'He is going to live?'
'No thanks to you people, I would say he is. I would say he's got as much chance to live as you do to drive back across town safely.'
I glanced sideways at Jeff. 'That could depend on who's driving, Doc.'
Ronga said, 'Frank needs rest and quiet. Absence of worry and shock.' He pointed a finger at me.
'Which might open the wounds and cause a hemorrhage- if that happens it
'Doctor, I have no intention of agitating Mr. Nitti. I promise. Whether or not Mr. Nitti has any intention of agitating me is another story.'
Ronga gave out a terse, humorless laugh and held out an open, yet somehow contemptuous, hand in a gesture that said. Go on in.
I went in.
Nitti was sitting up in bed; his reading lamp was on, otherwise the room was dark. He wasn't hooked up to tubes or anything, but he didn't look well; he was even paler than usual and seemed to have lost about fifteen pounds since I saw him last- yesterday. He gave me a little smile; it was so little his mouth curved but his mustache didn't.
''Cusa me if I don't get up,' he said. His voice was soft, but there was no tremor in it.
'It's okay, Mr. Nitti.'
'Make it 'Frank.' W^e're going to be friends, Heller.'
I shrugged. 'Then make it 'Nate.''
'Nate.
Mutt was standing on the other side of Nitti's bed; he came around to me before I could approach Nitti's bedside, and said, in an almost gentle way, 'You're going to have to let me have your gun.'
'This isn't a great place for a scene, pal.'
'There's six of us here, Heller, me and five guys out in the hall, plus I think Dr. Ronga would be willin' to take your appendix out with a pocketknife.'
I gave him the gun.
Nitti made a little gesture that meant I was to sit down in the chair that had been provided for me next to his bed.
I sat. Seeing him up close, he didn't look any worse. He was bandaged around the throat, from the slug he took in the neck, and he didn't seem to be able to move his head, so my chair was seated at an angle where he didn't have to.
'You didn't know, did you?' Nitti said.
'I didn't know,' I said, and I told him how Miller and Lang had picked me up at that speak and brought me along for the ride, without telling me the score.
'Bastards,' he said. His mouth was a line. He looked at me; his eyes were calm. 'I'm told you quit the department.'
'That's right.' I said. 'I've had it with those sons of bitches.'
'You were the one that got an ambulance called. Those bastards woulda let me bleed awhile.'
'I suppose.'
'Since you quit, that means what? What are you gonna say at my trial? They'll try me for shooting that prick bastard Lang, you know.'
'I know.'
'You read that load of baloney in the papers that Miller's giving out? Is that the story they're going with?'
'More or less, I guess.'
'You going along with it?'
'I'm going to have to. Frank.'
Nitti didn't say anything; he looked straight ahead, at the wall, not at me.
'Cermak had me in for a talk,' I said.
Nitti turned his head to look right at me; it had to be painful- he moved like the Man in the Iron Mask. His teeth were together when he said. 'Cermak.'
'I'm opening up a little private agency. Cop is the only trade I got. Cermak'll block my license if I don't play ball.'
Nitti turned his head back and looked toward the wall again. 'Cermak,' he said again.
'And I killed a guy up there. Frank.'
Nitti's mouth twitched in a one-sided smirk. 'Nobody important.'
'Not to you. maybe. I didn't like doing it. And since I'm the only copper up there who managed to
