Cowley said nothing; his face looked like it was made out of gray putty.
“Don’t stir up the heat, that’s Nitti’s motto. He learned the lesson early on that Capone learned too late—he learned how nervous the public gets when you go around having massacres on Saint Valentine’s Day. So let a would-be presidential assassin ‘miss’ and shoot ‘Ten Percent’ Tony Cermak instead. So let Melvin Purvis, G-man, courageously blow off John Dillinger’s head and make the kind of headlines the public’ll eat up.”
“You’ve made your point.”
“Not to mention how Dillinger’s outlaw cronies might react to one of their own being murdered by the mob; who needs a bloody shooting war breaking out with the likes of Baby Face Nelson and the Barker boys? That’s a battle Nitti could obviously win, but at a high cost—lives of his men, bad publicity—why bother risking it?”
“Enough, Heller.”
“Face it, Cowley. You’re being used.”
“Stop it.”
“Well, actually, it’s Purvis they’re using. He’s dependable. After all, Capone and Nitti used him to put Roger Touhy in Joliet, already.”
“Touhy was guilty.”
“Of a lot of things, but not the kidnapping you guys prosecuted him for.”
“I disagree.”
“It’s a free country, Cowley. You’re like the rest of us—operating of your own free will. It’s not like you’re a puppet or anything.”
“You’re not funny.”
“I know. But the way the Syndicate manipulates you feds is pretty funny. Do you really think Jelly Nash was ‘accidentally’ shot at the Kansas City Massacre? Sure—him and Mayor Cermak. Innocent victims.”
“You’re full of crap on a lot of this, Heller. You really are.”
“Maybe. But not on Dillinger. I’m on the money, there.”
Cowley’s coffee cup was empty; he held it by the china handle and tapped it nervously on the table. “Maybe you are. But it doesn’t make any difference.”
“It doesn’t?”
Cowley shook his head slowly. “Dillinger is public enemy number one. He has to be stopped. And where the information comes from that helps us stop him—whoever it is behind the scenes helping us get him—doesn’t matter. What matters, when you’re going after someone like Dillinger, is getting him. Nothing else.”
“I see. You don’t mind owing a debt of gratitude to Frank Nitti.”
“I don’t know that I do.”
“You heard what I said…”
Cowley grimaced. “Yes, and it makes a lot of sense. It just might be true. But it doesn’t matter.”
“Because Dillinger has caused your Division of Investigation so much grief, given you so much embarrassment, that you have to get him, whatever it costs.”
Cowley, with sadness in his eyes, said, “That’s exactly right.”
That’s when I decided not to give him Jimmy Lawrence’s address. That’s when I decided not to play, anymore. To do what Nitti wanted me to. To do what the East Chicago boys wanted me to. Stay home. Stay in bed.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Cowley said. He rose. “I’ll find my way out.”
He went out into the living room but then, suddenly, he was back in the doorway. With a small smile as inscrutable as a Chinaman’s, he said, “You just may be surprised how this turns out.”
“Why’s that, Cowley?”
“Purvis won’t be alone. I’ll be there, too, when we get Dillinger. And I’m not trigger-happy. And I’m also not inclined to keep deals with crooked cops who insist on me shooting the man they finger for me.
I smiled. It hurt. “You think you can take Dillinger alive?”
“I’m going to try. If Frank Nitti wants him dead, then Mr. Dillinger’s a man who may have some things I’d like to hear.”
He tipped his hat and was gone.
I wondered if I should have given him Lawrence’s address after all. Why bother? I’d been paid one hundred dollars by Frank Nitti to go to bed; and two East Chicago cops had given me some rubber-hose incentive to do just that. Cowley was on his way to meet with Anna Sage. She could tell him Lawrence’s address. She could get her blood money, and her free pass with the immigration department. Let her do it.
I had other things to do.
Like hurt.
16
I opened my eyes, one at a time. Sun was filtering in through sheer curtains. I was under the covers in Sally Rand’s bed in her air-cooled apartment; Sally was on top of the covers next to me, in white lounging pajamas, a pillow propped behind her as she smoked and read a magazine.
I sat up in bed, slowly.
“Good morning,” Sally said, with a sideways glance and a wry little smile.
