“You mean — they have to behave themselves?”
“That’s right.” If they were smart — but Rocco wasn’t smart; Charley had to be smart enough for both of them... which was the catch I didn’t explain to her.
So I had, seemingly, soothed her nerves and eased her fears; but I needed to take other steps, to soothe and ease my own.
Hannan had agreed to keep an eye on my suite and the precious contents therein; he and the night dick — Goorwitz, who also did occasional jobs for the A-l — would make sure she wasn’t disturbed. Both were reliable, at least as far as ex-cops went, and could handle themselves with Rocco should he, or any underling, come around. Hannan, in particular, was a hardcase, an ex-GI who survived the Battle of the Bulge.
I was pacing when knuckles rapped on my door; the peephole revealed red-headed, freckle-faced, blue-eyed Hannan, in a rumpled brown suit and brown felt fedora.
He stepped inside, saying, “She went out this morning. I saw her, and stopped her.”
“Stopped her?”
“In the lobby — a bellboy paged me, to let me know what was going on... I mean, that she had called down to get help with her luggage.”
At my directive, Hannan had alerted the staff to inform him of Jackie’s movements, and he’d shown around a picture of Rocco — which I’d plucked from Jackie’s wallet in her purse — so that clerks, bellboys, elevator attendants, and cleaning ladies would be on the lookout for that ugly face as well.
Hannan shrugged and held out his empty hands. “She said she was leaving, and I said you wouldn’t like it, and she said to say she was sorry.”
“Sorry.”
“A cab came for her, and she was gone. I couldn’t tail her, Nate — the follow-that-cab routine, I mean, it was out. I am on the job here, you know, and she was obviously skating of her own free will.”
I shook my head. “Hannan, that girl doesn’t have any free will — she’s on the damn spike.”
“And you were gonna get her off it, I suppose? Maybe that’s your answer — she decided she didn’t wanna get off it. You weren’t trying some cold turkey number on her, were you, Nate?”
“Hell no. I’m not that fucking stupid.” But I didn’t elaborate: I couldn’t tell the St. Clair’s house detective that I had been paying for her habit to be temporarily fed, that I’d arranged a delivery of H to hold her over, here at the hotel.
“She didn’t look like she was coming down, at that,” Hannan said.
Maybe he was wise to what I’d done.
“Listen... thanks. I appreciate it.” I dug into my pocket.
But Hannan put a hand on my suitcoat sleeve. “That C note you already gave me’ll do just fine... it let me spread some around and have plenty left for me. Hey, I didn’t do you much of a service, anyway, as it turns out... Sorry, buddy.”
The hotel operator said, yes, she’d been working the switchboard on Sunday; and several calls had come through for my room yesterday, which she’d connected. So Jackie had taken calls meant for me — or had someone called for her?
I tried to imagine Rocco calling Jackie and convincing her to come back to him. He’d been tired of her, after all... but could his brother, the Machiavellian Charley, have advised Rock to take this potential witness back into the fold... at least for now?
When I was grabbing a burger at the hotel coffee shop, I spotted two Chez Paree showgirls — in babushkas over pin curls and no makeup, unrecognizable as glamour pusses — sharing a booth. They agreed to give me a call if Jackie showed back up around there. A long shot, but one of the things Rocco could have enticed Jackie back with — besides smack — was a return to the Adorables chorus line.
At the office, Gladys informed me that Bill Drury had called, wanting to meet with me this afternoon.
“You didn’t have anything in the book for four o’clock,” she said at her reception area desk, “so I wrote him in... I can try to contact him and cancel if you like.”
“No, that’s all right.”
“I told him to bring back those Revere recorders, if he was dropping by.”
“He hasn’t returned them yet?”
“No. And he has a paycheck coming.”
I doubted Drury had been doing much A-1 work in the past several weeks, but I merely nodded at Gladys and headed for my office.
A knock at my door preceded Lou Sapperstein sticking his head in; he found me sitting at my desk, leaning my chin into an elbow-propped hand.
“How was D.C.?” he said, ambling over and depositing himself in one of the client chairs.
I’d made Lou aware not only of my trip, but that the A-1 was working for Sinatra, on the singer’s “pinko” problem.
“Fine,” I said. “A success. McCarthy’s laying off.”
“Great.” Lou didn’t ask how I’d managed it; he’d learned a long time ago not to ask me how I pull things off. “Have you called Frankie boy, yet?”
“No. I’ll do that.”
“Man, is he gonna be relieved... You look a little peaked, my friend. Have a rocky ride home?”
I looked at him, wondering if “rocky” had been a dig; Lou’s deadpan showed nothing.
I said, “That girl I took in... the one Rocco threw out on her ass — Jackie Payne? She’s disappeared.”
He sat forward. “Shall we put somebody on it? I got two good boys sitting out in that bullpen, doing paperwork, just to keep ’em from playing with themselves.”
“She seems to have left my protective custody of her own volition.” I had not told Lou about Jackie’s drug habit, merely that she had been a punching bag of Rocco’s.
“Sometimes these masochistic dames go back for more from assholes like that,” Lou said, shaking his head. “I could send somebody around to talk to the doorman and janitor at the Barry Apartments.”
“Let me think on it. In the meantime, I’ll call Sinatra and tell him the good news.”
“I got a couple of jobs I need to talk over with you, this afternoon, Nate, if you’re up to it — that banker in Evanston, looks like his brother-in-law is embezzling, all right, and—”
“Sure. Let me make my phone call.”
Lou nodded, got up, and went quietly out.
I called Sinatra at the Palmer House, and filled him in, without sharing my theory that McCarthy had been rattling his cage at the behest of his mob friends. No reason to get Frank stirred up; better to let him think I was a miracle worker.
“You’re the best, Nate,” he said. “How did you like the new material, the other night?”
“You were great. Shave that mustache, and you just might have a career again.”
He laughed. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
“Yeah, definitely see what Ava thinks.”
“Fuck you, Melvin,” he said, cheerfully, and hung up.
For maybe the next half hour, I sat and tried to think if there was something I could do about Jackie — do for Jackie. And I couldn’t come up with a goddamn thing.
So I went back to work, and dealt with the matters Lou Sapperstein had for me, and a couple of other things. Then at four o’clock, Bill Drury was shown into my office, his usual natty self, blue suit and gray homburg.
“I’m not alone, Nate,” he said, the homburg in hand, exposing his thinning dark hair. “Someone’s with me — this is business. Can I have him come in?”
“Sure.” I hadn’t got up to greet Bill — I was still sitting behind the desk.
Drury turned to the open doorway and crooked his finger. A rather fleshy man in his mid-forties stepped in — six foot, hatless, with a square head, dark alert eyes highlighting strong features, and black, gray-at-the-temple hair, wearing a dark gray vested suit with a gray-and-blue tie. His name was Marvin J. Bas, and he was an attorney and Republican politician, in the Forty-second Ward — the turf of notorious saloonkeeper/alderman Paddy Bauler.