It’s a racket.”
“It’s legal!”
“For the moment, and barely. This is a rough time for your aunt and her children. I don’t happen to think some of ’em have a hell of a lot of backbone, myself, but young Jim seems like a good man, and I think he’s worried about his mother’s health. I don’t think he wants to lose another parent.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying cut ’em some slack.”
“But they sold Continental! Lock, stock and barrel!”
“Yeah, to Mickey McBride. Not to Jake Guzik.”
“What’s to stop Mickey McBride from selling to Guzik?”
“Nothing.”
“Goddamnit, Nate-you’re
I gestured with two open hands. “Look, it’s not going to happen right away. Even the Outfit knows if they move in on Continental now, on the heels of your uncle’s murder, the roof’ll come crashing down on ’em. They may cut a backroom deal with McBride, but what the hell-McBride and your uncle were business partners for years. You should be able to accept whatever avenue he decides to take the business. And you should be able to accept him as your new boss.”
She folded her arms tightly across her chest. “I wouldn’t work for that company now. Not in a million years. I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“Well, why don’t you take your uncle’s advice, then?”
“What?”
“And marry me. Go the picket fence route. Make little Hellers.”
“Nathan, your timing doesn’t exactly rival Fred Astaire.”
“Sorry. So what now?”
She sighed heavily. “What’s happening where those West Side gunmen are concerned?”
“Drury’s case is progressing pretty well, considering he lost a witness. The other witnesses haven’t backed out, amazingly enough. He’s i.d. ’ed the driver, another West Side bookie-who incidentally was just caught dumping something in Douglas Park Lagoon, which turned out to be a sawed-off shotgun barrel.”
She sat up. “When was this?”
“Last night. Drury called me this morning about it. Don’t say I never have any good news for you. Anyway, Drury’s going to have no trouble getting a grand jury indictment, now.”
I expected that to improve her disposition.
It didn’t.
“But those men didn’t kill my uncle. They tried to, but they didn’t. What about whoever
“The cops are looking into that. You know that.”
“Why don’t you look into it?”
“Why should I?”
“Why don’t you just go up to Jake Guzik and shoot him in his fat head?”
“That’s a swell idea. Then the prison chaplain can marry you and me while I’m walking down that long, long hall. I hope you like weird haircuts.”
“I don’t think you’re funny.”
“I don’t find any of this funny. There are things in this world you can’t do a fucking thing about, Peggy. There are battles that can’t be won. Sometimes you just got to be happy to be able to hang on to your life, for a while.”
“That’s you, all right. Nate Heller. You’re a real survivor.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
She stood. “Well, maybe I want more out of a man. Maybe I want more out of life.”
“And where are you going to find
She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at me; sooner or later every woman I know does that to me. “Maybe I will. I don’t like this town. I don’t think I can live here anymore.”
“Peg. Why don’t you just sit back down…we’ll talk a little more and…”
“I’m sick of you. I’m sick of my family. I’m sick of Chicago.”
And she went out the door.
I thought about going after her, but I just kept my seat. She was as stubborn as her uncle, after all. And I’d had my fill of hopeless cases for one year.
But I did stand, to look out the window and watch her catch a cab. Wondering if she’d really do it. Really go running to Vegas and Siegel and that lunatic Virginia Hill, as if that were really an alternative to the madhouse of Chicago.
She took the morning flight out.
I got on the train at Union Station on Alameda Boulevard at a quarter to seven that Sunday morning, and promptly fell asleep in my seat. When I woke up mid-morning and looked out the window, I found Los Angeles, and civilization (not that those terms necessarily have anything to do with each other), long gone. In their place was desolation, the literal kind, as opposed to the spiritual brand the City of Angels breeds. I spent the rest of the morning watching the desert roll by my window like a bleached tan carpet covering the world. I kept trying to picture somebody putting up a casino in the middle of all that sand and sagebrush, and couldn’t manage it.
It was after two when the train rolled into the modern, many-windowed Union Pacific Station at the west end of Fremont Street, and I soon found myself standing, single bag in hand, in a restful shaded park, enjoying a very dry breeze, looking down a busy street lined with wide-open casinos: the Las Vegas Club, the Monte Carlo, the Pioneer, the Boulder, the Golden Nugget. Despite the slight shock of seeing casinos sprawled over two very American blocks, I felt vaguely disappointed. While the Sunday afternoon crowds filled the sidewalks and kept Fremont’s two modest lanes hopping with traffic, it nonetheless looked a little shabby, not at all glamorous. A small boy’s idea of a sinful good time, complete with Hollywood-style frontier trimmings. Maybe at night, when neon lit up Glitter Gulch, I’d revise my jaded Chicagoan’s opinion.
Shortly before two-thirty, a black Lincoln Continental glided up to the curb. Out of it scrambled a balding, rodent-like man in a three-hundred-dollar black silk suit. His tie was wide and red and his face was oblong and pale.
“Nate Heller?” he said, with a sideways smile, thrusting a hand forward.
I nodded, took the hand, shook it, found it moist, let go of it and, trying not to call attention to the act, wiped the moisture from my palm on my pant leg.
“Moe Sedway,” he said, jerking a thumb to his chest, smiling nervously, his tiny, close-set eyes as moist as his handshake, his nose a big lumpy thing like a wad of modeling clay stuck there by some kid.
He took my bag and walked around to the rear of the Lincoln; I followed him there. He put the bag in the car’s trunk, which was bigger than some coldwater flats I’ve seen. “How was L.A.?” he asked.
“Swell,” I said.
“So you’re a pal of Fred Rubinski’s, huh?”
“Yeah. Business partners, actually.”
“You say that like it’s two different things. Where I come from business partners can be pals, too. In fact they
I shrugged at this piece of curbside philosophy. He shut the trunk. With nervous energy to spare, he moved around me and opened the car door on the rider’s side. He gestured for me to get in, smiling nervously.
I got in. He went around and got behind the wheel. “Ever been to Vegas before?” he said, lighting up a long, thick cigar that was much too big for his face.
“No,” I said.
