True Detective

He took two gulps, right from the bottle, and for a moment a milk mustache mingled with Iris own, till he wiped it off with the back of one hand.

'Ulcers.' he said. 'All I do these days is drink milk.'

'My heart bleeds.'

'Yeah, well so do my ulcers, you little punk bastard. What the goddamn hell's this about? You're committin' goddamn suicide, you know.'

'There's a dead man downstairs.'

He sat up. 'Louie? If you killed Louie, so help me I'll'

'Campagna's all right. He won't know his name for a couple hours, but he's all right. So's Fatso.'

'Then, who…?'

'A blond guy. I don't know his name. But I've seen him around.'

Nitti raised his chin and looked at me from slitted eyes.

'Last time I saw him,' I said, 'was at Bayfront Park, when you sent him to help kill Cermak. The time before that I saw him running down Randolph Street; that was when Capone sent him to kill Jake Lingle. And tonight, tonight you sent him to kill Nathan Heller. And he didn't get the job done, did he?'

Nitti was shaking his head. 'You're wrong. Wrong.'

'Tell me about it. Tell me you sent that son of a bitch to Florida just to catch some sun.'

He pointed a finger at me, like my gun pointed at him. 'I didn't say I didn't send him to Florida. What I do say is I didn't send him to kill you.'

The gun in my hand was stalling to shake. I heard myself say. 'He pushed me off the Sky Ride tower. Frank. Six hundred feet in the sky. and by all rights I should be a twisted sack of bones and meat on a morgue tray right now, but I'm not. I'm here, and he's dead, and so are you, Nitti. I wish to Christ Lang had killed you that day. I wish to Christ I hadn't made 'em call an ambulance for you, cocksucker.'

Nitti sat there quietly; when I ran out of speech, he patted the air softly, as if quieting, settling down, a child.

'Heller,' he said. 'I didn't send him. I didn't even know the bastard was in town. He doesn't work for me.'

'Fuck you. You're dead.'

'Wait. Just w&it. Lower that goddamn thing, will you? Hear me out. I didn't say he never done work for me. He's from the East. He's a guy Johnny Torrio recommended to Al, back on the Lingle deal; and I use him now and then- on ticklish matters.'

'So that's what I am. A ticklish matter.'

'I know how you feel. I know the kind of emotions that are running wild in you. kid. I know all about revenge. If Ten Percent Tony wasn't in hell already, you could ask him if Nitti doesn't know all about revenge. But I didn't hire a contract on you. I swear by all that's holy.'

As if on cue. a church bell began ringing. Midnight. I wondered idly if it was Notre Dame or Our Lady of Pompeu.

I said 'Who sent him then?'

'I don't know the answer to that. Not for sure. But I can figure it out. So can you. if you try.'

I was starting to feel confused: I was starting to wonder what the hell I was doing. The momentum, the moment, was slipping away from me…

'The Lang trial is comin' up in September.' Nitti said. 'Or have you forgotten? Is that all past history to you now? Well, it isn't past history to some people.'

'Are you saying Lang sent that guy? He doesn't have the money or the connections to'

'He doesn't have the brains, or the guts, either. No. Not Lang. Nobody. Nobody sent him. You sang on the stand. Heller. You made news in Chicago: you told the truth. How do you think your blond buddy felt when he heard you were doin' that? You can identify him as the real killer of Jake Lingle; you can identify him as a second gunman at the Cermak kill. What sort of thoughts do you suppose went through his head when he found out Nate Heller's got a sudden case of telling the truth on witness stands? Who can say what might come out at this Lang trial. Lang was at Bayfront Park, too, you know.'

I was resting the elbow of the arm with the gun-in-hand, on the table; now I leaned on the other elbow, too, and was rubbing the side of my face. I swallowed. My mouth was dry. And I felt sick to my stomach.

So did Nitti, apparently, because he took another swig of milk.

He wiped off his mouth, smiled, and said, 'Put the gun down. Just set it on the table.'

It sounded like a pretty good idea, but I wasn't ready to believe him just yet.

I said, 'What about Jimmy Beame, then?'

'Forget Jimmy Beame. And I'm doing you a favor, giving you that advice. So put the gun down, take the advice, and go. Just go away.'

I felt a surge of something; my face felt flushed. 'I almost believed you for a minute, Frank. But now the truth comes out, whether you meant it to or not. Jimmy Beame was tied to Ted Newberry, I don't know how exactly, except that it was through the Tri-Cities liquor ring. And then he infiltrated your organization, and you found out, and you what? Had him killed? You're smiling. I'm right, aren't I? I'm right. And I started snooping around, and when I connected with Dipper Cooney- you were at the goddamn fight yourself, Frank- you tried to kill us both, but managed only to shut Cooney up, and'

'Cooney died because he was with you. That's my guess, anyway. And that dead blond son of a bitch out there