Neon Mirage

“Ginny?” I said. Not quietly. “Virginia Hill? What are you talking to her for?”

“We’re friends. I’m allowed to have friends of my own choosing.”

“Yeah, yeah. But she’s just a hooker who got out of hand. You stay away from her.”

She paused, considering, then dropped her bombshell: “She does know Bugsy Siegel. She told me.”

“She does?”

“She’s…she’s sort of his girl.”

“Sort of his girl? Oh, great. Then she was trying to pump you about your uncle, that time…”

“Maybe. But she doesn’t know how I feel about Uncle Jim. About what happened to him. How close we are.”

“So? So what?”

“She offered me a job.”

“A job! What, riding trains with bags of mob money? Sleeping with senators?”

She ignored the nastiness of that. Said simply, “She needs a secretary.”

“What for?”

“She has business interests.”

“Well, where would this be? Hollywood?”

She nodded.

“You’re not seriously considering…”

She touched my arm; cool touch. “Nate, think a minute. If I were working for Ginny, I’d be close to this Bugsy Siegel person. I might be able to find something out.”

“Find something out? Are you kidding, or just crazy? You’re no goddamn detective…”

“If I get close to him, I can find out what he’s doing where Uncle Jim’s concerned.”

“That’s stupid. Siegel’s not going to say anything around the niece of the man he wants dead-assuming he does want Jim dead. This is lunacy. Don’t even think about this.”

“Ginny doesn’t know how I feel about my uncle. I could pretend we had a falling out; pretend to hate him.”

“What is this, a school play you’re trying out for? Forget this. This is stupid. You can’t accomplish anything, except maybe get yourself hurt, or worse.”

“I was hoping you’d think it was a good idea.”

“Yeah, well it’s a good idea for the radio. For real life, it stinks. I won’t hear of this. I won’t stand for it.”

“You really feel that strongly.”

“Of course I do.”

“Then…then I won’t go.”

I didn’t say anything. I came within an inch of saying, you’re goddamn right you won’t go. But instead, I just touched her face; smiled at her, gently. She smiled back the same way, though there was disappointment in it.

“Good girl,” I said. I gave her a kiss; just a peck. I turned out the lights and pulled the covers around us, as the Morrison’s air conditioning was downright chilly tonight, and we cuddled like spoons, me behind her, slipping a hand around to cup one sweet breast.

“I love you, baby.”

“I love you, Nate. I really do.”

We were just drifting off to sleep when the phone rang; it was after two-nobody calls me that late. I damn near ran to the phone, out in the other room, and it was Drury on the line.

“Nate,” Drury said. His voice sounded hollow. “It’s started.”

“What’s started?”

“Tad Jones is dead.”

“What? Christ…”

“He was killed by another Negro. Drunken scuffle over a watch is the story.”

“Pete was going to meet with him tonight…”

“Tad never showed up at the Club DeLisa. Pete’s going to look into the slaying, of course. It’ll be hard to prove anything. Even with Pete on the case.”

“This could spook the other witnesses. Pardon the expression.”

He sighed. “I know. I thought we had these bastards wrapped up in a bow. Shit.”

“What now?”

“I’m not giving up,” he said, as if a little insulted that I might think that a possibility, even though I hadn’t suggested it, except maybe by my tone. “I’ll put the other witnesses under protective custody, till we pick up Finkel and Leonard, and then we’ll have a show-up. If the witnesses can pick ’em out of the line, and we can get their statements, then we might still have something.”

“Damn. Is this Guzik?”

“Or Siegel? You tell me.”

“Finkel and Leonard are Jews,” I said, thinking out loud, “but then so are Guzik and Siegel.”

“And Davey and Blinkey don’t have any great ties to either of them.”

“But they’re bookies,” I pointed out, “meaning they got some ties to both of ’em.”

“Right.”

“I’m sorry about this, Bill.”

“Yeah,” he said, wearily. “Well, thanks for all your help, Nate. You’re a good man despite yourself.”

“I’m a goddamn prince,” I said, and hung up.

“What was that about?” she asked.

I turned and looked at her; she was in her little blue see-through nightie, looking about sixteen years old, a pale vision, those huge violet eyes melting me.

I told her what Drury had told me.

Her jaw tightened; her hands turned into fists. “They’re going to get away with it, aren’t they?”

I went to her; put my arm around her, daddy soothing baby. “I don’t think so. I don’t think Bill’s going to let them.”

She stepped away from me, just a bit. Her expression intense. “Can’t you identify them? You recognized them, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, at the hospital today-but not when they were shooting at me. I’ve already given a statement to that effect. Gone on record.”

“Can’t you say it just came to you?”

“A week later, I suddenly remember? After I have a run-in with these guys outside Ragen’s hospital room? The prosecutors wouldn’t want anything to do with me-once I was in court, even an inexperienced mouthpiece would chew me up, and with my checkered background, I’d be easily discredited, anyway.”

Her pretty mouth was pinched to near ugly. “I wish you’d just…go after them.”

“This isn’t Dodge City 1880, honey. It’s Chicago 1946. Which is a hell of a lot worse, in a way, but times still have changed. I’d do most anything for you, I think you know that-but I’m not going to go shooting it out with Outfit guys.”

“There’s no justice, is there?”

“Sure there is. It just doesn’t have anything to do with the legal system.”

“That’s why we should do something ourselves.”

“No,” I told her. “We got an honest cop, who has three live witnesses. He’s going to get the shooters. We’re going to bed. That’s all we’re doing.”

We did.

In the dark, she said, “Even if he does put them in jail, what about whoever hired them? What about him?”

Not that again.

“Baby,” I said, “go to sleep.”