True Crime

“It does,” he said, “I’ve studied every available picture of John Dillinger. You couldn’t miss it, if you’d studied that face as much as I have. Just looking at the back of his head I can tell it’s him….”

At this point Dillinger had been buying three tickets from the girl in the box-office window, while Anna and Polly chatted, waiting.

“How many pictures of the back of Dillinger’s head are there?” I asked Purvis, but he didn’t bother answering.

Shortly after Dillinger held the door open for his ladies and went in, so had Purvis. And so had I. He sent Brown to telephone Cowley, and asked me—actually asked me—to help him check out the theater. We’d bought tickets from the girl in the glass booth (no one at the theater had been alerted to the stakeout) and went on into the lobby, where the cool air and the smell of popcorn greeted us. There were a few people at the concession stand—Lawrence/Dillinger not among them, nor either of his ladies. We went into the auditorium, one of us on either aisle, and I began to wish I had brought my gun. The air in here was cooler than the lobby, almost cold. It was very dark. The heads of theater patrons were craned up looking at the silver screen where Mickey Mouse danced with some farm animals and spoke in a squeaky voice that reminded me a little of Purvis.

Virtually every seat in the house was taken.

We met in the lobby.

“Did you spot ’em?” he asked me.

“No. You?”

He shook his head. “I’d hoped to find them, and three empty seats behind ’em.”

“You know what people in hell want.”

He nodded. “I wouldn’t mind some, either,” he said, and he went to a drinking fountain and gulped several mouthfuls. When he was done I did the same. Then we headed back out to the hot street, and waited for the reinforcements to arrive.

That was the last active role I’d been asked to play here thus far, and would likely remain so.

Now the street seemed filled with men in hats and suitcoats, when before the majority of pedestrians and motorists were in shirt sleeves and, if any hat, caps. The agents stood out like a battalion of sore thumbs. I watched the girl in the box-office window, a pretty little blonde barely out of her teens. She looked scared.

I ambled up to Cowley.

Without looking at me, he said, “What do you want?”

I said, “The girl in the box office is getting spooked. Why don’t you let her in on it?”

“Mind your own business, Heller.”

“She thinks you’re a bunch of hoods, probably. And where the East Chicago boys are concerned, she’s not far wrong. Anyway, she probably thinks she’s about to be robbed. Several theaters have been robbed, these past few months, you know.”

“I wouldn’t know. That isn’t a federal offense.”

“Nice to know you guys stay so on top of things. Best of luck in all your future endeavors, Cowley.” I faded back to my spot by the barber pole.

In a few minutes I saw the girl in her glass booth furtively talking to a man in a white shirt and a bow tie and a mustache: the manager, no doubt. He was nodding, and then rushed off. None of the feds picked up on it.

Within five minutes a blue sedan with CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT in white letters on the sides pulled up; there were two cops inside. Neither had their blue coats on—because of the scorching heat, the cops had been allowed to work out of uniform this week, just wearing their caps and blue pants with blue blouses with badges pinned to their chests. These boys, obviously from the nearby Sheffield Avenue Station, looked tough and suspicious, and one of them hopped out, clutching a shotgun.

Zarkovich ran up to him before the cop had reached the sidewalk.

“This is a federal stakeout, mac,” Zarkovich said. “On your way.”

The Chicago cop didn’t take kindly to that, but a more diplomatic Cowley interceded, showed the cop his ID, and affirmed that this was a federal stakeout.

“We’d appreciate it if you’d remove yourself from the vicinity,” Cowley said, “before you blow our cover.”

The cop made a face. “Yeah, right. They’ll never spot you guys in those suits. Oh, brother!”

And he got in the squad car and they rolled away.

I went up to Cowley and said, “You might’ve told them it was Dillinger.”

Cowley said, “Chief Purvis is insistent on no Chicago cops. Anna Sage is deathly afraid some insider with the police will tip Dillinger off.”

“At this stage, how, exactly? Mental telepathy?”

Cowley glared at me, and I went over and leaned against the building by the barber pole. I was tempted to go across and get in my coupe and drive away. I was helpless to do anything about this situation; I could only hope my presence would be a reminder, a nagging one, to both Cowley and Purvis, of their responsibilities. That both of them would rein in on the East Chicago cops more, if I were around; that they’d both work a little harder at keeping their prisoner alive. I had told Cowley I wasn’t his “conscience.” Now I found myself somehow hoping I was.

The night wore on; I wasn’t sweating much, but I didn’t have a coat on like the rest of these jokers. Most of them looked drenched. Across the street sweat beads hung on Purvis’ face like the tears of a bawling baby. He wiped his face now and then, with that monogrammed hanky, but the sweat popped right back. Every now and then he’d take his revolver out and see if it was loaded; every time, it was.