You’re my goddamn recruiting sergeant.”
I came around the desk and extended my hand; he accepted it, shifting the hat to the hand holding the little box. His smile was as tight as his grip.
“Welcome home, Private,” he said.
“What brings you here, Sergeant?”
He handed me the small square box, the corners of which were rounded off. “It is my honor to present you this, Private Heller.”
I opened the little box, half expecting to find a watch inside. Instead I found a medal. A ribboned star of bronze at the center of which a laurel wreath encircled a small silver star.
“That’s your Silver Star, Private. For gallantry in action. Congratulations.”
“I…well, thank you. I, uh…shit. I don’t know, Sergeant. I feel funny about this.”
“Funny?”
“I don’t feel I did anything worthy of a medal. I did what I had to and that’s all. Only medal I feel comfortable wearing is this.” I pointed with a thumb to the Ruptured Duck on my suitcoat lapel. “I did what I had to. But getting medals for killing people, I don’t know about.”
His mouth was a thin straight line that words miraculously squeezed out of: “Private, the Marine Corps is fucked up in many ways. But one way in which it ain’t fucked up is it don’t give out medals for killin’ people. It gives out medals for savin’ people, which is what you and Corporal Ross did over in that hellhole. So if I was you, I would not have nothing but pride for this here medal.”
I smiled at the tough old bird. Old? Three years older than me, probably. Not that that made him young. Had he served in the first war? He’d have been a kid. But then a lot of Marines were.
Anyway, I offered my hand for him to shake again; he did.
“Thank you, Sergeant. I appreciate your words.”
He gave me another tight smile and turned to go; he was at the door when I called out to him.
“Sergeant?”
“Private.”
“Would you happen to know if one of my buddies from B company is back in town? He was in that same hellhole I was.”
“Would you be referrin’ to Private D’Angelo?”
Another chill shot up my spine; a newer one than the Campagna variety.
“That’s right. Is he back?”
He nodded. “Yes he is. He’s a brave young man, too. I delivered a bronze star to him this morning.”
“I’d like to visit him.”
The sergeants mouth twitched; that was his shrug. “I can give you his address, if you like.”
D’Angelo was living with his aunt and uncle in Kensington, a tiny Italian community at the far south end of the city, right outside of Pullman, just west of Cottage Grove. I took the Illinois Central commuter line out there, passing the Pullman plant where my father had once worked, and Electromotive, both doing war work now, and among Eliot’s VD target areas. As the train passed 103rd Street I could see the smokestacks of steel mills against the sky. I sat on the train thinking about unions, thinking about what the unions had meant to my father, about what my father thought the union idea meant, and what sometimes that idea still meant, but how more often greedy bastards like Bioff and Browne and Dean and Nitti and Ricca and Campagna and various Capones and so many others perverted it into just another racket. Is that what we fought to preserve, D’Angelo and Barney and me?
I got off the IC at a little after four at 115th Street, which I crossed-the obnoxious paint odor of the nearby Sherwin Williams plant mingling incongruously with wondrous spicy smells from various hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurants-to Kensington Avenue, the wide, airy street the little neighborhood was named for. This quaint four- block neighborhood was an Italian oasis in the midst of a Swedish and Polish area; it even had its own church. And Kensington was one Italian neighborhood in Chicago with little or no mob taint.
The bottom floor of the narrow three-story brick building was a grocery store; at the top of the second floor stairs was a landing and a single door, with no number. I knocked.
“Just a second!” a voice from within called. Female voice.
When the door opened, a slender, darkly attractive girl of about twenty stood there; she was in rather form- fitting coveralls with her hair covered by a bandanna, knotted in front, Aunt Jemima style.
“Can I help you?” she said, looking at me rather crossly, her thin frame blocking the doorway. What little of her hair was showing under the bandanna was matted from sweat and her face was smudged here and there.
“My name’s Heller. I’m a friend of Private D’Angelo’s.”
She brightened. Stepped back and gestured for me to come in, saying, “Nathan Heller, sure. You’re Tony’s friend. He told us all about you. Read about ya in the papers, too.”
I stepped inside. It was a small living room with nice but not lavish furnishings, overstuffed sofa, some chairs, radio console, Catholic icons.
She gestured to herself, to her coveralls, her bandanna, smiling widely. Her teeth were very white and her eyes were very brown. “Excuse. I just got off my shift at Pullman.”
I smiled at her. “Rosie the Riveter, huh?”
“Marie the arc welder. Would you like to see my brother?” She seemed hopeful and sad all at once.
“Sure. He’s here, then?”
“Yeah. Sure.” She seemed surprised I’d think otherwise. “It’s close to Roseland Community.” That was a hospital, about a mile from here. She went on: “I think some company might help Tony a little.”
She stepped closer; she smelled sweaty, the sweat of good hard honest work. I liked the way she smelled. She was, in fact, a cute kid, and if I wasn’t here to see if maybe her brother was a murderer I might have asked for her phone number. I never dated an arc welder before. Or the sister of a murderer, that I remembered.
“Is D’Angelo a little down?” I said. I couldn’t seem to bring myself to call him Tony; don’t know why.
She stood very close to me. “He’s been blue as hell. He was okay when he got home. We were all surprised how good his spirits were, considering. But when he saw the paper this morning…”
“The Estelle Carey killing?”
She nodded gravely. “He cried and cried. Don’t tell him I told you.”
“Look, uh, Marie. Let me give you a tip. Some of your brother’s letters and things were found in her apartment.”
The skin around her eyes tightened. “Really?”
“They haven’t connected them to… Tony, yet. But they will. And cops and reporters will be swarming around.”
“Oh dear. What should we do?”
I shrugged. “You may want to have him stay someplace else, till it all blows over. I don’t mean to suggest you keep him away from the police, but you may want to keep the reporters off him.”
She nodded. “Certainly. I appreciate this.”
“That’s okay. I figure you should be warned. And your aunt and uncle downstairs, with their business and all.”
She smiled again. Lovely smile. “It’s nice of you.”
I wasn’t so nice. I was here to confront my old war buddy about a murder. Two murders.
But I owed him this much, this warning. And I liked his sister’s smile.
“I’ll take you back to him,” she said.
“No. You can just point the way.”
“Okay. I need to get a bath, anyway.”
I didn’t want to think about her bathing. I had other things to do.
She pointed me down a hallway, off of which were various bedrooms, and at the end was a small kitchen, with a hoosier cabinet and a table and sink all crowded together. To the left was a bedroom, D’Angelo’s, she said.
But I found him sitting out on the enclosed porch, also off the kitchen. It was a little cold, out there. No insulation. But D’Angelo didn’t seem to notice. He was at a card table, but turned facing a window looking out on the alley, a half-played hand of solitaire spread out before him like a meal he wasn’t hungry enough to eat.
