Saint Valentine's Day. He admitted having sold this gun and several others to one Ted
Newberry.
Newberry was, at that point, in Capone's camp, leading some to believe that the Big Fellow had turned on his old friend Lingle. After all, story was that after Capone got out of jail in Philly, he had snubbed his old pal Jake, rather than give him the usual exclusive coverage. Al, in Florida at the time of Jake's murder, pooh-poohed that to the press.
And a rival tied to the old Bugs Moran faction. Jack Zuta, seemed to be the likely suspect for engineering the Lingle hit: after being grilled by the cops, Zuta was killed, apparently by Capone people avenging the death of Al's old pal Jake.
This did not satisfy Colonel McCormick, who financed his own investigation, and a combined effort between the state attorney's office and 7WZ>-financed investigators led to a fellow named Leo Brothers. The investigators, it was rumored, had got a tip on Brothers from Capone himself, eager to help get the heat off in Chicago, thanks to the bad publicity Lingle's murder had generated, the worst since February 14, 1929.
Brothers, a labor-union terrorist on the ma from St. Louis authorities, was thirty-one, with wavy light brown hair. He was mute throughout the proceedings, and even during the course of the trial; rumor had it he was taking the fall for the mob, for pay. One of his lawyers was a former
There were fifteen witnesses. Fourteen of them had been in the tunnel with Lingle and had seen the blond killer flee. Seven of them identified brown-haired Brothers as the blond; the other seven didn't. Still, Brothers was convicted, and sentenced to a strangely lenient fourteen years for the cold-blooded assassination, a sentence that finally got a public comment from Brothers: 'I can do that standing on my head.'
It was widely held that the prosecution's case was won by the fifteenth witness; a witness who could identify' Brothers as the blond, though this witness (bringing the total to eight who could identify the killer) had not been in the tunnel; but up on the street: the traffic cop who had pursued the killer, who had nearly caught him, who had seen him clearly. Me.
'Jake Lingle,' Capone said, almost wistfully, 'was a pal. Paid him one hundred thousand dollars for protection on my dog tracks, and got nothing for my money. Then he cut me out of the wire-service action, servicing the handbooks; twenty-five hundred of 'em in the city, it adds up. Then he starts doing business with Moran, on the side. And all the while he's going to my tailor charging four and five suits at a time to my account. Well, something had to give.'
I didn't say anything.
'You did us a favor,' Capone said, 'helping us put the wrong man away.'
Meaning Brothers.
'And now it's gonna come in handy,' he said, 'because you're the only guy who ain't a hood who can recognize this blond guy Nitti's sending to hit Cermak. Ain't that lucky?'
I smiled. 'Lucky,' I said.
That day I chased that blond kid and lost him had led me to plainclothes, which led me to Nitti's office, which led me here, sitting in front of Al Capone. Who I was about to work for again.
'There's nine grand more in it,' he said. 'That's ten grand total. And all you got to do is stop it.'
'How?'
'That's up to you. But I suggest you do it quiet. If you spot the guy, take him someplace and handle it.'
'I'm no killer.'
'Did I say kill him? I said stop him. How you do that's between you and him.' He smiled broadly, with those fat. faintly purple lips. 'Then when that traitor Cermak comes back to Chicago in one piece, I let Frank know who saw to it.'
'Nitti won't be happy with me,' I said.
'You won't matter. You won't have had nothin' to do with it. It'll be me. Me. sitting here in fuckin' prison, still on top of things. And Frank and the boys'll know better next time.'
Behind me. a voice said. 'Time.'
It was the guard, sticking his head in. almost embarrassed to be interrupting.
Capone nodded to him; and the guard retreated back outside.
I stood. 'Aren't you going to ask me if I'm going to do it?'
'Oh, you'll do it.' Capone said, standing. And he went out, leaving me alone in the room with the bars on the windows.
He was right, of course: I'd do it. Not just because it was Al Capone asking, and it would be unwise to say no; not just because there was ten grand in it. though that was no small part of it.
It had to do with something Capone couldn't even guess. I wanted to catch that blond killer, this time.
The Morrison was the tallest hotel in the city and, if its advertising was to be believed, the world The main building was twenty-one stories, with a tower going up another nineteen, with a flagpole atop that, the gold ball atop the flagpole the highest point in the city. Cermak was living in the bungalow atop the tower; if he wanted to ride higher up, he'd have to climb the pole and sit on the ball.
It was Wednesday morning, but I was still tired from the Atlanta trip; I'd got in at Dearborn Station at two yesterday afternoon, giving an unintentional scare to a couple of pickpockets who apparently didn't know I was off the force. I'd spent the rest of the day in my office doing Retail Credit checks over the phone and, after a bite at Binyon's and a solitary nightcap at Barney's, I'd gone up and pulled down the Murphy bed, the plan being to sleep till noon; any noon. But a phone call from Eliot had woken me at seven-thirty this morning- he wanted to meet me for coffee at eight; we settled on nine, in the Morrison Sandwich Shop.
