“My old man gave the best years of his life working for the unions.”
“What’d it get him?”
“Nothing. Heartbreak.”
“See? Enough of this. Let’s kick Bioff out of bed and keep it to just the two of us.”
Part of me wanted to be a million miles away from this sugar-sweet, hard-as-nails dame; part of me, and not just the part you’re thinking, didn’t ever want to leave. “Don’t you have to be getting back downstairs?” I asked her, half looking for an out. “Won’t you get in trouble with Sonny?”
Short deep laugh. “Don’t be silly, Nate. Sonny works for me. I own a third of this place, and he owns jack shit. I can stay up here and screw my brains out all night long, if I like, and who’s to stop me?”
“Must you be so romantic, Estelle?”
“Be quiet. I’m a whore, Nate. I can’t remember ever saying it right out like that, before, but it’s true, isn’t it? I’m Nicky Dean’s little whore. And you’re Willie Bioff’s little whore. Well, fuck them both. And fuck us.”
And we did. Repeatedly.
Sunday I slept in till noon. I was in my own bed in my own room at my own hotel, having left the Colony Club around 4:00 A.M., getting the fish eye from Sonny Goldstone but not much caring. I knew there was no way to approach Estelle without Nitti and company learning. But Estelle was an old flame of mine, and besides, any man who ever saw her wouldn’t question my motives for spending six hours in a suite with her.
I’d asked the desk to hold all calls, but on my way to lunch I picked up my messages and found that Pegler had been trying to call me all morning. Why wasn’t he in church, praying for an end to unionism? Anyway, I stopped at a pay phone and called him; he was staying at the Drake.
“I must see you at once,” he said.
“I’m going to get something to eat and then I have some things to do. Meet me at my office around four.”
“Heller, I have a train to catch.”
“When?”
“Eight this evening.”
“Meet me at my office around four,” I repeated, and hung up.
I could have done without meeting with Pegler at all, but I didn’t see any way around it; Montgomery was a client, and he expected me to cooperate with Pegler, to a degree at least. But being seen with Pegler at this point could prove embarrassing, maybe even fatal, which made me glad he was coming up on a Sunday afternoon, not a business day. Of course, if he were to be seen entering my office on a Sunday, that might be interpreted as a secret meeting, and…
What the hell. I felt reasonably secure, and not just because I had an automatic under my shoulder. I’d pulled it off-done my job for Montgomery by doing my job for Bioff. Slight conflict of interest, there, of course, but who was to know? Still, as I walked the Loop on a quiet Sunday afternoon of a winter day that had me turning up my collar and stuffing my gloved hands deep in my topcoat pockets, I felt a little jumpy, looking behind me, seeing if I was being tailed.
I didn’t seem to be, and I had a leisurely solitary luncheon at the Brevoort Hotel dining room-breast of guinea hen, corn fritters, fresh mushrooms. Two cups of hot black coffee, declining a third to keep the jumpiness at bay. The wear and tear of the California trip was starting to fade; the glow of last evening’s sexual adventures still warmed me; and I was comforted by the thought that I would soon be at my office typing up a confidential report to Robert Montgomery, after which I would phone Willie Bioff, and finally dispense with Westbrook Pegler, putting this risky but neatly profitable affair behind me.
It was one-thirty-something when I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor of Barney’s building, my footsteps making hollow notes in the otherwise silent Sunday-afternoon symphony the empty building was playing. My keys were already in my hand, I’d fished them out on the stairs, so even that didn’t add a sound.
But something inside my office did.
Through the pebbled glass, at left, adjacent to the door, I could make out a shape, rising, and heard a grunt.
Quietly, quietly, I slipped the gun out from under my arm.
Pegler? No. Not two and a half hours early. Or was Pegler’s hotel phone tapped? Did someone know about our meeting at four, and was waiting to do the both of us in, a Sunday-afternoon two-for-one sale? From the sound of it, whoever it was was making some effort in there, not expecting me here this soon, tossing the office, maybe, looking for something or staging a fake robbery to drop some bodies into and, well, that was enough of that.
The gun tight in my gloved hand, I smashed the pebbled glass, with a powerful swing of the forearm, gun barrel leading, shattered the glass and shards went flying as I thrust my arm, gun in hand, through the jagged teeth where the panel of glass had been and pointed it at where the shape had been as a woman screamed and a man said, “Oh,
There, on the couch, on my old modernistic black-and-white World’s Fair couch, was Frankie Fortunato, with his bare hairy ass, his bare hairy everything, showing, as he looked back at me with eyes that managed to be narrow and wide at the same time. Under his skinny naked body was a beautiful naked girl.
Specifically, Gladys.
“Whoops,” I said. Lowering the gun.
“Mr. Heller,” Frankie said, and it was the first time he ever used “mister” in front of my name, “I can explain.”
He was crawling off Gladys, leaving the poor girl there to do an embarrassed, impromptu “September Morn” imitation, and not a bad job for somebody lying down. She wasn’t screaming anymore, but her mute humiliation killed the fun of learning that the body under her clothes lived well up to expectations.
I unlocked the door and went in, and Frankie was almost in his pants, and Gladys had reached for her dress, and was sitting now, covering herself up with it, looking scared and ashamed.
“We didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Fortunato explained, lamely, zipping up. “Gladys lives with her mom and I live with my uncle and aunt.”
“Don’t,” I said. Embarrassed myself. Putting the gun away. “Not necessary.”
“Are we fired, Mr. Heller?” Gladys managed to say. Her big brown eyes showed white all around.
I went over and sat on the edge of her desk; assayed the damages. Glass fragments littered the floor like huge misshapen snowflakes. The hole in the pane provided a scenic view of the abortionist’s office across the way.
“Nobody’s fired,” I said. “Get dressed, Gladys. Pick up your things quick like a bunny, I won’t even look, and duck in my office and dress. Shoo.”
She shooed. But I watched out of the corner of my eye. Only the memory of last night with Estelle enabled me to live with the sure knowledge that the only time Gladys’s perfect pink body would be naked in my inner office would be today, putting her clothes back on at my request.
“Jesus, I’m sorry, Heller,” Frankie said. He was fully clothed now. Snugging his tie in place.
The “mister” hadn’t lasted long.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know how it is. Get it while the getting’s good.”
“You’re not mad?” Smoothing a hand up over his dark widow’s peak.
“I’m jealous.”
Gladys emerged, dressed in a blue-and-white Sunday frock with a virginal bow at the neck. She said, “I’ll pay for the window.”
I looked at Frankie.
He shrugged. “We’ll go dutch.”
“Frankie,” I said, “as long as you’re around, chivalry is not dead. In a coma, maybe, but not dead.
“How could it be your fault?” Frankie wondered.
“I’m jumpy today. And, also, some dangerous things have been going on and I haven’t bothered to clue you
