True Crime

He grunted. “Don’t be. It’s my business to know the enemy.”

“I’m not the enemy, Captain.”

He looked around the office. “Is that—”

“A Murphy bed? Yes.”

He nodded. “You work and live here. Business must not be good.”

“My business isn’t any of yours.”

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“You’re here by my good leave, Captain. I didn’t see a warrant.”

He held out two small but powerful-looking hands, palms up; his fingers looked like thick sausages. “Am I searching the place?”

“Not yet.”

“And I won’t. This is a…friendly visit.” He almost choked on the word “friendly.”

“Your opinion of me is all wet, Captain. You think I’m a dirty cop, and—”

He pointed one of the thick sausages at me, blinked at me like a bird behind his round dark-rimmed glasses lenses. “I think you’re an ex-dirty cop. Let’s not get careless with our facts.”

I sighed. I should’ve felt nervous, what with Polly Hamilton in the bathroom across the room; but mostly I was annoyed—and weary. I still ached—and not just from the recent physical beating. There was a man who had died tonight and I’d been part of it. And I’d tipped to what was going on and still hadn’t been able to stop it.

And now here was pious Capt. John Stege, a Chicago cop so honest he made Eliot Ness look like Long John Silver. I needed this dose of conscience like Jimmy Lawrence needed a hole in the head.

“You know something, Captain…you pretend to hate me because I used to be a dirty cop. But that isn’t the real reason. The real reason is I exposed some dirty cops, and embarrassed you and yours.”

“Don’t be impertinent, or I’ll—”

“It’s just you and me in here, Stege. Maybe you ought to watch your mouth.”

He thought about that. Then said, “Are you threatening me?”

“No. I’m just prepared to tell you to go to hell anytime I feel like it. Understood?”

C

APTAIN

S

TEGE

– W

ITH

A

L

C

APONE

He took in a deep breath and something like a smile crossed his thin, tight mouth. I had the damnedest feeling he respected what I’d just said. Whatever the case, he said, “Understood,” and took a folded sheet of paper out of his suit pocket and unfolded it and spread it out on the desk before me.

It was a Division of Investigation wanted poster for John H. Dillinger.

“Thought you might like this souvenir,” Stege said. “I’ll be cleaning out my desk, you know.”

I nodded. “Not much for the Dillinger Squad to do with Dillinger dead.”

“What were you doing there, Heller?”

He meant the Biograph, of course. I didn’t pretend I didn’t know that.

I said, “Trying to stop it.”

“What?”

I wished I hadn’t said it.

But I had, so I needed to elaborate. “It was a setup, designed to let the East Chicago cops execute their man without interference. I knew it, and tried to convince Cowley. I tried to convince Purvis, too. Actually, I think I convinced ’em both, but they weren’t able to stop it. If indeed they wanted to.”

“Damn!” Stege said, and slammed a hard tiny fist on my desk top. The ashtray jumped. And unless I missed my bet, so did Polly Hamilton in the toilet.

“Sorry, Captain—that’s the way I see it.”

He waved me off. Stood and paced. Then he came over and leaned one hand against the desk and gestured with the other.

“They came to my office, beginning of last week. Zarkovich and his captain. What’s his name?”

“O’Neill,” I said.