Greatest Newspaper.”
The headline said “30 Senators For War.” Senator Burton K. Wheeler warned me about “war madness” and said Roosevelt was preaching “hate and fear.” That cheered me almost as much as thinking about middle age, so I moved to another page where I found that the Nazis had attacked sixteen British merchant ships and destroyed twelve. At a mayors’ conference, LaGuardia of New York told mayors to prepare for bombing attacks. Jews in Holland were being barred by the Nazis as blood donors. General Marshall was worried about Japan building up air power in the Pacific. He was answering by sending 500 troops to Manila. The Japs didn’t worry me. I had word straight from the dentist who shares my office in Los Angeles. Dr. Shelly Minck, who had voted for Wilkie, assured me that we could beat the Japanese in two weeks. That was reassuring, but I wondered what those 500 troops were going to do against airplanes.
Even Dick Tracy was depressing. Some guy in a small-town lockup was offering a constable a hundred bucks. “I’d like to take a trip to, say, California,” said the balloon over the guy’s head. So would I, I thought, and found some ads for stores selling coats so I could get a line on costs.
I took a pain pill for my back and went to bed. I dreamt about Cincinnati.
When I got up it was morning. At least my watch said it was morning. Outside the window it was as dark as the night before. A call to the desk said my watch was right and the sun would be rising in a few minutes. The desk added that we would probably never know when it came because of the cloud cover.
I brushed my teeth and shaved slowly with a new blade. Then I put on my last clean shirt and tie, and matched my jacket to my pants. I had an important job this morning-the purchase of a coat. I sneezed, blew my nose, and tried to hold back the possibility that I might be catching a cold. In Chicago you could die in days from a common cold. There were lots of other things you could die from in Chicago, but I hadn’t faced them yet.
In the lobby I asked where the nearest clothing store was, and was told it was a block away. It was nine in the morning, and the temperature couldn’t have topped nine or ten degrees over zero. It reminded me of a line from an old Bert Williams song-“Good Lord, I thought I was prepared, but I wasn’t prepared for that.”
The clothing store was warm, and I was in no mood to bargain. Their price was right-thirty bucks. I knew a little shopping could cut that in half, but I couldn’t fight off pneumonia without a warm coat, and soon. Mayer owed me a coat. I’d sell it to Gittleson as soon as I got back to Los Angeles. The coat was warm and brown with big buttons. I threw in a hat, gloves, and ear muffs. The whole thing came to a little over forty bucks. I made a note of it in my traveling expense book.
Before heading back to my room, I stopped in a corner Steinway drug store for a couple of eggs, bacon, and toast. The place was jammed with people fortifying themselves for the day. A good looking woman next to me wore a suit with padded shoulders and a turban. I ordered some cereal and sneezed in her coffee. She had real class, and never acknowledged that I existed. After picking up a bottle of Bromo Quinine Cold Tablets, I headed back for the hotel to call Sergeant Kleinhans.
Maybe I shouldn’t have bought the ear muffs. Maybe skipping breakfast or the cold tablets would have made the difference. The world is full of maybes and wishes. Some people live on them. I knew I hadn’t been out of that hotel room more than forty minutes.
When I got back the door was the way I had left it, locked. I let myself in, went to the bathroom, had a handful of cold tablets, and went to find Kleinhans’ number. I found it in my other pants. I was spreading the napkin out to read it when I noticed the closet door was open. I read about compulsions once in the Saturday Evening Post. My compulsions are as reasonable as the next guy’s. Doors have to be closed, drawers have to be closed. Taps have to be turned off, and dishes can’t be left overnight.
I kicked the closet door closed with my foot as I looked at the napkin, but the door didn’t stay closed. It opened from the weight of the body behind it. He was a big man in a blue suit. He fell forward fast before I could see his face. All I saw was a splash of red across his chest. But identification was no problem. I could tell from the circle of white hair and the prone pyramid shape that Leonardo had made the trip from Miami to a closet in a Chicago hotel. I’d probably never know what caused that circle of white. My first reaction was to open my suitcase. My.38 was there, unfired. I called Kleinhans’ number. He wasn’t in. I left a message for him to call.
