange glow of the flame, his mask of a face gave little away. “He’s not going to know I was involved—unless you tell him.”
“Why should I tell him?”
He didn’t answer me. Instead he said, reflectively, “I suppose you’d like to just take the girl and scram. Just hop in one of these cars and rescue the fair maiden, and not get caught up in tomorrow’s business.”
My answer to that flatly posed question would be crucial; I could see it in his face, hear it in his voice, if just barely—he was doing his best not to tip his hand.
But I could tell what he wanted to hear—and what he didn’t want to hear.
So I said, “Hell, no. I’m in.”
He studied me. “You’re in?”
“Hell, yes. Twenty-five gees worth, I am.”
“You’re supposed to be a stand-up guy, Heller. So honest you quit the force and all. Why all of a sudden are you willing to get in the kidnapping racket?”
I put on my best smirk; inside I wasn’t smiling. “Hoover’s nothing to me. The feds gave me nothing but grief, when you were staging that ballet at the Biograph. Make ’em look as stupid as you like, and squeeze as much dough out as you can.”
He studied me.
“Look, I can use twenty-five gees, friend. I had two clients in the last month and a half—and you were one of ’em.”
He drew on the cigarette.
I said, “But I’m not in for murder, understand. I want your word Hoover won’t be killed. Even if they don’t fork over the dough.”
He said nothing for a while. Fiddles were playing on Ma’s radio station.
Then he said, “You got my word,” and held his hand out for me to shake.
I shook it.
“Hell,” I said, “all I got to do is bunk in with some good-looking women for a few weeks. I had worse jobs.”
Dillinger laughed; a genuine laugh. “Yeah. There’s worse ways to score twenty-five grand. And when it’s over, you can take the skirt and blow.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“But Heller—if you’re stringing me along—if you fuck this up for me—you’re dead. Got that? Plain old dead.”
“Understood.”
He threw the latest cigarette away; it sizzled in the grass, and we walked back around front of the tourist cabins.
As we walked, I said, “You were some actor, back in my office that time. You really had me going.”
He smiled. “I always have had a smooth line of bull.”
Me, too, John. Me, too.
39
We were gathered much as the night before, in the same smoky room, only now sun was filtering through the sheer curtains, dust motes floating, as Doc Barker said, “Ever hear of a guy named Nate Heller?”
He was sitting right next to me when he said it; I felt myself starting to shake. The gun was under my arm, but my hand was on my knee, a world away.
They’d been talking about the possibility of the feds marking the bills. It had happened in the Bremer snatch, and the dough had been so hot no fence wanted to touch it at first, though they finally sold most of it at a ten percent discount. Karpis said in this case they’d insist on used, non-consecutive bills, and set up for a fast ransom exchange—too fast, Karpis hoped, for the feds to get serial numbers recorded.
Floyd had suggested they sit on the money awhile, but float a few bills out just to see what happened. Karpis suggested the way to do that was remove some bills from Hoover’s wallet and substitute ransom money.
“If the bills are hot,” Karpis had said, “then Hoover’ll be the first to pass ’em. The papers’ll report the bills turning up, in whatever city he passes ’em in—Washington, D.C., most likely—and we’ll know right away if we need to fence the cash.”
