True Detective

'You're not here to root for me, are you, Mr. Ness?' Nitti asked.

Eliot shrugged. 'If somebody tried to assassinate you, I am.'

Nitti shrugged. 'There's a lot of that soma around.'

Eliot's expression turned cold 'Yeah. So I hear.'

Nitti had overstepped his bounds, and knew it. He turned to me and said, 'I get the feeling you're behind this.'

'Oh?'

'Yeah. I don't figure Lang's conscience is why he suddenly don't remember who shot him.'

'You don't huh.'

'If I'm indebted to you, and it looks like maybe I am… well. I pay my debts, that's all.'

He shrugged again, smiled almost nervously, and turned to rejoin his lawyer, only his lawyer was right behind him; it made Nitti look a little awkward, and Nitti snapped at the man in Sicilian. The lawyer took it stoically, and they walked back down the corridor a ways, and Nitti was smiling again by the time they came to a stop.

'If you don't believe him,' Eliot said, 'just ask Cermak.'

'What?'

'Whether Nitti pays his debts or not.'

When court resumed, the prosecutor had a perjury warrant ready for Lang, and Lang was placed under arrest.

'I'd like a ten-thousand-dollar bond. Your Honor.' the prosecutor said.

The judge said. 'Bail will be two thousand dollars. That seems large enough. He is a policeman, after all. with a policeman's pay which as a city employee has been infrequent of late.'

'You mean he was a policeman,' the prosecutor said.

Eliot leaned my way and whispered, 'His policeman's pay seems up to hiring a high-priced attorney.'

The prosecutor said. 'The State calls Nathan Heller.'

And I took the stand.

Lang and his attorney were sitting in the front row of the gallery; one deputy sat next to Lang, several others hovered. Lang was looking off to one side, not terribly interested in what I had to say.

Why should he be? It was nothing he didn't already know: I told what had really happened in the office at the Wacker-LaSalle.

Despite Lang's upstaging me, all eyes (except his) were on me; the reporters were scribbling fast and furious. Miller was glaring, fat and furious.

At one point I was asked to step down and show how I had held Nitti by both wrists just before Lang came in and shot him.

'How was Lang shot?' the prosecutor asked.

'Nitti was unconscious,' I said. 'Lang must've shot himself.'

A murmur passed across the courtroom, and Lang's eyes finally turned my way; he looked sad.

I stepped down; I had expected at least a few questions about or references to the guy I'd shot, in the window. But neither the defense nor the prosecution brought it up. I think Lang's lawyer would've got into it if he could, but Lang wasn't on trial. Technically.

Miller was called.

'Lang came in and said. 'He shot me.' ' Miller told the prosecutor. 'I went into the room where the shooting happened and picked up a revolver with one shot fired.'

Nitti's lawyer had some questions for Miller.

'Why was Nitti put in that room before he was shot?' he wanted to know. 'Was it to murder him, away from witnesses?'

'You'd have to ask Lang.'

'Where did you go between four o'clock and five-thirty?'

'The mayor's office.'

'With whom did you talk there?'

The prosecutor rose and objected. 'Irrelevant and immaterial, Your Honor.'

The objection was sustained.

Eliot shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

I said, 'Cermak still has a few friends. I see.'

Eliot said nothing.

Nitti's attorney tried again. 'Did Lang have a conversation with anyone just before the shooting?'

'Yes,' Miller said. 'Ted Newberry.'