'Just checking out the competition. They say you haven't seen the fair if you haven't seen Sally Rand.'
Actually, I did know why she wanted to check Sally Rand out. It'd been in the papers, just recently: several of the Hollywood studios were after the sensation of the fair to sign with 'em. So Sally Rand
But I had been hoping to go right home, either to my place or hers, and I told her so. What I didn't tell her was why.
Yesterday somebody had tried to kill me; I was convinced of that. I didn't know whether or not Dipper Cooney had been silenced on purpose, or had just happened to be there when an attempt on me was made. But my instinct was that I had been the prime target last night. And the only thing I'd been up to lately, outside of working at the fair, was snooping around looking for Mary Ann's brother.
I couldn't tell her about last night. I couldn't tell anybody, not Eliot, maybe not even Barney. That dark residential side street had been deserted enough for me to risk leaving poor Cooney dead, there on the sidewalk, and I'd walked quickly back the number of blocks to my car in the stadium parking lot and went home, to my Murphy bed. Because me being involved with another shooting right now what with the hostile cops and yellow journalists that would attract was something I could do without.
Apparently nobody had seen what happened: there'd been no screams, no shouts, when Cooney took those silenced slugs- no lights going on suddenly in windows. Just me tumbling into the bushes, and when the car had gone by and showed no sign of returning, and it seemed safe to come out, I took my powder, and unless somebody had recognized one of us when I'd gone pushing through the crowd after
Cooney, I didn't see how I could be pulled in on this.
And today had borne this out. I'd had a call from one of the boys from the pickpocket detail, telling me Cooney had been killed, wondering if that news was worth the fin I'd been offering 'round; and I'd said no. Cooney wasn't worth squat to me dead, but if my pal came around to Barney's sometime. I'd buy him a beer for his trouble. And we'd left it at that.
Also. Cooney had got a small mention on the inside pages of the afternoon papers: a longtime pickpocket with a record had been gunned down, and police figured it was a mob-related slaying, but had no leads. It would be added to the list of hundreds of gangland slayings in Chicago these last ten or fifteen years; if a gangland slaying had ever been solved in Chicago, I hadn't heard about it. Except for Jake Lingle's, of course.
But what did Cooney's death mean? I was afraid I knew. I was afraid that Mary Ann's brother, with his connections to Ted Newberry via the Tri-Cities liquor ring, had got in hot water with the Nitti crowd, and now that my snooping was leading me to Nitti's doorstep, the bullets were stalling to fly.
Nitti was supposed to owe me one. but I hadn't thought this was what he had in mind.
So I called him. Or tried to- I couldn't get through to him at his office over the Capri restaurant on North Clark Street (which was across from the City Hall, incidentally), but whoever I talked to relayed the message, and around seven that night, just before I was going to head out to the fair, Nitti returned my call.
'Heller, how are you doin'?'
'Better than Dipper Cooney,' I said. 'He died last night.'
'So I hear.'
'I was with him.'
'That I didn't hear.'
'Are you on the level with me. Frank? I did you a favor once, you know.'
'I didn't have anything to do with what happened to Cooney. You want me to find out who did?'
'That. I'd appreciate.'
'Let's talk. Meet me at my office tomorrow afternoon. Two o'clock. I want to know about this punk you're trying to find.'
'Jimmy Beame?' So he'd heard about that.
'Right. Who knows. I might even be able to help you out on that score.'
'I'd appreciate that. Frank.'
'See ya tomorrow, Heller.'
And the phone had clicked dead.
I sat staring at it. wondering if I was being set up; I had the clammy sort of feeling you get waiting in a doctor's office for the results of your tests.
So I took my gun with me to the fair, and now I was trying to get Mary Ann to leave with me. since being at the fairgrounds with all these people was making me nervous.
'Nervous? What about? Nathan, don't be a grouch. Look. I'll let you take me to see Sally Rand some other night. But it's about time you took me up on the Sky Ride.'
'We went on the Sky Ride last week.'
'Not the observation deck.'
'I'm not crazy about heights, okay?'
'Tough guy! Come on.' And she tugged on my arm.
We were almost there, anyway; I glanced behind me, half-expecting to be followed. But I couldn't see anybody suspicious. Nobody that seemed inconsistent with his surroundings. And there were pith-helmeted guards with sidearms all around who knew me, and I could call on, if trouble turned up. So what the hell.
The Sky Ride towers were like twin Eiffels, and why not? That tower had been the hit of the Paris Exposition of
