True Detective

And yet another wave of surprise rushed across the courtroom.

The judge rapped his gavel, and Nitti's attorney said, 'You refer to the reputed gangland leader, Ted Newberry?'

'Yeah.' Miller said. 'The dead one. He offered Lang fifteen thousand to kill Nitti.'

The judge had to bang his gavel again to quiet the courtroom, but the excitement was winding down: Miller was getting into an area that Nitti's lawyer obviously felt was best left unplumbed, and he said he had no further questions. The prosecutor seemed content to leave Miller and his Ted Newberry story to the grand jury. The Nitti case, however you figured it. was coming to a close.

The prosecutor asked for, and got. a directed verdict of not guilty for Nitti.

The next day, at the grand jury indictment for Lang, I was questioned again, this time by State's Attorney Courtney. The same ground was gone over. Nitti testified, corroborating my story, of course. He told reporters he would prefer to forget the whole thing, however; he didn't want to prosecute anybody for anything- he just wanted to get back to Florida and 'regain his health.'

Whether Nitti wanted to participate in the prosecution of an assault charge against Lang or not, Lang's perjury charge would go through.

And Lang's pal Miller tried, in the grand jury hearing, to desert a sinking ship. He was, the papers said, as helpful as could be, and repeated the Newberry story in detail. Cermak was one detail, however, that got left out.

Lana took the Fifth.

A John Doe warrant was used on Nitti, to keep him in town.

Outside the grand jury room, as I was coming out. Nitti and his lawyer were standing waiting to be called.

He stopped me and said. 'Heller- something I want to ask you. now that your pal Ness ain't around.'

'All right, Frank. Shoot. If you'll pardon the expression.'

¦

'What were you doing in Miami? What were you doing in the park, when that crazy anarchist bastard tried to kill the president?'

So I was right: the blond had recognized me, and reported back to his chief.

I said. 'I was playing bodyguard for Cermak. Some job I did. huh?'

'About changed the course of history, didn't you, pal?'

' 'About' doesn't count for much, Frank.'

'Why'd Cermak hire you on, an ex-cop, when he had Lang and all the other cops in town at his fingertips, and for free?'

'Cermak didn't hire me.'

'Oh, yeah? Who did?'

'One of his longtime backers.'

Nitti considered that, or pretended to: there wasn't a flicker of a reaction to indicate he suspected Capone's role in this; but that didn't mean he didn't.

'Well.' he said. Smiling. 'No harm done.' His lawyer was wanting him to move along; it was their turn at bat. Nitti put a hand on my arm. 'About what you did for me. in this Lang thing…'

'I didn't do it for you, Frank. I just told the truth.'

'Sure. I know. But I appreciate it. I owe you one. kid.'

And he winked at me, and went in to testify.

I had a talk with some reporters, who I'd managed to duck the day before; they wanted to know about my quitting the force, and what my future plans were and so on.

And suddenly I knew what a part of my future plans would be; Nitti had reminded me of a debt somebody else owed me.

'I'm going to be working at the world's fair, boys,' I told the newsmen. 'I used to be with the pickpocket detail, you know, and General Dawes himself has contracted me to work with the fair's special security⁷ force in that regard'

They put that in their stories, and the next morning the phone rang.

'Hello. Uncle Louis.' I said into it. without waiting to hear the voice on the other end. 'When does the General want to see me?'

My appointment with General Dawes was at ten. and I figured I'd be out of there by noon, easy, for my luncheon date with Mary Ann Beame at the Seven Ails, a joint in Tower Town on the second floor of an old stable that made the Dill Pickle seem like Henrici's. I'd been seeing her a couple times a week since I got back from Miami, and by seeing her. I mean sleeping with her, and she was still driving me crazy with her small-town-girl-goes- bohemian ways, and one minute I wanted her out of my life and the next I was thinking about asking her to marry me, though with all her talk of a career I wasn't sure where I fit in.

Today I was going to tell her I'd pursued every avenue I could think of to find her brother- in Chicago at least- and the only idea I could think of, to pursue it further, was to start at the source: to go back to their hometown and try to track him from that end. Whether she'd go for that, since it would involve telling her father, who she'd kept out of this so far, I didn't know. But it was about all I had left. I'd checked with every newspaper in the suburbs and small towns around Chicago, and nobody recognized Jimmy's picture, and I hit the employment bureaus and the relief agencies and a hundred other places- and I'd run through that retainer of hers (which I'd initially thought was overly generous) weeks ago, with no intention of asking for anything else from her- except the right to keep seeing