True Detective

'I'm doin' all right. Heller.' he said, as if trying to convince himself. 'They got me workin' in a shoe factory, cobblin' shoes, can you buy it? Eight hours a day for seven bucks a month. Hell of a deal, me with a million bucks in half a dozen banks. Sitlin' in a hole like this.'

I didn't say anything; I still didn't know what I was doing here, but it was his nickel. His grand, actually.

'I could be in Florida right now,' he mused, looking up, like Florida was heaven. 'I got a wife and a boy at Palm Island, ya know. I idolize that boy; he's gonna be goddamn president. If I could be with him and his momma in Florida, I'd be the happiest man in the world. God, I'd love to lay under those palm trees. God, I'd love to be at Hialeah followin' the ponies.'

I'll be damned if I didn't feel a little sorry for him, but then he pointed a finger and the cigar in his mouth right at me, like two gun barrels, and his beady gray eyes in their dark sockets bored into me, like I'd done something to him.

'And your pal Ness and those other dumb bastard feds go and nail me on a bookkeeping rap! A damn tax rap, and now I'm in here, and the rest of'em are out there splitting up what I built!'

The beady eyes glowed with something that was scary; the fat head seemed like a skull somehow- a skull with eyes.

'They're going to flick it up. Heller. They're gonna piss away what I made, what I… created. If I don't stop 'em.' This was said with religious certainty.

I ventured a question. 'Who. Mr. Capone?'

'Let's make it 'Al,' okay? What's your first name? Nate? Nate. Nate, Frank's a good boy, he really is. He's family. But he just don't got what it takes to fill my chair.'

Nitti. He meant Nitti.

'Now, I know all about what you've been through. I know you got sucked into hitting Frank with Cermak's goons. I can tell you without a doubt that Frank don't hold nothin' against you. You were honorable, quittin' that scumbag police force. Bunch of fuckin' crooks. I hate 'em damn near as much as the politicians, two-faced fuckin crooks. I thought Cermak was different, but he's like the rest. Just another politician spending half his time covering up so the public don't see he's a thief.'

'Mr. Capone'

'Al.'

'Al. What am I doing here?'

'You're here 'cause I need somebody I can trust. You showed yourself to be honorable, and I ain't forgetting the time you helped me out in the past, though maybe you didn't know it was me you was helping. I can't call on any of my boys, 'cause I gotta handle this… from the outside. And I don't want to mix my brothers in. if I can help it. 'Cause I don't want to go up against Frank, toe to toe. 'cause, what the hell, he's out there, and I'm in here, and how the hell we gonna go toe to toe with bars in between.'

'I don't understand.'

'Understand this: I'm gonna be out of this cage before the year's over. I'm gonna be sitting in my chair, not Frank. But it's gonna take time. I shelled out two hundred grand and then some to a big shot in Washington who's gonna open these gates up wide, right from D.C. And I got five of the biggest attorneys in the land getting me ready for being sprung. But it'll take time, and in the meantime, I don't want Frank and the rest of them bums flushing my empire down the shithole.'

'What makes you think they're doing that?'

He shook his head, sadly; puffed the pool-cue cigar. 'I thought Frank was smarter than this. No kiddin', I did. I thought he learned from my mistakes; I thought he learned my lessons. You can't stir up the heat. That's the one mistake I made, and I learned to correct it, but too late, I guess, or otherwise I wouldn't be sitting in here. I stirred up the heat. I put too many bodies on the front page. People want candy on Valentine's Day, not headlines.'

I said nothing.

'I tried to play peacemaker, you know. All along. I done that. Just last year, 'bout this time, when I was waiting in the Cook County Jail, they brought that crazy bastard Dutch Schultz and Charlie Luciano in to see me. They been feuding. It was Schultz's fault, horning in on Charlie's territory. The dumb bastard Schultz wouldn't listen, and I didn't end up gettin' nowhere, but the point is I tried, my natural bent's to be a peacemaker. Only how do you make peace with Dutch Schultz? If I'd had him outside, I'd've shoved a gun in his guts.'

Capone's cigar, in one pudgy hand now, had gone out; he lit it again, and I sat patiently waiting to see where I fit in.

'When I heard what Frank's planning, I sent word to him: don't do this, Frank. You'll stir up the heat, Frank. You can find a better way, Frank. And you know what he says, what the lawyer says he says? He says, you're inside, Al, and I'm out, and, all due respect, I gotta trust my judgment. I'm outside, he says, and I'm handling things. That's what he says.'

There was a great sadness, greater frustration, in his face.

Then he smiled, a small, private smile.

'You know what Frank's planning?' he asked innocently.

'No.'

'Guess.'

•I- I can't.'

'Go on. Guess.'

'Gang war? He hit Newberry the other day.'