brothers will give it to him, but he’s got his own principles. I think he might duck out on a debt or put off paying, but I don’t think he’ll pay for something he didn’t lose.”
“So,” sighed Kleinhans, “where do I come in?”
“You were assigned to work with me, right?”
“Right.”
“How about arranging for a little protection in case we have to make a fast exit?”
It seemed reasonable to him. I told him the time and the place of the meeting and suggested that he have a car with a big star parked right in front of the New Michigan Hotel.
“Don’t hide it,” I said.
A lady of about forty-five, with a white turban and a dead white mink around her neck peered in at me in the phone booth. She looked at her diamond-studded watch, under long black gloves. Then she looked at me. Her teeth were clenched in impatience. I offered her a bite of hot dog through the window. She turned her back on me.
“O.K.,” said Kleinhans. “You said there were two things I would do.”
“Right, the second is to tell me where in the Loop I can buy an egg. I’ve gone through four blocks without seeing anything that looked like a grocery.”
He asked where I was and told me how to get to a fancy grocery called Smithfield’s. He didn’t ask me why I needed an egg. I said goodbye to Kleinhans and said I’d turn myself in the next day, as I had promised Daley.
“Take care of yourself, Peters,” said Kleinhans, “and don’t do anything too stupid.”
“It’s in my blood,” I said. “My brother’s a cop.”
We both hung up, and the well-dressed lady shoved past me into the booth. I finished my hot dog and made my way to Smithfield’s, where I bought a half-dozen eggs. I was tempted to buy a can of quail eggs, too, just to keep on my shelf in L.A. to impress the social register when they dropped by, but my environment was a dead giveaway, and I didn’t want to actually eat quail eggs.
A little after four I went into, Kitty Kelly’s. Merle was at her table. She gave me a small smile and blew her nose.
“Look what you did,” she said, rolling the dice. Her dress was covered with spangles that glittered in the light from the bar. “I’m losing customers from this damned cold you gave me.”
She shook her head and kept the small ironic smile to show she didn’t mean it, but she did mean it a little, too.
I ordered a beer for myself and a glass of wine and orange juice for her. I did the bit Ian Fleming had pulled at the Fireside. My fingers didn’t have his flare. It was a kind of comic parody of what he had done, but it did get a small audience of late afternoon marginal businessmen, two Twenty-One girls and a bartender.
“Drink it,” I said. “Old California cure for the common cold.”
“You know what you can do with that?” she said.
“Yeah,” I answered, “but it wouldn’t cure anything that way. Take my word. I’ve been around doctors a lot recently.”
She said “What the hell,” downed the orange juice and egg and slugged the wine in two gulps.
“You’ll feel better in half an hour,” I predicted, and handed her the carton with five more eggs, telling her to use them every two hours.
I purposely lost a few bucks playing Twenty-One and mentioned that I might be getting near the end of my Chicago stay, one way or the other.
“You’ll come by and pick up your suitcase, I hope,” she said, sounding semitough. “I’m not mailing it to you.”
“I thought I’d be around at least through the night and you might put me up again.”
“I might reinfect you.”
“It’s worth the risk.”
Her smile this time was real, and I asked her how to get in touch with Ray Narducy, the versatile cab driver who had introduced us and did the world’s worst Charlie Chan impression. She gave me the number from a book she fished out of her purse, and said he usually went home at dinner time to save a half-buck or so.
“He’s a sardine freak,” she said. “Eats the stuff every day in sandwiches, salads. He’s a good kid, but for a few hours a day he smells like the lake on a hot day when the fish are dying.”
After another five minutes of equally intimate conversation, I squeezed her hand, told her I’d see her later, and made room for a partly plastered businessman who was going to make snappy conversation with a lovely lady while he tried to recover his bar bill.
Narducy was home.
“How’d you like to work for me tonight?” I said. He said he would, and I told him to pick me up in front of the Drake Hotel just before nine. “I’ll have the Marx Brothers with me as an added treat.”
“I do imitations of all three of them,” he said happily. “I even do a Zeppo, but most people don’t recognize it.”
“Maybe you could skip the impressions tonight. We’re going to have things on our mind. Now go back to your sardine sandwich.”
“How did you know I was eating sardines?”
“I’m a detective, remember?” I said. “Nine, in front of the Drake.”
My wallet told me I had about seventy bucks left. My memory told me I had nothing in the bank. In fact, with my bill from the LaSalle, I was almost minus. I still couldn’t take a chance on calling Hoff or Mayer and getting fired. If I held on and the case got wrapped up fast, I had enough to get back to L.A., submit my bill to Mayer, and have a few bucks for some gas and a bag of tacos.
Something resembling sleet pissed cold in my face as I walked in early evening darkness back toward the Drake. I stopped at a coffee shop for a tuna on toast and a Pepsi. I was the only customer. The place was shiny and clean with a steel counter that reflected me from its mirror surface. I tried to ignore myself, ate fast, left a reasonable tip to a waitress who was listening to Smiling Jack on the radio, and continued my journey back to the Drake.
The Marxes had already eaten when I got there. The card game had temporarily ceased, and they were debating the future. I just sat back in a comfortable chair with my hat over my eyes and waited for time to pass.
Every once in a while, I heard them arguing about doing a radio show. I wondered how Harpo would do a radio show, but I minded my own business. Groucho and Chico also argued about doing another movie. Groucho said the script about the department store was awful and couldn’t get better. Chico suggested that some things could be done with it.
“You know,” he said, “Harp pulls out the harp and gives them a little shit. I play the piano and smile. You push Margaret around and talk to the camera. It always works.”
“But it isn’t always good,” countered Groucho. “What we need is Thalberg back from the dead.”
Chico nodded agreement. Harpo said nothing.
“I could sure use the money,” sighed Chico.
“What a surprise,” Groucho responded.
Business talk went on for another hour. Then there was a pause for nostalgia, with memories of living out on Grand Avenue when they were in Chicago in the old days. They talked about former wives, assorted kids, aunts and uncles.
They spent about two hours talking, beating the extended record I had for conversation with my own brother. Once I had talked to Phil for almost fifteen minutes before he threw a telephone book at me. I’m not sure that time should count though because he was questioning me in his office about a murder.
A little after eight-thirty, I suggested that we get ready. Chico was especially prepared for the event. To meet the gangsters, he had put on a black suit, black shirt, and white tie. Both Groucho and Harpo wore heavy tweeds that looked as if they came off the same racks I used.
Narducy was waiting for us at the curb with his cab. His face was eager, and his neck was straining to look at the three brothers, who sat silently in the back seat. I got in front with Narducy.
Before we pulled away, Narducy turned and surveyed the trio of brothers, deciding which was which. Then, in an Italian accent out of Leo Carillo by way of Henry Armenta, he said: “Hey boss, the garbage mans a here.”
“Tell him we don’t want any,” Groucho shot back.
