You Bet Your Life

The food was great-hot Jewish food, memories of childhood and a mother long gone. Chicago, murder, and disease had begun to turn me nostalgic. I ate the chopped liver, cold beet borscht with sour cream, kishke, boiled chicken, and rice pudding; downed my coffee, ate a piece of halvah, left a big tip, and asked the waiter how to get downtown. He told me and pocketed the tip without a comment.

I made it back to Merle’s place by late afternoon. She was reading the Sunday paper and listening to Henry Aldrich on the radio. She made some coffee, helped me undress and made me warm all over. I told her my tale, enjoyed her hands on me and giggled once.

Then I fell asleep.

When I woke up, my watch told me it was night, and my eyes told me that Merle was still in her robe. She got dressed, told me what there was to eat, and said she was going out.

“I’m going to see my kid,” she explained somewhat defiantly.

“I didn’t ask,” I said.

She smiled sadly and went out.

The phone was down the hall. I called Kleinhans’ home number, figuring it was still Sunday, but he wasn’t there. I tried the Maxwell Street Station number. He was there.

“Peters,” he sighed enormously, a man of broad telephonic gestures. “What the hell happened on the West Side?”

“I went to see Canetta, but somebody was just ahead of me.”

“We know all about your visit,” he said. “Homicide wants to talk to you.”

“They want to do more than talk, don’t they?”

“Maybe so,” he said. “I told them I thought you were clean. That I knew you were going to see Canetta, that you have no way of getting your hands on a chopper, but they want to talk. They’ve already got witnesses to your being there-some kid-and other witnesses saying you were in the neighborhood running around.”

“Shit, Kleinhans,” I said wearily, “you don’t think I did it. You-”

“I don’t think I like you, Peters, but I don’t think you did this either. You have to admit, three guys have been chopped down around you since you hit town less than two days ago, and you came here straight from a visit with Capone in Miami. I think you’d better come in and do some explaining.”

“That’d keep me tied up too long,” I said. “I’m still trying to save Chico Marx, remember?”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “But the word’s out for you and they’ve called for pictures of you from L.A. You don’t come in, it’s going to look bad and take you longer to get out and on your way back to L.A.”

“Kleinhans, did you see the bodies from that place?”

“Yeah. One of them fits what you were saying about Marx having an impersonator, but the guy isn’t that close. His name’s Morris Kelakowsky, a harmless neighborhood guy who used to act in the Yiddish theater on Ogden Avenue. Did a little neighborhood gambling, small time stuff.

“He fits, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Kleinhans admitted. “But I don’t know what you’re going to do with it now.”

“Someone’s knocking off everyone who might know about this gambling scam,” I explained. “There’s something to find out, and I keep getting close without knowing what I’m close to. Can you give me some time? How about your boss, the one who assigned you to watch me?”

There was a long beat before he answered.

“Sorry kid,” he said. “We just don’t have clout when there’s a homicide. I’ll back you if you come in.”

“By the time I get out, Chico Marx could be plowed under. Thanks anyway.”

“Your funeral,” he said. “I’ll tell the homicide boys you called and what you said. It might keep them from blowing you up on sight.”

I hung up and went back to Merle’s room. I had chills and a lot to worry about. Nitti’s gang and the cops were looking for me. My flu was worse. I still had Chico Marx to protect, and now a killer to catch.

I sweated into delirium on the bed, soaking it through, and got up around midnight with an idea. Merle had come back without my knowing it and had been placing cold washcloths on my head.

“Know why you let me in?” I said to her. “You’re a mother cat. I’ll bet you take in stray animals and feed them and find them homes.”

Her smile said yes.

8

The sun came up, promising nothing-a small orange ball bouncing over the frigid mist of Lake Michigan. It wasn’t the same sun I had seen in Miami. This was a puny younger brother who had no heat, only a useless smile. From the window in the Drake, I watched a small boat, probably a coast guard launch, heading slowly into the low steam. I listened to its motor gasp in brittle chugs over the water.

Chico and Harpo were playing gin rummy, smacking the cardboard rectangles on the table. Chico beamed through the game, uttering uhs and delighted ahs while we waited for a phone call.

Groucho lay on the bed reading the newspaper. He looked at me and shook his head.

“We’re an anachronism, a relic of the past, a clown for people who’ve never been to the circus, a dialect comic for people who don’t remember vaudeville, a fast-talking, baggy-pants comic with a leer for those who were afraid to go to burlesque. We’re a trio of dinosaurs, an endangered species lying around a hotel in Chicago waiting for someone to come through the door and shoot us.”

“No one’s going to shoot you, Grouch,” Chico said, without looking up from his cards. “They’re going to shoot me.”

“That’s consoling. If I’m lucky, and they don’t miss, all I’ll lose is my brother instead of my life. I may be tired of playing that character in our movies, but I’m not tired of playing.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“Call Arthur,” Chico said. “It’ll make you feel better.”

Groucho turned to me.

“My son Arthur,” he explained, “thinks he’s a tennis player, but he doesn’t have to watch himself play. That’s what I should be doing, following my son around from sunny villa to sunny country club, watching girls from the veranda while I sip cool drinks and complain about the heat.”

“Then why are you here?” I said.

“Because he’s my brother,” sighed Groucho, looking at Chico. “He never memorizes his lines. He misses shows because he’s out gambling. He throws his money away, but he’s my brother. I’m younger than he is but I’m like a father to him.”

Chico’s hand went up in a mock denial, but his eyes stayed on his cards.

“Don’t be crazy.”

“Crazy, eh,” said Groucho, throwing the paper down and opening his eyes wide. “They said Caesar was mad and Hannibal was mad and surely Napoleon was the maddest of them all.”

“Eduardo Cianelli in Gunga Din,” I said.

“That’s right,” said Groucho, throwing me a cigar and glaring at Chico. “Now Ciannelli is a great Italian actor.”

“He was supposed to be an Indian in Gunga Din,” said Chico, “but he kept his Italian accent. I could have played an Indian with an Italian accent.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Groucho. “Let’s see if we can get you cast as Geronimo. I’ll suggest it to Mayer.”

The phone rang. Groucho answered in a fake Southern Negro dialect.

“Yessuh. Yessuh, he right here suh. He shohly is.”

He handed me the phone.

“Peters,” I said.

“Mitch O’Brien at the Times. You wanted someone from City Desk to call you?”

“Right,” I said. “I’m a reporter from the Toronto Star and I want to get in touch