week. Possibly even two.
Ragen’s family made appearances throughout the week, with all the children, including the three married daughters, putting in regular visits, though Mrs. Ragen herself wasn’t seen much from Wednesday on, stopping by during regular visiting hours for an hour or so; she’d collapsed at home on Tuesday after an anonymous phone call came in, a gruff male voice saying, “Tell your old man to get out of the racing business or get fitted for a coffin.” Ellen Ragen was (as her husband put it) “a hypertension blood-pressure individual” and her doctor wanted her to stay in bed, and not answer the phone.
Peggy had stopped going into the office and was keeping her aunt company, playing nurse, although a private nurse was on hand as well; consequently I’d only talked to Peggy a few times since Monday night, mostly over the phone, though tonight, Saturday, we had a date. In the meantime, I had put an op on the Ragen’s Seeley Avenue home, too.
Jim, Jr., had taken over the business reins in his father’s absence, but to his credit he’d managed to come around every day during visiting hours. He seemed shaken and was not really holding up all that well, but hid it from his pop pretty much-of course, his pop wouldn’t have wanted to recognize that, anyway.
I had the enormous pleasure, on Wednesday, of giving the bum’s rush to Wilbert F. Crowley, assistant to State’s Attorney Tuohy. Confiding in the State’s Attorney’s Office was like putting up a billboard in Cicero. The staff at Michael Reese, as well as the two Ragen family physicians attending Jim, were going along with me on keeping the cops and such away from him. We’d put word in to the local FBI office that they would be hearing from us-but kept it strictly “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
It wasn’t merely a blind, either. Jim was heavily sedated and in an oxygen tent and mostly just slept, from Tuesday through Friday, at which time, after postponements from day to day waiting for him to get strong enough, the operation on his arm was finally performed in a grueling three-hour session, surgeons probing for pellet after pellet in his shattered arm and shoulder.
On Friday, Mickey McBride showed up. Arthur “Mickey” McBride, that is, the onetime partner of Jim Ragen, in Continental, and who was still in charge of the Cleveland end of the operation.
I’d never met him before, but he’d heard all about me from Jim, he said.
“Jim thinks the world of you,” he said, pumping my hand. He was a small man, bigger than Mickey Rooney but just; his face was round, his light brown graying hair thinning some, his face pouchy, his glasses dark-tinted. Physically, he was an Irish, somewhat better preserved version of Guzik. A fairly natty dresser, he wore a gold and brown herringbone suit with a red bow tie and a monogrammed pocket handkerchief.
“He’s mentioned you from time to time, too,” I said, giving him a polite smile. Jim liked Mickey McBride, but I instinctively didn’t. He was too fucking friendly for a stranger. Particularly for a stranger who’d made millions in the rackets.
“You’re a pal of Ness’, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“He made some waves in Cleveland, I’ll give ’im credit for that. Don’t think he liked me much.” He smiled widely, puffing his cheeks; he looked like an aging leprechaun. “Hated it that I was making legal money off gambling.”
“Eliot’s idea of a night on the town involves using an ax to go in a front door.”
“Ain’t it the truth,” McBride said, grinning. “Well, he’s a nice enough guy. Harmless, now. Private business, these days.”
“I don’t think you’ve heard the last of him.”
“Maybe not.” He made a
“I don’t know. He’s being operated on, now.”
“He’s got balls, the man does. Going up against Guzik and company.”
“What’s your position on this?”
“Whether he should sell out or not? I don’t tell Jim his business. I sold out my interests years ago.”
“Doesn’t your son still own a piece of Continental?”
“Yes he does.”
“But he’s not very active in the business.”
“He’s a college student, Mr. Heller. Pre-law, down at the University of Miami. But he’ll need a place to work someday.”
“You really want to get your son involved in the race wire business? After what happened to Jim?”
“Mr. Heller, the race wire business has been around for almost sixty years. In all that time, Jim’s the first guy to take a hit, and it looks like he’s gonna pull through. Now, I know a hundred lawyers that got killed in the past forty years…hell, my boy might get hit by a brick from this building and bumped off. Life is a game of chance, my friend.”
“Well, you don’t seem to be getting in the game, at this point, Mr. McBride.”
“Call me Mickey. It’s Jim’s show, Mr. Heller. I’ll back him up, a hundred percent. But I’m not the boss. I’m not even an owner. If Jim wants to go up against Jake Guzik, well he’s a better man than I.”
“Then why don’t you advise him to sell out?”
“I thought you knew Jim, Mr. Heller,” McBride said, his smile finally turning nasty like I knew it could. “You think that stubborn mick would listen to me? Just because I taught him everything he knows about this business? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find someplace where I can smoke a cigar. Hate the smell of hospitals, don’t you?”
He’d spoken to Jim, later that day-night, actually-but I don’t know what they spoke about. Me, I hadn’t talked to Jim much at all, not since Monday night. And what conversations we’d had were limited to me reassuring him that security here was tight. Between the sedation and the doctor’s advice to keep him calm, I figured the time wasn’t right to spring Guzik’s offer on him.
I took the Saturday morning guard slot. I drove down State, then began cutting over on side streets to avoid the Bud Billikens festivities that would be swarming over the South Side, starting around 29th Street. Bud Billikens was a mythical character concocted by the Chicago
I arrived at eight, taking over for a bleary-eyed Walt Pelitier, who’d been on since midnight, and met Dr. Snaden for the first time. He was the Ragens’ Miami doctor who happened to be in town and who, with Dr. Graaf, their Chicago family doc, was attending Jim. At my suggestion.
He was a thin, very tan man of about forty-five; he wore thick, heavy-rimmed glasses that made his eyes look too big for his face.
“Don’t know how we’ve managed to miss each other,” I said, shaking his hand. “I’ve been here mostly evenings.”
“I’ve been here mostly days,” he said with a small smile, though he didn’t seem like the type who smiled much.
“You know, I’d swear I know you from somewhere.”
“We met a long time ago, Mr. Heller, in Miami.”
I snapped my fingers. “You were one of Cermak’s doctors.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I was Mayor Cermak’s personal physician in Miami. I wish I could have done more for him.”
“Well, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. How do you think Jim is coming along?”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. He came through the operation yesterday fairly well. He’ll have somewhat more use of that arm than was first anticipated. But he has several extensive skin graft operations ahead of him. I don’t think he’ll see the outside of this hospital for several months.”
That was going to be a long haul for the A-1 Detective Agency to provide round-the-clock protection. On the other hand, Jim was a millionaire and there was money in it.
“You think he’s up to me talking to him this morning?”
“He’s in there, sitting up, drinking juice right now. I think he’d like to see you, Mr. Heller.”
“Thanks, Doc. I wish you better luck on Jim’s case than you had with the late Mayor.”
“I’ll see if I can’t do a little better this time,” he said, a wry smile cracking his parchment tan. “On the other
