The Million-Dollar Wound

I stood.

“Good luck,” she said. She touched my face. “Get some sleep.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said. Sat.

She swished off; pretty legs. I’d spent hours here beating my meat, thinking about those legs. There’s not much to do in a mental ward.

I wiped some residue of moisture off my face, thinking what a sweet cunning little bitch she was. She knew I was holding back; she knew, hypnosis or not, there were things I hadn’t told Wilcox.

Hell, there were things I couldn’t tell Wilcox. There were doors that just wouldn’t open. Or was that jumble of events, that rush of images in the shell hole, simply the fever that had gripped me then?

How the fuck did Monawk die, exactly? He was shot. Who shot him?

Well, the Japs, of course. Don’t be stupid.

Then why did he have black, scorchy powder burns on his chest, where he was shot? Why was the hole in his goddamn back big enough to drive a Mack truck through?

Close range; somebody shot him close range.

With a.45, that had to be it, like the.45s we all had, Barney, D’Angelo, those Army boys, me.

Me.

Like the.45 I had in my hand when I noticed the powder burns on Monawk’s dungaree jacket…

I bent over, covered my face with my hands. No, I hadn’t told Wilcox about that. I hadn’t told anybody about that. I hadn’t told anybody that I thought I’d seen it happen, Monawk’s murder, but I, goddamnit, I repressed it, it’s stuck back here someplace in my fucking head but I can’t, I won’t remember.

Did I kill you, Monawk? Did you scream and endanger us all and I killed you?

“Private Heller?”

It was the captain. In the doorway of the conference room.

“Please step in.”

I did.

“We’ve reviewed your case,” the captain said, sitting back down behind the table. I remained standing. “We’re quite impressed by your recovery, and are convinced that you are in every way ready to rejoin society.” There were some papers in front of him, with various signatures on them; he handed them to me.

My Section 8.

“And here’s your honorable service award,” he said, handing me a little box.

I didn’t bother opening it; I knew what it was: my Ruptured Duck, the lapel pin all armed forces vets got upon their discharge-so called because the eagle within the little button spread its wings awkwardly.

“Check with the front receiving desk, and they’ll help you arrange transportation. You should be able to make train reservations for this afternoon, if you like. You’re going back to Chicago, Mr. Heller.”

I smiled down at my discharge. Then I smiled at the captain. “Thank you, sir.”

He smiled too and stood and offered his hand and I shook it. I went down the line shaking all their hands. I lingered with Wilcox, squeezing his hand, trying to convey some warmth to this heavyset little man who’d brought me back to myself.

“Good luck, Nate,” he said.

“Thanks, Doc.”

Just as I was leaving, he said, “If your trouble sleeping persists, check in at the nearest military hospital. They can give you something for it.”

I guess I hadn’t fooled him so good, after all.

“Thanks, Doc,” I said again, and headed back to my ward, to pack my sea bag.

It didn’t matter what happened back there in that shell hole; that was over, that was history. What mattered was not that Monawk died, but that some of us had lived through it. Fremont and Whitey hadn’t, of course, but Watkins did and D’Angelo and the two Army boys and Barney, hell, Barney was a hero. They said he killed twenty- two Japs with those grenades he was lobbing. They also said he was still over there, on the Island. Still fighting. How could he still be over there?

And me here?

I sat on the edge of my rack and thought about how screwy it seemed, going back to Chicago to see some federal prosecutor about Frank Nitti and Little New York Campagna and the Outfit bilking the movie industry. What did that have to do with anything, today? Who cared? Didn’t they know there was a war on? It seemed another world, Nitti’s Chicago-a lifetime ago.

Not three short years…

The deli restaurant on the corner was calling itself the Dill Pickle, now, and the bar next door was under new management. Barney Ross’s Cocktail Lounge had moved to nicer, more spacious digs, across from the Morrison Hotel, where Barney kept an “exclusive” suite. I lived at the Morrison myself, in a two-room suite, not so exclusive.

Which was still a step up from the days, not so long ago, when I slept in my office, on a Murphy bed, playing nightwatchman for my landlord in lieu of rent. My landlord, the owner of the building, was then, and was now, one Barney Ross.

Who had walked over from the Morrison with me on this brisk Monday morning, back to the former site of his cocktail lounge, above which was-or anyway had been-my one-room office. He wasn’t the only one who was expanding.

“I’m anxious to see what you’ve done to the place,” Barney said, working to be heard over the rumble of the El.

I stepped around a wino and opened the door for him and he started up the narrow stairway (Barney, not the wino). “No permanent improvements,” I said to his back as we climbed. “I wouldn’t want your investment to appreciate.”

“Ever since you started paying rent,” he said, grinning back at me like a bulldog who spotted his favorite hydrant, “you just ain’t your charming self.”

Actually, I was feeling very much my charming self this morning. Very much full of my charming self. Life was good. Life was sweet. Because business was good. And that’s sweet in my book.

I was a small businessman, you see. But not as small as I used to be. I was coming up in the world.

You couldn’t tell that based upon Barney’s building, however; this block on Van Buren Street, the hovering El casting its shadow down the middle of the street, remained a barely respectable hodgepodge of bars and hockshops and flophouses. And our building wasn’t exactly the Monadnock. We had a couple of cut-rate doctors, one of whom seemed to be an abortionist, another of whom purported to be a dentist; anyway, they both made extractions, including from wallets, and even an old pickpocket-detail dick like me couldn’t do anything about it. We also had three shysters and one palm reader and various marginal businesses that came and went.

And one detective agency, now proudly expanded to a suite of two offices, count ’em, two. At the far end of the hall on the fourth floor was my old office, now partitioned off and used by my two freshly hired operatives, whereas the office next door, looking out on Plymouth Court and the Standard Club (a scenic view of the El now denied me), was mine and mine alone.

Almost.

I opened the door, the pebbled glass of which bore the fresh inscription A-1 DETECTIVE AGENCY, NATHAN HELLER, PRESIDENT (I was afraid if I touched it, it’d smear), and Barney and I entered my outer office. My outer office! Hot damn. All I needed was a stack of year-old magazines and there wouldn’t be a waiting room in the Loop that had anything on me.

I also had Gladys.

“Good morning, Mr. Heller,” she said, smiling with no sincerity whatsoever. “No calls.”

I glanced at my watch. “It’s five after nine, Gladys.” We opened at nine; Pinkerton never slept-Heller did. “How long have you been here, anyway?”