He gestured with an open palm. “You came to Chicago to follow up a lead. You got shot up by some nasty fellows who didn’t like you. You wound up in the hospital. But the lead didn’t pan out. End of story.”
“I got no choice in this at all, do I, Frank?”
“Nate, every man has free will. Every man can choose his destiny. This is America. In America, a man can do whatever he thinks is right.”
I might’ve cracked wise, but he believed that shit; he was an immigrant who made good.
“Well,” I said. “That family loves that little boy. And he loves them. And you’re telling me, they’re protected, they’re off somewhere raising that little boy, living a nice quiet life?”
“Yes.”
“Well. I guess I can live with that.”
“My point exactly,” Nitti said, and patted my arm and went out.
A few days later I was back in my office, trying to pick up the pieces of my life, my health and my business. I was calling a list of my regular credit-check customers on the phone when the damn thing rang under my hand and scared the hell out of me.
“A-1 Detective Agency,” I said. “Nathan Heller speaking.” “Nate,” a voice said. A familiar, throaty female voice, conveyed in that one word a world of disappointment. “Evalyn,” I said.
“What happened to you?”
“I was going to call tonight,” I lied. I did intend to call her, but I wasn’t near ready. Governor Hoffman I intended to write, refunding the balance of my retainer minus the days I’d worked and my somewhat padded expenses.
“What happened, Nate?”
“I just got out of the hospital. I was following up a lead, and stepped on the wrong toes. I got shot in the side, actually.”
“I see,” she said.
It was an odd reaction: I thought when she heard I’d been shot, I might buy myself some sympathy. For Evalyn Walsh McLean, her response was uncharacteristically cold.
“By the time I woke up,” I said, “it was too late. Hauptmann was already dead. The cause was already a lost one. I’m sorry, Evalyn.”
“You disappoint me, Nathan.”
Now I was feeling tired; just plain tired. “Why is that, Evalyn?”
“You’re not the only private detective in the world, you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, exactly, Evalyn?”
“I was worried about you.” Now I could hear emotion in her voice. “I hired someone to look for you, to see if you were all right, to see if you were in trouble….”
Oh shit.
“Well, that was sweet, Evalyn, but…”
“Sweet! The first thing the operative discovered was that you’d made a phone call from my house to a number in Chicago. The number was that of a business, a ‘cigar stand,’ owned by a certain Mr. Campagna, who is a Chicago mobster, as you well know.”
“Evalyn.”
The husky voice sounded strangely brittle, now. “You lied to me. You were reporting back to them, weren’t you?”
“This isn’t anything you should pursue, Evalyn. It could be dangerous for you, if you did.”
“Are you threatening me, now?”
“No! Hell, no…I just don’t want you to get yourself in trouble.”
“You were in the hospital, all right. And I know it was a gunshot wound, and I was concerned, I am concerned, and maybe there’s a good explanation, maybe you can make me feel good about you again, but can you answer one thing?”
I sighed. “What’s that, Evalyn?”
“Why were you in a hospital where the chief of surgery is the in-law of some top gangster?”
“Your private detective found this out, did he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Evalyn, those ‘gangsters’ run Chicago. It’s just a coincidence. Don’t make it something it’s not.”
“Do they run you?”
“Sometimes, yes. When they want to. And when I want to keep breathing. I sometimes accommodate them.”
“Bruno Richard Hauptmann is dead.”
“So I hear. What exactly can I do about that at this juncture?”
“Nothing. Nothing.”
“Evalyn. Evalyn, are you crying?”
“Fuck you, Heller! Fuck you, Heller.”
Most women get around to saying that to me, eventually. Even the toney ones.
“I’m sorry, Evalyn. I’m sorry I’m not what you’d like me to be.”
“You still could be. I know you’re a good man, underneath it all.”
“Oh, really? Does that mean the chauffeur’s position is still open?”
“Now you’re being cruel,” she said, and I’d hurt her. I’d meant to, but I was sorry.
I told her so.
The earnestness of her voice would’ve broken my heart, if I’d let it. “Nate, that little boy is out there somewhere…I just know he is. If we can find him, we can clear Richard Hauptmann’s name.”
“A posthumous pardon will leave him just as dead as he is now. Maybe history will clear the poor bastard; but I’m not going to. Besides, I’m not so convinced that kid is alive.”
“I’m going to keep looking, Nate. I’ll never stop.”
“Yes, you will, Evalyn. You’ll find some new cause. There’s always another cause to support, just like there’s always another diamond to buy.”
“You are cruel.”
“Sometimes. But not foolish. Goodbye, Evalyn.”
And I hung up.
I just sat there for a while, and then I slammed my fist on the desk, and the phone jumped, and I split a fucking stitch. It hurt like hell. I unbuttoned my shirt and there was blood on the bandage. I’d have to go back to the hospital for a little outpatient number. God, it hurt. I started to cry.
I cried like a baby for several minutes.
I told myself it was the wound. But there are all kinds of those.
EPILOGUE
42
I never saw Evalyn again.
She continued investigating the case, and wrote a series of articles about her experiences for