There wasn’t much chance that Nitti, Capone or Guzik were listed in the phone book. A half hour earlier Leonardo could have told me. I went through Leonardo’s pockets. Maybe I’d find something that would tell me what he was doing dead in my hotel room. His wallet had eighty dollars covered with blood and some family pictures-an old woman and three younger boys all of whom looked like Leonardo.
I called Louis B. Mayer, collect. He wasn’t in. I left a message. I called the hotel in Las Vegas where Chico Marx was working. The switchboard operator said Mr. Marx couldn’t be reached, and she sounded as if she had more to say but couldn’t, or wouldn’t. I left a message.
The phone rang, and Kleinhans was on the other end.
“You got a number or address for me?” I said calmly.
“I’ll give you an address in a few hours. Just remember, keep in touch and let me know if you get anything.”
“I’ve already got a couple of things,” I said, looking down at Leonardo.
“You’re fast,” clucked Kleinhans. I could hear squad room noises behind him and tried to imagine the room. I expected to be in it within the hour.
“Well,” I said, “I’ve got a cold.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“I can take care of that,” I said. “I bought a coat and some cold tablets. But I can’t take care of the other thing, the guy with the bullet holes who just fell out of my closet.”
After a pause, Kleinhans sent out a sigh I didn’t need a telephone for.
“You’re lucky you got me, Peters. Cops in Chicago don’t like jokes about bodies.”
“No joke,” I said. “He’s lying on my floor. According to his wallet, he’s Leonardo Bistolfi. You know him?”
“I know him. Don’t move. I’ll be right there.”
I had exhausted everything I could do to keep busy. I knew what would happen as soon as I put the phone down, and it did. The tremor started in my fingers. If I didn’t do something, it would travel up my arms and into my legs. Then I’d start to sweat. If I didn’t stop it then, the next step would be to give up my breakfast. I’d seen corpses before, too many of them, but there is something about finding one in your closet that kicks the crap out of professional distance. A smart-ass voice not too deep inside my chest tried to say, “It could have been you. It could have been you.”
To drown out the voice and give my hands something to do, I sang Pinky Tomlin’s “The Love Bug Will Get You If You Don’t Watch Out,” while I went through Bistolfi’s pockets and clothes again.
By the time I sang “and when he gets you you will sing and shout”, I had discovered that Leonardo Bistolfi bought his suit in Miami and had a thick ring of keys. A decorative metal disc on the key ring had the initials LVB on one side and the word “Fireside” in black enamel on the other. He had sixty-three cents in change, including an 1889 Indian head penny I was tempted to pocket for my nephew Dave who saved coins. I resisted temptation. It was easy. Besides a monogrammed white handkerchief in his jacket pocket and the wallet I’d already looked at, Bistolfi was empty.
I went through the wallet more carefully, but it told me nothing more. No membership cards. No notes. No numbers. No addresses, only Bistolfi’s address in care of Capone, Palm Island, Miami, Florida. I had succeeded in stilling the voice inside me and moved on to my rendition of Tomlin’s “What’s The Reason I’m Not Pleasing You?” Then my eyes fell on Leonardo’s bloody face. He was looking at me in surprise. I put the wallet back, washed my hands, and sat down to wait. My brain had stopped working. It needed a live human or two to get it running again.
Thirteen minutes later, Kleinhans and two uniformed cops were at the door. We all looked at the body for a while, with Kleinhans humming something I didn’t recognize. He nodded to the older of the cops, who moved to the phone. People were gathering outside the open door, so the second cop, who he called Rourke, went outside and closed the door.
“You hear Rourke out there yelling?” said Kleinhans softly as he kneeled.
“No,” I said. There was a hum of voices beyond the door.
“Rourke’s a yeller. If we can’t hear him, this room is the next best thing to soundproof. It’d have to be for someone to do this and not draw curious citizens like flies to Maxwell Street.”
The fat cop was talking on the phone behind us, but he kept his voice down so I only caught a few words. It
