Indiana cops in a police execution, and at worst shot the wrong man? If what I knew came out, Hoover would shit his fucking pants.”
He shrugged elaborately. “That would be fine with me. Hoover’s overrated anyway. All I care about is the truth.”
“Oh, Eliot, please. You’re not naive. Don’t pretend to be.”
“Your testimony could be very valuable. You are the only non-mob-tainted party known to have had frequent private meetings with Nitti. Your testimony would have credence well beyond that of Bioff and Browne and Dean.”
“So the Three Stooges are talking, huh?”
He nodded. “They didn’t talk at their first trial, but when those stiff sentences came down, and they found out how much different prison life was than the El Mocambo, they started fishing for a deal.”
“It was the Trocadero where they hung out in Hollywood, Eliot, but never mind. I still don’t want to play.”
There was a knock at the door and I said, “It’s open.”
Bill Drury came in.
He wasn’t a big man, really-perhaps five-nine, a hundred and sixty pounds-but he was broad-shouldered and he had great energy, and a physical presence that could overwhelm you. He hung his camel-hair topcoat next to Eliot’s, and his fedora, too, revealing his typically dapper attire, a black-vested suit with gray pinstripes and a colorful blue-and-red-patterned tie and a fifty-cent shine. Bill was the best-dressed honest cop I ever met.
And one of the friendliest, unless you were part of the Outfit. He strode over to us with his ready smile, shaking my hand first, then Eliot’s. His dark thinning hair was combed across his scalp to give an impression of more but the effect was less. His dark, alert eyes crowded a jutting nose under which a firm jaw rested on the beginnings of a double chin.
“Heller,” he said, cheerfully, sitting down next to Eliot, “you truly look like death warmed over.”
“An honest man at last,” I said. “You look fat and sassy.”
“When your wife works,” he said with an expansive gesture of one hand, “why not?”
I had no argument with that.
“I presume Eliot has filled you in,” he said.
“Somewhat.”
“We were asked, because we’re old friends of yours, to pave the way for the federal prosecutor. They’d like you to be a witness.”
“Then I presume they’ll subpoena me.”
“They’d like you to be a
“You know me, Lieutenant. Friendly as the day is long.”
“And the days are getting shorter, I know, I know. And it’s ‘Captain,’ now.”
“Really? How the world does change when you go off on a pleasure cruise.”
Eliot turned to Bill and said, “I get the feeling Nate feels we’re imposing upon his friendship.”
“If we are,’’ Bill said to me, flatly sincere, “I apologize. I think you know what sort of stranglehold the Outfit’s had on the unions, here, and we’re finally getting a chance to break it. Your inside knowledge could play a major role in that.”
“I doubt it,” I said.
“The IA’s extortion racket is going to blow the lid off. We’re talking about ending gangster control of not just the IA, but the laborer’s council, which includes twenty-five local unions, twenty-thousand members, street cleaners, tunnel workers, streetcar company employees, you name it. Then, beyond the laborer’s council, there’s the sanitary engineers union, the hotel employees, the bartenders, the truckers, the laundry workers, the retail clerks-”
“I get the point, Bill.”
“Then cooperate with the grand jury.”
“Let me ask you something. Both of you. You keep talking about the IA’s movie ‘extortion’ racket. What extortion is that? As I recall, it was collusion between the movie moguls and the mob. Since when is strike prevention insurance ‘extortion’?”
Drury finally bristled. “I don’t know what else you’d call it.”
I put my feet up on the desk and leaned back in my swivel chair. “I tell you what. I’ll come testify. I’ll come spill my guts about every secret meeting I ever had with Nitti. I’ll tell you and the grand jury things that’ll make the hair on your head curlier than the hair in your shorts. I’ll tell God and everybody things that’ll guarantee me ending up in an alley with a bullet in my brain. But first you got to assure me of one thing. You got to assure me that those movie moguls are going to be indicted right alongside Nitti and company.”
Eliot had given up; he was staring out the window. Drury sat up in the chair, straight as his principles. “I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “I only know this is our chance to put Nitti and Campagna and Ricca and that whole sorry crowd away.”
“And then the next crowd’ll step in, and will they be any better? What are we talking-Accardo? Giancana? That’ll be swell. Nitti, at least, has kept the bloodshed to a minimum.”
Drury shook his head. “How in God’s name can you find anything good to say about that evil son of a bitch?”
“Nitti’s no worse than the next guy in his slot, and possibly a damn sight better. I remember the Capone days, and so do you, Bill.”
“Nate, I’m disappointed in you.”
“I told you I’d testify. I’ll sing like Nelson Eddy sitting on hot coals. But I want to see Louie B. Mayer and Jack Warner and Joe Schenck sitting in cells next to Nitti and Campagna and Ricca.”
“Schenck did time.”
“On income tax, and not much.”
Eliot looked at me, glumly. “They can subpoena you anyway, Nate. You know that.”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m battle-fatigued. I’m shell-shocked. I got amnesia, remember? Just ask the medics.”
Eliot shook his head, looked at the floor.
Bill sat there, dumbfounded. “I don’t get you, Heller.”
“Bill, those Hollywood schmucks Bioff and Browne and Dean plucked were just trying to get off cheap where paying the help was concerned. And the rank and file knew they had gangsters in their union but figured all that muscle was getting ’em some extra bucks, and looked the other way accordingly. So I say screw ’em. Screw ’em all.”
Drury started to say something, but the phone rang. It was Gladys, next door; for Drury.
“I left my number,” he said, taking the phone. “Hope you don’t mind.”
I waved that off.
Drury was mostly listening, so I said to Eliot, quietly, “No hard feelings?”
He smiled wearily again. “None. I’m just glad you’re back from that hellhole in one piece. Why don’t I buy you dinner tonight?”
“Why don’t you?”
Drury barked, “Jesus Christ,” into the phone, and we looked at him. Then he said, “Right away,” and handed me the receiver, and stood.
“Why don’t you come with me, Heller,” he said, his face ashen. “There’s something you might be interested in.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. A good example of your theory how Nitti and company soft-peddle the bloodshed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Grab your coat and we’ll go over to Addison Street, in Lakeview. You might be interested in seeing what’s become of Estelle Carey.”
She was naked under her red silk housecoat, but she wasn’t much to look at. Not in the way she had been,
