testifying?”
He sneered. “I’m not afraid of these dago bastards. I don’t operate in the backroom—I’m taking this out in the open!”
Which was why he was sitting in a basement, I supposed, making illegal wiretap tapes.
“Don’t go pious on me, you dumb mick,” I said. “You figure if you can’t wangle your way back on the department, at least you’ll be famous. Maybe write a book—maybe open your own detective agency.”
He had the expression of a lovesick fool proposing to his girl. “I’d rather stay on at the A-1 with you, Nate. We could make that place something special.”
“Yeah—a parking lot.”
“Nate. You have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Join me. Come with me, Tuesday. Meet with Kefauver’s people. Agree to testify.”
I stood and almost bumped my head on the rafters. “Testify! What, are you smoking the evidence?”
He placed his hands on the table; the recorder continued to whir. “Nate. Look—you’re the only guy in this city
That was overstating it: I had done jobs for Nitti, and he had done me favors, like not having me whacked. We had come to respect each other—maybe we’d even grown to like each other. I’d even been sorry to see him die.
But all I said was, “Nitti was the best man in his world—that’s all that can be asked of anybody.”
His eyes widened and rolled. “Bullshit, Heller! He was a killer and a thug and a goddamned extortionist and… hell, you know that, you know damn well you should join me and help cleanse this city.”
Now my eyes widened. “Did you say that? Did you really say that? ‘Cleanse this city?’ Can Bill Drury be that naive? That stupid?”
He folded his arms. “I’m not stupid and I’m not naive. And while I don’t share your admiration for Frank Nitti, I do admit he was a damn sight better than the boys upstairs.”
And he jerked a thumb at the ceiling, where fifteen floors above, the Fischettis’ three-story penthouse began.
I wasn’t really following this, and said so: “What makes the Fischettis so special, all of a sudden?”
Leaning forward, he shared his secrets, like a swami who had traded his crystal ball in on firearms and tape recorders. “The power is shifting. Guzik’s way down the ladder, now…last of the old guard. Accardo wants to retire, and there’ll be a successor named, soon. And right now, first in line, is Capone’s sweet cousin, Charley—the worst of a sick lot.”
I shrugged. “The worst I ever heard about Charley, and his brother Rocco for that matter, is they’re woman- beaters.”
“That’s an indication of their savagery, sure. Nate, since the war, Charley’s moved the Outfit full-scale into narcotics…which was something Frank Nitti would never have done.”
That was true about Nitti, and I knew narcotics use in town was up, but I said, “I thought Fischetti’s agenda was encouraging the boys to invest in legit enterprises. All I hear from Outfit sources, these days, is Wall Street and Texas oil.”
He smirked. “Oh, yeah, they’re investing in stocks and bonds and petroleum, all right. But they’re also investing in human misery.” He began counting on his fingers, though the numbers he began tossing around didn’t correlate. “There are fifty thousand drug addicts in this city, Nate—about half of them colored, on the South Side. You know what a habit like that takes to maintain? You got to steal over a hundred bucks worth of goods a day. You add it up.”
“Save the speeches for Kefauver.”
But he was rolling. “Did you ever see a schoolkid hooked on heroin? I have. Think about your baby son, Nate… think about him.”
“Maybe you should think about your own family, Bill.”
“You know I don’t have any kids.”
“No—but you got a wife, a beautiful one who loves your foolish ass. And your mother lives with you, right? And your sister? And her husband? And their kid? It’s not just your life, and mine, you’re risking, you know.”
That chin jutted even more than usual. “Annabel knows what we’re up against. She’s been at my side for a long time, Nate, through all my wars…. You know that.”
My turn for a speech. “Here’s what I know, Bill—you can talk about justice, and wave the flag, and play the violin about schoolkid junkies all you want…. But you know and I know that this isn’t about justice. It’s about getting even.”
He started to respond, then stopped.
I went on: “You picked out these Outfit guys for a target, when you were a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked punk kid, looking to make a reputation. Well, you made that rep, and along the way, also made the worst kind of enemies. They didn’t shoot you, oh no—they killed your career instead, because the way this city…hell, this country…works is, the public wants what the Outfit is selling, and so the politicians and the civil servants, like the whores they are, do their part by climbing in bed with the mob guys. You can’t do anything about that, Bill—people like money, and they like sex, and they like all kinds of things that are bad for them, like gambling and booze and dope. This isn’t about any of that, though, is it, Bill? This is about you getting even with the bastards who took your career away from you…and if you deny it, I’m going to stick that illegal sawed-off shotgun up your ass.”
He avoided my gaze, studying the tape recorder whose reels were whirling, gathering more tainted evidence.
