'How's the fight racket, Ross?' Miller asked, in his off-pitch monotone, hands in his topcoat pockets.
'Ask your brother,' Barney said, noncommitally. Miller's brother Dave, also an ex-bootlegger, was a prizefight referee.
Miller stood there for a while, his capacity for making small talk exhausted.
Then moved Iris head in a kind of sideways nod, toward me, and said, 'Come on.'
'What?'
'You're coming with me. Heller.'
'What is it? Visiting time at Nitti's hospital room? Go to hell, Miller.'
He leaned over and put a hand on my arm. 'Come on. Heller.'
'Hey, pal, this is where I came in.'
Barney said, 'I'm going to land you on your fat ass, Miller, if you don't take your hand off my friend.'
Miller thought about that, took the hand off, but out of something closer to boredom than fear from Barney's threat.
'Cermak wants to see you,' he said to me. 'Now. Are you coming, or what?'
I'd never spoken to Mayor Cermak, but I'd seen him before; almost every cop in Chicago had. His Honor liked to pull surprise personal inspections on the boys in blue and then cany his criticisms to the press. He claimed he wanted to weed the deadweight out of the department, to cut down on the paperwork, to have a maximum number of men out on the streets at all times, battling crime. All this from a mayor with the behind-his-back nickname Ten Percent Tony, whose political life seemed a study in patronage; who as Cook County commissioner (a position also known as 'mayor of Cook County?') had given Capone free reign (well, not exactly 'free') to turn the little city of Cicero into gang headquarters, with it and nearby Stickney becoming the wettest of the wet in this dry land, as they were simultaneously overrun with slot machines, whores, and gangsters. Cook County, where two hundred roadhouses had been personally licensed by Tony; where Capone dog tracks flourished thanks to an injunction by a Cermak judge; where Sheriff Hoffman permitted bootleggers Terr Druggan and Frankie Lake to leave his jail most anytime they pleased, and they consequently spent more time in their luxurious apartments than behind bars, though Hoffman eventually landed behind bars himself- for thirty? days- after which Cermak gave him a post with the forest preserves at ten grand per annum; and, well, all this 'reform' talk coming from Cermak sounded like a crock of shit to most Chicago cops.
But we cops didn't underestimate our mayor. We may have referred to him as 'that bohunk bastard,' among other things, and, like most other civil service employees, hated or feared him or both, and at the very least resented the 'for sale' nature of positions and promotions; but we didn't underestimate him. We knew him to be unfailingly familial' with every operation in his administration- from beat cop to building inspector, from clerk to cabinet officer; and he brought a level of competence, even administrative brilliance, to the office of mayor, equaled only by the level of his paranoia, which he manifested in his incessant wiretapping, mail interception, use of surveillance, planting of undercover men. and seeking out of stool pigeons- all within his own administration.
Cermak was a roughneck made good. He was foreign-born (a first for a Chicago mayor), brought to this country as an infant, from Czechoslovakia, and went no farther than third grade. By age thirteen he was working with his father in the coal mines of Braidwood. Illinois; by sixteen he was a railroad brakeman in Chicago. A brawler and two-fisted drinker, he was soon leader of a youth gang that based itself in a saloon; this rising star attracted the local Democratic organization, and young Tony was suddenly a ward heeler. He purchased a horse and wagon, started hauling wood, and built a business, using his political contacts to good advantage. He became secretary to an organization called the United Societies, a lobby of saloonkeepers, brewers, and distillers; he maintained this position when, in 1902. he entered the state legislature- showing his versalitity by simultaneously serving as state representative and lobbyist for the saloon interests.
From the state legislature Cermak went to the city council (a step up: an alderman got a bigger salary and had more patronage at his disposal), then on to baliff of municipal court, commissioner of Cook County Board and, by '29, head of the Democratic organization of Cook County. His mayoral victory in '31 was by the widest margin in Chicago history; he had crossed ethnic lines to build coalitions within his party, and put together a machine. It was a lot like what Capone had done.
Cermak probably had no idea, till tonight, that I lived across the alley from him. He lived in the Congress Hotel, and had a view of the park, I'd bet; I lived across the alley in the Adams Hotel, a residential hotel that was not a flophouse, but it sure didn't have a view of the park. It had a view of the back of the Congress, is what it had.
I wasn't home when Miller came calling on me, of course, but evidently somebody- Cermak's fabled espionage system. I supposed- had known enough about me to gather I'd be at Barney Ross' speak. After all. somebody had known enough about me to know where I'd be yesterday afternoon. I was starting to feel like an open book. A well-thumbed one.
It wasn't much of a walk from Barney's building to the Congress; just follow the El up Van Buren a few blocks- the wind off the lake seemed more cool now than cold, the powderlike snow blowing around a little- then down State Street, past Congress and up Harrison, past my hotel, all three less-than-luxurious stories of it, and on to Cermak's.
As we walked, I was thinking about how my hotel didn't have a lobby, just a narrow stairway that hesitated at a check-in window at the right as you came in. But the Congress, now that was a hotel; the lobby was high- ceilinged, ornate, lots of red and gold with plush furniture to sink down into while you waited for some society girl. Or while you waited for somebody to pick somebody else's pocket, because that was the only reason
We went in the alley way.
And I don't mean Peacock. Just the alley; in the service entrance.
In a narrow vestibule, rubbing shoulders with some mops and buckets, hobnobbing with a couple of refuse cartons, I reached a hand out to push the button on the service elevator and Miller batted it away casually.
'Well walk,' Miller said.
