Neon Mirage

I shook my head. “Sounds dicey to me.”

“Where would they be without Continental? They’re making noises about starting up their own wire-let ’em try it!”

I sat forward in the booth. “I don’t know where you think I fit into this, Jim, but I don’t do mob-related work. I gave that up the day Frank Nitti blew his brains out.”

He smiled his tight smile. “You played intermediary in the Guzik kidnapping, I hear.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t my idea.”

“I hear Greasy Thumb thinks you’re aces.”

“Let’s keep it that way. And let’s keep him a distant admirer.”

He frowned. “They’re trying to spook my lawyer, Nate. He’s been getting threatening calls; nasty notes.”

“Telling him to drop the case.”

“Yes.”

“Sounds like swell advice to me.”

“His secretary’s been getting the calls. It’s a small office- there’s no receptionist; just one girl, and him. And they’ve threatened her, too.”

“That’s a little nasty, I’ll grant you.”

He leaned forward; spoke softly. “The secretary is my niece. I feel a responsibility, here: I got her this job. Her father died last year, and the family business went with him. I’m trying to help the lass out.” He sighed. “She’s a good girl, though she has a bit of a wild streak that gets away from her sometimes.”

“And you mean to straighten her out,” I said.

“Yes. But my concern right now is her safety. Her family’s had enough tragedy…they lost the only son in the war.”

I sucked some air in. “Yeah, well.”

“Bataan,” Ragen added.

I winced. “What do you want me to do?”

“Spend some time with her.”

“If you’re looking for a bodyguard, I’ll put one of my men on it…”

“I want you, Nate. What’s your rate these days?”

“Twenty-five a day, unless you insist on the boss himself, in which case it’s thirty-five. And even if you do, I still have to run the office; I can’t be on her all the time. I’d talk to the girl, spend the first day with her, then put an op on it. I don’t work just one job at a time, you know-we have sixty-some clients, at the moment.”

“Make it hundred a day, with a week’s retainer.”

That raised my eyebrows and lowered my standards. “What do you expect to accomplish? What do you expect me to accomplish?”

He shrugged elaborately. “I think the threats are so much hot air. Those dagoes can’t afford to fuck with Jim Ragen. They’re just makin’ noise.”

“So do guns.”

He smirked humorlessly and waved that off as well. “We go to court next week. That’ll be the end of it.”

“You didn’t answer me, Jim. What do you want from me, exactly?”

“Be at her side. Make her feel safe. Make her safe.”

“Have you talked to her about this?”

“Yes. She insists she’s not afraid, though I can tell she is…though she resisted the notion of protection, at first. But, who can predict a woman; headstrong lass that she is, she up and turned around and said she’d go along with it.”

“Why, do you think?”

“She said she’d heard of you. You’ve a certain notoriety, after all.”

I’d made the papers a few times. Most of the occasions had been bad for my health but good for business.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Margaret.”

“Ragen?”

“Hogan. She’s my wife’s little sister’s girl. Pretty little lass. You should pay me, for the pleasure.” He raised a stern finger, the tiny eyes getting tinier. “Which isn’t to give you no ideas, lad. Don’t ye lay a hand on ’er, now.”

They always get more Irish when they’re warning you.

“For a hundred bucks a day,” I said, “I can leave my dick in a drawer, if you like.”

“Fine,” he smiled, picking up the check. “And leave the key with me.”

It’s funny I didn’t recognize her name. Hell, I didn’t recognize her, at first, as she sat at a typing stand near her desk in the little wood-paneled outer office on the tenth floor of the Fisher Building. She was small, and what you saw about her first was all that dark brown hair, the sort of dark brown that looks black till you study it, piles of curls cascading to the squared-off shoulders of her yellow dress, a startling dress with black polka dots, shiny cloth, silk perhaps. It hadn’t come cheap, this dress, but it seemed out of place in a law office, even a cubbyhole like this.

She turned to me and smiled, in a business-like way, and then the smile widened.

“Nate,” she said, standing, extending a hand. “It’s been a long time.”

She had pale, pale skin, translucent skin, with the faintest brown trail of freckles over a pert nose. She had a wide full mouth with cherry red lipstick, and big violet eyes. Her eyebrows were rather thick, unplucked, unfashionably beautiful, and she had a couple pounds of eyelashes, apparently real, and the whitest teeth this side of Hollywood. She looked about seventeen, but she was ten years older than that-a few laugh crinkles around the enormous eyes were almost a giveaway-and she had a very slim but nicely shaped frame. The hand she extended, in an almost manly fashion, had short nails with bright red polish, the color of her lipstick.

She was a stunning-looking girl, and in 1938, I’d slept with her once. Well. That was part of what we’d done together that night….

“Peggy,” I said, amazed. “Peggy Hogan.”

Her hand, as I grasped it, was firm and smooth and warm.

Her big grin, dimpling her slightly chubby cheeks, was one of amusement and pleasure.

“You’re still a private eye,” she said.

“You’re still a dish,” I noted.

“You told me I shouldn’t sleep with strange men.”

“I waited till the next morning to give you that advice, though.”

Her smile closed over those white teeth and settled in one dimple; she gestured to a chair, which I pulled up, and she sat behind her desk.

“I was a pretty wild kid,” she said, echoing her uncle’s words.

“I remember.”

“I never did sleep around much, Nate. You were one of a select few.”

“It was my honor. My pleasure, actually.” I felt awkward about this, but was immediately taken with this older version of the fresh young girl I’d once bedded and then lectured and sent on her way.

I’d met her at a party at a fifth-floor suite in the Sheraton. My boxer friend Barney Ross, who’d grown up on the West Side with me, and some other big shots in the sporting world were going to a wingding tossed by Joe Epstein, who ran the biggest horse-race betting commission house in Chicago. Epstein was an overweight, meek- looking little guy in his early thirties, with hornrimmed glasses and a disappearing hairline; but he was a sucker for the night life, and when he wasn’t hitting the local night spots he was throwing his own bashes.

Epstein had a girl friend who’d been around town since the World’s Fair in ’33. She’d danced a pretty fair hootchiekoo for a kid from the sticks-an Alabama girl with a sultry lilting accent and lots of chestnut hair and baby- fat curves and a full pouty mouth. Her name was Virginia Hill and she was looking pretty sophisticated these days, greeting Joe’s guests with a smile and giving them a look at a couple of yards of creamy white bosom; her clingy black gown didn’t leave much of the rest of her to the imagination, either.