“Dillinger captured.”
She looked away from the pan she was cooking in to give me a wide-eyed, disturbed look.
“Nate—why don’t you find another way to make a living?”
“I considered nude ballet with a bubble, but it’s been taken.”
She crinkled her mouth and chin in mock-anger. “You’re dodging the issue. You’re an intelligent, capable man. Why do you sit in that shabby little office, doing shabby little work? Not to mention dangerous.”
I shrugged. Didn’t hurt much. Half a fingernail being torn off. I said, “My work isn’t usually dangerous. Don’t be deceived into thinking exciting things like these happen to me every week. Hard to believe as it may be, I never been worked over with a rubber hose before.”
She had turned away from me; she was easing the omelet out of the pan onto a plate. “A lot of people go through life without ever being ‘worked over’ with a rubber hose at all.”
“Think what they missed.”
She put the omelet down in front of me, with a side plate of toast. “You like some cottage fries with that?”
“No. This’ll be fine.”
“Coffee?”
“Orange juice’d be better.”
“I already squeezed some.” She got a small white pitcher out of a small white icebox and poured me a large clear glass, turning it orange. I sipped it and it tasted good; the feel of the pulp in my mouth was nice. The hangover seemed to be fading.
Just the same I said, “And a side order of aspirin?”
She smiled and nodded. “Comin’ right up.” The aspirin was on the kitchen counter; I took two with the last swallows of the orange juice.
Then she sat by me and said, her expression almost somber, “I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to you.”
“I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to you, either.”
“You live in your office, Nate. I saw it. You sleep in a Murphy bed.”
“I know guys who sleep in parks.”
“Don’t try to shame me—I’m no snob, you know that. I just know a real waste when I see one.”
“A real waste.”
“Yes. A waste of a mind, potentially of a life.”
“This omelet is very good. Sure you don’t want to give up show biz and marry me?”
She laughed, sadly. “You’re hopeless.”
“That’s what they tell me. Look, Sally—Helen—I only have one trade. It’s all I’m trained for, it’s all I know. And I really do have plans to live somewhere besides my office someday. I’ll have a good-size agency with operatives working under me, and a nice big office with a pretty secretary to fool around with while my wife raises little Nates and Helens at home.” That made her smile, not sadly. “It’s a shabby little office, because I’m just starting out, and this is the goddamn
“Okay, Nate. I won’t press. Maybe it’s none of my business.”
I touched her hand. “It’s your business. You’re my friend. That gives you the right to stick your nose in, at least till I ask you not to.”
Impish smile. “Friend, huh? You sleep with all your friends?”
I managed to do an exaggerated shrug and not pass out. “Just you and Barney,” I said.
“You’re looking for another beating, Heller.”
“I promise I’m not. This omelet
“Of course I’m sure. If John Dillinger had been captured, it’d be all over the place. Wouldn’t it?”
I nodded. Not much pain. “It should’ve took place last night. They were meeting with Anna Sage—she would’ve given them the address or otherwise led the feds to him….”
“Dillinger, you mean.”
“Yes. I don’t understand why it didn’t happen.”
“Maybe something went wrong.”
“Maybe,” I said, and stood. “Mind if I use your phone?”
Not liking it, she said, “Not at all.”
In the living room, I sat in an overstuffed round-looking chair by the window and dialed the phone, a white candlestick type she kept on a low coffee table. The curtains were back and I glanced out as I waited for the call to go through. Down where Lake Shore Drive curved around the front of the Drake, people on Oak Street Beach and the surrounding park formed a blanket of flesh, staring out at the ironic blue lake, where sailboats and yachts taunted them. The boats were keeping away from the shoreline, though; just beyond the bobbing heads of more casual bathers a pathway was being maintained for those single-minded souls competing in the
