Then his face fell, while at the same time he sat erect, as he said crisply, “No, sir. No developments…yes sir, immediately, sir…yes, sir, I quite agree. We’d reached that conclusion ourselves…yes, sir.”
He hung up.
“Hoover?” I said.
Cowley nodded. “He’s been calling every few minutes. From his home in Washington, D.C. Pacing his library, I gather.”
“This is a make-or-break moment for you guys.”
“Yes, and Hoover knows it. He was just vetoing the notion of taking Dillinger within the theater, by the way. He wants no gunplay in a crowded auditorium.”
“It occurs to me this sudden possible switch from the Marbro to the Biograph is a trifle suspicious.”
“Oh, really,” he said, with flat, almost disinterested skepticism. “Why is that?”
“It allows you to plan for one theater all day, and then pulls the rug out from under you at the last minute… besides scattering your forces between the two locations.”
Cowley counted on his fingers, as if explaining to a child. “First of all, we’ll have time to converge on whichever theater it is, before we take him, and that includes the two men currently covering whichever theater proves to have been a false alarm. Second, your suspicions only hold true if they go to the second theater, the Biograph, because we’ve had ample opportunity to scout the Marbro.”
“What’s playing?”
That threw him. “What?”
“What pictures are playing?”
Cowley rolled his eyes. “I haven’t the foggiest.”
“You got a Sunday paper up here?”
He sighed heavily, called one of the college boys over. Told him to get me the movie listings from one of the Sunday papers. The college boy did, looking like a kid playing guns with that .38 slung heavily under his arm.
I spread the paper open on Cowley’s desk and pointed to the Marbro listing. “See what’s opening today?
Cowley tried to act like he didn’t get my point, but he did.
I told him anyway. “Whether it’s Dillinger or not, my guess is he’s going to the Biograph. The other’s a kid’s picture, and they’d have to go to the West Side, something like nine miles, to see it. Of course if he’s the kind of guy who’d rather sleep with Shirley Temple than Myrna Loy, my thinking here could be all wet.”
The sexual allusion to Miss Temple didn’t sit well with the good Mormon Cowley. He looked irritated. And he looked weary again. Particularly with me. “I don’t think you have business here, Mr. Heller. Why don’t you leave this to the government?”
“Good idea,” I said. “I’m in the mood for some relaxation, anyway.”
I stood up; put on my hat. Slung my suitcoat over my shoulder casually.
“Think I’ll take in a show,” I said, smiled, and let him do his Edgar Kennedy slow burn behind me.
18
The theater marquee was pulsing with little white bulbs in sockets, lined in rows and curlicues above and around the name on the front,
BIOGRAPH
On either side of the marquee, more rows of bulbs in sockets called attention to the featured attraction:
“MANHATTAN MELODRAMA”
with
CLARK GABLE and WILLIAM POWELL
Below the marquee a dark blue banner with light blue letters hung; on the sides, under the featured attraction billing, it said iced fresh air; and in front it said:
COOLED
BY REFRIGERATION
The promise of cool air, as much as Clark Gable (and William Powell and Myrna Loy), accounted for the steady stream of people going in the theater. It was now 8:00 P.M. and the next show would start at 8:30. Couples, families and the occasional single man or woman approached the Biograph box office, a central glass booth, bought their tickets and went in to wait in the cool lobby and buy some popcorn and Coca-Cola.
Otherwise there wasn’t much activity on the street. The muggy night—overseen by an unreal, orange-tinted sky that seemed just as Hollywood as the Biograph marquee—was untouched by a lake breeze. Occasional traffic found its way down Lincoln Avenue, but no cool air. Not unless it slipped out of the doors opening and closing as people went in and out of the Biograph.
There were a few people around. Folks living in second-story apartments above shops along the street had their windows open and many were leaning out, wondering where the hell Chicago’s famous lake wind had gone to. The tavern next to the theater was open, Goetz’s Country Club, and a soda fountain down the block, and a few other places. None of the shops, outside of those selling orange juice or ice cream or the like, was open. Some younger people, in their teens and twenties, were out wandering, window-shopping, boys in shirt sleeves, girls in light summery dresses. Sometimes they were paired off, but more often a trio or quartet of girls giggled along, often followed by a similar number of swaggering boys. Even the heat couldn’t put a stop to mating rites. If anything it encouraged them.
Oh, and I was there. Having gone high-hat by cabbing it from the Drake to the Banker’s Building, I hoofed it from the latter to my office, where I got my Chevy and headed for the North Side, specifically Lincoln Avenue. I had
