'How'd you get here so fast? You're the only reporter around.'
'The rest of those jerks are probably at the hospitals and tagging after Roosevelt.'
'I didn't see you with the press at the park.'
'I was at the Western Union office, sending my column off to the
'The rest of the newboys'll catch up with you before it does.'
'I know. Can you get me upstairs? The jail's on the twenty-eighth floor. I hear.'
'I can try.'
We moved over to the elevator, where two cops were stationed to keep the likes of Winchell away, I supposed. We wouldn't have got any farther than that, but one of the cops had been at the park and had seen me helping load the assassin on the back of the limo. So when I said I was Mayor Cermak's personal bodyguard and wanted to question the assassin and flashed my ID. he let me on the elevator.
'What about him?' the cop said, pointing at Winchell. He didn't seem to recognize the columnist; normally that would've hurt Winchell's feelings. I supposed. But he didn't seem to mind, under the circumstances.
'He's with me,' I said.
The cop shrugged and said, 'Okay. It's the nineteenth floor. That's where the isolation cells are.'
We got on the elevator.
Winchell rocked on his heels, looking up at the floor indicator.
'I didn't think this sort of thing was your line.' I said.
'My by-line's my line.' he said, 'and anytime I can pin it on a story that's more than just entertaining the poor slobs on Hard Times Square with how some chorus girl got a diamond bracelet for laying some millionaire, I will.'
The door opened on the nineteenth floor, and the sheriff, a big, lumpy man in dark suitcoat, white pants, colorful tie, and misshapen hat, was standing talking to a uniformed cop, who had a nickel-plated.32 long-barreled revolver in the palm of his hand, like something he was offering the sheriff. The sheriff turned a glowering gaze upon us, his dark eyebrows knitting, but before he could say anything. Winchell stepped forward with a smile as confident as it was insincere.
'I'm Walter Winchell,' he said, extending his hand, which the sheriff, whose mouth had dropped open, took. 'Let me in there for five minutes with that lunatic and I'll put your name in every paper in the world.'
The sheriffs expression had shifted from foul to awestruck and, now that fame was pumping his hand, to a fawning, simpering grin.
'Glad to have you in my jail, Mr. Winchell.'
'As a temporary visitor, I hope,' Winchell said, spitting words like seeds. 'What can you tell me about the guest you just checked in?'
'He says his name's Zangara. Giuseppe Zangara. That's about all we got so far. His English is pretty bad. But I'm something of a linguist myself… speak a little Italian. I can translate for you, if you can't make out what he's trying to say in American.'
'You're a gentleman. Sheriff. Lead the way.'
'Wait a minute,' the sheriff said, and turned to me. I was standing just behind Winchell, trying to be inconspicuous. 'Who are you?'
I told him; the cop standing nearby, who had been one of the three I'd helped in wrestling the assassin onto the limo luggage rack, confirmed what I said.
'No Chicago people.' the sheriff said, waving his hands. 'We don't want any of you Chicago cops in here. We'll handle this our own way.'
Winchell said. 'Sheriff, he's with me.'
The sheriff thought about that, said, 'Well, okay, then. Come along.'
We followed the sheriff, and I said to Winchell, 'Thanks.'
'Now we're even,' he said. 'Or we will be when you cough up that fin I gave you.'
I gave him his five back.
The sheriff and the cop, the gun the assassin had used stuck in his belt, led us down a cellblock lit only by the lights coming from the corridor behind us. The individual cells stood empty, for the most part; we walked past one where a Negro squatted on his cot, watching us, mumbling. He was the only other prisoner on the floor.
At the end of the cellblock corridor, standing naked in the middle of his cell, was the man named, apparently, Giuseppe Zangara. He stood erect, unashamed. But not exactly defiant. As we joined two cops standing staring at their prisoner, I got a good look at him: about five feet six inches tall, weighing perhaps 115. with a wide scar across his stomach; his face long, narrow, square-jawed; his hair jet-black: his eyes bulging, dark, intense. That faint smile was still on his face; when he saw me- recognized me- that smile, momentarily, disappeared.
The sheriff looked through the bars at the calm, detached prisoner. He said, 'I'm going to put you in the electric chair, friend.'
Zangara shrugged. 'That's okay. Put me in chair. I no afraid.'
The sheriff turned to Winchell and said, 'That's what you're up against, Mr. Winchell.'
Winchell moved in, stood as close to the bars as he could get. 'You know who I am?'
