Chicago Confidential

“What do you mean, Rock?”

“What the fuck are you here for?” He hefted the nine millimeter. “To kill me? To kill Charley?”

Standing there casually motionless, I was nonetheless looking for the moment to jump him. The weird state of mind he was in might help—might….

“I’m not here to kill you,” I said. “You’d already be dead, if I were.”

“Or you’d be dead. Why are you here, Nate?”

“…you saw me.”

“Playing photographer. Yeah. You snapped me and Charley.”

“Yes. And those photos are on their way to Washington.”

I thought that might get a rise out of him, but he just sat there, zombie-eyed. Finally, he said, “That means, unless Charley and me clear out…tonight…we’ll be in cuffs tomorrow. On our way back home.”

“That’s pretty much it. yeah.”

“He’s fuckin’ ruined me, you know.”

“What? Who? Charley?”

Rocco sighed, nodded. He kept thumping my gun against his thigh, nervously. “He and Tubbo went against the Outfit.”

“Arranging the Drury and Bas hits, you mean?”

“Yeah. They had inside help, y’know.”

“I do know.”

And I told him who I figured it was.

He confirmed my suspicions with a shrug and a nod. “You don’t buck Accardo and Ricca or even old Greasy Thumb. You either die, or if you’re real lucky, you lose damn near everything. Giancana, that crazy bastard, he’ll be sitting where the Fischetti brothers was sitting.”

“Because your brother bucked the Outfit.”

“Yeah. Drury had all sorts of tapes of Charley and Tubbo talkin’—’bout the election and shit.”

“You haven’t told Charley about me, have you?”

“No—no, Nate, I ain’t told him, and Charley ain’t made you. He was too busy today looking at Little Miss Big Titties. I saw you, though. You kinda look like my fuckin’ brother, with that blond hair.”

“If you don’t tell him now, Rock, you’ll be arrested tomorrow, along with him. You know that, don’t you?”

“What the fuck’s it matter? Maybe I go back and plead the fifth, don’t cause the Outfit no trouble, and the boys see I’m a stand-up fella.”

“You want Charley to get dragged back to the States?”

“Oh, yeah. ’Cause if he does, they’ll either kill him…or his heart will. He’s a sick man, you know.”

“How sick?”

Rocco coughed a laugh. “Sicker than he fuckin’ knows.”

“What do you mean?”

A shrug. “Maybe somebody switched his little pink pills with, whaddyacallit…playsee what’s-it’s.”

Was I hearing this?

“Placebos, Rock? You switched your brother’s pills?”

“You tell him, Nate, and I will kill you.”

I looked at him for a long time—the depression I’d seen lately in my own face was in Rocco’s, only deeper, like a mask that wouldn’t come off.

Then I came over and sat next to him. “You loved her, didn’t you?”

“What, jus’ ’cause I slapped her around, you don’t think I loved the little bitch? She could get under your skin. She was so goddamn sweet, and pretty. You ever hear Jackie sing?”

“Yeah.”

“How could you kill that? How could you kill something sweet like that, when you know your brother loves her?”

“You married her to protect her.”

“Of course. Then Charley found out that wouldn’t do no good, in this Kefauver thing…and he and Tubbo…. Fuckers.”

“I tried to save her.”

“How?”

All Rocco knew was Jackie had turned up in Lincoln Park, overdosed. I told him the whole story—about Riverview, and how Tubbo had covered it up so masterfully.